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zachsgamejournal · 4 years ago

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COMPLETED (for now): Final Fantasy VII

Midgar section complete, and at just under 6 hours. Boom. It was a fun ride.

So, in the prison cells. Aerith talks about her planned date with Cloud, and Tifa hears. it’s a brief moment of love-triangle-ness, but Tifa and Aerith move past it quickly. Aerith and Tifa don’t quite get the bonding that they do in Remake, but they’re not quite the rivals I assumed them to be. Barret is trying to keep track of how everything is so much bigger than him. This is interesting. I think Barret had a singular vision--get revenge against Shinra (and maybe save the planet). Now he’s learning there’s more factors at play, and his goal isn’t as clear.

Then he calls Red XIII “boring”. Haha. Cloud wakes up to find his prison cell door open. Checking outside, the guard is dead/knocked out. Spooky. I liked this moment, but Remake kinda skipped over it. Instead we got stupid destiny-ghosts and long-ass Hojo dungeon. Following the trail, it’s interesting how the monsters are different. Hojo experiments or Jenova spawn? Speaking of Jenova, she escaped. Curious how it got out. In Remake a Sephiroth “clone” rescued her. But here...maybe she saved herself? Then made a Sephiroth sword to murder President Shinra?

Anyway, I love finding dead President Shinra. It’s interesting to have Shinra boast in front of the team after capturing them, then to have all his dreams whisked away. It creates a fragility to his sense of strength and power. While he may have had massive influence over the world--he’s still just a mortal human. Maybe that’s why the designers wanted a bigger enemy (Sehpiroth/Jenova). But them not being Ancients weakens that for me. I do love how Barret asks if Sephiroth is a “good guy”. But Cloud sets him straight. This is a weakness in this game’s story. Out of nowhere, Cloud is dropping a lot of Sephiroth bombs and no one has bothered to ask Cloud who this guy is or why Cloud hates him so much. I know we get the details in Kalm, but I wonder...if this back story was presented before the attack on Shinra--would the Sephiroth sword in Shinra’s back have been even more alarming? I think it could have created some great context for this moment.

Rufus shows up and he’s a total jerk. We’ve changed antagonists, but not really. Rufus makes a good switch because he’s younger. It makes sense that he would want to chase Sephiroth across the world when his father would likely have preferred sending proxies. I do love how everyone introduces themselves: Ex-Soldier, from Avalanche, flower girl, and science experiment.

Cloud takes on Rufus, while Barret, Aerith, and Red XIII fight TWO bosses back-to-back, and Tifa waits in the lobby. Knowing what to expect, I equipped the Barret team well enough for their fight. Super easy. But the Rufus battle was more worrisome. I set the battle speed to max. I really like it. Seems like I’m never waiting for ATB bars to fill. But also with bosses, it means I’m constantly getting bombarded with devastating attacks. I opened with poison on Rufus, which was wise. But they kept hitting me back-to-back with attacks, so I got to 50% health pretty quick with a filled Limit Break Bar. I opted for the Limit Break, hoping that between that and the poison, it would be enough to end the fight. Soon, I was down to 25% with two foes. I was just able to give Cloud a Hi-Potion before they could kill me, and it only took one hit from my Fire-Elemental sword to end the battle. Thought I wasn’t gonna make.

Barret, Aerith, and Red are in the lobby. Not sure how they’re gonna get out. I guess it made sense that Remake boosted this scene a little bit with Heidegger. But I was so ready for this game to be done, I couldn’t enjoy the smallest of “improvements”. Tifa gets the team together to hop in a car. It’s a fun little cinematic with some glass busting action!! Now we’re off to one of my favorite mini-games:

The Motorcycle sequence! I was blown away as a kid playing this game, even more blown away thinking they could have gotten away with something simpler--but they actually invented a whole gameplay mechanic just for this one moment. That’s what I love about FF7--how they find ways to switch up the conventional RPG formula with neat mini-games that often help better serve the story!

Maybe cause I was playing on my phone, but I didn’t defend my team as well as I usually do. They got a little beat up. Weird wheeled-robot boss fight and boom, done with the Midgar section.

No stupid fight with Destiny. Though, I do like how Remake brought Sephiroth into play here. For this game, though, it makes sense to have a somber moment post Motorcycle chase. It’s been pretty non-stop with huge plot twists, new characters, and four boss fights. The players deserve a break. And they’re gonna get plenty of Sephiroth in Kalm, five minutes from now.

It was interesting hearing the characters’ motivations. Cloud wants to settle the score with Sephiroth. You’re not supposed to know what that means, but apparently Cloud thought he was dead. Now that he’s “not”, he wants to get this resolved. He’s also aware of Sephiroth’s murderous schemes. Cloud, in his commitment to saving Aerith, has committed himself to being a hero. Feels clear to me now. He seems quite willing to align with others that have a similar goal. This isn’t just revenge, but it’s also not NOT revenge. Barret, seeing Sephiroth as the greater threat to the planet has shifted his focus. But Also, President Shinra is dead. While Rufus is terrible, and Shinra is still very much alive...to know that the one person most responsible for your pain and misery is now dead has got to be a little disorienting. A little bit, here, Barret is also becoming a hero.

Aerith admits to having never left Midgar and says there’s things she wants to know. Cloud asks if it’s about the Ancients, and she says “many things”. She’s actually a pretty complex character. I think she has feelings for Cloud, which is somewhat mixed up with her feelings for Zack. She knows Shinra is a threat to the world but also seeking her out personally, so she’ll never truly be safe or carefree. And she’s a pretty decent person that wants to do the right thing. She has a lot riding her shoulders that she didn’t ask for. I think she’s interesting in that she wants to live in her small bubble within Midgar, but her destiny and fate are tied to much bigger things!

Tifa--sadly, Tifa doesn’t have a lot going on right now. I really love her in Remake, but much of that felt added. I think she’s similar to Barret in that she suffered a great loss because of Shinra and wants revenge. But she’s not as aggressive and violent as he is. Clearly she’s a bad ass. I think this is the one place where Remake has the edge over the original--they did a better job with Tifa.

Then Red XIII. He just kinda wants a lift. Hah!

Well, I wanted to replay the Midgar section as a compare-and-contrast with Remake, and that task is done. I often play this section (once or twice a year) never quite committing to playing the whole game. But it seems I tend to gloss over the dialog (I know this already). But I made myself read it, even talk to most of the NPCs, and it’s just a great game, story, and world.

To say Final Fantasy VII hasn’t aged well is ridiculous. Nothing truly ages well, especially a work of media that represents a growing and evolving craft. Tons of RPGs were inspired by gameplay and technical feats attempted and pioneered by Final Fantasy VII, and the game’s legacy is still strong. The graphics aren’t great by today’s standards, and they were a little weird by 98′s standards, but they still helped tell a great story and provide iconic gameplay moments. And those moments are timeless. Even if the translation is bad. Even a modern Remake can’t erase the original’s greatness.

I’m still a fan!

#Zach's Game Journal #ZGJ #COMPLETED #Final Fantasy VII #PlayStation #PS1 #ePSXe #Emulators #Video Games

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yo-namine · 5 years ago

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Okay, time to talk to myself about Re:Mind and Limit Cut Episode.

Spoilers galore under the cut!

I'm just gonna start off by talking about how the DLC handled my biggest gripe with base KH3, which was obviously how Kairi was written in the last few hours of the game. Like I said in my other post, Re:Mind doesn't totally fix those problems, but... Well, here's what we get:

Kairi's "murder" is reframed a bit in the DLC. Base KH3 presents it as Xehanort killing her just to provoke Sora et al. into "clashing" with him to make the final key. In Re:Mind, we learn that Xehanort was actually stowing Kairi away (by "crystallizing" her, which... means she wasn't dead? But Sora still takes all the steps Chirithy gives him that are specifically for restoring a heart from death, and it works, so...?) as a fail-safe of sorts in case he needed another Light. Xemnas foreshadows this a bit when he says that Kingdom Hearts needs the Princesses of Heart in case the whole 13 Clashes of Light and Darkness thing doesn't work out. And for what it's worth, I do think this is a little better for Kairi as a character just because it shows that she was "killed" due to something unique and special about her, rather than what she was to Sora. She's still being used, and she's still sapped of her agency, but presumably no other character could have worked in that role against Xehanort, so... that's something, I suppose.

During the Xemnas/Saix/Xion fight, there's an added scene where all the Lights get to take a shot at Xemnas, and Kairi actually broke that motherfucker's guard and made him stumble when no one else could... And then she got captured, bloop, but at least this time it was because she was actually fighting and simply got bested. I can appreciate that. I liked seeing her shield Axel from Xion's attack, too.

And of course, she does get the chance to take on Xehanort later. She has a nice battle set-up (a sort of warp dash ability similar to Riku's and Roxas's, shotlock, reflect, and a GORGEOUS link attack with Sora), and it's a little cathartic to play as her taking Xehanort down. However, I don't think she ever learns that Xehanort took her as a safety measure for his plan or why she was the one chosen for this in the first place. She doesn't speak to Xehanort at all, which makes her big battle with him at the end feel rather... impersonal? And never mind him "killing" her in KH3; Xehanort's ultimately responsible for her losing her family when she was four years old, as well as the destruction of her home world. I'm not saying Kairi and Xehanort needed to have some long overwrought conversation or anything, but there definitely should've been some dialogue between them.

Kairi's actually involved in Naminé's restoration after all!!!!!!!! I remember the Ultimania's explanation of Naminé's return leaving a bad taste in my mouth because it seemed like they framed Kairi's death as ultimately a good thing, because hey, at least her murder freed Naminé from her heart. But that's not what actually happened; instead, Kairi and Sora go to Radiant Garden at the end of the game, and she lets him use the keyblade to release Naminé's heart from hers. And honestly, that scene right there? That was probably my favorite part of this entire DLC. The fact that Kairi really did play a part in restoring her Nobody is a much better payoff to her earlier lines in the game about wanting Naminé to have her own experiences. She wanted to give Naminé her life back, and rather than that being something wrenched from Kairi against her will, it was something she did for Naminé of her own volition. I just. 😭

/tl;dr thoughts on kairi

As for everything else in Re:Mind:

I loved the background moments with Sora and Kairi in the ending cinematic. Each one is framed so that you can't see their faces, so they all feel like you're looking in on something secret. The "Behind the Curtain" trophy name is pretty fitting (and just downright cute, lol). And like I said above, I loved the scene where Kairi and Sora restore Naminé's heart. You just see him pull the keyblade away from her chest, and then she cradles Naminé's heart in her hands and fjsldfjskd. I teared up at that. It was just such a sweet and gentle little moment. Sora and Kairi taking Chirithy to Ven (and Sora even giving them a little push, lol) was really sweet, too. I loved their body language while they watched Ven run off, how you see them turn toward each other just slightly.

I also like how Sora and Kairi's relationship evolved from "Even if we're apart, our hearts are always connected" to "Heart connections are nice and all, but I'd much rather actually be with you."

Demyx and Riku interacting was something I never knew I needed. Riku's like "PLEASE be careful with that vessel, it's very important--" and Demyx is just "Bro, I got this," and hoists it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Sora and Roxas actually talk to each other! I liked the scene where Sora's Station of Awakening starts to peel away to reveal Roxas's, and you get little glimpses of Roxas's memories. And it turns out that Sora actually did release Roxas's heart from his, and it wasn't just Xemnas kicking Xion into his chest that did the trick, lmao. I like that change.

Xemnas mentions that the original Organization doesn't remember Xion, but they do have records of her. That's a nice little tidbit to have for my Day 4 AU. 👀

Saix says the Guardians must be desperate if they're getting a Princess of Heart involved in the war, and Axel's like "Nah, she's our trump card." Aw. I also thought it was interesting how Saix purposefully uses Axel and Roxas's names to try to trigger Xion's memory of them.

I had to watch the recusant's sigil bit like four times before I understood what the hell was happening, lmao. The sigil represents the Sea Salt Trio's actual connection to one another that they had to "reclaim" from Xemnas, which... okay, but why was that needed? The thing I always liked about this trio is that they're the only one that we see develop fully from the beginning to the end of their relationship. They were always the most believable (canon) trio to me because of that, so throwing in this whole "The sigil binds us together!" thing just seems kind of stupid and unnecessary. They're friendship is good enough as-is. You don't have to add in this nonsense to represent their bond; their relationship development itself already did that. But whatever, they still had a really cool combo attack.

Scala ad Caelum is expanded on! I really enjoyed exploring it and solving the little puzzles to put Kairi's heart back together.

I LOVED THE GUARDIANS VS. NORT REPLICAS BATTLE SO MUCH I HAVE TO YELL ABOUT IT. I ACTUALLY DIED THE FIRST TIME BUT I DIDN'T CARE THAT I HAD TO REPLAY IT BECAUSE I WAS HAVING SO MUCH FUN. THE TAG TEAM ATTACKS!!!!! AQUA, XION, AND MICKEY'S COUNTER-ATTACK!!!!!! EVERYONE ACTUALLY WORKING TOGETHER!!!!!!!! IT’S ALL I EVER WANTED!!!!!!!!

There are so many cute dialogue exchanges during the Guardians vs. replicas sequence, too! Ven and Roxas compliment each other, Aqua scolds Axel for talking too much (twice, I think? Axel fusses at her the second time, lmao), Terra says something to Riku that I couldn't quite catch, and Riku's like "All thanks to you!" It's just so cute and charming, and it really made the Guardians finally feel like a team.

Mickey Mouse straight-up Boromir-ing his way through the Nort replicas was... I think I loved that? Yeah, no, I loved that. I was laughing through half of it because I kept getting knocked back, but it was a great sequence (visually and gameplay-wise).

Connecting all the keyholes was very satisfying, and was just a beautiful visual altogether.

Sora and Kairi's reunion was adorable. And then Sora sees Goatanort enter the scene, and he just looks at Kairi and is like, "You ready, B?" and Kairi's like, "FUCK yeah, I'm taking his trachea through his kneecaps!!!!!" Okay, not really, lmao. Actually, Kairi's surprised when Sora asks her that, like she didn't expect him to let her help, or maybe she felt like she wouldn't even be able to, but she says she's ready anyway. Kairi’s under-confidence in her fighting skills is a little more apparent in the DLC. Like she says "I can do this" right before the final battle, but it comes off as her trying to reassure herself. She even has a counterattack where her battle quote is "Please work!" and I don't remember hearing her say that in the base game. Girl knows how outclassed she is compared to most of the other Guardians (and Xehanort), but she fights like hell anyway. Attagirl. 🎉

And as for Limit Cut:

Aww, I love that Terra calls Riku "a great leader."

