#it will be entirely story based with combat and QTE | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rat-game · 5 years ago

Text

“It’s just pressing ‘A’ a bunch of times”: How to make turn-based JRPG Combat engaging

Abstract

In recent years many games have modified the formula that constitutes the turn-based jrpg combat systems in an effort to make the experience more engaging for players. In this article I first provide an exhaustive definition of what makes a games combat “turn-based jrpg combat” through a set of necessary properties. Additional properties that are commonly found yet not necessary are mentioned. An argument for how combat systems like this may inherently run the risk of not being engaging for plays is brought forward and multiple methods game developers have tried to solve this in the past are analyzed and evaluated: adding complexity, adding mechanical challenge through QTEs, adding visual flair, adding a gimmick and adding depth. It’s concluded that the optimal approach is using all of those methods in moderation while trying to avoid the pitfalls they come with.

I feel like in recent years game developers have come to regard turn-based JRPG combat in it’s purest form as inherently flawed. Many feel like they need to innovate, otherwise modern audiences will get bored, won’t feel engaged and play a more action-oriented or real-time strategy game instead. I would like to challenge this perception, explain ways how modern devs have tried to solve this problem.

What is turn-based combat?

First I want to define what I mean by “turn-based JRPG combat” (”tb combat” henceforth for the sake of brevity). This is not an easy task as most people will resort to an ostensive definition, naming games like Final Fantasy 7 and 3 (aka. 6), most of the Dragon Quest games, Mother 2 and 3, Suikoden, Chrono Trigger, Xenoblade, Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario, Pokémon, etc.. I agree that all of these are indeed JRPGs with turn-based combat but they’re also diverse enough that finding the least common denominator for these is anything but trivial. I think it is useful to give a well-defined description of each part that makes up the combat of games like these so I can refer to them with a general term later on. A game can be devided into what’s called scenes. Note that these are unlike scenes like those in movies or books, instead a scene in game development is a reoccurring state for whom layout, input-handling and other in-universe as well as algorithmic rules are defined. In JRPG there are often at least 3 scenes: the overworld scene is where the players moves their character, interacts with NPCs, enters houses, etc. The menu scene is where inventory managing is done, often different parameters about the game are displayed and equipment may be sold or equipped. A combat scene, then, represents the act of fighting something or someone in an abstract way. In Final Fantasy while in a designated overworld area the game may trigger a battle, encounter or what I will call “combat”. The entire layout changes, moving the cursor now selects an attack or enemy or an item instead of moving a character, you can only control the characters indirectly by selecting attacks or other such action and part of the screen has a menu from which to select these actions.

Figure 1: Boss battle against Ultros, Final Fantasy 6 (1994, SNES)

It is necessary for each entity participating in combat to have the same set of “stats”. A stat of any type such as a number of string or anything, really, is a property that can be interacted with through game mechanics while inside the battle scene. An easy example is Health (”HP”), usually all enemies and allies will have a number representing their health, dealing damage to an entity lowers this number, healing raises it. If the number reaches 0 the entity dies. Other examples of stats may include Mana or Action Points (”AP”), Attack, Defense, Speed, the name of the entity, etc.. I will consider the property (boolean) of wether or not a entity is an enemy or ally as a stat as well [1]. It is vital that each entity has the same set of stats, though some games may obfuscate them (such as the player not knowing how much AP the enemy has left). While this seems functionally indistinguishable from the entity not actually having the stat, this is not the case. It becomes important when considering abilities: an ability is any action that interacts with stats of any entity (or none). Since all entities have the same set of stats theoretically any ability could be executed by any entity. In my opinion this is a vital part of tb combat and all of the games commonly considered tb JRPG combat share this property [2]. If the player sees an enemy using an ability it will seem fair, they know that there’s a chance that they may get a similar ability later in game and more importantly, they know every entity is playing by the same rules. Later on I will discuss why this is extremely important for an engaging experience. A turn is a unit of measurements of arbitrary length. Each combat scene has to have the possibility of having at least <number of different entities> many turns. During a turn exactly one of the entities may choose an action such as using an ability or item, defending themself, fleeing, etc.. It is not imperative that entities may only act (that is choose an action) during a turn though most games follow this rule. Often the order of turns (the order of who acts before whom) depends on one or more stats or another property of the world or how the battle was started. For example in Pokémon the pokemon with the highest speed stat acts first but there are also abilities that make entities ignore this rule and always act first or even reverse the order of turns. In final fantasy and chrono trigger one of the stats of the entities is slowly rising, if the precentage bar is full entity may choose to act (c.f. figure 1, grey bar on the lower right of the screen) . This makes the order, length and number of turns flexible and the time in-between turns arbitrarily long (usually enemies act as soon as they are ready but the player can theoretically not start a turn until the battle ends), yet the turns still behave like in other tb combat systems. To summarizes, the combat scene of a game is considered “turn-based JRPG combat”, iff

all of the entities (both enemies and allies) have the same set of stats

the battle is divided into turns during which

abilities serve as a way to represent abstract combat, choosing abilities is the main gameplay

To finish of this section I’d like to give kind of a quick-fire round of properties that are commonly found in tb combat but that I don’t consider strictly necessary:

One of the stats is a “status” one or multiple out of a fixed number of them. Being afflicted with a certain status may have effects on the entity or the battle as a whole. For example a poisoned entity may loose HP over time, being stunned makes it so they can’t act during your turn, etc.. Being dead or knocked out may also be considered a status, it’s effect is being unable to act until resurrected.

Allies and Enemies can die or be knocked out (usually when their HP reaches 0). A dead enemy is removed from the battle, cannot be further interacted with unless resurrected. If either all enemies or all allies die the battle ends in a win- or fail-state respectively.

There is a visual representation of each entity such as sprites, names along with numbers or something similar (c.f. Figure 1). Resolving an ability has a visual representation, usually either an animation or sometimes just the changing of displayed numbers as damage is dealt.

Some of the abilities are instead considered “items”. These usually act as a one-time-use abilities, each entity may have a shared or individual inventory that contains multiple of these items. If one is used in combat it may vanish from the inventory, so for example if you have 3 bombs, using one in combat it will deal damage much like a regular ability would but instead of costing AP one will vanish from the inventory so only 2 are left. I refer to items acting this way as “usable items” (or “usables”)

Interaction with the game may be a lot more complex than just selecting something from a menu. This includes QTEs to block or attack, button combinations instead of selecting attacks, etc.. I will discuss these in a future section.

Winning the battle will reward the player party with experience or gold both of which may unlock new abilities or something similar outside of battle.

The set of entities may change over the course of the battle. This includes switching out team members, creating new ones (”spawning) with abilities or more entities joining for story reasons or something similar.

The combat scene itself may have certain properties. Examples include weather effects like rain, sandstorms or hail that apply a (de)buff or damage periodically. There may even be examples where the property breaks some of the rules of combat, for example an enemy attacking immediately after being struck outside of their turn. I will refer to these as “hazards”

An entities stats are dependent on their equipment, equipment are usually items that may be associated with a character by equipping them from the inventory outside of combat. For example equipping a metal helmet may grant the wearer more defense while equipping a magic ring will increase their magic power. Equipment systems can be very important to a game but if they can’t be engaged with during battle they are not technically part of it. An example of them being able to be interacted with are Pokémons held items.

Abilities may interact with each other. For example one ability may freeze an entity and another ability shatters them. In chrono trigger the players party members can team up for a single stronger attack that is dependent on who the participants are.

This list is not exhaustive, while the core axioms of the definition may not be diverged from, other aspects of the battle systems are hugely varied.

Realizing the Problem

Now that we have the technical stuff out of the way, let’s talk game design. There are two inherent complication to tb combat and they’re on the opposite side of a spectrum. For the sake of argument lets assume the difficulty is fixed at a certain level, no matter what mechanics exist or how they’re implemented. If tb combat is either too simple (that is the game requires little effort in understanding and applying the combats mechanics during strategizing) or too complex (that is understand and applying is too hard) it will result in the player having a bad experience. Why is that? Tb combat by nature is not mechanically challenging (at least in it’s basic form). Furthermore tb combat inherently contains a lot of actions that will be repeated over and over such as a entity loosing health, the player scrolling through a list, selecting which character to target, etc.. Tb combat has to rely on the mental aspect of it to be sufficiently challenging, even though a player may repeat a small set of actions hundreds of times if they have to think hard which action to pick when and strategize to solve the potentially extremely complex problems it will make for an engaging experience. It’s like doing homework for a subject that is really interesting to you, it’s fun to think about what to write, the act of writing itself is not. Similarly it’s fun to think about what actions to pick when and how to equip your characters and predicting what the enemy may do, selecting the options from a menu is not. If a tb combat system is too simple the player will spend most of the time not thinking about trying to come up with a solution, they will be stuck mindlessly doing the “writing things down” (pressing A) part. Because of the mathematical nature of interactions it’s also very easy to make a tb combat system too complex, if there’s hundreds of variables and interactions all going on at the same time the player won’t be able to solve or even understand the problem. If they can’t they again can only mindlessly press A. This is also why the fact that all entities have the same set of stats is so important, if the player is able to assume that they can strategize around all the entities playing by the same rules. They will know what the enemies abilities do and how they will affect other entities. If this symmetrical nature of combat is not present, the player will have trouble strategizing as suddenly everything can happen. This again leads to the player not being mentally challenged, all that’s left is pressing A.

How to Fix it

Naturally one will ask: How do we fix that? In my observation there are multiple approaches that are not mutually exclusive. I will explain which of these game devs took, why, and wether or not it can be successful:

i) Adding Complexity

Figure 2: Third party program for predicting damage dealt by one attack during a pokemon battle in Pokémon Sun & Moon (3DS, 2019)

This may be the most popular approach and can be observed in many well-reviewed successful games: If a simple battle system doesn’t engage the players, just add more. More mechanics, more abilities, more enemies, more items, more everything. A good example for this is the pokemon games. The game started out with about 150 pokémon, 4 stats, 15 types, no held items and 165 abilities (“moves”). Now, almost 15 years later we’re at 800 moves, 800+ pokemon, 18 types and countless new mechanics such as new hidden stats, held items, z-moves, mega-evolutions, etc.. I am not faulting pokémon for taking this route, one could argue it fits well with the collection aspect of that game but relating to pokémons combat specifically I think this more-is-better approach is anything but optimal. Side-Effects of using this approach are:

Redundancy: There are only so many good ideas to go around, once you go past that amount mechanics will be redundant. Pokemon may fullfill the same role, a move may have an objectively better version making it completely superfluous.

Readability: More things means more for the player to learn. This isn’t only related to tutorials, to truly be strategic and play at their best, players will have to learn bascially every move, every pokémon, every mechanic. Players who don’t won’t be able to strategize and as discussed above, this will decrease engagement.

Development Effort: This is not technically relevant to the player but more things means more chances for bugs to appear and obviously more work both as a programm, designers an artist.

Balancing: More moving parts means more interaction which makes balancing even harder. The recent pokémon generation cut almost half of all available pokemon citing the above mention growing workload and balance issues. All of the most well-balanced games from chess to star craft have one thing in common: they have as few pieces as possible.

All in all I think increasing the complexity when you think your battle system isn’t engaging past a certain point is rarely a good idea. Games that have a story-reason or collection aspect may still profit from this approach. I also want to make clear that adding complexity inherently is value-neutral. In my opinion every game needs a minimum of complexity to not be overly simple but I see many games taking the route of adding just more complexity past a certain point triggering the side-effects.

