With the birth of my first child in June, grad school ramping up to its finale, and teaching a course, I got far fewer games finished this year than I normally would have played, but I still played some good ones and am looking forward to things I missed at some point in the future (particularly Nier: Automata). Currently, I'm playing through Dragon Quest Monsters, which is fun but antiquated.
Shoutouts to Dragon Quest VII and VIII, which took up a lot of my game time in 2016 and 2017, but were not strictly-speaking new games to me. I preferred the original DQVII and liked the 3DS port of VIII more than the original. Both are amazing games worth playing for anyone.
8. Night in the Woods
This game seems to have touched a lot of people, but I felt very indifferent after finishing it. It's nihilistic at its core, which is cool I guess, but I felt the game was attempting to build to some point and never got there. The final act of the story was also rushed and felt out of place. Visual design was nice, but I just wasn't feeling it. Wins the award for least likeable main character of any game I played this year!
7. The Walking Dead: A New Frontier
I was in no hurry to play this, and to be honest, I never actually did. I just watched a streamer's run. Playing games is hard with a baby around, okay? Anyway, I think this was actually an improvement over the second Walking Dead game; it didn't rely much on the past games for investment in characters and had a more interesting take on the settlement scenario. Still, I never got attached to the characters like I did in season 1. I think S1 was lightning in a bottle. There was a lot of blatant deus ex machina going on this time around, particularly near the end, when a character named Jesus literally shows up at the last minute and saves everyone. I guffawed.
6. Environmental Station Alpha
A pretty nice Metroid clone; good atmosphere and some interesting level design. I didn't care for the bosses and felt like the controls took a bit too much getting used to, but I can't say the game faltered all that much either in execution. It was fun, but I didn't leave it wowed or anything. Recommended if you need more Metroid clones in your life.
5. Bravely Second: End Layer
If I was scoring this entirely on creativity, I'd rank it more highly. I thought it was really cool that the developers came up with so many interesting new classes in what is essentially a tried and true JRPG. Unfortunately, the game itself doesn't feel balanced for all the different stuff it gives you, so I didn't feel challenged or invested like I did in the original Bravely Default. The script is hot garbage and it has one of the worst original soundtracks I've heard in an RPG. Everything else is pretty good. Despite bad writing, I liked the characters, particularly the two new main ones. It has all the bells and whistles that made BD's gameplay feel tight. It's a fun sequel, but nothing really special. Hopefully they get a solid team for the third game.
4. Final Fantasy XII (IZJS edition)
After all these years, I finally beat FFXII! Now I've finished all the mainline Final Fantasy games and can properly complain about this one. The thing is, I'm too tired to do that, and part of the reason is that this game was just so exasperating to play. It never ends, the combat ceases being interesting halfway through, and the plot just never picks up or gets exciting. The best parts of the game were the world design touches, which were admittedly well-handled, though it's a shame the first third of the game is spent in deserts without much variation. That was half the reason I got bored the first three times I tried to play through this. I'd say overall it's better than the first two Final Fantasy games, but that's about it. I'll tie it with FFXV as third-worst.
My opinion is that this game is virtually unplayable without the features added in IZJS (or The Zodiac Age). It's an insanely slow game, so having a built-in fast forward button was a godsend. Long load times, lots of waiting for the ATB/charge times to fill up so the AI can attack for you, and a walking speed that is just glacial all add up. I'd say roughly 30 of the hours I spent (out of 60 or so) were probably waiting for things to happen during combat, and I seriously doubt I'm exaggerating. I am not sure how so many people find this fun and think it's the best Final Fantasy game. I don't care if it makes me a dodo; I prefer the simpler combat in the earlier games and even the horribly broken battles of FFXV to this.
On a positive note, again IZJS related, the class system makes the game a lot more fun. For one, it offers a built-in challenge variant for people who want that. For another, it helps people who get overwhelmed with gigantic skill trees make decisions on how to build their characters. The game is strictly better for new players with this stuff. Too bad you'll still spend hours waiting on Cure spells to charge up no matter how you play!
3. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
Somehow, the only new tabletop game I played all year. It's fun, but feels a little scripted. It's a cooperative deckbuilder, sort of like Ascension (better than Ascension) but nowhere near as good as Dominion. The cooperative elements are lacking a bit, as there's no real reason to have hidden information or try and finagle a strategy among players. You could just as easily play the game solitaire as all four heroes and have a good time, i think.
I've seen criticisms of the theme, but I felt like it was very strong myself. The mechanics fit well with Harry Potter, and aside from impossible canon scenarios, you do kind of feel like you're fighting the Death Eaters. It was cool that the four playable characters develop their own skillsets over seven years. I also greatly enjoyed the Dice elements that get added starting in Year 4. A nice mixture of randomness with strategic decision making.
Overall, the game is very light, but it is actually quite challenging to win in the later years. I think it suits its audience well. Most are probably not hardcore gamers, but even they should be able to walk into victory with good enough draws. Cool game to play with other HP fans.
2. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5
Just to be brief, P5 is P4 but mostly better in every way. (Aside from the core cast, which I felt was stronger in P4) Atlus truly did go out of their way to make the Persona experience as fine-tuned as possible. I'm not sure they can really improve on their formula anymore, and I hope they do something different if they continue with this series. While I loved this game, it honestly doesn't stand out much since it's just so similar to the previous game. 100% worth playing for any RPG fan ever, but nothing bold or innovative to see here.
1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Man, Nintendo did it. They got me to fully enjoy an open world game. This game sucked me in and didn't let me go for God knows how many hours. Sure, it's heavily flawed. Sure, it's a major departure for Zelda (not actually a bad thing). Sure, I'll probably never play it again since I found everything in it. None of that takes away from the sheer experience this game offers; with the sparse amount of risks Nintendo has taken with their core franchises recently, I'm shocked this got greenlit and produced. I don't even understand how a game makes holding up to climb mountains over and over such a fulfilling thing. Even the combat, while not great, is a major step up for the series. There are countless things I could praise about this, but I'd be here all day and I have to wake up in a few hours probably. All I can really say is that you should play this game and it will be totally worth it! Videos don't do it justice. Writing about it doesn't either. BOTW is a potential game-changer for the medium; I guess time will tell how that goes.
Friday, December 29, 2017
Sunday, January 1, 2017
2016 Game Reflection
I played fewer new games this year than I have in quite some time, owing to my ramped up school schedule and, to be honest, a lack of titles I was interested in this year. A lot of the "big games" this year were FPS titles and other genres I don't care much about. With that said, I had some good times. Currently, I am playing Final Fantasy XII (third attempt, enjoying it this time) and Bravely Second (okay so far), but I am not far enough along in them to say much. I'll reflect on them at the end of 2017, hopefully!
These are the games I played in 2016, ranked in order from the one I liked least to most.
13. I Am Setsuna
I don't think this is a bad game by any means, and if it had been released ten years ago I might have loved it. Sadly, I have played so many similar RPGs now that none of the good qualities of the game stood out for me. Instead, the things I noticed most were negatives. Anyone who has played Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy X, and various other Square titles will immediately recognize the tropes this game is constantly referencing. (and trying to paint deadly serious) The game almost has no identity of its own. That alone would not have ruined the game for me, but the slow pace combined with a soundtrack entirely composed of soft piano music and a blinding white color palette made I am Setsuna very soporific for me. I think in the final session I played, I was literally starting to fall asleep before deciding to call it quits for good. I'll give this title props for trying to expand on the combo system in CT a little, but the inclusion of many questionable elements common in more recent RPGs dragged things down. Monster loot, cooking, etc. It all felt tacked on and insignificant.
One of the things I loved about Chrono Trigger is how quickly and stylishly it plays and presents itself; one could argue the game was too simplistic, but this simplicity made the experience engaging. In comparison, Setsuna tries to be bleak and moody and misses the appeal of the game it is trying so hard to resemble. In fact, after I dropped this game I actually played through Chrono Trigger again to see if I was just dead wrong. After all this time and so many replays, I was still so engaged I finished CT, including all its sidequests, in 2 days. I feel like modern imitation-classic RPGs want to have their cake and eat it too: they try to appeal to our nostalgia for a simpler time, but also want to seem deep and edgy like modern indie games. It's actually a mistake I made in designing my last game (Motrya). There's a tough balance here that is hard to hit.
At any rate, I'm rambling. The short version is some people might dig this game, but I was bored.
12. The Witcher
This was my third attempt to play this game. The previous two times, I was held back by hardware issues. Despite being an older game at this point, The Witcher requires a relatively expensive graphics card and processor to run. Anyway, once I finally did get this game working, I found it wasn't worth the trouble for me. While I respect a lot of what this game is doing, in particular trying to make a believable fantasy setting, I don't find it enjoyable to play at all. The quests are typical things you see in western RPGs and the combat is essentially just... clicking the mouse rhythmically. I'm not sure how else to describe it. It's hilarious to me how WRPG purists say turn-based combat is so bad when these modern action RPGs are more dull than Seiken Densetsu and Tales of Phantasia were 20 years ago. There are a lot of extra systems you have to keep track of like Potion making, sorting your inventory, and whatnot. It's all needlessly complicated and I lost interest fast.
Putting gameplay aside, I can't say the story is anything I was interested in either. I was not enamored with Geralt as a character, though I guess he is fine. Some of the NPCs seemed interesting, but I didn't play far enough to find out more about them, if they re-emerged at all. There is also a lot of gratuitous sexual innuendo and vulgarity in this game that made me cringe at several points, not just because it was gross, but because it felt so hamfistedly inserted to try and appeal to people who think swear words are funny. (I'm not a Game of Thrones fan either, for the record...) On that note, if you like Game of Thrones, you might like this game.
Overall, The Witcher seems like a fairly typical western RPG. It's rare they hold my attention, owing in part to the fact that I didn't grow up playing them.
11. Pokemon GO
I hope placing this above the last two games didn't trigger anyone... In all fairness, I think Pokemon GO is the worst game on this list, but the truth is it held my interest longer.
This game's concept is dynamite. You go out in the world, you catch Pokemon, you meet people who also like Pokemon, you even get some exercise doing it. Well, the concept was about the extent of its appeal. After a few weeks, it became clear to me this game was just a repetitive grind designed to entice you into buying virtual backpacks. Several mechanics were also poorly thought out; in particular, evolution requiring repeated captures of the same monsters. Another problem I had was that Gym battles are nearly impossible to play unless you are one of the few people in an area with the time/accessibility to get high level monsters.
Additionally, it's just way too hard to find Pokemon in some regions. I live in Columbia, SC, which is not a huge city, but one of decent size. Even though there are plenty of population centers here, the variety of Pokemon around was very slim, and I even found Pokestops to be rarer than I would have liked.
The basic mechanic of the game, throwing Pokeballs, is dirt simple but engaging. I think Niantic had something amazing here, but they will never capitalize and make something great like they could have. Overall, I was just as happy to quit playing this game as I was to play it for the first couple of weeks.
10. The Wolf Among Us
This will probably be the last TellTale game I play unless they venture into an IP I care a lot about. I bought this thinking it was actually an original TellTale IP, then found out while playing it was based on a graphic novel series called Fables. I wasn't really motivated to check it out afterward, but if you like messed-up, gritty fairy tales it's worth a shot. Gameplay-wise, it's like The Walking Dead, but with even fewer puzzles and more QTEs in their place. Your choices matter even less than in previous titles, too. I feel like Telltale is gradually devolving into a company that makes mediocre animated films instead of games.
Bigby (the Big Bad Wolf) is your typical gruff anti-heroish cop investigating murders in sleazy parts of the city. He's surrounded by the archetypal characters you see in fiction parodying crime drama. Deadbeats, prostitutes, that one female detective with a heart of gold... name it and it's in this story. Take away the fact they are from various fables, and there are literally no interesting characters in the game. I was disappointed that the game did not delve much into the fantasy world the characters were from, actually.
There's not much to see here. It's an entertaining enough cop drama if you can play the game for cheap, but I wouldn't go out of your way for it. Maybe if you're a fan of the source material.
9. Plants vs. Zombies Heroes
This is a Hearthstone clone. That's honestly all I have to say about it because there isn't anything else to say. It's pretty fun, but I felt empty inside because there were so many random factors at play. Well, okay, I'll say that you can get quite a lot of play time out of this game for free, so that's something, but why this is a standard we should be hoping for in gaming is beyond me.
Here's my recommendation: instead of bothering, play Dominion online instead. Or any number of other engaging tabletop games.
8. Mother
It always ashamed me that I had not finished the original Mother, being a big fan of Mother 2 and 3. I had attempted to finish the game several times, but was put off by its slow battles and directionless map design. This time, I played with maps of the areas open and just tried to be patient and it all worked out.
With that said, I still think Mother is not a good game. It has some elements I liked, but the complete package is frustrating and overly slow-paced. As far as I know, Mother was one of the first RPGs to have a hub world (Magicant) and I liked that in this game. It was also conceptually interesting; Ninten enters a dream world somebody created that helps him get around the physical world. Not much was done with this, but it is a Famicom game so I can look the other way a little. There are a lot of moments in the game that are meant to be funny story beats like the ones in future Mother games, but are too brief to hit the mark, again owing to the antiquity of the hardware and gaming as a medium. Mother feels like a demo for Mother 2 as a result; tons of its music and designs are recycled in the sequel.
I have often heard hip Mother fans say this one has the "best story," but I have to respectfully disagree. The story in this game is very bare-bones and does not have much to do with its main characters. We get small portraits of Giygas and some of Ninten's ancestors, but it's all presented in little chunks that are easily forgotten over the long stretches of exploration in between events, and all it actually amounts to is "a woman took an alien in one time and that was a mistake." If you're looking for the wit and B-movie sensibility of Mother 2, you won't find it here.
Regardless, the game has its strong points. It is remarkably bug free, a rarity in Famicom RPGs. Status magic is actually very effective, and there are truly challenging areas in the game that had me liberally using the run and defend commands. If the game had a better built-in map, I would even venture to say exploring the vast overworld might be pretty fun. Also, the soundtrack is really nice, though the CD version is of much better quality.
The game is worth checking out if you already liked Mother 2 and 3, but I hesitate to believe people who say they liked this one more than those. It is a mediocre RPG of its era, not even close to as playable as Dragon Quest III or Final Fantasy III.
7. Salt and Sanctuary
A decent Souls-inspired platformer. Salt and Sanctuary has many of the good aspects of the Souls franchise, most notably its twisty, interconnected map design. It also borrows a similar leveling system, the bloodstain concept, and a general philosophy toward weapon movesets. While it borrows a lot of things, I never felt the game was as successful as From Software's games. It feels very much like an indie platformer, and some techniques (such as rolling) simply don't work as well in 2D as they did in Souls.
The game has an odd difficulty level. Most of the time it's quite easy, but there are three or four areas that are excruciating to get through, especially the ones that require precision platforming. Boss combat has the same feeling; I only struggled with a few bosses, but the tough ones are very tough, one in particular feeling downright unfair.
Aesthetically, the game is very drab and gray. This works in its favor sometimes, but clashes poorly with the 2000s flash-animation looking sprites. Lighting was a major issue for me in a few areas, and while the developers might have intended it to make traversal more challenging, I merely found it annoying in the super-dark areas.
There's probably more I could say about this game, but my overall feeling is "not as good as a Souls game, but pretty good considering the price." I played through the game once and enjoyed most of my time, but probably won't revisit it.
6. Final Fantasy XV
FFXV starts out brilliantly. After a brief introduction telling us our hero is going on a journey to wed his beloved and the clear implication that all is not right with his father's kingdom, the car immediately breaks down, the heroes push it up a hill, "Stand By Me" plays in the background and we pan up to the Final Fantasy logo. I got chills watching this scene and thought maybe this title could successfully move Final Fantasy in a direction I didn't hate. I spent the first 40 hours of the game on the first 3 chapters, driving around the overworld, fishing, scrapbooking, fighting monsters for quests, and training my chocobos. I was having a good time in spite of a few hangups (the load times, ugh) and sure that people complaining about the story online were missing the point.