Cheers to David Gallagher for saying "Are you sure about this?" with the exact same inflection as the John Cena meme.

Riku's a master now, right? When will he get some spiffy keyblade armor???????

Okay. Riku is having dreams about looking for Sora. Sora is dead (?), and "the edges of sleep and death touch." Kairi has been asleep for the past year so that the Radiant Garden team can study her heart in effort to find Sora. Nomura? Nomura? Nomura. You cannot fuck this up, man. You can do this. You can write the Destiny Trio working together again. You can write a full story in which Kairi has an active role. You can write her and Riku interacting. You can do it. I believe in you.

The data battles are so hardddddd. I wound up just watching all the LC cutscenes on youtube, lmfao. But I do want to try to beat at least some of these bosses. Tragically, Riku is TRAPPED IN MERLIN'S HOUSE, so you can't leave to grind or anything. Boo.

I don't really care about Yozora. I think we got a confirmation from Sora that Nameless Star is Stella (?), and that's cute for her I guess, but I genuinely don't care, lmao. But I definitely understand the compulsion to include beloved characters from old cancelled projects in your newer ones, so I hope Nomura has fun with that. ...That sounded sarcastic, lol, but I meant it. I hope he gets to do something cool and creative with this recycled cast. It just might not be a story I'll end up following, is all.

Data greeting is SO much fun. I sank a couple of hours into that the other night just creating scenes and playing with effects. The controls are really easy to use, and it's even fun to just explore environments like Radiant Garden and Scala ad Caelum without messing with photos at all. I hope we can unlock more character outfits and poses in the future, but I can definitely enjoy it as is for now.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this DLC. True, about half of Re:Mind is a rehash of the Keyblade Graveyard scenes with some extra content here and there, but it's sort of justified story-wise since we're in a timeloop. I enjoyed the extra Kairi scenes and the interactions between the Guardians the most. Limit Cut is mainly just bonus bosses, but like I said, I do want to actually beat those once I can figure out a strategy for them. And I'm obviously having way too much fun with Data Greeting, lmao, so yeah. Not a bad update.

#my posts #kh3 bloggin #dlc spoilers

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mannatea · 5 years ago

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Pokémon Shield: A Review

DISCLAIMER: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS HERE!

First, my credentials/gaming history, so you can see if my opinion is valuable to you or not. I would like to make it clear from the start that I do not consider myself a ‘gamer’ by any stretch of the imagination. I’m a filthy casual at best.

I’ve been playing video games since I was maybe eight or nine years old. I’ve always enjoyed dabbling in a variety of genres, and have a great appreciation for the work that goes into creating each and every game, no matter the intended audience. Some of my all-time favorite titles include Tales of Symphonia, Fire Emblem (7), Final Fantasy IX, Legend of Dragoon, Chrono Cross, Tetris, Bust-a-Move, Project Gotham Racing, Ecco the Dolphin (PC,DC), Roller Coaster Tycoon, Harvest Moon (N64/PS1), World of Warcraft, and of course our beloved Pokemon!

I started with Pokemon Red, and enjoyed it immensely, but Silver stole my heart and my imagination. My brother and I used to sit at the kitchen table with guide books open and notebooks at the ready to craft and create new, extremely cool teams. I sank an unbelievable amount of hours into that game, and into Pokemon Stadium (1 & 2), Hey You! Pikachu, Pokemon Puzzle League, and even Pokemon Pinball. Unfortunately after Silver, my interest waned. I was an adult by the time Emerald debuted, and while I was initially charmed by it, found my interest waning quickly. I bought and played Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, SoulSilver, and Black & White, but didn’t beat any of them. I felt like the magic had…disappeared somehow.

But when X and Y released in 2013, I binged on Pokemon X, beat it, and for the first time since childhood started breeding a competitive team just for the heck of it. I also found myself really enjoying Pokemon Sun a couple of years later (though the post-game of breeding didn’t really do it for me this time).

They lost me with Ultra Sun/Moon. I wanted to like them, really, but it was too much of a rehash, and too much handholding (like the originals were, and I could only stand going through that once).

Now here we are with Pokemon Sword and Shield. They released just a few days ago (15 November, 2019) and the controversy has been wild. It seems to me that everyone has some kind of very strong opinion, and a lot of people are very angry.

Pokemon has always been one of my favorite franchises, but my history with the games is far from spotless so I like to think I can manage a mostly unbiased review, though of course everything in this post is my personal opinion.

Here’s what I’ve done in the game:

40 hours played.

200 pokemon in the pokedex.

Main story and post-game story completed.

I played with no specific self-imposed rules and was not spoiled for hardly anything before I started playing.

The Game’s Introductory Sequence [8/10]

As is standard for the franchise these days, the game flings you into the world with little fanfare regarding customization. Rather than the intro being a dialogue of sorts between your character and a professor, you are now instructed to choose what you look like (from a sparse few options) after typing in your name.

The first ‘cinematic’ is pretty boring, but I think the attempt at immersion is genuine enough (the idea being that your character is watching Leon’s broadcasted fight on your new smart phone). My character has a better house in-game than I do in real life. I’d kill for all that storage in the kitchen!

My biggest gripe with the introduction is that it reminded me too much of Sun & Moon’s introduction—in the worst of ways. I wouldn’t say it’s slow-paced, but the constant interruption by other characters is about enough to make a person rage-quit. Luckily I’ve been blessed with a lot of patience; it makes tedious content easy to bear (so long as it’s not difficult), but even I was feeling antsy before the first hour of the game was up, just because Hop and Leon never shut up and I was chomping at the bit to Explore.

Considering this is the first thing a player experiences…I really feel it could have been improved, especially the dialogue, but there were a few really positive things about it, too. The outdoor BBQ was a nice touch (considering everyone knew we’d be going off on Adventures in the morning and all), the game does let you avoid having to learn how to catch a pokemon (your mom slips a few pokeballs into your bag at one point without telling you and if you use them to catch pokemon, Leon will not teach you how to do it later), and I feel like as far as introductions go, this one was fairly short when compared to Sun and Moon’s introductory period.

While I’m being positive, the game plops you down into an idyllic little English countryside and not only do you get to enjoy that aesthetic, but the Slumbering Weald is probably one of the prettiest/most charming places in the game, and you get a peek at it early on!

The Starter Pokemon [5/10]

I’ve experienced worse? I wasn’t spoiled for any of the starter pokemon’s evolutions starting out, and while I didn’t exactly hate any of them, I sure didn’t love ‘em, either. I named my Scorbunny “Chad” on the assumption that he was likely to turn into a chad, though I’m not sure that accurately describes the pokemon I ended up with. Clearly modeled after soccer players, my Chad is a cocky all-star jock. They went all out on his Pyroball animation but Double Kick can see itself out of my house. No love in this club.

I just really wish I found any of these starters or their evolved forms to be charming, but they’re not. Rillaboom is basically George of the Jungle but 3% less of a himbo, and Inteleon is Greninja’s younger brother in accounting.

Gyms, Gym Challenges, & Game Balance [6/10]

This is probably one of, if not the, most debated topic over at Reddit. Is the game balanced? Are the gyms too easy? Are they making this game for 5-year-olds suddenly?

Eh. I do think the game is, perhaps, Too Easy, but a game being easy isn’t a shortcoming in and of itself. Check out my section on the story and characters for more on this topic, but I’ll post the short of it here, because it’s relevant: if the gameplay is going to be easy, we either need an option to make it more difficult, or the characters, story, and world have to carry the game in such a way that the easy gameplay still feels fun.

Shield had, uh, none of that going for it, unfortunately. The plot is lackluster (more about this later), and the gameplay wasn’t able to pick up the slack. In other words, the gameplay didn’t make the game feel Substantial in any way.

Which is kind of bad, considering Dynamaxing is a new feature!

The biggest issue for most people was the Experience Share. It’s turned on by default and there seems to be no way to turn it off. You get insane amounts of XP for defeating and catching pokemon, and your whole team seems to level pretty evenly even if you only occasionally use some pokemon in the party.

I personally played the game with the default battle option (where it asks if you want to switch out to a new pokemon when the enemy is going to send out a new one) because I barely remember half the pokemon in the game’s typing. Knowing the name of what’s coming next doesn’t always help me. (How’s that for an embarrassing truth?)

I personally liked the experience share, though I feel having the ability to toggle it on/off (or even on for certain pokemon and off for others) would have been ideal. The idea with having it on all the time is that your team will level fairly evenly so you’ll be able to switch in any of your six pokemon to battle without having to struggle through leveling some of the weaker ‘mons up individually. Additionally, it enables you to easily replace a pokemon on your team mid-game if you so desire. And I did (I replaced my shiny Orbeetle with regular cotton candy Rapidash).

My team at end-game was as follows:

Cinderace (Chad)

Greedent (Moriah)

Thievul (Penelope)

Liepard (My)

Corviknight (Octavia)

Rapidash (Calliope)

As you can see, I have no grass pokemon, no water pokemon, and no electric pokemon. I have two dark types. My move coverage mostly sucked throughout the game, because Thievul had 3 dark moves, and My had 3 normal moves. I’m an official idiot, thanks for coming to my TED talk. Usually I can struggle through no matter how garbage-tier my team is, and this game was…no exception.

I steamrolled the first few gyms and their challenges even though I wasn’t vastly overleveled for any of the content. After the ghost gym (which was easy for me with my dark types) I’d say the difficulty level went up slightly, mostly because my brain has refused to hold type advantages/weaknesses that came after Gen1. I feel like most original type weaknesses made some kind of sense to me and I was never able to incorporate dark and steel into that mix, let alone fairy.

At any rate, once you fight a pokemon once, the game will tell you if your moves are super effective against them or not. I remember people complaining about this feature when it was added (in Sun/Moon I think), but I like it. It doesn’t actually help a lot if you don’t know what the moves do/aren’t looking at move power/effects, but it’s useful for my sieve of a brain in a pinch.

Hop as a rival was almost never challenging. He always starts with the same pokemon, and his team is fairly easy to sweep. That might be kind of the point, but I wish you could have encouraged him to take the starter that’s strong against yours for a bit more of a challenge. Yeah, it’s not much, but it would have been something. Marnie is a better rival than Hop in the sense that she’s actually a better battler, but I swept her team pretty easily too, every single time we fought.

The only real challenges in the game were fighting Raihan (I only had one very weak fairy move and no ice to counter his dragons) and Leon (he definitely outleveled me). On Leon I had to use revives and potions!

The gym challenges started off as pretty cute (herding Wooloo, pipe puzzle maze) but quickly grew into lazy boring doldrums (basically gauntlet fighting of one kind or another). I guess I’d say ‘nice try’ for these and say I don’t really care if I see them again or not unless they’re going to actually give it a real go.

Overall, the story part of the game felt balanced enough for me personally but if I’m being completely unbiased: it was too easy to get levels. I could have wandered around less/caught fewer pokemon as I journeyed and enjoyed more of a challenge, but I just…gotta catch ‘em all, y’know? Most people do! GameFreak should have known this and designed accordingly.

The big issue with game balance feels like it comes…after the game, and I don’t mean the post-game so much as the Max Raid Battles that require other people, but the NPC trainers you can battle with are legit trash at what they do, which kind of forces you to find other trainers, but…

Online Compatibility & Features [3/10]

So I think the rating speaks for itself, here. The interface is confusing, the stamps are annoying, and the ability to see other players but not interact with them in any meaningful way is rage-inducing (and not just because of the FPS drops).

X/Y had a better online system!

Sun and Moon was better!

I don’t know why we regressed. I’m glad they kept the “wonder trade” (renamed to random trade, I think), because I always did enjoy doing that, but the GTS was the best idea they ever had and they abandoned it for random trading? I don’t want to trade with randoms? If I wanted to do that, I’d just do a random trade in the first place!!! The inability to put what you’re looking for into the stamp that people see? Oversight. Or just bad design. Probably both!

I’ve never hated a pokemon online experience more than this. I’m just astounded by how bad it is. I tried to join max raid battles last night and kept being told the event was over, but the stamps just…didn’t refresh? For HOW LONG? I can’t even tell you because I don’t know, and I couldn’t find a way to manually force them to refresh. It’s like they update every 15 minutes instead of every 15-30 seconds (which they should if I’m browsing for trades to make or battles to join). There are ways around this (according to Reddit) but the interface should be intuitive and easy to use by default.

C’mon, guys, you can do better. This is legitimately embarrassing in the year 2019.

Music [5/10]

There are some really magical tracks in this game, and there are some really terrible tracks. It doesn’t feel at all cohesive or thematic. I absolutely hated the gym battle remix; it was worse than the regular gym battle music. I feel like the gym battle theme would have really caught on if they didn’t have any other synth sounding tracks in the game, but they kind of do, so it blends in instead of sticking out as a bop.

Notable nice tracks were Hulbury, Glimwood Tangle, Slumbering Weald, and the desert route (which I can’t remember offhand). Some of the better music reminded me of the soundtrack for Tales of Symphonia, which is high praise coming from me. Unfortunately for every good track there were probably 3 forgettable ones.

There wasn’t anything particularly engaging when it comes to the music here, but it’s at least passable.

Graphics, Design, and Animation [6/10]

I should clarify that this is 6/10 for a pokemon game, not in general. I don’t expect flashy realism in a pokemon game and neither should you. The graphics are adequate most of the time, but the animation leaves a lot to desire when you look away from the pokemon that feel like they were Chosen Ones (and received a lot more attention).

Rapidash, for example, is using the same base model and animations it’s been using since it’s been in 3D. I’m not going to claim since Stadium, but holy cow the animations are for sure the same as they’ve been since at least X/Y for all the older moves. I’m not impressed.

The characters all have dopey expressions on their faces always. The models just use one talking animation loop and it almost never changes. The main character still looks on like a smiley face emoji when turmoil occurs, and though this isn’t as bad as it was in Sun/Moon, it’s still…kind of jarring?

The Wild Area looks kind of bad sometimes, and some areas in the actual game were lackluster compared to what they should have been. Ballonlea is the town you step into after walking through the (honestly) magical Glimwood Tangle, and it’s this charming fairy wonderland…with two houses and a stadium the size of two billion football fields. Uh. Okay? You’re telling me they destroyed how much natural habitat to make this gym? It just doesn’t jive with the scenery/theme out there, especially considering Opal’s theatre is tiny. And it’s not just that I think the game is lacking thematically (though it clearly is), but there’s this…laziness to the design when it comes to places like Ballonlea. It could have been SUCH an enchanting town to explore, but it was two houses with nothing important in them and a sports arena that feels completely at odds with its surroundings. (In this town you do learn that an NPC you spoke to earlier was a ghost, but it’s not as if this is very important information/goes anywhere, really.)

