#my one warning is that if you play rpgs for the story. etrian odyssey expects you to make up a lot of the characters in your head

[theminecraftbee]

related ramble: genuinely if the part of decked out that appeals to you is "incremental progress in which the players must learn the map bit by little bit and also understand when to turn around and bail to learn more of the map later in another run", you don't mind games that are hard, and you like rpgs. please play etrian odyssey. please they're such good games and no one ever talks about them. please,

[st33d]

All These Worlds Are Yours (Except Europa)

It’s been a while since my last CRPG report and I have played quite a lot of CRPGs in the meantime. I’m going to keep it brief. It’s by no means all the games I played over the past year or so, but it is all the games that are worth playing in some fashion or another.

Yet again I didn’t really bother to get decent screenshots so you’ll have to endure some tangentially related Shutterstock photos.

Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk

It’s like Etrian Odyssey but made by horny 14 year olds. Monsters take the form of purple-black eyes that move only when you do. Colliding with them triggers a JRPG battle with your team. You must conquer around a dozen or so dungeons to defeat a mysterious evil whilst learning about your protagonist’s horny hubris.

I like how it automatically fills in the in-game map, only drawing tiles you have stepped in. Stairways also connect perfectly on most dungeons, leading to some detective work to solve them. The combat is passable. The story is PG13 with random suggestions of poop and sex without really showing any. It’s… a good game with a lot of simple mechanics that it layers up over time to make something quite complex. I really enjoyed solving the dungeons but it’s such a multilayered ball of weirdness that I hesitate recommending it. 

Dragon’s Dogma

It’s like Skyrim but with less items, less map, and decent fights. Like, really decent fights. You can climb on the back of beasts and hack pieces off of them or shoot magic arrows that do a host of cool things. The story is pretty anime - I can’t get into why without some major spoilers. Safe to say that after the first (and honestly entertaining) chunk of the game you get an overlay of falling ash pinned to your screen and the monsters become hit point sponges. That’s around when I stopped playing because it felt like I’d reached “an” ending and the rest was about beating as many dead horses with whatever sticks I could upgrade enough to hit them with. Last time I fired it up I got in an hour long fight with an off-brand beholder that basically respawned all its limbs eight times because of its egregious hit points.

You’re joined by some enthusiastic AI companions called pawns who have no story and just kinda throw themselves at enemies whilst repeating the same phrases over and over. I’m not really sure if they’re a blessing or curse. The game overall is pretty jank with terrible traversal (don’t explore, the quests will send you to every corner of the map anyway - twice). Despite all my complaints it’s a lot of fun - at least until the 1st ending. It’s cheap and I recommend it.

Sky Rogue

It’s like a lot of aircraft dogfight games but a bit random. I’ve played this a bit on single player and it’s alright. However I have played many, many, missions in the 2 player mode with a coworker. It’s just very satisfying doing the whole Top Gun team thing taking on a bunch of enemy planes whilst working on upgrades.

Disco Elysium

It’s like Planescape Torment but without the tedious combat or problematic writer behind it. There’s a video of one of the devs explaining how the dialogue is laid out like Twitter in tabloid format for easy reading. This is revolutionary. I want every computer text game to use this format from now on.

I cannot stress how important it is to enter Disco Elysium unprepared. To have no grasp on just how far you will be allowed to explore, who you will meet, who you will travel with, or what you are expected to do. It is a game about amnesia and becoming someone new - if that is at all possible.

I have two pieces of advice however:

Don’t start with Psyche or Physique stats below 2, they’re both your health and the game will surprise you with damage to either in the most unexpected places.

Do every quest. Explore every nook and cranny. Not knowing is the very essence of the game. You’ll have lost that feeling after the ending.

I don’t need to tell you how good the game is. Just look at most reviews.

Everspace

It’s like Descent (that 1st person spacecraft game on the PSX) but in space and it’s a roguelike. Everspace has you mine, salvage, fight, trade, and quest - but you do it all from the comfort of a spaceship that has responsive controls and interesting weaponry. I had a lot of fun skulking round wrecks to salvage parts whilst avoiding patrols of hostiles until I had enough kit to take them on.

