Reviews

Abzû: Fluidity in Control and Design

August 4, 2016 Deanna Reviews

Hey, it’s another review! I got the chance to play Abzû recently. Being a fan of Journey and Flower, I was incredibly excited for Abzû. The creative mind behind the game is Matt Nava, former art director for thatgamecompany’s previously mentioned games. Instead of working with thatgamecompany this time around, he’s founded his own studio, Giant Squid, the developers of Abzû. While in the same sort of low-poly style as the other two games, Abzû aims to be something entirely different. Let’s take a look, then, shall we?

Needless to say, there are Abzû spoilers ahead! If you care about them, play the game and come back.

 

Premise & Story

You start out as an unnamed scuba diver exploring wildlife among floating patches of seaweed in the ocean. From there, while giving players a short tutorial of the controls, the game progresses in a largely linear track. While there are areas that allow for exploration and interaction between routes of linear travel, you’re more of an accessory for the story to show itself through the world around you.

Personally, I liked this form of storytelling quite a bit. There are some things left to interpretation, and even some lore flavor as you explore deeper into the game. The whole world seemed rich and well-researched with each species of fish that swim around in schools in open areas. There’s not much else to say here aside from the fact that this provided a very laid-back experience while playing the game. There was no real pressure to get to the next area, and players were almost encouraged to take their time and poke around. Overall, I really enjoyed the story and its approach in how it was told.

After passing through a section of the game, the player swims to a brightly colored whirlpool amongst an otherwise gray, kelp-covered cavern. Presumably, this transports the player into a different, more ethereal realm, where they awaken the cavern. Upon returning, it’s now teeming with all sorts of plant and fish life. The theme of awakening becomes a large part of the game; players are able to awaken small nests of different species of fish that will swim around certain areas as well as some small robots that follow the player through each chapter.

Plot Summary

There are seven chapters in the game: the first four end after their counterpart in the ethereal realm has been awakened. In chapters two and three, players can see some imagery of an ancient civilization in mosaics on the walls of caverns, along with shark statues that players can meditate on. As the game progresses, more imagery starts appearing, implying that players are moving towards the epicenter of whatever had existed there before.

In the fourth chapter, players explore the last segment before the last trip to the ether. Here the game introduces pyramids  that will give the player an electric shock if they stray too close for too long. In chapter five, players enter the factory that’s been churning out the small robots that have been following them, and at the end must swim through a minefield of the pyramids to witness a shark get electrocuted by a pyramid that’s a lot bigger than the ones you’ve been seeing around.

Continuing on the game’s path, players explore what I assume to be the center of the ancient civilization. After opening a set of doors and swimming through to the center of the center, the final chapter begins.

Players are granted invulnerability and incredible speed as you rush past sections of pyramids and destroy them, once and for all awakening the areas you had in the ether. Finally, players happen upon the source of the disruptions that they’ve been encountering. In turn, it, too, is destroyed and players secure the reefs they’ve been swimming through from the beginning.

Features & Controls

One thing I have to mention is that Abzû takes place largely underwater. Video games are notorious for having pretty crappy underwater controls, and Abzû is not one of these games. Everything about it is fluid, and that includes the underwater controls. Its quirks mainly come from the fact that instead of adjusting the angle of the pitch, I’m very much used to having the controls reset to a zero point instead of staying where they’ve been directed to. Other than that, the controls are solid, if a little loose, but I get the feeling that it’s supposed to be that way. There’s a boost mechanic to help you get past obstacles, like those pyramids, a bit faster.

There are a couple of features that stand out among the game. First is the meditation feature that doubles as a collectible and a fast-travel system. Littered throughout the game, once or twice per section, there are shark statues that players can sit on top of and “meditate”, watching the fish swim by for an indefinite period of time. It makes a nice screen saver, and the attention to detail in the fish is a bit stunning.

Interactions with the little robots, schools of fish, and the environment are satisfying and very fun.

Aesthetics

My favorite part of the game is how good it looks. The 71 screenshots on my Steam profile should at least say that much. Bright colors adorn schools of fish and plants alike, and even in the dull, un-awakened sections look like they have some life in them. Flora and fauna are fun to swim through, and the game feels polished. I’m talking about a Nintendo-polish level of polish, here. It looks great. Even the meditation sections would make a nice idle display for when you’re not using your computer, as I’ve said before.

The music is composed by the wonderful Austin Wintory, as was Journey’s soundtrack. It’s not something I’d really listen to outside of the game but it fits nicely with the overall atmosphere.