(Other games that used this complexity approach are: Suikoden and it’s 99 party members, dragon quest and it’s many monsters and equipment, earthbound with all it’s weird status effects and hidden enemy weaknesses. Note how most of these games are still amazing games but in my opinion their tb combat system would’ve been a lot better if they turned down the complexity a little) ii) Adding Mechanical Challenge

Figure 3: Action Command in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (2003, GBA)

If the game isn’t engaging enough it’s not mentality challenged so the only thing left is pressing A which isn’t fun, why not make pressing A fun then? Many RPGs have gone about this by introducing timing or quick-time-event (”qte”) based mechanics tied to many game actions. Often during the attack animation a player will be tasked to hit a qte, if they fail the damage the attack may be redudde. Similarly there may be an additional input needed to defend, to flee, do certain attacks or sometimes even navigate the menu. Adding mechanical challenge will shift a tb combat system from something very abstract to something closer to resembling an action game. Games like the Mario RPG Series or Undertale have done this too great effect to the point where their battle systems only superficially resemble tb combat. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it exemplifies my main issue with this: making the player allocate mental resources towards mechanical challenge will have to necessarily take away from the strategizing part. Again this isn’t bad or good, it simply changes the game, people who like action games will like this version of tb combat better, people who like strategizing will like it worse. Either way it’s a fact that games who went this route were highly successful and loved by many, sometimes even opening the target-audience so that some people who dislike most tb combat games will still play one that’s action-focused. I personally think the adding qtes is a valuable tool but going too far in that direction may take away from the original appeal of tb combat. Interestingly there is another option here, making the original way of interacting with the game more engaging while not adding any additional qtes or inputs: time limits. Limiting a players time in some way will make navigating menus more stressful and thus challenging. Time limit don’t necessarily have to be a ticking clock, a soft time limit such as Final Fantasies “active time battle” introduces the time limit in a way that doesn’t feel stressful yet rewards quick actions navigating the menus. [4] iii) Adding Flair

Figure 4: Animation for using a simple AoE slash attack in Octopath Traveler (Switch, 2019)

This option includes a wide selection of methods. While complexity focuses on the purely mental aspect and qtes focus on the purely mechanical aspect, adding flair will focus on the audio-visual one. The vast majority of time spend in tb combat will be watching menus and animations of the enemies moving, dying, attacks playing out, winning, etc.. Flair is not limited to visuals however, similarly adding music or even narrative elements will make the “watching things play out” part of tb combat a lot more enjoyable. Once again there is a trade-off here, if combat is too flashy the game may run the risk of reducing readability and making things hard to parse. Another common negative side-effect of this is that actions take too long to resolve because a lengthy animation has to play out. As flashy and stimulating as it may be watching the animation for the first time, if it takes 10s to finish and you will have to watch it hundreds of times it’s a good idea to give the player the option to turn off animations or give them a way to speed them up during battle. As with most games (including non tb-combat), adding flair is usually a good idea. A game that looks amazing and has a great soundtrack will usually be a better game for it. However it’s important to not go overboard as to not mar the interactivity and pacing of combat.

iv) Adding a Gimmick

Figure 5: Dialogue and social interaction with enemies during combat in Undertale (PC and others, 2015) The very first thing I want to say in this paragraph is that the word “gimmick” is used as a value-neutral term here (language barrier at work). With that out of the way, in the past few years more and more developers choose the approach of adding a mechanic that is not related to the set of base mechanics for tb combat outlined above, adding a gimmick. In Undertale (c.f. Figure 5), this is social interaction with enemies: Instead of attacking the player has the option of befriending or even romancing enemies. Damage values are replaced by the enemy responding with dialogue or a certain animation. Interacting with enemies this way will have effects on the overworld gameplay. This gimmick is mostly unique to undertale, yet there are countless different games with different gimmick. Possibilities are endless which is why most games will try to find their own gimmick, a thing only that game has. Being value-neutral this may add or detract from a game in general but the effect on the tb combat system is more palpable: Going outside tb combat framework has the risk of detracting from it, much like adding mechanical challenge in ii), adding a gimmick will necessarily decrease the complexity and depth of combat both mentally and mechanically. In summary adding a gimmick can be a great way to freshen up your otherwise stale combat system but in my opinion if a game dev is striving to make a great JRPG they have to be mindful of adding things that muddle that goal. Not striving for that goal while still wanting tb combat in your game can still results in an amazing and fun experience however. v) Adding Depth

The difference between complexity and depth is subtle yet crucial. Complexity is adding an entity, ability, stat or any other property an entity can have that was not originally part of the combat. Think adding a character, adding a new attack, adding a new component. Depth however is adding another interaction between already existing entities, abilities, etc. Adding depth will make combat more complex yet may not necessarily increase it’s complexity (depth and complexity can overlap and effect each other) as described in i). Examples of adding depth include:

making the AI scripts decision process more involved, for example each enemy entity may react to each others state (ideally dynamically, that is not following a fixed script) protecting their powerful yet vulnerable mage or trying to keep everyones health above a certain threshold

making the AI remember things the player did such as analyzing which move the player likes to use often and then preparing for that move in the future

making it so passive effects are not encapsulated but may increase/decrease/interact with each other. For example a ring may increase strength but gain an additional amount of damage when the players defense is boosted. Equipping another ring that boosts defense at the cost of strength will give the additional effect of the first ring. If the player now has an ability that lets say increases each buff to damage by 50%, the player will have to think about which combination of items to use and if the interaction is beneficial. There is no easy solution

making abilities interact, for example one ability may increase the next abilities damage and another ability may bounce from enemy to enemy 10 times but only do very little damage. If the order of execution is based on the parties speed values for example, the player will have to manipulate the speed such that the damage boost happens before the bouncing effect so damage buff will increase 10 fold.

status effects reacting to each other, for example trying to burn an already frozen enemy will thaw them, cooling a burning enemy will cure the burn

You may notice a trend in these examples, a lot of them are rules in the form of “if x and y, then z” where x and y are already existing mechanics or properties. Because both x and y already exist, adding depth will bypass a lot of the pitfalls of adding complexity while still gaining most of the benefits. It will make combat a lot more complicated but also interesting as suddenly strategizing isn’t just picking the clearly optimal option, it’s thinking through all of the interactions trying to find out which combination (and order) of actions will do the most damage. The more moving parts interact with each other the more dynamic the battle will feel while still being initially easy to understand because keeping the number of entities, abilities, stats, etc. low like this will cut down on time spend learning what everything is and instead make for more time experimenting, learning through interaction and emergent situations. I’m very much in favor of adding depth but it’s not always positive. Adding too much depth will inherently increase complexity and thus cause the same problems mentioned above. Furthermore adding depth will make the combat system harder to balance: if the game dev designs the system in a way where most of the interactions are emergent and not hardcoded they will have to do more testing and thinking things through to keep stuff from spiraling out of control (though to be honest it can be very satisfying to figure out a game-breaking combination if it’s complicated enough but the point still stands). In summary trying to reach an appropriate level of depth for your combat system is always a good idea in my opinion. Be aware that going too far may make things too complicated or unpredictable though.

Conclusion

I hope I made clear that I’m in favor of all of the methods mentioned above as long as each one is used appropriately and sparingly. Sometimes it’s okay to shift the game as a whole away from combat into more action- or narrative-oriented but if the developer decides that their game should have tb combat, any of the techniques mentioned above can be a valuable tool.

Addendum: Closing words

I want to end this piece with a little personal anecdote, as you can imagine I played a lot of games with tb combat, most notably I spend most of my teens on pokémon tournaments and playing old gems like earthbound that weren’t available to me as a child. I’m going to be honest, I didn’t like most of these games. When I played LISA: The Painful, I had a hate-love relationship with it. I thought the combat was pointless and shallow, the environment art was terrible and the story was overly edgy and not subtle enough. It took me 6 attempts to finish the masterpiece that is Mother 3 and even then I gave up 70% in and watched a let’s play instead because I didn’t want to grind and the music-related combo system just didn’t work for me. I played FF6 when I was in college and I was bored to death, every time there was a random battle from walking through blank space I groaned internally, doing the battles just felt like “deal damage, then heal, then deal damage, then heal” over and over for the entirety of the game. Honestly there really wasn’t ever a game with tb combat that I though flawless or at least as good as possible. Of course because I was a pretentious amateur I figured “I’ll just make my own game and make it better than all of them”. The more I tried to actually do that the more I realized that these weren’t flaws at all. There isn’t an optimal way to do things. While I still think it’s true that all of these games didn’t live up to my tastes, that has no barring on their quality or how successful they are in realizing their vision. What I’m trying to say is: You shouldn’t try to design tb combat in a way that is the best, you should try to design it so you, the designer, will like it best. Choose from any of the design methods mentioned above but be aware that there isn’t a concrete answer, there isn’t one specific point after which the bad side-effects of certain methods kick in. Just do a game you would love, if you do that I can promise you there’s a good chance that someone else will too.

Footnotes

[1] “is an enemy” is considered a stat since the game may allow for the property to be interacted with, such as when an enemy charms an ally and makes them fight for the enemy team or when an enemy dies and is thus pacified. [2] I realize that this assertion isn’t falsifiable since if an tb combat system doesn’t share that property, it isn’t a tb combat system by definition. Apart from that I still believe that this property is crucial and most games I can think of share it. For the remainder of this piece it is asserted that tb combat has to be symmetrical.

[3] note: I will use pokémon as example to illustrate my points, if you are not familiar with the pokemon battle system consider skimming through this article though I don’t think it’s necessary to understand the combat system fully

[4] An additional way to introduce a soft limit that I honestly have not seen or used anywhere yet is limiting the amounts of menu inputs a player can do in some way. In rat_game specifically there will be one boss that instead of attacking when it’s their turn will attack every 5 menu inputs. This means a player is not necessarily limited by time but rather has to navigate the menus as efficiently as possible, otherwise they risk being attacked more than necessary.

#game design #gamedev #undertale #mario #superstar saga #battle #pokemon #chrono trigger #mario rpg #octopath traveler #mother3 #earthbound #suikoden #final fantasy #FF6 #FF7

2 notes · View notes

husbaano · 6 years ago

Text

Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition HD Review: A Bite-Sized Disappointment

Final Fantasy XV is a staple for modern day Square Enix that has one of the most bizarre development cycles and releases in gaming. When it originally launched for consoles in 2016 it had been 10 years since its conceptual reveal trailer, underwent both a system change as well as a director change, and a 3 month release delay. After such a long developmental cycle the game receive mediocre reviews including from myself who was extremely confused to how the game was considered “finished” in the first place with laughably unexplained cut scenes, bad animations, a simple combat system with no depth and just overall lack of polish; all of that development time and the game just ended up being bizarre and incomplete. Square Enix even stated that this was intentional in order to promote a “games as a service” model in order to keep providing for the consumers. Final Fantasy XV has continued to grow as its own brand since its release nearly 3 years ago with a full length feature film, an anime series, two mobile games, DLC and free updates to further “polish” the game. Square Enix is continuing to expand the reach of this multimedia powerhouse with the release of Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition for the Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One; an HD port of a “demake” originally made for mobile platforms. This demake somehow manages to capture the spirit of the original while adding some minor adjustments to make the originally once bumpy road trip a little smoother.

Final Fantasy: Pocket Edition HD retains the exact main plot from the original console release, even going as far as using the same audio and cutscenes; just chibi-fied. Set in a fantastical modern land, or a “fantasy based on reality”, Prince Noctis of the kingdom Lucis, must travel with his three companions to be wed to Lady Lunafreya of Tenebrae to complete a peace treaty. Thing don’t go exactly as planned as the peace treaty is very soon breached by the enemy nation, Niflheim, and the four boys must go on a journey to save the people of Lucis. In the original release I was baffled by how little of the story there was in the main game; a good chunk of it was found in supplemental material, specifically the anime series and the movie, like how the four boys became friends and how the peace treaty was breached in the first place; all of which are kind of crucial to the plot. To put it frankly the original story was a mess, important battles and events occur off screen, characters aren’t introduced or have purpose but the player is expected to care about them, time-skips happen often, almost no time is spent on the rival empire Niflheim and a lot of the characters associated with it go nowhere. It's just a weird occurrence when a randomly introduced man named Jared gets three main story quests devoted to him when the main antagonists get no screen time, some characters even only appear for one in the entire game. The main four characters, Noctis, Ignis, Prompto and Gladio, and their “roadtrip” are meant to be the heart and soul of the adventure; and they really are. Their interactions are charming, amusing and downright funny I love the brotherly bond the four share throughout the journey and during gameplay; its just annoying to realize that there is no in-game explanation as to how the four became friends in the first place! The story was, and is still, definitely a mess but the game developers tried to alleviate some of these issues through updates and DLC; although not perfect, the game is in way better shape than it was when it originally released.

Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition HD contains most of the major hiccups of the original release since its story is almost 1:1 with the original just with a new coat of paint, but it still manages to improve in some areas. One thing that stood out to me the moment I started it was the added “context” found before cut scenes; text blurbs occasionally appear to inform new players about the lore and the general story which helps comprehension immensely and is something that should have been in the original release to begin with. Another way Pocket Edition HD improves upon the story is by providing NPC dialogue strictly regarding the plot; this helps with world building and keeps the player invested in the story. One of the most common complaints about the original release was the lack of urgency since the plot seemed very “linear” but the game itself was open world so a lot of that plot tension was lost. Since Pocket Edition HD is a linear experience, the plot isn’t lost upon the player and is almost always the focus.

The entire game has been compressed into a cute, chibi art style that is very similar to the 2007 FFIV Remake for the Nintendo DS and 2013’s Bravely Default for the Nintendo 3DS. The art-style is distinct and translates the character designs well but the animations leave a lot to be desired. It feels as though they cheapened out on animations during cut scenes rather than it being part of the “demake” experience. The voice clips are all ripped from the console edition so some dramatic scenes come off as goofy rather than emotional. Pop-in is common and the game chugs while in docked-mode; in handheld mode the game runs at a smooth 60 fps most of the time. The menus are nothing special either; they feel pretty empty, boring and bare bones. It's not horrible for a mobile title, but for a $30 Nintendo Switch game this is bit disappointing.

