implayingavideogame

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Super Mario RPG (12/24/23-01/12/24)

I've played games since Golf Story! Whoops, guess I need to make a bigger effort to fill this out.

Since i didn't own an SNES, I never played Super Mario RPH: Legend of the Seven Stars on its release. I wouldn't get a chance to play it until the Wii Virtual Console, sometime around... 2014? I did grow up with Paper Mario and its sequels, with The Thousand-Year Door being one of my top games. (I cannot wait for that remaster.)

As with a lot of older Nintendo games, I'd seen playthroughs and videos on YouTube prior, but I knew this was a game I wanted to try for myself. As the origin of one of my favorite games and a lot of other fun titles, I wanted to take a spin for myself. I played it, I loved it, I moved on. But when the remaster was announced, I knew I wanted to go back. All I really remembered about the game was how much I enjoyed it; I knew I wouldn't be bogged down by what felt like repeated story beats from my original playthrough. Super Mario RPG would be a fresh experience.

And man, was it! Even with what little I remember, I knew this was as faithful a remaster as one could ask for. While I never played the original in the 90s, I owned the original strategy guide from Nintendo and referred back to it for some of the later bosses, and it was 1:1 regarding the information. Super Mario RPG was a fresh coat of paint on a modern classic that many current fans probably missed out on. The humor that I personally loved from TTYD and even Origami King started with Legend of the Seven Stars and seeing it freshly translated over with the Switch's adorable graphical take was endearing. I think immediately of the remaster of Link's Awakening, another title series fans considered one of the better titles but I missed out on because it was on the GB/GBC, and another title that I lovvvvvved playing. (Man, Link's Awakening on the Switch was so good.)

I know the pessimism in me can point to the easy nostalgia bait and money grab from Nintendo to put a shiny exterior on a 25-year-old game: why is it $60?! It wasn't that expensive in 1996! But I'm also a snob. I would never have played the original Link's Awakening nowadays because of the graphics. Maybe there are fans who don't have access to Nintendo's Online catalog or don't know enough about the game to give it a chance without this remake. The optimistic side wants me to think that this breathes new life into games and characters folks may not know about, and that it increases accessibility for those interested in playing older titles but who don't have the proper hardware. (Personally, I checked out the copy I played from the library. I could not spend $60 on this knowing its length.)

I'm realizing I'm not commenting much on the gameplay itself, but there's really not much for this purpose to say. It's the same game, which is a great game. I loved playing it again with updated graphics, new cutscenes, and the same dry wit and humor I expected. As with a lot of games, it took me way longer to beat than it should have, and I didn't go the 100% route; I'm trying to be more chill with my gaming habits. But goddamn if Super Mario RPG didn't leave me with the same contented feeling I got 10 years ago playing Legend of the Seven Stars for the first time.

[implayingavideogame]

Golf Story (02/04/23 - 02/24/23)

For being only 16 hours of playtime, this took me hilariously long.

I remembered almost nothing from my original playthrough five years ago. Things began to kinda come back to me as I worked my way through the story, but I was pleasantly surprised but how much of this felt fresh. 

And when it’s being compared to Sports Story, well... there is no comparison. It’s painfully obvious which is the superior game, and it makes it all the more deflating knowing that things went downhill after 2017.

Golf Story isn’t perfect, but its charm and wit and gameplay far outweigh any performance hiccups or storyline shortcomings. It is exactly what I look for in my current video game criteria: short, well-written, challenging but not punishingly so, and engaging. That’s it. That’s all I need. Talking to every NPC brings something different, and minus a few exceptions, every NPC is different. One of the issues I had with Sports Story was the reuse of sprites, only because they reused the sprite for a main character on a throwaway NPC. Granted, they’re in an alternative outfit, but I was genuinely confused when I approached the NPC, expecting someone I had just compleed a mission with, and it was no one. Wtf?

Coach is right, though. I need to lighten up.

Much better.

I accomplished a bit more on this playthrough than my first one; I would guess I hit the limit of my interest back then and was too challenged by the remaining Blue Moon NPCs that I just said “fuck it” and played the final tournament. Not this time! Not only did I have a higher overall level, but I found all three Galf manuals and played all three games. Growth!

What a damn fun game.

[implayingavideogame]

Sports Story (12/27/22 - 01/16/23)

(I originally intended for these to be diary-like logs of my progress through a game, but I do not have the patience for that currently. Instead, I’ll use these as personal reviews that also serve the purpose of reminding me what I liked [or didn’t like] about a particular game. Also: I’m writing this for me, because I tag these in a way in the hopes they’re never found. Hilarious.)

What a disappointment.