Overall Impressions & Final Words

Abzû is great, and I really love it. It’s a nice, calming change from other games I’ve been playing recently and it’s worth its price tag of $20. It’s a little short at just about two hours, and is on sale on Steam right now for $16. If you want my recommendation, pick it up! Even if it’s just for that meditation feature.

 

All images used in this post come from my own Steam screenshot library. View them all here!

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We Happy Few: Early Access Impressions

July 30, 2016 Adam Articles, Reviews

For a long time now we’ve been hearing about We Happy Few and during that time people managed to create their own expectations for it. These expectations basically boiled down to a Bioshock-like experience. Basically what we’ve been told is that it will be a story driven experience with some forms of procedural generation. Now before I get into this discussion I’d like to make a few disclaimers. This is an EARLY ACCESS PRODUCT meaning the game is nowhere near being finished and any judgements being made are for in its current state, not what it will be. Therefore, there will be no review score at the bottom. I should also mention that I’ve been playing the Xbox One version, so any performance issues I’ll be talking about don’t represent the PC version. Ok, let’s get into it.

When you first start up We Happy Few, it takes you to the section that was shown at E3 this year during the Microsoft press conference. This E3 gameplay trailer ended right as the game actually opens up. You get knocked out by the guard and you end up in your underground residence. The game doesn’t really tell you how you got here, you just have to keep moving forward. That’s all they have for the story parts so far. They even mention it in their disclaimer before you start playing the game.

 

WeHappyFew1

*said disclaimer* (source: Google Images)

 

So there’s not a hell of a lot to judge on that front other than its immediately interesting, this opening section is immediately interesting and I would like to know more. Unfortunately we won’t know any extra story bits until 1.0 comes along, and judging by its current state that’s going to be a long time away. After this opening segment you’re introduced to an open world where you can wander wherever you’d like, until you either die or run into a bridge that is.

Much to my surprise, this game is actually a roguelike with survival elements. When I say survival elements, I mean it’s got them all. It has a crafting system, survival meters (hunger, thirst, sleep and health), and you even search through abandoned houses and such to find these scraps. There’s also other elements of the survival aspect that aren’t immediately apparent. Some examples being, if you eat rotten food you’ll get sick and if you take your Joy pills you’ll go through withdrawal symptoms when it’s over and your other meters will drain faster. This wouldn’t be all that bad if it wasn’t so damn overbearing. The meters are draining at an almost constant basis and after a little while it just becomes a massive burden. Rather than surviving while playing the game, you’re just spending all of your time surviving.

When getting into the other roguelike elements, like restarting after your character dies just seems unnecessary. Now, I’m a massive fan of roguelikes Spelunky is one of my favorite games ever made, so I’m not necessarily a stranger games resetting your progress upon death. However, in We Happy Few, it does something that I’ve never really encountered in any roguelikes and it really rubbed me the wrong way. When you die and restart, the quests seem to stay the same. So every time I had to restart I found myself doing the same quests over and over again. It became very repetitive and almost completely unnecessary. They way that Compulsion has set this game up is basically an open world adventure style game, only when you die you have to repeat the same quests. When you have a roguelike set up like this it massively takes away from the fun. I found myself doing the same quests over and over again. It inevitably started to feel like a chore. It got to the point where I just decided to turn the permadeath off completely and it ended up providing a much better experience. This game misses the core of what makes a roguelikes so damn fun, learning from your mistakes. Instead of attempting to change how you approach each run, it felt like I didn’t have any options and it was just trial and error. The way you play this game doesn’t lend itself well to traditional roguelike tropes.

Now, it isn’t all necessarily negative because this game doesn’t really have to change a hell of a lot for it to drastically improve. This game has a fantastic art style and mood. In the first few minutes it really managed to make me feel weirded out and very interested to find out more about what happened to the world. There’s something to this game and I can’t exactly put my finger on it. Basically, it’s just trying to accomplish too many things at once, it almost feels like somewhere along through development it lost its destination and now it’s just going wherever the hell it wants.

In its current state, We Happy few also has some massive technical issues on the Xbox One version, but that’s to be expected in an early access game. Frequent frame drops, excessively long loading screens, a lot of texture problems and sometimes signs even turn up in the middle of the street. In addition to these technical problems, the A.I is also incredibly wonky. A lot of the time there’s no given reason as to why some of them will attack you, they just do. I’m not sure if that’s something that was intended or not because of how little they actually tell you about the game, but regardless when it happens it seems to have no rhyme or reason to it.