Spikemuth, for all its flaws, was at least memorable. I can’t say the same for most of the towns in this game. I really enjoyed the music in Hulbury but you best bet I had to look it up to remember the name of the town! Time is partly to blame. We don’t spend a lot of time in each town, and we have no real reason to go back to them aside from visiting the nearest Pokemon Center to heal and rest up. But I would argue that, beyond that, the individual designs just…don’t feel memorable because they’re not memorable. The names are mostly meh (every time I see Ballonlea I think of Bologna for some reason), but without anything else to connect to the place as more than just a place…there’s no reason to remember any of it.

Like the music, these are all passable, graphics more than animation, animation more than design, but that’s all there is to it.

Camping and Cooking, Feathers and Fetch! [4/10]

I don’t actually have a lot to say about this. It’s a cute idea, and it’s fun maybe the first ten times that you do it, but then it’s just really boring. The game is terrible at explaining how to create different curry dishes, but it’s almost idiot-proof. I’ve yet to fail at it.

But I’m not sure I care about it, either?

You get like 1/100th of the amount of berries you need to cook while you journey along, so it feels disproportionate. I dunno. Just not a fan.

Playing with your pokemon is the only real joy that comes from camping, but its fun is limited. When you’ve tossed the ball a few times, or watched Liepard smack the feather toy a while, it has that, “Okay, I’ve seen it!” kind of feeling to it. That doing well at cooking can heal your party/cure status conditions is incentive to do it, but it’s faster to just fly to a pokemon center and run back on your bike most of the time than to pitch a tent with your ‘mons.

I feel like there should just be…more you can do when you’re camping together. I’m glad Pokemon Amie is dead (it was cringey), but it felt more personal than this.

I wish I had more to say about this feature, but it felt tacked on and lackluster after I camped a few times.

Dynamaxing, Gigantamaxing, and Max Raid Battles [4/10]

The urge to give this a zero was high, but I am making an effort to be balanced.

That said, I hate dynamaxing. Gigantamaxing is almost the same thing, it’s just Worse Somehow. Until yesterday I thought they were basically the same thing (and that some pokemon just got extra cool dynamax forms). As it turns out, they’re not the same thing at all! Or rather, they are, but they’re also not?

Dynamaxing makes your pokemon grow large and gives it these generic MAX moves that it can use in combat (Max Knuckle, Max Flare, Max Strike). It lasts for three turns and then your pokemon reverts back to its regular ‘ol self.

Gigantamaxing is when your pokemon grows a little larger than large, gets a special Look, and gets the same generic MAX moves (but with special effects added to them). Oh, and better stats.

At least, that’s how I understand it.

Both are great for Max Raid Battles, where you team up with NPCs or other players and take down huge dynamaxed pokemon that are out in the wild.

Neither is a fun feature as part of the actual gameplay. I guess as a gimmick it works all right, but just like Z-moves it has a long annoying animation sequence, and like Mega Evolutions only some pokemon get to gigantamax (everyone else is just a pleb, I guess). I dunno. I just didn’t find the concept very engaging…maybe because it seems evil and wasteful in-universe, and this is more or less stated in the game itself, but what-the-hell-ever, we’re just going to keep doing it ‘cause it looks cool!

It’s just too goofy a concept for me. Maybe if Dynamaxing doubled or tripled their size, I’d find it more understandable and more aesthetically pleasing? I hate seeing my pokemon, or the opposing pokemon, grow 50+ feet tall and scream at three billion decibels.

(For the record I never liked Mega Evolutions or Z-moves as a concept, so it’s not like I’m nostalgic for a different gimmick. That said, at least I’d accepted Megas as a thing, and Z-moves were overall not too groundbreaking or gamebreaking.)

The design of dyna/gigamaxing is to connect it with specific places so that you can’t just max your pokemon in every battle and sweep every team you fight against, but it still feels like it gets used too much. I’m currently at a point where I find having to dynamax feels like a chore.

Considering this is what the game tried to sell itself on in the initial trailer…? Yikes? I don’t know. I think some people are more ‘okay’ with the concept of dyna/gigantimaxing than others, and I think I’d be fine with it if we only had dynamaxing. Introducing both just feels like overcomplicating things for no real reason, and maybe also poking a little hard at the hornets’ nest that is the competitive community.

Because now you have to go out and grind gigantamax pokemon to catch one, so it forces you to do the thing you might not like to get a pokemon that can do the thing you don’t like, because it’s objectively better in combat? But really, who knows? Maybe these overpowered phenomena will end up banned, anyway.

Despite my disdain for this release’s gimmick, I do think Max Raid Battles are pretty fun, at least…when I’m not getting my ass completely kicked while some NPC trainer’s Eevee is using Helping Hand… It’s actually pretty enjoyable when you can somehow find other people using the y-comm and take on a gigantamaxed pokemon with the help of actual human players. But y’know…good luck using that…lol.

Overall I think the biggest downfall of Dynamaxing/Gigantamaxing is that it doesn’t really add anything of substance to the game. I don’t think it makes it more fun. It’s also not necessary for max raid battles (this could be a phenomena we don’t understand yet that randomly seems to affect wild pokemon, just like with the UBs—hell, Anabel and Looker could return and claim this is all related to that stuff and I’d probably find that believable enough). So what does it add? Flavor? Culture? Nah. It’s just kind of there.

Post-Game: Is That All? [3/10]

Post-game in Sun and Moon was the Alola version of the Battle Maison, breeding, and a somewhat lengthy (for a post-game) story where you assist Interpol agents Anabel and Looker in hunting down and capturing Ultra Beasts. The plot was somewhat woven into not only Sun and Moon’s storyline (Lusamine’s shenanigans), but also borrowed from the Sapphire/Ruby reboots and X/Y. If you didn’t already know Looker from Ruby/Sapphire/X/Y, or Anabel from Pokemon Emerald, you’ll still probably find them somewhat compelling/interesting as characters. Also, they did a really good job in Sun of making circumstances seem dire—of showing instead of telling you how dangerous the UBs were and how important it was to protect the people of the towns and villages you’d visited throughout your adventure.

Shield has… Max raid battles, a battle tower, and…breeding. Oh, and a storyline about the legendary dogs that barely makes any sense and is plagued by really irritating new characters.

The terrible truth is that the post-game of Sword/Shield is embarrassingly bad. You’d think they’d want to outdo themselves with every release. Sun and Moon hit it out of the park with their post-game content. Most people enjoyed the hunt for UBs, or at least the characters of Anabel and Looker. Sword and Shield have…. Sordward and Shielbert. DID I STUTTER?

They’re terribly designed characters, and so insulting as to not really be any fun at all. The Pokeball Guy mascot is Actually Fun; these dudes aren’t. They’re barely even villains? It was an excuse to try and pull what Sun and Moon pulled, but it didn’t work. I never felt like anyone was in danger at any point, probably because magically everyone was evacuated before I even arrived on the scene to stop Sordward and Shielbert’s vile schemes. :U Oh, and because I felt little or no connection to any of the towns I visited along the way, let alone the gym leaders. Maybe if these guys had showed up partway through the game and we sort of knew who they were already, this wouldn’t seem so out-of-nowhere, but it was, and that made it even worse than it had to be.

When it’s all over, you get your legendary dog (I named mine Goodest Boy), but it wasn’t a fun storyline at all. Who are these guys? Why should I care about them? I cared about Looker and Anabel because they came onto the scene and showed that they cared about each other as people (and showed it, multiple times). These guys? They wreaked havoc and didn’t even go to jail. At least Rose went to jail!

I don’t think the post-game is terrible so much as I think it’s underwhelming, especially considering what it came on the heels of. I don’t expect More More More from every game, but I do expect improvements to be made. A decent post-game storyline is all I was asking for, and I didn’t even get that.

But there’s the tower and you can breed pokemon and train EVs and all that stuff more easily now, so…

Characters, Story, and Worldbuilding [4/10]

Let me put this as delicately as I can: I’m not a fan.

I could easily rant about bad character writing, bad stories, and weak worldbuilding for hours, but I’ll limit myself because 1) this is a pokemon game, and 2) nobody really looks for exceptional characters here.

As I said earlier, I feel like Sun and Moon did it Better. Most of the main characters in Su/Mo were likable, interesting, had a fun design, or were amusing. Not so in Shield.

Hop has a terrible name (literally a million names to choose from and they picked this?), but the biggest crime he commits is that he doesn’t get a satisfying story arc at all. When he got down about himself I had hope there would be some cool development, but there wasn’t. He ended up getting his crap together and making a Team and Picked a Strategy (which still involves sending the sheep out first I guess). And then randomly in the post-game decided he was going to be a professor…lol.

I felt like 20 different people wrote that plot, because it was terribly cobbled together and didn’t flow at all. Natural progression would have been nice.

Marnie barely has a story and barely develops. Piers seems to kind of have more ‘meat’ to his character but not a lot is done with it.

The gym leaders are otherwise really meh. Okay, so Nessa and Sonia are pals. Gal pals. Pals that are gals. Gals that are pals. Great. I don’t think we ever see them talk so it doesn’t matter. Melony has a son…and it’s just a nod to the other game where her son is the gym leader instead? Boring.

Bede is an asshole with a sob story who doesn’t really get redeemed but gets the redemption option anyway. They could have REALLY done something amazing with this guy but chose not to. His backstory is actually pretty interesting! But they didn’t utilize it worth a damn. And also he was right about the mural soooo…

Sonia was maybe the best character in the game, and that’s just from a technical standpoint. She had development, she developed, she grew as a character. Emotionally, though, I felt detached from her. Maybe it was being called a child all the time that did that? I’m not sure. I get that the protag is a child but I’m living independently and doing well for myself so maybe have a little respect idk… Especially when the first 2/3 of the game you’re told the adults will handle things, and then randomly you’re interrupted every fifty seconds to take care of other people’s nonsense. :|

In fact, I felt emotionally disconnected from pretty much every character. I didn’t really like or feel for anyone. Hop came the closest (feeling guilty about losing a battle cause it might make his brother look bad), but the bad dialogue options and inability to actually cheer him up was frustrating more than anything.

There are zones that are breathtakingly lovely (Slumbering Weald! Ballonlea! Glimwood Tangle!) but all the rest are more or less forgettable. The characters are connected to the world…sorta, but there are times it feels like they force-connected them through dynamaxing and dialogue accents instead of trying to make characters who naturally fit into the world. Like I talked about before, Opal’s gym felt completely disconnected from the reality of her environment. She lives there for a reason. Doesn’t the stadium’s presence jar her? How many fairy pokemon lost their homes when that thing took away tens of acres of forest? What’s the story here? Or anywhere for that matter?

Spikemuth was a waste of space but at least it felt like an attempt to show us a poverty-stricken area… Unfortunately it all fell flat the second they used two models for Team Yell! Team Yell could have been really cool, especially if they’d had different models with their names (challenged by Team Yell Grunt Sierra/Troy/Nellie/whatever), and the same team yell outfit/clothes/paint on. Then we could see these are just regular guys and gals from this poor area who want to cheer on their hometown girl!!!

But that was a weakness throughout the game, because Team Yell were all gym trainers, and all shared models…just like all the other gyms. It felt lazy to me. The outfits can be the same, but way to go making all the models literal clones. That’s just laziness.

The villains are all meh. Rose? Of course he was a villain. The problem is that he’s not a villain for being a capitalist pig or anything. He’s a villain for wanting to fix a power issue that’s 1,000 years from happening. Meh motivation. If it was 50 years away then we have a compelling villain! But no, not 50. A thousand years from happening. And he can’t wait five fucking minutes.

Oleana was boring.

Leon was exactly the person he was the entire game…

The taxi service is a cute idea, and a nice gameplay addition, but it doesn’t really add anything to the world because they didn’t make the effort to integrate it.

Anyway, I’ve rambled enough.

The short of it is this: I walked away from this game not really caring about the world or any of the characters. I don’t even have a favorite character. I can’t remember the last time that happened to me. YIKES.

The Wild Area [8/10]

I don’t want to cover this for too long, because I feel it’s been done to death, but the Wild Area is what the whole game should have been. Or at least, more of the game. I don’t expect we’ll ever get a fully open-world pokemon game EVER, but this foray into the true 3D tells me that it could be a lot of fun, actually, even in somewhat constrained environments. (Oh, and with a good map.)

I enjoy the idea of the Wild Area, but I think its usefulness is limited without the appeal of having more pokemon patched into the game later. Until I get sick of it, though, it’s a pretty neat concept, and it makes hunting for new pokemon to catch a little more fun than it usually is. I like that they kept the overworld pokemon in this area as well as on the routes you have to travel; it feels like more of an adventure to dodge a huge Steelix and scoot closer to see what that yellow thing is in the grass you can’t quite make out. :)

Basically: fun concept that is enjoyable for now but has limited enjoyment. As far as negativity goes, I don’t have much to complain about here that I didn’t complain about in the Online Compatibility section above.

The Pokemon Themselves [6/10]

I was challenged by @hijauindah to list my top five favorite new pokemon from the game, so here we go!

Nickit (cute design!)

Boltund (smooth, well designed—not too cluttered)

Ponyta/Rapidash (MY LITTLE PONY… I think Rapidash could look better, but I’m just glad they cared enough to try something new with them…)

Frosmoth (Super pretty pokemon design.)

Dragapult (Nifty design.)

Most of the new designs are just…okay. There are a lot I don’t actually care for. But I’m biased; I just want more creature-based pokemon that look like they could exist and function in the world they live in. Some of these designs they come up with look like they’d have died out ten thousand years ago due to being Poorly Evolved lol.

Final Thoughts [6/10]

The worst part of the game for me personally was probably feeling like I was getting interrupted constantly by other characters. JUST LET ME PLAY. But the best part was definitely exploring the new areas, catching a shiny 2 hours into the game, and getting to the end more or less with the team I started with.

The individual scores don’t add up to a 6/10 (they actually add up to a 5.16/10) but I think it’s worth noting that I did have a fun time playing through the game, I intend to hop into the breeding stuff, and even though I don’t have to keep max raid battling and stuff, I probably will.

It’s far from the 9s that it was getting by certain people from certain places that won’t be named here, but it’s not as if it’s a dumpster fire game. I don’t regret the money I spent on it, and I hope to keep enjoying the game for a few more months (albeit more casually than I did over the weekend), but I hope GameFreak has learned from its follies and puts its best foot forward with the next game, because I will not manage to be this forgiving again.

