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lakemojave · 4 years

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Supergiant Games: Same Bones, Different Skeletons

I just finished a retrospective of all 4 games by Supergiant on my twitch channel, and I have a few thoughts I wanna connect and questions I wanna explore. My love for these games is real strong and i could write a whole essay just gushing about them, but I wanna give some thought to what makes them so compelling: not just to me, but to damn near everyone I’ve talked to on their discord who feels the same. I myself rank Bastion among my favorite games ever, and Hades is climbing that list at a clip. And even though I could take or leave Transistor or Pyre, they keep pulling me back.

But I could talk a whole lot about each game’s appeal and waste a lot of time. I’ve gushed enough to my friends about how Bastion and Pyre’s rugged, apocalyptic atmospheres draw me in with their incredible vibrance to contrast. I could talk about how Ashley Barrett’s vocal tracks carry Transistor on their shoulders, or what makes Hades so much goddamn fun that the game doesn’t really need to be much else. But I realize that if the Supergiant library is so universally appealing to me, there must be some sort of connective tissue between them--some sort of fundamental similarity that makes them work. After thinking about it for more than five minutes, it turns out there are many; some are pretty obvious, and some less so. This brings me to the conclusion that the Supergiant library, with its four wildly distinct and different games, still follow a noticeable formula--one that is flexible enough to allow such completely different games.

Game Design

The Supergiant library are all essentially top down action rpgs, Transistor having the most elements of the genre. This is still a pretty weak connection, given how different they all play from each other. The only two that have much overlap in the most basic sense are Bastion and Hades, with the same general fast paced, real time combat. On closer examination, the two games have enough differences in the variety of mechanics at play, (Bastion with its multiple weapon slots and a shield, Hades with its sheer number of commands) that even they are hard to compare.

There are, however, several mechanics that the library loves to use. The first that comes to mind are the difficulty conditions: idols in Bastion, limiters in Transistor, titan stars in Pyre, and the pact of punishment--and arguably Chaos boons as well--in Hades. Their function is simple: increase your challenge for a little extra reward. Bastion and Pyre go the extra mile by fixing in world building elements to this mechanic; Bastion’s idols inform about the game’s pantheon, while Pyre informs about its, well, evil pantheon. The use of these conditions is indicative of Supergiant’s game design philosophy as a whole--you, the player, can make the game as hard or easy as it takes for you to have fun. The inclusion of infinite lives in Bastion or god mode or hell mode in Hades further builds on this point. This library is designed for all sorts of audiences, whether they want to be challenged by their games or simply immersed in the story.

Another repeating mechanic in these games are the use of challenge rooms, which started in Bastion as the training grounds and, to a lesser extent, Who Knows Where. In Transistor they are the sandbox test rooms, and in Pyre they are the beyonder crystal’s scribe trials. They appear in Hades a little more ambiguously; the infernal troves or Erebus rooms are not quite the same, but they serve a similar function. This function is a momentary break from the gameplay loop for a little extra reward, much like the previously discussed conditions. Transistor and Hades’ challenge rooms offer relatively negligible rewards; the sandbox rooms simply offer xp and unlock tracks for the jukebox, while the Erebus tiles offer double the reward for any normal tile. Bastion and Pyre go the extra mile by giving specific, long term rewards for their challenges. In Bastion’s training grounds, the Kid earns weapon specific abilities that are among the game’s most powerful; in Pyre’s scribe trials, exiles can earn character specific talismans that feed their specialization. For the most part, these rooms give the player a low stakes opportunity to practice, hone their preferred playstyle, and reward the effort, all while being completely optional.

Akin to these breaks in the game loop are designated resting areas/hub worlds. The Bastion, the Sandbox, the Blackwagon, and the House of Hades each offer a moment to interact with characters and lore, goof around with the environment, buy permanent upgrades, or just take a break. Transistor utilizes this function the least of the library, since it never once requires the player to enter the space. Pyre utilizes it the most since it has the most breaks in both frequency and number. In a way, this decision is both a game design and storytelling choice. Between all four games, perhaps excluding Transistor, this is where the majority of story beats take place. It is where the player can read up on some fresh lore or meet the ever growing cast of characters, and eventually grow to cherish them (as I often do playing this library). Without little breaks like these, the climactic or world/story shaking events that take place out in the actual playable space have no impact or narrative weight. The fact that all these sort of interactions are completely voluntary also rewards the player in the storytelling sense; by choosing to engage with the figures of the story rather than having that choice decided for them, the player feels as though they themselves have agency in the story unfolding.

Style

Perhaps the most distinct part of the Supergiant library, (and perhaps what I personally love most about it) is its aesthetics. There are few games that look, feel, and sound the way these games do. Yet, the four of them hardly resemble each other. Bastion is a rugged, frontier-esque sci fi apocalypse, Transistor is a sleek, cyberpunk apocalypse, Pyre is a high fantasy purgatory space, and Hades is simply stylized Greek mythology. It is a shock to remember, then, that these four games are all designed by the same artistic team.

I confess I don’t know much about art, so I don’t have anything too profound to say about Jen Zee’s art style, besides that I like it a lot. It is also worth noting that despite her spearheading art and character design for the whole library, each game still looks visually distinct, and not just in their overall aesthetics. Take the character design of the library, for instance. Bastion’s human figures tend to be short, stocky, with exaggerated facial features. Their colors are highly saturated, with a soft, almost blurry quality that gives a level of warmth to the fatalistic atmosphere. Transistor’s characters, barring Red, tend to be based around palettes centered around a single color, such as the Camerata red and the spectrum of the function character profiles. Pyre is the first of the library to use talking portraits, which contrast robed figures with stark color palettes and simple designs with unrobed figures with much noisier details. Hades is easily the most distinct of all four, using simple colors and thick outlines on all its characters. The most consistent feature of all their designs, as usual, is how wildly different they are. For Hades, Zee makes sure that characters only look alike in any way if they have some relation to each other, such as the Furies, Achilles and Patroclus, or Zagreus and his parents. On the whole, the versatility and variety in the character design is impeccable.

What I most enjoy about these games is Darren Korb’s soundtracks, which continue to vary wildly. From the closet-recorded Bastion soundtrack to the whole two and a half Hades score, Korb’s scoring keeps improving and changing in the 10 years Supergiant has operated. His music, which adds and changes motifs as each game progresses, contributes to the atmosphere just as much as the visuals do. Whenever he teams up with Ashley Barret to add vocal tracks to certain parts of the game, they always manage to place them at critical narrative or emotional beats, turning them into the games’ most memorable moments. The team goes one step further every game by incorporating a musician or source of music into each game, giving the music just as much character as the one performing it. It also sneaks its way into the aforementioned hub worlds by providing the player a means to play their favorite tracks whenever they want (except in Hades, where they have to pay in game for that privilege). In essence, Korb makes sure to give each game a distinct feel through its music, but familiar enough to connect the library in the player’s mind.

Just as Supergiant gets so much mileage from Korb and Zee alike, they also manage time and time again to make use of Logan Cunningham’s top notch voice over work. Originally the sole voice actor at Supergiant Games, Cunningham continued on from famously narrating Bastion as Rucks to remaining a ubiquitous voice throughout the library. His role as the Transistor in the game proper drives the emotional core of that game, and his role as the Voice/Archjustice proves to be a solidly effective, yet distant antagonist. In Hades, his roles are somewhat overshadowed by Korb’s performance as Zagreus, (which I’m still blown away he still had time to do) but his performance as Lord Hades is still excellent. Supergiant also uses Cunningham in Hades to sort of satirize how often he narrates for them by casting him as the narrating Old Man, then allowing Zagreus to break the fourth wall and acknowledge him. It is as if the team at Supergiant knows how much they use the same stylistic team, then mocking that same choice.

To other studios: learn from Supergiant

I’m running out of things to say and my ball of yarn that connects all these newspapers and polaroids on my wall is running thin. I would talk more about Supergiant really knows how to end a game and frequently does so in similar ways, or that their library is a masterclass in character-driven stories, but this little essay is long enough.

Instead, I wanna talk about how Supergiant does something right which so many AAA developers and publishers don’t seem to understand. To contrast with the Supergiant library, consider Assassin’s Creed, another franchise I have spent an embarrassing amount of time playing. This franchise releases a game almost every year, and in my experience, when a company does this, you tend to get the same pig with a different paint. From the original Assassin’s Creed to their most recent release, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the differences seem to be night and day. Combat and free running are far more complex than they once were, rpg elements to story and gameplay have been introduced, composers, writers, voice actors, and cast members have changed with each release, and the sheer size of the game has become staggering. Yet, in the 13 years and 11 main releases in the game’s history, (plus spinoffs) any change has not only felt incremental over time, but fundamentally insignificant to the skeleton of the game. Assassin’s Creed 1 and 2 play and feel differently, but the differences are subtle. The bones are different, but every year they assemble to form a vaguely Assassin’s Creed shaped thing. People who play games tend to hate this and frequently berate companies for this practice; Bethesda and GameFreak receive the same criticism that their games are so formulaic that their new releases might as well be carbon copies of the ones before it.

Yet, Supergiant Games, with its four games over ten years, has used essentially the same team and building blocks to make games that can hardly be considered interchangeable. Whether its the passion of this humble little indie studio or the sheer talent of this team, Supergiant takes the same pile of bones and assembles them in a different shape each time with care and attention. They are proof that a formula doesn’t need to be tweaked or altered or given a different coat of paint in order to be accepted; instead the formula needs versatility, the means to produce a fresh result each time. It also works best when we adore the result every time.

#thank you for coming to my ted talk #got shit to say #bastion #transistor #pyre #hades #hades game #supergiant games #supergiant tag

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ronnytherandom · 3 years

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I started Writing My Thoughts On Things Again, I'm Sorry

15/8/2021:

Mass Effect Legendary Edition (Whole trilogy w/ all dlcs, Adept Class, Hardcore difficulty, 68 Hours):

Still brilliant! I adore this series. The first Mass Effect was one of the first games I ever played back in 2010 and Mass Effect 2 is one of the games I’ve played the most accruing several hundred hours over multiple playthrough from 2010 onwards, while Mass Effect 3 is a game I greatly appreciated but have more mixed feelings towards. Retrospectively as much as I liked the first Mass Effect, I did not nearly appreciate it enough back in the day. For a first entry in a new IP it is incredibly fleshed out with interesting Lore, an intriguing story and a cool galaxy to explore. I appreciate its combat far more now than I did back then but would still argue it is relatively weak in comparison to more modern titles and its own successors. Though the VA is rough in some places it is excellent where it matters, especially in the case of Sovereign whose iconic dialogue on Virmire is etched into my brain. A key element of the first mass effect I felt was sorely missing from the later entries was its exploration. While the galaxy grew routinely larger no game after the first had a drivable Mako, a vehicle I adore, and further lacked the opportunity to land on and explore the terrain of alien worlds for resources and side missions which I feel lends a lot to the atmosphere of the setting and could be made even more compelling using updated technology and a larger selection of assets and interiors which might have emerged from the higher budget successors. As it is I appreciate its inclusion in the first game. Mass Effect was also my first encounter with impactful choices in a video game and this is certainly something I appreciate but leads me to a major criticism specifically targeting the dialogue wheel layout as it is strange to me how you can puzzle out all of these possible dialogue outcomes but put exactly all of the positive outcomes behind the Upper Left dialogue option. While this is less pronounced in the First entry as the Renegade dialogue fills roughly the same purpose while sounding more badass, it becomes truer throughout the series as renegade options routinely just become nasty and exclusionary.

Mass Effect 2 innovates in some key ways which I have grown to appreciate more in the past 20 hours of play than I did when it launched. Primarily, its focus on characters and your relationships to them. Barring a couple of notable exceptions I found myself greatly invested in every single member of the Normandy crew and I think it’s a remarkable feat that each crewmate could be written to be so sympathetic, relatable and interesting in a world so full of appreciable elements. I would go into specific examples but id end up listing every character except Miranda and Jacob. This of course plays well into the Suicide Mission narrative which is perhaps my favourite overarching plot within the trilogy as it incorporates not just all of these incredible characters and plays upon your investment in them but also relies on the threat of both the Reapers and Collectors which are two excellently designed enemies which I find significantly more compelling than Saren and the Geth or Cerberus and the Reaper Husk Armies. Mass Effect 2 has a powerful horror element composed of the Collectors phobic horror and the reapers cosmic horror and it does wonders for the game’s atmosphere. I remember at this moment the Collector soundtrack which, like the rest of the soundtrack is absolutely excellent. Inasmuch as I would criticise it from a purely musical perspective for being simple at times and perhaps overly repetitive it perfectly fits the camp space opera that is mass effect. Galaxy Map and Suicide Mission are absolute bangers. I would hesitate to call the combat great. Playing the game as a weapon heavy class is superior, I’d argue as even with an armour build dedicated to decreasing ability cooldown it is too long to adequately utilise the powers of ability heavy classes like the adept. Additionally, ability play feels far more limited than in the game’s predecessor due to the limitation of this games skill tree elements which are frankly a step too far in simplifying the interface. It doesn’t massively affect enjoyment of the game but I couldn’t help but note every time I visited the abilities menu how much I missed Mass Effects abilities menu. So while I would say Mass Effect maintains a very well balanced game with regards to combat, roleplay and story, Mass Effect 2 eschews combat and mechanical roleplay in favour of an excellent story. Additionally while lacking an exploration aspect the more structured side-missions found by scanning planets throughout the galaxy create a lot of fun moments and interesting gameplay, emblematic of the fact that mission design vastly improves between this game and its predecessor.

Mass Effect 3 goes some way to resolve its predecessor’s imbalance as the majority of the game possesses enhanced combat, a much better abilities mechanic and an excellent story. First the addition of more mobility, loadout and engagement options benefits the combat greatly, while the addition of more complex enemy types than previous games pushes you to fully utilise these new options. A massive reduction in ability cooldown combined with liberal cooldown reduction bonuses in the skill tree means that abilities are very useful and versatile and you generally feel very powerful. Sometimes too powerful if you’re thinking from a balancing standpoint but given it’s a single player game this criticism is much diminished and being powerful is fun regardless. The skill tree system in this game forms a synthesis between its predecessors’ systems and comes out the better for combining a regular sense of empowerment with interesting choices within your own character build. All of this contributes to a much-improved combat experience, especially over Mass Effect 2. This also lends itself to the old multiplayer system which I honestly enjoyed when it launched (who cannot love a playable biotic Volus?) and feel is sorely lacking from this legendary edition. I would argue the only real problem with the multiplayer was requiring a player to engage with it in order to achieve the best story outcome; the actual multiplayer gameplay was thoroughly enjoyable and it gave players the opportunity to experience combat as an STG agent or a Krogan Warlord which were both fulfilling experiences from my memory. The aforementioned story is truly excellent and successfully builds off events in previous games but primarily succeeds due to Biowares exceptional character writing which persists from Mass Effect 2. Even in the case of its worst side mission content but especially in its primary missions the stakes and outcome of events are thoroughly compelling and the involvement of beloved Normandy crewmates is bound to incite intense emotions. This is possibly the only game that makes me cry multiple times throughout a normal playthrough. Unfortunately my goodwill often runs out when it comes to consider the ultimate ending of this series which I do not approve of. I admit there are mitigating factors: you should not play the mass effect series for the culmination of its plot. This series lives and dies with its characters and all of the major character arcs reach satisfactory endings before the final moments of Mass Effect 3, so the final moments have no real meaning as the thematic purpose of the series is achieved by galvanising the galaxy and uniting all these disparate races into a single force to fight the Reapers. Thematically the game is a success but the extent to which it utilises the choices the player has made, upon which the series builds its reputation, is limited in scope. This can likely be laid at the feet of the leaks of the original story ahead of the games launch which pushed the developers to create a new ending to avoid spoilers, but the quality of that ending is poor as it boils all the choices made throughout the series down to selecting the colour of a space laser. To make an odd comparison, this is why I think Game of Thrones’ and Mass Effect’s endings are different kinds of bad. Mass Effect reaches a fully satisfying conclusion in the moments immediately after launching the final mission, whereas Game of Thrones built its whole series asking the question “Who Will Sit The Iron Throne” With the final answer being “Actually, no one” after slogging through multiple series which did not live up to the quality of the first. Mass Effect answers its dramatic question of “Can Shepard Unite The Galaxy Against The Reapers” satisfactorily following sixty hours of excellent content and the colour of the space laser doesn’t actually matter. It just hurts to think that the finale could’ve been so much grander and more interesting. I would recommend the games, the disappointment of the finale doesn’t even come close to outweighing the grandeur that is the rest of the experience of Mass Effect 3, let alone the whole series.

There are only a few pieces of content I had not encountered prior to this Legendary edition playthrough. The Mass Effect DLC Bring Down The Sky is fun in that it adds an interesting combat experience with incredible stakes and immerses you in a stellar scale event, but the experience is very short. As part of the legendary edition I recommend it but having to pay extra for it at its time of launch I would have found it disappointing. Mass Effect 2s Overlord DLC is very good, introducing fun combat encounters, an opportunity to operate the fairly fun Hammerhead vehicle (even if it doesn’t live up to the Glory of the Mako) and explore a nice open environment with a truly haunting ending which is a kind of non-choice but it is gratifying to make that choice anyway. Additionally the visuals in the final station when interacting with the VI elements are very nice. The Arrival DLC is also quite fun, with a pseudo stealth section to open it, something which I believe occurs nowhere else in the series. The general element of operating solo is quite novel for mass effect as I believe outside of this moment, the opening of the Citadel DLC and the final moments of Mass Effect 3 there is no point where you fight alone. The indoctrinated nature of the project team does not come as a shock but regardless the dlc is enjoyable as a combat experience and the scale of destruction shown necessary to even slightly inconvenience the reapers lends a lot to the scale of their threat. I do not believe I played any DLCs in Mass Effect 3 before, insofar as I did not consider From Ashes DLC content as it was already on the disk and all buying the day one dlc did was activate it. Leviathan is very interesting from a lore perspective and does interesting things with its investigative process but I find it to be a relatively passive and uninteresting experience for the most part. Omega was more my style with a lot of good combat and interesting new enemies and a bit of bombast besides but still left me largely unmoved. Citadel was excellent but mostly for its “endgame” content rather than its story content. Despite featuring many hilarious moments throughout the actual plot it failed to interest me but I was definitely there for all of the fun character moments and the party is absolutely hilarious.