 

IMG_7634

A happy little sign (source: a screenshot I took)

 

For an example on how buggy this game currently is, there are bridges in this game that serve as checkpoints. You need to have a few things accomplished in order to enter them. I tried entering one of them with none of the criteria met. The gate opened and it let me through which was already surprising. However, after it let me through I got stuck in a wall and beaten to death by the guards that let me through. This wasn’t a thing that was supposed to happen either, other times I had tried to enter the guards tell you that you can’t get through and then proceed to beat you to a pulp. But the game saw it that I had met all of the criteria in order to enter, then realized it fucked up and murdered me.

 

We Happy Few in its current state does not leave good impressions with me. It’s currently a mess and it has no clear focus. I’m not entirely sure if releasing this game in early access was a good idea for them, especially because Compulsion Games has been getting such a massive pass with its aesthetics alone. If you’re considering buying into We Happy Few now, I’d suggest maybe waiting a little bit until they have some things figured out.

Iron from Ice- Telltale Game of Thrones Season 1 Review

July 20, 2016 Ricky Reviews

When you play the Game of Thrones you win…or you die. However this game doesn’t seem to follow those rules. While its a great prospect to have control in events of Game of Thrones, especially if you are a huge fan of the series like myself, you’ll see that this game quickly drops the ball as the episodes go by.

Gameplay

In typical Telltale fashion, the game places emphasis in how you respond in conversations and choices to advance the story. Often these are presented with multiple prompts for response with a time limit. You can always choose to stay silent as an option. Something handy in these games is that it allows for multiple saves and a “rewind” function, allowing you to amend a decision if you regret it.

The few times there is combat, they are always in the form of quick time events. A lot of them require a lot of trial and error, especially when they need you to hit a certain target, which can be a tad more difficult when not playing on a console.

in typical telltale fashion, you decide wheather you want to bow to another, or stand your ground. Image Source: Gamepressure.com

in typical telltale fashion, you decide whether you want to bow to another, or stand your ground. Image Source: Gamepressure.com

One frustrating element during these quick time events is sometimes the game won’t fault you for missing them and sometimes it will. There was a section where I missed a command prompt and was presented with the death screen (Saying “Valar Morghulis” as would be typical for Game of Thrones). I tried it again and succeeded, but happened to miss a command thirty seconds later, yet the character still dodged and continued just fine. And these combat sections get very monotonous, very fast.

Beyond combat, you are allowed to walk around and examine from time to time. While they help show more of the community you are in and the characters in it, too often it feels like it’s  breaking up the action, and all you want it for it to end.

Graphics

The Telltale art design blends very well with the world of Game of Thrones, helping to create nearly spot-on likenesses of characters (aside from Margaery looking a bit off in my opinion). The lip flaps may not perfect, not always moving in perfect rhythm with what’s said. In one scene,my game didn’t show the mouths didn’t move at ALL. But that same kind of quality doesn’t carry over to the scenery.

Although its pre-rendered, the look gorgeous, especially with the light and atmosphere of each set piece helped to convey the mood and paint the world as vividly as possible.

Ironwrath quickly shows itself to be one of the best designs in the game, making the Forrester castle’s segments the most beautiful. Image Source: Game of Thrones.wikia.com

 

The scenery also works well in tandem with some fantastic music to set up key moments of the story. And that transitions into my next point.

Sound

The voice acting in the game is all-around very well done. Although some characters like, Mira, have voices that are a little too monotone. Image Source: Geeklyinc.com

The music in the game seems like it was taken straight from the show, showing the quality of this original score. Music coming in and out of certain hard and tense decisions only helped to show the gravity of the situation and the risks shown.

For voice acting however, it can be hit or miss. They even bring in actors from the show such as Peter Dinklage(Tyrion Lannister), Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister), Kit Harrington (Jon Snow),Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen), Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell), and Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Snow). While Dinklage, Headey, Clarke and ESPECIALLY Rheon  bring their characters to life, Dormer and Harrington sound a bit too bored.

For non-show voice actors, they are for the most part very well done. I especially highlight Gared’s voice acting as some of the most moving in the whole game. However, I hope you’re a fan of Yuri Lowenthall, because he is everywhere in this game.

Story

The real highlight of a Telltale game. If you are familiar with the Game of Thrones universe, then you know the setting ideally. If not then the game won’t really hold your hand. You take on the role of several members of House Forrester, a noble house of the North who are loyal to the Stark Family. They are very much like the Starks, but don’t trust the wrong people as easily. Their rivals are the Whitehills, who both fight for control for resources and land.

In continuity of the show, the game begins at the end of Season 3 and the beginning of Season 4. If you haven’t gotten that far in the show then I recommend you stop reading.