#pokemon sword and shield #pokemon #pokemon spoilers #pokemon review #long post #really long post #pokemon swsh #i didn't really edit this so sorry if there are any typos

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wispythreads · 5 years ago

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Oh, yeah, update, I finished both Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Old Republic II! The popular opinion online seems to be that the second one is better than the first one, but I... don’t really agree with that opinion. I loved both games a lot! And it might just be childhood nostalgia that has me biased towards favoring the original game, but I earnestly feel as if I had more fun playing the first game, and just enjoyed the overall feel of that game more.

I know I don’t actually have to list out the points of why I enjoyed the first game better and what I did really enjoy in the second game, but I kind of just want to do so anyway, especially since I didn’t really blog much while playing the games. Anyway, starting with my personal positives for Knights of the Old Republic II, and working my way down the negatives:

+ I was ecstatic when the droids became much more integral to the plot of the game, and really enjoyed playing those solo segments as T3-M4, being the MVP and pulling the rest of the team out of the fire. The closest I got to that in the first game was by making the active choice to bring HK-47 and T3-M4 around with me everywhere, and selecting T3-M4 to rescue everyone during the Leviathan quest.

+ I thought the influence system was really cool! Especially since I kind of had the silly, not very serious head canon that as HK-47 spent more time around my very light-sided Revan, he was being subtly influenced slightly more towards the light. Still very murdery, but begrudgingly accepting his Master’s change of heart and even eventually starting to understand it, slightly. Then, in the second game, I actually sort of did that! At one point, he was fully at the top of the light-sided spectrum, a great pillar of light shooting off behind him as he stood at attention, and then there was that moment where the pacifist protocol package got installed! I got a great kick out of it.

+ I appreciate that the dark sided options in the game (whether through dialogue or action choices), while still very obviously the dark-side choice, weren’t all giving off the vibe of “Muahahaha I’m so evil! I kick puppies and revel in it! See how evil I am!” that I felt when seeing a lot of the dark-side options in the first game. There was even one dark-side option I very heavily considered accepting as canon for my play-through, just because I loved how chaotic and impulsive it was, even though I felt very bad about it because it was undeniably an awful thing to do. “Don’t press that button! It’ll set off the explosive charges I have beneath me!” “You mean this button? [Press.]”

+/- I loved how powerful my character felt while playing her, she was really a glass canon that had to be careful when going off on fights on her own, but when she had other force-sensitives around her to help back her up with healing, she could just lightning storm a few times and BOOM! all the enemies are down in seconds. But that power made it really difficult to enjoy it when the game forced me into solo missions with the non-droid party members, because those sections heavily favored the party members’ combat abilities and, no matter what I did, I couldn’t really make them as powerful as I had made the Exile, resulting in those sections being really slow and painful, especially when they jumped back and forth between a solo-section for the Exile and then a solo-section for one of the party members.

+/- I liked the ability to go into first-person perspective and see through each of the party’s eyes! It seemed really cool. Although, sadly, it’s very limited. You can look all around you, but you can’t move, fight, or interact with the world in any way while in first-person perspective. I understand that this is an older game, and though I don’t know when it first became an option in video games for you to switch back and forth between first-person and third-person point of view, I’m gonna guess it was probably after 2006, which is when this game was released. Still, I would’ve appreciated this mechanic more if it had more substance to the game? Being able to play fully in first person, especially with the characters who see the world differently than the rest of the party (Visas, HK-47, T3-M4) just seems like it would be so cool.

+/- I love all of the new characters that were introduced and the return of old characters, but by the time I finished the game I felt like there was stuff that was missing from them. It seems like I can run through all the content that they have very quickly, leaving me with not a whole lot to talk about with them besides training new force techniques I’ve picked up to the ones that have become sort of the Exile’s padawans. Kreia definitely doesn’t give me this feeling, she has a lot to say and a lot of interesting depth to her, and mostly I don’t have this with T3-M4, but with the others there feels like there should be more conversations and talks and interactions between them and there’s just... not. I feel particularly upset about this with Bao-Dur, Visas, and Mandalore. I’m not sure if I just missed opportunities to speak with them about certain things, but I feel as if I had maybe three lengthy conversations with Bao-Dur altogether, which great swathes of silence in between them, and then he kind of disappeared and why he disappeared was never really explained? Despite him having the greatest connection to the Exile than all the rest of the companions, Kreia included? And with Mandalore I might not have felt so upset about it, considering all the great content with him from the first game, but his personal quest in trying to recruit the other scattered Mandalorian clan’s just felt kind of... really empty, with no real payoff, which doesn’t feel great when he’s one of the only companions with a personal mission you can assist with.

+/- I have very mixed feelings on the various cutscenes in the game. On the one hand, it’s great that there’s all these cutscenes that help provide a better understanding of the characters and the world that they’re all interacting in, and even some better understanding of the Exile, but on the other hand a lot of it takes place without the Exile’s presence or knowledge. It makes the game feel more cinematic and like an overarching story beyond the Exile, which seems like it should feel really cool on paper, but in practice, each time it happens it just kind of makes me feel weird while they play out, and even frustrated at certain times. The early ones were okay, but as they progressed it just kind of didn’t sit right. Plus, while it gives me a better understanding of the characters and the events that are occurring around the Exile, I can’t transfer that knowledge into the actions and perceptions of the Exile, which also feels frustrating at certain points.

+/- Speaking of, the stuff in the game that makes it seem more cinematic (even outside of cutscenes) is kind of part of why I don’t like the feeling of playing as much as I did while playing the first game? I can’t quite put my finger on why I feel this way, I just know that as I think about it in my head, it seems as if I should find it cool and have it heighten my experience while playing the game, but instead it just kind of bugs me in a vague way. Maybe it’s because it’s kind of jarring to be trying to do a quest and oop here’s a cutscene! oop here’s another cutscene! oop here’s another cutscene! oop you’re forced to play out this weird section where you don’t really have a lot of choice what’s going on, and it’s not really a cutscene but it sure feels like it’s just an interactive cutscene, oop you’re forced to play a solo section with this character! now back to you’re character! now back to the solo section! now forced interactive cutscene! Or maybe it’s not that, but it’s how the main story really does seem like the main story of a movie, with a very clear and structured ‘we go from point a to point b to point c with very little deviation,’ and the side-quests really feel like side-quests that ultimately don’t really matter that much. I might be on the wrong thread here, but in kotor I a lot of the side-quests felt optional, but also as if they were carefully tied into the main storyline, which created loops and a slight deviance from just going from a to b, and made the side-quests feel as if they mattered.

+/- The game itself felt a lot darker and depressing overall than kotor I did, which in itself is not a bad thing. I can get behind interesting dark and depressing stories! And, compared to those interesting dark and depressing stories, this one wasn’t really all that dark and depressing at all, mostly just a lot more of a realistic take what goes on in the world of Star Wars. But there’s some kind of weight to the darkness that is there, and at random points, even when nothing dark was really happening in particular at that moment, it just kind of brought me down.

- Some sections of the game felt a lot longer and slower than they should’ve been? The whole Goto section on Nar Shaada, and the Peragus Station prologue, in particular. I’ve seen that some people like the Peragus Station because of the creepy horror-movie vibes it gives off, which I can see in certain places of it and can appreciate in those places, but the majority of it just felt really empty and boring, and once things got rolling with the Exchange and Goto it felt like it would never end, becoming a very slow and arduous task to try and get through it and arrive at a more exciting and free point in the game. Looking back on the experience of the whole game, it makes sections like Onderon (even when including Dxun as part of the Onderon package) and Korriban feel very short and limited in comparison.

- Most of the new Force powers you learn through the gameplay that are unique to this sequel don’t really have that much use or importance outside of the one section where they are learned. It just becomes another force power I have to scroll through to try and quickly scroll between the ones that are actually useful and that I use very often.

- I didn’t really care for the changes to the workbench + the added lab station that they implemented into the game. Maybe other people enjoyed it but I found it kind of... pointless? The only aspect that I could’ve enjoyed because it gave me something unique I couldn’t get anywhere were the implants, but the good implants required a really, really high constitution that literally no one besides HK-47 had, which made all the implants pretty much useless.

- Not a big fan of the fact that one of the choices between two possible companions was decided based off of gender. The choice between two possible companions based off of alignment on the dark/light scale? Very cool, very understandable. The Disciple is very sweet and knowledgable and probably would’ve been favored a bit more if I had him around longer than basically at the very end of the game with a huge lore dump, but I think I would’ve much preferred having the Handmaiden with me through the whole game. Also it just seems like a really weird thing. If you’re a guy, the Handmaiden will join your party! But the Disciple will not. If you’re a gal, the Disciple will join your party! But the Handmaiden will not. It’s even weirder because their choice to join isn’t determined by some shallow thing like being attracted to the Exile, it’s decided by factors that should be unanimous regardless of whether the Exile is male or female.

- I don’t appreciate the game trying to tell me ‘well actually you’re exile was a choice you made yourself, whether you realize it or not, the Council really didn’t have a way to punish you, so you kind of did this to yourself for some personal reason’ because even though I know what kind of thing they’re trying to convey about the Exile’s trauma after what happened at Malachor V, that particular line they kept pushing just felt really dumb and I hated it. Maybe my Exile did eventually come to appreciate her exile and the distance it brought her from all the stupid stuff going on with the Jedi and the Republic, especially with how tired I believe she felt when being forced into the mess again, being forced to talk with Atris again when neither of them wanted to see the other ever again, but being told that the Jedi ‘couldn’t enforce their ruling’ is complete and utter bull, and trying to make it seem like my Exile accepted their exile purely for personal reasons rather than the very real threat from the Jedi should she try to ignore it or fight it is equally bull.

- The ending of the game felt really... empty, too. The ending to Kotor I was triumphant, a congratulatory celebration for destroying the Star Forge and managing to defeat Malak (which had been really, really difficult), at least on the Light Side ending. But still, it ended on a positive note with a definite conclusion and with things looking up for people. I think the ending of Kotor II might have felt better if I had played through it with the anticipation that they might continue the storyline with a third game, which is evidently what they were planning to do before said third game got cancelled, but as it stands by itself, it just feels kind of disappointing in comparison. Of the three boss battles, the only one that felt interesting was the one with Sion. Nihlus was very, very easy compared to all that he was chocked up to be, I had to do very minimal strategic thought and took him down with a lightsaber (which was something my Exile was pretty weak with) very quickly. And, yeah, I had Visas and Mandalore’s help, but this guy was supposed to be a big deal! He was spooky looking, he’d consumed the life Force of entire planets, he spoke like some kind of unknowable, terrifying Lovecraftian monster, but his fight did not at all live up to the expectations the lore surrounding him and his aesthetic had created. The one against ‘Traya’ just felt kind of... stupid. Like I can kind of understand what she was doing, but also, no??? I’m not going to strike you down??? You’ve been really suspicious and creepy the whole time, of course I knew you were manipulating me, of course I knew that this was gonna be the endgame, and that you were specifically trying to orchestrate events to line up to this moment where I would eventually defeat you, but you had to throw a wrench in my distrustful distancing of myself from you by standing up against the Exile’s mistreatment and speaking the truth and just really touching my heart at that moment so guess what, spite time, I’m gonna show you all the love and compassion and mercy my heart can muster, fuck you, you don’t get to die.

Anyway yeah that summarizes the major feelings I have from playing Knights of the Old Republic II beyond enjoying it purely because it’s another star wars game and is like the original Knights of the Old Republic. If you made it through all this, then, well, thanks? Good on you for taking the time to read my silly rant. Have a head pat.

*pat, pat*

#kotor #knights of the old republic #star wars: knights of the old republic #kotor II #knights of the old republic II #bit of play experience

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googame5-blog · 6 years ago

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Satan May Cry 5: Before you purchase!

gaming news Devil May Cry can be a one of a variety franchise with individuality a person won’t find in just about any various other game. Since the first game, Devil May Yowl became a cult sport for the Hack as well as Rip genre. Hideki Kamiya made and directed the actual first activity. From which point on, he has not revisit the saga upon this type of key role. Precisely what Kamiya did with the particular original ended up being bold along with revolutionary, both equally from some sort of storytelling perspective in addition to through a gameplay point involving view. Devil Killing Motion!

gaming news

Even though the other entries are great in their own, non-e possess yet amazed me personally while the first one does. Kamiya’s legacy wasn’t a easy anyone to beat. Because Kamiya presented us in order to this fantastic collection, Hideki Itsuno took typically the layer and directed each Demon May Cry video game. With the exception of for the DMC restart the pc, which wasn’t a awful online game on its individual but lacked the original touching that makes a Satan May Cry game jump out. Itsuno’s work has often been amazing, yet, non-e of the as well as within the saga had this kind of lasting impression as often the former did for myself. I am delighted to be able to say that it is usually no longer the lens case. Devilish and Stylish Characters!

This particular game saga is renowned for their superb, ultra-responsive and stylish game play as well as its beloved characters: Dante, Lady, Trish, Nero and from now on Nico to mention a new few. Every one of these characters have got bold and also robust personas that bust the shape of the common videogame characters. True, today we have good characters such as Uncharted’s Nathan Drake, the outrageous character’s in Bayonetta or maybe GTA V, but non-e of those match the actual irreverence and wittiness that will Dante and his folks bring along. Specific, weakling and certainly dead…

This specific title is indeed a piece of love from Itsuno. I used to be blown away by simply the quality connected with manufacturing for each of the particular personas. Dante, Nero, typically the new mystical character “V” and even often the sharped-personality weapon crafter Nico are generally simply stunning in each feasible way. The normal gardening to organic is definitely cheesy, yet intelligently published to match along with elevate the actual personalities associated with the demon predators many of us have grown to enjoy in recent times. Every bit regarding interaction among our game characters, the vices and a lot of bosses through the sport are all spectacularly implemented and still have that “A chicago Demon May Cry” develop which we expect. SSS List Account!

I won’t contemplate excessive into the account. It originates at the good pace, u will not want to spoil the details. If you get not enjoyed any involving the previous entries (or haven’t played them inside a while), I propose you watch the bundled short cinematic that points out all the background record connected with Devil May Meow. The very best skip details, nevertheless it will the job in addition to brings you up to date along with our favorite demon sportsman. Long story short, there is a mysterious demon in which takes Nero’s Devil Bringer (arm) and starts destructive the human world. Amazing is catagorized short here!