Hype is a dangerous thing. You let yourself get excited for years about the release of something, wondering how it’s going to exceed your expectations. When Golf Story came out in 2017, I knew little more than what the positive reviews said. It’s a unique golfing RPG with funny dialogue! Sign me the hell up. I devoured that game in the span of a weekend and patiently waited for the sequel. When the delay was announced in August 2020, I was sad but respected the team’s decision to ensure the game they wanted was released. I’d rather play a delayed game than a buggy one.

Lucky for everyone, we got both!

I decided not to replay Golf Story prior to Sports Story, mostly because I didn’t remember the characters from the former and the delay trailer did nothing to recharge those memories. But you are dropped cold into Sports Story. Even as someone who did play GS previously, I had no memory of the characters, and the dialogue does little to help orient yourself. (Why are we waiting for our hotel room on a beach?) It does serve as a nice tutorial section to reacquaint you with the buttons and golfing mechanics, and it quickly introduces you to the concept of more sports: volleyball! ... that you never play again. Also: did the golfing get worse? How the fuck to you mess up mechanics that were already great?

I had no idea that the small amount of fetch quests taking place in the tutorial were actually setting the stage for the game overall. The story - one of the most charming aspects of GS - is nowhere to be seen. Go here, play sport, leave. Repeat ad nauseum. When you find yourself getting physically upset at what a video game is asking you to do, you may have anger issues. You may also be playing a crappy game.

If the entirety of the game could be summed up in one word, there’s no question that it would be “why?” Why am I BMXing in a mineshaft to save a cricket team before the queen arrives via a broken train? Why am I enrolled in a tennis academy and forced to play games with literal babies? Why am I fighting a Creature from the Black Lagoon ripoff? WHY am I on a spy mission to save a random golfer’s father from imprisonment that has NO WEIGHT ON THE STORY WHATSOEVER. I am Davy Jones asking Will Turner: what is your purpose here?

2023 has already started out majorly crappily for other reasons, but I was not expected Sports Story to contribute to that pile. I feel for the developers as they undoubtedly bit off more than they could chew, and the revelation that there’s a secret developer room in Sports Story where everyone bitches and moans about the crappy game they’re making is pretty much all the confirmation I need. Sidebar Games had lightning in a bottle with Golf Story and had big shoes to fill with the creation of Sports Story. If they decide to stick with the Australian-based world with these two games and return to a simpler Game 3, I’m all for it. But this was a major letdown. I’m gonna replay Golf Story.

[implayingavideogame]

Day 1 (and only) - A Short Hike

Man, I created this blog to help me start and finish video games, and I haven’t touched it since my freaking failed attempt at Survival Minecraft. I’ve started three games in the interim and beat two of them! We’ll go with the more recent, since it literally took only a day from start to finish.

Goddamn. This game was pleasant as hell. A Short Hike has been on my wishlist since it came out two years ago, but it sat languishing with a lot of other titles in those couple years. I’m unsure what the cause was, but something jolted in me two days ago while I was at work, and it occurred to me that I wanted to take the day off and beat A Short Hike in one sitting. I knew it had rave reviews, I knew it could be beaten in a day, and I wanted to keep the small amount of video game mojo I had going.

I wish I would’ve done a better job capturing screenshots for this; it didn’t occur to me until a certain scene near the end of my game that I wanted to write about this. Nearly all of these images will be scavenged from Google.

I have no idea what I was expected with this title. I just read somewhere while grabbing these screenshots that it is 50% Animal Crossing and 50% Breath of the Wild, and that is 100% exactly what it is. God, what a great formula.

I don’t want to do a summary of the game; these posts are for me to reflect on what I’ve played and keep the energy going if I start to wane. But this was exactly the game I was looking for, and it is the type of game I will continue to look for going forward. 

I’m no longer (that) interested in long, open-world monoliths (though when BotW2 drops, I will probably take a week off of work). Horizon: Forbidden West was the last large-scale game I played and I didn’t make it past the tutorial section. So much of that is bogged down by side quests that contribute nothing to the overall story or my feeling of satisfaction. In A Short Hike? Yeah, there are “side quests” that are naturally integrated into the overall story, and add emotional depth to the cast of characters sharing this island with Claire and her Aunt May.

Early on, a goat asks you to find his watch, and it’s somewhere around this time that you’re given access to a shovel to dig up suspicious spots (that look identical to the ones in Animal Crossing). I played through the whole game but never came across the watch. I checked with the goat again to see if this was something that actually could be found, and it was! He kept mentioning that he hoped no one was keeping it and planning on selling it on the internet. I chalked it up to me just missing the spot.