Ultimately a hearty recommendation but with tempered expectations for the finale.

Deaths Door (True Ending, 13.7 hours):

A Delight. Deaths Door is a charming little game about a bird that stabs things and I love it. It is incredibly impressive that this was made by a team composed of two people. The gameplay is fun in all regards. Navigation is a good time especially when all of the environments are lovely and full of personality. Obstacles come mainly in the form of puzzles and these are at a sweet spot between ease and frustration without being at all complex. Combat could’ve used a bit more work, primarily to create more meaningful distinctions between weapons or add a little depth, but it is still engaging and good fun. While the main bosses are challenging and satisfying to defeat, I worry over the side bosses; perhaps something could’ve been done to make them more distinct from one another? But a small gripe. I like the world, the aforementioned environments are well realised, the general aesthetic is artful and distinct and the story is good if slightly sparse. One notable element is the dialogue which is very good with a quick wit. The finale of the main game has the right amount of spectacle and weight while the endgame is cool and fantastical, with an ample supply of secrets and collectibles to find. Over all the music is incredible, soundtrack full of absolute bangers. I really enjoyed completing this game and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s into action adventure and souls-like games.

The Bad Batch (season 1):

This was Allright. To open I cannot overstate how good the animation and art of this series is. It is routinely beautiful and well-choreographed. Visually there are no complaints. The problems begin with the opening episode which I feel overpromised on a relatively dark take on the Star Wars universe by immediately dropping us into an Order 66 plot full of death, danger, brainwashing and the threat of an emergent empire. Now granted this series never explicitly promises that all of this would continue but I enjoyed these elements of the first episode and I was dissatisfied by their limited usage throughout the rest of the show. This is not to say I disliked the show, I did enjoy the characters who are all good fun, and most of the plots were good. This series I felt had a lot of filler episodes, which I’d simply describe as episodes I enjoyed less due to underwhelming plot or conflict, but they were still enjoyable despite what id perceive as a lesser quality. The show also “suffers” from what I’d called Star Wars Syndrome of Filonitis which is how Everything Must Be Interconnected, with regular cameos from extended universe characters which I feel is beginning to get a bit much. These features feel to me more often like nostalgia grabs rather than organically featuring a character in service of the plot and development. For example, I appreciate the Captain Rex feature as that served to highlight the inhibitor chip problem and drive the characters to seek a solution, however I appreciated Rafa and Trace’s feature less both because I’m less attached to those characters (especially Rafa) but also because the episode didn’t serve any particular purpose or create any particular set piece which couldn’t have been achieved without those characters. This is a similar issue I have with The Mandalorian, I adored season one as it was relatively self-contained and only featured vague or subtler references to the wider canon: to contrast season two is full of cameos from the wider universe sometimes for no reason other than to have a cameo when those roles could easily have been filled with new and creative content which doesn’t rely upon nostalgia to make something interesting. Ultimately Bad Batch is worth watching for the characters and the good episodes, it is fun and entertaining, it just has its issues.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 1: The Phantom Blood:

Its uh, its not good. Now that’s a very broad statement, as to assess this show critically at all is to take it far more seriously than you should, but to be more even handed the show certainly has a bunch of fun elements. Only from a story perspective, there isn’t really that much there; and from a pacing perspective it needs to be seen to be believed. I’m certain that if you condensed the show down to a reasonable size for the amount of content it has, you’d probably have a movie with a two-hour runtime at most which would be quite enjoyable but on a whole this first part wastes about 80% of its time on overlong drawn-out internal monologues and the dilated timeframes of the show’s fights. It also has an annoying habit of overemphasizing the weight of a moment or the genius of a characters unexpected action usually with no less than three people commenting on any slight manoeuvre which ruins the pacing beyond belief. Now I understand this is a staple of the Jojo series, only part 1 handles it very poorly in comparison to later parts. The fighting is especially hindered by this as most actual combat usually involves only four or five punches but they tend to take twenty minutes getting to each one. Additionally, Johnathan Joestar is pretty boring as a character with no notable qualities aside from being good both morally and at fighting. The intrigue of the stone mask is cool but this part deals in that very little. Like I say though, Part 1 is still fun to watch if you can disengage your brain and admire the potent meme quality of the series. It is not “good” from a critical perspective but it is incredibly amusing and the campness gives it a degree of charm. If you just want to watch a bunch of beefy men shout at each other and perform magic punches this is a good time. Speedwagon, despite being the worst offender of the “Explain Everything Twice and Ruin the Pacing” category, is still entertaining for the awful accent and endearing character. He’s also definitely in love with Johnathan and I will not be taking questions on that. Baron Zeppeli has a cool hat. Theres a lot of fun to be had as the show embraces the weirdness of everything that’s going on. So, check it out, it might just be a So-Bad-Its-Good Masterpiece.

300 (film):

This film was not so great in my eyes. I think there was one particular shot of the landscapes around Sparta which I felt was visually cool but everything else about the film lacked quality for me, barring practical effects which have aged significantly better than the graphical effects. The visuals are largely uninspiring, the washed-out colour pallet doesn’t help. Perhaps the dialogue was amusing at release but for me it’s all been memed to death. I can’t say any of the performances are particularly compelling, nice to see Magneto and Faramir though. The action could’ve been good and there are certainly moments where it has impact, but the constant application of slow motion I feel reduces the sense of power that should be there, like watching people fight on the moon. Ultimately, I can’t stomach it for two primary reasons: Historical inaccuracy and Racism, which feed into each other. The values of the Spartans do not accurately reflect ideas that historical Spartans held to and I must ask why? Historical accuracy is the default state, so to usurp those ideas in favour of others means the author of the graphic novel Frank Miller and director Zach Snyder replaced those ideas with purpose, in order to make the film more appealing to a mass audience or to express their own ideas perhaps? And the values they chose for the Spartans were freedom, justice and democracy which were things the slaving and monarchical Spartans did not believe in at least in the modern sense. This reeks of an imposition of the propagandised values of western nations on a historical society. This in itself would not be so much of an issue without the demonisation and perversion of the Achaemenid empire and the peoples therein. To establish the primary conflict as one of Civilised white westerners against barbarous non-white easterners, when historically the conflict was between two nations of a broadly similar heritage both possessing facets of good and evil, in the early 2000s? It feels as though some reactionary interpretations of the War on Terror have simply been recreated here with classical history as window dressing. Add to that reactionary attachment to the battle of Thermopylae as a representation of the western world’s struggle against the eastern world, in addition to other more problematic interpretations, and this film plays straight into extreme right-wing ideas of race. Cannot recommend, there’s a lot more better things you could be watching.

18/08/2021: Darth Vader (2015) comic (incl. Vader Down event):

This was really cool. The first comic I’ve ever actually read so I don’t have much frame of reference but I certainly enjoyed this. It was compelling, I’ve blitzed through this whole run in a single day. I think it serves a valuable purpose of demonstrating Vader’s potential and development between Episodes IV and V, as well as the nature of internal conflicts within the Empire. A side note, it is amusing that Palpatine identifies infighting as a factor in the fall of the Sith Empire and yet encourages it for his own political purposes anyway. I felt that the art and style was very good and fit well with the Star Wars aesthetic, though I couldn’t say if it is truly excellent or just standard: it certainly wasn’t bad, though I think a few designs such as Dr Aphra’s ship were hard to read as it were. Speaking of, I think characters new and old were well portrayed. The titular Vader is unmistakably the same character as appears in the classic trilogy, similarly for Han, Luke and Leia etc. And it was a pleasure to see Chewbacca absolutely destroy someone. The aforementioned Aphra I thought was fine but she lacks distinction to my mind, the real star was Triple Zero and by extension Beetee who I thought were excellent comic relief in addition to being a genuine threat, something I can’t necessarily say I felt with regard to the antagonists. This latter part doesn’t matter overmuch, I think the purpose of these antagonists was more to present Vader with pressure to fulfil his personal goals rather than actually oppose him and they work well in that regard, but are unmemorable beyond their basic attributes. What I think this comic does particularly well is create a kind of puzzle narrative and its almost thrilling at moments when Vader’s plots might be discovered. As a result of this I am looking forward to reading more comics in future.

The Suicide Squad (2021): Highly enjoyable! A big step up for the suicide squad as a franchise and a lot more fun, playing into a brighter and more humorous genre than its predecessor to good effect; This time with good editing, soundtrack, direction… well good everything in comparison. I enjoyed all of the characters and their acting particularly the rivalry between Peacemaker and Bloodsport and Margot Robbie is still fantastic as Harley. They all pale before King however, who is endearing beyond belief and a lot of fun to boot. The “villain” if that term is applicable is very interesting and actually threatening, no mere beam of light into the sky! And the willingness to engage in more mature elements such as gore and character morality is of immense benefit, serving to distinguish it from generally more childish superhero media and reach towards more interesting themes around colonisation, foreign intervention, America and such. Only a reach towards however as I don’t think it ultimately says anything beyond “This thing, kinda bad and dumb”. As I saw noted, it observes the theme but doesn’t comment on it which is a shame as that would bring it all together quite neatly. I feel it can drag a little at times and sometimes the dialogue and specifically its humour don’t hit right but the rest is of such quality that it hardly matters. It looks good, sounds good and offers a chance to engage in a little mindless and bloody violence. I hope Harley keeps the javelin.

27/08/2021: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency: TW: Mention of Nazism, Discussion of Sexism

This is MUCH better. Part 2 covers most of the problems I had with Part 1. The Monologues are less egregious so the pacing is much improved; the lore is fully integrated into the story and creates a genuinely good narrative and Joseph is a much more compelling and interesting protagonist with a quirky and entertaining personality. The Pillar Men are excellent villains and the fights are fully engaging. Even when you know that Joseph will pull out a “And next you’ll say” twist at the end of a losing fight it’s still surprising simply by dint of the strange and wacky solutions he creates. And these adventures are even more bizarre, playing into the weird camp of the series which works so well. All in all, the quality is excellent here HOWEVER there are some highly problematic elements. The show being set in the 1930s is a neat part of the travelling through time factor of the series but when you’re globetrotting around Europe you need some solution to the problem of Nazis popping up everywhere and this show does not provide one, and fails so drastically to offer even a slightly critical perspective on the fascist characters. The noble sacrifice of Von Stroheim and his later resurrection and heroism serve to idolise a Patriotic German Nazi Officer, which is not good, and this unchallenged perspective on an Actual Nazi is troubling especially when the character himself is an unrepentant mass murderer. Additionally, the show has a horrible attitude towards women, who exist almost exclusively for sex appeal and romantic interest in this show. Lisa Lisa does demonstrate ability and character but when presented with genuine combat is relegated first as a bit of eye candy during the fight with Esidesi (notably eye candy for Her Own Son) and later as a Damsel in Distress during her fight with Kars. Women are frequently used as objects in this part; Caesar Zeppeli uses women as props by controlling them with his Hamon powers and Suzi Q exists only to be rescued from Esidesi and then to be romanced by Jojo. It’s pretty ridiculous to be honest. I am informed that this improves over the course of the series but as for this part in particular it is a lot of fun just so long as you can ignore some incredibly troubling portrayals.

13/09/2021: Rick and Morty Season 4:

There is ultimately not much to say as Season 4 is simply more Rick and Morty and operates as such. It is good, even very good. It’s still very funny. Its voice acting is still the pinnacle of such work. It is still smart and has a lot of interesting ideas, only not to the extent of the copypasta fan boys. Its sci-fi universe is cool and its design and aesthetic are still excellent. I feel the show has passed a threshold however as there’s only so much time you can spend on the “dysfunctional family is dysfunctional theme”. I hope season 5 proves me wrong once I get to it, but season 4 is fun and I’d recommend it all the same, it’s just more Rick and Morty and I think that’s enough.

Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings: Spectacular! Very easily amongst the best if not The Best Superhero Movie (aside from Into the Spiderverse). To begin with complaints as they are limited, the colour grading was a bit dark in a couple of the fight scenes and in some moments of the climactic fight the CG effects are a little Too Much and distract from the central action of Shang-Chi, Xialing and a Dragon owning the shit out of a multiversal super spectre, which incidentally is fucking epic. Additionally, the standard MCU comic relief dialogue is a little meh at times but what’s new there? They still need to get a handle on that, especially because this film was really strong when it was serious. As much as I love Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery, he was just a tad much here. Aside from a few moments of weak dialogue however the rest of the film is excellent. Acting is good, effects are good, the film is quite beautiful primarily once Ta Lo is reached and the score is bangin. I appreciate most of all the fight sequences which to me look well-choreographed with interesting arenas which were always appropriate to demonstrate the characters abilities; the sequences serve to develop character and plot at key moments also. The way the camera is handled during the fights is also a big step up, with wide perspective and long shots rather than the snappy close shots of old which serve to really show off that choreography and don’t muddy your understanding of the flow of combat. There is a good thematic line throughout the film of reconciling the bad and the good of your familial and personal history, to understand yourself better and channel that into developing and achieving your ambitions and I adore how that ties in with Shang-Chi and Wenwu’s final confrontation due to the nature and treatment of the Ten Rings themselves. They are a very interesting fantastical element especially once Shang-Chi acquires them and the way that he utilises them create a very cool combat style I can’t wait to see more of, even considering that their full potential is yet to be unlocked. I additionally approve of how they have been differentiated from their comic counterparts which to my understanding are just slightly weaker infinity stones; thus, a one-to-one reproduction would’ve been a boring mistake to make. It’s a fantastic film, go see it.

26/09/2021: Sable (20 hours, 99% complete) Sable has the makings of an absolutely fantastic game, it just has a few hiccups and hurdles to deal with. Thankfully most can probably be dealt with by patch as there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the game; but a game should never be released in a state where it needs a patch to function normally. This game is incredibly buggy. Probably one of the buggiest games I’ve ever played at launch, and I preordered Skyrim. Most of my complaints are with the menus, which simply do not work properly sometimes, but there are other documented issues with collision detection and weird bike movement among others including one annoying persistent issue with the soundtrack being replaced by random ‘bong’ noises. For these reasons I cannot recommend the game Right Now until it is patched or if it is on a significant sale. However, once the bugs are fixed this game will be a stunning achievement. The story is good and leads to powerful emotional moments, aided along by an excellent atmospheric soundtrack and beautiful visuals. The style and colour give this game an exceptional look, though diminished by a fairly rapid day/night cycle. I understand that this creates a visual contrast to make the daytime feel more vibrant and impressive, but I would also hold the sun still in the sky if that were an option. The world is well built, with interesting lore and cool design work. Varied environments show off a range of colourful landscape all with their own distinct atmospheres and landmarks which are good both for navigation and exploration, this being the bulk of the game. Exploring these environments is satisfying for curiosities sake but also offers collectible Chums that I adore and an intriguing backstory and world history to consider. Riding a hoverbike is cool and fun, and the customisability is nice though I would take issue with the “balancing” of bike parts as the best bike can be acquired only a few hours in and must be bought, where bike parts earned through long quest chains pale in comparison. This annoys me as I believe players should be rewarded more for great deeds than for acquiring currency, besides which the quest bikes look cooler. This is of little importance however as the game is a very casual and chill experience, keeping an excellent balance where it is not strictly challenging but does maintain your focus and attention. This world is full of strangeness and a little sci-fi magic; though I would argue it could use more of this I think that would threaten to overwhelm the player when even this world’s most mundane elements are still stunningly cool. I think a thick coat of bugs covers what is ultimately a magnificent game with many cool things to explore and even marred by its worst features I still had a great time playing it.

27/09/2021: The Matrix

Brilliant. A very cerebral action movie which definitely earns its place as an iconic work of cinema and its clear to see why its influence is so widespread. Fantastic action with a clear and open perspective which utilises the interesting and dynamic cinematography that runs throughout the movie. I particularly enjoy how over the top the fights are in terms of environmental destruction and gestures as a whole, with a great deal of emphasis added by practical effects which I enjoy. Cool characters, good dialogue and excellent performances across the cast. And, an interesting world well-built and designed. The robots particularly are quite intimidating and I like their arthropodal form. All of the design works well to create the feeling of a greasy industrial post apocalypse which contrasts sharply with the boring homogenous simulation, the latter having its own value as a setting due to its familiarity which would’ve been especially prevalent when this film first released. I love the soundtrack, especially the final feature of Rage, but most of all I love how deeply you can read into this film and its meaning. Having watched many videos about it I was primed on the trans allegory going in and it is very clearly a present part of the narrative before even considering the context around the Wachowski sisters and their own experience. It is a very interesting part of the story and plays well into other themes built around deconstructing the illusions pressed on us by our society, drawing strong parallels between the struggles of living as a trans person and fighting against an imperialist capitalist society. It is worth watching for any of its constituent parts but together they form a magnificent work of art.