The problem with this game is that it is two games. The camping and driving simulator in which Noctis bonds with his bros before heading off to get hitched is fun and engaging. Unfortunately, once the plot actually starts moving, everything that made the game fun is stripped away. At this point, FFXV actually becomes the dreaded hallway simulator everyone said FFXIII was. To illustrate, there are two chapters in the second half of the game that end with you being dropped in a train map and told to walk around until the chapter ends. The only way you can go back to the game that was actually fun is to use a convoluted time travel feature. This was so obviously rushed into the game at the last minute I don't even know what to say.
Let me be clear, and there are SPOILERS at this point. I don't have anything against characters being hurt and damaged, or significant changes to the world happening in order for the plot to have high stakes. However, FFXV does this way too quickly. Luna dies, the original purpose for being on the adventure at all is gone before we even got to know her. After this point, the game is just on rails and has so similarity to the game you might have enjoyed before this. Ignis being blinded is much more effective because at this point you (at least I was) are attached to him and hate to see him damaged. But FFXV didn't bother to set up a story in which we would care about the other characters affected by its events. It also becomes abundantly clear that huge sections of the game are missing and characters' storylines were abandoned in development.
FFXV makes clear references to FFVI and wants to be like it. Because it does this, I think it's fair to compare the two of them. When Kefka destroys the world in VI and we're left the pick up the pieces, it's actually an effective shift in the dynamic of the story. We know the villain well at this point (whereas Ardyn is a mystery from beginning to end), we have grown attached to the heroes, and the game invites us to explore and recuperate before taking on Kefka. FFXV does a time skip after Ardyn wrecks things, but it denies you the moments to even gather the characters you cared about. It would have been so easy too! Why not have Gladiolus lose faith and need to be pulled out of a slump by Noctis? Why not have Prompto think Noctis abandoned him and join the Magitek soldiers, then have Noctis face him and convince him he still cares? (which would have been set up perfectly by the revelation in Chapter 13) Why not have Ignis get lost in a cave or something and need you to help him? I came up with this stuff in about 2 minutes. In the actual game, you just ride a trailer to a truck stop and all three of your buddies are hanging out there twiddling their thumbs.
The sad thing is I can go on. There is so much wrong with this game's script and pacing that it would be an endless well of criticism. Other people have already done this, and frankly I don't want to because it makes me sad knowing how great this game should have been.
Gameplay is a mixed bag, but I can't say I hated it. The battle system in FFXV is also broken, though it fares better than the story. Essentially, as long as you are carrying Potions and Phoenix Downs, you can't really die in this game. You can also just have Noctis hold Square and dodge everything while your teammates slowly kill everything. Very few encounters offer a real challenge, and the ones that do (Couerls) feel cheap and obnoxious.
The game shines most in its exploration, whether it's driving around the world map or walking around dungeons. Unfortunately, not many of the dungeons are required to finish the game, so I didn't even see all of them. (I was not motivated to go back and complete the game after finishing the story) Little things like how happy cooking makes Ignis and looking at photos from your journey along the way are great, and I wish the developers had made these parts of the game the focus in the second half.
I don't know how this game could have been fixed. Maybe it needed more development time. Maybe it never had a chance. It isn't the worst game ever, and I did enjoy that first 40 hours a lot, so I give it a hesitant pass. Still, I can only dream of how awesome this game might have been if the developers understood what a solid concept they had.
5. Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice
It's another Ace Attorney game, and I'd rank it somewhere in the middle of the pack. Some great cases with Apollo here, but Athena gets the short end of the stick (and gets treated like she's never run a case during her one trial). I think these games are starting to get a little stale for me, but even so I felt like this was a worthy addition to the series. The new divination seance segments are an interesting method of looking at a case, but I hope they don't return. I feel these games are more fun when they have only sparing use of their mystic elements in trials. The new side characters are mostly lame and forgettable. But getting back to Apollo, I felt this was the first title in which we really learned what makes him tick as a lawyer. I was satisfied with his character arc here, as well as his sendoff. I suppose they could bring him back in spin-offs, but I doubt the fans are clamoring for it.
I would only recommend this game to folks who have played the other games, but I doubt anyone would jump in on this one anyway.
4. Super Mario Maker
In this game, you make Mario stages and then play bad stages people posted online. It's a hoot. Do I need to say more about this? I will give Nintendo major credit for making essentially the product I wanted here. Awesome game to share with a friend or SO who likes being creative so you can play their stages.
3. Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma
So I think it's almost impossible to review this game without spoiling things, and frankly the only people who should bother with this game are people who played the first two. I would assume if you were going to check it out, you already have and I don't need to convince anyone. I'll be brief then. I think this is the worst of the Zero Escape games, but even with that said it's a worthy entry to the series. The same stuff you liked about the previous games is in this one, and it deepens the lore a bit. I was not a big fan of the plot twists near the end and despised one of the characters with a passion, but it's small potatoes. The game kept me hooked just like the previous ones. Solid VA, hilarious overuse of dutch angles, weird puzzles.
2. Dark Souls 3
The (supposedly) final Souls game is, to everyone's surprise, a great game. it's also the fifth game and starting to get tired, so I do hope this is truly the end. This game has fantastic map design, maybe the best combat mechanics in the series, and it looks/sounds great. It's packed to the brim with references to all four of the past games, and honestly, this made me smile. Several of the bosses were very challenging to me, but the game was nowhere near as hard as Bloodborne on the whole. I look forward to playing it more in the future.
On the negative side, apart from the superlatives I mentioned, everything else is "mediocre" compared to Demon's Souls/Dark Souls/Bloodborne. I did enjoy the game a lot more than Dark Souls 2, though. This is the only Souls game I only played twice the year it was released, and while I was busy in 2016, I have to think Souls burnout is the culprit.
Not much to say here other than "if you liked Dark Souls, you'll probably like this game too." It's awesome!
1. Another Metroid 2 Remake: Return of Samus
AM2R is my choice for the best game of 2016. I get extra cool points since it's illegal now. Politics aside, I think AM2R's quality is nothing short of incredible. The Metroid series has been screwed by its owners right and left for practically a decade now, and I love that a dedicated fan took the initiative and made a fantastic game that truly captures the feeling of Metroid that people loved. This project is a true labor of love; no money was made for all I understand--all that got exchanged here is a great game.
The original Metroid II was always an underrated title. It had an unsettling, cold atmosphere that was only possible to capture (probably partially by accident) at the time on its system (the original Game Boy). It wasn't a brilliantly designed game, but contributed to the series both mechanically and aesthetically, and these contributions played a large part in the creation of Super Metroid, still remembered by many (myself included) as one of the greatest Super Famicom games. AM2R is an adaptation that makes liberal changes to the original, adding in techniques seen in all of the games that proceeded Metroid II as well as some original ones. While it doesn't have quite the same feeling, the graphics are nonetheless spooky and effectively depict the environment of SR388 on a modern PC.
One of the things I always loved about the Metroid series is the creators' dedication to physics. So many platformers feel terrible to me compared to Metroid, and I was skeptical than an indie developer would be able to match the controls I expected. Color me surprised that AM2R might just have the best movement and control in any Metroid game, official or not. Samus controls quickly and smoothly, and even has a shortcut button for morphing now, which was something I never knew I wanted. The game has plenty of hidden sequence breaking tricks to facilitate speed runs, some of them quite cleverly designed. While not all of the combat in the game is perfect, the enemies presented here do provide a significant challenge even for a Metroid veteran. Fans of the original will not just get a 1:1 remake--there are lots of new areas and bosses to discover here, and lore-wise they fit nicely into the series we already know.
I understand why Nintendo had to shut this game down, but I am very happy it was able to spread onto the internet before that happened. The odds that Nintendo will ever release another 2D Metroid game are looking slimmer by the year, and with the failure of Federation Force and Other M one can't blame them. However, AM2R perfectly demonstrates how the Metroid fanbase is still out there and still cares deeply about this series. If you are a Metroid fan and have given this game a blind eye, I urge you to sail the dark corners of the internet and give it a try for yourself.
These are the games I played in 2016, ranked in order from the one I liked least to most.
13. I Am Setsuna
I don't think this is a bad game by any means, and if it had been released ten years ago I might have loved it. Sadly, I have played so many similar RPGs now that none of the good qualities of the game stood out for me. Instead, the things I noticed most were negatives. Anyone who has played Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy X, and various other Square titles will immediately recognize the tropes this game is constantly referencing. (and trying to paint deadly serious) The game almost has no identity of its own. That alone would not have ruined the game for me, but the slow pace combined with a soundtrack entirely composed of soft piano music and a blinding white color palette made I am Setsuna very soporific for me. I think in the final session I played, I was literally starting to fall asleep before deciding to call it quits for good. I'll give this title props for trying to expand on the combo system in CT a little, but the inclusion of many questionable elements common in more recent RPGs dragged things down. Monster loot, cooking, etc. It all felt tacked on and insignificant.
One of the things I loved about Chrono Trigger is how quickly and stylishly it plays and presents itself; one could argue the game was too simplistic, but this simplicity made the experience engaging. In comparison, Setsuna tries to be bleak and moody and misses the appeal of the game it is trying so hard to resemble. In fact, after I dropped this game I actually played through Chrono Trigger again to see if I was just dead wrong. After all this time and so many replays, I was still so engaged I finished CT, including all its sidequests, in 2 days. I feel like modern imitation-classic RPGs want to have their cake and eat it too: they try to appeal to our nostalgia for a simpler time, but also want to seem deep and edgy like modern indie games. It's actually a mistake I made in designing my last game (Motrya). There's a tough balance here that is hard to hit.
At any rate, I'm rambling. The short version is some people might dig this game, but I was bored.
12. The Witcher
This was my third attempt to play this game. The previous two times, I was held back by hardware issues. Despite being an older game at this point, The Witcher requires a relatively expensive graphics card and processor to run. Anyway, once I finally did get this game working, I found it wasn't worth the trouble for me. While I respect a lot of what this game is doing, in particular trying to make a believable fantasy setting, I don't find it enjoyable to play at all. The quests are typical things you see in western RPGs and the combat is essentially just... clicking the mouse rhythmically. I'm not sure how else to describe it. It's hilarious to me how WRPG purists say turn-based combat is so bad when these modern action RPGs are more dull than Seiken Densetsu and Tales of Phantasia were 20 years ago. There are a lot of extra systems you have to keep track of like Potion making, sorting your inventory, and whatnot. It's all needlessly complicated and I lost interest fast.
Putting gameplay aside, I can't say the story is anything I was interested in either. I was not enamored with Geralt as a character, though I guess he is fine. Some of the NPCs seemed interesting, but I didn't play far enough to find out more about them, if they re-emerged at all. There is also a lot of gratuitous sexual innuendo and vulgarity in this game that made me cringe at several points, not just because it was gross, but because it felt so hamfistedly inserted to try and appeal to people who think swear words are funny. (I'm not a Game of Thrones fan either, for the record...) On that note, if you like Game of Thrones, you might like this game.
Overall, The Witcher seems like a fairly typical western RPG. It's rare they hold my attention, owing in part to the fact that I didn't grow up playing them.
11. Pokemon GO
I hope placing this above the last two games didn't trigger anyone... In all fairness, I think Pokemon GO is the worst game on this list, but the truth is it held my interest longer.
This game's concept is dynamite. You go out in the world, you catch Pokemon, you meet people who also like Pokemon, you even get some exercise doing it. Well, the concept was about the extent of its appeal. After a few weeks, it became clear to me this game was just a repetitive grind designed to entice you into buying virtual backpacks. Several mechanics were also poorly thought out; in particular, evolution requiring repeated captures of the same monsters. Another problem I had was that Gym battles are nearly impossible to play unless you are one of the few people in an area with the time/accessibility to get high level monsters.
Additionally, it's just way too hard to find Pokemon in some regions. I live in Columbia, SC, which is not a huge city, but one of decent size. Even though there are plenty of population centers here, the variety of Pokemon around was very slim, and I even found Pokestops to be rarer than I would have liked.
The basic mechanic of the game, throwing Pokeballs, is dirt simple but engaging. I think Niantic had something amazing here, but they will never capitalize and make something great like they could have. Overall, I was just as happy to quit playing this game as I was to play it for the first couple of weeks.
10. The Wolf Among Us
This will probably be the last TellTale game I play unless they venture into an IP I care a lot about. I bought this thinking it was actually an original TellTale IP, then found out while playing it was based on a graphic novel series called Fables. I wasn't really motivated to check it out afterward, but if you like messed-up, gritty fairy tales it's worth a shot. Gameplay-wise, it's like The Walking Dead, but with even fewer puzzles and more QTEs in their place. Your choices matter even less than in previous titles, too. I feel like Telltale is gradually devolving into a company that makes mediocre animated films instead of games.
Bigby (the Big Bad Wolf) is your typical gruff anti-heroish cop investigating murders in sleazy parts of the city. He's surrounded by the archetypal characters you see in fiction parodying crime drama. Deadbeats, prostitutes, that one female detective with a heart of gold... name it and it's in this story. Take away the fact they are from various fables, and there are literally no interesting characters in the game. I was disappointed that the game did not delve much into the fantasy world the characters were from, actually.
There's not much to see here. It's an entertaining enough cop drama if you can play the game for cheap, but I wouldn't go out of your way for it. Maybe if you're a fan of the source material.
9. Plants vs. Zombies Heroes
This is a Hearthstone clone. That's honestly all I have to say about it because there isn't anything else to say. It's pretty fun, but I felt empty inside because there were so many random factors at play. Well, okay, I'll say that you can get quite a lot of play time out of this game for free, so that's something, but why this is a standard we should be hoping for in gaming is beyond me.
Here's my recommendation: instead of bothering, play Dominion online instead. Or any number of other engaging tabletop games.
8. Mother
It always ashamed me that I had not finished the original Mother, being a big fan of Mother 2 and 3. I had attempted to finish the game several times, but was put off by its slow battles and directionless map design. This time, I played with maps of the areas open and just tried to be patient and it all worked out.
With that said, I still think Mother is not a good game. It has some elements I liked, but the complete package is frustrating and overly slow-paced. As far as I know, Mother was one of the first RPGs to have a hub world (Magicant) and I liked that in this game. It was also conceptually interesting; Ninten enters a dream world somebody created that helps him get around the physical world. Not much was done with this, but it is a Famicom game so I can look the other way a little. There are a lot of moments in the game that are meant to be funny story beats like the ones in future Mother games, but are too brief to hit the mark, again owing to the antiquity of the hardware and gaming as a medium. Mother feels like a demo for Mother 2 as a result; tons of its music and designs are recycled in the sequel.
I have often heard hip Mother fans say this one has the "best story," but I have to respectfully disagree. The story in this game is very bare-bones and does not have much to do with its main characters. We get small portraits of Giygas and some of Ninten's ancestors, but it's all presented in little chunks that are easily forgotten over the long stretches of exploration in between events, and all it actually amounts to is "a woman took an alien in one time and that was a mistake." If you're looking for the wit and B-movie sensibility of Mother 2, you won't find it here.
Regardless, the game has its strong points. It is remarkably bug free, a rarity in Famicom RPGs. Status magic is actually very effective, and there are truly challenging areas in the game that had me liberally using the run and defend commands. If the game had a better built-in map, I would even venture to say exploring the vast overworld might be pretty fun. Also, the soundtrack is really nice, though the CD version is of much better quality.