It has a substandard storyline but great meta-progression, asking you to grind cash from each run to unlock parts for a better ship on the next. I put in a great deal of hours into this game and I’m looking forward to what the studio does with the sequel.

Horizon Zero Dawn

It’s like Shadow of Mordor but good. My only major complaint was how constant use of the bow had the camera staying uncomfortably close to Aloy’s arse and burying itself in grass during frenetic combat. When the camera wasn’t trying to kill me the combat was astoundingly good. You fight lumbering robo-dinosaurs with special weak spots and various attacks. The quests are also good with a surprising amount of cutscenes and dialogue for a lot of completely optional content.

I was also amazed at how they managed to pull off an almost believable backstory for a world full of robot dinosaurs. Despite some frustrating combat encounters I had a good time exploring its large and very pretty world.

Pathfinder Kingmaker

It’s like Baldurs Gate but not as good. Only on my 3rd attempt at playing the game with the newly patched in turn based mechanics did it start to make sense. It uses Pathfinder’s rules which are deep and tactical - as tactical rules go they’re pretty good. However when those rules fly by at real time speed you don’t learn how opportunity attacks work (they’re more complex than modern D&D) or how to utilise charge and positioning.

The story is pretty forgettable and the encounter design is relentlessly dull. A lot of areas are just simply fight after fight after fight. In turn based mode the fights are pretty good but too many of them are identical. The ones that weren’t I found inscrutable and impossible to pass. If you like min-max fighting and little else then have at it - but I warn you that the UI is lagging behind most popular CRPGs. You can’t even check the world map whilst in a town.

Metal Gear Solid V

It’s like an RPG. Despite not having a main character with stats, in this open world game of hide and seek you kidnap soldiers who in turn become your stats. Through them you gain access to new abilities. Through them you are drip-fed the resources you steal, only becoming able to spend all that you’ve stolen by having enough accountants to do your taxes. It is a brilliant work of roleplaying economics and a thoroughly enjoyable open world game. One where I can completely ruin a mission yet chuckle at my attempts to save what’s left of my dignity.

It also fails to stick the landing. At around the 20th mission the game starts committing to its plot and the rot sets in. Bit by bit it becomes worse to play. There was trouble at Konami when the game was made and it feels like the end of the game was hit the hardest. This was the part that was tested the least and had the worst ideas thrown into it. Metal Gear Solid V is still worth it for the 1st half of the game.

Final Fantasy 8

It’s like the other Final Fantasy games but poorly paced and balanced. The junction system is incredibly interesting in that it tries to sidestep the whole issue of items by gluing your characters to guardian angels. It’s built in card game Triple Triad is simple and engaging. The story is kinda interesting with some time travel shenanigans going on...

But it’s pacing is dreadful with endlessly copypasted rooms. The magic draw system is miserable (and yes I know you can get GFs to convert items to magic but then it’s more tedious busy work to upscale all the magic into something work attaching). The world map is shockingly empty. And the characters are just yawn, yawn, yawn.

Pick it up on sale.

Torchlight 2

It’s like Diablo 2 but not quite as good. Still worth playing though. I got it on the Switch and found that playing it with a gamepad was a pleasant experience.

It has a few balance problems with the Engineer class being ridiculously overpowered compared to any of the others (and way more fun). And there’s some annoying bugs that prompted a few reloads. Still pretty entertaining however.

Pokemon Shield

It’s like every other Pokemon game (surprise surprise) but easier. As much as I like how they’ve removed a lot of busywork from this entry, it makes it feel like the only challenge in the previous titles was the busywork. When really it was the busywork that held you back from just kerb-stomping everything in your path.

It’s not until the final DLC that you’re given some pokemon that are needlessly tedious to catch and some group battles using randomly selected pokemon that test your knowledge of the game’s systems. The only real challenge in the game is in the online multiplayer against humans where your pokemon level is normalised and encyclopedic knowledge of the title’s history is required.

My internet is terrible so the online gameplay is dead to me. It’s a very fun game, but also a very disappointing one.