28/09/2021: Star Wars: Visions

The series is a bit of a mixed bag. It definitely overpromises with its first episode which is of a remarkably distinct style, is incredibly cool and has great wacky moments in addition to tasteful call-backs to the wider Star Wars canon. I love the umbrella sabre, it’s a fantastic idea and there needs to be more of them. From there a few episodes are fantastic, The Elder and the final episode, and id rank the Ninth jedi just below them, but the rest of the series is definitely not to my taste. The wide variety of styles on show are all fantastic and the animation is universally very good, just some of the plots are more childish than I would appreciate and the rest are simply not engaging for me to the point that despite a great deal of spectacle occurring I would often be distracted. It’s worth a look if you’re into animation and unique takes on star wars but I find generally lacking.

Django Unchained (2nd Watch) TW: Discussion of Racism and Slavery

Red Flag: Tarantino Movie is good. Very good. Stellar performances from Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Leo Di Caprio, Christoph Waltz and everyone else in the movie to be frank; a special note for the trivia about Leo Di Caprio’s cut up hand during the dining room scene, a lot of respect for a man who can keep working through that kind of injury. We can go through a Tarantino Checklist say the film is well shot with beautiful environments; has excellent and witty dialogue with good attention to detail and mannerism; and finally has great and gory action which does not flinch from terrible injury and really appeals to a perverse bloodlust that seems to crop up from time to time in normal people. Strangely enough however, I could not recall if Tarantino indulges in his predilection for feet here. This film does indulge in Tarantino’s other predilection however and that’s the N-word, but here I respect it. Unlike his non-period works, the use of the N-word is a facet of slavery just as chains, whips and plantations are and slavery is the subject of this film which seeks to be historically authentic. If anything, the absence of the N-word would be very wrong in this case despite being the project of a white man as without it the film would lack the context of a key form of oppression that still exists today. I think Django does an excellent job documenting and commenting on the institution as it existed in the pre-war period. Django experiences every level of status a black person would encounter in this setting: first a slave, then a freedman, a black slaver and finally a Liberator and the final message of the film is that slavery deserved to be destroyed and any argument made for its return is horseshit which is kind of a “Duh” statement but with the state of modern politics and the state of education in the US it’s something that needs reiterating. You can interpret this beyond the bounds of slavery itself in addition, by arguing that there are existing powers in this world which seek to discriminate based on skin colour amongst other factors and create oppressed minorities for the benefit of a wealthy few with power and should the systems that create this environment be completely destroyed it would be cause for celebration. Beyond this I particularly enjoyed the historical authenticity of the environments, of the very varied biomes of the wilder parts of the US at the time, and the contemporary outfits especially King Schultz’ coat which I desire more than any item of clothing I’ve ever seen. The film is good at building suspense both in the moment to moment and through longer story arcs, particularly the second act, but I do feel like the 2nd act lulls a little, perhaps spends slightly too long reaching its climax. This is a great spectacle of a film which looks and sounds fantastic, puts excellent performances on show, tells a great story and has quite a bit of meaning bundled into it.

29/09/2021: The Road to El Dorado (Unfinished)

Despite not finishing it I think this film is actually really good. It certainly has a few elements which don’t fully gel with me but I enjoyed my time with it; I only felt like I should really be doing something else and that I wasn’t fully engaged with it, potentially as I’m not keen on cons and high stakes acting as it feels like a form of vicarious embarrassment for me which makes me immensely uncomfortable. Personal hindrances aside most everything about this film is excellent, I loved the animation and the very colourful world. The characters were fun, the voice acting good, the constant horniness was a great bonus also. I take issue with the music, much as it’s not my right to criticise Elton John, I feel it would’ve been better fully incorporated into the film. I enjoy animated musicals more when said music is diegetic and I think them beginning to employ non-diegetic music is part of what led to their downfall, outside of market saturation. Additionally, I was not a fan of The Trail we Blaze, just not a song that worked for me. I also appreciate the integration of 3d and 2d animation here as I felt the styles were reconciled better here than in most movies, especially for the time. I might take issue with what seems to be a plot about two Spanish men of the colonial age coming to central America and “enlightening” its people through humanitarian acts and music as that would reflect some troubling attitudes but I hold out hope that by the end of the film they decide to come clean about the lie, return the gold and help defend El Dorado from Cortez and his troops. Its enjoyable, I don’t feel drawn to finishing it though.

30/09/2021: Hunters Moon, Ghost

Here’s a new one, music reviews. This single is pretty good I enjoy it a lot. Opens slow and gentle and rapidly builds into some strong rock with a very 80s feel which scans with Ghosts whole historical rock and metal style they’ve always employed but have gone in extra hard on since Prequelle. The lead riff the track opens on is really nice and I would love to have seen it explored further, but the heavier style that ramps up progressively as the song continues is still great climaxing on the 9/4 post chorus riff which goes hard as fuck and I love that bit especially. It feels like it would be spectacular to witness it live. The bridge is a moment I’m not so keen on, the initial bass work is a little bare bone and overly repetitive but it definitely picks up once the guitar and vocals come in, even if just for the final moments. The final chorus leads into a good finale though I think it’ll serve better on an album version with a transition into another track, as I usually prefer to be fair. Technically I enjoy all of the different sounds and effects employed on all the instruments, especially in that leading riff, all of which are played well with good time. The vocals are great as usual. It’s a great track, I feel it was maybe a little short and could’ve explored some of its musical ideas or given them a bit more time to breathe; perhaps less time could have been given to overrepresented elements like the bridge and given over to work more into the very atmospheric leading riff but this is still a hard and heavy rock track and I enjoy it greatly.

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ascalonianpicnic · 4 years

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30 questions: GW2 edition

I was tagged by @just-eyris-things and @where-is-caithe to fill out @pr-gw2 ‘s lovely question set <3 which i took forever to get to riiiip but here we go~

You can draw, write (to explain in details or not) or just post screenshots! If you miss one it’s totally okay, whether it’s by lack of answer or time. Have fun!

1. Favorite living world season? while I think 4 was probably better in terms of writing and gameplay, I think lws3 is still my favorite. It was the first new story updates I got to experience in game and @mystery-salad and I played all the updates together so it was really fun! It’s just a really nostalgic season for me

2. Favorite expansion? Path of Fire. It’s really good man, it’s so good and so pretty and the plot I’m <3

3. Favorite soundtrack? Alpine Marches!

4. First profession you played? Necromancer! I’d say it was an excellent choice~

5. First race you played? Sylvari, and I still main her to this day~

6. Favorite Destiny’s Edge character? It was originally Caithe, and I love Zojja a lot, but after a ton of hate Eir got back in April and May, I’m an Eir stan now. That’s my milf and she’s amazing

7. Favorite Dragon’s Watch character? Kasmeer currently~

8. Favorite Elder Dragon? Jormag, sorry for being massively gay for them

9. Best boss fight (story)? Probably the fight with Balthazar at the start of the Departing? Though to be honest I’m a huge fan of all of the Balthazar fights, his mechanics are really fun and his visuals and dialogue are *chefs kiss*

10. Best boss fight (fractal)? High Priestess Amala, it’s such an interesting fight but such a fucking tragic one

11. Best boss fight (raid)? I’ve only fought Cairn and never won but he’s cool. Based purely of aesthetics, Samarog is my wife, and I am very interested in Dhuum and the Soulless Horror

12. PvE or PvP or RP? RP my man, y’all hit me up for some rp Please

13. Favorite canon couple? Kas n Jory~

14. Favorite fanon/self made couple? for oc/oc it’s def Aildyn and @mystery-salad‘s Matthias, and for oc/canon, Rhosill and Canach just hit a warm spot in me

15. Favorite quote? “They’ll write more songs about you. Keep your legend alive. I’ll find whoever did this. I promise.” Norn pc to Almorra’s body in Whisper in the Dark, I did in fact tear up hard at that

16. Most emotional cinematic? Hard to say, since none of the most emotional moments for me were cinematics, but dialogue over action that adds to scenes, like leaving Blish in the Mists, or Executioner Amala’s death, where you and Braham are just stuck in space together for a few minutes after. That said, maybe when Braham pushes you free of Joko’s spell and takes your place so you can fight? Was that a cinematic?

17. Favorite VA? Sumalee Montano, the voice of Marjory

18. Post a fun screenshot! uvu

19. Post a landscape screenshot! It’s the best I’ve got on this laptop sorry ^^’

20. Most used mount(s)? the Skyscale, it was well worth the effort

21. Favorite mount skin (for every mount you have)?

Overall - Desert Scarab for the beetle

for the rest - Storm Ridge (raptor), Sun Temple Gecko (springer), Magnificent Hummingbird (skimmer), Stardust (jackal), Sky Bandit (griffon), Starclaw (warclaw), Shimmerwing (skyscale)

22. Favorite weapon? in general, i adore axes and how they’re used on every class with access to them. in terms of just skins, Sharur and the merciless focus are my two favorite skins.

23. Favorite gear set? Zodiac, definitely. I know it’s skimpy and ridiculous but I love it

24. Favorite title? “I’m rich, you know” is my dream title, but “good apple” is my favorite of the ones I have

25. Something you worked really hard to get? I made Chuka and Champawat this year!!!! It took forever

26. Favorite GW2 Youtuber / GW2 related video? now is my time to shill! @yolosmith has some really fun wvw roaming videos that you can find [here] !!!

27. Most used miniature? Mummy Legs

28. Most used novelty? The bouquet of roses~

29. Number of achievments points? 10,581 points, I don’t put in a ton of effort to gaining points for the sake of it

30. Something you’d love to see in GW2? I want More norn content! Especially anything about Forgal or his father since we’re meeting new followers of Ox/Dolyak

I’m not going to directly tag anyone since I literally have no clue who has and hasn’t done it and I’m late to the party, but if you see this, I’m tagging you to do it, fight me

#socks talks #long post #gods damn

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xb-squaredx · 4 years

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B-Squared’s Top 10 Games of 2020

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that having something to distract me from the genuine horrors unleashed during 2020 was vital to staying alive, and for me that means a lot of video games! I played…a lot of games last year, but I spent a lot of time playing older games, so I didn’t get a chance to check out a lot of high-profile games that launched this year. Still, I do want to shine a light on the games that managed to resonate with me even a little bit, that somehow managed to launch this year. So let’s get to it!

#10 – No Straight Roads

Rarely have I been struck by a single trailer for a game like I was for No Straight Roads. Produced by industry veterans under a new studio, this is a rare game that’s not quite an indie game from a studio full of newbies, but it’s also not produced with the same kind of budget and resources of a Triple-A project. What do we call this? A Double-A game? Single-A? Regardless, I have to give the team at Metronomik some props for delivering a super stylish game in the midst of a very challenging year. No Straight Roads is a rhythm-based action game where two up-and-coming musicians fight to bring back Rock and Roll to the people of Vinyl City. I absolutely adore this game’s presentation, with each major boss being visually unique and having their own feel that compliments the music they bring to battle. There’s some real energy in these animations with character designs that ooze personality, and being a game about music the soundtrack is great! All that being said though, I have to admit I wasn’t a huge fan of the gameplay when all was said and done. It leans way more on the rhythm side of the equation than I was hoping for, and the action felt very shallow. The fixed camera made some phases of some fights a real problem, and the Switch verison, which I played, is plagued with a lot of issues that really brought the game down for me. If the game interests you at all, give it a shot on PC or PS4; I hear those versions are a lot better. Still, I liked the potential I saw in this game and in this studio, so I can only hope they did well enough to continue on. This definitely feels like the kind of passion project that deserves more recognition.

#9 – Streets of Rage 4

OK, so full disclosure: I didn’t grow up with 2D beat-em-ups. I missed out on all of the greats of the genre back in the day. No Final Fight, no River City Ransom, no Double Dragon, and definitely no Streets of Rage. In more recent years I have tried to dip my toe in the genre, as I did in 2019 with River City Girls. However, I came away from that game a bit disappointed by the overall gameplay and wondered if 2D beat-em-ups were for me. Seeing so much praise heaped onto Streets of Rage 4 had me curious, so I knew I had to try it, if only to broaden my experience in the genre. In many ways, this game is the perfect sequel to a franchise that hasn’t seen any signs of new life in years. It retains what made the series beloved with satisfying combat and challenge, but with a modern touch. The overall art style of the game and music work out pretty well, and I found the act of comboing enemies to be really satisfying. It really doesn’t overstay its welcome either, which is very appreciated in an age of endless timesinks. I also struggled a fair bit with the game, even on Normal, and well after some patches that seemed designed for more casual fans like me. Had this game not had online co-op as an option, I don’t know if I could have beaten the final levels. So my time with this game was pretty rough but despite that I can still see this was a game made with care, and if this game DOES do something for you, there’s plenty of reasons to keep playing on higher difficulties, unlocking more characters and even playing online with friends. Let me put it this way; I’m not all that sure I like the genre and I still liked this game, so I think that counts for something!

#8 – The Wonderful 101: Remastered

…this one is kind of cheating, I’ll admit! I had a lot of trouble thinking up ten games that really stood out to me this year, honestly. That said, I’ll definitely use loopholes to plug one of my favorite games from years ago. Seven years ago, PlatinumGames launched The Wonderful 101 on the ill-fated Wii U, where it bombed harder than just about anything on the system. For those that gave the game a shot, however, they were quick to discover a deep, complex, and charming action game that plays like nothing else out there. Controlling a team of 100 heroes at once, players form weapons out of the various Wonderful One’s bodies, smacking around giant robots and aliens far larger than them with the power of teamwork! How could you not love that, right?! Now, years later, PlatinumGames is aiming to become more independent and their first act was launching a Kickstarter as a way to get this game on newer platforms. While we may never know why Nintendo gave Platinum their blessing to release this game on non-Nintendo platforms (being as this is still, as far as I know, a Nintendo-owned IP), I’m just glad more people can have access to one of the most unique action games I’ve ever touched.

To sell it another way, this game combines the overall aesthetic of Viewtiful Joe with the shape-drawing action of Okami but with a bit of Bayonetta flair on the side. Basically, this is the culmination of everything director Hideki Kamiya has ever worked on. The Remastered version fixes some issues present from the game’s original release, and while I do think they could have gone a bit further with some changes, it is likely the best way to play the game for many. All those sections that made heavy use of the Wii U GamePad are a tad awkward though, but that held true even back on the Wii U anyway…d-don’t worry so much about that, though! I’d still recommend this game to anyone looking for the type of over-the-top action that only Platinum (and occasionally Capcom) can provide! So please consider joining the Wonderful Ones and Unite Up!

#7 – Paper Mario: The Origami King

Discourse around the Paper Mario series is…more than a little rough, honestly! Many fans have been quite vocal about not liking the direction the series has been heading with the last few games, but I went into The Origami King with an open mind and ended up really enjoying the game for the most part! What the game lacked in a developed storyline, it made up for with some really strong character moments and memorable setpieces. Bobby and Olivia are among my favorite partners in ANY of the Mario RPGs, easily, and the entirety of the Great Sea section of the game was a really fun adventure. I love the highly-detailed paper-crafted enemies and locales, and the soundtrack really didn’t have to go as hard as it did. While the battles against common enemies didn’t quite click with me, the boss battles throughout the game constantly surprised me with interesting twists on the ring-based combat and are a real highlight for me. I know this game is pretty divisive amongst Paper Mario fans, but I think the franchise has a pretty bright future ahead of it!

#6 – DOOM Eternal

Fair warning here, but I haven’t quite managed to beat DOOM Eternal at the time of writing this, but what I’ve played so far tells me it definitely belongs here. I think Eternal is hands-down the most intense game I’ve played in a long time. It gets my blood pumping as I dash about, shooting and slicing through demons that are extremely eager to rip and tear me to pieces. I don’t play many shooters in general, so I knew I was going to be in for a rough time, but DOOM Eternal brings it to another level right away. In some respects, I don’t quite agree with various aspects of the core game design that makes the game harder than I think it needs to be at times. The scarcity of ammo, and thus the constant need to use the Chainsaw weapon in order to gain more ammo gets tiring, though that somewhat levels off as more weapons are acquired and players learn of more efficient ways to take out the hordes of Hell. The game’s fantastic soundtrack by Mick Gordon definitely elevates the experience, so it is a huge bummer knowing that he and ID Software had a falling out and he won’t be coming back. I really dig the game’s expansive levels and more focus being put on exploring every nook and cranny for secrets, and certain old-school touches like finding extra lives or cheat codes definitely makes the game feel like it was ripped out of a bygone era and given a modern paintjob at times. Doom is eternal, and with it, so is pulse-pounding shooting action!

#5 – Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition

Compared to the other re-release of an old game on this list, I think this particular title had a lot more time and care put into it…and it also happens to enhance one of my favorite games on Wii as a bonus! Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii was a game that almost passed me by but even years later, I still adored the characters and world it introduced, and I’ve been happy to see what started as game that was almost stuck in Japan eventually grow into a full franchise. I consider the first game to the best in the series, though it was held back by a few issues later games would iron out. Chief among the problems was the visuals, particularly the character models and…wow does ten years make a world of difference. The Definitive Edition does more than just clean up everyone’s faces, it also cleaned up the game’s cluttered UI, made it easier to track quests and materials for said quests, and added some fun optional challenge missions for veterans to tackle. The bow that adorns the top of this package, however, is the epilogue story Future Connected that serves to tie up some loose ends and gives a particular character some great closure. If you love massive worlds to explore, a compelling, at times over-the-top story, and a deep, rewarding combat system, I can’t recommend THIS version of THIS game enough. If you’re going to give the Xenoblade series a try, there’s no better place to start.