The game is worth checking out if you already liked Mother 2 and 3, but I hesitate to believe people who say they liked this one more than those. It is a mediocre RPG of its era, not even close to as playable as Dragon Quest III or Final Fantasy III.
7. Salt and Sanctuary
A decent Souls-inspired platformer. Salt and Sanctuary has many of the good aspects of the Souls franchise, most notably its twisty, interconnected map design. It also borrows a similar leveling system, the bloodstain concept, and a general philosophy toward weapon movesets. While it borrows a lot of things, I never felt the game was as successful as From Software's games. It feels very much like an indie platformer, and some techniques (such as rolling) simply don't work as well in 2D as they did in Souls.
The game has an odd difficulty level. Most of the time it's quite easy, but there are three or four areas that are excruciating to get through, especially the ones that require precision platforming. Boss combat has the same feeling; I only struggled with a few bosses, but the tough ones are very tough, one in particular feeling downright unfair.
Aesthetically, the game is very drab and gray. This works in its favor sometimes, but clashes poorly with the 2000s flash-animation looking sprites. Lighting was a major issue for me in a few areas, and while the developers might have intended it to make traversal more challenging, I merely found it annoying in the super-dark areas.
There's probably more I could say about this game, but my overall feeling is "not as good as a Souls game, but pretty good considering the price." I played through the game once and enjoyed most of my time, but probably won't revisit it.
6. Final Fantasy XV
FFXV starts out brilliantly. After a brief introduction telling us our hero is going on a journey to wed his beloved and the clear implication that all is not right with his father's kingdom, the car immediately breaks down, the heroes push it up a hill, "Stand By Me" plays in the background and we pan up to the Final Fantasy logo. I got chills watching this scene and thought maybe this title could successfully move Final Fantasy in a direction I didn't hate. I spent the first 40 hours of the game on the first 3 chapters, driving around the overworld, fishing, scrapbooking, fighting monsters for quests, and training my chocobos. I was having a good time in spite of a few hangups (the load times, ugh) and sure that people complaining about the story online were missing the point.
The problem with this game is that it is two games. The camping and driving simulator in which Noctis bonds with his bros before heading off to get hitched is fun and engaging. Unfortunately, once the plot actually starts moving, everything that made the game fun is stripped away. At this point, FFXV actually becomes the dreaded hallway simulator everyone said FFXIII was. To illustrate, there are two chapters in the second half of the game that end with you being dropped in a train map and told to walk around until the chapter ends. The only way you can go back to the game that was actually fun is to use a convoluted time travel feature. This was so obviously rushed into the game at the last minute I don't even know what to say.
Let me be clear, and there are SPOILERS at this point. I don't have anything against characters being hurt and damaged, or significant changes to the world happening in order for the plot to have high stakes. However, FFXV does this way too quickly. Luna dies, the original purpose for being on the adventure at all is gone before we even got to know her. After this point, the game is just on rails and has so similarity to the game you might have enjoyed before this. Ignis being blinded is much more effective because at this point you (at least I was) are attached to him and hate to see him damaged. But FFXV didn't bother to set up a story in which we would care about the other characters affected by its events. It also becomes abundantly clear that huge sections of the game are missing and characters' storylines were abandoned in development.
FFXV makes clear references to FFVI and wants to be like it. Because it does this, I think it's fair to compare the two of them. When Kefka destroys the world in VI and we're left the pick up the pieces, it's actually an effective shift in the dynamic of the story. We know the villain well at this point (whereas Ardyn is a mystery from beginning to end), we have grown attached to the heroes, and the game invites us to explore and recuperate before taking on Kefka. FFXV does a time skip after Ardyn wrecks things, but it denies you the moments to even gather the characters you cared about. It would have been so easy too! Why not have Gladiolus lose faith and need to be pulled out of a slump by Noctis? Why not have Prompto think Noctis abandoned him and join the Magitek soldiers, then have Noctis face him and convince him he still cares? (which would have been set up perfectly by the revelation in Chapter 13) Why not have Ignis get lost in a cave or something and need you to help him? I came up with this stuff in about 2 minutes. In the actual game, you just ride a trailer to a truck stop and all three of your buddies are hanging out there twiddling their thumbs.
The sad thing is I can go on. There is so much wrong with this game's script and pacing that it would be an endless well of criticism. Other people have already done this, and frankly I don't want to because it makes me sad knowing how great this game should have been.
Gameplay is a mixed bag, but I can't say I hated it. The battle system in FFXV is also broken, though it fares better than the story. Essentially, as long as you are carrying Potions and Phoenix Downs, you can't really die in this game. You can also just have Noctis hold Square and dodge everything while your teammates slowly kill everything. Very few encounters offer a real challenge, and the ones that do (Couerls) feel cheap and obnoxious.
The game shines most in its exploration, whether it's driving around the world map or walking around dungeons. Unfortunately, not many of the dungeons are required to finish the game, so I didn't even see all of them. (I was not motivated to go back and complete the game after finishing the story) Little things like how happy cooking makes Ignis and looking at photos from your journey along the way are great, and I wish the developers had made these parts of the game the focus in the second half.
I don't know how this game could have been fixed. Maybe it needed more development time. Maybe it never had a chance. It isn't the worst game ever, and I did enjoy that first 40 hours a lot, so I give it a hesitant pass. Still, I can only dream of how awesome this game might have been if the developers understood what a solid concept they had.
5. Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice
It's another Ace Attorney game, and I'd rank it somewhere in the middle of the pack. Some great cases with Apollo here, but Athena gets the short end of the stick (and gets treated like she's never run a case during her one trial). I think these games are starting to get a little stale for me, but even so I felt like this was a worthy addition to the series. The new divination seance segments are an interesting method of looking at a case, but I hope they don't return. I feel these games are more fun when they have only sparing use of their mystic elements in trials. The new side characters are mostly lame and forgettable. But getting back to Apollo, I felt this was the first title in which we really learned what makes him tick as a lawyer. I was satisfied with his character arc here, as well as his sendoff. I suppose they could bring him back in spin-offs, but I doubt the fans are clamoring for it.
I would only recommend this game to folks who have played the other games, but I doubt anyone would jump in on this one anyway.
4. Super Mario Maker
In this game, you make Mario stages and then play bad stages people posted online. It's a hoot. Do I need to say more about this? I will give Nintendo major credit for making essentially the product I wanted here. Awesome game to share with a friend or SO who likes being creative so you can play their stages.
3. Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma
So I think it's almost impossible to review this game without spoiling things, and frankly the only people who should bother with this game are people who played the first two. I would assume if you were going to check it out, you already have and I don't need to convince anyone. I'll be brief then. I think this is the worst of the Zero Escape games, but even with that said it's a worthy entry to the series. The same stuff you liked about the previous games is in this one, and it deepens the lore a bit. I was not a big fan of the plot twists near the end and despised one of the characters with a passion, but it's small potatoes. The game kept me hooked just like the previous ones. Solid VA, hilarious overuse of dutch angles, weird puzzles.
2. Dark Souls 3
The (supposedly) final Souls game is, to everyone's surprise, a great game. it's also the fifth game and starting to get tired, so I do hope this is truly the end. This game has fantastic map design, maybe the best combat mechanics in the series, and it looks/sounds great. It's packed to the brim with references to all four of the past games, and honestly, this made me smile. Several of the bosses were very challenging to me, but the game was nowhere near as hard as Bloodborne on the whole. I look forward to playing it more in the future.
On the negative side, apart from the superlatives I mentioned, everything else is "mediocre" compared to Demon's Souls/Dark Souls/Bloodborne. I did enjoy the game a lot more than Dark Souls 2, though. This is the only Souls game I only played twice the year it was released, and while I was busy in 2016, I have to think Souls burnout is the culprit.
Not much to say here other than "if you liked Dark Souls, you'll probably like this game too." It's awesome!
1. Another Metroid 2 Remake: Return of Samus
AM2R is my choice for the best game of 2016. I get extra cool points since it's illegal now. Politics aside, I think AM2R's quality is nothing short of incredible. The Metroid series has been screwed by its owners right and left for practically a decade now, and I love that a dedicated fan took the initiative and made a fantastic game that truly captures the feeling of Metroid that people loved. This project is a true labor of love; no money was made for all I understand--all that got exchanged here is a great game.
The original Metroid II was always an underrated title. It had an unsettling, cold atmosphere that was only possible to capture (probably partially by accident) at the time on its system (the original Game Boy). It wasn't a brilliantly designed game, but contributed to the series both mechanically and aesthetically, and these contributions played a large part in the creation of Super Metroid, still remembered by many (myself included) as one of the greatest Super Famicom games. AM2R is an adaptation that makes liberal changes to the original, adding in techniques seen in all of the games that proceeded Metroid II as well as some original ones. While it doesn't have quite the same feeling, the graphics are nonetheless spooky and effectively depict the environment of SR388 on a modern PC.
One of the things I always loved about the Metroid series is the creators' dedication to physics. So many platformers feel terrible to me compared to Metroid, and I was skeptical than an indie developer would be able to match the controls I expected. Color me surprised that AM2R might just have the best movement and control in any Metroid game, official or not. Samus controls quickly and smoothly, and even has a shortcut button for morphing now, which was something I never knew I wanted. The game has plenty of hidden sequence breaking tricks to facilitate speed runs, some of them quite cleverly designed. While not all of the combat in the game is perfect, the enemies presented here do provide a significant challenge even for a Metroid veteran. Fans of the original will not just get a 1:1 remake--there are lots of new areas and bosses to discover here, and lore-wise they fit nicely into the series we already know.
I understand why Nintendo had to shut this game down, but I am very happy it was able to spread onto the internet before that happened. The odds that Nintendo will ever release another 2D Metroid game are looking slimmer by the year, and with the failure of Federation Force and Other M one can't blame them. However, AM2R perfectly demonstrates how the Metroid fanbase is still out there and still cares deeply about this series. If you are a Metroid fan and have given this game a blind eye, I urge you to sail the dark corners of the internet and give it a try for yourself.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Dragon Quest Beginner Guide
I found this post I made on another website and barely remembered, but I wanted to save it for posterity since I think it was a pretty good one. Someone asked with Dragon Quest games they should play, and I responded.
DQI: It's okay. It's a classic. Hasn't aged great, but you can't really fault it since it was trying to simplify an alienating genre essentially for kids and it succeeded at that. The SF version is much more playable and less tedious (all the other ports followed suit).
DQII: I won't play it again. Already obsoleting DQI's battle system. This game introduced multiple foes and party members to the series, and also a much wider variety of spells and enemy types. It actually has more depth than a lot of JRPGs 10 years later. Unfortunately, the game is very unbalanced, particularly toward the end, so it pretty much requires wasted time leveling up, and is in part to blame for the reputation the DQ series has for being a grindfest. That's really only true in the NES games, and especially the first two.
DQIII: One of my favorites. An awesome game that showed the developers learned a lot from making the last two. The ability to form a party adds replayability and agency, which is a great touch, but more importantly the map design has been significantly improved. This game is actually fun to explore, and gradually piecing together everything you need to do in the second half is engaging. The SF version (and Android) made it even better. My one knock on this game is that I don't care for the DQ class system when it comes time to swap classes; Final Fantasy handled this a lot better by making class changing more of a key mechanic throughout the games.
DQIV: Really solid game. In terms of balance and storytelling, it's the best of the Famicom DQ games. Instead of customizing characters, you play with characters who have established stories and personalities, minimal as they are. Of course, they had more personality than most RPG characters did at the time. The first four chapters of the game in which you control distinct parties that will later band together are a lot of fun from a narrative standpoint. It reminds me of a Kurosawa film a little bit. Overall, this game is a very solid experience, and it's also a fairly concise game by the standard the series would set later on.
DQV: Another solid entry. I can understand this being someone's favorite DQ game. It's the most creative one from a narrative standpoint; you follow the hero from boyhood to parenthood, with good times and bad times along the way. Not a lot of games had tried to build a connection to a character through this type of experience at the time DQV came out, and it still holds up all right. The game also features monster recruitment, which is a whole lot of fun until you start getting lots of human party members, at which point the monsters start to feel out of place. I would have preferred the developers keep the monsters in a separate entry from the family story, but this is what we have. It has my favorite soundtrack in the series, and was probably the easiest DQ game until IX.
DQVI: I won't play it again, but it's all right. This game tries to ape on Final Fantasy V a bit; you change classes, you try to get somewhere with it. Unlike FFV, this takes an absurdly long time in DQVI. Granted, it's a really long game (like 50-60 hours, which is crazy for a Super Famicom title) so you will probably master a couple of classes by the end. Parts of the game feature incredible difficulty spikes with no real warning, which I wasn't too happy about. I think the best thing about this game is the setup: you find yourself traveling between two nearly-identical worlds, but aren't sure which is the real one or what it all means for a long time. It's more intriguing at the start than it eventually ends up being, but cool nonetheless.
DQVII: One of my favorites, but stay away unless you have tons of free time and/or really love Dragon Quest. This game is the Terranigma of the Dragon Quest series. You start on a lonely island with just a couple of towns on it, then gradually start rebuilding the entire world (and the world is enormous) by going to the past, defeating monsters that destroyed that place, finding shards that warp you to new places in the past, seeing what changes when you change the past, RETURNING to the past at times, and the list goes on. It's complex, tedious, and against all odds, very addictive. One thing I love about this game is each place you go to in the past is like a little vignette--you solve a mystery or help a character do something, and that serves both as a background for the place you went to and a device that helps you remember every place in the world. By the time I finished this game, I felt like the world was very well-developed in a way most RPGs couldn't dream of pulling off. The cost is that the game takes absolutely forever to play, like a minimum 80 hours when rushing. The battle mechanics are pretty much a repeat of DQVI, with a few improvements but still all of the tedium. It feels weird discouraging people from playing one of my favorite games, but I honestly think you should only even give it a shot if you're the type of player who loves town exploration and world-building enough to devote 100 hours to it.
DQVIII: My favorite game in the series, and easily the most recommendable. Not much needs to be said. It has awesome graphics that bring the classic DQ feel while making it feel modern for once. At least, it did in 2005. Features the best characters in the series, owing much to the fact that it has more dialogue than previous games. Yangus and Angelo are great comic relief. The game has lots of side quests and stuff to explore, but you can also just stick to the main storyline and probably have a good time unless you just hate Dragon Quest I guess. I enjoyed the new skill system, which is a much needed simplification of the class system in VI/VII that retains the unique qualities of each character, but sadly you will probably want to play with a guide to know what your skill paths are going to earn you. It's an overall great game in spite of random sour spots.
DQIX: Dragon Quest for casuals, pretty much. You get lots of customization, and almost any choice you make will have you steamrolling everything. One cool aspect is that since stats barely matter in this game, you can dress up your characters pretty much however you want. Fashion Quest IX. The story is a step down from VIII; it's there, but the villain kinda shows up at random near the end and everything before that feels disconnected. I'm not saying DQIX is a bad game; it's probably good for introducing new players, but since I had played so many of the games before this one, I was let down. Oh, and the game was intended to be played with friends over a now defunct wireless system. Living in South Carolina, I am the only person who actually plays Dragon Quest within 50 miles, so that was obviously out. I can't imagine multiplayer Dragon Quest actually being fun, but apparently some people dug it.
DQI: It's okay. It's a classic. Hasn't aged great, but you can't really fault it since it was trying to simplify an alienating genre essentially for kids and it succeeded at that. The SF version is much more playable and less tedious (all the other ports followed suit).
DQII: I won't play it again. Already obsoleting DQI's battle system. This game introduced multiple foes and party members to the series, and also a much wider variety of spells and enemy types. It actually has more depth than a lot of JRPGs 10 years later. Unfortunately, the game is very unbalanced, particularly toward the end, so it pretty much requires wasted time leveling up, and is in part to blame for the reputation the DQ series has for being a grindfest. That's really only true in the NES games, and especially the first two.