All these situations will start any crusade coming from Nero, Dante and a brand new unexplainable character called Sixth v for you to stop the demon pest. The story pacing right here is excellent. There’s some sort of timeline to help allocate every single mission, what you what the particular time is for every single events taking place. Anyone will alter the perspective in between these a few characters frequently, and this time frame repair shop results in each standpoint intertwining and revealing typically the motivations behind each personality and the mystery right behind often the demonic infestation on its own. Typically the Yamato of Design

Declaring that Devil Might Weep 5 looks fine is definitely an understatement. The figure models usually are gorgeously specific, and the action tend to be so masterfully executed this photo mode is a new must include and a thing you will continuously employ during this game. Often the SOVRANO Engine was remarkable about Resident Evil only two, but it really is at yet another level with Devil May possibly Cry five.

Missions jampacked with specifics deliver wonderfully designed situations. The art work direction on your own makes an individual want to continue participating in from beginning to finish in 13, 000 session. The actual HDR use for this particular title is one associated with the ideal I’ve viewed in recent game titles; the idea truly makes just about every chemical effect pop and every opponent stand out even far more. Appearance mom! One equip!

Adversaries are varied as well as flood in detail. Every single boss struggle and possibly the minor activities are usually a visual feast. A person's eye to detail in generating these grotesque and outstanding villains is outstanding. The adventure, as in usual DMC vogue, is plagued together with cutscenes of visceral still preposterous over the top rated action. Each of all these scenes elevate the aesthetic tavern for the activity as the voyage gets better, reaching absurd numbers of adrenaline and visual luxury with the last levels. There are many minor frame dips through some cinematics (we used Xbox One X variation for review), but the actual game play experience is immaculate.

Seem design matches the particular visual’s good quality. Each regarding the tunes is similar to the true essence involving the franchise's. Environmental audio design is surely an achievement in this article, bringing each and every frame in order to life with an atmospheric and compelling rendition connected with what a world infested using demons should noise. Extraordinary Action Gameplay

Given that Nero ahead software lost his provide, Nico provides you having many different arm selections for you to use seeing that weapons. This kind of mechanic final results in a wide assortment of game play styles considering that you not only command Nero but will receive the possibility to play because V and also Dante. Luttuoso alone makes it possible for a abundance of great fighting models, add to that typically the fact that V carries a different playstyle and talents and you have the recipe with regard to nonstop motion that pledges not always be dull in any second.

The customization system is actually comparable to what DMC on a regular basis fits; you use reddish colored orbs to acquire combos, updates and fresh abilities. The particular gameplay will be fast-paced along with sometimes even frenetic. That fast action pacing is amongst the few elements that may well be difficult for an individual not used to often the team. Camera movement is usually a bit challenging to be able to handle when the steps is definitely moving at any high tempo, but soon after a couple of flights, this shouldn’t be some sort of difficulty even for novices.

In terms of mechanics, controls are generally sensitive and as small as they might be. Each button smash flawlessly means to a perfectly computer animated in addition to executed move. Attaching mixtures and raising the actual stylish place meter is actually the most rewarding expertise I’ve had in a new DMC entry so much. Back to the particular Root beginnings!

Devil May Be sad a few is an homage about what makes Devil May Yowl such a beloved business. It will require what every video game is doing great so significantly, and grows and revisions those movement. All this specific while applying a 4K and HDR treatment on it. Characters are amazing, as well as there are no dull instant over the whole campaign. Typically the extraordinary and ridiculous activity this is a staple regarding the sequence is all over the place. From the initial small, until the very ending. No expenses where trim to make each movie the jaw-dropping collection associated with supremely instructed scenes.

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metalgearkong · 6 years ago

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Spider-Man - Review (PS4)

10/17/18

Developed by Insomniac Games

Spider-Man has always been my favorite super hero, but good Spider-Man games are far and few between. My two favorites are the linear adventure game from 2000, which nails the characters and story, but the other widely regarded favorite is Spider-Man 2 from 2004, which introduced realistic web swinging. Somehow, this new Spider-Man game manages to outdo both qualities, and tie it into one epic product. Insomniac Games is an extremely experienced studio, developing games such as Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, and Resistance. Not only is Spider-Man the best Insomniac game to date, its one of the best exclusives for the PS4, and is the best incarnation of Spider-Man I’ve ever seen in any medium.

This is a brand new story of Peter Parker and his world, not tying into any other games, films, or comics. Things pick up 8 years after Peter has become the wall crawler, and has lots of experience fighting bad guys and putting super villains behind bars. While he may have tangled with some big names from his lore already, many more villains and side characters have not been mentioned, leaving tons of possibilities open for sequels. Spider-Man also dwells on Peter’s brilliant scientific mind, as he is able to keep pace with Dr. Otto Octavious, and several mini-games can be played conducting research, identifying chemicals, and reprogramming hardware.

Peter and Otto are designing advanced prosthetics that could change the world, but the two scientists are struggling when the city pulls its grant from their lab. The mayor in this story happens to be Norman Osborn, and a brewing conflict between Otto and Norman fuel much of the story, especially near the end. It’s in Otto’s lab where we conduct most of the scientific mini games, mainly being optional, but can unlock currency to upgrade Peter’s suit and gadgets. Peter also helps out with F.E.A.S.T., an emergency shelter where Aunt May works, and is lead by Martin Li, a man with a secret agenda of his own. The game opens with an exciting tutorial, whereupon Spider-Man is finally taking down a long time rival, The Kingpin, giving us perspective on how far Peter has already come.

One of the main things that took me off guard about this game were how well the cut scenes and characters are done. Not only are the graphics detailed, and motion capture was used for most of the acting, but the care and nuance each character is given in their personality and dialog was constantly impressive. Many of the characters were designed in-game to look like their voice acting counterpart, and many people have genuine chemistry between each other. Mary Jane in particular got a major change, in that she is a persistent investigative journalist instead of a fashion model, and has the capability to help out Peter in many of his outings. No character off the top of my head has any glaring weakness, other than maybe a few by the end of the game not having as much closure or explanation as I may have wanted.

A Chinese gang known as the Demons is slowly terrorizing the city, and act as one of the main entities Spider-Man must go up against. Surprisingly, after the big Wilson Fisk fight, the game feels devoid of super villain entanglements, yet makes up for this in spades with the last portion of the game. It would have been a little nicer to have more than one villain to fight other than The Shocker for the first half of the game, but it’s a small imbalance that doesn’t affect the overall quality or pacing much. Many encounters with squads of goons can be tackled stealthily at first, but usually end up in a big controlled chaos fight. The combat is ripped straight from the Batman: Arkham games, but in this current generation of gaming, this system is pretty much ubiquitous for action/open-world formats. While Spider-Man loses points for originality, it makes up for it in spades with incredible depth the combat system offers. I’ve always thought the “press a button to react” combat was more of a fit for Spider-Man anyway, and I’m glad I finally get to see it in a good Spidey game.

Everything we do earns experience points, and when we reach enough, can use skill points to upgrade gadgets, webbing, and suit powers. Largely, I didn’t take advantage of the depth of the upgrades and unlockables because I found the core gameplay fun and entertaining from the very start. As I write this, I am on my second run at the game (attempting to achieve 100% completion) and just now am experimenting with fighting styles I never used the first time. It speaks to this game’s detail, something you may not think it has at first, especially being a licensed game. However, one of my objective problems with the game is I found the stealth mechanics highly inconsistent. The game tells you when we can safely web up an enemy without anyone else noticing, but much of the time when I would push the button for a clean stealth take-down, it would alert the guards around my victim, launching into all-out brawls.

A great detail that Insomniac knew to include was the ability to earn multiple Spider-Man costumes that can be switched instantly at any time. Many of these costumes I recognized from comics and past games, but it also offers modern outfits, such as three suits from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and original suits all together. Each suit comes with a new power that helps combat and gameplay. The best detail is, once the suit is unlocked, we can use whichever power on whichever suit. This lets you pick both your favorite gameplay buff, as well as look exactly how you want Spidey to look during the game. I also love how the costume translates into every single cut scene, further immersing you into the story in your own little way.

Aside from the main narrative, tons of side missions can be played, but also with varying quality. Most of the citizens who offer quests have stories worth experiencing, and that play into the character of this version of Manhattan. Other quests can be glorified collectathons or challenges, which luckily are optional to complete. Even still, they usually offer further insight into Peter’s personality, intellect, or into the personality of other characters involved. Easily the best part about the gameplay is the web swinging. Traversing Manhattan is delectable, and an absolute blast. Peter has tons of natural looking animations that make him look graceful and realistic. Having to attach webbing to actual surfaces gives locomotion dramatic weight, and lots of fun payoff. Peter can also web zip forward, maintaining horizontal speed, given that there is an object in the near distance in front of him.

What also helps immensely is the smooth 60 frames per second that the game runs on. Every web swing feels and looks graceful, and even into my second time completing the game, was discovering new tricks to keep momentum going forward, things that the game lets you discover for yourself. For the first time in any open-world game, a blip on my map over 3,000 meters away, rarely felt like a hassle. I looked forward to going from one place to the next almost every single time. The game offers a quick travel mechanic, but I honestly believe it isn’t necessary in a game where going from one place to another is so consistently thrilling. This is a big aspect of the game I’m sure Insomniac knew they had to nail, and they passed with flying colors.

Spider-Man (or is it “Marvel’s Spider-Man”?) is a brilliant representation of the wall crawler, and is an extremely fun open-world game. Everything from the graphics, to the combat, to the web swinging, to the music is all done excellently, and is easily worth its $60 price tag. While I’m not a huge fan of every type of side quest or mini game, the core of the game’s narrative and heart makes any small imperfection look that much smaller. The poorer qualities of the game are only seen as worse because they’re surrounded by so much greatness. This has become the quintessential version of Spider-Man and something I will compare every future incarnation to. I was so pleased and so impressed around every corner, I still can’t believe this game turned out as well as it did. Absolutely worth plaything through to see the story to its end, and purely for the fun of every minute of the experience.

9.5/10

#spider-man #spiderman #peterparker #marvel #ps4 #ps4exclusive #openworld #videogame #review #cantwaitforthesequel #insomniac #insomniacgames #comicbook #superhero #manhattan #nyc #nycwallcrawler

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theheavymetalmama · 7 years ago

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Katie Reviews “Far Cry 5″

Doctor Stupidlove

Another day, another Far Cry game. Whether or not that’s a good or bad thing depends on person to person with a laundry list of variables, including but not limited to personal taste and sensibilities, franchise fatigue, whether or not you bought into the glue-huffing guff that this game held a leftist bias pushing an anti-white, anti-American agenda because for the first time in the series the bad guys are an American fanatically religious death cult instead of brown people from imaginary foreign countries, and a myriad of other things I’m probably missing. I’ll say up front that after Primal and a bunch of other bullshit from Ubisoft between now and the infamous ‘women are too hard to animate’ thing I was pretty much done with the series and Ubisoft as a whole. Then the launch trailer for Far Cry 5 dropped and, having grown up in a dead gold mining community chock-full of racist loonies not unlike the one depicted in the fictional Hope County, my interest immediately peaked.

See, the Far Cry games have a strange pattern to them. No game is perfect, but the Far Cry games stand out in that they have one glaring flaw that mars an otherwise damn good game. Far Cry 3 is held aloft as when the series peaked, and for good reason, but the main character was irredeemably unlikable and the main charismatic villain just up and vanishes from the halfway point in the game. Far Cry 4, or Far Cry 3 2 as some call it, fixed the villain problem but the main character was just dull. Primal was...not good, with a boring lead, a boring villain, and an overall boring game. Sure, Blood Dragon was a ton of fun, but part of the charm was that it was completely self-aware of its’ own absurdity and the characters from the hero to the villain weren’t characters so much as they were walking punchlines.

So how does Far Cry 5 compare? Well, when it comes to story, setting, and gameplay, it’s a step up from Far Cry 4 in some ways, blows Primal out of the water, but has its’ own issues and hang-ups that don’t quite make it live up to Far Cry 3. That’s the short version, anyway. The long version?

Let’s start with graphics, location, and aesthetics. Far Cry 5 looks fucking beautiful.

I’m not kidding, everything from the wild lands, the forests, the mountains, the lakes and rivers, the settlements, everything in Far Cry 5 is absolutely gorgeous. It’s not quite up there with Breath of the Wild or Horizon: Zero Dawn in sheer style and detail, but it’s pretty damn close. More often than not I found myself forgetting about the mission and spending a lot of time exploring, hunting, and trying to take in the sights. More on the ‘trying’ part in a bit. The atmosphere sucks you right in, everything from the chirping birds and buzzing bees making the world feel alive. Exploring the woods and hearing cultist singing and chanting far off in the distance, especially at night, is legitimately terrifying. Wildlife always plays a key role in the Far Cry games and this is no exception, from docile deer to the always pleasant wolverine providing plenty of opportunities for hunting. Just don’t get skunked.

The game takes place in Hope County, a fictional region in rural Montana. Now I’ve never actually been to Montana, but I did grow up in Washington state and I can’t help but notice many similarities. The woods, the rivers, the god damned apple farms, exploring Hope County felt like I was going home again. Sometimes not for the better, but that’s neither here nor there. In any case, Hope County is beautifully detailed, from the farms to forest to the interiors of the (ugh...) Spread Eagle bar to the small hunting cabins out in the woods. Hats off to the artists and environmental designers for Far Cry 5, because they manage to tell more story about the world and characters with just a ransacked pumpkin farm and a dog mourning his dead owners than Square Enix and Konami ever could with a 20 minute cutscene and a dictionary’s worth of dialogue for each character.

Speaking of characters, the Far Cry games are loaded with memorable characters and the locals of Hope County are no exception. Returning character Hurk is back and as redneck-y as ever, and it turns out Hope County is his home. We also meet members of his family, like his pyromaniac cousin Sharky, his promiscuous mother Adelaide and her boyfriend Xander who’s roughly 1/3rd her age, and his racist conspiracy theorist gun-hoarding father Hurk Sr. No wonder he’s so messed up.

But Hurk and his folks aren’t the only people you meet, as the game is packed to the brim with memorable characters that you either love or love to hate, from lovable country boy Nick Rye and half-feral huntress Jess Black to the cartoonishly evil Seed family. More on them in a minute. Oh, and you get a pet bear named Cheeseburger.

Combat and gunplay is as tight as ever, and vehicle control is so smooth it gives Grand Theft Auto a run for its’ money. The soundtrack is pretty damn good, featuring a good mix of licensed and original music and songs. To the surprise of nobody my favorite is the one that plays during the stunt missions.