Certain characters you can favor more than others, and that will affect their role in the story. Image Source: Gamestar.de

The first episode begins as House Forrester is betrayed by the Boltons and the Freys at the Red Wedding. From there on you play as Gared Tuttle (a servant to House Forrester) at the Wall, Mira Forrester at King’s Landing, Asher Forrester at Essos/Mereen, and Ethan Forrester at Ironwrath, the Forrester family castle. That isn’t the limit of playable characters, but telling you would spoil the game.

Several cast members of the show make an appearance. Some more worthless than others however.  Tyrion and Cercei are hard to outmaneuver and just as crafty as they would be in the show. Ramsay Snow is every bit as sadistic and disturbing as you would expect. However, while it’s great to have Kit Harrington come in as Jon Snow, aside from a minor moment with Gared, he has no impact on the plot. The same could be said for Emilia Clarke as Daenerys. If you aren’t as big a fan of her in the show, then you will despise her in this game, acting overly hostile and going back on deals.

As great as it is to have Gared learn from him as a mentor, Jon really offers nothing in terms of the story, and really acts as more of a glorified cameo. Image Source: IGN.com

One of the biggest criticisms I have for this game’s story is that while oftentimes it will say “Tyrion will remember this” or “Margaery appreciated that”, when really, it has no bearing on what happens later. Characters will completely forget any kindness or slight you’ve done to them in favor of furthering the already set path of the story. Because the story really is on a set path…no matter what you do.

Sure there may be slight variations, but things generally end the same for all characters, and no choices really affect the ending until the final two episodes. However, despite the lack of freedom the game is supposedly built on, the story is actually very good. In classic Game of Thrones fashion you can’t count on anyone to make it out in one piece, but you still grow to love the characters and want the Forresters to make it out on top.

Even the Whitehills are even placed in a human light. While they all seem to be insufferably annoying brutes, they do have some humanity that you can discover, and even exploit if you wanted.

Final Verdict

Season 1 of Telltale’s Game of Thrones starts off very strong but fails to deliver as time goes on. A lot of game changing decisions don’t take place until the final two episodes, but the story none the less is well done. The designs and music help to elevate the story that fits in perfectly within the universe of Game of Thrones. Despite some flaws in the story choices and the quick-time events becoming monotonous, the game is still a good experience, especially if you are a Game of Thrones fan. I recommend if it is ever on sale, then go for it.

A lost opportunity. Image Source: ausgamers.com

Furi – Intense Combat, A+ Soundtrack (Early Impressions)

July 7, 2016 Deanna Reviews

OH MAN. Here we go, guys. Furi is a game where many of my favorite things intersect. First, you have a neon-dipped, fast-paced game based around satisfying controls and combat. Next up, a somewhat vague story driven by characters who sincerely kick ass, in more ways than one. And finally, to round out this list of things, a shorter list: a killer synth-based soundtrack with collector’s edition vinyl, and immensely difficult gameplay.

I should preface the rest of this review by saying that I’m not used to difficult games by any margin. I’m pretty sure Bloodborne and Hotline Miami rank among the hardest games I’ve played. I don’t know if that says anything about me as a person, but I like to take it easy in my games. You know, go along for the ride.

Furi is having none of that. Even during its tutorial level, Furi pushes gameplay that’s challenging to most people. The fights are long and frustrating at times, and my only qualm here is that a checkpoint after a boss has lost a certain amount of health, maybe two-thirds, would be nice. Furi offers an easier difficulty for those who don’t want to put up with the normal one, but you sacrifice the ability to earn achievements and unlock harder difficulties. You also lose the ability to unlock their speed run mode.

There’s something that keeps me coming back to Furi even as the difficulty ramps up. There’s no feeling quite like decimating a boss in their final stage without getting hit, and it’s something that comes with practice. Even in my limited play time so far, I can see myself improving. And we’ll get to that in a bit.

To set the scene, where I’m at, anyway, you’re an unnamed silent protagonist breaking out of prison with the help of some other unnamed dude wearing a purple bunny hood. To gain your freedom, “The jailer is the key. Kill him, and you’ll be free.” After every battle, you learn more about your guide, and about why you were locked up in the first place.

This boss features Carpenter Brut’s “You’re Mine”, composed for the game. (via PlayStation Blog)

Gameplay and Handling

If you’re going to make a boss-rush bullet hell game, you need to nail the responsiveness of your controls. And congratulations, The Game Bakers, you’ve done it. Moving around is satisfying, as it should be with twin-stick games. You have a parry which will heal you when successful, a slash attack, and a dash at your disposal to get yourself out of tight situations and inflict damage. Parrying an attack at the last second activates a “perfect parry”, which knocks the boss down.