Pocket Edition HD takes the console version and streamlines it to become a linear adventure rather than an open-world one. The world of Eos in the original release was vast but empty; it was just big for the sake of being big with nothing to do. Pocket Edition’s linearity is actually a benefit since the game seems a lot more focused, the plot is more cohesive and it feels more like a game rather than a walking simulator. The combat system has been overhauled but not for the best. As someone with 90 hours in the original release, I learnt the “depth” of the combat system but it wasn’t entirely enticing; it eventually watered down into mashing warps and holding buttons to block every attack in the game. It wasn’t deep or engaging,it kinda was just there. Now PE: HD takes this already watered down combat and dilutes it down even more. Each party member fights on their own while the player can only control Noctis. A single button is held to automatically attack the enemy you’re targeting, while occasional prompts appear that give you the option to perform a special attack with one of your teammates. Noctis can warp-strike to any enemy on the field at the cost of MP, and occasional QTEs can give you a brief window in which an incoming attack can be dodged or parried. The combat system is very bare-bones and fun at first, but it begins to drag once you realize it doesn’t get any more intricate. It’s stale and just plain easy; there is almost no challenge whatsoever. You can pause the game at any time to consume many readily available Potions to restore HP and the enemies go down fast.

In a similar fashion, the progression system is a watered down version of the console version. XP is awarded to party members after each battle and is applied at the end of each story mission. Leveling up party members allows for upgraded stats and AP to be gained. These Ability Points can be used on the bare-bones skill-tree to obtain new skills for the party; the skill-tree is just kinda basic and boring especially taking into consideration that enemies die easily to basic attacks as is.

Final Fantasy XV is Square-Enix’s new cash-cow and as such is being distributed to every platform imaginable. Square’s newest venture with the XV brand, Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition HD is a bizarre one and tough sell. This mobile app “demake” up-scaled for HD on the Nintendo Switch is a strange concept that lands in the story department for the most-part but lacks greatly in regards to game-play. It's a very strange release that serves little purpose considering the original release is a bit cheaper than this mobile title ported to the Nintendo Switch. It gets the job done if you want to experience XV without access to any other console but the price-point is just too high to justify the purchase.

#final fantasy #final fantasy xv #xv #review #game review #pocket edition #switch #noctis

5 notes · View notes

breegullbeakreviews · 6 years ago

Photo

Summary: Greatness from small beginnings, or is that the other franchise? Anyway on a whim a decided to pick up the remake of Lara Crofts original outing in the lead up to Shadow. Let’s see if what lies within this tomb is worth salvaging.

Overall: Despite being an episodic remake of a game from the mid 90s released 11 years ago, Tomb Raider Anniversary feels incredibly modern. If you’ve yet to experience Lara Croft’s original adventure than this is a fine way to do so.

Controls: One thing all early 3D PS1 games suffer from is awkward controls. Luckily Tomb Raider Anniversary doesn’t feel old or clunky at all, mostly. In a world post Uncharted 4 the rope swinging is dated, but it’s fine. You can also go into an over the shoulder aiming mode that locks you in place, which is a weird option I never used outside one late game puzzle.

Outside that controls are pretty simple. You have a jump button (A), a crouch and dive button (B), an interact button (Y), and a grappling hook button (X). These are all mapped to the face buttons while Lara’s guns are mapped to the d-pad and shoulder buttons. Up and down on the d-pad use large and small med-kits respectively. Left and right cycle guns once you’ve unlocked more than one. The left trigger locks Lara’s aim while held and the right tigger shoots. While locked in you can switch targets using the right analog stick. Oh an of course movement is handled with the left stick and the camera with the right. You can center the camera with LB and holding RB makes Lara walk instead of run when moving. It’s also a manual ledge grab if you turn that option on.

Obviously the analog sticks weren’t a thing when the original game came out, but these controls still feel incredibly modern even in 2018. I do find it interesting how complicated the shooting controls are compared to the platforming ones as combat is a rather small part of the game. Once I learned that this remake was built as DLC for another Tomb Raider game, it became a bit more clear why. I’ll check out that game at some point, but for now it’s still a point of interest.

One thing I know wasn’t in the original was quick time events. There are only a handful of them in the game and while they’re dumb, even on Hard the game slows down and gives you time to press the buttons. It’s the one part of this game that feels dated.

Story: Alright. Maybe the story is dated too. Even before the reboot Lara has serious daddy issues. The plot is set off by Lara being randomly contacted by an organization who have figured out a clue or something that is involved in some relic hunt her daddy was working on. If it isn’t obvious from the onset it turns out by the end of mission one they are an evil organization and Lara sets off to collect the set of artifacts before they can. You can pretty much predict the plot from there.

The story follows Lara as she raids three different tombs before her adventure culminates in one final tomb. The story is only really told in between missions or super early or late in them. The exception being the final tomb where the story is pretty much all backloaded.

Puzzle Platforming: Alright maybe these are dated too. Or revolutionary. With remakes it’s hard to tell. Despite the large amount of buttons used for combat, the primary series of game play interactions is climbing and solving puzzles. Climbing is very much like Assassin’s Creed prior to Unity. Imagine a game made up almost exclusively of those puzzle chambers from Assassin’s Creed 2 that unlocked Altiar’s armor. You’ll jump and scramble up ledges along with an plenty of shimmying. You’ll swing on poles and use your trusty grappling hook to pull blocks and traverse dizzying heights.

While early on things are pretty straight forward, by the second tomb things are a lot more complicated. Each of the four tombs multiple sections are a labyrinth of tunnels and puzzles to solve. Well those are the more memorable ones. Some sections are more linear in design, but they’re still filled with some puzzles.

I guess I should note that I played on Xbox One via 360 backwards compatibility. I say this as I’m not sure if some of the glitches I encountered were a result of playing this way or were part of the game itself. Occasionally grapple points wouldn’t work, rising platforms would launch Lara into the air, and in one situation Lara managed to grab a ledge in a platform and I had to reload a save. Overall these issues were uncommon to say the least. If one issue prevailed throughout the experience it was the camera not being super cooperative. The camera is prone to clipping through geometry and just not working as you’d like it to.

Some glitches worked in my favor however. Particularly the air walking glitch for one of the time trials. What should have taken approximately 13 minutes took under 2. Shame that glitch wasn’t in the one with a par time of 35 minutes.

Combat: Combat is based entirely around shooting and dodging. You can in most cases just shoot repeatedly and dodge to finish off foes, but if you want to do this faster you can shoot one foe enough to send them into rage mode. When this happens they’ll charge at you and if you dodge at the right time and follow up with a well timed shot you can pull off a headshot to quickly finish them.

In the game’s boss fights these rage mode segments are required. The headshot in this case won’t be an instant finish, but it will let you progress the fight be it by being able to cause damage or by opening up a way to be able to cause damage. My favorite instant of this is in the boss fight in Greece as you need to use more than just bullets to get by, but some brains as well.

Combat isn’t something I’d call a core part of this game. It helps to break up the puzzles, but outside the bosses the combat doesn’t feel meaningful or particularly fun. Late game enemy encounters are made more difficult by becoming more cheap. Enemies get faster and gain ranged attacks as opposed to changing tactics. Also the area in which you get to fight these foes shrinks while the numbers and hits required to beat them increases.

Time Trials: I’m not a fan of time trials. Mostly because I’m not actually that good at games. I just throw myself at the task repeatedly until I get it done. While time trials are all about that, they’re about that in a wider context. A time trial isn’t just getting from one checkpoint to the next, but doing all of them in a row fast and flawlessly. It’s more a perfectionist task than a completionist task. I generally settle for completing a task.

These time trials require flawless play and having memorized these levels, the puzzles, and their solutions. Time is super tight, well outside the trials for the final tomb. For whatever reason these ones are super generous on time. It also unlocks a cheat for an instant kill shotgun that will take out bosses and enemies in one hit. The great thing about cheats is that you can use them without blocking achievements so by running the time trials on these final missions first you can easily skip all combat segments later on. There are also a handful of glitches that can make things a whole lot easier too.

Achievements: Being a 2007 Xbox 360 game, it’s always interesting to take a look at the achievements and see how they were implemented in early 360 games. This game is even more interesting considering that these achievements are being added to a remake of a game that originally wasn’t built for achievements. It’s even more interesting because the remake itself was originally an episodic series of DLC for another Tomb Raider game. I wasn’t even aware of this until well after I beat the game.

Overall the break down here is solid. You have achievements for beating the game on easy, medium, and hard, with these stacking so you can grab them in one play-through. Not dying is also a super common thing here along with not failing any QTEs. Since reloading a save undoes the fact that you died or failed a QTE, you simply save at every checkpoint. You’ve also got your collectible achievements. One for nabbing everything in each Tomb. You also get achievements for beating the time trials for each tomb. There are also achievements tied to completing Lara’s Mansion and a time trial there as well. The cheats you unlock don’t disable the achievements at all so go nuts with them.

Overall considering this is a series of episodic DLC that remakes a game from years prior, I think the achievement list is pretty solid. The “don’t die” stuff is pretty lame, but considering the fact that you can save scum it’s not hateful. Time trials are the worst part in my opinion, but that’s a matter of preference.

#video games #review #tomb raider anniversary #tomb raider #crystal dynamics

8 notes · View notes

tlatophat · 6 years ago

Text

Is Odyssey an AC game??

TL;DR - Coming from a longtime fan, Yes. Yes it is.

So, I’ve been seeing a lot of heavy-handed criticisms of Assassin’s Creed : Odyssey. I’ve seen everything from “This isn’t an AC game” to “This fundamentally breaks the lore” to “This should have been its own IP”, and none of it is based on knowledge of the game’s story; just based on its setting and gameplay. These are, fundamentally, unfair criticisms and, ultimately, untrue. Odyssey is still and Assassin’s Creed game, doesn’t appear to directly break the established lore, and launching it as its own IP would probably damage its marketability more than help it. Firstly, it’s still an Assassin’s Creed game. Yes, it’s obvious they’re doubling down on the open combat system, rather than the assassination gameplay, and making it the focus of the new game. However, nothing about the system is fundamentally different from Origins, which was acclaimed by the fans as the best game since Black Flag. Recall that the combat system had been based around counter-attack kills and chain kills since the first game; resulting in what was basically a slightly more interactive QTE combat system. I remember chain killing platoons of enemies in Brotherhood, just from spamming the (X) button on my controller. While it resulted in some very satisfying animated kills, it ultimately trivialized open combat, and was one of the game’s long-running weaknesses. While each game iterated on the fighting mechanics, it was ultimately still counter-attack to win. It took eight major entries to the series before they revamped the combat system from the ground up in Origins; eight games of counter-killing to victory before they took a year off to rebuild the combat system. People who call Odyssey an “Origins Clone” are forgetting that the AC games have been cloning themselves since AC2. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the new paradigm. This new combat system isn’t going anywhere. And that’s a good thing. It’s more interactive, presents more options to the player, rewards skill, and feels far more cathartic. They’d be fools not to iterate on it, and it’s likely this will be the baseline combat system for every new AC game going forward. On a side-note, the assassination gameplay isn’t disappearing. We’ve seen the gameplay footage, and we know that the Spear of Leonidas is our ‘hidden blade’. We’ll get back to the Spear later on, but everything you could do in Origins in terms of stealth and assassination is still in play, and we even have some shiny new tricks in the stealth department due to the new skill system. Also the pitifully superficial complaint of “Why can’t I use a shield” is silly, since only one AC game in the entire history of the series actually has functional shields, and it’s debatable if Origins even needed shields from a gameplay standpoint. Secondly, Assassin’s Creed : Odyssey does not break AC lore, as far as we know. I’ve seen variations of this criticism everywhere: If Origins was the founding of the Brotherhood, how can there be an Assassin’s Creed game set BEFORE the founding? Totally lore breaking, 0/10, good job ruining your own game Ubi. People seem to forget that we don’t know anything about the story other than we are controlling an ex-Spartan mercenary with a Piece of Eden called the Spear of Leonidas. That by itself isn’t lore breaking, as the Pieces of Eden have been around far longer than the Brotherhood. Further, the philosophies behind the Brotherhood are older than Bayek and the order he founded, going all the way back to the human rebellion against the Precursors before the first calamity. There’s a very real possibility that our Spartan is a proto-assassin; someone who follows the same philosophies and worldview without being part of some larger organization. There’s also an equal possibility that our Spartan protagonist will turn out to be one of the precursors to the Templar order. It would not be the first time the series has dipped its hand into letting the player control a Templar instead of an Assassin. Assassin’s Creed 3 gave you temporary control of a Templar early in the game. Assassin’s Creed : Rogue, though it was a standalone game chronologically set between Black Flag and AC3, was entirely based on following an Assassin defector who was out to help the Templars dismantle the Assassin’s foothold in the New World. So far, we’ve had no exploration of the origins of the Templar Order, other than through the lens of how their philosophies conflict with those of the Assassins and always have, so it would certainly be interesting to see if that’s the direction Odyssey is taking. Then again, the philosophical conflict is the centerpiece of the series’ story. You don’t need Cross-wearing Templars or hidden-blade-carrying Assassins to carry the meta narrative of the game. In fact, I personally find the idea of going back to when it was purely philosophical, and neither side had an official name or pan-national organization to back them, to be particularly intriguing. Finally, there’s no reason to brand Odyssey as anything other than an Assassin’s Creed game. Strip away the trappings, and every AC game boils down to the same basic formula: one person dismantling a secretive operation in a specific historical time period by eliminating key figures in the conspiracy, centering on the thematic conflict between the agency and dangers of Freedom vs. the restrictions and safety of Order. That’s the core of the game series. In that respect, AC:Odyssey doesn’t seem to be outside that scope. Provided it ties into the meta narrative and thematic conflict somewhere in its story, there’s no reason to publish it as its own IP. It would actually hurt the game to try and sell it as a separate, disconnected title since it wouldn’t have a built-in fan base and would have to fight to differentiate itself from Assassin’s Creed. Plus AC fans would be upset that a different IP was ‘stealing’ a potential Assassin’s Creed setting (Ancient Greece). Don’t even pretend that wouldn’t be the case. Odyssey is absolutely shaping up to be an Assassin’s Creed game, and a dman good one, too. Everything we know about it fits the core pieces that make the series what it is. Every complaint I’ve seen is based on foundationally weak arguments. There is definitely room to explore this Pre-Brotherhood time period in the lore, and exploring it does not weaken or undermine what’s already been established. The combat system is appropriate for the kind of character we’re controlling, even more so than Origins. The lack of the iconic Hidden Blade does not take away from the core themes or gameplay, and actually opens the door to wider narrative possibilities. All in all, not only is Odyssey clearly an AC game in more than just name, it’s shaping up to be one of the best entries in the series, and I’ll stand by that until the full game’s release, at which point we’ll be able to see for ourselves if that holds true.