#4 – Ghost of Tsushima

When Ghost of Tsushima was first unveiled years ago, I didn’t exactly have a high opinion of it. It seemed like a game that put more emphasis on visuals over gameplay, and I was almost certain it would launch as a PS5 exclusive so why bother getting excited when I probably wasn’t going to be an early adopter of the system? To my great surprise, not only was this game confirmed for PS4, it wound up being one of the prettiest games on the platform and well-optimized to boot, even on my old slim PS4. Playing as lone samurai Jin Sakai, players try to repel the Mongel invasion of Japan, but are forced to adopt less-than-honorable tactics to take on this ruthless enemy. Usually when I play stealth games, I find myself frustrated. I feel weak, or limited, and often the games feel overly harsh. If you get caught once, game over and there’s little salvaging being seen. In Ghost of Tsushima however, there’s a great deal more care put into stealth, and at times I’d argue it’s almost too fun to pass up over the sword play. Very few missions in the game force you to go completely unseen, so stealth just because yet another tool rather than a limitation imposed on you.

Swordplay felt a bit less engaging against common enemies (typically just being Simon Says, switching to the appropriate stance for a given enemy), but the one-on-one duels throughout the game were fantastic and I almost wish the game was all about them instead. I can’t overstate how gorgeous this game is either, with a world that feels like it is breathing, as the wind whips through the tall grass, the moon penetrates fog overtaking a creepy forest, or seeing the smoke from an enemy camp wafting over the distance. Hands-down one of the best-looking games on the PS4, and I’m particularly happy that developer Sucker Punch managed to land a hit with a new IP, as those generally feel more risky as times go on. While I’d argue that Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t really redefine how open-world games should be designed, it is an extremely polished experience and manages to do it well, with plenty of opportunities to grow in a potential sequel.

#3 – Animal Crossing: New Horizons

If there’s any one game that people absolutely needed in 2020, it was Animal Crossing: New Horizons. While there are other games of this type, like Stardew Valley or the Harvest Moon (and later, Story of Seasons games), Animal Crossing is one of the few games that gets mainstream attention while simultaneously running counter to most mainstream gaming trends. No conflict, no combat, no overarching story really…just a game that lets you live your live, day by day on your own terms. I tried getting into the series before with New Leaf but just didn’t stick with it, but New Horizons launched at the perfect time in an imperfect world. Being able to escape the uncertainty and dread that enveloped the world as the pandemic spread for even a little while was a necessity, and thankfully New Horizons had plenty to do to keep idle hands busy. Changes like item crafting and eventually limited terraforming of your island paradise give players so much more agency in decorating their homes and building up something they can be proud of.

We all start as nothing but a small tent on a mostly-empty island, but seeing what people were able to do even in the first few weeks or so was nothing short of amazing. We need more unflinchingly wholesome games in the world, and I’m thankful for Animal Crossing for being there when we needed it, and considering how well it sold and how much post-launch content is expected to be added with time, it remains a sanctuary to return to even now. Just…please let us craft in bulk? Pretty please, Nintendo?

#2 – Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

Last year, Nintendo released Astral Chain, a game that no one knew about before release, which was revealed and released with very little gaps between them. It was a game I didn’t know I wanted until it was presented to me, and that trend continues this year with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. The first Hyrule Warriors was a fun, surprising spin-off of the main Legend of Zelda series, and Breath of the Wild was a fantastic game that shook up the core of the Zelda franchise, so in hindsight it really does seem like a no-brainer to combine the two into one package. Age of Calamity, for my tastes at least, cuts down on the repetition and overall stressful atmosphere of the first Hyrule Warriors and instead focused on fleshing out it’s core combat and crafting more creative main storyline missions. It helps that the game reimagines iconic locales from Breath of the Wild from before their destruction, and really makes you feel like you’re fighting through actual places rather than just a collection of random keeps that most Warriors games use.

Bringing in aspects like the Sheikiah Slate and Elemental Rods allows players to control the flow of combat more directly on top of letting them be more creative. Freeze enemies standing over water with the Cryonis rune or burn some grass with the Fire Rod to distract certain enemies, among many other things. Each playable character is also very distinct, even in cases where I could have forgiven the developers for reusing some attacks or traits. For one, Link has different movesets for his Sword and Shield, Spear, and Two-Handed weapons, but none of his attack overlap with the other Champions who use similar weapons. Some people might be put off with certain aspects of this game’s story and ultimately not everyone likes the overall structure of the Warriors spinoffs anyway, but for my part, Age of Calamity was one of the best surprises of the year, unveiled right at the end of the year in the nick of time. Of course, there was one game this year that surprised me more than any other.

#1 – Hades

I’ve known of Supergiant Games for quite a while and very recently began looking through their catalogue of games. They’re known for well-crafted narratives and satisfying combat, and yet when I first saw Hades when it was released in Early Access I was tepid on it. It didn’t look bad or anything, but it didn’t exactly blow me away and even now, I think a random screenshot or quick clip of the game might not do the game justice in explaining the appeal. I already wrote about the game at-length (as my only real non-retrospective blog post of the year, oops!), which you can read here if you want more in-depth praise, but to summarize…Hades is the total package for me.

Playing as Prince Zagreus your end-goal is to escape the puts of Hell, and more specifically get away from your overbearing father, Hades. It’s a rogue-lite, meaning you’re expected to finish the game in one shot and if you die you lose any upgrades you picked up along the way and have to start from scratch…to a point. Hades does allow you to keep a fair amount of items you pick up which can towards small, permanent upgrades or even gifts for various NPCs that can deepen your bond with them. Unlike most other games of this type too, the story constantly moves forward, even after death. The game is about dying over and over and then dusting yourself off to try again, all the while other characters remark on your progress or lack thereof. I grew to really enjoy this cast of characters, a fun spin on the Greek pantheon, paired with excellent voice acting for the entire cast. From the imposing, if somewhat sultry Megaera, to the nervous wreck that is the maid, Dusa, to the pompous ass Theseus, I looked forward to each new run just to learn more about this world and those within it. For once, death wasn’t really a punishment, but a reward, and just part of the process.

Of course, incredibly satisfying combat is ALSO part of the process and it just gets…addicting; muttering “one more run” over and over as you try out different weapons and boons, discovering what works well together and what doesn’t. While at first beating the game felt like it would never happen, I grew from my failures, adapted and eventually overcame. Multiple times. If you want the “full” Hades experience, this game can really demand a lot of time out of you but at the same time it stays fresh, so I can’t really complain. With new gameplay mechanics unlocking as time goes on, to the Pacts of Punishment players can trigger if they want a bit more challenge (or a lot more), Hades is that rare game that just keeps giving and giving. Before I knew it, I had dumped well over 50 hours into it, and I STILL need to get back to the game if I want that epilogue.

Compared to every other game that came out this year, Hades is the one game that grabbed me from moment one and would not let go until I hit credits. When I wasn’t playing this game, I was counting down the minutes until I could play it again, and let me tell you that is rare for me these days. At this point, Hades is clearly the breakthrough hit for Supergiant and I couldn’t be happier. The fact that this game got to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with industry titans at The Game Awards is kind of surreal, but I can’t think of many who deserve that recognition more. It helps that Supergiant is a studio that actually takes care of its employees, which is way rarer than it should be. I don’t mean to hype this game up like it’s the cure for COVID or anything, but I mean it with all my heart that this was the best game I played this year, and I’d recommend it in a heartbeat. I couldn’t stop talking about it for months after playing it, just ask my friends! So yeah, it’s pretty OK I guess.

CONCLUSION

I’m sure my Top 10 List looks a lot different from most out there, but that’s what’s great about games! So much variety and so much quality no matter where you look! Every year, without fail, there’s always at least a small handful of games that come out that I don’t get to, and try as I might I’ll never trim that backlog down. I want to keep playing games for as long as I can, trying out so many different experiences and seeing what this wonderful pastime can offer. For a good chunk of 2020 I was more than a little down, not just because of…you know, but a lot of games that were coming out weren’t appealing to me. That said, seeing as this was the year of shadow drops and announcing things at the last minute, I ended up loving a bunch of games I hadn’t already spend months hyping myself up for, which definitely helped to lift me up this year. Already, 2021 has a lot of titles I’m anticipating though, so it’s sure to be an exciting year.

Happy Gaming.

-B

#top ten list #gaming #animal crossing #paper mario #xenoblade chronicles #ghost of tsushima #doom eternal #no straight roads #hades #streets of rage 4 #thewonderful101 #age of calamity

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thesteadydietofeverything · 5 years

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Top 10 Games of 2019

This was an extremely good year for games. I don’t know if I played as many that will stick with me as I did last year, but the ones on the bottom half of this list in particular constitute some of my favorite games of the decade, and probably all-time. If I’ve got a gaming-related resolution for next year, it’s to put my playtime into supporting even smaller indie devs. My absolute favorite experiences in games this year came from seemingly out of nowhere games from teams I’ve previously never heard of before. That said, there are some big games coming up in spring I doubt I’ll be able to keep myself away from. Some quick notes/shoutouts before I get started:

-The game I put maybe the most time into this year was Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. I finally made the plunge into neverending FF MMO content, and I’m as happy as I am overwhelmed. This was a big year for the game, between the release of the Shadowbringers expansion and the Nier: Automata raid, and it very well may have made it onto my list if I had managed to actually get to any of it. At the time of this writing, though, I’ve only just finished 2015’s Heavensward, so I’ve got...a long way to go.

-One quick shoutout to the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy that came out on Switch this year, a remaster of some DS classics I never played. An absolutely delightful visual novel series that I fell in love with throughout this year.

-I originally included a couple games currently in early access that I’ve enjoyed immensely. I removed them not because of arbitrary rules about what technically “came out” this year, but just to make room for some other games I liked, out of the assumption that I’ll still love these games in their 1.0 formats when they’re released next year to include them on my 2020 list. So shoutout to Hades, probably the best rogue-like/lite/whatever I’ve ever played, and Spin Rhythm XD, which reignited my love for rhythm games.

-Disco Elysium isn’t on this list, because I’ve played about an hour of it and haven’t yet been hooked by it. But I’ve heard enough about it to be convinced that it is 1000% a game for me and something I need to get to immediately. They shouted out Marx and Engels at the Game Awards! They look so cool! I want to be their friend! And hopefully, a few weeks from now, I’ll desperately want to redact this list to squeeze this game somewhere in here.

Alright, he’s the actual list:

10. Amid Evil

The 90’s FPS renaissance continues! As opposed to last year’s Dusk, a game I adored, this one takes its cues less from Quake and more from Heretic/Hexen, placing a greater emphasis on melee combat and magic-fuelled projectiles than more traditional weapons. Also, rather than that game’s intentionally ugly aesthetic, this one opts for graphics that at times feel lush, detailed, and pretty, while still probably mostly fitting the description of lo-fi. In fact, they just added RTX to the game, something I’m extremely curious to check out. This game continued to fuel my excitement about the possibilities of embracing out-of-style gameplay mechanics to discover new and fresh possibilities from a genre I’ve never been able to stop yearning for more of.

9. Ape Out

If this were a “coolest games” list, Ape Out would win it, easily. It’s a simple game whose mechanics don’t particularly evolve throughout the course of its handful of hours, but it leaves a hell of an impression with its minimalist cut-out graphics, stylish title cards, and percussive soundtrack. Smashing guards into each other and walls and causing them to shoot each other in a mad-dash for the exit is a fun as hell take on Hotline Miami-esque top down hyper violence, even if it’s a thin enough concept that it starts to feel a bit old before the end of the game.

8. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I had a lot of problems with this game, probably most stemming from just how damn long it is - I still haven’t finished my first, and likely only, playthrough. This length seems to have motivated the developers to make battles more simple and easy, and to be fair, I would get frustrated if I were getting stuck on individual battles if I couldn’t stop thinking about how much longer I have to go, but as it is, I’ve just found them to be mostly boring. This is particularly problematic for a game that seems to require you to play through it at least...three times to really get the full picture? I couldn’t help but admire everything this game got right, though, and that mostly comes down to building a massive cast of extremely well realized and likable characters whose complex relationships with each other and with the structures they pledge loyalty to fuels harrowing drama once the plot really sets into motion. There’s a reason no other game inspired such a deluge of memes and fan fiction and art into my Twitter feed this year. It’s an impressive feat to convince every player they’ve unquestionably picked the right house and defend their problem children till the bitter end. After the success of this game, I’d love to see what this team can do next with a narrower focus and a bigger budget.

7. Resident Evil 2

It’s been a long time since I played the original Resident Evil 2, but I still consider it to be one of my favorite games of all time. I was highly skeptical of this remake at first, holding my stubborn ground that changing the fixed camera to a RE4-style behind the back perspective would turn this game more into an action game and less of a survival horror game where feeling a lack of control is part of the experience. I was pleasantly surprised to find how much they were able to modernize this game while maintaining its original feel and atmosphere. The fumbly, drifting aim-down sights effectively sell the feeling of being a rookie scared out of your wits. Being chased by Mr. X is wildly anxiety-inducing. But even more surprisingly, perhaps the greatest upgrade this game received was its map, which does you the generous service of actually marking down automatically where puzzles and items are, which rooms you’ve yet to enter, which ones you’ve searched entirely, and which ones still have more to discover. Arguably, this disrupts the feeling of being lost in a labyrinthine space that the original inspired, but in practice, it’s a remarkably satisfying and addicting video game system to engage with.

6. Judgment

No big surprise here - Ryu ga Gotoku put out another Yakuza-style game set in Kamurocho, and once again, it’s sitting somewhere on my top 10. This time, they finally put Kazuma Kiryu’s story to bed and focused on a new protagonist, down on his luck lawyer-turned-detective Takayuki Yagami. The new direction doesn’t always pay off - the added mechanics of following and chasing suspects gets a bit tedious. The game makes up for it, though, by absolutely nailing a fun, engrossing J-Drama of a plot entirely divorced from the Yakuza lore. The narrative takes several head-spinning turns through its several dozen hours, and they all feel earned, with a fresh sense of focus. The side stories in this one do even more to make you feel connected to the community of Kamurocho by befriending people from across the neighborhood. I’d love to see this team take even bigger swings in the future - and from what I’ve seen from Yakuza 7, that seems exactly like what they’re doing - but even if this game shares maybe a bit too much DNA with its predecessors, it’s hard to complain when the writing and acting are this enjoyable.

5. Control

Control feels like the kind of game that almost never gets made anymore. It’s a AAA game that isn’t connected to any larger franchises and doesn’t demand your attention for longer than a dozen hours. It doesn’t shoehorn needless RPG or MMO mechanics into its third-person action game formula to hold your attention. It introduces a wildly clever idea, tells a concise story with it, and then its over. And there’s something so refreshing about all of that. The setting of The Oldest House has a lot to do with it. I think it stands toe-to-toe with Rapture or Black Mesa as an instantly iconic game world. Its aesthetic blend of paranormal horror and banal government bureaucracy gripped my inner X-Files fan instantly, and kept him satisfied not only with its central characters and mystery but with a generous bounty of redacted documents full of worldbuilding both spine-tingling and hilarious. More will undoubtedly come from this game, in the form of DLC and possibly even more, with the way it ties itself into other Remedy universes, and as much as I expect I will love it, the refreshing experience this base game offered me likely can’t be beat.

4. Anodyne 2

I awaited Sean Han Tani and Marina Kittaka’s new game more anxiously than almost any game that came out this year, despite never having played the first one, exclusively on my love for last year’s singular All Our Asias and the promise that this game would greatly expand on that one’s Saturn/PS1-esque early 3D graphics and personal, heartfelt storytelling. Not only was I not disappointed, I was regularly pleasantly surprised by the depth of narrative and themes the game navigates. This game takes the ‘legendary hero’ tropes of a Zelda game and flips them to tell a story about the importance of community and taking care of loved ones over duty to governments or organizations. The dungeons that similarly reflect a Link to the Past-era Zelda game reduce the maps to bite-sized, funny, clever designs that ask you to internalize unique mechanics that result in affecting conclusions. Plus, it’s gorgeously idiosyncratic in its blend of 3D and 2D environments and its pretty but off-kilter score. It’s hard to believe something this full and well realized came from two people.

3. Eliza

Eliza is a work of dystopian fiction so closely resembling the state of the world in 2019 it’s hard to even want to call it sci-fi. As a proxy for the Eliza app, you speak the words of an AI therapist that offers meager, generic suggestions as a catch-all for desperate people facing any number of the nightmares of our time. The first session you get is a man reckoning with the state the world is in - we’ve only got a few more years left to save ourselves from impending climate crisis, destructive development is rendering cities unlivable for anyone but the super-rich, and the people who hold all the power are just making it all worse. The only thing you offer to him is to use a meditation app and take some medication. It doesn’t take long for you to realize that this whole structure is much less about helping struggling people and more about mining personal data.

There’s much more to this story than the grim state of mental health under late capitalism, though. It’s revealed that Evelyn, the character you play as, has a much closer history with Eliza than initially evident. Throughout the game, she’ll reacquaint herself with old coworkers, including her two former bosses who have recently split and run different companies over their differing frightening visions for the future. The game offers a biting critique of the kind of tech company optimism that brings rich, eccentric men to believe they can solve the world’s problems within the hyper-capitalist structure they’ve thrived under, and how quickly this mindset gives way to techno-fascism. There’s also Evelyn’s former team member, Nora, who has quit the tech world in favor of being a DJ “activist,” and her current lead Rae, a compassionate person who genuinely believes in the power of Eliza to better people’s lives. The writing does an excellent job of justifying everyone’s points of view and highlighting the limits of their ideology without simplifying their sense of morality.

Why this game works so well isn’t just its willingness to stare in the face of uncomfortably relevant subject matter, but its ultimately empathetic message. It offers no simple solutions to the world’s problems, but also avoids falling into utter despair. Instead, it places measured but inspiring faith in the power of making small, meaningful impacts on the people around you, and simply trying to put some good into your world. It’s a game both terrifying and comforting in its frank conclusions.