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Leveling and character progress has been streamlined a bit. You upgrade your skills not by gaining experience, but by completing in-game challenges and finding ‘perk magazines’ that, you guessed it, give you points to unlock...well, perks. Some may not like that, but in my opinion it makes sense because if you gained experience just by killing stuff you’d reach level 50 before your first boss fight. Things like bigger ammo bags and extra weapon holsters are no longer unlocked by animal skins but through perks, and said said skins are now exclusively a form of making money.

So that about covers it for the good, and now it’s time for the bad. The streamlining I just brought up both helps and hurts the game. On one hand it does make progressing a lot less tedious, but on the other hand it does take away a lot of what makes Far Cry stand out from other typical shooters. It feels less like they were trimming the fat and more like they were cutting corners. For starters, areas that contain loot only contain ammo, crafting components, and sometimes money. There’s no more animations for skinning animals, harvesting plants, looting corpses, or even your character opening doors. That’s not so bad, but I really miss how dynamic and, as much as I’ve grown to detest this word, cinematic meeting new characters in previous games were. Take a look at this scene in Far Cry 4 when you meet Longinus, easily one of the highlights of the game.

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And here’s what happens when you meet Sharky in Far Cry 5. (MINOR SPOILERS)

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See the difference? Now one can argue that meeting new characters in real time saves some...well, time and is considerably less pretentious, but it just isn’t as interesting. Far Cry 5 still has plenty of scripted cutscenes, but again, they’ve been stripped down to the bone.

Now remember what I said earlier about trying to take in the sights? This game is packed to the fucking gills with enemy NPCs. Now previous Far Cry games had plenty of enemies as well but this went way overboard to the point that you can’t walk or drive 50 feet before running into a convoy or roadblock or whatever. I speak no hyberbole when I say that by the time you’ve liberated your first region, you’ll have killed more cultists than there are people currently living in real-life Montana as well as hunted and skinned more wolves, cougars, and bears than there are wolves, cougars, and bears currently populating the US west coast. Also, in what universe can a fucking turkey pose a legitimate threat to humans!? Does Far Cry occupy the same universe as fucking South Park?

The story of Far Cry 5 is pretty straight forward, but it definitely feels like there’s some pretty big pieces missing from it. This isn’t just me, critics and players across the board agree that it feels like something was cut from the game at the last minute. This is especially true for the endings, but more on that in a bit. I can’t help but feel that the writers and developers had a lot more to say about racism, gender roles and the enforcement thereof, gun violence and gun culture in America, sexism, religious zealotry, far-right extremism, and of course this tire fire of a presidential administration, because the pieces for all of that are still there. A handful of NPCs mention gender roles for a hot second, several of the guns for hire make disparaging remarks about Trump, the symbol of Eden’s Gate strongly resembles the same symbol the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups use, Hurk’s dad is a caricature of far-right ideals purposefully exaggerated for ridicule and contempt, and there’s even a mission where you meet up with another returning character to find Trump’s pee-tape.

All of the elements are there, but the game says almost nothing about any of it. Why?

When the first trailer for the game dropped it was around the same time Wolfenstein II: the New Colossus was close to release and the same mouth-breathing shitheels who screamed about how killing Nazis in Wolfenstein was pushing an anti-white, anti-conservative agenda did the same thing for Far Cry 5. My guess is that the PR guys at Ubisoft saw the oxygen-thieving wastes of space screaming about how the game was “anti-white SJW propaganda” and then panicked and removed huge chunks of the game so as not to alienate any racist shitheads who may want to buy it. Not only does the game say almost nothing about any of the themes and elements that I mentioned earlier, but the cult of Eden’s Gate is multi-racial and gendered where most of the guys have long hair and hipster beards and all the women barring Faith Seed have short hair and buzz cuts. It’s really jarring and feels like something that was added at the last minute, as the male cultists all sound the same and the female cultists say hardly anything at all.

That brings us to the player character; they’re aren’t a character, they’re an avatar and silent protagonist. Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it feels strange. Especially when you play as a female, which I did. Now the character creation itself is fine, especially with the wide variety of outfits, but the rest is pretty bare bones. More to the point, it’s painfully obvious they designed the game with a male lead in mind and then added a gender-switch as an afterthought. Almost everyone in the game refers to you by male pronouns (which to be fair I call my ladyfriends ‘dude’ all the time) but there are a few scenes where you’re found shirtless in the game. Now call me old-fashioned, but I’d have a bit stronger of a reaction than “Oh, you startled me” if I woke up to some weirdo carving the word ‘wrath’ into my tits! I have a sneaking suspicion that they added a gender switch at the last minute because someone reminded them of the time they looked like lazy idiots for claiming your customizable assassin in Assassin’s Creed: Unity couldn’t be a woman because women were too hard to animated.

And now, let’s finally talk about the Seed Family.

We have the leader Joseph Seed, the trainer and disgraced soldier Jacob, the sadistic second in command John, and the seductress Faith. The Far Cry games are known for their charismatic villains and the seeds are no exception, and especially gripping because the second you meet any single one of them you immediately want them dead. The only problem is that, again, they’re so cartoonishly evil that the more you see them the more you want to shove them crotch-first into the mouth of a hungry grizzly bear. Vaas was always one step ahead of you and constantly in your face and Pagan Min was so suave and charming that you kind of wanted to see where he was going with it all.

Not the case with the seeds. When you see them they immediately piss you off, and the more you see them they just keep pissing you off because they keep hiding behind doors, cronies, hallucinations, or plot devices. And hey, that’s fine. As long as you get to shove the barrel of a shotgun right into their mouth and spatter their brains all over the walls of their church then who cares, right?

....

So, let’s talk about the endings of the game.

Once you’ve liberated all three regions of Hope County by killing John, Jacob, and Faith, you return to the main cult compound to arrest Joseph once again. However, once you get there and cuff him you step outside to find your allies under the brainwashing influence of the drug Bliss and a boss fight ensues. When you knock your allies out and revive them, they snap out of their Bliss-induced stupor and turn on Joseph, and once you’ve freed all of them Joseph drops like a hot rock. When Joseph is down and the day is won...this happens.

....no, really.

Right the fuck out of nowhere a nuke lands somewhere in the outskirts of Hope County and you scramble to escape, and pretty soon you black out and wake up in a bunker chained to a bed with Joseph hovering over you saying that you’ll be his first new recruit in the cult. All the allies you previously made die as Hope County is wiped off the map and the game ends, not even giving you a continuation like previous games did and rendering every single thing you did up to this point totally and utterly meaningless.

Now some people have defended this, including the developers, saying that there are radio broadcasts in-game talking about how tensions are raising in Russia and North Korea. I spent hours driving around in the game listening to the radio and I heard no such thing, but if they’re indeed there then this only furthers my suspicion that this was a last-minute change because of the backlash from racist shitbirds and wasn’t the ending the writers and developers originally intended.

For starters, the escalating tensions between Russia, the US, and North Korea aren’t mentioned anywhere else in the game except in the radio broadcasts (which again, I never heard) and despite the Seeds going on and on about “the collapse” we never get any idea of what the collapse is until the end of the game. It’s not even a convincing depiction of a nuke going off! Just some burning trees and a few animals dropping dead as you make your escape with Joseph in tow and neither of you having so much as a sunburn. If this ending was what they planned from the start then they would have went all out, showing in graphic detail the horrors of a nuclear holocaust. How much of a gut-punch would it have been to see Nick Rye hug his wife and newborn daughter just before the skin is blasted off their bones like that scene in Terminator 2 that made me avoid mesh fences for two fucking years? Or Jess run one of her own arrows through her heart to spare herself an agonizing death? Or hell, Hurk, one of the few returning characters in Far Cry, desperately begging the player for help as his face melts off his skull? That would have hit players and hit players hard and people, myself included, wouldn’t be bitching about how out of nowhere and shit the ending is! And that’s to say nothing of the idea of North Korea wasting one of the handful of nukes they have on rural fucking Montana! Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ, Ubisoft, how fucking stupid do you think we are!?

...okay, fair enough. But still!

Now I know what you’re probably thinking. “Well, damn, that’s grim. Anyway, what’s the good ending like?”

That IS the good ending.

No, I’m not even kidding. Despite the end scenario being Doctor Strangelove by way of Deliverance (and no, that’s not me being snarky, the game references the movie by playing “We’ll Meet Again” during the final cutscene) that’s the good ending because you, the player, are still alive. The bad ending is that after you arrest Seed and see your friends and allies under the influence of Bliss, you’re given the option to let him go and walk away. You then then your Bliss-induced allies walk with Joseph peacefully into the church and then leave with the same three people, in which they get into a car and leave while chatting about getting the army involved and taking Seed out once and for all. One of them then turns on the radio, the song “Only You” plays, and a red haze takes over the screen just before the credits roll heavily implying that you succumbed to the brainwashing drug (which you’re exposed to several times in the game) and either attacked or killed the people you spent the time in the game trying to save. Either way, each ending renders your actions completely and utterly meaningless.

Why did they do this? Well, partially because the Far Cry writers really love the “There is no objective good or evil, everything and everyone is equally terrible” cliche and they assume everyone else does too, but once again I have no doubt in my mind that the ‘good’ ending wasn’t the original ending and was in fact a last-minute change to appease angry racists in order to not alienate what Ubisoft thinks is their core demographic. What a bucket of cocks.

Final Thoughts

Now despite the endings being complete and utter hot garbage that renders all your actions meaningless, there’s still plenty of fun to be had in Far Cry 5. The combat is satisfying, base jumping and flying around never gets old, the characters are great, and despite chickening out on the themes introduced it’s still a plenty serviceable story. It won’t be winning any awards anytime soon, and if you’re looking for some post-2016 return of the Nazis catharsis then I’d go with Wolfenstein II: the New Colossus instead, but there’s still plenty fun to be had exploring the beautiful wilds of Northwest America while gunning down religious nutjobs, hunting dangerous game, and completing side-quests from uprooting doomsday prepper bunkers to making a bull testicle cook-off to raise morale possible.

B-

A solid B-

#Far Cry #Far Cry 5 #Ubisoft #review #Nick Rye #Jess Black #Cheeseburger #Joseph Seed #John Seed #Jacob Seed #Faith Seed #testy festy

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storm-driver · 7 years ago

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Kingdom Hearts: Why are the Remixes Good?

I see people bashing the Kingdom Hearts development team for “buying time” and “making a quick buck” with re-releasing the Kingdom Hearts games on the PlayStation 3 (and later the PlayStation 4). “They only did it because they needed to sate your hunger with mildly new stuff in each collection, only trying to buy time for Nomura’s ignorance to the final installment.��

JUST STOP. THAT’S NOT AT ALL ACCURATE.

The ORIGINAL Kingdom Hearts, made for the PlayStation 2 way back in 2002 (I was literally a babe when that game came out, can you believe that) is probably the most cherished game in the series, but... also the most annoying to play. Platforming was a little jumpy then and the way the combat rolled out was sorta messy. Nevertheless, the game proved to be fun and full of good story.

The original developers lost the assets to the game and took the collective decision to remake it from the ground-up. This let them fix a LOT of issues the game had with it’s camera work and select cutscenes, including the installation of new bosses, weapons, abilities, and an easier-to-use reaction command system, or as people call it in KH2, “PRESS TRIANGLE TO WIN.”

In addition to fixing the mechanical issues, the in-game models were updated to their HD versions, Yoko Shimomura re-composed the soundtrack for the game, and many cutscenes and textures were upgraded to match the stunning HD of the PS3.

This was only the beginning. Since 358/2 Days came out originally on the Nintendo DS, cutscenes were limited in this game. The story was told through, dare I say, poor quality in-game dialogue with hardly any voice acting to back it. This did make the characters in the game feel a little less like themselves. The HD Remaster of 358 really helps to bring back that tie. It completely scrapped the combat system used in Days, but did well to keep up it’s heart-wrenching story. While there is no gameplay, it was a touching movie that I still shed a few tears over.

Albeit, nothing much changed in Chain of Memories aside from the final boss having a remastered soundtrack, it was nice to see the cutscenes in HD. And if you’re like me, that sweet 60 fps on the PS4.

“Storm, this isn’t selling me. It still sounds like a cash-grab. ”

UNDERSTANDABLE! I honestly thought the same thing a long time ago! Allow me to inform you more on the next addition: Kingdom Hearts 2.5!

Kingdom Hearts II is, arguably, the best game in the franchise via gameplay. The combat system is much less punishing if you get hammered, and very cinematic. You thought Ars Arcanum was a cool way to finish off an enemy? Try having the scripted event be throwing the enemy INTO THE AIR and SMACKING IT IN THE CHEST SEVERAL TIMES, then having it LAND ON THE FLOOR BEHIND YOU AS YOU STRIKE A POSE.

Vertigo Toss is the coolest shit ever and I don’t know how to top it.

How do you make it better in the Remix? Anyone knows, compared to Kingdom Hearts I, this “much better” installment was very lacking in secret bosses and bonus content to do after completing the game. So that’s exactly what the developers added: extra areas to explore, more bosses to fight, new abilities to abuse, cool content to have fun with, AND A HELLISH SECRET BOSS THAT TIES INTO THE LORE.

The game also added in new cutscenes to help explain what’s going on within the Organization, as well as Roxas’ motivation behind fighting Sora, and Sora’s resolve to thank Naminé for what she’d done for him. On top of very beautiful HD graphics and a new soundtrack, the game was enjoyable for the viewer and a challenge for the player.

Birth by Sleep didn’t receive much change aside from the new graphics and a few remastered soundtracks. However, the Mirage Arena was modified for single-player use, new bosses were added, and a new Secret Episode was included in the game after finishing the Final Episode. This Secret Episode would tie into the later release of Kingdom Hearts 0.2 on the PS4.

It’s well-known to hardly affect the plot, but some of my theories say otherwise. Coded was a fun, side-game that delved into the data world of Jiminy’s Journal. While not a whole lot happened there, it was a fun game that did hint towards new releases for the future. The Remastered movie pulled a 358 and completely scrapped the gameplay part of the game. It became a 3-hour movie, mostly for viewing pleasure and not exactly designed to move the plot of the franchise. But there were a few-tear jerking cutscenes in there. It was well-worth the remake.

“Okay, but I’m not seeing the point. This still feels like a time-staller for KH3.”

Patience, my reader. We’re on our latest Remix: Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue

yeah, i know, it’s a ridiculous name, but this is Kingdom Hearts, we all thought Goofy was dead for 2 minutes

Dream Drop Distance is infamous for being a mind-fuck to the viewer. While it has it’s flashy gameplay and interesting mechanics, the game is best known for it’s sudden exceleration in the plot with the introduction of time travel.