#TLATopHat #Assassin's Creed #assassin's creed odyssey #ac:odyssey #ac spoilers

14 notes · View notes

pressxtoalex · 7 years ago

Text

My Top 12 Most Anticipated Games of 2018

2017 was an absolute monster of a year for video games, and it’s starting to appear that January is going to be the only time where we aren’t going to be inundated with new releases to play, and inevitably miss out on. However, there are already more than a few games coming out in 2018 that have my attention and think they should have yours, too. Now bear in mind: This is a pretty PS4 heavy list, for obvious reasons, but if you do some Googling, you’ll find a lot of these are multi-platform releases. The other thing to consider, is while I consider myself a great optimist, I have to be real with myself, so no matter what the developers and publishers tell us, you aren’t going to find games like Death Stranding, Kingdom Hearts III, or The Last of Us Part II on this list, because, let’s face it, they aren’t coming out in 2018. Perhaps, the most frightening part of this list, is most of these games have been confirmed for at least the first half of the year, leaving June through December pretty wide open for us as gamers to have a crowded schedule.

12) The Longest Five Minutes

Coming out of NIS America, The Longest Five Minutes takes a twist on the traditional RPG and starts out at the end, facing off against the game’s final boss, however, your character has lost every memory of their adventure, including their name, abilities, and even why he’s in this battle. Throughout the battle, comments made by his allies, and taunts by the Demon King will trigger flashbacks to help fill in the heroes memory gaps. It comes out in just a few weeks on both Vita and Nintendo Switch and the premise alone put this on my radar.

11) Days Gone

We finally saw what Sony’s Bend Studio has been working on at E3 2016, and while it felt more like a “Lookee how many things we can have on the screen at once” they expounded on the stealth aspects of the game at PSX, showing the game to potentially being somewhere between The Last of Us and Horizon Zero Dawn. It sits so low on my list, partly because it’s Bend’s first release since Uncharted: Golden Abyss, and their first console release since Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, and partly because I’m not 100% sold on this coming out in 2018, but, if I’m over here spoutin’ off Last of Us Part 2 is coming in 2019, then Day’s Gone needs to be hitting shelves in 2018 as to not be cannibalized by a much more established IP. I love the idea of an open world motorcycle game, though, and hopefully, it’s something akin to much under-appreciated Mad Max.

10) The Walking Dead: A Telltale Series The Final Season

It’s pretty firmly established that I love adventure games, and I love Telltale. They hit a home run in 2012 with the first season of The Walking Dead, but while they continue to swing for the fences on various other licensed and popular properties, they haven’t quite fully captured the magic that made The Walking Dead’s first season so special. Sure, Season Two and Season Three had their high points, and Telltale has shown some of the magic in their other games like Tales from the Borderlands, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Batman, but this is their chance to give Clementine, a character we’ve spent six years growing up with, a proper send-off and story, after spending Season Three side-stepping her.

9) God of War

Yo. Real talk, I’m not a God of War guy. I don’t need that much screamy chain man in my life, and frankly, Kratos has just been a dude, to me, that has zero redeeming qualities. Yea, he’s angry because of his tragic backstory, but, like...can you not? Here’s the thing though, Sony Santa Monica has created a tamer, humbled Kratos that seems to have far more to lose. While I think we’re starting to teeter on seeing too much of the game, game director Cory Barlog keeps saying the right things about this installment that has more-than-piqued my interest. And me being interested in a God of War game speaks volumes.

8) Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion

Adventure Time is the one franchise that has been itching for a quality game under its banner. We’ve had a handful of various dungeon crawler games, top-down Zelda clones, and adventure games, but they’ve either missed on the art style or totally whiffed on the gameplay. Pirates of the Enchiridion may possibly be the Adventure Time game that the series fans have been clamoring for. It’s an open-world game set in the Land of Ooo, with an original story, multiple playable characters, full-cast voiceover, and sailing. The series is wrapping up soon, and this may be one of the last Adventure Time games we see, so here’s hoping this is the one they get right.

7) Church in the Darkness

I’ve had my eye on Paranoid Productions’ Church in the Darkness for a couple of years now. It’s a top-down, procedurally-generated action/infiltration game set in the 1970s where you’re an ex-law enforcement officer tasked with checking in on your nephew, who has recently joined the Collective Justice Mission cult. Each playthrough promises to be different, down to the characters’ personalities and reactions to you being in the camp. If you want to go full-stealth Metal Gear with it, you can, or if you want to go full guns-blazing, go right ahead. The idea of uncovering more of the story based on your investigating, and the varying degree in which characters respond to you each time you play, leave a lot of opportunities for the game to have mass amounts of replay value.

6) Jurassic World Evolution

Hi. I would like to build my own Jurassic World, please. That’s at least what developer Frontier is promising. While I had no idea Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis even existed until it became too rare to justify purchasing, I did spend a lot of my summer in 2012 tapping away at Jurassic Park Builder on my iPhone. Jurassic World Evolution looks to bring that Jurassic Park-meets-Sim City hybrid back to home consoles. Hopefully “Life finds a way” and this game will be exactly what Jurassic-verse fans have been looking for this summer. Just, please, don’t Animal Crossing this and make me have to play every day or risk being infested with weeds and whatnot. That’ll be the quickest way for me to nope out of this.

5) Crossing Souls

Somewhere between the Burger King Kids Club and Stranger Things lies Fourattic’s Crossing Souls. Set in 1986 in California, Crossing Souls is an action-adventure RPG where five kids make a mysterious discovery that thrusts them into navigating two planes of life and death and begin uncovering a government conspiracy. With five playable characters, each with their own style of combat, puzzles, and 80’s arcade references, Crossing Souls is right up my alley in the indie-game realm.

4) Detroit Become Human

Heavy Rain is one of my all-time favorite games. Hell, it’s tangentially linked to where my YouTube namesake came from. While Beyond: Two Souls wasn’t entirely the follow-up a lot of fans were looking for, I have no problem putting all of Quantic Dreams eggs into the Detroit Become Human basket. Between its Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick-style of story, stunning visuals, and varying degrees of story direction, this seems to be the Quantic Dream getting back on the right track. The big question is what side of their spectrum the story is going to fall on.

3) Dreams

If you listen closely, you can hear the hype-train leaving the station for Dreams. Media Molecule has been a voice in the gaming industry that needs to be heard again. Their style and creativity has been sorely missed, but a few questions remain: Is there a major market for a curation-based platformer, will the customization be as flawlessly executed as we’ve been lead to believe, and will this even hit 2018 despite the developer’s best efforts? It’s hard for me to temper my excitement for a game that has a far more expansive Super Mario Maker feel to it. The in-game campaign may not be the reason to buy the game, so it’s going to be on those that pick up Dreams to keep it alive.

2) Red Dead Redemption 2

I totally missed on Red Dead Redemption. It was at a time where working in gaming retail and feeling that need to play everything, the last thing I wanted to do was play a massive open-world game. Red Dead Redemption 2 feels like my opportunity to atone for this mistake. I loved what I played of Grand Theft Auto V and am dying to see what Rockstar Games has learned from then to now with Red Dead being their first proper current-gen game release. Rockstar has carte-blanche with the gaming industry, so if they came out tomorrow and said, “This is delayed again, and will be delayed a third time” almost everyone would understand. They’re still Scrooge McDucking in their money from GTA-Five, so they don’t need to rush a Red Dead sequel out the door, but they are looking to be the heaviest hitter in 2018 and every developer and publisher has to be waiting for a release date so they know to stay away.

1) Marvel’s Spider-Man

I am absolutely salivating for Insomniac’s Spider-Man to just get a release date. I don’t even need it in my hands yet, I just want to know when I can have it in my hands, and based on recent tweets from the game’s dev-team, we may know sooner rather than later. Not only is this my most anticipated game of 2018, if you were to put a gun to my head and tell me I can only pick one game from this year, I would not even flinch when answering “Marvel’s Spider-Man.” Between the combat, the cinematic uses of QTE’s, to the open environments, I am absolutely sold on this game. The most exciting thing about this release is that, despite what we’ve already seen, I don’t even think we’ve seen a lot of it. Through tweets, and various interviews, I think we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg with this game. Outside of a certain popular character’s appearance in the E3 2017 trailer, we already know they play a larger role than just a cameo, leaving me to wonder if we’re getting a Sons of Liberty situation where the what we’ve seen could be a misdirection to what we’re getting. Regardless, Insomniac Games and Spider-Man are an incredible pairing and I cannot wait to get my hands on this.

So there you have it! My most anticipated games of 2018. I’m sure most of the titles didn’t surprise you, but I absolutely hope I was able to turn your gaze toward some upcoming releases you may not have previously known about. Feel free to drop by and let me know what you’re most looking forward to!

95 notes · View notes

andmaybegayer · 4 years ago

Text

I'm exaggerating a little here, and in fact Shadow of Mordor was a pretty good game but with some flaws I consider egregious enough to affect the rest of the game.

The moment to moment stuff is really good! The combo-based combat system is flexible but not overwhelming, shooting arrows feels good, assassinating some orc is generally a fun little puzzle of waiting and scheming and striking and running away.

BUT when you get to the big climactic moments that you'd think are supposed to be really important, all that goes away and gets replaced with something you've never done because the Devs don't want to risk someone wandering into a fight too low-level and getting softlocked. The final big battle has exactly zero swordfighting and involves sneaking around and jumping on the big bad six times before playing a QTE minigame and then the story ENDS. In fact, I have a screenshot on twitter where I lost focus because I assumed we were in a cutscene and at the Narrative Peak of the story I just got killed by missing a QTE and it was like “hint: try to press the buttons that appear on screen” and like oh my god can you not.

I understand the desire to make sure that no one gets softlocked because they speedran the game and got to the ending underpowered but turning the game into a totally different game for the important parts isn't a good experience. It makes it feel like you just switched to a new game suddenly for the climax.

This happens more than once. When you’re having dad hangouts with the dwarf dude he teaches you how to hunt down Wargs, which is an involved process that usually needs you to pick your fight, dance around on top of a caragor for a while, do some attacks and leap up on top of it. You then go to hunt The Great White Warg and that fight has absolutely zero relation to the tutorial you just completed. The game feels disjointed and incomplete because I think they wanted the Nemesis system to kind of carry the narrative except I never really got that.

I think the nemesis system might kick in more if you die more frequently but you’re strongly disincentivised from dying because it throws the entire army into disarray and rolls your plans back, potentially by hours of play. It’s so easy /not/ to die too! You just Run The Fuck Away, and you can recover the shifts in power in one hour instead of five.

The plot that remains if you take away the nemesis system is then decidedly weak, consisting more of awkward vignettes that don’t really fit together against a backdrop of Sadman Deadwifery. You and the ghost living inside your bones are both Sadmen Deadwifes except instead of drawing on your Shared Deadwifery to try and forge some kind of emotional Sadman bond, you just kind of grunt at each other for the *checks steam* 30 hour runtime of the game before it’s revealed that oops! The ghost was lying to you and could have let you die and join your Deadwife at any time, except as previously mentioned you never developed a rapport with this dude so it’s not really an emotionally meaningful reveal.