2. Death Stranding

For a game as willfully dumb as this one often is - that, for example, insists on giving all of its characters with self-explanatory names long monologues about how they got that name - Death Stranding was one of the most thought provoking games I’ve played in a while. Outside of its indulgent, awkwardly paced narrative, the game offers plenty of reflection on the impact the internet has had on our lives. As Sam Porter Bridges, you’re hiking across a post-apocalyptic America, reconnecting isolated cities by delivering supplies, building infrastructure, and, probably most importantly, connecting them to the Chiral Network, an internet of sorts constructed of supernatural material of nebulous origin. Through this structure, the game offers surprisingly insightful commentary about the necessity for communication, cooperation, and genuine love and care within a community.

The lonely world you’re tasked to explore, and the way you’re given blips of encouragement within the solitude through the structures and “likes” you give and receive through the game’s asynchronous multiplayer system, offers some striking parallels for those of us particularly “online” people who feel simultaneous desperation for human contact and aversion to social pressures. I’ve heard the themes of this game described as “incoherent” due to the way it seems to view the internet both as a powerful tool to connect people and a means by which people become isolated and alienated, but are both of these statements not completely true to reality? The game simplifies some of its conclusions - Kojima seems particularly ignorant of America’s deep structural inequities and abuses that lead to a culture of isolation and alienation. And yet, the questions it asks are provocative enough that they compelled me to keep thinking about them far longer than the answers it offers.

Beyond the surprisingly rich thematic content, this game is mostly just a joy to play. Death Stranding builds kinetic drama out of the typically rote parts of games. Moving from point A to point B has become an increasingly tedious chore in the majority of AAA open world games, but this is a game built almost entirely out of moving from point A to point B, and it makes it thrilling. The simple act of walking down a hill while trying to balance a heavy load on your back and avoiding rocks and other obstacles fulfills the promise of the term ‘walking simulator’ in a far more interesting way than most games given that descriptor. The game consistently doles out new ways to navigate terrain, which peaked for me about two thirds of the way through the game when, after spending hours setting up a network of zip lines, a delivery offered me the opportunity to utilize the entire thing in a wildly satisfying journey from one end of the map to another. It was the gaming moment of the year.

1. Outer Wilds

The first time the sun exploded in my Outer Wilds playthrough, I was probably about to die anyway. I had fallen through a black hole, and had yet to figure out how to recover from that, so I was drifting listlessly through space with diminishing oxygen as the synths started to pick up and I watched the sun fall in on itself and then expand throughout the solar system as my vision went went. The moment gave me chills, not because I wasn’t already doomed anyway, but because I couldn’t help but think about my neighbors that I had left behind to explore space. I hadn’t known that mere minutes after I left the atmosphere the solar system would be obliterated, but I was at least able to watch as it happened. They probably had no idea what happened. Suddenly their lives and their planet and everything they had known were just...gone. And then I woke up, with the campfire burning in front of me, and everyone looking just as I had left it. And I became obsessed with figuring out how to stop that from happening again.

What surprised me is that every time the sun exploded, it never failed to produce those chills I felt the first time. This game is masterful in its art, sound, and music design that manages to produce feelings so intense from an aesthetic so quaint. Tracking down fellow explorers by following the sound of their harmonica or acoustic guitar. Exploring space in a rickety vessel held together by wood and tape. Translating logs of conversations of an ancient alien race and finding the subject matter of discussion to be about small interpersonal drama as often as it is revelatory secrets of the universe. All of the potentially twee aspects of the game are balanced out by an innate sense of danger and terror that comes from exploring space and strange worlds alone. At times, the game dips into pure horror, making other aspects of the presentation all the more charming by comparison. And then there’s the clockwork machinations of the 22-minute loop you explore within, rewarding exploration and experimentation with reveals that make you feel like a genius for figuring out the puzzle at the same time that you’re stunned by the divulgence of a new piece of information.

The last few hours of the game contained a couple puzzles so obfuscated that I had to consult a guide, which admittedly lessened the impact of those reveals, but it all led to one of the most equally devastating and satisfying endings I’ve experienced in a video game recently. I really can’t say enough good things about this game. It’s not only my favorite game this year, but easily one of my favorite games of the decade, and really, of all-time, when it comes down to it.

#outer wilds #death stranding #eliza #anodyne 2 #control #judgment #resident evil 2 #fire emblem: three houses #Ape Out #Amid Evil #games #video games #GOTY

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ardeawritten · 4 years

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Halo 4

The game-player in me is thrilled with the very pretty levels, new weapons, flashy enemies and more creative, less linear methods of level progression/interaction. Lovely soundtrack as always, though the random peppy upbeat music overlaid on a race-to-save earth battle is still hilarious. This game was fun and enjoyable to play, a great few evenings' worth of distraction and some nice catharsis for a little current-events-related attitude. The last quarter felt like a meat-grinder slog, but then, it's endgame of an FPS. What else is it going to be?

The writer in me is rolling their eyes.

(there’s an whole essay under the cut) ((I really hope these cuts work on all platforms, if not I am sincerely sorry; it’s like a thousand words long))

Ok, so the first three games were a fairly standard blank-slate FPS protagonist. Play as an armored super-soldier fighting to save Humanity from the Monsters, with a Sexy AI Sidekick and some Battle Buddies. Not what I'd call high art in gaming, but I can understand its popularity and the enduring appeal of a simple, straight-forward "if it moves shoot it" style of play. No escort missions, no puzzles, really no boss battles requiring tricks and analysis. Just "if that didn't kill it, keep shooting or use a bigger gun."

Writing-wise, there's not a lot of characterization but overall Indications that MC is well-recognized, well-liked, has a sense of humor and a camaraderie with his co-workers, is pals with his Sexy AI and is a generally level-headed person-shaped brick. It's an early 2000's Military FPS, it's not about the characters, it's about role-playing as an indestructible military hero who always saves the girl. It's the game equivalent of John Carter of Mars-genre action hero stories (books, not movie.) This does not absolve it of the crime of woman-as-sexy-or-dead, but it is par for the course.

So on to game #4.

This game was released in late 2012, in a post-Mass Effect gaming market. #4 has a ME2/3 feel to it, which makes sense. They're both very popular flashy scifi action games with similar graphics/design feel (and with Sexy AIs but that's another conversation about the literally unreal 'idealization' of womanhood in a male-dominated creator/created space!)

It opens with the storyline revelation that MC is a brainwashed and conditioned child-soldier, alleges he's got some issues with performing basic human functions and clarifies that Cortana's existence is the "band-aid" applied to that problem. On the MC side, Cortana's expiration date has passed and she's fragging out, giving MC a personal reason to want to get home. This combines to give the player a sense of urgency- if Cortana dies, it's not just "sad," it's "MC will lose his band-aid and all his humanity will bleed out." This is also I think the first time the POV is, narratively-speaking, third-person (we know things MC doesn't or couldn't know) instead of solely first-person (I'm not counting Arbiter’s story as breaking first-person, as it's still limited to player character POV.)

As a Writer, here's my issues:

- MC is given a traumatic backstory as a brainwashed child-soldier to what? Justify a damaged emotional state, as if emotional wounding and isolation isn't a very common, very human point to reach after having experienced and participated in war at any age? Justify being unable to function without Cortana’s hand-holding? And then the game never goes back and addresses that opening cut-scene.

- Cortana's existence had a built-in, known expiration, but she was still (retconned?) created to provide MC his primary band-aid. Either this was extremely short-sighted of the Spartan R&D team, or MC likewise was expected to expire on the same timeline. There's no talk of planning ahead for this problem that would render an extremely expensive asset fundamentally useless. (ok there’s Cortana’s “they’ll pair you with someone else but it won’t be me” line, but that isn’t exactly smoothing the transition any.)

- We the audience/player now know Cortana's death will have personal, negative repercussions on the MC's health outside of grief and trauma over loss of a friend and partner. She exists solely for his benefit, and must continue existing for his benefit, and the plot's urgency driven forward by his need to continue benefiting. It's not about saving Cortana, it's about saving MC. This would be fine if her character existence was framed as "computer service program," but it isn't. Prior to this game, narrative and gameplay repeatedly tells the audience she's a character and not just MC's security blanket.

- The above, coupled with her "stock naked lady sexy" design, has Implications of how the writing team figured they could fit a female character into their narrative. So far we have A) woman who fails to complete a heroic sacrifice and is shot in the back and dies pointlessly, B) woman whose visual and intellectual existence is tailored solely to benefit the MC and has no autonomy outside of that existence and C) woman as 'fallen mother/evil crone' who perpetrated the brainwashing on the MC. (Female Spartan in the mammoth got a whole three lines; female scientist with a bag of nukes? She… died pointlessly.)

(I swear I did not intend this to be an analysis of female roles in the Halo main game franchise but hey, my first memorable introduction to the FPS genre was Mysteries of the Sith where, playing as female jedi Mara Jade, you save the guy by making him acknowledge the value of a non-romantic peer relationship! That game was made in 1997.)

For Cortana, in 1 I got the impression she was a shipboard AI like EDI in Mass Effect, not an AI specific to MC. Her characterization feels like it's been shifted each game from a warship AI capable of coordinating fleet-wide maneuvers and going toe-to-toe with Guilty Spark to a cowering captive of Gravemind needing physical rescue to a Pocket Pal for MC to cover for his emotional shortcomings and inability to interact with technology more complex than "a button."

Having an AI programmed to be essentially a therapy dog or social caretaker, and exploring the complexities of that role related to the invisible and unquantifiable damage violence visits on the human body and brain would be a very interesting story. An AI designed for coordinating war on a massive scale who despite "winning" each battle finds its platform systematically reduced until the only "ship and crew" left are just one person would also be an interesting story! Why are we left with "my girlfriend's dying and I'm going to starve because she's the only one who knows how to cook."

tl;dr: the opening cutscene was detrimental to the plot, characterization and world-building. The game would have been fine as a story about a soldier coming to terms with his best friend’s inevitable death while trying to save the planet, and would have preserved Cortana’s game 1 identity as an autonomous AI who lost her ship and partnered up with MC of her own free will. The ending of “we saved each other, if just for a little while, and will grieve but will continue on” would have been stronger IMO than “I’m going to save you-I’m going to save you-NOPE.”

#text post #long post #long text post #long ass essay text post writing rant #also why does she get more naked with every game #I mean I know why from a revenue standpoint but what's the in-world justification #here let me beat what I'm sure is a very dead horse because I'm eight years late to the party #don't worry there's a tl;dr in there at the end #does anyone else remember the AI in Flubber who fell in love with the MC and then gets mashed and copies herself?#because that was a more satisfying character arc #Ardea Plays Halo

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nintendowife · 5 years

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Another year gone by and it’s time to pick my personal Game of the Year 2019 titles. Finished a record amount of games this year (44!) and there were so many great games it was hard to pick the best of the best. See the end of the post for a full list of nominees.

1st place: HITMAN 2 (PS4, also available on PC and Xbox One)

Agent 47 is back, balder and better than ever - 8 sandbox locations and 3 sniper levels filled with lethal opportunities and clever humor. This is a game for individuals of culture. I'll leave you to prepare.

+ Creative assassination gameplay at its finest + Great level design + Lively, vibrant and detailed environments full of fun dialogue, juicy opportunities and room for improvisation + Silly challenges that never cease to make me smile + Includes HITMAN (2016) levels for free if you own the earlier game - Some levels were a bit confusing to navigate for me

See my posts about Hitman 2

2nd place: Baba Is You (Switch & PC)

I'm not much of a fan of puzzle games but Baba Is You blew my mind. I like the game so much that after torturing myself solving puzzles for 56 hours on Nintendo Switch I bought the game for PC too. Now I've played it for 34 hours on PC. The feeling of finally solving a level that you were stuck in for an hour and thought was impossible is immensely satisfying.

+ Wonderfully fun and unique gameplay idea + Great level design that forces you to do abstract logical thinking outside the box + BABA IS CUTE (adorable visuals that just work) + MUSIC IS LOVE + Sometimes too difficult and makes you feel like a genius - Sometimes too difficult and makes you feel dumb

See my posts about Baba Is You

3rd place: Ruiner (PC, also available on PS4 and Xbox One)

Atmospheric cyberpunk shooter with fast-paced gameplay and nice world-building. The moment I stepped to the streets of Rengkok I fell in love with the game. This game felt special and I kept thinking about the game after I stopped playing. The cyberpunk feel was tangible. Gameplay is fast-paced and fun with a variety of weapons, both melee and ranged. The few glitches I encountered can be overlooked thanks to the impressive marriage of visuals, lighting, audio and atmosphere. I've now finished the game 4 times on two different platforms. I rarely replay games.

+ Fun, challenging gameplay + Incredible cyberpunk atmosphere + Cool visual style and gorgeous lighting + Fitting soundtrack (bought it together with the game) + Skill point distribution is very free + Short and satisfying game experience - Heavy use of quite disturbing strobing lights - A couple of small glitches

Honorable mention: Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth (3DS)

Challenging dungeon crawling RPG with plenty of options for strategic team builds to conquer the Yggdrasil labyrinth. Etrian Odyssey V is one of the rare RPGs where I can't plow through boss fights and actually need to carefully consider how to stay alive - I managed to beat the main game last boss on my third try after adjusting my strategy.

+ Fun and challenging boss battles + Light on story, focus is on great and rewarding gameplay + Generous freedom for building your characters + Beautiful art style + Mapping can be set to auto to reduce manual work or you can draw your maps completely by hand - Some skill descriptions were inadequate to illustrate skill's true function - I was left wanting to see my characters' models appear on the screen in combat (à la Persona Q)

See my posts about Etrian Odyssey V

Honorable mention: West of Loathing (PC, also available on Switch)

Absurdly funny RPG enhanced by its black & white stick figure visuals and hilarious animations.

+ Various classes and character builds + Funny writing and characters + Unique visuals + Learning goblin language - Some obscure and tricky puzzles (guide probably needed)

See my posts about West of Loathing

Honorable mention: Wonderful 101 (Wii U)

One of the coolest action games I've had the pleasure to play. The high-octane gameplay fluidly swaps genres from beat 'em up to first person boxing and even shmup.

+ Unique concept and imaginative action gameplay + Great art direction and character designs + Plenty of humor + Catchy music - Unreliable touch controls in Unite Morphs - Very high difficulty

Nominees for my personal Game of the Year 2019

Only games I have finished in 2019 have been included.

Baba Is You (PC) Baba Is You (Switch) Cadence of Hyrule ~ Crypt of the NecroDancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda ~ (Switch) Control (PC) Creature in the Well (PC) Dead or Alive 6 (PS4) Demon's Tilt (PC) Dishonored 2 (PC) Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth (3DS) Everybody's Golf (PS4) Everybody's Tennis (PS4, PS2 Classics) Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch) Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard (PC) Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (PC) Gears of War 4 (PC) HITMAN 2 (PS4) Hyrule Warriors (Wii U) Katamari Damacy REROLL (PC) Mario Kart 7 (3DS) Minit (PS4) Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (PC) My Friend Pedro (PC) New Style Boutique 3: Styling Star (3DS) Paper Mario: Color Splash (Wii U) Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight (PS4) Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth (3DS) Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice (3DS) Pokémon Link: Battle! (3DS) Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon (3DS) Pony Island (PC) Project Zero: Maiden of the Black Water (Wii U) Ruiner (PC, Steam) Ruiner (PC, Xbox Game Pass) Senran Kagura Peach Ball (Switch) SUPERHOT (PC) Super Mario 3D World (Wii U) The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game (PC) The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS) The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch) The Wonderful 101 (Wii U) Wandersong (PC) Wargroove (PC) West of Loathing (PC) Yoku's Island Express (PC)

#hitman 2 #baba is you #ruiner #goty #etrian odyssey v #wonderful 101 #west of loathing #game of the year

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operationrainfall · 5 years

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Title Secret of Evermore Developer SquareSoft Publisher SquareSoft Original Release Dates NA: Oct 1, 1995 PAL: Feb 22, 1996 JP: Cancelled Genre Action RPG Platform Super Nintendo Age Rating Everyone

The golden age of RPGs gave us many classics that continue to bring about memories of joy and awe when simply mentioned. Games like Secret of Mana or Chrono Trigger are universally loved due to their epic stories, fantastic gameplay, and beautiful aesthetics. However, not all RPGs from that era achieved such legendary standing, as few games, even now, have come as close to perfection. Secret of Evermore is one such example; it’s a game with a satisfactory story and both familiar gameplay and aesthetics, yet it falls terribly short in its execution and overall quality. Not quite a hidden gem, Secret of Evermore is more a game with loads of potential that never manifested nor achieved the greatness it could have had.

Secret of Evermore begins with a cryptic thirty-year flashback, at a tucked away mansion depicting an experiment gone wrong. Turn to the present, a boy chases his dog to the now dilapidated mansion, stumbling upon a peculiar machine. The machine is activated and the boy is transported. He soon meets two unknown individuals, one of whom promptly dismissed him and eventually the boy finds himself plummeting from space in a pod before landing on what seems to be prehistoric Earth. Not knowing where he is, how he got there, or why his dog is now a feral wolf, the boy and his pet set off into this prehistoric wilderness in search of a way back home. He will ultimately need to work together with individuals from his own world that he meets and uncover the secrets of this land he will come to know as Evermore.