There’s some advanced tech in the movements as well, where you can charge a slash while dashing to avoid enemy attacks.While I find a lot of these are situational, it’s pretty nice to know. Along with healing after a successful parry, there are green projectiles that turn into health orbs when shot. They’re few and far-between, and it can sometimes be riskier getting to them than staying put.

There are a couple mechanics which make the long fights more manageable. One which I find breaks up the monotony of endless dodging is that after knocking out a boss’s shields, combat shifts to a close-quarters fight. Additionally, when you take a full bar of life off a boss, your current one is entirely healed. Conversely, the boss gets this advantage as well, and if you fail in close-quarters, the boss heals up their shields, too. This is another area where I’m critical of the choice. It seems unfair sometimes, as parrying while in close-quarters or during the shield phase doesn’t heal all too much, but it’s not a deal breaker.

Between the bosses, there’s a fair amount of exposition. These are like walking simulators with some story and background. I’m not a huge fan of walking through them so slowly. The great thing here is that there’s an auto-walk option, so you can sit back and enjoy the cutscene leading up to the next boss.

There isn’t much but talking and walking. (via The Game Bakers)

Difficulty and Frustration Factor

While I’ve already covered how difficult the game is, I haven’t quite covered how infuriating some battles are. There’s a lot to watch out for, and a lot to focus on. Sometimes due to the colorful nature of the game, projectiles and ground attacks blur together. And while it makes for interesting visuals and some pretty hard stuff to dodge, unfortunately it makes it so I can’t sit for hours and work my way through. I can do 45 minutes at most without getting sloppy– dodging directly into damage, parrying poorly, and giving up too much of my precious life bar. And unfortunately there’s nothing I can do to combat this but get better at rushing the boss and taking breaks.

I don’t want to, though. I want to be able to sink hours into the game without tearing my hair out, and to prove to myself that not only can I get good, but I can actually withstand the difficulty a game puts in front of me without falling off in how effective I am at fighting. I feel like the real fight here is to not set the difficulty to an easier one. And trust me, that temptation is alive and kicking even as I write this.

Up close and personal with the first jailer. (via The Game Bakers)

Soundtrack

Despite all the shortcomings I have with difficult games, the one thing that keeps me going is the soundtrack. Initially I heard about the game browsing on YouTube. I can’t remember what led me there, but I saw a new track with Carpenter Brut’s name on it. I wasn’t a hard sell, Carpenter Brut is among one of my favorite synthwave artists. He sits among several others that are well-known for their music: Danger, Lorn, Scattle, and Kn1ght, to name a few. It’s available for purchase on Bandcamp (here!) as either a digital album or a collector’s edition vinyl, which is limited to a run of 800. Excuse me while I stare out my window and wait for it to arrive, please.

It’s worth the exorbitant shipping price, you gotta believe me. (Image via Bandcamp)

In Conclusion

If you enjoy difficult games, or even just a challenge, do yourself a favor and add this one to your collection. I can’t urge you enough, without being entirely repetitive, about how much you should play this game. Even if you have to do it on easy mode, do it. There’s no game I’d recommend more from this year so far.

Zero Time Dilemma: A Spoiler-Free Review

July 6, 2016 Kennedy Reviews

This is a spoiler-free review. No Zero Time Dilemma (henceforth ZTD) spoilers, no Virtue’s Last Reward (henceforth VLR), and no 999 spoilers. Read to your heart’s content, but know that this is a trilogy that needs to be played in order: 999, VLR, and then ZTD. DO NOT play ZTD with having first played 999 and then VLR because several very important scenes won’t make sense, and moreover, you’ll spoil 999 and VLR for yourself.

 

 

It’s no secret that I’m quite a big fan of the Zero Escape series.

ZE

Being the finishing piece in a trilogy of critically acclaimed games, ZTD had very high expectations for its release. Ignoring the Amazon snafu (which thankfully, didn’t affect me) it seems to have been very well received within its first week, and definitely living up to the hype. Like many other fans, I’ve been looking forward to this game since before its release was even confirmed. I had high hopes. Seeing as how I picked it up on a Tuesday and beat it the following Friday, I’d say it didn’t disappoint.