There’s more examples of the plot just being utterly inscrutable but if I list those we’ll be here all day, but in general the task of taking over Sauron’s army from within isn’t really motivated by anything. You’re just following a checklist until it lets you progress to the next scene.

The hardest part of any game (video or otherwise) is just learning enough of the abstractions and underlying rules so that you can actually plan your actions rather than flailing wildly, which is why I don’t really mind the heavy and continuous tutorializing in newer games.

Fallout is very fun and honestly has a fairly limited language and grammar that you can learn from just a quick read of the manual (<3 game manuals by the way) and that grammar is pretty intuitive if you think of it as being a computer implementation of GURPS, but it’s not otherwise obvious how certain actions will play out.

Especially when I’ve been out of a game for a while, integrated hints are nice. I appreciate it when like, Shadow of Mordor constantly shows you which buttons you can press in your current context no matter how many hours you have in it. I think I first saw that in Assassin’s Creed, which has a palette of four basic adjectives that combine with your current context.

That is of course the only real redeeming feature of Shadow of Mordor but hey, at least they got something out of it.

#video games #shadow of mordor #lotr #media

25 notes · View notes

gamerszone2019-blog · 5 years ago

Text

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan Review - Synchronized Sinking

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/the-dark-pictures-man-of-medan-review-synchronized-sinking/

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan Review - Synchronized Sinking

Man of Medan is set almost entirely at sea on an enormous, abandoned boat. Loosely based on the real-life mystery of the OSS Ourang Medan, which became a shipwreck in the late 1940s after its entire crew were lost under mysterious circumstances, Man of Medan is also the first part of Supermassive Games’ proposed Dark Pictures Anthology–a series of short, branching horror narrative experiences in the vein of its tremendous 2015 surprise hit, Until Dawn. If you’ve played Until Dawn, you’ll know what to expect. But despite a smart online co-op mode, Man of Medan’s weak narrative ultimately makes it a disappointing first installment.

The game’s plot jumps between five different playable characters who are all experiencing the same event. You’ll determine their ultimate fates by making decisions for them, as well as responding to quick-time events. There are reportedly 69 different potential deaths you can experience (including those of non-playable characters), but it’s also entirely possible that your whole crew will survive. Alternatively, they might all die. Man of Medan’s main selling point is that your decisions will affect how things play out, how the relationships between your characters will develop, and what you’ll uncover and experience along the way.

In conversations, and at pivotal points in the plot, you’ll often be given three options, one of which is always to say or do nothing. So focused is Man of Medan on its story, there are no puzzles to solve or combat systems to master outside of these choices, just lots of exploring and quick-time events. However, the game is plagued by a big central problem: a fundamentally weak plot.

The story isn’t engaging, as the player is given little reason to care about the characters and the horror tropes being explored mostly feel hackneyed and uncreative. After a brief prologue scene set in the ’40s, you spend Man of Medan’s four-hour (give or take) runtime in the present day. The story opens with the crew planning a dive to a previously untouched sunken fighter plane from World War II, which ultimately leads to a series of events that sees them trapped on the Medan, a seemingly haunted abandoned ship, held captive by a pirate gang who are convinced that the ship–which is riddled with dead bodies–contains treasure. Naturally, things start going bump in the night, and the gang finds themselves dealing with various ghouls and terrors too.

There are plot holes and character inconsistencies throughout, some minor, some more blatant. It’s perhaps easy to forgive the questionable presence of rats all over the boat, still gnawing on hunks of meat that have been on the ship since the 40s, but it’s less easy to excuse how blasé the characters act about the horrifying situations they find themselves in. They’re mostly unlikeable, too–There’s the cool but insecure Alex, his dorky younger brother Brad, Alex’s outgoing, wealthy partner Julia, Julia’s obnoxious but well-meaning brother Conrad, and Fliss, the captain of the small boat the four have chartered at the story’s opening. The dialogue is generally not very good; at times it successfully recreates the feeling of watching a fun-but-silly teen slasher, occasionally hitting that good-bad sweet-spot as a character awkwardly refers to something as ‘lit’ or flirts awkwardly, but it can also be annoying when the five central characters’ interactions sound stilted and unrealistic. Without spoiling anything, the story also explains a little too much about what’s happening on the Medan in a way that makes repeated playthroughs much less satisfying.

There’s also an over-reliance on jump scares, which cheapens the horror experience. One standout sequence midway through the game that does a great job of getting under your skin, as Brad finds himself stuck in a looping hallway that grows just a bit weirder every time he travels down it, but otherwise Man of Medan is reliant on spring-loaded cats and lots of suddenly-morphing faces. On the plus side, it looks tremendous–the character models can be a bit waxy, but the ship is extremely detailed and creepy, and the game effectively communicates how unpleasant the act of exploring a creaky rustbucket full of dark corners and rotting corpses must be. The trade-off, at least on a base PS4, is that animations frequently stutter, breaking the mood as frames slip away.

There are pacing issues, too, especially with the extremely slow opening section that weighs down repeat playthroughs. While you can see different scenes or experience unique outcomes with each playthrough, some scenes will be essentially unchanged each time, which can quickly grate. You’ll also occasionally have to check in on ‘The Curator’, an omnipresent suited man who is clearly meant to be the mascot for and host of the Dark Pictures Anthology. He’s a pompous version of the Crypt Keeper (from Tales From The Crypt), but without any of the “good evening, boys and ghouls” merriment you want from a horror anthology host, and as a result, he doesn’t quite fit.

Multiplayer is Man of Medan’s big addition to the formula laid out by Until Dawn. There are two forms of co-op: Shared Story, in which two players tackle the game together online, and Movie Night, where up to five players can play together offline, playing through the chapters of whichever characters they are assigned at the start. Playing together on the couch is perhaps meant to evoke that “don’t go in there” feeling of watching a fun horror movie with friends, but Man of Medan’s relatively straightforward level designs, which never make it seem dangerous to wander off-path and explore the open doors and alternate pathways you encounter, don’t particularly facilitate this. Death is more often down to a failed QTE rather than a dialogue choice you made or because you decided to investigate something spooky. In fact, right near the end, a mistimed button press can be the difference between everyone surviving and everyone dying–being responsible for that in front of your friends is more embarrassing than it is funny.

However, so many of the game’s issues feel like much less of a problem when you jump into the smart and innovative online mode. It is, without a doubt, the definitive way to experience Man of Medan, especially if you’re playing with another person who is familiar with the material. Shared Story sees you both playing at the same time, taking control of different characters as their scenes play out simultaneously. You’ll both, eventually, get a turn with every character (if they live long enough), and often your paths will diverge. Once the five main characters meet after the initial prologue, Shared Story immediately offers a more engaging experience than the single-player campaign can.

Early on, for instance, I played through a sequence where two characters dived down to inspect something underwater, while my co-op buddy stayed on the boat and experienced a different part of the story. In single-player, you’ll still see both scenes, but one will be greatly truncated. In online co-op, some scenes are expanded, or you might occasionally see parts of the story, or make choices, that cannot be accessed in single-player.

This led to the two of us conspiring to make certain things happen, to bend the game’s story to our will. We were more successful with some outcomes than others (a failed quick-time event led to an unexpected death early on), but working together to achieve dramatic satisfaction, and choosing when to reveal what just happened and when to let the other player try to figure out what we’d done in our scenes, was a delight. Each player won’t see every scene when playing this way, and it’s entirely possible to play without ever communicating, which makes the plot more unpredictable.

No matter how much or little you choose to share, though, Shared Story is absolutely the right way to play the game. It’s very well designed; my co-op partner and I never found ourselves waiting for the other player to hurry up and trigger the next cutscene, and being able to see how your friend is trying to direct a scene, and deciding whether to help or hinder them in that, is excellent. It feels like you’re working together to wring as many interesting outcomes as you can out of the game, and effectively doubling the number of potential choices leads to a much stronger sense of variety.

Man of Medan is still telling a weak story, though, as much as Shared Story plasters over this with its excellent take on co-op, which lets you plan things out and work together to craft the narrative you want to tell (and kill the characters you find the most annoying). If you can organize a session with someone else who owns the game and play through the whole thing together, it’s an excellent experience; but if you’re after another single-player horror narrative experience like the one offered in Until Dawn, it’s very disappointing. As a show of the potential for the Dark Pictures Anthology, Man of Medan is largely a success, but as a first episode, it leaves plenty to be desired.

Source : Gamesport

#Game Reviews

0 notes

rewindfrequency · 7 years ago

Text

Undertale Review

Check out my Wordpress!

https://rewindfrequency.wordpress.com/?p=84

Made and published by: Toby Fox

Played on: PS Vita/Vita TV

Also Available on: PS4, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, and Linux

Long ago, Humans and Monsters lived on the Earth peacefully. Then, war broke out between the two races. Humans, being more organized and powerful, won the war. The Humans drove the Monsters into the Underground, and sealed the entrance to the Underground with the power of seven spellcasters. Ever since then, the Monsters have had to live in darkness, as they require seven human souls to break the barrier to the surface and reclaim what is theirs. Six children go missing when they climb Ebott mountain, where the opening to the Underground is located, never to be seen again. You climb that mountain one day, and you fall into the Underworld. You are child number seven to have fallen down here. What happened to the other children? What dangers await down here in the shadows? How will you escape?

Undertale is a strange game to say the least. It looks like a Gameboy color game and has the good old fashioned basic RPG elements of an NES game. However, it also incorporates elements from bullet hell shooters into the core gameplay. When this game first hit the Steam store in 2015, it was all the rage. Reviewers gave it 9’s and 10’s and it instantly received a large and loyal fanbase that is still around to this day. Most indie games that receive such acclaim like Bastion, FEZ, and Limbo lost their large fan bases after just a few months. Part of why I bring this up is because this game is still so popular that it got released on PS4 and PS VITA in August of 2017, and is rumored to be coming to Xbox One and Nintendo Switch later on (at least at the writing of this review). Part of why I’m even adding to the pile of reviews for this game is to understand and share why I think this game was, and still is, so popular.

Let’s start with the gameplay. The game centers itself around basic RPG mechanics such as leveling up and slowly collecting new and better pieces of equipment to do better in battle. The combat system is what makes Undertale unique however. The battles have two main mechanics. The first is how the player attacks. This is simply a timing game where you click “X” when a line falls into the center of an on-screen attack gauge. The center does the most damage while the fringes do little. The enemies attack in a far different manner. You will have your soul, represented by a small heart in the center of an on screen box, while the game enters a bullet hell-esque shooting fest. You will have to maneuver your soul around the various projectiles the enemy throws at you for about five or six seconds before you can attack again. I like this set up. While the old but reliably fun turn-based combat we have seen in games for two decades now is great, this new twist on things really adds to the game’s overall worth. The developer didn’t take the easy way out either with static images and text boxes. He actually made a game where things have constant motion and sound and use a simple concept in a different way and setting. This alone is probably what made the game so popular.

Outside of combat the game has a variety of puzzles. They start out simple but slowly get more difficult over time, requiring more timing and precision from the player. Most of the puzzles involve the player trying to get from one side of the room to the other. The puzzles are well thought out and gain the right amount of difficulty over time, but they are definitely second to the game’s combat.

My only critique of the gameplay would have to be the difficulty of the combat. For most of the game you will fight pushover enemies that die in one or two hits, and early boss battles can be Idiot-proof. But near the end of the game, particularly with the last two bosses, the difficulty is ramped up. The bullet hell screens will be filled with projectiles and attacks will do heavy damage to the player. Having a difficult boss battle isn’t an issue, especially considering that many big game developers have shitty QTE (quick time event) bosses that only take minutes to defeat. But the issue is the sudden and annoying spike in difficulty that can really screw the player over.

The story is short, with the game only being about four and a half hours long. But this adventure is packed with content. The story has a very humorous and family-friendly vibe to it. With it’s 90’s GBC graphics and wondrous soundtrack the really carries a sense of hope and fulfillment with it. It’s rare that a game can make me laugh and have a decent story. Not a single word of dialogue is spoken throughout the entire game, yet it is still able to communicate what is happening in an effective manner. This story has one, and really only one theme to it: hope. I know that may sound cliché and weak, but in a time when most games only have stories about death, destruction, and pain, something about hope is nice, and I think that many people who played this game and still talk about it agree with that.

Aside from the core story and gameplay, is there really anything else here? Not really. With the game only clocking in a 4-5 hours in length, you can’t expect more than those two fundamental elements to be present. Other than some extra puzzles that can give you some cool items and some passageways that open up on your second playthrough, there isn’t much here. But for 15 dollars it’s well worth it. Even on my PS VITA TV the minimalist graphics still looked great. They really blend together with the story and along with the soundtrack.