DQIII: One of my favorites. An awesome game that showed the developers learned a lot from making the last two. The ability to form a party adds replayability and agency, which is a great touch, but more importantly the map design has been significantly improved. This game is actually fun to explore, and gradually piecing together everything you need to do in the second half is engaging. The SF version (and Android) made it even better. My one knock on this game is that I don't care for the DQ class system when it comes time to swap classes; Final Fantasy handled this a lot better by making class changing more of a key mechanic throughout the games.
DQIV: Really solid game. In terms of balance and storytelling, it's the best of the Famicom DQ games. Instead of customizing characters, you play with characters who have established stories and personalities, minimal as they are. Of course, they had more personality than most RPG characters did at the time. The first four chapters of the game in which you control distinct parties that will later band together are a lot of fun from a narrative standpoint. It reminds me of a Kurosawa film a little bit. Overall, this game is a very solid experience, and it's also a fairly concise game by the standard the series would set later on.
DQV: Another solid entry. I can understand this being someone's favorite DQ game. It's the most creative one from a narrative standpoint; you follow the hero from boyhood to parenthood, with good times and bad times along the way. Not a lot of games had tried to build a connection to a character through this type of experience at the time DQV came out, and it still holds up all right. The game also features monster recruitment, which is a whole lot of fun until you start getting lots of human party members, at which point the monsters start to feel out of place. I would have preferred the developers keep the monsters in a separate entry from the family story, but this is what we have. It has my favorite soundtrack in the series, and was probably the easiest DQ game until IX.
DQVI: I won't play it again, but it's all right. This game tries to ape on Final Fantasy V a bit; you change classes, you try to get somewhere with it. Unlike FFV, this takes an absurdly long time in DQVI. Granted, it's a really long game (like 50-60 hours, which is crazy for a Super Famicom title) so you will probably master a couple of classes by the end. Parts of the game feature incredible difficulty spikes with no real warning, which I wasn't too happy about. I think the best thing about this game is the setup: you find yourself traveling between two nearly-identical worlds, but aren't sure which is the real one or what it all means for a long time. It's more intriguing at the start than it eventually ends up being, but cool nonetheless.
DQVII: One of my favorites, but stay away unless you have tons of free time and/or really love Dragon Quest. This game is the Terranigma of the Dragon Quest series. You start on a lonely island with just a couple of towns on it, then gradually start rebuilding the entire world (and the world is enormous) by going to the past, defeating monsters that destroyed that place, finding shards that warp you to new places in the past, seeing what changes when you change the past, RETURNING to the past at times, and the list goes on. It's complex, tedious, and against all odds, very addictive. One thing I love about this game is each place you go to in the past is like a little vignette--you solve a mystery or help a character do something, and that serves both as a background for the place you went to and a device that helps you remember every place in the world. By the time I finished this game, I felt like the world was very well-developed in a way most RPGs couldn't dream of pulling off. The cost is that the game takes absolutely forever to play, like a minimum 80 hours when rushing. The battle mechanics are pretty much a repeat of DQVI, with a few improvements but still all of the tedium. It feels weird discouraging people from playing one of my favorite games, but I honestly think you should only even give it a shot if you're the type of player who loves town exploration and world-building enough to devote 100 hours to it.
DQVIII: My favorite game in the series, and easily the most recommendable. Not much needs to be said. It has awesome graphics that bring the classic DQ feel while making it feel modern for once. At least, it did in 2005. Features the best characters in the series, owing much to the fact that it has more dialogue than previous games. Yangus and Angelo are great comic relief. The game has lots of side quests and stuff to explore, but you can also just stick to the main storyline and probably have a good time unless you just hate Dragon Quest I guess. I enjoyed the new skill system, which is a much needed simplification of the class system in VI/VII that retains the unique qualities of each character, but sadly you will probably want to play with a guide to know what your skill paths are going to earn you. It's an overall great game in spite of random sour spots.
DQIX: Dragon Quest for casuals, pretty much. You get lots of customization, and almost any choice you make will have you steamrolling everything. One cool aspect is that since stats barely matter in this game, you can dress up your characters pretty much however you want. Fashion Quest IX. The story is a step down from VIII; it's there, but the villain kinda shows up at random near the end and everything before that feels disconnected. I'm not saying DQIX is a bad game; it's probably good for introducing new players, but since I had played so many of the games before this one, I was let down. Oh, and the game was intended to be played with friends over a now defunct wireless system. Living in South Carolina, I am the only person who actually plays Dragon Quest within 50 miles, so that was obviously out. I can't imagine multiplayer Dragon Quest actually being fun, but apparently some people dug it.
Saturday, December 19, 2015
2015 in Review
Games I played this year but didn't finish, in alphabetical order:
The Banner Saga - In this game, you lead a band of vikings or something and do missions for people. I was attracted by its art style and being a strategy RPG, but I found the mechanics in the game off-putting. While it is unique, the concept of gaining extra turns for units by sacrificing turns with other units made this really awkward for me to play. I wasn't grabbed by the story either. Worth a look if you're really into these kinds of games.
Castlevania - In this game, you are a paranormal hunter trying to kill Dracula I guess. After getting into Souls, I decided to revisit this series and see if I was just not mentally prepared for it back in the day, as there is a lot of crossover between the two fanbases. While I enjoyed playing the game for a while, it suffers a lot from the arcade influence of the time. I quit at the Frankenstein's monster and Igor battle; after probably about twenty attempts I was making no progress. I may give Symphony of the Night a shot soon. The soundtrack is great; I'll give it that.
Child of Light - In this game, you play as a little girl who gets trapped in some story book world and searches for a way home. I wanted to like this game, but it just feels so glossy and contrived. Maybe if I were younger and hadn't played so many similar games I could get into it. Delivering all dialogue in verse is interesting, but I wasn't especially invested in the story.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 - In this game, we witness the backstory of Zack from Final Fantasy VII. I am told the ending is great but never got there. At first, I was impressed this game had the production
quality it has. However, like most games that are organized in 'missions' the structure started weighing on me. I was not enjoying the battle system, though it wasn't bad by any means. I am probably not a big enough fan of FF7 to really care about what's going on in the story.
Fire Emblem: Shin Monshou no Nazo Hikari to Kage no Eiyuu - In this game, you play a Fire Emblem game. FE12 is good, I guess. It turns out I can only take so much Fire Emblem in a year, and after Shadow Dragon, I didn't feel like slogging through this one.
Fragile Dreams - In this game, you are a boy who has been living in a tower Rapunzel-style and leaves to discover the world is a post-apocalyptic wasteland. I probably played this about 60% of the way through. It's got an interesting premise and some things that almost always work in adventure games. The flashlight being a big part of the game was great. However, for some bizarre reason the developers decided to add combat to this game, and saying the combat is clunky would be an understatement. This applies to any event in the game that required precision as well. I gave up during a game of tag in which I could not get my character to interact with the NPC for the life of me.
Guacamelee - In this game, you play as a man who gains the power of some magical Luchador masks on La Dia De Los Muertes (I think I spelled that right...) and goes on a quest to save his girlfriend. The visual style and Mexican setting was a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, that didn't do enough to distract me from how familiar the gameplay mechanics are and how dumb the constant inclusion of memes and references is. I mean, the game blatantly has a Chozo statue give you new powers. I'm not sure why the developers didn't have enough faith in their own concept to let its stand on its own. It certainly doesn't seem like a bad game, but I was in the middle of grad school when I tried playing it and the cheapness of the references weighed on me. Some day I may return.
Kid Icarus Uprising - In this game, you play as Pit the angel and do some missions for Palutena. I giggled a few times playing this, but found the controls really awful and frustrating and never got far. I have never been a fan of space shooters and the like, so honestly this just isn't a game for me. I got it for free in the final Club Nintendo event. RIP Club Nintendo.
The Last of Us - In this game, you play as a guy trying to make the best of things in a post-zombie apocalypse world. If you have seen literally any zombie-related fiction in the past forty years, you won't find much new in the sections I played. I got this game for free with my PS4; I had no interest in it beforehand, but gave it a few hours. It continues to amaze me that people can still enjoy cover shooters, though I guess I can't talk as a fan of jRPGs. I found it particularly hilarious that the game was going to such great lengths to make a realistic-feeling world, then as soon as a shoot-out scene started it turned in to an arcadey sequence with perfectly placed boards to hide behind.
LISA - In this game, you play as a guy protecting (I guess) the seemingly only living female in a post-apocalyptic world (is this the fifth of these so far?). I didn't get far enough to see any twists. I found the humor and darkness of this game off-putting, but it's probably amusing to some people. The battle system seemed a little strange, but I admittedly didn't see enough of the game to pass any judgment.
Mark of the Ninja - In this game, you play as a ninja and try to be stealthy. After playing the Thief series, I find it very difficult to play other stealth games. I'm sure this game is probably fine if 2D stealth is exciting to you. It wasn't to me.
Valkyria Chronicles - In this game, you play as a writer or something who gets caught up in a military operation in his hometown and (I assume) becomes a leader or hero in the war. The story was engaging at the start. The battle system is fairly unrealistic, and reminded me of playing wargames. I am fully aware I did not give this game a fair shot, but again, grad school, and maybe I have just played way too many strategy games. They always feel tedious to me these days.
Wayward Souls - In this game, you explore a tower with a class you choose at the start of the game in a typical roguelike fashion. It's a nice time waster, but nothing too exciting. I'd recommend it if you're looking for a decent mobile game. Pretty tough, fair warning.
And here are the (few) games I did complete this year, ranked by how much I like them or they impacted me. I should preface that I thought this was a great year for games based on what I played, and my top 3 all come highly recommended.
11. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon - In this game, you play Fire Emblem. It's the worst of the Fire Emblem games I have completed, but still fine if you like those. The game felt like it overstayed its welcome some, and I very much disliked how emptily everyone was characterized. At least that's better than the alternative of having too much (bad) dialogue. Nonetheless, the story wasn't great and this didn't have much to offer over Blazing Sword, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, etc. Still worth playing for FE fans.
10. Drakengard 3 - In this game, you play as Zero, a girl who has her soul bonded with a dragon. She's on a quest to kill all of her sisters, and you'll learn why over the course of the game. Drakengard 3 is the latest game written by Yoko Taro, who blessed us with Nier. I found this game a lot worse than Nier, but not entirely without appeal. Zero is foul-mouthed, promiscuous, and intentionally over the top, and if I'm being honest her characterization felt silly. On the flip side, I loved her Dragon sidekick; he is cute and charming, but also has a nice character arc. Like other Taro games, once things get weird they start getting interesting, but the gameplay really drags things down. All you do is mash buttons, farm upgrade materials, and wait on load times pretty much. It gets especially frustrating in the late game. I didn't get the best ending and didn't care to, but watched the rest of the story on Youtube. If you're into these offbeat, hate the player type games, you might check Drakengard 3 out, but if you're expecting something as good as Nier you'll probably be disappointed.
9. Mario Kart 8 - This is a Mario Kart game. It's fun to play with friends, but not particularly deep or original. I had fun with it, but I suck at it, so the wife and I lost interest after finishing all the 100cc tracks. To the game's credit, I enjoyed this more than every Mario Kart game since Super Mario Kart. (which still has a weird quality to it that makes me enjoy it more than other racing games) That is likely a function of actually having someone to play the game with this time around.
8. Shovel Knight - In this game, you play as Shovel Knight, who uses his shovel to fight bad guys and save his girlfriend. I was never a huge Megaman fan, but I liked the first couple of games enough, and SK seemed to have some nice twists on the Megaman-style platformer so I checked it out. Shovel Knight offers a pretty fresh re-imagining of several NES platformer concepts, and is well worth the low price of the game. The soundtrack is the best part, but the game also has a good difficulty curve and witty enough dialogue that it doesn't get boring. I particularly liked that levels have multiple approaches to traversal as you get better at the game, which is always a satisfying thing. I have not played the Plague Knight DLC, but that's a thing too. This game's very good.
7. Kirby's Return to Dreamland - In this game, Kirby, Meta Knight, Dedede, and Waddle Dee help a totally innocent magician rebuild his ship and it all goes well. This is certainly my favorite Kirby game since Super Star. It was a blast of nostalgia and just plain fun, though I did like Kirby's speed more in the earlier game. I played through this game with my wife, who really loved playing as Meta Knight. It's nice that the Kirby developers have started looking to Super Star for inspiration--the complex movesets for each power were part of what made that game great, and I always felt they were sorely missing from Kirby games since. A fun game to play with friends, and probably fun solo as well.
6. Life is Strange (2015) - In this game, you play as a high school student (have high schools become
colleges since I was in high school? This felt way more like a college to me and was kind of a bone of
contention to me since it makes the setting very unrealistic Edit: my friend pointed out that some private high schools are like this, but I still think this game would have been better off with a college setting) who discovers she can turn back time and shenanigans occur. At first, I was not enjoying the game all that much because it is written like a hipster indie film but with high school cliques (ugh) and has a nauseating soundtrack to match, but I muscled through and found it got a lot more exciting once school days were less of a factor in the story. Life is Strange is ultimately an interesting take on the concepts laid down in "A Sound of Thunder" and other similar time travel stories, but it takes a while to get to the truly interesting bits. One complaint I have about the time travel aspect is that it's awfully arbitrary sometimes--you can't take back actions if the plot doesn't want you to, which makes little sense in-universe and makes the game feel less exciting than it could have been. Nonetheless, the time travel made for interesting puzzles and story beats. I didn't like the majority of the cast in the game either (even by the end I actively disliked almost everyone in the story) but the yarn the writers spun is a worthy one, and I would recommend this game to those of you who enjoy modern adventure games and visual novels.
[20:01] <@jsh357> yes
[20:01] <@jsh357> everything but the characters is done so well
[20:01] <@jsh357> it's remarkable frankly
[20:01] <@jsh357> in fact
[20:01] <Sawks> still guess I'll give it a chance since I'm a whore for time travel
[20:01] <@jsh357> i actually liked the interactions between the characters
[20:01] <@jsh357> and not the characters themselves
[20:01] <Sawks> that's incredible
5. Yoshi's Woolly World (2015) - In this game, you play the only worthy follow-up to Yoshi's Island so far. Man, if you love Yoshi's Island, play this game. Maybe it leans a bit too much on the original for level ideas, but I'm not going to complain because it does so much right. The bosses are kind of boring, but otherwise I had a blast relaxing and playing this. It's also a great game to play with a friend/spouse, though you'll be accidentally eating one another a lot.
4. Dragon's Dogma - In this game, you explore a vast world in search of a dragon who has been ravaging the land and try to bring him to justice. There are a lot of open world action RPGs out there, and most don't interest me too much, but this one captured my heart somehow. Part of it is the "slightly incomplete" charm of the game. This has negative (but funny) effects: there are entire sections that seem rushed and interactions you can force that break what the developers expected. For instance, if you play as a female character, the game still seems to think you are male at times. The pawns also repeat incidental dialogue a lot, but somehow the delivery makes this funny instead of annoying. Dragon's Dogma is messy, but charming in this way; even though it has problems, they did not detract from my enjoyment.
I also like how your character customization options affect movement and statistics instead of being purely cosmetic--it adds some realism to the world and gives the game something most games don't try out of fear of offending people I guess. It is also cool how random enemies can wander in to mini-boss battles and interfere. The game also gives you a lot of freedom of customization, but it's so simple that you can just make some choices and roll with it instead of spending hours looking over spreadsheets and wikis. Maybe my favorite aspect of the game is the Pawn system. You can hire ghosts of other players and form parties of them (You need to do this unless you are hardcore too), and these pawns are even tied in to the overall plot. It was nice to see that union of gameplay and worldbuilding, as these things are often taken for granted in games.
