Man, I have been slacking on blogging since I've been busy working on Motrya. (Download it and play today!) I figured today would be as good as any to write a bit about some recent games I've played but not had enough to say about. I do this a lot lately, giving up on things because they're just getting dull to me. When I finish the game I'm playing now I'm sure I'll be able to write on it, but for now, here's what I missed:
WARNING: potential snap judgments ahead!
Knights in the Nightmare: This is a terrible, weird RTS / RPG hybrid that I loathed as soon as I left the tutorial. The gameplay is incredibly hard to describe and do justice: you just kind of stick a unit on the field and wait for enemies to walk in to range then use spells, hoping they work. It's painfully dull and nothing about it grabbed me at all.
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team: I played this for about seven hours before calling it quits. It's about on the same level as Partners in Time, so if that actually entertained you, by all means give this one a shot. It's a little better. This time, Mario travels in to Luigi's dreams! At first, it seems like the developers are going to use this in a novel way by having several series of interesting one-off puzzles and stages. However, it's the same tired gameplay as ever and without Bowser's snappy dialogue to compensate like in Bowser's Inside Story. The helper/guide characters are grating and never stop giving tutorials to the point where it's as surreal as an actual nightmare. I think I am actually done with Mario games after playing this, and I may actually be serious here. I don't know how you can take a concept as great as traveling through dreams and make it so dull.
Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland - The main draw of these games is supposedly the alchemy system, which you're supposed to master to get better at the game. I found collecting the items pretty tedious and didn't get far enough to say if it works well. I'm not a big fan of how time management is such a huge factor in this game, constantly being in fear I won't actually see the end of the story. Of course, I'm even less of a fan of the story itself--it seems like a steaming pile of fan service without much direction, lending credence to the misinformed idea that all JRPGs are terrible anime garbage (they aren't, but this is). I understand this series has sort of a cult following, but I think it's going to be contained to that cult as it's just blatantly unapproachable.
Shantae: Sorry, but this isn't a lost classic. While it looks very impressive for a Game Boy Color game, it has a lot of the same problems platformers of its ilk do. Bad enemy placement, sprites so big you can barely see anything coming ahead, and hitboxes that are nonsensical and distract from a smooth gameplay experience. The game looks and sounds great; I'll give it that. Maybe the sequel is better given it's on a better platform.
Great Greed: I was recommended this game a while back, and I can't understand why. It might have the strangest battle system I've encountered in an RPG in quite a while--there's almost no interactivity to it. The story is hilarious levels of stupid, so it might be worth taking a look at to get a chuckle.
Etrian Odyssey IV: While I like the core gameplay here and am a fan of the big dungeons, EO ultimately falls in to the "too tedious" category for me. You're never sure how your builds will pay off, and starting up a new character is frustrating. Almost every boss is trial and error, but without a quick way of taking another shot. Since the game is so lacking in every department other than combat and exploration, there's nothing keeping you going either. I did make it to the fourth stage of the game, so I got pretty far before quitting, but I can't recommend this game unless you're a lot more patient than me.
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