Overall, I think that people really like this game because of its simple but engaging gameplay and a story that has an upbeat and meaningful message. This game is perfect to play when you want to relax, and really, is just a good to play at any time. I like the minimalist art style, the soundtrack that has elements of wonder and concrete action, and the bullet hell sections that are influenced by RPG mechanics. This is a great game that can be played on any platform, regardless of screen size or technical specifications. It’s rare for a game so simple to be so deep, and yet it is. In reality, I thought I was going to end up bashing this game because of all of the shit I see from screaming 12 year olds. But in the end, the game got me. I enjoyed my experience and I think you will too.

I am giving Undertale a 9 out of 10

Pros:

Great story

Awesome bullet hell combat with RPG twist

Man, I just can’t get enough of that minimal, simple vibe

Cons:

Sudden difficulty spike at the end

#Game Reviews #undertale #undertale review #pixel art games #adventure games #RPG games #Indie games #Indie game reviews #Indie games on VITA #indie games on PS4

0 notes

xb-squaredx · 8 years ago

Text

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

2 notes · View notes

entergamingxp · 5 years ago

Text

Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Road to Boruto Review — Keeping The Fighting Dream Alive

May 6, 2020 1:30 PM EST

A port to the Switch along with all content up to Road to Boruto makes this release of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 well worth picking up.

The Ultimate Ninja Storm series of Naruto games have long been one of my favorite anime-based franchises. The series’ latest title Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 first released back in 2016. But now with the anime shifting over to Naruto’s son, Boruto, the games have had to follow. So it’s no surprise that as it’s been ported over to Switch, UNS4 was pumped full of every piece of extra content released for the game, including a Boruto focused single-player adventure.

Now titled Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Road to Boruto, the game has (hopefully) reached its final form. And I’m happy to say that it’s more or less the same game I played when it originally released. With downsides that are hand-countable and the ability to pick up and go that the Switch offers, this version of UNS4 is the way to play it if you haven’t already.

youtube

“This version of UNS4 is the way to play it if you haven’t already.”

One of the staples of every UNS game has been their depiction of the show’s massive, sprawling story. Anime games sometimes find themselves tripping over plot points and story beats, especially when based on massive shonen. Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Road to Boruto solves that issue by focusing solely on the final chapter of Naruto Shippuden and the first arc of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations.

If you’ve played a UNS game before, you should know what to expect at this point. Delivery of the show’s story is given truly special care. Each battle is fever-pitched, and some are so distinct and unique that they stand out from the rest of the game. For instance, battling Madara Uchiha’s Susanoo with Naruto’s Ten Tails is classic kaiju excitement. Each slow, hefty blow has weight behind it, especially compared to your regular person-to-person combat. That being said, so many of the regular fights still stand out. The final battles against Kaguya and Naruto and Sasuke’s last fight are all fever-pitched moments, the latter of which changes your character on the fly to show the duo’s years-long rivalry. In all of these fights, the game blends storytelling and combat seamlessly, making it one of the most cohesive story experiences in an anime-based title.

What I’ve failed to mention so far are the brilliant cutscenes in Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Road to Boruto. When you’re not tossing Rasengan’s or charging Chidori’s at enemies, the game has two different kinds of filler. Half of the time, it’s simple character models with text bubbles above their heads where you press A to make them say their next line. That’s not what I’m talking about when I say “brilliant cutscenes” though. I’m referring to the other half, which is full of beautiful, distinct animation that dutifully recreates the animated aesthetics and quirks of the show. In fact, the only graphical issue I had with this game were shadows. Oftentimes, they’re extremely pixelated, regardless of whether the console is docked or in handheld mode. However, I won’t fault UNS4 for one small let down.

However, one small addition to cutscenes takes it above and beyond. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but the quick-time events in cutscenes and during combat assist the game’s storytelling so much that it wouldn’t be the same without them. Failing these QTE’s has no effect on the game, except you might miss out on a secret scene. That being said, you would have to try to fail them. They’re not in the game to make things more difficult but rather to get players more involved. When two characters throw Ninjutsu at each other and they clash, it’s flat-out exciting mashing a button and watching one side overwhelm the other. This one, simple inclusion made me more excited for cutscenes because it always meant I would be able to take part in the theatrics.

This all carries over to Road to Boruto, the game’s namesake story add-on. I don’t want to spoil too much, mainly because this was entirely new content to me and its plot was genuinely interesting. Suffice to say, it offers a new, unique perspective on the young ninja’s life. I can easily see why Boruto may resonate with a younger generation, even though I disagree with him and find him at fault most of the time. And while Boruto was supposed to be the star of the show, I couldn’t help but look for the characters from Naruto’s generation to see how some of my favorites grew up. My only issue with this mini-arc was its closing act, in which it threw everything about fights in Naruto out the window and went full Dragon Ball Z.

Beside the Road to Boruto and typical story content, free battle, and online battle modes, the game offers one more mode to eat up your time – adventure. This part of the game takes place after the events of its main story where the Hidden Leaf Village is saved and life carries on for our main characters. However, you won’t be experiencing new battles, but rather reliving the old classics.

In Naruto’s adventure, for instance, you revisit battles against Garaa and classic showdowns against Sasuke. For me, revisiting these fights is a trip down memory lane, although I wish I didn’t have to run around the ninja world to get there. Rather than taking the main story’s streamlined approach, adventure mode has you running through the hidden ninja villages looking for memory fragments to take part in classic battles. I would say it’s interesting to explore the ninja world this way, but in execution, it simply feels like shallow filler between the fights I want to get to.

“I’m extremely happy to say that not only did Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 run fantastically while docked and on the go, but it still looks great to this day.”

Going into Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Road to Boruto on Switch, I had one major concern: performance. While this game was originally released in 2016, ports to Switch can be hit or miss, and even those that do port over successfully lose some graphical fidelity. I was most worried about experiencing these issues during combat, where you’ll spend a majority of time in the game. I’m extremely happy to say that not only did Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 run fantastically while docked and on the go, but it still looks great to this day.

The same can be said for fighting in general – it’s the same but it still impresses. At face value, combat is simplistic; your moves auto-combo, you throw shurikens and can charge chakra to perform a regular and then “super” Jutsu. However, it’s once you start playing around with this game’s movement that combat really opens up. By properly using chakra dashing, you can cancel out of a combo and start-up another string immediately. You can also guard in the middle of a dash to cancel it, allowing you to play a weird kind of “footsies” which is common in regular 2D fighting titles.

When you pair these tricky movement mechanics with the distinct move sets and movement options of each character in the game, you end up with a somewhat deep but massively complex combat system. That’s not even mentioning that standard fights use teams of three. Swapping to other characters can happen on the fly or mid-combo as an extender and each one that isn’t being used in combat can perform a support attack.

Are there optimal teams in this game akin to those in Dragon Ball FighterZ? Absolutely. The real question is whether or not you’re willing to sift through the massive, 100+ character roster of the game to find out what works best.

Eventually, as you do find characters and move sets that click with you, you’ll end up finding ways to chain together enormous combos. Ultimate Ninja Storm 4’s unconventional style of varied attacks in a 3D space at first makes combo building a challenge. But once you understand how easy it is to lock an opponent down, you’ll be hitting 50-hit combos ending in a secret Jutsu in no time.

“Road to Boruto goes above and beyond what I expect from an anime-inspired game.”

In all honesty, this version of UNS4 doesn’t add much in terms of new content to the game’s combat systems. The most you’ll find comes in the form of new characters, and they do add a decent bit. Playing as a new character at least once is fun, but it’s always entertaining watching their either devastating or just plain silly secret Jutsu. In all honesty, I’m happy that nothing’s changed. As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Road to Boruto’s story begins with a narrator saying this is the unfinished story of a nameless ninja. That may be more dramatic than Naruto deserves, but it’s true nonetheless. The stories of Naruto and Boruto are somehow far from over, and while I may not be actively watching or reading the ongoing manga and anime, following the saga through the games has always been a fantastic experience and is one that I hope doesn’t end any time soon.

Road to Boruto goes above and beyond what I expect from an anime-inspired game. Not a single facet of this game is done lazily and everything has the same effort and care put into it. Barring some minuscule graphical issues and somewhat shoddy plot points, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 Road to Boruto is this generation’s Dragon Ball Z: Budokai. It’s the eponymous anime fighting game and is one that will not only be remembered fondly but will also be revisited to see what a great anime fighter looks like.

May 6, 2020 1:30 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/05/ultimate-ninja-storm-4-road-to-boruto-review-keeping-the-fighting-dream-alive/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ultimate-ninja-storm-4-road-to-boruto-review-keeping-the-fighting-dream-alive

0 notes

operationrainfall · 5 years ago

Text

Title Virgo Versus the Zodiac Developer Moonana Publisher Degica Games Release Date Dec 12th, 2019 Genre RPG Platform PC, XBox One Official Website

One of the many pleasures of playing indie titles is seeing the sheer drive and willingness of budding developers to create a unique experience. To see how these developers go about defining themselves and their works through innovation, artistry, or by taking the traditional and turning it into the extraordinary. These are all part of the satisfaction of discovering a standout indie title. Virgo Versus the Zodiac impressed me. A game driven by that willingness to be unique, Virgo Versus the Zodiac is one that I found myself captivated by, more so than many others in recent memory and one I can genuinely call a hidden gem.

Virgo Versus the Zodiac tells the story of Virgo, one of the lords of the Zodiac realms that make up the lands across the Milky Way. The twelve Zodiacs were once governed by the Rulers during a time referred to as the Golden Age. After the end of the Rulers reign, the Zodiacs took direct control over their realms, ushering in the Zodiac Age. The Zodiacs conduct themselves as they see fit, many of whom have created disarray between each other, as well as within their own realms, subjecting their denizens to unfair, sometimes horrific practices. Virgo, a being of purest order and structure without sacrifice of justice, is determined to restore the version of peace and regulation of the previous Golden Age. And, she is willing to strike down all who oppose her, deeming them heretics to the former law.

What initially seems like a straightforward story, to restore Virgo’s ideal order, is actually a journey of decisions and revelation. Though this main plot point, this drive of Virgo’s to restore the Golden Age, is our vehicle to forward the story, there are several underlying mysteries and events that will shape Virgo’s narrative path and ultimately, what she decides is her true end goal. Many of these revelations are hidden behind decisions that must be made throughout play. Decision making, in visual novel style, won’t change the intermittent story much. However, it will have significant impact with the way the characters feel, behave, react, and especially how the game concludes.

The overall story, with its history, mysteries, and branching, is quite intriguing. I found it easy to immerse myself in Virgo’s quest and was further driven to continue with each new twist along the way. The decision making is fantastic, as each path will reveal something entirely unique, such as secrets the characters may be hiding or unveil the mysteries of the world around Virgo. And many decisions made will reshape Virgo’s own character as she continues her journey. There are three potential paths, with three unique endings, and, again, each has something new and intriguing to offer. The narrative is equally strong, with impressive writing that brings a vividness to story and characters. Virgo’s dialogue is always something to look forward to and her personality is poignantly conveyed. The two main side characters, Algol and Spica, are also well written with distinct voices and lively personalities. Even many of the lesser side characters possess personality and individual voice, which is a notable feat considering the number of side characters the game introduces.

However, despite the strengths of the narrative and story, I took issue with several decisions in its execution. There is a ton of extra, unnecessary text. Most of this is pure fluff or used for a quick bit of humor. It contributes nothing to the main story or the lore that is often referred to. The game can also drag due to gameplay and breaks in-between, so having to work through this needless, irrelevant text can be taxing. Sure, it can be skipped, either by holding the text skip button or by simply ignoring most NPCs, but you may end up missing out on a scarce but shocking hint or secret regarding character or backstory. So the decisions to sacrifice immersive backstory for needless, useless filler is unfortunate. And I find it such an egregious issue because it seems like much more backstory, side stories, and history was initially planned for the game, yet was either drastically edited down or cut completely. For example, the Rulers are hardly fleshed out at all, despite their major role in the game’s history. Another; towards the end of the game, an entity called the Viruses are introduced, but are just as soon dismissed, despite having a tie to Capricorn, a Zodiac you meet early in the game, yet is consistently brought up throughout. Speaking of the other Zodiacs, the backstories of many of them range from painfully vague to utterly nonexistent. And finally, fragments of main and side story that are mentioned are either never addressed again or are wrapped up far too quickly, further hinting that there was perhaps much more originally planned. It’s such a shame; I would have loved to have seen the original story developed to its fullest.