Other things are hit and miss, like how enemies are at static levels around the world and you can get wiped out for exploring; this creates some tense moments and encourages tactics on the one hand, but it's also frustrating when playing the game blind. Dragon's Dogma is a highly imperfect game, but I had a blast exploring its huge map and making discoveries. The game also has a nice sense of humor, not taking itself as seriously as most medieval games. It's coming to PC soon, so I hope a lot of people find the diamonds in the rough that I did.
3. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015) - In this game, BOSS. GET DOWN. THE ENEMY SNIPER. The top 3 here are all super close. You can interchange them if you like; I don't mind. MGSV is a great addition to the Metal Gear franchise, filled with the usual japes and attitude Kojima brings to his work. I am the type of Metal Gear fan who favors the MGS2 Naked Raiden section to the brooding patriotism talk in MGS3, so it was great for me playing a Metal Gear game that kept a sense of humor while moving the story along. For the most part, I think the story was well-handled, even though some plot lines seemed to be dropped that shouldn't have been; I don't want to spoil any important details, but the themes of language and information control were fascinating to me, and the game managed to tell the story in far fewer elaborate cutscenes than previous Metal Gear games, which is a plus in my book. Quiet and Code Talker ended up being interesting characters, though I wished they had gotten more screen time; other members of the supporting cast were also good.
However, the real star of MGSV is the gameplay. This is the first Metal Gear title that felt like a legitimate espionage game to me. In most of the games, the stealth sections are either impractically slow or meaningless in the context of the plot since Snake gets discovered right away in cutscenes, but here I felt like sneaking around was rewarded and I had plenty of tools to do it with. The same can't be said for nonlethal weapon options, but I suppose part of the challenge is finding ways to win without killing, so it's not too huge of a deal. MGSV successfully makes stealth feel tense and exciting, so bravo to Kojima Productions there. The new additions to the system like Buddies and calling in help are also interesting twists to the formula. I could have played this game for probably 100 more hours than I did, but I knew I had to finish with it some time. Probably my favorite overall Metal Gear game.
2. Bloodborne (2015) - In this game, you are a person who has been injected with strange blood for an unknown reason and is now trapped in a place called the Hunter's Dream, forced to fight beasts and find answers. Bloodborne is the latest Souls game, and like the previous non-DS2 games, I loved it. It has awesome enemy designs, really cool weapons, exciting combat, and the sense of risk and reward that drives the series. The game also has tightly designed maps that work well with its fantastic artistic direction and create a compelling world. The only major issues I have with the game (farming supplies takes way too long and build options are more limited than in previous entries) feel minor considering how much I have loved playing Bloodborne this year. The DLC, The Old Hunters, adds some worthy new content as well. All that said, I feel like the Souls series is running its course and it's a good thing Miyazaki plans to end things after the next one. Too much of a good thing can be a negative if the quality doesn't stay up. I find myself with little else to say--I just don't have much to harp on with this one. I was sure it was going to be my game of the year back when I first played it. You might say I was DETERMINED. But then...
1. Undertale (2015) - In this game, seriously just play it because man, I don't want to spoil anything about it and it's just one of those games where explaining why it's good would ruin the reason it is. At first, I thought I was going to say this was good, but not great at the end of the year. Reflection, replays, and watching others play have done wonders for ensuring its position here. Undertale is one of the most intelligently crafted games I have ever played. The amount of thought and detail that went in to the experience is not possible to understand in full without spending extra time on the game, but it truly blew my mind and sucked me in to this world. Undertale also has a remarkable soundtrack, easily my favorite since Nier. More game composers need to use leitmotif--it fits the medium of games so well, but tends to get passed up in recent games.
While bullet hell is not a genre of games I generally enjoy, I thought Undertale did a great job combining it with traditional RPG mechanics, and the conversation system (I assume inspired by Shin Megami Tensei) adds an extra layer that succeeds in making the monsters you face seem like things that actually exist beyond the battle screen, whereas in SMT the conversations seem randomly generated at times. There is a lot I can say about Undertale, but the true secret of its success is in characterization. I have not been this deeply attached to a video game's cast... ever? Chrono Trigger may come the closest, but even then I would have to give Undertale the nod. I actually cared about every major character in this game by the end, even the one I initially hated, and it's no easy feat for a writer to achieve this with a snarky jerk like me. If you have been put off this game by its fanbase and the internet hate machine, I urge you to try and put biases aside (maybe in a year or two) and at least try the demo, though I can understand if it isn't for everyone. This game ended up being one of the most profound works I experienced all year and I haven't felt the same about games ever since. In my book, that easily makes it game of the year.
The Banner Saga - In this game, you lead a band of vikings or something and do missions for people. I was attracted by its art style and being a strategy RPG, but I found the mechanics in the game off-putting. While it is unique, the concept of gaining extra turns for units by sacrificing turns with other units made this really awkward for me to play. I wasn't grabbed by the story either. Worth a look if you're really into these kinds of games.
Castlevania - In this game, you are a paranormal hunter trying to kill Dracula I guess. After getting into Souls, I decided to revisit this series and see if I was just not mentally prepared for it back in the day, as there is a lot of crossover between the two fanbases. While I enjoyed playing the game for a while, it suffers a lot from the arcade influence of the time. I quit at the Frankenstein's monster and Igor battle; after probably about twenty attempts I was making no progress. I may give Symphony of the Night a shot soon. The soundtrack is great; I'll give it that.
Child of Light - In this game, you play as a little girl who gets trapped in some story book world and searches for a way home. I wanted to like this game, but it just feels so glossy and contrived. Maybe if I were younger and hadn't played so many similar games I could get into it. Delivering all dialogue in verse is interesting, but I wasn't especially invested in the story.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 - In this game, we witness the backstory of Zack from Final Fantasy VII. I am told the ending is great but never got there. At first, I was impressed this game had the production
quality it has. However, like most games that are organized in 'missions' the structure started weighing on me. I was not enjoying the battle system, though it wasn't bad by any means. I am probably not a big enough fan of FF7 to really care about what's going on in the story.
Fire Emblem: Shin Monshou no Nazo Hikari to Kage no Eiyuu - In this game, you play a Fire Emblem game. FE12 is good, I guess. It turns out I can only take so much Fire Emblem in a year, and after Shadow Dragon, I didn't feel like slogging through this one.
Fragile Dreams - In this game, you are a boy who has been living in a tower Rapunzel-style and leaves to discover the world is a post-apocalyptic wasteland. I probably played this about 60% of the way through. It's got an interesting premise and some things that almost always work in adventure games. The flashlight being a big part of the game was great. However, for some bizarre reason the developers decided to add combat to this game, and saying the combat is clunky would be an understatement. This applies to any event in the game that required precision as well. I gave up during a game of tag in which I could not get my character to interact with the NPC for the life of me.
Guacamelee - In this game, you play as a man who gains the power of some magical Luchador masks on La Dia De Los Muertes (I think I spelled that right...) and goes on a quest to save his girlfriend. The visual style and Mexican setting was a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, that didn't do enough to distract me from how familiar the gameplay mechanics are and how dumb the constant inclusion of memes and references is. I mean, the game blatantly has a Chozo statue give you new powers. I'm not sure why the developers didn't have enough faith in their own concept to let its stand on its own. It certainly doesn't seem like a bad game, but I was in the middle of grad school when I tried playing it and the cheapness of the references weighed on me. Some day I may return.
Kid Icarus Uprising - In this game, you play as Pit the angel and do some missions for Palutena. I giggled a few times playing this, but found the controls really awful and frustrating and never got far. I have never been a fan of space shooters and the like, so honestly this just isn't a game for me. I got it for free in the final Club Nintendo event. RIP Club Nintendo.
The Last of Us - In this game, you play as a guy trying to make the best of things in a post-zombie apocalypse world. If you have seen literally any zombie-related fiction in the past forty years, you won't find much new in the sections I played. I got this game for free with my PS4; I had no interest in it beforehand, but gave it a few hours. It continues to amaze me that people can still enjoy cover shooters, though I guess I can't talk as a fan of jRPGs. I found it particularly hilarious that the game was going to such great lengths to make a realistic-feeling world, then as soon as a shoot-out scene started it turned in to an arcadey sequence with perfectly placed boards to hide behind.
LISA - In this game, you play as a guy protecting (I guess) the seemingly only living female in a post-apocalyptic world (is this the fifth of these so far?). I didn't get far enough to see any twists. I found the humor and darkness of this game off-putting, but it's probably amusing to some people. The battle system seemed a little strange, but I admittedly didn't see enough of the game to pass any judgment.
Mark of the Ninja - In this game, you play as a ninja and try to be stealthy. After playing the Thief series, I find it very difficult to play other stealth games. I'm sure this game is probably fine if 2D stealth is exciting to you. It wasn't to me.
Valkyria Chronicles - In this game, you play as a writer or something who gets caught up in a military operation in his hometown and (I assume) becomes a leader or hero in the war. The story was engaging at the start. The battle system is fairly unrealistic, and reminded me of playing wargames. I am fully aware I did not give this game a fair shot, but again, grad school, and maybe I have just played way too many strategy games. They always feel tedious to me these days.
Wayward Souls - In this game, you explore a tower with a class you choose at the start of the game in a typical roguelike fashion. It's a nice time waster, but nothing too exciting. I'd recommend it if you're looking for a decent mobile game. Pretty tough, fair warning.
And here are the (few) games I did complete this year, ranked by how much I like them or they impacted me. I should preface that I thought this was a great year for games based on what I played, and my top 3 all come highly recommended.
11. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon - In this game, you play Fire Emblem. It's the worst of the Fire Emblem games I have completed, but still fine if you like those. The game felt like it overstayed its welcome some, and I very much disliked how emptily everyone was characterized. At least that's better than the alternative of having too much (bad) dialogue. Nonetheless, the story wasn't great and this didn't have much to offer over Blazing Sword, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, etc. Still worth playing for FE fans.
10. Drakengard 3 - In this game, you play as Zero, a girl who has her soul bonded with a dragon. She's on a quest to kill all of her sisters, and you'll learn why over the course of the game. Drakengard 3 is the latest game written by Yoko Taro, who blessed us with Nier. I found this game a lot worse than Nier, but not entirely without appeal. Zero is foul-mouthed, promiscuous, and intentionally over the top, and if I'm being honest her characterization felt silly. On the flip side, I loved her Dragon sidekick; he is cute and charming, but also has a nice character arc. Like other Taro games, once things get weird they start getting interesting, but the gameplay really drags things down. All you do is mash buttons, farm upgrade materials, and wait on load times pretty much. It gets especially frustrating in the late game. I didn't get the best ending and didn't care to, but watched the rest of the story on Youtube. If you're into these offbeat, hate the player type games, you might check Drakengard 3 out, but if you're expecting something as good as Nier you'll probably be disappointed.
9. Mario Kart 8 - This is a Mario Kart game. It's fun to play with friends, but not particularly deep or original. I had fun with it, but I suck at it, so the wife and I lost interest after finishing all the 100cc tracks. To the game's credit, I enjoyed this more than every Mario Kart game since Super Mario Kart. (which still has a weird quality to it that makes me enjoy it more than other racing games) That is likely a function of actually having someone to play the game with this time around.
8. Shovel Knight - In this game, you play as Shovel Knight, who uses his shovel to fight bad guys and save his girlfriend. I was never a huge Megaman fan, but I liked the first couple of games enough, and SK seemed to have some nice twists on the Megaman-style platformer so I checked it out. Shovel Knight offers a pretty fresh re-imagining of several NES platformer concepts, and is well worth the low price of the game. The soundtrack is the best part, but the game also has a good difficulty curve and witty enough dialogue that it doesn't get boring. I particularly liked that levels have multiple approaches to traversal as you get better at the game, which is always a satisfying thing. I have not played the Plague Knight DLC, but that's a thing too. This game's very good.
7. Kirby's Return to Dreamland - In this game, Kirby, Meta Knight, Dedede, and Waddle Dee help a totally innocent magician rebuild his ship and it all goes well. This is certainly my favorite Kirby game since Super Star. It was a blast of nostalgia and just plain fun, though I did like Kirby's speed more in the earlier game. I played through this game with my wife, who really loved playing as Meta Knight. It's nice that the Kirby developers have started looking to Super Star for inspiration--the complex movesets for each power were part of what made that game great, and I always felt they were sorely missing from Kirby games since. A fun game to play with friends, and probably fun solo as well.
6. Life is Strange (2015) - In this game, you play as a high school student (have high schools become
colleges since I was in high school? This felt way more like a college to me and was kind of a bone of
contention to me since it makes the setting very unrealistic Edit: my friend pointed out that some private high schools are like this, but I still think this game would have been better off with a college setting) who discovers she can turn back time and shenanigans occur. At first, I was not enjoying the game all that much because it is written like a hipster indie film but with high school cliques (ugh) and has a nauseating soundtrack to match, but I muscled through and found it got a lot more exciting once school days were less of a factor in the story. Life is Strange is ultimately an interesting take on the concepts laid down in "A Sound of Thunder" and other similar time travel stories, but it takes a while to get to the truly interesting bits. One complaint I have about the time travel aspect is that it's awfully arbitrary sometimes--you can't take back actions if the plot doesn't want you to, which makes little sense in-universe and makes the game feel less exciting than it could have been. Nonetheless, the time travel made for interesting puzzles and story beats. I didn't like the majority of the cast in the game either (even by the end I actively disliked almost everyone in the story) but the yarn the writers spun is a worthy one, and I would recommend this game to those of you who enjoy modern adventure games and visual novels.
[20:01] <@jsh357> yes
[20:01] <@jsh357> everything but the characters is done so well
[20:01] <@jsh357> it's remarkable frankly
[20:01] <@jsh357> in fact
[20:01] <Sawks> still guess I'll give it a chance since I'm a whore for time travel
[20:01] <@jsh357> i actually liked the interactions between the characters
[20:01] <@jsh357> and not the characters themselves
[20:01] <Sawks> that's incredible
5. Yoshi's Woolly World (2015) - In this game, you play the only worthy follow-up to Yoshi's Island so far. Man, if you love Yoshi's Island, play this game. Maybe it leans a bit too much on the original for level ideas, but I'm not going to complain because it does so much right. The bosses are kind of boring, but otherwise I had a blast relaxing and playing this. It's also a great game to play with a friend/spouse, though you'll be accidentally eating one another a lot.
4. Dragon's Dogma - In this game, you explore a vast world in search of a dragon who has been ravaging the land and try to bring him to justice. There are a lot of open world action RPGs out there, and most don't interest me too much, but this one captured my heart somehow. Part of it is the "slightly incomplete" charm of the game. This has negative (but funny) effects: there are entire sections that seem rushed and interactions you can force that break what the developers expected. For instance, if you play as a female character, the game still seems to think you are male at times. The pawns also repeat incidental dialogue a lot, but somehow the delivery makes this funny instead of annoying. Dragon's Dogma is messy, but charming in this way; even though it has problems, they did not detract from my enjoyment.
I also like how your character customization options affect movement and statistics instead of being purely cosmetic--it adds some realism to the world and gives the game something most games don't try out of fear of offending people I guess. It is also cool how random enemies can wander in to mini-boss battles and interfere. The game also gives you a lot of freedom of customization, but it's so simple that you can just make some choices and roll with it instead of spending hours looking over spreadsheets and wikis. Maybe my favorite aspect of the game is the Pawn system. You can hire ghosts of other players and form parties of them (You need to do this unless you are hardcore too), and these pawns are even tied in to the overall plot. It was nice to see that union of gameplay and worldbuilding, as these things are often taken for granted in games.