Yes, because things weren’t confusing enough. Plot aside, the gameplay didn’t change all that much. A few new Dream Eaters were added into the game, but aside from revamping the touch-screen commands, nothing really changed.

Here’s the real reason everyone bought 2.8: Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage

HAH, YOU THOUGHT THAT LAST NAME WAS RIDICULOUS.

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 was a completely new experience in the franchise. It had only been touched on in the Secret Episode of Birth by Sleep and this short game was only a fraction of what was initially planned. I look at this game to be a demo for Kingdom Hearts III, as it uses the finalized graphics, mechanics, and game engine that is to be used in the final installment, as well as having a final cutscene that connects to the beginning of KH3, as confirmed by developers.

The game should only take the average player about 2 to 3 hours to finish this game. It is VERY short, but very amusing. Featuring absolutely stunning graphics, beautifully orchestrated music, fun gameplay, and an immersive world, I find people replaying this small demo all the time. Not only for it’s fun gameplay, but also the character development and story.

Kingdom Hearts Unchained X Back Cover is an HD recreation of the cutscenes in the mobile game, Kingdom Hearts Unchained X. It’s best understood by watching and/or playing the mobile platform, as the story may not make sense without its guiding game. The remaster touches on the 5 Union Leaders and how they intend to fight the impending darkness, as well as introducing the 6th Apprentice and what his role just might be.

“I can see why that LAST one wasn’t a cash-grab, but it definitely felt like a stall... Storm, where are you going with this?”

I admit, I do believe somewhere in my heart that the Remixes were a way to keep us busy while Kingdom Hearts III was being developed. But in no way or form do I think they were meant to just earn money. Granted, they certainly did, but I doubt that was the goal that the team was going for.

Kingdom Hearts has received MANY new fans since the initial release of Kingdom Hearts on the PS2. And what with how spread out every game is onto different consoles, it’s hard to actually play them all. Tetsuya Nomura, game director and developer, stated in an interview himself that the main reason the Remixes were made was to allow Kingdom Hearts fans new and old to visit and revisit the series without having to dig up old consoles.

Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 released onto the PS4, along with Kingdom Hearts 2.8 and the soon-coming Kingdom Hearts III places each and every game onto the PlayStation 4. Albeit pricey even now, every single game is accessible on a single console. Unchained X, or Union Cross, is still a phone game, but I do think they intend to recreate the story cutscenes and release them onto the PS4 in a potential DLC package.

“So... they made it easier for the fans?”

Not just easier, but they made this series mean even MORE to the fans. The recreation of 358/2 Days and Coded as movies, and the addition of new story content and gameplay material would not have been added if it wasn’t for the fans to enjoy. I don’t think I could love Roxas as much as I do if I didn’t get to see that HD Remaster of Days.

And with the release of Back Cover, it’s proof that they intend to bring Union Cross to the console players in some form or another. I can’t play Union Cross simply because I have a phone that doesn’t allow it to work properly. So being able to watch the “important” cutscenes in stunning HD feels like a privilege that I’m entirely thankful for.

And most important to me was the release of Kingdom Hearts 0.2, a practical demo for Kingdom Hearts III. It was a proof-check for the developers, so they could make sure that we knew their development was coming along just fine, so they could make sure that we LIKED what they were making and to see how they could perfect it for the grand title they’ve been working on for over 7 years. It was a reassurance that Kingdom Hearts III was on it’s way and that we would ENJOY it.

The Remixes were meant to tide us over, yes, but they were meant to make us fall in love with this game even MORE. So it would be beloved by our hearts and enjoyed by new ones. The Remixes, in all honesty, just made the Kingdom Hearts series better. I can say that as a fact.

#LONG RANT BUT IT'S A FUN ONE #Kingdom Hearts #kh #com #358/2 days #kh2 #bbs #recoded #ddd #kh0.2 #kh ux #kh back cover #my post

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ebonyeagle · 7 years ago

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Of Salt and Forgiveness

Not really a fan of writing reviews because I'm shit but here I go anyways since this is a special case. What is the topic?

The most anticipated game of this decade, Final Fantasy XV!

Why is this important for me to write about? Because I got a complicated relationship with this game. On one hand, I really fucking hate this stupid thing, on the other hand I can’t stop loving it. Now that I’ve had time to think, it’s time to write down my final thoughts!

Before I go further into it, it’s worth to mention that I’m one of those people who were hyped for Final Fantasy XIII Versus. I have been waiting for this game since 2008 and been looking very much forward to a dark and gritty story. I was intrigued when I watched the cinematic trailer. What would this game be about? Will this be a Final Fantasy game where you play as the villain? What is the significance of the Shakespeare quote? At the time, I had just finished Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core ( what a fantastic game <3 ) and was craving my next Final Fantasy fix! As interesting as XIII looked, I was more into Versus as the darker approach was much more alluring. And as we all know, we waited and waited and waited. I was excited for every E3 and TGS; ready for more news about it, but a real release date never came.

Then came the rumours of it being cancelled only to have the hype return tenfold at the announcement at E3 2013 where it was revealed to be the next main instalment in the franchise! And what an amazing trailer we got; the destruction of a an entire city by the fins of a Leviathan, more personality to Noctis and some new neat characters! I was so damn excited! However, as time went on it became evident that the roadtrip part would be the core mechanic. Unexpected but alright, it’s a whole new Final Fantasy for a new console for a new generation, let’s see where this is going

Then the demo “Episode: Duscae” happened and let’s just say I was very surprised. And not in a good way. Fucking boyband goes camping… Not what I expected and to be honest it didn’t help revive the hype I once felt (Feeling bad for Type-0 since it will forever be remembered as “the game that came with the demo”). Anyways the game got released and it was time to experience the full thing.

Game boots up and we are presented with the beautiful title theme + logo of the game as well as a glittering night sky in the background. Then we are immediately thrown into a fight with, what we suppose is, Ifrit and a grown up Noctis and squad. First of all, that was the most pointless teaser/medias res start whatever to start a story with. All it serves is to spoil the fact that there is a timeskip. You have no idea what and why you should care. Then we are back to young Noctis and Co. that are sent off by Papa Regis on a roadtrip. Their car AKA fifth party member then breaks down and the Crown prince of a powerful kingdom is sent out as an errand boy in order to pay for car repairs…

What? This is the way you decide to start your grand new main title? Hour long road trip where you know jackshit about anything!? A little more exposition maybe? You do pride yourself with this game being for “fans and first timers” maybe tell us something about the importance of crystals and what exactly magitechs are? I know they expect you to see that god-awful movie (which I btw really like) beforehand but I expect my full price game to come complete! At least have the decency to include the movie in the game and not only in the collectors edition, jeez… Oh yes, there is an anime too and the Platinum demo. There was actually a surprisingly amount of story and hints in that demo, didn’t expect much from it, only played it because of the cute carbuncle on the thumbnail. ________ Here is how I would have liked this game to start: Instead of the Ifrit flash forward, let us have a flash forward of the world after the star scourge. Let us see a world without light and terrors in the form of demons. As cliché as it is, let this flash forward be a nightmare Noctis has. Instead of the Kingsglaive movie, let the movie be the first 1/3 arc of the game. Noctis will wake up after the star scourge nightmare only to find himself in his bedroom in Insomnia. Maybe a week before the signing of the Treaty with Niflheim. Here Noctis will be able to explore the Citadel, talk with daddy and learn about the world. Let Ignis do some exposition as well as introduce you to the use of magic. Sparring with Gladio will learn you about the combat mechanics and you’ll be able to hang out with Prompto. Explore the streets of Insomnia and derp around with your friends at your favourite Arcade. In this way you will feel at home in Insomnia and the events of the game will be more impactful later.

Then all the Niflheim crap happens, Insomnia falls, Regis is killed, Noctis and Luna are separated and he flees the city. This will really show how evil the Empire is for tbh, without Kingsglaive we don’t really know that much about Niflheim. We are told they are evil but never really see it except for the roaming magitech troopers and some blockades. Then the second arc of the game will start which will be the road trip part. Noctis’ friends helps him deal with the loss and they try to get by as refugees by camping in the wild and such. That’s another thing I don’t get in the game, how can the dead-very-important-crownprince of Lucis run around and no one bats an eye? Have the people never actually seen the prince?? Anyways this is my idea of a start. Cliché but a friendlier way to start in my opinion. ______

Then all the Blessing of the Astrals is going to happen which is awesome! The Leviathan part in Altissia is epic. Could have been cool though if it was a bit more like the announcement trailer... Not interesting from a gameplay perspective but very impressive and Final Fantasy-like. We really get to see how majestic summons can be! The story then slows down and we are presented to story-telling on rails (literally) Noctis and Co. deals with their losses, it looks bleak for them and Gladio is being a macho ass and we go into the final part of the game. I really like this part as the storytelling is FINALLY going somewhere! Okay the part in the Empire is a little too long and I feel confused about the characters like Ravus and the Emperor-what’s-his-name. I know they patched cutscenes in but looking at the game at release, a little too much happened off screen and you are more confused than shocked.

We are then at the stolen crystal and where the timeskip happens. What comes after is honestly the best part of the game! Especially because of the sleep-theme the game got going/hints at. Anything from here on is absolutely bloody brilliant! I love the payoff with the photographies and Armiger weapons! The story telling and music, everything! But again, the return to where it all began would have been more impactful if I actually knew Insomnia. The city you enter aren’t any different from any other town you’ve passed. This isn’t my home so why should I feel anything? Anyways, the ending(s) blew me away and I may or may not have shed tears of happiness.

That was some story talk now to the more general part.

I wrote in my intro that I hate the game. Why is that? I expected something and got something else. My own fault, next reason. I think the way they presented the game was messy and the first half had a horrible pacing. It’s hard to care about the war and Empire when you don’t know the stakes and what the fuck’s going on. The camping mechanic is awesome and I love how you can get different boosts by preparing different foods! I hated the whole boyband goes camping but this honestly turned out to be one of the best parts of the game. No, what I REALLY hate is the way they decided to tell a what-would-be interesting story. There are way too many moments where you don’t know what the fuck is going on and why you should care and some characters wasn’t fleshed out enough; would have loved to know more about Ardyn because of his significance in the game and true identity. A little more about the Astrals too please? What about the Oracles? I know this is stuff you surely can find in books and stuff laying around; bread crumbs are nice but not when you forget the entire fucking bread. This is a solid game with a huge potential, but somehow that’s totally hidden away. I feel like the Final Fantasy part has been lost along the way. Side quest and open world exploration are a huge part of the universe, but so is a grand story and rich lore. Could we please have more of the latter? The more realistic setting this instalment is going for isn’t my cup of tea. I love the bleary steampunk world of VII and the colourful tropical world of Spira, setting a fantasy game in a close-to-real-life setting is taking a lot of its charm. But again, this is a new and different fantasy so that’s nice in its own way. When that is said, too bad we didn’t get to explore Tenebrae, that place looks beautiful!

I don’t hate this instalment because it’s different compared to the older titles, I hate it because of the way it’s executed. I cry when I think about what this game could have been and then I cry again when I think about its beautiful moments and bromance. For most of the first half of the game I hated its fucking guts and I couldn’t see any reason to care about anything the game had to offer, but as time went on it slowly grew on me and at the end where this beautiful mess turned Final Fantasy, I realized it was finally time to lay behind my salt and forgive it.

#ff #ffxv #Ishouldstopmyselfbutwhatever #I haven't read this through #I #thisisimportanttome

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xb-squaredx · 8 years ago

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Mario & Luigi Paper Jam Review: Padded and Played Out

In a bizarre coincidence, both Super Mario RPGs of the current era, following their 3DS debuts and fourth games overall, find themselves crossing over in the latest game from the Mario & Luigi series. Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam is an interesting game to say the least, but it now has to live up to the pedigree of TWO beloved RPG series, so the question becomes twofold. Is Paper Jam a good game on its own merits AND as a game that represents two franchises? Well, the answer is complicated.

I’ll level with you all here: I’m facing some fairly serious franchise fatigue with the Mario & Luigi games. For the most part, I’d say that all of the games are very well done and on their own, they’re perfectly fun RPGs, but as time has gone on, I feel that Alpha Dream is phoning a lot of it in. With four other games under their belt, very little of Paper Jam felt really new and exciting. For a lot of the beginning portions of the game, I was bored. For a good portion of the game, I was largely going through the motions and I ended up taking long breaks in-between play sessions because I had no enthusiasm to play. Of course, that doesn’t mean the game itself is bad, but it is more of the same, and that may or may not be a problem depending on how much you love this series.

To be honest, this might be the most polished game in the series yet in many ways, so there are benefits to working on a proven formula again and again. The battles are still filled with the charm they’ve always had, with Mario and Luigi (and later Paper Mario) taking turns attacking enemies and trying to dodge attacks, with timed button presses every bit as satisfying to land as ever. Carrying over the 3D backgrounds and 3D-esque pixel art from Dream Team, Paper Jam looks great as well and has a fitting soundtrack. Overall, it’s presentation is stellar, as is the humorous writing found throughout. For big fans of the series, everything you expect is there and is about as good as you can hope for, but for those that might be getting tired of the series, that might be hoping for something to shake things up, well…there ARE some new things hidden within, but I doubt they’ll make the game feel fresh enough for you.

The biggest change of course is the addition of Paper Mario as a playable character, attacking alongside his 3D counterpart (and Luigi). While having similar actions to the brothers (a jump and a hammer attack, item usage and super attacks (Trio Attacks), his paper-y nature gives him a different feel. This is most prevalent in his usage of a “Copy Block” that is given to him at the start of the game. Using it, Paper Mario can split into many copies of himself. They stack up together to shield him from taking damage for a time, which is great as his health is rather low, and they also help his somewhat lacking attack power. From a jump attack all copies take turns jumping on a single enemy for some impressive damage, while his hammer attack has all his copies spread out, able to attack large groups all at once. Overall, Paper Mario feels distinct enough that he adds a new dimension to battling, though at the same time…he doesn’t exactly play like he does in his own games. I should point out that the battle system is Mario & Luigi through and through, for those hoping for a chance to play as Paper Mario in a system similar to the first two Paper Mario games.

As for other new features, Battle Cards are introduced fairly early. Players can collect cards throughout the game, as either rare enemy drops or bought from shops. Constructing a deck of about ten cards, they’re randomly doled out on the touch screen, three available at any time. Card effects range from buffs to debuffs, free heals or even upping the experience enemies will give you, among other things. Using a card costs Star Points, which are built up by performing attack commands with good timing though you have a hard cap of 30 points, so you can just hoard them. While an interesting addition to the battling system, I wouldn’t say they add all that much to the game, as they feel more like the various badge effects from past games, and they can be pretty easily abused. With the right deck, I was able to trounce bosses fairly easily, though admittedly without using them, most bosses were quite tricky. Considering that the cards don’t use up a turn, you could, if you build your deck right, heal and attack in the same turn, or deal huge damage on a boss all before you even start your turn, where you would deal even MORE damage to them. The cards DO add some strategy to the game at times, but often that strategy boiled down to spamming the strongest cards to make encounters a joke.