Story aside, the characters of Virgo Versus the Zodiac are the real stars with their diverse, engaging personalities. I love Virgo, as she’s a tsundere badass. She’s a brilliantly created character full of stubbornness and unrelenting force. She is strong, unyielding in her beliefs and her resolve to accomplish her ultimate goal. Her character endures through her ordeal and additional sides to her personality are revealed throughout her journey. The play on her opposing sides is equally impressive, as Virgo’s difficulty to express her softer, more loving attributes meshes well with the moments when she does finally open her heart, showing her genuine affection and care. I also appreciate her anti-heroine aspects, especially in her willingness to strike down all who oppose her. Although her actions may frequently cross moral lines and though her thinking can be described as one-track, immoral, and perhaps more selfish than she realizes, because of the depth and richness of her development, I can come to understand, even appreciate, her motivation and drive. I can root for her despite her committed atrocities and I can feel sympathetic towards her when her actions have unpredictable and tragic consequences. Virgo is a character that will stay with me, having stolen a place in my heart.

Many of the side characters also receive significant depth, which only helps with the immersion and care we end up placing in them. Algol is awesome, with her wit, snark, and casual demeanor. Her personality is the perfect contrast to Virgo’s and the banter between the two is fantastic. I also enjoyed Algol’s side story, with her history and her motives in joining Virgo’s campaign. I felt similar sympathy for her as I do for Virgo in what Algol had to endure. I also loved Pisces, with her charming and air-headed personality. She is the perfect catalyst for Virgo to open up about her feelings, so much so that those moments of the game are easily the most memorable. Equally impressive are the times Pisces reveals that she knows and understands far more than what her bubbly, simple-minded style may convey. She is every bit as captivating as Virgo.

Unfortunately though, for every one character that has real substance, there are too many that come off as unremarkable. Many of the Zodiacs and side characters never receive any substantial development once their initial identities are established. Spica is a well-spoken Virgo fanboy/whipping boy who never really grows beyond this. He’s used in your party for combat and for comedic relief, but that’s it. Scorpio is a yandere, Capricorn is the typical emotionless realist, Taurus is the sleepy, boring extra, Leo is the feisty, arrogant type, Aries is basically identical to Leo, and the list goes on. What’s worse, several of these Zodiac characters are only ever seen once. It’s beguiling, given the title, themes, and story of the game. I realize that establishing and developing a minimum of twelve characters is an arduous task, but I expected more than just the single appearances of several of the Zodiacs and I expected more development from the Zodiacs that do play significant roles in the unfolding of the main story.

Moving on to gameplay, Virgo Versus the Zodiac takes the traditional, turn-based RPG scheme and makes its extraordinary. Though the familiar elements, such as leveling up, equipment and the likes are there, developer Moonana reworks it to make it outstanding. The majority of gameplay is centered on combat, in which combatants take turns, called Phases, to act. During the player’s Purge (attack) Phase, you can attack or defend. Typically when you launch an attack, the enemy will immediately enter a Counter Phase and retaliate. After an enemy attacks during their own Purge Phase, you will immediately enter your own Counter Phase depending on your equipment. This is the standard flow of combat and so defense is perhaps the most vital aspect of combat. Tied directly to defense is Vitality, which is a kind of block/guard points. All characters have Hearts (health) and Vitality and the key is to protect your Hearts by building up your Vitality. To activate Vitality, combatants must defend, or use their shield item, during their Purge or Counter Phases to store it up. Vitality points are drained instead of hearts as enemy attacks are incurred. Vitality also drops after every turn automatically, so defending or using special weapons that recovers Vitality every few turns is absolutely key to surviving in this game.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Another aspect to combat are the QTE events that occur when attacking and defending. Ranging from a single or multiple timed button presses, button smashes, or directional inputs, these QTE events will impact how much damage is dealt and blocked. Performing them perfectly will yield max damage and minimal damage taken. QTEs vary based on the equipped item, so mastering the archetypes is essential, especially for bosses and later in the game when difficulty rises.

This QTE is a simple single timed button press. Tapping A when the white timer reaches the blue will cause a Perfect attack for maximum damage.

Speaking of difficulty, Virgo Versus the Zodiac is tough, even on normal difficulty. Failing a QTE can easily turn the tides of combat against you and result in a quick game over. You must also be quick to recognize which of your party members is being targeted, as their actions are assigned to different buttons. Virgo is assigned to the A button, but if Algol is the main target, you’ll need to use B for the QTEs instead. The easiest way of finding out who is targeted is by looking out for whose Hearts/Vitality meter becomes visible. It also doesn’t help any that every action causes a text box to pop up. Get used to ignoring those quickly, as zero vital information is ever mentioned during combat. Finally, there is an affinity triangle that further impacts combat, and everything else really. Ambition (purple) is strong against Versatility (green), which is strong against Patience (red), and Patience is strong against Ambition. Enemies clothing are color coordinated, so you’ll recognize which affinity to attack with.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The overall combat system is also not the easiest to master, as it takes practice to become accustomed to the flow of combat and, especially, the use of equipment. There are two sets of equipment, one for the Purge Phases and one for the Counter. Each allows four types of equipment, for a total of eight equipable pieces. Each piece will raise and lower different stats, for example, a Versatile (green) piece of armor will increase Versatility defense, but may also lower Ambitious (purple) or Fixed (red) defense too. Keeping in mind the penalties are as important as focusing on your defense in combat. Along with stat changes, most equipment also offers a secondary ability or disability. These can range from restoring Hearts, decreasing total Hearts, increasing Vitality gains, increasing attribute damage, decreasing user and/or enemy attribute defense, guaranteeing a critical hit on your next strike, poisoning, burning, stunning, and innumerably more. Half the fun is discovering these abilities and the assortment of advantages and kinds of damage they can yield. Even if certain weapons or armor fail to impress with their stat changes or disabilities, the abilities they can offer may just make them worth their use. Finally, many pieces of Purge and Counter equipment requires one or several Phases, like a recharge, to pass after its use, or is unavailable from your first turn, as it requires a Phase before its use. All of this will seem overwhelming at first, but once you start taking notice of how your equipment works and how they’re impacting stats, the brilliance of this system becomes apparent. It’s perfectly implemented, it becomes easier the more you practice with it, and the changes to play style it offers is ridiculously high. I struggled at first, and I would even recommend new players to try playing on the easiest difficulty first and raising difficultly later, but now that I’ve mastered it, I can’t help but praise it. It’s astonishing the work that went into this and I am blown away with how solid this gameplay system is.

This Counter equipment raises two types of DEF and lowers one. Although not shown, this also cannot be used on your first turn of combat. The decision is yours…

Completely random, yet a nice addition, as you journey to new lands, you have the choice of taking the dangerous route, which involves mini SHMUP levels. These can be skipped entirely, but if you choose to do them, you may be rewarded with crafting items and stars (currency). Not required, nor do they add anything to the story, they’re a nice extra bit of challenging fun and simple to dive into.

No penalties for skipping, failing, or quitting, play for items and stars at your leisure

One final comment in regards to affinity, this system is, in fact, tied to everything in the game, including story decisions and endings. It is truly the foundation of the entire game. The Mutable attribute is tied to Versatility (green), Cardinal to Ambition (purple), and Fixed to Patience (Red). The most crucial decisions are colored for this reason, so you can recognize which story path you wish to follow. The Zodiacs themselves are color coordinated too, so your actions against certain Zodiacs (colors) further dictate what path you take. Even your party members also follow this affinity system. Virgo is mostly Versatile (green), strong against Fixed enemies, and her actions and QTEs are initiated using the A button (which is green on the Xbox controller). Algol is Fixed (red) and her actions and QTEs use the B button (also red). Same for Spica (blue/purple, X button). It’s all amazingly connected, down to the smallest details.

Despite my praise for Virgo Versus the Zodiac’s gameplay, I do have a few complaints. I mentioned it earlier, but the pacing of the game can be slow. Combat is time consuming, sacrificing play pace for strategy. I have zero problems with the need for strategy in play, but I do wish battles were faster. I would attribute the break in pace due to the sheer number of times you will be defending and only getting your licks in on a counter phase. Especially with tougher enemies, battles can drag. This pacing issue is only compounded when you reach one of the many lengthy cutscenes the game possesses. In these times, I wish the writing was tighter or better spaced with the action. Another complaint, outside of combat, there isn’t really much to do as you explore new lands. Tons of NPCs to chat with, but no thank you. Sure, there are also hidden items and stars (currency) to hunt for, but really not much else. The motivation to explore, other than perhaps finding a nice weapon or piece of armor, is limited. In truth, other than the occasional drag and the resulting loss of attention or immersion, Virgo offers stellar gameplay, so much so that I’m already looking forward to when I can replay it.

Perhaps equally remarkable to its gameplay, Virgo Versus the Zodiac possesses some of the most unique aesthetics I’ve experienced in a long time. The most obvious aesthetic element of the game is its visuals. Virgo implements a fantastic old school, 8-bit style. Everything from characters to landscapes are pixelated and for the most part, it’s adorable and charming. To add to the charm this simplistic style begets, major characters receive detailed portrait art that displays during conversations. These are detailed and beautiful, adding much needed personality for many of the Zodiacs while bolstering the allure of the established characters. Virgo looks the tough battle-hardened maiden and Pisces looks as adorable as her personality conveys. All of the portrait work is charming and impressive and it leaves me wanting more.

Although Level ups are fairly balanced, characters have their clear strengths. Virgo is Versatile/ Mutable, and so her Versatility will increase more than most other stats.

I do have one complaint in regards to the visuals, however. Despite the beauty of character and land that is achieved within the game, there is also this ambiguous element to the visual style. Many NPCs, as well as map elements like buildings and furnishings, are creepy. Not cute creepy nor horrifying creepy that could add to the moods of the game. No, there are just handfuls of character and design elements that are creepy to the point of being unpleasant. I understand Moonana was explicitly trying for that ambiguous style, after all, her logo is a crescent moon with dripping fangs, but I just found it all off-putting. Maybe it’s just not my style, but for someone like myself that values aesthetic appeal, especially when it contributes to the overall experience, I did not appreciate this.

There is plenty of beauty to behold

As for the audio, not only do I have zero complaints, I think the soundtrack is a perfect complement to the game’s narrative and gameplay. This is a soundtrack that will impress, matching perfectly with events and narrative tones on screen. The electronic style and the variety of genres, from techno, rock, and classical to hints of punk and metal, are all incredible. Never once did I think a piece of music was dull nor did I ever feel indifferent with a single track. Each one is catchy, memorable, and a perfect fit for the game’s overall style. It’s amazing how well the soundtrack both stands out on its own and bolsters the experience without ever overshadowing it. Combined with the visuals, Virgo Versus the Zodiac has aesthetic appeal that will not only impress, but continue to awe with every playthrough.

Virgo Versus the Zodiac is an adorably charming rampage across the galaxy. A memorable main heroine worth making that emotional investment in, an impressive transformation of traditional game mechanics into the unique, and an aesthetic style all its own, Virgo Versus the Zodiac delivers an unforgettable experience. A single playthrough will take about 20 hours and provide plenty of reasons to replay well beyond. A hidden gem, this star yet shines dazzlingly bright.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″]

Review copy provided by the developer

REVIEW: Virgo Versus the Zodiac Title Virgo Versus the Zodiac

#8 bit #Degica Games #Indie #JRPG #Moonana #Nana #pixel graphics #QTE #RPG #Shmup #Virgo #Virgo Versus the Zodiac

0 notes

thehallofgame · 7 years ago

Text

Review: Heavenly Sword

Release: 2007

My Rating: 8.5

Am I allowed to say this game has achieved cult classic status yet? I don’t know what the metric is, but regardless this spiritual predecessor to Hellblade deserves more accolades that it got at launch and a revisit from anyone who missed it the first time. Unfortunately for this fantasy themed, sword-based fighting game I think it was an unfortunate casualty of wrong time and place.

Heavenly Sword was an exclusive PS3 launch tittle in the era when anybody who tried to drop a sword combat based fantasy game was accused of making a God of War knock off. (Thank god we stopped saying that, because frankly God of War was not worth being called the standard and I have no idea why the gaming community decided anything else remotely similar was automatically inferior for so many years. #yikes.) So, right out of the gate there were two big strikes against the game, people wrote it off as a knock off of another game, and by the time the PS3 dropped it was miles behind the xbox360 in sales and so, despite launching with a veritable feast of exclusives by today’s launch standards, most of the PS3’s launch tittles languished. Which is tragic because Heavenly Sword was a beautiful game with a great concept, good story and a great cast of actors who did motion capture before it was The Thing To Do.

Heavenly Sword is set in a world that looks like it escaped from an east Asian ink painting. There are towering cliffs draped in snow, cherry blossoms drifting in the wind and waterfalls plunging hundreds of feet through sprawling temples and castles perched above and over cliffs. And through it all a genocidal war rages.

The tyrannical King Bohan, played by Andy Serkis of Lord of the Rings fame, is leading a conquest of the tribal peoples of his lands. One, the clan of the protagonist Nariko, is in possession of the Heavenly Sword. To them it is a holy relic that must never be used, to the King it is the last and most important feather in his cap.