No kidding…

Secret of Evermore is a quest-driven story in which history, knowledge, and imagination mishmash to create the world our hero and his dog find themselves in. The simple task of finding a way back home develops into meeting various other characters who also find themselves in Evermore and doing the tasks they give in the hopes of achieving that similar goal. The game solely depends on its story to intrigue its players throughout the hero’s journey. Unfortunately, the story itself isn’t all that strong, as the mysteries of Evermore aren’t all that mysterious or intriguing. Rather than a fleshed-out unraveling of what Evermore is and how it came to be, it’s mostly addressed without any significant depth. We are told rather than shown. Exposition comes quickly and mysteries are bluntly uncovered to move the story and game along. This is a fairly common occurrence, missing out on opportunities to build suspense and establish a heavier tone of mystery. There is also an existential element to the story that is never explored, which is something that would have added much-needed depth. The story may remain amusing enough to hold one’s curiosity until the end, however that end is unsatisfying and once the game is completed, with its lack of mood, even less character development, and the linearity of the entire journey, the game does little to entice a replay other than purely for nostalgia’s sake.

The writing can be blunt at times…

Other narrative shortcomings come from the near nonexistence of character establishment or development. Not to say there isn’t any characterization⁠—the only character to have any semblance of unique personality is the hero⁠—but that doesn’t go much further than his apparent love for fictitious movies and his willingness to refer to or quote them as his circumstances call for it. The other major characters hardly have any detail to them other than their connections to the experiment and their current residency in Evermore. Even their voices are written painfully similar to the point that their only distinguishing traits are their obvious influences on Evermore’s landscapes and their character sprites. Simply put, characterization and development never seemed like a concern of the developers at all.

Our hero is simply a story-driving pawn

Leaving story behind, Secret of Evermore’s gameplay should be familiar to anyone who has played Secret of Mana. Secret of Evermore implements near-identical gameplay mechanics, utilizing the ring menu system and combat system from Mana. Basic combat requires a recharge after every strike and most other functions, from using items to equipping arms and armor, to casting alchemy skills, can all be performed via the ring menus. Familiar and intuitive, gameplay does have some unique quirks as well. One major departure from the Mana formula is that magic comes in the form of learning alchemy recipes and the use of items. Rather than a magic meter, in order to perform skills, you must have the required number of ingredients necessary to perform them. For example, to use Flash, the basic fire skill, you need one wax and two oils. As you traverse Evermore, different ingredients and more skills become available, but all are dependent on your having the right ingredients and quantities. In turn, this makes having plenty of cash on hand to make frequent purchases an absolute necessity. Together, the constant need for cash and ingredients becomes an annoyance as you’ll constantly be making purchases in order to make a viable offense.

Other familiar traits in gameplay include the use of different weapons. As you use a particular weapon, it levels up and allows for a charged attack that typically provides better range. Standard attacks, however, significantly and annoyingly lack range regardless of weapon type, so leveling weapons comes into greater play. Though the charged attacks are unique, I much preferred the varying ranges and traits of the different weapons as seen in other games at the time. Also, the need to get overly up close and personal to enemies to inflict damage means taking damage. A lot. More often than I’d like, placing even greater dependency on cash and item stocks for too frequent healing.

The challenge level of Evermore is noticeably steeper than similar games, so defeating enemies while balancing the unavoidable damage and maintaining HP is key. Grinding for levels is also recommended, as the hero and dog will both feel like they’re not hitting hard enough in crucial fights. Unfortunately, the experience gains from enemies are lacking while experience demands for a level up feel higher than what can be considered balanced, adding to the potential frustration players will feel. There are many enemies and moments that can feel downright unforgiving, so patience with the gameplay’s nuances is also a must. Again, that means working around the limited range and power of physical attacks and near complete reliance on alchemy skills, especially in regards to boss fights.

Not everything is intuitive or explained, leaving it to us to figure out. Here, you need to use the floor hatches to leave or the machine to launch your dog in the air

Outside of combat, gameplay is a linear ordeal, as you explore the subsequent towns, talk to NPCs, do a bit of trading should you choose, and simply trek from one point to another until the end. There isn’t much in the way of subquests, nor exploration in the dungeons and other enemy-infested areas, keeping gameplay to the simple tasks of surviving and boss beating. Though the straightforward style works, it lacks creative appeal and may be more a deterrent than an attraction to potential players.

Finally, Secret of Evermore sports a familiar, yet appealing aesthetic that overflows with nostalgia. The visuals are mostly strong, with detailed sprites and impressive enemy and boss depictions. The backgrounds and map designs are especially strong and creative, vividly detailing the historical aspects they are meant to represent. Few other games have attempted such an idea, so the uniqueness of Evermore’s world continues to stand out. Though I did find some maps inconsistent in their levels of details, the areas that do receive that attention definitely show it. As for the audio, the soundtrack is satisfactory, as the music matches its locales and serves its purpose of amplifying the tones that both the story and visuals attempt to convey. However, I didn’t find the soundtrack nearly as remarkable. None of the tunes truly stand out or possess the weightiness of the tracks from other games at the time of its release. I will say that I am impressed with the use of silence and ambiance, as both are used effectively to create mood, plus neither are overused, which I find to be a skill in itself. Overall, Secret of Evermore’s aesthetics support well the story and gameplay and while the music fails to stand out in any memorable way, its visuals will impress.

They may look cool, but the bosses can be annoying. This one constantly drops you, forcing you to climb up a tower to attack

The fact that Secret of Evermore was the first attempt by a new development team definitely shows, yet their efforts produced a satisfactory game that continues on more as a cult classic. Some love it, many others look upon it with mixed feelings or utter indifference. It’s not the hidden gem that is Terranigma, nor will it trigger the same levels of awe and pleasurable nostalgia like Chrono Trigger. Its narrative potential fails to hide the linear story and instead exposes its disappointing lack of depth. Missteps in gameplay hurt and may likely turn away players expecting the more robust gameplay of Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia and the likes of those more highly regarded RPGs. Despite all of this, Secret of Evermore has its strengths and will appeal to players looking for a bit of a classic, throwback RPG style. It’s not for everyone, but if you have the patience and the passion for the oldschool, Secret of Evermore may be worth the look.

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[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”2.5″]

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TBT REVIEW: Secret of Evermore Title Secret of Evermore Developer SquareSoft Publisher SquareSoft Original Release Dates NA: Oct 1, 1995

#Action RPG #Evermore #Nintendo #Secret of Evermore #Square #Square Enix #Squaresoft #Super Nintendo

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blightedstuff · 6 years

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Destroy All Humans 2 review. (A Cult Classic)

Destroy All Humans 2 is the sequel to the first game (Destroy All Humans) and was made by Pandemic Studios and published by THQ back in 2006 for the original Xbox and PlayStation 2 and would be the last game to be developed by Pandemic. The game has been considered a cult classic as it did not become too popular and the series has generally been forgotten.

Story: The story itself isn’t something too deep or symbolic but it fits for what sort of game this is. Set 10 years after the events of the first game, it’s 1969 and you play as Cryptosporidium (or just Crypto) 138, a Furon and the successor the the first game’s main character Cryptosporidium 137. To keep the story short, you travel around different locations around the earth to try to take down to people who destroyed your mother ship and who threaten the earth itself. The game is set within a time period where hippies were common and the soviet union was still a thing and this game does not shy away from stereotypes and plenty of dark humour.

Graphics and Style: Being released back in 2006 means that it’ll be difficult to compare the graphical quality, but looking at images of games released at the time and it obvious that this game looked good compared to its competitors. There’s a lot of attention to details when it comes to certain character models like how Crypto’s head faintly glows a couple of colours where his brain would be and how the saucer (Your spaceship you can fly around in.) visually changes depending on how much damage its taken. The style of the game is very heavily based on 60’s stereotypes, America is full of hippies, England is full of secret agents and Austin Powers lookalikes, Japan has ninjas and Godzilla and so on. The music has a different tone from the first game, the first game had a heavy 50’s alien movie type of soundtrack whilst this one is more based on the environment you are in E.G. England has a heavy spy film like music to it whilst still having some of that alien tone.

Gameplay: The game is an action adventure open world game and you can tell as soon as you begin to play that this game is not to be taken seriously and is meant to be a fun, humourous, parody like game which pokes fun at a lot of subjects. There’s a lot of things you can do in the game, from reading people’s thoughts to prank calling the police. The general gameplay itself is pretty basic, you run around, shoot and run around some more, rinse and repeat. You have a jetpack which does give a lot of movement options when it comes to combat and moving around the map. Crypto also comes with his psychokinetic powers which give a variety of different abilities such as mind control, telekinesis and the ability to take over a human’s body and stay disguised as one. You also have double the amount of creative weapons to disintegrate and destroy, with new weapons like the Dislocator and the Burrow beast and so on. The AI isn’t that smart and could definitely have done with some improvements, they aren’t super bad but they could’ve been smarter.

Destroy All Humans 2 has a great soundtrack, great style, funny and witty writing and memorable characters but it’s held back by its simple story and the gameplay can be a bit too simple at times.

I would give the game a 8/10 and if you want to play a more light hearted, fun and comedic game then this one will not disappoint.

End Note: Destroy All Humans 2 is a game I grew up with and will always be one of my favourite games of all time and I hope that other developers will make more games like it in the future.

#review #destroy all humans #video games #uni work

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doktorpeace · 6 years

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Top 5 Games Of The Year Runner Up And Honorable Mentions

Runner Up: Doki Doki Literature Club (THIS SECTION CONTAINS BIG SPOILERS, IF YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED DDLC AND ARE INTERESTED IN MAYBE TRYING IT HERE’S THE TL;DR It’s good, it plays with your expectations in a very good way and in a multitude of ways, it’s a great little piece of media that brings to life an extremely good character. Also it’s free, go download it on steam.)

Look, maybe it’s because I don’t consume a lot of horror media but this game really stood out to me. Not only for it’s genre though, also for the high quality of its writing and with how great the game is at accomplishing the one and only thing it truly sets out to do: Convey Monika as a character. The horror elements themselves can be a bit hit and miss and some of them are quite predictable, but I feel the game is excellent at building a continuous sense of dread as the player continues through it. It rapidly ratchets up the intensity of its content after taking just enough time for the player to settle in and get comfortable and mixes in JUST A COUPLE of jumpscares (which honestly it probably shouldn’t) in order to keep the player unsteady enough in terms of expectations to keep that dread building. Regardless, throughout the game Doki Doki Literature Club does a great job taking advantage of player expectations both of dating sim visual novels AND of horror writing to ultimately become something just a little bit more. It becomes an excellent character exercise and exploration. Thanks to some smart programming in service of the game’s ultimate intent, to make Monika into a ‘real’ character actually ended up giving me one of the deepest scares any piece of media, video game or otherwise, has ever given me. And it did it without any secondary stimuli like sound or a jumpscare or horrifying visuals. No, in a completely calm moment all that was said was this:

And I REELED back in my chair because the suspense and the dread the game had been building all impacted me at once. You can’t deliver that kind of scare in someone without some smart writing backed up by some VERY smart programming and understanding of player expectations. Honestly Monika is such an excellent and fully realized character despite the game being so short it’s astounding. By taking care to give her a lot of special conditional dialogue, pages upon PAGES of missable content, and even meta-content such as her having unique dialogue that only appears while looking through the game’s files it really just all coalesces into making Monika feel almost real, real enough to give me the willies and to feel a bit sad for her by the end. DDLC is a divisive game and I understand if the game’s handling of certain themes or content doesn’t sit well with other people but for me, and I say this as someone who is no stranger to suicide attempts, the game never went to far. For me it all worked in service of the game’s narrative and Monika’s character growth. Honestly even just little details like how the piano in the soundtrack only starts playing for the first time once Monika is introduced and only ever stops when she’s not watching you or how there’s a lot of different horror elements that only occur randomly so not everyone has the same experience or how some can only happen in fullscreen or in windowed mode, it’s really amazing attention to detail and consideration of her character while also making the game more unique as a product. DDLC was really good. It gave me some good scares but it also gave me a good story and a GREAT character to appreciate. Even if, like me, you’re a bit of a weenie when it comes to horror content I’d wholeheartedly recommend DDLC as a read, assuming you both can handle a jumpscare or two and can handle game content that involves suicide and self harm. I know I didn’t get too in depth here but I wanted to avoid spoiling TOO much and honestly I already said too much as is! Please excuse me! Honorable Mention #1: Yo! Noid 2 - Enter the Void

It’s not often you get a game that’s developed explicitly as a joke that’s so good. Yo Noid 2 is a solid, fun, and funny platformer. It’s all pretty clearly built just to tell one joke right at the very end but the ends ABSOLUTELY justify the means. I can’t talk too in detail about this game without ruining why it’s special, but Yo Noid 2 is a legitimately fun 3D platformer, with good level design, a relatively expressive moveset, a very special Special Action Button, and honestly a great soundtrack to boot! Its difficulty ramps up in a good way across its very short 90-150 minute length culminating in a very fun final boss fight. PLEASE go download Yo Noid 2, if you like 3D platformers and want to have a good laugh it’s 300% worth your time. It’s even free, you have no excuses!!

Honorable Mention #2: Mega Man 11 Mega Man is back, again, and they really did a good job expanding the franchise. While I still like entries such as 9, 10, and 4 better personally there’s no denying MM11 expands the franchise in a positive way more than any other before it. MM11 takes the time tested side scrolling design of the classic Mega Man series and adds just enough of a new wrinkle with the Double Gear system to really expand the player’s horizons and to push their level design concepts. While Double Gear and in fact all of the secondary weapons are entirely unnecessary as is tradition for Mega Man games MM11 does a great job incentives smart use of these mechanics, keeping them balanced with a shared cooldown system between both gears (power and speed) and making every single one of the Robot Master powers actually useful! Also all of the robot master designs are really charming this time, I was initially worried about the addition of voice acting but the voice cast does a great job! The level design is also a treat, while the length of the levels varies DRASTICALLY and Wily Castle 1 is dramatically longer and harder than another other stage in the game overall it’s very easy to just jump into any level and challenge yourself. There is no obvious first boss, they’re all pretty tough, and I started with Acid Man myself. The only thing about MM11 that let me down was the soundtrack; it wasn’t bad it just wasn’t bombastic either, merely present during play but not sticking in my memory at all. MM11 is a great entry in the series and I hope it signals a true return of one of my childhood favorites with more games to come soon. Honorable Mention #3: Fire Emblem - Mystery of the Emblem (FE12) Taking the great concept of remaking FE’s earliest titles that Shadow Dragon started and actually putting in the elbow grease to make the game really good, FE12 is a stand out entry in the Fire Emblem franchise. While some aspects of its map design are somewhat held back by the original iteration, FE3′s age, the developers at IntSys really did a great job modernizing Archanea and paying good tribute to the characters and story that made this game an absolutely beloved classic in the first place. With overall good map design, modernized mechanics, the best use of an Avatar Character in the franchise, and massively improved unit, class, and weapon balance over the original FE12 polishes its source material to a razor shine. Top it all off with a decent story and great new content that adds a bunch of new dialogue to the characters and this is the definitive way to experience Archenea and its inhabitants. Except for Marth, he was better in Shadow Dragon. Besides Marth’s characterization taking a step back and the gaiden content being rather slapdash and forgettable, this game is everything a remastering should be; Taking what worked and polishing it, improving what didn’t, and adding all new content that fits in with the original game in a productive and fun way for fans. The addition of a wide variety of gameplay difficulties and including the until this game INCREDIBLY rare BS: Fire Emblem expansion chapters previously exclusive to the Super Famicom Satellaview this game cartridge is bursting with good content. It’s a fun, fun game with a lot to offer and great replayability thanks to its BULGING roster of characters and deeply customizable avatar character. If you like Fire Emblem as a franchise I’d heavily recommending finding a patched FE12 rom out there, harder though it is to do now. You owe it to yourself to experience this game. Oh, just play with the battle animations off, they’re REALLY ugly. Still, this game puts Shadow Dragon’s lazy near-direct port of an NES game to DS to shame. Honorable Mention #4: A Hat in Time - Seal the Deal This DLC has been getting some backlash and frankly I don’t get why. While I was a bit disappointed the new chapter was shorter than the base game ones the Death Wish side of things offered a TON of great new content and new ways to experience past challenges. For its modest price point this DLC really does everything I could possibly hope for out of a 3D Platformer expansion. New, tougher challenges to really push my skills, fun new content that fits right in with the base game in terms of quality and polish, and in A Hat in Time’s case GREAT new boss fight experiences. Taking every existing boss and turning them into a downright Superboss level difficulty fight, remixing all of their attacks, speed, patterns, and adding all new stuff to them is such a great idea and I really loved it. Seal the Deal is a ton of fun as long as you aren’t averse to an easy base game getting a VERY challenging DLC expansion. I can understand why the difficulty whiplash might turn some people off but for me it was just right and really hit the spot. A Hat in Time is just so good, I love it.