The last main addition to the game is Papercraft Battles. A replacement for the Giant Battles in the last two games, players take control of what amounts to paper tanks made to resemble various characters in the series. Taking place in small 3D arenas, the various Papercrafts all have slightly different abilities, making each encounter slightly different. Peach’s Papercraft has a parasol to slow her decent in the air, while Yoshi’s has a tongue that can grapple various pillars in its arena and also reel enemies in, to give some examples. Despite these differences, the battles all revolve around the same two actions: ram into enemy papercraft to knock them down, then jump on them to deal major damage. While fun little skirmishes that get more interesting with each new battle, they’re still fairly simple affairs. I do enjoy having full control in these sections though, when compared to the Giant Battles of games past, where they were just one huge series of QTE’s, but at the same time they lack the pure spectacle of those Giant Battles. Bit of a mixed bag overall.

You’ll notice I didn’t talk much about story, which is odd for an RPG, but that’s because there…isn’t really one. A magic book containing the Paper Mario universe is opened and pieces (and people) from that world fly out all across the Mushroom Kingdom. When Bowser and Paper Bowser join forces, Paper Mario joins up with Mario and Luigi to take them out. That’s pretty much it. No subplots, no twists to speak of, just…go fight both Bowsers! Now, there’s plenty of DIALOGUE though, and that’s where Paper Jam shines. The character interactions between everyone and their paper counterparts are great, and this game also works to utilize various characters from the Super Mario cast that usually get shafted. This game is notable for giving the Koopalings a fair bit of dialogue and plot involvement, and Toadette is a fairly important character too. Watching both Bowser Jr.’s bond and become best friends was oddly heartwarming and watching both Peaches engage in some girl talk made for one of the funnier moments of the game. If anything, Paper Jam proves you can make a compelling narrative with just the Super Mario cast, though at the same time…part of the appeal of BOTH of the Super Mario RPG series is their unique settings and characters that work to flesh out the Super Mario universe a fair bit. Having a game that JUST stars the core Mario cast, set purely in the Mushroom Kingdom across fairly generic locales…it feels more than a bit bland. It is an odd situation where the characters and dialogue is great, but there’s so little story connecting it together.

It is also worth knowing that for all of this talk of being a CROSSOVER, very little of what makes the Paper Mario games distinct from the Mario & Luigi games makes it into Paper Jam. The platforming and basic gameplay is totally Mario & Luigi, as is its overall presentation and humor (plenty of slapstick). About the only thing it takes from the other series is the addition of a block button, and that’s it. Honestly, the setup seems perfect to have the group travel to the Paper universe halfway through, and that might have salvaged the game. Mario and Luigi could have become Paper Mario’s partners in a different battle system more representative of the Paper Mario games…but that’s not what we have here.

Now, if we were finished, I’d say it’s a fine enough game, if a bit tired for people that are wanting something a little more novel. But we’re not done. There’s one other aspect of the game that comes into play and really sours the experience: Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam is padded out to all hell. Nearly every aspect of the game feels drawn out more than it should be, from exploration to combat. For a few games now, the animations of attacks have gotten longer and more elaborate, which is especially true with the Bros. Attacks. They’ve become miniature rhythm-based minigames that can go on for far too long at times, and this is also true of the new Trio Attacks that Paper Mario does in unison with Mario and Luigi. They’re notable too for having a cutscene that sets up the move that is actually skippable, in a series where the cinematic attacks often involve button presses and can’t be skipped. Boss attacks also become more grandiose, especially in various “chase sequences” that go on for far too long and require perfect dodging the entire time before you get a chance to counter attack.

Enemy attacks also are fairly longwinded too, especially when it comes to the Paper enemies. Many Paper enemies have attacks that move slower than their 3D counterparts, and that’s all before we get into stacked and shiny Paper enemies. Like Paper Mario, Paper enemies can stack themselves together, becoming one hardy enemy or separate to become many enemies. This also changes their attacks, often making their turns take even longer as every individual enemy takes their turn to attack. You might enter a battle where it looks like you’re only fighting two enemies, but if they’re stacks, you’re really fighting upwards of twenty. Paper enemies can also come in shiny forms (similar to the shiny stickers in Paper Mario Sticker Star), and are far stronger and more durable than usual. And God help you if you encounter a shiny stack of enemies, at which point they basically become a boss.

But by far the worst aspect of the game has to be the quests revolving around saving the various Paper Toads that have scattered across the land. While this sounds like a good game-long sidequest, it is mandatory at multiple parts in the game, the plot screeching to a halt until you gather more Toads for arbitrary reasons. Most of these Toad collection challenges are exercises in frustration. A good portion of them are timed, or you’ll have to work to collect them while enemies constantly assault you, but by far the worst of them involve herding the Toads to some goal, as if they’re braindead cattle. The Toads, for no reason whatsoever, will flee at the first sight of the brothers, resulting in several botched runs where they flee and keep you from completing the challenge. By the end of it, I hated the mere sight of a Toad.

There are tons of these little challenges sprinkled throughout the game, even outside of the Toad collections and while some can be fun, many are repetitive. These challenges give no reward, often coming before a boss fight and seem to exist just to extend the length of the game. By far the most egregious one came right at the tail end of the game. Both Bowser Jr.s flee the brothers and you are forced through a terrible stealth section to track them down. Once you complete this section and capture them, they simply run off back to where you first encountered them, and then you engage in a boss battle afterward. You could cut that stealth section out of the game and lose nothing of value. In fact, the game even lets you skip these sections if you fail enough times, and I actually took the game up on that offer at that point.

At the end of the day, Paper Jam left me bored during most of the beginning portion, with small bits of enjoyment sprinkled throughout and mixed in with far too much frustration for my sake. While the game is fundamentally sound, with a solid presentation and some interesting ideas, the overall plot is bland, the constant Toad fetch quests are frustrating, and it’s starting to go through the motions instead of doing some true innovation. If anything, Paper Jam shows that Alpha Dream needs to take a break from this series. At any rate, I think I might sit the next one out.

Until next time.

-B

#xb-squaredx #blog #review #mario&luigi #paper jam #paper mario #3DS #RPG #alpha dream

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recentanimenews · 5 years ago

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Can One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows Punch its Way to the Top?

One-Punch Man is a creative take on the superhero genre: what if the hero was so strong, nothing was a challenge to him? Saitama’s antics of always being disappointed in his world shattering powers being wasted on villains other heroes can barely touch gives the show most of its heart and character, but how do you translate that sense of apathy to a video game? Since fighting games are all about flashy action and pulling off cool combos, moves, and comebacks, playing as Saitama against other heroes and villains seems pretty silly; after all, he’s just going to win in a single punch! Bandai Namco have come up with an interesting twist to this: you have to survive long enough for Saitama to show up before you can see his awesome power on display in One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows! While an intriguing idea, how well did it play? Well, I got to play the multiplayer beta of the game on the XBox One, and I’ll let you know… It’s complicated!

The multiplayer beta offered players three options: a local mode against the computer, a Saitama version of multiplayer, and a non-Saitama version. Regardless of the version you select, you’re given the choice of building a team of 3 characters, with the restriction being that modes that include Saitama force him to be your 3rd and final choice, and that he will only arrive in battle after 250 seconds have elapsed. If that seems like a really long time, it is! After selecting, players are taken to the battlefield, where they fight in 3D combat arenas with free movement, being able to swap between the fighters they’ve selected, giving players some options towards team composition, styles, and knowing when to swap characters in and out to protect them or push an advantage.

Controls are fairly simple: characters move with the left analog stick, and the rest of the controls are based on simple button inputs. There are no complex commands for special moves, and instead characters can perform moves by consuming the “Move Meter” by holding Left Trigger and combining it with a face button for various types of attacks. When the meter is high enough, characters can enter an enhanced state or stance change by pressing R3, and pressing it again for most characters executes an impressively cinematic super move. Characters can also dash freely by holding Right Trigger, or directly towards their opponent with L3, giving them a boost of speed to close gaps or take advantage of knockdowns and wallbounces.

In terms of control, the game felt fine and functional. There was never anything overly flashy in the gameplay, and the control scheme is simplistic and allows players to learn the rules fairly quickly. There are only four buttons in the game: a weak attack, a strong attack, a block, and a jump, and combined with the more specific buttons mentioned above, creates the entire toolkit you have to work with as you play. Simplistic controls don’t always mean bad, and many fighting games take advantage of simple controls to hide a lot of depth.

In my time with A Hero Nobody Knows, I was left thinking that the game has some interesting systems, such as timed perfect dodges, combos based on juggling and wall/zone bounces, and finding ways to make various moves flow into one another. But there are some places where the game seems fairly as simple as it presents itself, without many hidden systems or unique quirks that you might expect in other anime based fighting games.

Since the beta was only multiplayer, I can’t speak to any campaign or single-player based content, but it does seem as though players will be able to create a character of their own to take into battle; when the beta started, we were offered two heroes, one a ‘speed’ based one, and the other a ‘power’ based one, who borrowed various moves from other heroes to create a mixture of unique moves. In practice, it felt somewhat odd to play as a generic character when the One-Punch Man characters were also readily available, except in the sense that they had a combination of moves from other characters that would otherwise not be seen together. I found myself choosing the avatar character a lot during my time playing, mostly because I found them easy to use and somewhat simple to play compared to characters like Tatsumaki, although I would hesitate to say any character is really difficult to play as.

Instead, I just found that most characters played somewhat the same, with certain extremes like Sea King, Silverfang and Tatsumaki being the most different. Otherwise, Genos, the avatar, Sonic, Mumen Rider, and Atomic Samurai all felt fairly interchangeable, and despite the game listing their hero ranks, they didn’t seem to matter at all in gameplay. When my player character C rank avatar took out Sea King with a set of consistent wallbounce combos, I knew that there might be something… off about the game. The issue is really not one of gameplay (it plays great!), but theme.

During my time playing the beta, I actually only got to play as Saitama twice. Once was during my first match against the CPU, in which I was mostly just figuring the game out and doing very little, which allowed the timer to run out and Saitama to appear. The second time, I had to specifically go out of my way to not win the match too quickly for him to show up again, meaning that I spent the tail end of the match purposefully avoiding my opponent simply to get Saitama to appear, rejecting the CPU’s attempts to have me defeat it by rushing right up to me and doing nothing, daring me to just end the fight. The problem isn’t even that Saitama takes too long to show up; you can actually shorten his timer by doing successful combos, perfect guard dodges, and special moves, but what this ended up resulting in was a type of score: how low could you get Saitama’s timer before you defeated your opponent?

The closest I came against another player was 15 seconds, and they had a single character with a sliver of health left, meaning Saitama would have simply been a cruel joke more than a reward at that point. Playing in ‘Saitama’ mode and not selecting him makes the imbalance even more obvious, as you end up with one player with 3 available full power characters against someone who has more or less handicapped themselves, with the promise that they may be rewarded for it if they can survive. Against everyone I played while doing this, none of them even came close to summoning him, let alone winning.

For a series about such an interesting protagonist and lots of cool heroes and villains, the themes of One-Punch Man actively work against it being a compelling fighting game, which is most visible in the sense that Saitama is perhaps the biggest problem in the entire game. While Saitama is fun to see on the screen, he doesn’t actually “work” in the game. Saitama is obviously impossible to defeat, and a simple light attack instantly defeats every opponent. While he can perform a super, it’s mostly just to see the impressive cinematic rather than needing to pull it off for any reason. In some sense, this is a fighting game based on an anime that is actively hampered by its protagonist: everyone wants to play as Saitama, but playing as Saitama isn’t actually all that fun, and the other characters are entertaining but they aren’t Saitama, a point the show and manga have made numerous times. I think this might be why I didn’t care about playing the generic player character: none of the other characters were Saitama, so did it really matter who I was playing as?

A Hero Nobody Knows feels like it has reverse Poochie syndrome: when Saitama isn’t on screen, everyone’s asking where Saitama is, but they also actually WANT him to be there. When playing modes without Saitama, the game works quite well as a fun, punchy fighting game, but the characters feel oddly generic in these circumstances. While it lets you do the ultimate anime game pleasure of “what would happen if Mumen Rider fought Speed of Sound Sonic,” characters that are obviously more powerful than others never really FEEL more powerful than others. Mumen Rider should, obviously, be the weakest character in the game, but he’s more than capable of taking down any character with ease, which somewhat breaks the fantasy the game is trying to sell.

Thematic issues aside, the game looks fantastic! Character models are well rendered and look like they should, voices are well done, and the game even has fun little pre-battle dialogues where characters that have some sort of history will trade verbal barbs, even if they aren’t on the same team. Mumen Rider and Sea King will trade words, and you can even recreate the “Sassy child” scene if Saitama is against Tatsumaki. Entire team scenes can play out in various circumstances as well, such as a team of Saitama, Genos, and Silverfang that has the older martial artist trying to recruit the two of them to his dojo.

While the game’s main thematic draw is somewhat dissonant, you absolutely get what you bargained for in terms of character theme and interaction, and we can only assume that the singleplayer components missing from the beta will take full advantage of these features. Frankly, A Hero Nobody Knows almost seems like a better single player experience than multiplayer, letting players explore the One-Punch Man story and engage in some video game exclusive content and scenes, than it is as a competitive versus fighter. Players can expect to have fun duking it out, and if you’re a big One-Punch Man fan, you’ll probably find stuff to love here, but the game system isn’t deep enough to draw in non-fans or curious fighting game players.

When our time with the beta came to a close, we found ourselves feeling a bit like Saitama: unfulfilled. The game plays great, and online versus other people was smooth and had very few hiccups, and everything about it shouts “solid but not game changing fighter.” The biggest problem, though, is that the theme—and Saitama—don’t work the way it should. Perhaps we’ll see what the full game has to offer, but for now we’re cautiously optimistic, hoping we can find a game worthy of our abilities and powers to use. We’re looking for a game that offers us a challenge and allows us to feel amazing when Saitama shows up to save the day. As it is, right now we mostly just feel like he does: Ok.

Are you curious to play One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows? Any characters you’d like to see in the game? Let us know what you think of the game in the comments!

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Nicole is a features writer and editor for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

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