Despite their best efforts the clan’s small band is soon routed by Bohan’s legions of goons and their surviving warriors and leader, who also happens to be Nariko’s father, taken captive. In a moment of grim desperation, Nariko decides to take up the Heavenly Sword, which forges a deadly pact. In return for the power to destroy an army the sword will suck out Nariko’s lifeforce until she dies.

The premise is grim as grim gets, so it’s shocking how funny the game often is. Nariko plays the straight-woman to the antics of her loose-cannon adopted sister Kai and King Bohan’s court of ridiculous and deadly generals. Andy Serkis gives a wonderful performance as a power glutted king barely holding the reigns over ridiculous underlings who look and act like they each escaped a different 70’s style kung-fu movie. Meanwhile, Nariko undergoes an intense personal journey from clan-outcaste and estrangement from her father to hero and martyr. For a game that’s only twelve hours or so long it packs an intense amount of story telling and character development in, and all that despite comically bad lip syncing.

The level design and gameplay focus around the story so tightly that this game is one of the most linear I’ve ever played. Lucky the pacing and difficulty curve is so spot on this is hardly noticeable. Taking the role of Nariko, and sometimes Kai, the player will be instructed to do their best impression of a one woman army and be let loose on the hoards of enemy soldiers as they’re funneled down corridors to their next goal.

The basic sword combat system is fairly simple, with two different attack buttons which can be pressed in certain orders to execute combos and rapidly fill up the chain gauge. Once the Heavenly Sword is acquired, however, things get much more complicated. The Heavenly Sword can take three forms which correspond to three stances, light, ranged and heavy stance.

Ranged stance is activated by holding the left bumper and has limited combos. In this stance Nariko swings two blades around on long chains to prevent enemy missile attacks from reaching her. This stance also has some use as crowd clearing. The light stance sees Nariko using the Heavenly Sword split into two, smaller swords for fast, darting attacks and long chains. Finally, the heavy stance uses only one large blade (not much smaller than Nariko herself) to deliver heavy, slow strikes. A few hours into the game the player will also allegedly unlock ‘aerial combos’ where, by flicking the controller upwards, they are supposed to be able to launch enemies into the air and combo them there. I never managed to do this on purpose. Luckily, while visually engrossing, the aerial combos can be safely forgotten.

Enemies also have the ability to use different attack stances and combos. Enemies surrounded by a blue aura are using light attacks and enemies using a orange aura are using heavy attacks. Both of which Nariko can block automatically if she’s facing the right direction and in the same stance, and if the player presses the triangle button at just the moment of contact Nariko will perform an unblockable and usually lethal counter attack. Some enemies, bosses and special armored units, have unblockable attacks that surround them in a red glow. These can only be avoided by jerking the analogue stick to roll Nariko out of the way. There is some awkwardness in this, as between the fixed camera angle and autotargeting Nariko doesn’t always go where intended, or attack who was intended, or even any enemy that might be right beside her over open air.

As Nariko fights, completes combos and smashes open health-restoring glowing jars a combo gauge at the bottom of the screen will fill. This serves two purposes. The first is to accumulate points to unlock new, higher level combos. The second purpose is the more immediate charging of a superstyle gauge represented by three orbs inside the circle of Nariko’s health bar. As the game progresses Nariko will unlock three tiers of superstyle attack, and each tier has an attack that corresponds to each of the stances. The low level attacks will annihilate one enemy in spectacular style, the highest level will efficiently clear the map. While most of these, as well as several of the counterattacks, are little more than glorified cutscenes they are beautifully executed, look powerful, fantastical and are often unexpectedly gutter-humory as Nariko is often quite willing to aim exactly for her male opponents’s most vulnerable bits. The combat in the game, when it is going well, makes the player feel like a force of nature mowing their way through improbable odds and even more improbable enemies.

Unfortunately this is somewhat betrayed by the occasional clunkiness of the systems surrounding combat. Superstyles are supposed to be activated by pressing the circle button while in the desired stance, but often the game doesn’t seem to detect the input or perhaps takes too long to trigger the attack, allowing Nariko to be clobbered by enemy attacks while a frustrated player pounds away on the circle button. Likewise, most boss encounters are resolved by a quick time event after enemy HP has been depleted but, similarly, pressing the circle button as instructed does not always produce the desired result. The game is fairly saturated with QTE’s, which is the bad news. The good news is that as far as they go, aside from the odd usage of the left analogue stick as a button input, Heavenly Sword’s aren’t too bad. There’s typically a convenient autosave immediately before, they’re quite short and usually feature Nariko performing a spectacle of badassery that’s delightful to watch.

There is also a small ranged component to Nariko’s gameplay that can be used in combat, but is quite often required for problem solving instead. However, while it’s fun in combat using it for puzzles can devolve into a bit of a chore. Nariko can lift and fling everything from dropped weaponry to entire corpses into obstacles and enemies to deal damage or hit switches. Once flung, holding the ‘throw’ button down transports the player to the projectiles point of view as it hurtles in slow motion. The player directs it with the analogue stick, or if they’re brave, the controller’s motion sensor. Unfortunately the sensitivity on the motion sensing is far too high and completely fails as a gimmick to highlight the controller’s gyroscope and is best turned off immediately.

Occasionally, the player will also take the role of Kai, who is a archer. She can’t block or even really absorb the damage of an attack, so though she can perform a dodge roll the goal is to keep her from being hit at all. Kai’s combat is much slower and more measured as she needs to huddle in cover to avoid enemy arrows, then pop up and aim as the player holds the left bumper and fires with the right. The arrows behave like Nariko’s projectiles, except much more deadly, as any body or head shot will take out any un-armored opponent. Kai’s arrows can also be set on fire and cause explosions. The Kai segments waver between fun changes of pace and eye-narrowing frustration on a fifty-fifty ratio. Ultimately I find them enjoyable but another player could easily have an intense dislike for the breaks in momentum.

Heavenly Sword is one of those games thats warts are clear and apparent while you play it, but hours after winning the game the good outshines the bad so strongly it’s hard to remember how bad the problems really are. The game executes a beautiful and poignant ending, accompanied by the game’s consistently beautiful score and weighty writing. There’s a bittersweetness to the end of the tale that’s hard to shake and caps off the story of the tragic hero the best way we know how. That more than eclipses most of the difficulties the player has reaching it, as does the short and sweet length of the game that’s just long enough to make its point and get out. This is a must play for anyone still stretching new life out of their PS3 and fans who are just now coming to Ninja Theory’s particular blend of fighting game and storybook commitment to aesthetic.

#heavenly sword review #video game review #thehallofgame review

0 notes

nazih-fares · 7 years ago

Text

Back in 2014, Warner Bros Games and Monolith Studio launched a new IP based on the universe of Tolkien, which thankfully managed to stand out in vast sea of mediocre Lord of the Rings games, a game known as Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (which we reviewed on our site). But despite its undeniable qualities, the game suffered from many problems, such as repetitive missions, a very interesting yet unexploited Nemesis system, and a bad ending for its story. Now 3 years later, the studio is back with a sequel, aiming to fix the flaws of the prequel, and add sufficient new features to become a world-class game, with Middle-earth: Shadow of War.

Before we get into the gist of it, Shadow of War (as well as Shadow of Mordor) is not a videogame adaptation of Tolkien’s work, but rather an original spin-off in its own right. Nevertheless Middle-earth: Shadow of War has many similarities of the movie trilogy that most of you know, as it shares the same type of artistic direction and presents some key figures of the Tolkien universe such as the Witch-king of Angmar, Gollum, Sauron and many more. Nevertheless, the story of the franchise has always been coherent with the lore of Tolkien’s books, happening decades before the War of the Ring, and how Minas Ithil fell in the hands of the Witch King of Angmar to become Minas Morgul (which you probably remember from Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King).

For those of you who have not had the opportunity to play Middle-earth: Shadow of War, you play as Talion, a Ranger of Gondor who has received powers from Celebrimbor, a specter that wanders between life and death, who forged the Rings of Power. This wraith was a good opportunity for Monolith to give our mere human extraordinary skills, like becoming invisible, gaining super-speed and a whole bunch of very deadly orc-killing powers. All that, without counting of course the magic of Isildur’s Ring, which transforms Talion into a Bright Master, making you almost an equal to Sauron.

Having a ring of power is a totally enjoyable aspect in the game, because it is precisely around this scenario aspect that the whole universe runs, and introduce most of its features. The latter is also totally dependent on the Nemesis system which is one of the cornerstone of this open world adventure. To make it simple for you newcomers, the world of Middle-earth in this game is always alive and changing. Sauron’s armies are structured, and the Orcs are dominated by captains who themselves are under the command of different warlords. Each enemy of this system has its own characteristics, personality, history, and can be promoted or degraded on the social scale of Sauron’s army. If an Orc kills you, then he might become a captain, or higher to even becoming the right hand of a warlord, pitting rivalries between other Orc captains, which brings its own internal politics and backstabbing. Needless to say that the Nemesis system is more complete now, and actually and offers many improvements and depth in comparison to the first opus.

The ring in your possession will allow you to corrupt Orcs and force them to join your rank of influence. Your army operates in exactly the same way as Sauron’s, with the same structure. To recruit a captain, you have to be able to defeat him, and it is only once his morale is broken that our ring can take possession of his mind. What a joy to be able to recruit Názkûga the Conqueror, or Blorg the Terrible… Because yes, each captain is unique and has its own characteristics, back-story and different looks (mostly really ugly). You are never immune to great surprises with this system, especially as sometimes Orcs can ambush you and fiercely combat you and your trusty Orcs, which brings me to jump on the topic of the game’s difficulty.

While in some cases you can chain dozens of Orcs and skilfully massacre them alone, other battles will pit you against two captains and over 20 soldiers, which will pretty much force you to retreat and reassess the situation. Because like in the first game, if you fall on the battlefield, a QTE system will give you a chance to get up, but some Orcs are so powerful that this one is almost unfeasible. You then find yourself completely incapable of defeating an Orc captain, because either you he became too powerful because of his numerous defeats against you, or he’s got extra tricks up his sleeves like calling an entire horde to surround you. Nevertheless, while this might be problematic for rage quitters and impatient gamers, this is one of Shadow of War’s greatest traits, and probably one of the best systems of open world games around.

If you think though that the Orcs are the only threat in Middle-earth: Shadow of War, then guess again. The game bestiary is still as large as ever, and you’ll have to fend some dangerous beasts such as Trolls, Graugs and the Caragors (they are analogous to big cats like lions in comparison to Wargs which are closer to wolves). The later, are also formidable mount and can be tamed in the wild to serve you as an animal servant.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Globally everything that populates the world around you will at some point be able to serve your purpose and goal. It all depends on your skill level, and point attributed to each one, which is done via a skilltree in the menus. Globally identical to what one can expect in an RPG, the game has also a loot system, with new weapons and armors that you can find after defeating enemies, to help you in your war. In any case, the game is rich enough in content and possibilities to avoid the ubiquitous problem of the repetitiveness of the first component when it comes to battles, as captains are more varied and have different traits to take in consideration.

While the game is far from being a blunt copy of Assassin’s Creed, it is almost impossible to miss the comparison of the similarities in their “free run” and climbing system which is quite close. Except that contrary to the different assassins in the Ubisoft franchise, Talion can climb with inhuman speed thanks to the power of the ring. A fun addition that make these scouting part of the game faster, but a bit too rushed, as I liked that sense of human strength in the previous game.

But if Shadow of War has found the right ingredients to greatly enrich its gameplay and establish itself as a trustworthy suite, it is nevertheless not free of defects. Technically for example, the game displays the same gaps that it was in the first episode, with textures that are rather almost in between both old and new generations. If Talion and the Orcs look more detailed in terms of modelling and animations, the game remains rather uneven in its environments and settings. I do realize that Middle-earth is not the most appropriate place to offer us landscapes of absolute splendor (in comparison to the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild this year), I still would’ve liked some elements to be more endearing, varied and not give the feeling of have been duplicated over several spots in the game.

Nevertheless, Monolith has made a true effort since the first episode, proposing more varied places. Between the cities inhabited by humans, to the fortresses stuffed with Orcs, and even forests and snow-capped mountains, the game gives us this desire to travel more in Middle-earth. However, the graphic engine definitely shows its limits, with textures not always crisp, numerous clipping (at least on the normal Xbox One) and certain animations of Talion, like the way he runs, can remind you that this is not the standards of high-end AAA game in 2017.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War was reviewed using an Xbox One copy of the game provided by Warner Bros Interactive. The game is also available on PlayStation 4 and PC via digital and retail releases. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is great sequel even if it still carries the fault the original game. Back in 2014, Warner Bros Games and Monolith Studio launched a new IP based on the universe of Tolkien, which thankfully managed to stand out in vast sea of mediocre Lord of the Rings games, a game known as…

#Adventure #Fantasy #Featured #Lord of the Rings #Middle Earth #Monolith #Review #Videogame #Warner Bros

0 notes