#Dok's GotY 2018

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coolgreatwebsite · 6 years

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Cool Games I Finished In 2018 (In No Real Order)

Man! Wow! 2018! 2018 was a wild year for me. I managed to deliver those elbow drops I talked about last year and ended up doing a lot of of things. I left my job and moved cross-country in the span of like 2 and a half weeks! I took a new job in the video game industry (play Ninjin and Override)! I took a trip to Vegas a week after that! I got in a relationship! I got out of a relationship! It’s been a ride. A ride that hasn’t left me a ton of time to play video games or write about video games, but I’m like 1000 times happier now so it’s probably a fair trade. No matter what though, I will always be here at the end of the year to make a bunch of terrible MSPaint banners and provide you with another one of these. Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2018.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (PlayStation 2, 2004)

Nocturne is a game that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since I beat it. It’s so damn cool. It starts with you witnessing a demonic apocalypse where only you, your two friends, your teacher, a reporter, and the man with the world’s wildest widow’s peak survive. These people are, with a couple of notable exceptions, the only real characters in the entire game. You barely see them, and when you do your meetings are usually pretty brief. Sure, you talk to and recruit a horde of demons to your side as party members, and you interact with a handful of demonic antagonists and various demonic NPCs, but for the most part the game is just you. You, alone, wandering the weird hellscape remnants of Tokyo. It’s one of the most solitary-feeling video games I’ve ever played, and it nails this atmosphere flawlessly. The music, the visuals, the writing, every element gels with every other element so smoothly to create a prevailing, almost overbearing feeling of loneliness. The combat and gameplay mechanics are what I understand this series to mostly be like (this being the only mainline SMT I’ve played), and are fun and engaging in a way that’s not too dissimilar from the Persona series. The only knock I have against Nocturne is that the dungeon design super sucks. I’m fine with endless corridors, my love of the PS2 Persona games can attest to that, but almost every dungeon in Nocturne has an annoying gimmick to it, and they all essentially boil down to different takes on a teleporter maze. I was kind of almost dreading navigating dungeons by the time I got to the last fourth of the game, but my intense love for literally everything else saw me through. For those of you who like JRPGs and haven’t played Nocturne, I’m sure you’ve heard this plenty of times, and I was like you once. I didn’t listen. But now I’m on the other side of the tunnel, so I get to say it. You should really, really play Nocturne. It’s good.

Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

Octo Expansion is what Splatoon 2′s single player mode should have been from the start. Don’t get me wrong, the packed in single player campaign is fine, but it’s basically a level pack for Splatoon 1′s. Octo Expansion, on the other hand, is 100% fresh. Structurally it’s much more diverse, with the campaign taking place over 80 mostly-bite-sized missions with varying objectives. There’s a couple of stinkers in there, but overall the quality of the missions is much higher than what was in the original single player campaign. They can actually be pretty tough sometimes too! It was fun to see some actual challenge in a Splatoon campaign. Everything wrapped around the core gameplay of Octo Expansion is kind of phenomenal. The setting and visual design is super weird, the music is way more mellow than anything else that’s come out of the series and creates a great sense of atmosphere, and the writing is actually genuinely pretty great. There’s a lot of funny dialogue and good character moments. They made me like Pearl! The weird gremlin that eats mayo! She’s my friend now! The last half an hour or so of Octo Expansion is also straight up my favorite sequence from a game I played this year too. Don’t sleep on this thing just because it’s DLC. It’s legitimately great.

Monster Hunter: World (PlayStation 4, 2018)

At the outset I was incredibly skeptical of Monster Hunter: World. This wasn’t entirely fair to the game, as a lot of this feeling was based on its initial E3 reveal trailer kinda sorta matching up to some mostly not true pre-E3 leaks, namely that it would be much more action heavy to cater to Western audiences and tie into the then unannounced Monster Hunter movie (which, as an aside, looks like a trainwreck that I desperately want to see). You can probably pretty easily find some tweets and posts from me around that time saying that the game looks like trash because of some misinterpreted new game mechanic. I am here to say that I am a big wrong dumbass and Monster Hunter: World is very good. You might be surprised to hear this, but it’s Monster Hunter! With a bunch of good and well-executed gameplay refinements! And graphics that aren’t repurposed from a PS2 game! It’s a ton of fun and I put a lot of time into it, but it’s not without its flaws. The number of monsters and weapons is comparatively way lower than in previous games, mostly due to that whole not repurposing PS2 models thing. It’s still kind of clunky in a lot of the places Monster Hunter has been historically clunky in, but also in some pretty big new ways, mainly around playing multiplayer. Also the story, while it’s as bland as it’s ever been, is exponentially more intrusive thanks to the addition of voiced cutscenes (which need to be triggered before the game lets you bring other players into story missions, causing a lot of that clunk I mentioned earlier). It’s all nothing game-ruining, of course. The game wouldn’t be on the list if it was! Monster Hunter: World exceeded my expectations, and I’m super looking forward to playing the recently announced G Rank expansion when it comes out next year.

Contra: Hard Corps (Sega Genesis, 1994)

I wish I could go back in time and kick my own stupid ass for not playing this sooner. I’d written off Contra: Hard Corps for the longest time based solely on some bullshit I read on the internet at an age where I just took other peoples’ opinions and made them my own. This and Castlevania Bloodlines were the bad ones, the ones some weird b-team crapped out for the Genesis while the SNES got the good stuff like Contra 3: Alien Wars. Well, it turns out... they were right about Bloodlines. But MAN were they wrong about Hard Corps. Hard Corps is the best Contra game. It fucking rules. I would have gone on with my life never giving the game a glance if not for this excellent Giant Bomb feature happening, and a couple of episodes in I knew I had to play it for myself. Contra: Hard Corps is fucking nuts. It’s balls to the wall 100% of the time. There’s so many unique enemies and wild bosses and they’re all never not exploding. The game has four characters with unique weapons and multiple different level paths that have totally different levels, bosses, and story beats. Oh, and the soundtrack fucking rips. Sometimes it’s a little too much, and there are definitely some sequences and boss attacks that are total gotchas that you can’t survive without prior knowledge of how they work. I’d also be remiss not to give a special shoutout to level 4′s awful, tedious, unskippable-on-any-route boss. But god damn if the rest of Hard Corps doesn’t outshine these flaws. It’s the high water mark for insane non-stop 16-bit action.

Deltarune (PC, 2018)

Does this count? It’s a demo for a full game that won’t be out for a real long time... I suppose it does, it’s self-contained enough. Deltarune, the free demo for the sort of but also sort of not sequel to Undertale, is unsurprisingly good as hell. Less surprising for sure, as Undertale is a known quantity these days, but I’m still way into it. The story is interesting and full of charming characters, and the battle system has been overhauled to include things like multiple party members with different abilities while still keeping all the things that made Undertale’s battles novel. The music is, of course, fantastic, and the visuals look much nicer while adhering to the same general style as the previous game. It’s fairly short, and some character development feels a little rushed because of it, but again, it’s a small chunk of the beginning of a much larger game. I can’t imagine any of this stuff wouldn’t be expanded upon. It’s hard to judge this thing story-wise due to the nature of it being a demo. I thoroughly enjoyed what is there, though, and look forward to playing the rest of the game in 50 years or whatever.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

This game is so much. Even though the first thing I learned about this game was “everyone is here”, I still wasn’t ready for how much it is. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is maybe too much. Of course, as previously stated, everyone (meaning every single previous playable Smash Bros. character) is here. Most of the previous stages are also present. This was all known. Where the game really, truly goes overboard though is in the single-player content. There’s the usual classic mode for every character, this time specifically structured around a theme for each character, but the vast majority of it is actually comprised of the all-new spirits system. Spirits are non-playable video game characters that you can collect and equip to your fighters for special abilities, sort of like a less terrible version of Smash Bros. Brawl’s stickers. You collect these spirits through spirit battles, which are fights themed around the character the spirit represents via extremely clever usage of already existing fighters and mechanics. These battles range from the obvious (Big the Cat’s battle tasks you with fighting a giant purple Incineroar), to the obscure (fight the main characters from Zangeki no Reginleiv as represented by Link and female Robin while you’re giant-sized), to the creative (Porygon’s spirit puts you in a fight against wireframe Little Mac and Akira from Virtua Fighter, normally an assist trophy), to the downright in-jokey (the spirit of Ness’s Father, displayed as the telephone spirte from Earthbound, makes you fight an invisible Solid Snake). There are like 1200 spirits. The vast majority of them have an associated battle. And you don’t just experience these battles through a menu, at least half of them are implemented into the 30 hour long adventure mode, World of Light, which has you fighting spirits, navigating dungeons, and facing bosses. It’s insane. They focused on spirits in lieu of collectible trophies this time around and they absolutely made the correct choice. The trophies in the last two Super Smash Bros. games were fine, but easier access to existing 3D models of most represented characters made them inherently less exciting than Melee’s tailor-made collection of high quality (considering the time period) renders, many of which would never receive a 3D model again. The spirits system manages to be exciting in the same way Melee's trophies were, fostering a genuine sense of anticipation to see what they cooked up next, but in the context of gameplay. They completely knocked it out of the park. Smash 4 made it on one of these lists long ago, and I essentially just said “it’s more Smash Bros. and that’s good”. Smash Ultimate is also more Smash Bros., but it’s SO much more Smash Bros. It’s so much more extremely good Smash Bros. The only things I can ding it for are some totally subjective stage preferences (where the hell is Poké Floats) and some slightly less than optimal music sorting decisions. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is, ultimately, the ultimate Super Smash Bros.

These games were also cool, I just had less to say about them:

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (Nintendo Switch, 2018): Remember Castlevania 3? Inti Creates sure did! This prequel to the still unreleased Koji Igarashi Kickstarter project Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is an unabashed love letter to Castlevania 3, and it’s pretty good. Mom Hid My Game! (Nintendo Switch, 2017): A charming little game in the style of those old escape the room Flash games. It even looks like one (in the literal sense, not the pejorative). It’s not tough or replayable really, but it is $5 and consistently absurd and surprising. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (PlayStation 4, 2018): Yakuza 6 is kind of a weird juxtaposition. It’s the final chapter of Kazuma Kiryu’s story, but also the first game to use the Yakuza team’s new Dragon Engine. The story end of things is a good, solid sendoff for a bunch of characters I’m going to miss very dearly, but the gameplay feels very formative and limited in a way that sort of reminds me of Yakuza 1. I had a good time with it overall, but I hope they manage to dial it in like they did with the previous decade of Yakuza games and make something truly excellent again. Looking at you, Judge Eyes. Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth (Nintendo 3DS, 2017): Etrian Odyssey V is a return to basics for the series, ditching things like overworlds and sub-dungeons and just pitting your party against one big labyrinth. Honestly, gotta say, I miss the stuff they left behind! The core of Etrian Odyssey is still super strong so I had fun regardless, but the overall simplicity of the game and the changes to how classes work had me missing EOIV more often than not. Soundtrack’s great though, as expected. Sonic Mania Plus (Nintendo Switch, 2018): To be completely honest, most of the stuff they added to Sonic Mania in Plus really isn’t that fantastic. Mighty’s spike and projectile immunity is fun, but Ray’s flying is more interesting than effective. Encore mode is largely disappointing, with most of it feeling identical to the base game outside of its all-new (and too hard for their own good) special stages. HOWEVER, Sonic Mania Plus was an exceptional excuse to play through Sonic Mania another six or so times. Congratulations to Sonic Mania for being game of the year for two years in a row. WarioWare Gold (Nintendo 3DS, 2018): A good compilation game, executed much better than in the team’s previous Rhythm Heaven Megamix, but lacking in reasons to come back after you’ve played all the games. There’s the usual toy room stuff WarioWare has had since Touched!, but it’s bogged down by reliance on a currency system and the fact that sooooo many things you unlock are just parts that feed into a larger, not that interesting thing. The part where you play WarioWare is great though, and the new visuals make it all feel fresh even though it’s mostly older games. Mario Tennis Aces (Nintendo Switch, 2018): I had a brief, passionate love affair with Mario Tennis Aces. The core gameplay is rad as hell and more like a fighting game than a tennis game, with multiple different special shots and a focus on meter management. I played like 40+ hours of it between the full game and the demo and never even touched the single player (which makes it technically not count for this list, but, shut up). I got 2nd place at its very first tournament at CEO 2018. Then I... stopped playing. It had some weird balance issues, sure, but I think it was more a victim of circumstance rather than anything else. I moved basically right after CEO and just never went back to it. It’s still incredible though. I hope this game’s systems are the standard for Mario Tennis games going forward.

We made it! Bottom of the list! It was a shorter trip this time, but I’m still proud of you for making it here all the same. Thank you for reading the words I typed about video games. I’m looking to get this web page back into gear in 2019, so you can probably expect part 2 of The Best Babies sometime in January. Hopefully I’ll actually play some video games too so I can bring back Breviews on the first of February. Until then!

#article #year wrapup

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captainfawful · 6 years

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With the year coming to a close, that means it’s time for me to do my “Nobody Cares Awards” thing I like to do! Check under the cut for some hot takes I may or may not have!

Hello, hello! It’s me again! Third year in a row I decided to jot my thoughts down on the years various game. I decided to change things up more from last year, kind of eliminating most of the categories in favor of writing more about the games I enjoyed. I tried to write at least something about every game in the Top 10 this time, even if it’s the bare minimum. Let’s see how it goes!

BEST MUSIC

This entire thing was first created because I wanted to write about how good Death Road To Canada’s soundtrack was. So no matter what changes with my format on this, there will always be a Best Music category. I’ll be honest though, there weren’t a whole lot of games this year with amazing soundtracks. The only real contender for most of the year was Celeste, which OST is very good, and fits perfectly with the games tone and style, but it’s not... The Best music. They aren’t songs I’ll put on loop and listen to multiple times throughout the day. They’re not the hard hitting tracks I would typically put at the top of this category, despite how great the music is. That’s how I felt until about August, when The Messenger came out. Messenger is not a game that will be in my Top 10 by any means, but it’s a pretty good game nonetheless with a couple of really weird twists. But the OST is phenomenal. Easily my number 1 favorite of this year. Just about every track in the game is a total banger. But don’t take it from me, take a listen yourself! A little later in the year I played through Just Shapes & Beats. I have a personal stigma against saying a thing with licensed music should qualify for Best Music, which is why JS&B did not make it into my top 3, but rest assured that it is sitting comfortably in the 4th place spot. Almost immediately after I played JS&B, Deltarune suddenly came out. I don’t think I have to tell you why that’s on here, right? Toby Fox cannot make bad music.

SPECIAL MENTIONS

THE MISSING:J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories

It’s hard for me to talk about what makes The Missing so special without diving deep into spoilers. There’s a reason it’s in the special mentions, and not the Top 10: And that reason is because the gameplay isn’t great. The Missing is a side-scrolling puzzle game, in the same vein as Limbo or Inside. Unlike those two, however, the puzzles you have to solve are not that hard, and most of the difficulty around it revolves around how slowly and janky the movement is. However, the overall story and twist is what makes this game great. There’s not a whole lot for me to say about the themes this game presents, so if you want to play The Missing, play it. If you don’t want to play it, then maybe take a look at some writings from actual queer women who could talk about its subject matter in a way I never possibly could.

The Quiet Man

The Quiet Man is a terrible game. When I first saw the trailer during Suare Enix's E3 presentation, I was super interested. I've always wanted a game that transitions from FMV to gameplay with as few seams as possible, and The Quiet Man promised that. Not only that, it promised a compelling story told from the perspective of its' deaf protagonist. The way I saw it, this game would either accomplish what it set out to do, or fail miserably. Either way, it was a win/win scenario for me! Little did I know just HOW miserably it would fail.... Oooooh, how miserably it failed... The gameplay is absolute trash, the graphics leave much to be desired which makes the "seamless" transitions from FMV look unconvincing and bad, the story is needlessly complicated despite how generic it is, the acting ranges from decent to awful, and it requires you to play it twice in order to actually understand what's happening. And all of those problems are the LEAST offensive parts of the game. It's racist, misogynistic, somehow ableist against more than just deaf people, semi-incestual, and also kind of pro-abuse??? I mean, it doesn't take a stance to be anti-abuse, and certainly doesn't condemn abuse, so does that make it pro? Maybe? Probably? I have a headache. I've watched this entire 2-4 hour game be played 10 or 11 times, and I still don't understand how this exists. Square-Enix published this. They dropped Hitman and IO Interactive not even one year ago, yet threw money at this horrible abomination of a video game! Oh by the way, you might be wondering why I said you have to play it twice to understand, and that's because the first playthrough doesn't give you any sound. Yup, aside from the intro cutscene and the credits song, the entire games' audio is just muffled ambiance. This includes all of it's cutscenes, of which there are MANY, and they are LONG. Entire MINUTES of dialogue happening at a time that the game just doesn't want you to hear or have subtitles for. The only way to get audio is to beat the game once and replay it. Not only that, but the New Game + with sound and subtitles didn't even get patched in until a week after it's release!!! Who does that!!!!! And the version with audio has some ATROCIOUS writing. Just about every scene has at least one line of dialogue that makes no sense, almost as if the writers were only told about how humans speak, but never actually heard one themselves. I’ve heard a lot of people saying it’s The Room of video games, and I sort of agree. Much like The Room, it’s not the absolute worst of it’s form of media, the game is playable start-to-finish, extremely straight forward so you can’t get lost, no bizarre puzzles to figure out, the FMV cutscenes are at decently produced. Hell, I wouldn’t even say The Quiet Man is the worst game to come out THIS YEAR. Crying Is Not Enough released in June, and boy oh boy is that game a trash fire. But it’s just BAFFLING that this game exists. That’s the perfect word to summarize my feelings on The Quiet Man. Every single thing about it is just, baffling. I need to stop writing about this game. This whole paragraph is probably going to be longer than anything from my Top 10, which feature a few games I ADORE, but no. All my writing energy is going to how terrible this fucking video game is. Don't play The Quiet Man. Or do, fuck if I care. Maybe watch someone else play it, I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.

Ori and the Blind Forest

Back on the topic of good games, I finally got around to playing Ori and the Blind Forest! I played it for a little while after it originally came out around 2015, but it just didn’t stick with me at the time. There wasn’t any real reason why it didn’t stick, I just got bored and stopped playing, which isn’t that uncommon for me to do. But for whatever reason I decided to go back to it super late last year. It may have been the excitement for all the cool looking Metroidvanias slated to release throughout the year, I don’t know. But I played through it, and it’s fantastic! Most Metroidvanias tend to go with around a 60-40 split between platforming and combat. Different games have different splits, sure, but most of them tend to keep those somewhat even. Ori is like an 85-15, greatly favoring tight platforming over fighting enemies. Your main attack automatically locks on to nearest enemies, and boss fights are replaced with autoscrolling or stealth segments. The traversal is also super smooth and fun, making that 85-15 split much more favorable than others in its’ genre. Great controls combined with some amazing visuals and music, Ori is definitely a game I regret not playing earlier.