Other things are hit and miss, like how enemies are at static levels around the world and you can get wiped out for exploring; this creates some tense moments and encourages tactics on the one hand, but it's also frustrating when playing the game blind. Dragon's Dogma is a highly imperfect game, but I had a blast exploring its huge map and making discoveries. The game also has a nice sense of humor, not taking itself as seriously as most medieval games. It's coming to PC soon, so I hope a lot of people find the diamonds in the rough that I did.
3. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015) - In this game, BOSS. GET DOWN. THE ENEMY SNIPER. The top 3 here are all super close. You can interchange them if you like; I don't mind. MGSV is a great addition to the Metal Gear franchise, filled with the usual japes and attitude Kojima brings to his work. I am the type of Metal Gear fan who favors the MGS2 Naked Raiden section to the brooding patriotism talk in MGS3, so it was great for me playing a Metal Gear game that kept a sense of humor while moving the story along. For the most part, I think the story was well-handled, even though some plot lines seemed to be dropped that shouldn't have been; I don't want to spoil any important details, but the themes of language and information control were fascinating to me, and the game managed to tell the story in far fewer elaborate cutscenes than previous Metal Gear games, which is a plus in my book. Quiet and Code Talker ended up being interesting characters, though I wished they had gotten more screen time; other members of the supporting cast were also good.
However, the real star of MGSV is the gameplay. This is the first Metal Gear title that felt like a legitimate espionage game to me. In most of the games, the stealth sections are either impractically slow or meaningless in the context of the plot since Snake gets discovered right away in cutscenes, but here I felt like sneaking around was rewarded and I had plenty of tools to do it with. The same can't be said for nonlethal weapon options, but I suppose part of the challenge is finding ways to win without killing, so it's not too huge of a deal. MGSV successfully makes stealth feel tense and exciting, so bravo to Kojima Productions there. The new additions to the system like Buddies and calling in help are also interesting twists to the formula. I could have played this game for probably 100 more hours than I did, but I knew I had to finish with it some time. Probably my favorite overall Metal Gear game.
2. Bloodborne (2015) - In this game, you are a person who has been injected with strange blood for an unknown reason and is now trapped in a place called the Hunter's Dream, forced to fight beasts and find answers. Bloodborne is the latest Souls game, and like the previous non-DS2 games, I loved it. It has awesome enemy designs, really cool weapons, exciting combat, and the sense of risk and reward that drives the series. The game also has tightly designed maps that work well with its fantastic artistic direction and create a compelling world. The only major issues I have with the game (farming supplies takes way too long and build options are more limited than in previous entries) feel minor considering how much I have loved playing Bloodborne this year. The DLC, The Old Hunters, adds some worthy new content as well. All that said, I feel like the Souls series is running its course and it's a good thing Miyazaki plans to end things after the next one. Too much of a good thing can be a negative if the quality doesn't stay up. I find myself with little else to say--I just don't have much to harp on with this one. I was sure it was going to be my game of the year back when I first played it. You might say I was DETERMINED. But then...
1. Undertale (2015) - In this game, seriously just play it because man, I don't want to spoil anything about it and it's just one of those games where explaining why it's good would ruin the reason it is. At first, I thought I was going to say this was good, but not great at the end of the year. Reflection, replays, and watching others play have done wonders for ensuring its position here. Undertale is one of the most intelligently crafted games I have ever played. The amount of thought and detail that went in to the experience is not possible to understand in full without spending extra time on the game, but it truly blew my mind and sucked me in to this world. Undertale also has a remarkable soundtrack, easily my favorite since Nier. More game composers need to use leitmotif--it fits the medium of games so well, but tends to get passed up in recent games.
While bullet hell is not a genre of games I generally enjoy, I thought Undertale did a great job combining it with traditional RPG mechanics, and the conversation system (I assume inspired by Shin Megami Tensei) adds an extra layer that succeeds in making the monsters you face seem like things that actually exist beyond the battle screen, whereas in SMT the conversations seem randomly generated at times. There is a lot I can say about Undertale, but the true secret of its success is in characterization. I have not been this deeply attached to a video game's cast... ever? Chrono Trigger may come the closest, but even then I would have to give Undertale the nod. I actually cared about every major character in this game by the end, even the one I initially hated, and it's no easy feat for a writer to achieve this with a snarky jerk like me. If you have been put off this game by its fanbase and the internet hate machine, I urge you to try and put biases aside (maybe in a year or two) and at least try the demo, though I can understand if it isn't for everyone. This game ended up being one of the most profound works I experienced all year and I haven't felt the same about games ever since. In my book, that easily makes it game of the year.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
2014 In Review
It's close to the end of the year and for various reasons I don't see myself finishing any more new games, so I decided to go ahead and rank all the games I played for the first time in 2014. I played fewer games than I could have this year since I spent so much time replaying certain ones
29. Baldur's Gate - PC
Admittedly, I didn't play this very long before dropping it. I think you had to have been there to appreciate this game. The interface is puzzling, and I already am not big on D&D mechanics so I couldn't really get invested.
28. Soul Sacrifice - Vita
This game was being hyped up as one of the best titles on Vita, and it looked like it had some similarities to games I liked, so I gave it a try. What I got was an obvious Grimoire Weiss (from NIER) ripoff, generic action game combat, and a putrid atmosphere that probably appeals to some people but not me. Apparently the game is similar to Monster Hunter, which I have no experience with. Soul Sacrifice didn't sell me on MH or its own gameplay.
This game was being hyped up as one of the best titles on Vita, and it looked like it had some similarities to games I liked, so I gave it a try. What I got was an obvious Grimoire Weiss (from NIER) ripoff, generic action game combat, and a putrid atmosphere that probably appeals to some people but not me. Apparently the game is similar to Monster Hunter, which I have no experience with. Soul Sacrifice didn't sell me on MH or its own gameplay.
27. Spelunky - PC
Seems like a really dull arcade game from what I can tell. It didn't offend me or anything, but I couldn't see myself playing it a lot.
Seems like a really dull arcade game from what I can tell. It didn't offend me or anything, but I couldn't see myself playing it a lot.
26. Tokyo Jungle - PS3
Conceptually, I think this game is great. You control an animal in post-apocalypse Tokyo and try to reach the top of the food chain. The problem is that the game is so graphic and cruel in its depiction of violence that I was deeply shocked, even as a guy who thinks PETA is nuts. It doesn't help that you start out playing as a Pomeranian (I have one of these) and are likely to be viciously murdered within 10 minutes. I'm not saying games have to sugar-coat violence, but I also don't have to play games that are this graphic and tasteless if I don't want to.
Conceptually, I think this game is great. You control an animal in post-apocalypse Tokyo and try to reach the top of the food chain. The problem is that the game is so graphic and cruel in its depiction of violence that I was deeply shocked, even as a guy who thinks PETA is nuts. It doesn't help that you start out playing as a Pomeranian (I have one of these) and are likely to be viciously murdered within 10 minutes. I'm not saying games have to sugar-coat violence, but I also don't have to play games that are this graphic and tasteless if I don't want to.
25. Deadly Premonition - PC
I can't get this game to run worth anything, but the beginning is so intriguing that I'm ranking it above the last few choices. Kooky atmosphere, what appears to be a mystery game. I'm willing to try it again if I can get it to run decently some day.
I can't get this game to run worth anything, but the beginning is so intriguing that I'm ranking it above the last few choices. Kooky atmosphere, what appears to be a mystery game. I'm willing to try it again if I can get it to run decently some day.
24. Ecco the Dolphin - Genesis
It has a nice atmosphere, much spookier than I expected. I may go back to it in the future. The gameplay itself is sort of bland, though. Probably appeals more to people who enjoy exploration above all else in games.
It has a nice atmosphere, much spookier than I expected. I may go back to it in the future. The gameplay itself is sort of bland, though. Probably appeals more to people who enjoy exploration above all else in games.
23. Ys - PC
This is an action RPG so generic and straightforward that you don't even have to hit buttons to attack your enemies! I made it to near the end of this game, but ran in to a boss that requires pixel-perfect precision to defeat. I got bored trying to win the coin flip and moved on. Ys is an enjoyable game most of the way, but only really in a passive sense. There's no content you won't be expecting or anything like that, and it didn't give me the slightest motivation to play the other games in the series.
This is an action RPG so generic and straightforward that you don't even have to hit buttons to attack your enemies! I made it to near the end of this game, but ran in to a boss that requires pixel-perfect precision to defeat. I got bored trying to win the coin flip and moved on. Ys is an enjoyable game most of the way, but only really in a passive sense. There's no content you won't be expecting or anything like that, and it didn't give me the slightest motivation to play the other games in the series.
22. Dragon Quest II (SFC version)
The first half of Dragon Quest II is great. You're just three inexperienced warriors exploring a vast map and trying to put the pieces together in order to access the final area. I enjoyed how free-form the game was; you get a ship very early and can travel to most of the towns available, finding keys and such. It reminded me of the (good parts of the) original Legend of Zelda. Where Dragon Quest II becomes the awful game I have always been told of is the final two dungeons, which are a huge kick in the crotch. There is no gradual increase in difficulty; the monsters simply become capable of wiping out your entire party with no effort. I muscled through all that and made it to the final boss, only to find myself completely walled. Even with savestate abuse, I simply lacked the stats to fight it, even with all the best gear and a proper strategy. People complain about Dragon Quest games being grindy a lot, and they are wrong about every game except this and the original. You can finish Dragon Quest III and all its sequels without fighting a single unnecessary battle as long as you don't run from every encounter like a coward. In the first two, though? Brute force is the only way forward, and brute force is the most boring method of doing anything in a game.
The first half of Dragon Quest II is great. You're just three inexperienced warriors exploring a vast map and trying to put the pieces together in order to access the final area. I enjoyed how free-form the game was; you get a ship very early and can travel to most of the towns available, finding keys and such. It reminded me of the (good parts of the) original Legend of Zelda. Where Dragon Quest II becomes the awful game I have always been told of is the final two dungeons, which are a huge kick in the crotch. There is no gradual increase in difficulty; the monsters simply become capable of wiping out your entire party with no effort. I muscled through all that and made it to the final boss, only to find myself completely walled. Even with savestate abuse, I simply lacked the stats to fight it, even with all the best gear and a proper strategy. People complain about Dragon Quest games being grindy a lot, and they are wrong about every game except this and the original. You can finish Dragon Quest III and all its sequels without fighting a single unnecessary battle as long as you don't run from every encounter like a coward. In the first two, though? Brute force is the only way forward, and brute force is the most boring method of doing anything in a game.
21. Professor Layton VS Phoenix Wright - 3DS
Disappointment of the year! I was never a big fan of Layton, and unfortunately this game, even in its court sequences, feels much more like Layton than Phoenix. Don't expect any complexity to the characters, just get ready for some bland puzzles. Cross-examining multiple witnesses is a pretty neat addition to the trials, but it's implemented in a way that makes the answers obvious in every single scenario, so it never has time to shine. Oh, and spoiler: in the end, nothing the characters did here had any real consequences. It enraged me that I slogged through this game only to be smacked in the head with "congratulations, you just wasted all that time!" If you like Professor Layton, I would say just stick to the main Layton games over this; none of the puzzles here are that engaging and you don't learn anything new about the characters from that series. If you're strictly an Ace Attorney fan, stay far away.
Disappointment of the year! I was never a big fan of Layton, and unfortunately this game, even in its court sequences, feels much more like Layton than Phoenix. Don't expect any complexity to the characters, just get ready for some bland puzzles. Cross-examining multiple witnesses is a pretty neat addition to the trials, but it's implemented in a way that makes the answers obvious in every single scenario, so it never has time to shine. Oh, and spoiler: in the end, nothing the characters did here had any real consequences. It enraged me that I slogged through this game only to be smacked in the head with "congratulations, you just wasted all that time!" If you like Professor Layton, I would say just stick to the main Layton games over this; none of the puzzles here are that engaging and you don't learn anything new about the characters from that series. If you're strictly an Ace Attorney fan, stay far away.
20. Live-a-Live - SFC
Another neat game conceptually, but it's plagued by poor battle mechanics. You choose from a list of characters (and they are all cool things like robots and cowboys) and play a unique scenario about them, then they all meet up at the end or something. I didn't finish all the scenarios because I ran in to a weird stalemate at the end of a really long scenario and didn't feel like redoing it, but I got my fill of the game regardless. It's great that Squaresoft was willing to pump out quirky games like this one back in the day, and I wish they were as open-minded nowadays.
Another neat game conceptually, but it's plagued by poor battle mechanics. You choose from a list of characters (and they are all cool things like robots and cowboys) and play a unique scenario about them, then they all meet up at the end or something. I didn't finish all the scenarios because I ran in to a weird stalemate at the end of a really long scenario and didn't feel like redoing it, but I got my fill of the game regardless. It's great that Squaresoft was willing to pump out quirky games like this one back in the day, and I wish they were as open-minded nowadays.
19. Rogue Legacy - PC
Rogue Legacy isn't really bad, but it's also not as exciting as it initially seems. It's a platformer with randomized dungeons. When you die, your descendant gives the dungeon another shot with different abilities. My biggest problem with the game was that the abilities descendants have seemed to have nothing to do with their ancestors. As far as I could tell, the choices seemed random, so what was the point of framing the game this way? You could have just had it been a bunch of clones and made the same concept. The gameplay itself feels like a number of old 2D platformers, mainly Castlevania, and didn't seem to bring anything new to the table (nor did it seem to do anything particularly well). I dunno, I think this game is pretty average. Not bad for the price, but not fantastic either.
Rogue Legacy isn't really bad, but it's also not as exciting as it initially seems. It's a platformer with randomized dungeons. When you die, your descendant gives the dungeon another shot with different abilities. My biggest problem with the game was that the abilities descendants have seemed to have nothing to do with their ancestors. As far as I could tell, the choices seemed random, so what was the point of framing the game this way? You could have just had it been a bunch of clones and made the same concept. The gameplay itself feels like a number of old 2D platformers, mainly Castlevania, and didn't seem to bring anything new to the table (nor did it seem to do anything particularly well). I dunno, I think this game is pretty average. Not bad for the price, but not fantastic either.
18. Tsukihime - PC
Visual novel about vampires. The story was all right, though not remarkable. Selling point of the game was its atmosphere, especially a very unsettling soundtrack. I would not particularly recommend this game other over romance VNs.
Visual novel about vampires. The story was all right, though not remarkable. Selling point of the game was its atmosphere, especially a very unsettling soundtrack. I would not particularly recommend this game other over romance VNs.
17. The Walking Dead: Season Two - PC
A pretty big disappointment after the original, and it even managed to make me like the original less somehow. Clementine was a good character in the first game, but all this game did was try and destroy her, almost in a creepy fetishized way. Of course, because she's a little girl and a main character they wouldn't actually go through with anything permanent happening to her, so you knew she'd be fine by the end of the game, removing any and all tension. I didn't like any of the new characters much, and found myself disliking the one that came back by the end of the game. A different team made this season and it shows. There were a couple of powerful moments and the visual style of the game is still very good, but I am in no rush to see Season 3.
A pretty big disappointment after the original, and it even managed to make me like the original less somehow. Clementine was a good character in the first game, but all this game did was try and destroy her, almost in a creepy fetishized way. Of course, because she's a little girl and a main character they wouldn't actually go through with anything permanent happening to her, so you knew she'd be fine by the end of the game, removing any and all tension. I didn't like any of the new characters much, and found myself disliking the one that came back by the end of the game. A different team made this season and it shows. There were a couple of powerful moments and the visual style of the game is still very good, but I am in no rush to see Season 3.