Later, you come across a punk bird who is gouging the price of golden feathers. You soon realize that he’s just trying to save up for college, and that he only needs 400 more coins after you buy his entire supply. I spent the last bit of my time with the game collecting as much money as I could to help him with his debt. When I revisited him and offered him the cash, he gave me a watch he’d found that he was planning on selling on the internet for extra funds. I laughed out-fucking-loud.

The whole game can be illustrated with examples like this. You run across a guy who says he’ll meet you at an outlook, and I saw him up there, completely forgetting he had said that. And he gave me a gift! The entirety of A Short Hike is so seamlessly tied together and knows what it’s trying to say. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, but it’s so tightly crafted that I found myself wishing it were a little bit longer. 

I had been playing Moonlighter prior to this and was unable to really get myself into it, and I’m using this as my “a-ha!” moment. Moonlighter, while cute in its delivery, has no significant storytelling. It’s combat-based. That’s not what I’m looking for. I’m looking for tightly-constructed, cleverly-written, bite-sized stories that just happen to be video games. (Watch my next game be Persona 5 Royal.)

A Short Hike reaffirmed what I’m looking for in video games as someone in their 30s who is finding it difficult to both set aside time to play games but also mentally and emotionally investing in them. I’m adding this title to the ever-growing list of evidence on what I should continue looking for:

• Roundabout • Burly Men at Sea • Spiritfarer • Hades (bigger than the other games listed, but goddamn what a great fucking game) • Donut County • Wide Ocean Big Jacket • A Short Hike

So, so good. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while

[implayingavideogame]

Day 0 - Minecraft

Okay, so I’ve dabbled in Minecraft on numerous previous occasions, and I just can’t get it to stick. I’m genuinely interested in exploring the terrain, understanding the crafting system, and beating the game in Survival Mode, and I think I would enjoy Minecraft Dungeons as well. The problem, however, is that I’m not immediately good at Minecraft and literally quit every time I die because I’m so pissed off that I lost everything. I redownloaded the game yesterday after a three-year break, played for 30 minutes, died, and fucking uninstalled the game. I’m stubborn.

Yes, yes, I know my loot is hanging out near my vanished corpse, but it’s so aggravating! Minecraft challenges my gaming nature to fucking rush in with no consequences. I regularly think of this post when playing anything that requires combat or stealth:

That’s me! I have zero patience for strategized combat; let me button mash the ever-loving shit outta that controller to win. Minecraft doesn’t play like that! You have to be careful and think and plan your attack. Boo! But do I stay in my comfort zone just to avoid a game that will be a little challenging to start? It’s fucking Minecraft! Embryos played this damn game 10 years ago. (Are they playing Roblox now? That one shooter? [I fucking hate shooters. I also dislike first person games... uh oh.])

... ... ...

So, I redownloaded Minecraft, tried again with a new outlook, and the exact same thing happened again. And you know, I don’t think it’s small of me to just admit that Minecraft isn’t for me. I’ve tried - several time - but the early repetition and lack of story really put the nail in the coffin. As with books, there are so many games out there that I’m also interested in that I haven’t attempted to play five separate times. I’ll stick to streaming someone else’s playthrough for the music and vibes. I’m keeping and tagging this for future me: you tried. Move on.

Tomorrow? Well, we’ll try something new.

[implayingavideogame]

Video Games and You

As I’ve gotten older, I’m finding it harder and harder to start video games that I’m genuinely interested in. The ones that I’m crazy-interested in - the Link’s Awakening remake, Paper Mario: The Origami King - I apparently devour in a weekend. But I have such a long list of games that I am curious about playing and just can’t muster the effort to make any progress on them. Is it because I don’t think I can make significant progress on them? Is it the fear of wanting to fully complete the game at the sake of not enjoying the game or, perhaps, missing something small? But whyyyyyy. Just play the game! Just enjoy it how you enjoy it and that’s it! Can you tell I go to therapy.

I recently started a blog on something else I wanted to remain engaged in, and it’s working like crazy. The blog is purely for me, but Tumblr makes it easy to journal, live. Maybe it’ll work on the litany of games that I have and am interested in playing? Just jotting down my progress and thoughts.

So! Here we are. What do I want to play first? Do I want to continue something I started one Saturday, played for four hours, and haven’t played again? (It’s Pokemon Stadium. I’m too nervous to unlock Round 2 and get stuck like I did 25 years ago.) Do I want to start something I’ve tried a few times but dropped immediately for no discernible reason? Do I start something completely new? I don’t know! I’ll have to think about this for a little bit. I’ll also need to think about how I tag this. Do I want the world to find this amongst the generic video game tags, or do I keep my shame secret. Deep consideration must be made.