 

 

Writing:

Arguably the most important part of a Zero Escape game is its writing. Most notably, it’s unique, almost Bioshock-esque way of strongly yet gracefully breaking the fourth wall—which is stronger than ever in ZTD. The plot, at its base, remains unchanged: Nine people are captured by a mysterious figure going by the name of Zero, who tells them that they must risk their lives and play his game to escape a confined area. Taking place one year after 999, it features the two main protagonists of 999, the two main protagonists of VLR, and 5 new characters. Unlike any other Zero Escape game, , character interactions feel more personal in this game because there are simply more characters who knew each other prior to the events of ZTD. Moreover, they’re the most bold, dynamic group we’ve seen in a Zero Escape game. Watching them interact with each other throughout the course of the game an seeing just how even the smallest things can set them off and how it effects everyone else—very much like a domino effect—is one of the best parts of the game. Moreso than any other Zero Escape game, ZTD truly brings the player into its world with its writing. The only main flaw with the writing is that whereas most of it is so detailed and well-thought out (like these games have been in the past) certain aspects of it (which I won’t mention specifically, but the image will say it all for those of you who have played the game, I’m sure) seemed to be written hastily, as they were never fully explained, and in some aspects, almost seem contradictory to previously established facts and traits of certain characters. Compared to the otherwise stellar writing in the game, it makes it all the more obvious when something wasn’t thought out to the fullest. Fortunately, this only happens a small number of times, but unfortunately, it only makes it all the more obvious and disappointing when it does happen. Although the writing in this game isn’t perfect, and definitely flawed by the aforementioned hasty sections, overall it’s still wonderful: All the questions left behind from 999 and VLR have been answered (albeit, some of them answered poorly, but answered nonetheless.) It’s worth mentioning, however, that this game left behind a few small questions itself. Not a ton of questions, but enough, I think, to warrant making an epilogue.

This just in: Local Man Ruins Everything via koizumiappreciation.tumblr.com

 

Gameplay:

The gameplay of ZTD consists of 3 major things: Shifting from fragment to fragment, puzzles, and decision games. Without any kind of context, the player is thrown into a story that, rather than being linear, is scattered into fragments. These fragments are bits of the story through the perspective of different groups of characters. You play as the different groups at different times, making different decisions that will affect other fragments. When it comes times to make choices, the story will branch based on what you choose, though you will return later to see what would happen had you done something else. When you switch to a new fragment, it’s referred to as “shifting” and there are characters who become aware of it, eventually, which is one of the major factors that the plot revolves around. Ultimately, you’ll be exploring every possible fragment and seeing every possible outcome and using your knowledge of the story to lead you to one true ending. Through this, you get to see the story unfold in a way unlike any other game. Additionally, there is a flowchart to help you keep track of the chronological order of everything.

via TechRaptor

Secondly, there are the puzzles. This is wherein the most gameplay resides. Throughout the game, you’ll be trapped in 13 different rooms and, through a series of puzzles and use of just about anything you can fin in the room, must escape. Additionally, many times the rooms will contain something that’s relevant to the plot, as well, so it’s not like you can just escape from a room and be done with it. What you find in that room remains relevant. Just as its the nature of a Zero Escape game to have these puzzles, though, it’s also in their nature to be quite… obtuse. ZTD is very interesting in this regard because there are many escape puzzles in this game which are, for a Zero Escape game (which are already known to be pretty tricky unless you’re using a guide or a walkthrough) pretty easy. These games make it no secret that they want you to use your brain—whether its in the scientifically-inclined writing or the gameplay. Despite that, however, most of the puzzles in this game didn’t feel as challenging as they were in the previous entries. On the other hand, the rooms that were difficult were obscenely difficult. There’s very little in-between, making it really hard to say whether this game is an easy or hard one overall—especially considering that you can do these rooms in any order you want because of the non-linear nature of this game.

via usgamer

Finally, there’s the decisions. Zero has gathered and trapped our nine protagonists to play the Decision Game. Essentially, what that means is, he reveals to them that to escape they need 6 X-Passes. Every time someone dies, an X-Pass is revealed—essentially meaning that to escape, 6 people must die. To add to the suspense, he constantly puts the characters in very difficult situations and puts them into (usually) life-threatning decisions: The Decision Game. You, the player, will be the one making the decision. As mentioned before, the point of the game is to see every possible outcome, so eventually, you will choose every possible answer to every possible dilemma. Rather than taking away from the situational drama, however, it adds to it. The point of the game is to use knowledge that you learned from shifting between fragments—even if it’s something that the characters you’re playing as don’t know. It is explained in-game how it’s possible for them to have this knowledge, but this is a spoiler-free review. One of the most satisfying parts of the game is learning new knowledge that’ll affect a decision that you might not have been able to make, or revealing a new answer that’ll take you deeper into the rich story of ZTD.

via punkandlizard

Despite all this, it’s worth noting that you will definitely be spending more time in this game watching cutscenes than not. Having such good writing and a riveting plot, I don’t think it’s much of an issue, but if you don’t like games where you watch more than you play—even if there’s still definite gameplay—then you probably won’t like just ZTD, but the Zero Escape trilogy as a whole because all 3 games are like this.