16. Final Fantasy Dimensions - Android
This game was sort of overshadowed by Bravely Default, but I'll give Square-Enix some points here. Making a brand new game with an improved version of FF5's job/ability mechanics was a lot better than just remaking FF5. For the most part, FF Dimensions works, but between terrible encounter rates, enemies that take forever to beat, and extremely formulaic dungeon design, it got exasperating quickly. The story and characters are basically non-existent, so the gameplay really has to pull through, and it would have if it were less of a slog. I want to defend this game more, but it feels a little pointless to recommend, especially since Bravely Default exists and basically does the same thing better, which is to say nothing of FF5, which I think is a better game than both in the end.
This game was sort of overshadowed by Bravely Default, but I'll give Square-Enix some points here. Making a brand new game with an improved version of FF5's job/ability mechanics was a lot better than just remaking FF5. For the most part, FF Dimensions works, but between terrible encounter rates, enemies that take forever to beat, and extremely formulaic dungeon design, it got exasperating quickly. The story and characters are basically non-existent, so the gameplay really has to pull through, and it would have if it were less of a slog. I want to defend this game more, but it feels a little pointless to recommend, especially since Bravely Default exists and basically does the same thing better, which is to say nothing of FF5, which I think is a better game than both in the end.
15. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft - PC
As a former CCG enthusiast and Dominion nut, I was pretty excited to play me some card games. Hearthstone is a neat variant on the Magic: The Gathering formula, taking advantage of the computer medium to make some cards that make use of RNGs and other effects you can't replicate well with real cards. The presentation of the game is top-notch; it looks great, it plays fast, and there's little ambiguity about what's going on, which is something that a lot of computer board game implementations struggle with. I stopped playing Hearthstone because I wasn't interested in pursuing it competitively and I also didn't want to spend money getting good cards. One thing I dislike about games like this is that it taunts you by being free then requires you to pay bank if you want to compete. The nice thing about games like Dominion is that the same cards are available to everyone anyway. In short, if you enjoy CCGs, Hearthstone is a neat game to try. There's a reason it's been so successful.
As a former CCG enthusiast and Dominion nut, I was pretty excited to play me some card games. Hearthstone is a neat variant on the Magic: The Gathering formula, taking advantage of the computer medium to make some cards that make use of RNGs and other effects you can't replicate well with real cards. The presentation of the game is top-notch; it looks great, it plays fast, and there's little ambiguity about what's going on, which is something that a lot of computer board game implementations struggle with. I stopped playing Hearthstone because I wasn't interested in pursuing it competitively and I also didn't want to spend money getting good cards. One thing I dislike about games like this is that it taunts you by being free then requires you to pay bank if you want to compete. The nice thing about games like Dominion is that the same cards are available to everyone anyway. In short, if you enjoy CCGs, Hearthstone is a neat game to try. There's a reason it's been so successful.
14. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - PC
An adventure game where you control two brothers, one with each analog stick, and try to make your way through the environment to find a cure for your father. Brothers has a few cool things going on, mainly its lack of language, which means anyone around the world can play the game and enjoy it. That's neat, though it's an obvious homage to ICO (like almost everything in the game). The main thing that bothered me about this game was how the world is laid out perfectly for the brothers' limited abilities to allow them to progress. There are questionable locations of switches, arrows sticking out of giant corpses in really convenient places, that kind of thing. It took me out of what was otherwise a pretty immersive experience. I think this game is worth playing through since it's short and relatively inexpensive, but I didn't leave it thinking it was a masterpiece or anything.
An adventure game where you control two brothers, one with each analog stick, and try to make your way through the environment to find a cure for your father. Brothers has a few cool things going on, mainly its lack of language, which means anyone around the world can play the game and enjoy it. That's neat, though it's an obvious homage to ICO (like almost everything in the game). The main thing that bothered me about this game was how the world is laid out perfectly for the brothers' limited abilities to allow them to progress. There are questionable locations of switches, arrows sticking out of giant corpses in really convenient places, that kind of thing. It took me out of what was otherwise a pretty immersive experience. I think this game is worth playing through since it's short and relatively inexpensive, but I didn't leave it thinking it was a masterpiece or anything.
13. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call - 3DS
In this game you hit buttons in time to Final Fantasy songs and collect chibi characters. It's a sequel to the original and it's basically the same game but better. The new controls are better, but some songs are still borderline impossible without basically cheating or being a god of timing. It's good stuff.
In this game you hit buttons in time to Final Fantasy songs and collect chibi characters. It's a sequel to the original and it's basically the same game but better. The new controls are better, but some songs are still borderline impossible without basically cheating or being a god of timing. It's good stuff.
12. Suikoden 2 - PS1
It's about as good as Suikoden 2, which is to say it's a fun RPG, but plagued by aging problems, especially insane encounter rates. Like Suikoden 1, I enjoyed recruiting new characters and building up my castle, even if the rest of the gameplay wasn't up to snuff. The game looks as bland as the original, and the story was pretty average, though it started out exciting when the first villain, Luca Blight, was still wrecking villages and being a jerk. I feel like the game thought I was more attached to the characters than I actually was--there were several moments that seemed to be trying to tug at heartstrings, but I didn't care much about Jowy, Namami, or Ridley. I'm sure Suikoden 2 was a lot better back when it was a new game.
It's about as good as Suikoden 2, which is to say it's a fun RPG, but plagued by aging problems, especially insane encounter rates. Like Suikoden 1, I enjoyed recruiting new characters and building up my castle, even if the rest of the gameplay wasn't up to snuff. The game looks as bland as the original, and the story was pretty average, though it started out exciting when the first villain, Luca Blight, was still wrecking villages and being a jerk. I feel like the game thought I was more attached to the characters than I actually was--there were several moments that seemed to be trying to tug at heartstrings, but I didn't care much about Jowy, Namami, or Ridley. I'm sure Suikoden 2 was a lot better back when it was a new game.
11. Bravely Default - 3DS
I would not have been disappointed if Square-Enix had called this 'Final Fantasy 15,' but alas. Bravely Default is the game a lot of us veteran fans were looking for: 2D, turn-based Final Fantasy style game with a more developed version of the battle system seen in previous FF games. Between that and the excellent soundtrack, BD works well. The improvements made to the game from its original release, chief among them the ability to select encounter frequency and game difficulty at will, polish things further. BD's greatest flaw, the one that kept me from getting fully invested and ranking this higher, is that the second half of the game involves a time loop that you have to actually play through several times, and it literally just has the same bosses and content X times in a row. It's one of the worst moments of padding I have ever seen in a video game, and it really did sour the experience. Nonetheless, Bravely Default is a must-own for fans of JRPGs. You will probably have a good time; just don't be surprised when the game makes this awful decision later on.
I would not have been disappointed if Square-Enix had called this 'Final Fantasy 15,' but alas. Bravely Default is the game a lot of us veteran fans were looking for: 2D, turn-based Final Fantasy style game with a more developed version of the battle system seen in previous FF games. Between that and the excellent soundtrack, BD works well. The improvements made to the game from its original release, chief among them the ability to select encounter frequency and game difficulty at will, polish things further. BD's greatest flaw, the one that kept me from getting fully invested and ranking this higher, is that the second half of the game involves a time loop that you have to actually play through several times, and it literally just has the same bosses and content X times in a row. It's one of the worst moments of padding I have ever seen in a video game, and it really did sour the experience. Nonetheless, Bravely Default is a must-own for fans of JRPGs. You will probably have a good time; just don't be surprised when the game makes this awful decision later on.
10. Super Smash Bros for 3DS
In this game you beat up Nintendo characters with Nintendo characters on your portable system. The controls are bad, but that's ok because you can make Wario fart on Rosalina.
In this game you beat up Nintendo characters with Nintendo characters on your portable system. The controls are bad, but that's ok because you can make Wario fart on Rosalina.
9. Super Mario 3D World - WiiU
In this game, you play a 3D Mario game with the characters from SMBUSA (Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad). There, that's what you need to know. Also, the co-op is fun even if it makes a lot of levels harder than they should be. I could not finish the final two levels; they are super frustrating. The rest of the game was pretty good on the level of previous 3D Mario games. It was great to have power-ups that can be used EVERYWHERE again instead of being context-based like in 64/Sunshine/Galaxy. Side note: Captain Toad is a terrible mini-game that uses bad camera controls as its gimmick (somehow Nintendo thought this was a neat innovation, and their fans are totally buying it for $40).
In this game, you play a 3D Mario game with the characters from SMBUSA (Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad). There, that's what you need to know. Also, the co-op is fun even if it makes a lot of levels harder than they should be. I could not finish the final two levels; they are super frustrating. The rest of the game was pretty good on the level of previous 3D Mario games. It was great to have power-ups that can be used EVERYWHERE again instead of being context-based like in 64/Sunshine/Galaxy. Side note: Captain Toad is a terrible mini-game that uses bad camera controls as its gimmick (somehow Nintendo thought this was a neat innovation, and their fans are totally buying it for $40).
8. Dangan-Ronpa - Vita version
A Visual novel/mystery game that is a pastiche of Zero Escape, Ace Attorney, and the social links in Persona 4. If you enjoy all of those games, then great, get this one. if you dislike any of them, you should not play Dangan-Ronpa. It's a very strange little game, one that is dark and grim, but also doesn't take itself seriously and constantly tells jokes. You're playing a student in a "who will kill who" contest inside a boarded-up high school, run by a deranged robot teddy bear. Like in other games of this type, you'll discover the secrets of the setting as the game goes, and to Dangan-Ronpa's credit, it gets to the revelations in a quick enough fashion that the game doesn't have time to get dull. The game has court sequences like Ace Attorney, but they involve shooting words on the screen by tapping them and reloading your bullets; it's very confusing and I didn't get the hang of it for a while. If this blurb sounds intriguing to you, you are probably the kind of person who'd like Dangan-Ronpa, otherwise probably not.
A Visual novel/mystery game that is a pastiche of Zero Escape, Ace Attorney, and the social links in Persona 4. If you enjoy all of those games, then great, get this one. if you dislike any of them, you should not play Dangan-Ronpa. It's a very strange little game, one that is dark and grim, but also doesn't take itself seriously and constantly tells jokes. You're playing a student in a "who will kill who" contest inside a boarded-up high school, run by a deranged robot teddy bear. Like in other games of this type, you'll discover the secrets of the setting as the game goes, and to Dangan-Ronpa's credit, it gets to the revelations in a quick enough fashion that the game doesn't have time to get dull. The game has court sequences like Ace Attorney, but they involve shooting words on the screen by tapping them and reloading your bullets; it's very confusing and I didn't get the hang of it for a while. If this blurb sounds intriguing to you, you are probably the kind of person who'd like Dangan-Ronpa, otherwise probably not.
7. Super Smash Bros for WiiU
In this game you- OK you know what it is. It's great, buy a WiiU. The online works great once you get it working! Custom stages! CUSTOM STAGES!
In this game you- OK you know what it is. It's great, buy a WiiU. The online works great once you get it working! Custom stages! CUSTOM STAGES!
6. Hanabi - Tabletop
A card game where you can't see your hand but everyone else can. The goal is to put down colored, numbered cards, in the correct sequence using teamwork and limited hints. It makes for a very interesting, unusual experience. It's pretty satisfying to get a good score, but some players might not like how it's cooperative instead of competitive. Personally, I think it's a very cleanly, cleverly designed game that does a lot with just a few components. Highly recommend playing this with some friends who dig board games, and it's really cheap. You can also play it for free on Board Game Arena.
A card game where you can't see your hand but everyone else can. The goal is to put down colored, numbered cards, in the correct sequence using teamwork and limited hints. It makes for a very interesting, unusual experience. It's pretty satisfying to get a good score, but some players might not like how it's cooperative instead of competitive. Personally, I think it's a very cleanly, cleverly designed game that does a lot with just a few components. Highly recommend playing this with some friends who dig board games, and it's really cheap. You can also play it for free on Board Game Arena.
5. Dark Souls 2 - PS3 and PC (PC is vastly better)
It feels weird placing Dark Souls 2 this high on the list because it's a pretty disappointing game. It's Dark Souls only more manufactured and with less care for the setting and less respect for the player. Drangleic is a painfully dull world compared to Lordran and Boletaria, and with all the patches that took place this year, only a few builds are even viable anymore online. The boss designs are bad, which is sad because they were a high point of the last two souls games. There are too many sequences of the game that rely on having tons of enemies instead of a legitimate challenge, too. In spite of all this, I can't deny that Dark Souls 2 is a fantastic game in its own right. If I had not played the other Souls games, I would think it might be a second coming of action RPGs. Believe me, I say this in praise of the last two Souls games: Dark Souls 2 only feels bad to me because I love the other ones so much. The main thing Dark Souls 2 has going for it is quality of life improvements, like extra rolling directions, quicker menus/item usage, and fast travel via bonfires. None of that is good enough to make up for what it lacks, but it still shows that polish could have made the previous games even better, which is a little scary considering how good they are. I played through Dark Souls 2 approximately seven times this year, so hopefully that gets across the fact that I think it's a great game in spite of its problems.
It feels weird placing Dark Souls 2 this high on the list because it's a pretty disappointing game. It's Dark Souls only more manufactured and with less care for the setting and less respect for the player. Drangleic is a painfully dull world compared to Lordran and Boletaria, and with all the patches that took place this year, only a few builds are even viable anymore online. The boss designs are bad, which is sad because they were a high point of the last two souls games. There are too many sequences of the game that rely on having tons of enemies instead of a legitimate challenge, too. In spite of all this, I can't deny that Dark Souls 2 is a fantastic game in its own right. If I had not played the other Souls games, I would think it might be a second coming of action RPGs. Believe me, I say this in praise of the last two Souls games: Dark Souls 2 only feels bad to me because I love the other ones so much. The main thing Dark Souls 2 has going for it is quality of life improvements, like extra rolling directions, quicker menus/item usage, and fast travel via bonfires. None of that is good enough to make up for what it lacks, but it still shows that polish could have made the previous games even better, which is a little scary considering how good they are. I played through Dark Souls 2 approximately seven times this year, so hopefully that gets across the fact that I think it's a great game in spite of its problems.
4. Temporum - Tabletop
A new game by Donald X, the creator of Dominion. This time, you travel along timelines, change the direction time is heading, earn money and try to rule the current age while the other players are trying to do the same thing. I will have to play this hundreds of times to come close to knowing it as well as Dominion, which shows not only how much depth Temporum has, but how much mileage you can get by adding random set ups to board games. I am very excited about this game, and like that it plays very swiftly, but I'm worried it will be swept under the rug too soon since it didn't get a lot of initial buzz upon release. That is death in the board game industry, even moreso than the computer game industry.
A new game by Donald X, the creator of Dominion. This time, you travel along timelines, change the direction time is heading, earn money and try to rule the current age while the other players are trying to do the same thing. I will have to play this hundreds of times to come close to knowing it as well as Dominion, which shows not only how much depth Temporum has, but how much mileage you can get by adding random set ups to board games. I am very excited about this game, and like that it plays very swiftly, but I'm worried it will be swept under the rug too soon since it didn't get a lot of initial buzz upon release. That is death in the board game industry, even moreso than the computer game industry.
3. South Park: The Stick of Truth - PC
JSH's Game of the Year 2014!
I almost didn't get to playing South Park this year, but a timely Steam sale got it to me just in time to round out the year, and man, I saved the best for last. Now, obviously, if you aren't a fan of South Park you aren't going to get much out of this game, but for those of us who are, I can say without hesitation this is the best licensed game I have played, even better than The Walking Dead. The amount of love for the source material without pandering in a bad way is staggering. Having the original creators on board not just for voice acting but for PLANNING worked wonders. Stick of Truth feels like South Park, looks like South Park, and most importantly SOUNDS like South Park. Matt and Trey's voice acting was just instrumental in making the whole thing work. I should warn anyone going in that there are some parts of this game that are R-rated even by South Park standards (the less spoken of the abortion clinic segment the better), and those parts did harm my enjoyment of the game, but not nearly enough to knock it down too hard. The developers of the game show a lot of love not just for the show, but the classic games they are imitating. The battle system is a nicely done Paper Mario clone, and there are shades of various RPGs, including Earthbound that got a smile out of me. I don't want to spoil too much out of the game since surprises improved the humor a lot, but needless to say, any fan of South Park owes it to himself to get this game. It's pretty short, and it's well worth your time.