2019′S COMING IN HOT

Spelunky 2, Wargroove, Indivisible, Hypnospace Outlaw, Ooblets, UFO 50, Kingdom Hearts 3, Overland, Sea of Solitude, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and Get in the Car, Loser!. These are all great looking games that are supposed to be coming out in 2019. I remember last December when I last did this, I couldn't think of THAT many games I was really excited for, and despite that I ended up with a pretty damn good list of games for 2018. So who knows what next year will be like?!

And now... The Top 10!

#10: Spider-Man

It’s been a great year for Spider-Man. His best buddy Venom had a pretty good movie, his new video game is good, and he has a new movie that’s fantastic! Yep, it’s been such a good year for Spider-Man in which nothing bad has happened to him or the people who created him.

#9: Megaman 11

2 > 4 > 3 > 8 > 11 > 7 > 5 > 6 > 9 > 10 > 1. Don’t @ me.

#8: Iconoclasts

Iconoclasts has been in development for a very long time. Officially, development for it began in around 2010, but there is a seemingly earlier game by Konjak that shares many similarities. Basically, Iconoclasts began development at least 8 years ago, and it shows, for better or worse. On one hand, the game is gorgeous. Grade A sprite work all around. The characters are interesting and well written with their own morales and arcs, and the story is surprisingly deep and compelling considering the type of game it is. On the other hand, the gameplay feels very outdated now. The combat is super simplistic, the puzzles aren't terribly challenging or rewarding, and the weapon/ability upgrades are very limited. The traversal can be sluggish and boring, which is a red flag for a game where you have to backtrack a decent amount. If Iconoclasts came out 4 or 5 years ago, I feel like it would've been at least a cult classic. But in 2018, it's a decent Metroidvania in a year of great Metroidvanias. Overall, I'm glad Iconoclasts finally came out. I just wish it either came out sooner, or got more updated for modern game design.

#7: Slay the Spire

For all intents and purposes, I shouldn't like Slay the Spire. I always hated card-based RPGs, and always hated RPGs with only one party member. And for the most part, the issues I have with both of those are still very much present in Spire. So why have I sunk 50 hours into it so far? Beats me! If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the similarities it shares to Darkest Dungeon, one of my favorite games, that ultimately drives me to it. Now, you might be asking why Slay the Spire, a game that came out in 2017, and won’t be in 1.0 until probably 2019, is in my top 10 for this year, but Ori & the Blind Forest isn’t? Well, I started Ori last year, and didn’t start Spire until the middle of this year! Also, they’re my awards, and I can do whatever I want!

#6: Just Shapes & Beats

Just Shapes & Beats’ concept is simple: A rhythm bullet hell. Certainly not the first of it’s kind, and not even the first one to use simplistic shapes as the obstacles/characters. But there’s a bit more to it than that. JS&B has some good personality to go with it. It has some fun characters, all of the levels are demonstrative of the areas you’re in on the world map, it even has a couple lightly emotional moments! It’s much more than you’d expect from a game about Just Shapes & Beats. When I was younger and had vague dreams to make games, I always imagined making one that was basically “What if a Windows Visualizer was trying to kill you?” and also be themed around a world and a story, and JS&B is basically that.

#5: Pipe Push Paradise

What happens when you take Pipe Dream, an iconic puzzler which has given inspiration to countless others, and mix it with Stephen's Sausage Roll, arguably one of the greatest puzzle games of all time? You get Pipe Push Paradise, of course! That’s all I really have to say, and all I NEED to say.

#4: Dead Cells

Go play Dead Cells. Really, it’s the closest thing to a perfect Rogue-like (that isn’t Spelunky) out there right now. It’s a game so good, Filip Miucin couldn’t look away from it long enough to write his own review!

#3: Subnautica

If I had the opportunity to become a Fishman and live underwater, I’d probably take it. As long as you take out the jellyfish that can kill you .0001 seconds after stinging you, I have no qualms with open water. In fact, the isolated feeling from it is really relaxing to me. That’s what initially drew me to Subnautica. Survival games are usually hit or miss for me, but the ones I like I really dive deep into (Heh heh), and Subnautica is one of those. Also, I was rewatching the Super Mario Bros. Super Show on Netflix as I played this, so now I’ll have those two permanently linked in my mind from now on.

#2: Into The Breach

I love tactics games, especially Advance Wars. While I do still love others in the genre like Fire Emblem or X-COM, there are some intricacies of the AW series that most of the others don't have. When I first heard about Into The Breach, I thought it would be exactly what I wanted, a true successor to the series I'd been waiting for. And it was not! But it's still pretty damn good. It's not so much a tactics game as it is a puzzle game, described by Waypoint's own Austin Walker as a "tactical dance". You know at the start of each turn where each enemy is going to attack, and it's your job to navigate and attack with your 3 mech units in the exact right way to minimize or even straight up prevent any damage that would befall you or the cities you're protecting. You aren't trying to advance a map during combat, or conquer any enemy bases. You are merely trying to avoid damage for a certain amount of turns and move on to the next level. And it's all super fun! I've let the game sit for 10, 20 minutes while I try and figure out every possible option I have after being backed into a corner, and coming up with the absolute perfect solution and getting through to the other side is super satisfying. The biggest gripe I have with Into The Breach is the same one I had for FTL, the developer's last game, which is I don't think the unlockable mechs/mech teams are as fun as the default ones. I played most of them once or twice and went "Yeah, that's a thing" and migrate back to the first mech team. All in all, Into The Breach is a fantastic game, it just doesn't scratch that Advance Wars itch I've been feeling. Oh well, at least there's still Wargroove!

#1: Celeste

Celeste is a game I got 100% completion in. For those of you who might not know me well enough to know how I play games, that’s something that never happens. I think the last time I purposely got 100% on a game was in Uncharted 2, and even that was only to get a skin for multiplayer. Despite that, it’s been really difficult for me to write up a whole thing about why I love Celeste so much. It’s just a compilation of everything. I love the look of it, both the sprite work and the character portraits. The music, as mentioned before, is fantastic and perfectly fitting for all of the levels themes which deal in different forms of anxiety or self-doubt. The levels are hard, but not too hard. The secrets hidden throughout the game are so satisfying to figure out and find, very reminiscent of Braid. I feel confident in saying that Celeste has cemented itself as one of my favorite games of all time.

Well, that’s all I can handle writing for this year. Thanks to the few of you who skimmed through all this, and extra thanks to the fewer of you who read all of it! I’m not 100% sure if I’ll do this whole shpeel next year or not; maybe if 2019 turns out to be an incredible year for games, and definitely not if I have to move to Twitter in the off-chance Tumblr dies out completely. Hope you all had a fun holiday season, and have a great 2019!

#dont reblog pls #long post #very rare personal post???

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metavanaj · 6 years

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AJ’S ARCADE | TIME CRISIS 5

Game: Time Crisis (Released 2015)

On the 4th of January 2019, I was blessed with the opportunity to play Time Crisis 5 - which as of the time of writing this, remains trapped in the arcade. Mid-way through 2018, I found out that they had ported past Time Crisis games, which sparked a light gun phase thus I’ve been scooping up every one I can for the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation 3; hence the vested interest & high hopes for TC5. Having played all the past main line TC games, how does the latest 2015 romp hold up? Eh.

Before we go any further though, I thought I’d should let you, the precious reader, know that I only played through the first three stages. While I had access to the True Mastermind edition, with the extra three stages I only managed to have enough time to play through those first three stages twice - once to enjoy the spectacle, and once to try master them. However, I will make reference to the latter three stages, as I have watched a few playthroughs on YouTube, so I could experience the story, without the pressure of the gameplay.

Now, let us dissect this bitch.

The Good

Story - It has one...?

To say past games haven’t had much of a narrative would absolutely be true. Usually, the formula consists for two bros., two handguns vs a whole terrorist organisation, and taking them down before they unleash a super weapon of some sorts. Throw in a few interesting boss fights, some varied locales a not-so-surprising showdown with Wild-Dog...boom-bada bing, you have a Time Crisis narrative.

Past entries of the series have literally been too short (in terms of game time) to tell anything of worth, in the story department. Time Crisis 5, being twice as long as any previous entry, actually has enough breathing room to tell a story...for an arcade game. Mind you not anything complex, but it’s leagues better than any other light gun shooter, that dare put in possess cutscenes, inter-midst gameplay, and call it a plot. The plot actually goes somewhere - literally, and figuratively. From stages 4-6 onwards, Time Crisis 5 deviates from its usual action movie plot and manages to actually possess a few decent twists & turns, which all culminates in a satisfying finale. I wouldn’t say it’s emotional but it does evoke an emotion...and this is an hour long arcade game; that’s pretty outstanding. The series for the first time in history, makes reference to the fact it does indeed have a history; however I won’t delve into it as it would involve major spoilers - I’ll just say that it’s pretty neat.

Sights - Gwaphics

To say Time Crisis 5 is gorgeous would be an understatement. The game bleeds beauty in the presentation department. Not only does the game look like a modern, vivid, and colorful spectacle for each and every frame but even small things like the UI and HUD looks uber crisp. I especially like the simple ‘end of area’ screen in which the game primarily utilises the color of the whatever character you’re playing. While I still believe Time Crisis 1-3 still look decent regarding their age, acting as sort of landmarks of the series graphical progression, I believe TC5 straight makes TC4’s early-HD-looking ass a lot less appealing; making that game appear to age not so gracefully. While I do praise the visuals highly, it’s not 100% great all the time. Bandai Namco, have indeed utilised Unreal Engine, instead of whatever in-house concoction they usually come up with. While I’m not entirely sure if it’s 4, or a heavily modified version of 3, either way the team behind it all have left in a few jaggies here and there. Nothing too bad mind you, it just means the game looks great most of the time, instead of all the time.

Sounds - VO, Sound Design, Music?

There’s not much to say here. It’s an arcade on-rail shooter - of course the sound design is amazing. Each bullet iss followed a meaty sound effect, which of course is poorly balanced with the rest of the audio, so everything is drowned out by gunshots . I was in a noisy arcade so I didn’t get to appreciate other environmental sounds and the music, as much as I would have like.. Watching it back, there’s nothing special about TC5’s soundtrack but it still remains fitting and energising. The main theme is a pretty nice EDM interpretation of the series main theme but that’s it really. Personally, while the series has had a great soundtracks, in the past, I would call any of the OSTs after TC 1 & 2 too memorable at all. As I said, it’s fitting and that’s all it needs to be.

Voiceovers, voiceovers, voiceovers. By god, they’re voiceovers, alright. The game features dual audio but I only experienced the English VO - mind you, I have seen a playthrough with the Japanese ones. Both languages provide the equal parts cheese and cringe, both giving the ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ vibe. This is House of the Dead 2 levels of bad but it’s up to par with rest of the series so you’ve got nothing to worry about. I will say that the English VO tends to have more awkward moments more frequently but they both get the job done and they both provide a different experience. What more could you want?

Gameplay - It’s Time Crisis Alright.

Gameplay, at it’s core, is the same formula seen in TC3 & 4. It’s your usual shooting gallery with a cover mechanic. If you get to greedy an enemy’ll throw out a special red bullet that will take off one of your lives; the game will let you know this happening with a bright red ‘crisis flash’. The game also has you on a time meaning you can’t take your sweet time from behind cover - however, Time Crisis hasn’t felt like an actual crisis of time since the first game so you might as well take your sweet time behind cover. Introduced in TC3, is weapon switching; weapon switching functions a little differently in this game, so I’ll delve into that later into this piece. All you need to know is you have access to 4 guns: a handgun, machine gun, shotgun and a grenade launcher (all of which fire just as you’d expect). All of these little things add up to create some great set pieces and intense gunfights. TC5, as the series second HD outing, introduces that enhanced presentation and a small but meaningful load of mechanics. I won’t go in-depth about some of the new additions as they make brief appearances and are mostly featured in the latter three stages. Let’s just say as no point does TC5 feel ‘same-y’ or ‘stale’

The Bad

The Gameplay - Ok, let me elaborate.

Right, I just said that the gameplay’s good, right? Why is it now in the bad-section? Well, it’s a mixed bag. While, TC5 still retains what made the past games fun, this iteration features some drawbacks...and some they’re pretty game defining. For every step forward TC5 takes, it takes two steps back. These little niggles start to quickly add up and begin to degrade the quality of the experience. This game could be the best in the series, but with the flaws I’ll mention below in mind, it ends up feeling like an incredibly mediocre outing when it should in fact be the biggest and baddest TC yet.

Frame Rate - Cinematic But Not Practical

The game is capped at 30fps and it sure doesn’t feel like it was built around that frame rate. Need I say more? While this doesn’t impact gameplay for the most part, it can become an irritation. The game isn’t a rock-solid 30fps and that’s where I begin to have issues with the frame rate. It’s nothing horrible (just brief dips to 25fps, it felt like), but it could mean the difference between you losing a life or not, which could mean the difference between spending another dollar or not. The game functions at 30fps but it doesn’t thrive at it; an obvious boost to 60 would indeed rectify, or at least help mask a lot of the issues I have. The main one, that directly tied to frame rate, is the ducking behind cover; vital for both shielding yourself and reloading. Numerous times during my play session I was blindsided by bullets I was meant to dodge...half of these yes, I’ll admit were my fault but other the other half, not so much. I would often left go of the pedal, with in an appropriate reaction window, but the animation of ducking behind cover wouldn’t play out in time. Sure, I could adapt to the new rhythm (like most 30fps games force you to) but I shouldn’t have to - every past entry has ran at 60 and the ducking mechanic has function fine. It shouldn’t be problem now. If I had to take a guess, the creators have prioritised graphical fidelity, with the frame-rate being an afterthought.

Weapon Switching - Don’t Fix What Ain’t Broke

OK - so this might not be a major problem but it was with my experience of the game. The new guns feature a little button on the side for weapon switching, similar to a GunCon2 which is pretty cool. This replaces pulling the trigger behind cover to switch weapons. However, this means you’re force to take a two handed grip - not necessarily a bad thing but does remove an option. My concern was more the button wasn’t very responsive. I could quickly snap between handgun to machine gun but trying to switch to the other two guns was hassle for some reason. The button almost pushes through to the other side and gets stuck - this might’ve just been an issue with the gun I was using though, but it did result in some imprecise weapon switching. All I’m saying is that the way, weapon switching has worked in the past was fine, and I believe the button on the side of the gun could’ve been used for something else.

Dual Pedals - It’s weird

New to the Time Crisis 5 is that aforementioned dual cover system. It...works - kinda, not really, sorta. On paper, it sounds like an excellent idea but in execution, it’s a little clunky and clunky play gets you killed. So you use the two pedals to switch between cover right? Yes, that part’s fine. Personally the animation getting between cover is a little long, but not too bad. It’s more say I’m poking out of the left cover. If I want to the be poking out of the right one, I would need to tap the right pedal which would put me behind the right cover - to then poke out of it, I would need to double tap the pedal and then hold it down. While I wouldn’t complain about the extra foot work, it just doesn’t feel kinaesthetically sound. It’s not entirely bad though. Tt’s just more that the 30fps caps lead to some imprecise cover shifting, which results more often than not for you to be smacked by a bullet you saw coming. If the game did have to be tied to that 30fps though, I feel a viable way to fix this would be to just use the pedals to switch between covers and use the button on the side for peeking out of cover, tying the two actions to two seperate inputs for more precise play. I guess if the button on the side is being used, might as well revert back to old weapon switching method.

The Handgun - What have you done to my baby?!?

The handgun got nerfed and I am sad. Past titles didn’t have a cap on how fast you could fire the handgun - it would fire as fast as you could finger blast. Rhyme and innuendo intentional. Hell, TC1 & 2 are entirely built around just having the handgun and how fast you can fire it. The fire rate on the handgun, in TC5, isn’t abysmal but it makes the little thing less satisfying to use, as well as less viable when stacked up against the machine gun. Yet again, people were easily doing handgun only runs of TC3 & 4 just because of how easy it was to use the handgun. It’s a bit of double edge sword so I can see why such a change happened, so as to make the hand gun feel like an obvious downgrade. I’m just not sure the way they did it in TC5, was the way to do it.

The FABULOUS

Character Designs - Oh yeah, baby

Say what you will but I like the path the series has taken since TC3, becoming increasingly more ‘mong’ as the series goes on - TC5 is the ‘mongiest’ entry thus far. The game also introduces some much need color into the overall presentation, which not only reflects well on flamboyant tone overhaul but also just makes the game more visually appealing to the eye. Oh and all the characters look visually distinct from one enough, not just the dual twink protagonists this time round. Essentially, everyone who’s not a target has been given the attention that a MC would be given.

The EVEN FABULOUS-ER?!?

Wild Dog & Wild Fang

‘Nuff said.

And that’s Time Crisis 5 - it makes some weird design choices that affect the flow of combat and your reaction time but ultimately it retains a lot of what the series has been praised before. While I wouldn’t say it’s as tight a gameplay experience as, say TC2 & 3 (even for 4 that matter - hey it runs at 60fps), it’s certainly a good enough title to add to the lineage. The new mechanics in the game also do a decent job of setting itself apart from past entries. I also feel lot of the issues I mentioned would actually be easily rectified with a higher frame rate. Maybe a console release could fix this, hey Bandai Namco? *wink wink* If you see TC5 out in wild, give it a few quarters and minutes of your time - it’s not the most polished experience but it sure is one hell of a ride.

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