 

Art/Graphics:

Although the 2D art looks superb—especially next to the art of the previous entries in the games—and the sprites look remarkably better than they did in previous games, the visuals in this game aren’t without sin. Particularly in characters with long hair there are several instances of slight clipping, and mouths almost never sync up to what the characters are saying. Some might attribute that to the fact that this is a Japanese game and that it’s designed for the Japanese voice actors. I find that strange, however, seeing as how Zero Escape is remarkably more successful in the West. Moreover, the English version was released before the Japanese. Combined with the stiff animations, it’s easy to see why several fans were disappointed. Regardless, although noticeable, these aren’t major issues that are so distracting that they detract from the game over all.

via GamersAssaultWeekly

 

Verdict:

Although slightly marred by slipshod graphics and a few dashes of hasty writing, ZTD is the finest entry in the Zero Escape trilogy. It’s been a very long time since a game has put me on an emotional roller coaster as extreme in the one in ZTD. Worth every penny of its $40 price. A must-play for any Zero Escape fan, fans of puzzle games, fans of science fiction, or anyone looking for a few new handheld games to play.

via wegotthiscovered

Mighty No. 9 Review

July 3, 2016 dan Reviews

With its constant delays and the horrible business practices surrounding it, people thought the elusive Mighty No. 9 would never actually come out. Especially if you’re like me and have been following it since the Kickstarter was announced, three years ago. And hey, there’s good reason to lose hope. It seemed like this game just could never get away from delays. Hell, even the survey for the backers got delayed. But then, on June 21st, 2016, it happened. The magical day, it finally released.

Except the 360 version. Even after this game releases it still can’t get away from being delayed.

The general consensus of the reviews for Mighty No. 9 has been that it’s mediocre at best. Is this the case, or are these reviews overstating it? Is it as poor an excuse of a Mega Man successor as everyone is saying, or is there at least something there? Let’s take a look at it without keeping in mind the context around it, and just as what it was intended to be: A platformer intended to succeed Mega Man. Hopefully it doesn’t make me cry like an anime fan on prom night.

Gameplay

Out of all the things Mega Man is known for, the franchise’s biggest claim to fame is its genius level design and control. Seeing as how Mega Man is a golden standard of platforming for many, myself included, Mighty No. 9 has a huge legacy to live up to. But here’s the thing, drawing comparison to Mega Man OR Mega Man X is just not a good idea, because Mighty No. 9 is more or less its own thing. Of course it still tries to pull off a Mega Man kind of feeling, but the style in which you move around, how you fight enemies, and even the level design itself are like its own part. Try not to think of it as trying to bring back an older Mega Man style, but to try and create a different one. Drawing direct comparisons to Mega Man games won’t work, because its style is just too different. That said, you can still create a feeling of Mega Man while creating a new style of play, and that’s what I’m going to be looking at for Mighty No. 9.

Now, onto the big question: Does this newer style work? Well… Kinda. Mechanically speaking, Mighty No 9 feels great. Beck controls like a dream, firing his buster and landing hits is insanely satisfying, and the dash mechanic feels so good to use. He feels a little light, which is perfect for making you want to dash through levels and collect points, and some of his alternate weapons are pretty cool in concept. It feels like a style of Mega Man, for sure. And in a good way.

This is one of the big things, though. It’s great mechanically. From a level design aspect, it’s nowhere near a Mega Man standard of quality. Remember how I mentioned that you can retain a Mega Man style while not being comparable to any form of Mega Man? Well, this is where it fails. The level design in Mighty No. 9 is very basic, and the variety in levels isn’t as, well, various as it should be. For the eight stages at the start of the game, 4 of them felt unique, and the other 4 just felt like the same okay level over and over. They all did somewhat different things, but they were all executed in the same way, and no new concepts were really introduced; just new obstacles. Like, twice. That’s something that Mega Man in general, regardless of which one you’re looking at, just doesn’t do. Mega Man is about showing the player a new concept in each different stage, and then asking them to execute it. It’s about providing obstacles that take at least some form of tact or execution to get over, while still giving the player the resources to figure out a way to get through it without feeling cheated, and making these obstacles varied and new in each area to keep you on your toes. Mighty No. 9 does none of this. Everything you do just feels like you’re moving in a straight line, rushing to get to the boss and move on. No new concepts, no new ideas, no keeping you on your toes.