Burnout Paradise

It’s like a sandbox game for cars. Except that you’re not really driving a car, it’s more like you’re driving a bobsleigh with a rocket attached to it. Unlike most driving games you aren’t given terrain that slows you down. Even if you hit a wall you’ll skate off it so long as you collide sideways. The game just wants you to drive like an arsehole and go faster and faster - to the tune of Epic by Faith No More (literally).

I mean yeah, it’s not an RPG by any stretch but it’s one of the best sandbox games I’ve played. Even when you’re not doing a “mission” you can just drive around the city finding back alleys and ramps to fly off of. It’s just a massive playground with very little negative feedback.

Cyberpunk 2077

It’s like a bunch of different games you’ve played before but not quite as good. The story is the best bit. I really liked the characters I got to hang out with. I guess I would have enjoyed the gun fights if I hadn’t been playing Doom 1 before I played it. And I would have enjoyed the stealth if I hadn’t already played Metal Gear Solid V with its superior A.I. It has cool Obra Dinn style brain movies to explore for detective work but I enjoyed the spectacle of them more than the execution (though I did enjoy them more than Obra Dinn which I found tedious to navigate or understand).

I saw one review say it was the most backwards view of the future. Not imagining what could be but endlessly paying homage to cyberpunk stories of the past.

I see other reviews say play it when it’s fixed. When the myriad of bugs (and I experienced enough to impact gameplay) are solved.

I say play the sequel. It’s worth experiencing but there’s too much going on that’s playing catch up to other titles.

Shiren The Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate

It’s like Rogue. I first played Shiren 2 on the Nintendo DS and was amazed by its deep systems and story meta progression - various tales progressing in the game only after each death and subsequent replay.

This entry is technically Shiren 5. Holy shit the content in this thing. There are 15 optional dungeons with different rules. Over a hundred block pushing puzzles using various mechanics of the game that you can just walk up and play in the 2nd village you enter. A minesweeper minigame. Loads of tutorial levels. All of these give you rewards which you can take on your main adventure which is a wholly different set of dungeons. I’ve unlocked several companions to adventure with and the game is hinting there are even more later on. It is obscene the amount of value there is packed into this title. And it’s fun. A little unfair at times, but as with all roguelikes the later depths require knowledge and a lot of caution. Strong recommendation for roguelikers.

Dicey Dungeons

It’s like Dream Quest but with dice. I played the prototype of this at the 7DRL after party. Terry was quite bashful about his creation and didn’t want to submit it. I honestly didn’t see why he shouldn’t as many of us had made far worse in the past.

I put off playing this until it finally landed on the Switch as complete as any roguelike can hope to be. It’s quite different to Dream Quest in that it requires a bit of math to do well in. If you’re not prepared to do basic sums then it’s hard to make progress. Also unlike Dream Quest it’s very balanced. There’s definitely some cheesy tactics you can pull off to get cheap victories but not without some thought and planning.

In a sea of deck building roguelikes, Dicey Dungeons is quite simply refreshing. There’s a lot of good ideas in here you won’t see elsewhere - give it a go.

[recentanimenews]

Etrian Odyssey Nexus Is A Great Game That Might Destroy You

A few hours into Etrian Odyssey Nexus, I figured that I'd gotten the hang of things. The game does a pretty good job of explaining its ins and outs, and you never feel overwhelmed by the complications of its mechanics. I've never been a huge fan of old school dungeon crawlers (though I did spend a month trying to convince myself that I was definitely a Shin Megami Tensei kind of dude,) but Etrian Odyssey Nexus won me over with its colorful adventurers, simple world building, and lavish customization options.

  And then a big monster killed me, and it was Game Over. Wait, what? That came out of nowhere. There must have been some mistake. It's too early in the game for this to be happening. I'm supposed to be in the "Feeling Awesome About Myself And My Abilities" stage, not in the "Oh God Why Can't I Retreat?" stage. So I grinded a little bit and bought some new weapons and armor, and then I went back to face that same monster, a large, killer panda thing. And I whooped it. I remember pacing around my kitchen with my 3DS and throwing one of my hands in the air like Judd Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club.