JSH's Game of the Year 2014!
I almost didn't get to playing South Park this year, but a timely Steam sale got it to me just in time to round out the year, and man, I saved the best for last. Now, obviously, if you aren't a fan of South Park you aren't going to get much out of this game, but for those of us who are, I can say without hesitation this is the best licensed game I have played, even better than The Walking Dead. The amount of love for the source material without pandering in a bad way is staggering. Having the original creators on board not just for voice acting but for PLANNING worked wonders. Stick of Truth feels like South Park, looks like South Park, and most importantly SOUNDS like South Park. Matt and Trey's voice acting was just instrumental in making the whole thing work. I should warn anyone going in that there are some parts of this game that are R-rated even by South Park standards (the less spoken of the abortion clinic segment the better), and those parts did harm my enjoyment of the game, but not nearly enough to knock it down too hard. The developers of the game show a lot of love not just for the show, but the classic games they are imitating. The battle system is a nicely done Paper Mario clone, and there are shades of various RPGs, including Earthbound that got a smile out of me. I don't want to spoil too much out of the game since surprises improved the humor a lot, but needless to say, any fan of South Park owes it to himself to get this game. It's pretty short, and it's well worth your time.
2. Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Path - DS
I was not a fan of the first Ace Attorney Investigations game, so I went in to this one with lowered expectations. What I got was perhaps the best game in the series, though there's still room for debate on that. One thing that a story-heavy game like Ace Attorney needs is for its main character to have an arc that feels meaningful, and while most of the Ace Attorney games have done this, AAI2 does it particularly well. It is a story about Edgeworth questioning whether walking the path of a prosecutor is helping him find true justice. This was a dilemma brought up in past games of the series, but here you face it head on. Edgeworth solves five cases where his position either gives him an advantage or gets in the way, and the final resolution of the game, while predictable, feels earned. I can't get too much in to the complexity of the characters (If there's one fanbase not to spoil it's AA fans), but rest assured AAI2 has some of the most satisfying villains the series has seen as well. This game is also quite funny, and the fan translators did a great job matching the style of the other games' US localization. In fact, they wrote Gumshoe better than the real team did in the first AAI. If this game has passed under your radar as an Ace Attorney fan or you didn't even know it was translated, you should give it a whirl. Just download a completed save file so you can get through the text boxes faster. They are mighty slow.
1. Dark Souls - PC, PS3
I talked about this game plenty at the start of the year. I have played it at least ten times this year (I lost count) and enjoyed myself during most of that time. Lordran is a fantastic setting, the characters are interesting, the combat is great, the bosses are tough and unforgettable, and almost everyone bothering to read this post all the way already knows this. I like Demon's Souls a little bit more, but the two are so close it almost doesn't matter. Dark Souls is a deep game. You are meant to play it multiple times, taking different approaches as you get more skilled and discover new things. Not a lot of games take this approach to design anymore, and bless FromSoftware for fighting the good fight in an era of games that are slowly resembling one another more and more each year. I paid $5 for this game in a sale. $5 for one of the greatest computer games ever made. Umbasa.
I talked about this game plenty at the start of the year. I have played it at least ten times this year (I lost count) and enjoyed myself during most of that time. Lordran is a fantastic setting, the characters are interesting, the combat is great, the bosses are tough and unforgettable, and almost everyone bothering to read this post all the way already knows this. I like Demon's Souls a little bit more, but the two are so close it almost doesn't matter. Dark Souls is a deep game. You are meant to play it multiple times, taking different approaches as you get more skilled and discover new things. Not a lot of games take this approach to design anymore, and bless FromSoftware for fighting the good fight in an era of games that are slowly resembling one another more and more each year. I paid $5 for this game in a sale. $5 for one of the greatest computer games ever made. Umbasa.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Dark Souls
When I finished playing Dark Souls, I immediately started judging the game overall in comparison to its predecessor, Demon's Souls. That game was fresh in my mind, and I couldn't help thinking about it as I played Dark Souls through. Of course, it's not wrong of me to compare the two; in many respects Dark Souls feels like a re-imagining of the original, and they do share the same combat system and engine. That said, perhaps it's unfair of me to say I felt Dark Souls was the lesser game because it was slightly disappointing in certain ways. Had I only played it, I might think completely differently. Such is the danger of writing reviews without taking years to mull over the work in question. In fact, thinking about this review has led me to wonder about why anyone would read one of my reviews in the first place. Would they be looking for recommendations? Trying to see if I agreed with their own thoughts on something? Interested in my prose (I hope not)? I write these things for my own amusement, to try and qualify why I enjoy things, why I don't, and the stand-out reasons for both. For this game, I'll attempt to judge it without mentioning Demon's Souls so much--if you want to know my opinion on the matter, simply put I think Dark Souls is almost as good, but misses out on a lot of what I think made Demon's Souls work. Either game is a fine starting point if you're curious about them, and due to the differences in structure, everyone's going to have a different opinion about which is better in the end.
Dark Souls is an action RPG released by From Software in 2011, the follow-up to Demon's Souls. The game is brutal, challenging, and will make you work very hard to reach its ending. One of its greatest strengths, the one that sets it apart and turns it into something special, is the amount of options offered to the player. Whether it's the array of choices for creating characters, the silly amount of weapon upgrade paths, or the mostly open-ended nature of the adventure, you rarely feel like the path ahead is set in stone and the route taken shapes a unique experience for each player. For example, I played through Dark Souls entirely skipping a major area of the game, upper Blighttown, without even knowing that most new players struggle in this section. Sometimes choices are made clear, like the fact that you can take on the final four regions of the game in any order, but often it's a very subtle thing. Granted, players who do not start with the Thief's Ring may be stuck on a more linear path, but there is still flexibility available since only certain sections of the game are blocked off.
This implementation of game design reminded me, of course, of Super Metroid, which is still in my opinion one of the greatest games ever released. The nonlinearity has some drawbacks. Players will have to backtrack and memorize the lay of the land with no maps or hints to guide them. Unfortunately, the game does not offer teleportation between save points until about halfway in, which would have cut down on much of the early game's tedium. However, the benefits of a large, interconnected world are pretty significant: Lordran feels well-realized and makes sense geographically, and it's great to plow through an area you had trouble with a long time ago while en route to somewhere new. If I could alter this aspect of Dark Souls, I would allow warping from the start of the game and have perhaps a few more bonfires (save points) to travel to.
Dark Souls's story seems a bit thin, though since I didn't see every single area in the game during my experience and I am probably forgetting some dialogue from near the start, I probably didn't learn everything there is to know. You're a chosen character being manipulated by someone or other to... you know, I was never entirely clear. That right there is the problem I have with the game's story. While I'm not against stories being vague or having to dig to learn all the juicy details, it would be nice to at least have an established motivation for my actions. This is one area where I must, unfortunately, compare the game to its predecessor. While Demon's Souls was not the zenith of storyline perfection, it did have many more easy to find characters who would divulge information about the world and its inhabitants. This helped establish Boletaria as the game progressed and made the objective clear and meaningful. In contrast, Dark Souls is much lighter on interaction with minor characters. The lore of the world is likely more interesting than the plot itself, which was true of Demon's Souls as well, but that's an aspect of the game I can barely scratch the surface of and is ultimately more interesting when you're in the world of Lordran experiencing it for yourself. I wouldn't say the lack of much story in Dark Souls was a deal breaker, though. It did allow me to focus on the gameplay, which requires plenty of attention.
Combat in Dark Souls has been mostly improved from Demon's Souls, adding new elements such as Poise (resistance to hit-stun) and common-sense moves like jumping attacks. There isn't that huge of a difference between how the two play, but it feels more refined. One of the more interesting changes is that spells and your main healing item, the Estus Flask, work on a Final Fantasy I style charge system. When you rest at a bonfire, you restore all charges, and if you run out in the field, you're out until returning to a bonfire. It's interesting to see a system that was once almost completely booted from RPGs return and actually work better. I would say this approach to limiting healing items in particular is among the best I've ever seen; it prevents the player from hoarding millions of heals and sets a timer on the amount of exploration possible to perform safely. In truth, it also made me take much needed breaks from the game at times since I had to rest my character anyway. When a game is as stressful as this one, this can only be a good thing.
One area that I think Dark Souls falters in is its difficulty curve. I've talked about how difficult the game is, but in truth, only a few key parts of the game are what drove me up the wall, and most of those parts have to do with questionable boss designs. Many areas of the game are cakewalks. Carrying a divine weapon makes two areas of the game completely harmless. Anor Londo is nowhere near the end of the game and is by far the most difficult segment. Blighttown and the Bed of Chaos are difficult because of technical issues like lag and camera angles. Honestly, the game never feels like it's giving challenges in the right order, which may be another result of nonlinearity, but still just seems strange at times.
Another thing that concerns me is the game's online features. The most infamous, the battle against Ornstein and Smough, had me trapped for quite some time unable to progress. (In short, you have to defeat two strong, very quick enemies that can easily gang up on you. Only somebody who is a master at action games can win this battle without saying it was difficult) To win this battle, I had to do what I suspect the designer intended: summon another player to lend me a hand. I am very torn about this. Make no mistake: I think the online aspects of the Souls games are great and help make them stand apart from others. On the other hand, what if I want to play this game again in seven years? Will anybody be online to play co-op with? Will there be any danger of being invaded by other players? It seems to me that Dark Souls will be gutted at that point. I played Demon's Souls with very few online interactions, and it still works well as a game, but it didn't feel as if the creators wanted you to go it alone all the time. Still, nothing in it gave me as much trouble as the battle described above. Balancing co-op play with making a beatable single player mode must be an extremely daunting task for a designer, and it's one I feel I can't criticize as much as I'd like since I play most games on my own.
I'm left feeling like I didn't get everything I wanted out of my experience with Dark Souls, but I did play it for over sixty hours and had a good time throughout most of it. It's a game I know I'll be playing again and learning more about on the side, which is always a good sign. In time, my appreciation of Dark Souls is likely to go up. For now, I'm content with saying it's simply a very good game that anybody who is up for a challenge should try, especially since it's so cheap on the PC (and easy to fix its issues with a simple mod). Praise the sun.
8
Dark Souls is an action RPG released by From Software in 2011, the follow-up to Demon's Souls. The game is brutal, challenging, and will make you work very hard to reach its ending. One of its greatest strengths, the one that sets it apart and turns it into something special, is the amount of options offered to the player. Whether it's the array of choices for creating characters, the silly amount of weapon upgrade paths, or the mostly open-ended nature of the adventure, you rarely feel like the path ahead is set in stone and the route taken shapes a unique experience for each player. For example, I played through Dark Souls entirely skipping a major area of the game, upper Blighttown, without even knowing that most new players struggle in this section. Sometimes choices are made clear, like the fact that you can take on the final four regions of the game in any order, but often it's a very subtle thing. Granted, players who do not start with the Thief's Ring may be stuck on a more linear path, but there is still flexibility available since only certain sections of the game are blocked off.
This implementation of game design reminded me, of course, of Super Metroid, which is still in my opinion one of the greatest games ever released. The nonlinearity has some drawbacks. Players will have to backtrack and memorize the lay of the land with no maps or hints to guide them. Unfortunately, the game does not offer teleportation between save points until about halfway in, which would have cut down on much of the early game's tedium. However, the benefits of a large, interconnected world are pretty significant: Lordran feels well-realized and makes sense geographically, and it's great to plow through an area you had trouble with a long time ago while en route to somewhere new. If I could alter this aspect of Dark Souls, I would allow warping from the start of the game and have perhaps a few more bonfires (save points) to travel to.
Dark Souls's story seems a bit thin, though since I didn't see every single area in the game during my experience and I am probably forgetting some dialogue from near the start, I probably didn't learn everything there is to know. You're a chosen character being manipulated by someone or other to... you know, I was never entirely clear. That right there is the problem I have with the game's story. While I'm not against stories being vague or having to dig to learn all the juicy details, it would be nice to at least have an established motivation for my actions. This is one area where I must, unfortunately, compare the game to its predecessor. While Demon's Souls was not the zenith of storyline perfection, it did have many more easy to find characters who would divulge information about the world and its inhabitants. This helped establish Boletaria as the game progressed and made the objective clear and meaningful. In contrast, Dark Souls is much lighter on interaction with minor characters. The lore of the world is likely more interesting than the plot itself, which was true of Demon's Souls as well, but that's an aspect of the game I can barely scratch the surface of and is ultimately more interesting when you're in the world of Lordran experiencing it for yourself. I wouldn't say the lack of much story in Dark Souls was a deal breaker, though. It did allow me to focus on the gameplay, which requires plenty of attention.
Combat in Dark Souls has been mostly improved from Demon's Souls, adding new elements such as Poise (resistance to hit-stun) and common-sense moves like jumping attacks. There isn't that huge of a difference between how the two play, but it feels more refined. One of the more interesting changes is that spells and your main healing item, the Estus Flask, work on a Final Fantasy I style charge system. When you rest at a bonfire, you restore all charges, and if you run out in the field, you're out until returning to a bonfire. It's interesting to see a system that was once almost completely booted from RPGs return and actually work better. I would say this approach to limiting healing items in particular is among the best I've ever seen; it prevents the player from hoarding millions of heals and sets a timer on the amount of exploration possible to perform safely. In truth, it also made me take much needed breaks from the game at times since I had to rest my character anyway. When a game is as stressful as this one, this can only be a good thing.
One area that I think Dark Souls falters in is its difficulty curve. I've talked about how difficult the game is, but in truth, only a few key parts of the game are what drove me up the wall, and most of those parts have to do with questionable boss designs. Many areas of the game are cakewalks. Carrying a divine weapon makes two areas of the game completely harmless. Anor Londo is nowhere near the end of the game and is by far the most difficult segment. Blighttown and the Bed of Chaos are difficult because of technical issues like lag and camera angles. Honestly, the game never feels like it's giving challenges in the right order, which may be another result of nonlinearity, but still just seems strange at times.
Another thing that concerns me is the game's online features. The most infamous, the battle against Ornstein and Smough, had me trapped for quite some time unable to progress. (In short, you have to defeat two strong, very quick enemies that can easily gang up on you. Only somebody who is a master at action games can win this battle without saying it was difficult) To win this battle, I had to do what I suspect the designer intended: summon another player to lend me a hand. I am very torn about this. Make no mistake: I think the online aspects of the Souls games are great and help make them stand apart from others. On the other hand, what if I want to play this game again in seven years? Will anybody be online to play co-op with? Will there be any danger of being invaded by other players? It seems to me that Dark Souls will be gutted at that point. I played Demon's Souls with very few online interactions, and it still works well as a game, but it didn't feel as if the creators wanted you to go it alone all the time. Still, nothing in it gave me as much trouble as the battle described above. Balancing co-op play with making a beatable single player mode must be an extremely daunting task for a designer, and it's one I feel I can't criticize as much as I'd like since I play most games on my own.
I'm left feeling like I didn't get everything I wanted out of my experience with Dark Souls, but I did play it for over sixty hours and had a good time throughout most of it. It's a game I know I'll be playing again and learning more about on the side, which is always a good sign. In time, my appreciation of Dark Souls is likely to go up. For now, I'm content with saying it's simply a very good game that anybody who is up for a challenge should try, especially since it's so cheap on the PC (and easy to fix its issues with a simple mod). Praise the sun.
8
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