  And then I met another killer panda across the map and it was Game Over again. Because Etrian Odyssey Nexus is less about winning all your battles and more about choosing them. 

    The final Etrian Odyssey game for the Nintendo 3DS, Nexus is love letter to fans of the series, a Greatest Hits collection of the franchise, and a rad starting point for newcomers. I know that those first two things seem to contrast against the third one, but you'll see what I mean when you gaze upon the nineteen classes of adventurers that you can choose from. In RPGs, building your team can be less of a fun activity and more of something that's based entirely around utility and functionality. You need a long range guy, a magic guy, a healer, a brawler, etc. It's goes from being about choosing the characters that YOU want to just knocking stuff off a checklist so that the game doesn't pummel you into submission later.

  Nexus combines the best of these two things. Obviously, you want to create a balanced team, but the customization options are deep and interesting enough that you're not really thinking about turning it into some sort of bland equation. And in the end, how you build your characters and use them ends up becoming much more important than just picking out the right classes based on your existing knowledge of how RPGs are supposed to work. As I mentioned, the turn-based battle systems can wreck all of your dreams if you expect a linear system of "I beat this labyrinth with my perfect team, so now I can easily walk into this next labyrinth" progression.

      Instead, as time went on, and as I mapped out the various dungeons, I began to choose a specific plan of attack or lack thereof. In this labyrinth session, I'd grind some and raise my levels against smaller enemies. And then I'd leave, head back to the inn, heal myself, and my next session would be about collecting all the little treasures and discovering all the events hidden in the various nooks of the map. Then I'd go back in and try to take on some of the larger enemies. Then I'd start plowing through the side missions available. Taking on every aspect of each dungeon in one swoop would leave me bedraggled and get my whole party killed. Giving each dungeon run a specific purpose added way more hours to my play time, but also left me significantly less dead.

  I've gone this far in the review without mentioning a single thing about the story and I've done that for a specific reason: It didn't really matter to me. Obviously the game has a narrative, one about the Princess Persephone inviting adventurers to come check out the world of Lemuria and the mythical Yggdrasil Tree, but as you make your way through the dungeons, crafting your own heroes and strategies, the plot falls further and further into the background. The NPC characters that you meet can be sort of important, but when it comes to an emotional impact, they have very little. They're mostly around to exclaim about the cool stuff that you're about to explore or warn you about upcoming dangers. 

    You might get more out of the plot and the people that inhabit the world of Nexus than I did. Heck, it would be hard to get less out of it. But in my opinion, it's mostly just window dressing. Etrian Odyssey Nexus makes no attempt to hide the fact that its draw and main focus is the obsessive dungeon crawling. If you can remember the names of any of the NPCs in the fourth second after meeting them, you're either awesome or a liar. 

  In short, I can't recommend Etrian Odyssey Nexus to everyone. However, I can recommend it to everyone that's ever thought about trying an Etrian Odyssey game before and passed the series up. I remember looking at the covers of the games many times and thinking "Eh, not now," and honestly, I kind of wish that I'd given the series a chance, if only so that I could've seen it grow into the game that Nexus is. So if you're in the mood for an RPG that you'll obsess over and one that absolutely refuses to hold your hand, give Etrian Odyssey Nexus for the Nintendo 3DS a try. Better late than never, ya know?

   REVIEW ROUNDUP:

+ Plentiful amounts of character customization options breathe new life into the standard "pick a balanced team" RPG mechanic

+ Exploring labyrinths and crafting maps rarely gets old

+ You never really have to worry about losing track of the plot or the NPCs

+ Forces you to play smarter if you want to win

- If you're looking for an enthralling story, pick literally any other game

- There are some weird difficulty curves that come without warning

  Are you an Etrian Odyssey fan? Will Nexus be your first attempt at diving into the dungeon-crawling genre? Let us know in the comments!

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  Daniel Dockery is a writer and editor at Crunchyroll. He, like you, has a great Twitter. 

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  By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com