Air Stage

Image courtesy of VIDEOGAMER

And it’s not like making the player get through as fast as possible is something Mega Man doesn’t do; look at Mega Man Zero. It encourages speedrunning and going for higher scores, but it does so while also introducing new challenges consistently, and makes the stages so that to get the best score, you have to actually try. Unlike the cakewalk of level design that is Mighty No. 9.

That said, Mighty No. 9 does have some fun stages in it. They’re not all bad. I quite enjoyed the stages for Mighty Numbers 5, 6, and 7 (or as I like to call him, “totally not Proto Man”), along with that stealth-ish stage where you play as Call, and the final two stages of getting into the robot factory, and then the final boss.  And on a few more stages, there are some fun segments. Objectively speaking, the level design isn’t bad, it’s just… Way too simple; too basic. For the number of fun stages you get, along with the good controls, I’d say that there’s just enough of good things to make it worth the $20 price tag it’s asking for. Not much more than that, though.

Looks and Sound

Now onto graphics and–

mighty_no_9.0.0

Okay yeah it’s not the best. That said, the trailer looks much worse than how the game does. Unlike many, I don’t really think Mighty No. 9 looks bad. It doesn’t look good, don’t get me wrong. But it’s… Fine. Granted with an almost $4 million budget, you’d expect much more, but it gets the job done. Characters look okay, environments are okay. Quality of the models is… Okay.

Aside from the pizza explosions. Those are actually real and they look exactly like that.

As for music… What music? You mean those incredibly soft tracks underneath everything going on that can barely be heard? I mean I guess it’s not bad music, but it doesn’t do much. There are a few songs I thought were pretty catchy, but it’s nothing I’m going to listen to outside of the game. A meh soundtrack that you can hardly hear to begin with.

Content

And now onto something surprising: Mighty No. 9 has a surprising amount of content. You’ve got the main story, which consists of 12 stages, and will run you about 5 hours. Then, you have challenge mode, which can be done in either solo or co-op. which contains numerous missions that can actually be quite challenging at times, and can actually get pretty fun, and the Ray DLC, which was free for backers and people who purchased the retail version, and is buyable for those who didn’t. This actually makes the game take up quite a bit of time, and definitely offers enough content for its price tag.

Conclusion: Should you buy Mighty No. 9?

For those of you who don’t care about the situation surrounding Mighty No. 9, it’s a decent game that’s worth its asking price. It’s not a spectacular game, and it needed a lot more work to live up to what it was made out to be, but I wouldn’t say it’s as mediocre as everyone else has been saying. There is definitely something there, and it’s trying to do something. It just needed better direction. It’s more good than bad, and it’s definitely worth the $20, but I wouldn’t pay much more than that.

Drawful 2: Quantity & Quality

June 24, 2016 Deanna Reviews

I’m a fan of multiplayer games. Drawful 2 is one of them. I like being able to sit in a room or in a voice chat and play a game together. Growing up, my cousins and I were always playing board games that could accommodate the lot of us, and surprisingly enough Monopoly was a favorite.

Playing Drawful with my friends felt a lot like playing Monopoly with my cousins. We’re all crammed into a room with no AC and rapidly heating up the space. Laughter and impromptu charades are mere seconds away at any given time.

When I bought Drawful 2 last night I immediately went to the group chat for willing volunteers. It’s time to socialize, kiddos. Half an hour later, four of us were laughing about our crappy drawings just a hair past midnight.

Good times and late-night drawing sessions aside, Drawful 2 is a big improvement from the first one. After a few games, the prompts got stale and the whole thing was a chore to play until we expanded our horizons to include everyone who happened to pass by our college’s video game lounge, which didn’t appeal to many.

Play Style

The first Drawful allowed for up to eight players, and promised a good time to anyone with a smartphone or a tablet to draw on. The premise is that you get a prompt, a blank space to illustrate it in, and an audience to convince. Needless to say, playing this with artist friends (such as our own Kennedy) is great.

If you’re like the rest of us and don’t have a career lined up based on your ability to draw or produce something visually coherent, it ends up being a challenge to come up with a caption that makes sense with the rest of the audience, sans the artist whose piece is displayed. After that, your job is to guess the  correct caption. You get points for everyone you fool into picking yours, and the artist gets double for representing the prompt well.

via Polygon

Initial Thoughts & Impressions

At first I expected to have a couple rounds go by and then have the whole thing get boring, but fortunately that was not so. The prompts kept coming, and kept forcing me to get more creative with my fake prompts. I like that it was challenging to draw some of the prompts given, and it made the whole draw-and-display process fun.

What I really like is the fact that Drawful 2 boasts more prompts than the first. It gives the game some replay value and gives players a variety of things to draw. Seriously, this is a huge improvement.

via True Achievements

Improvements & Playability Upgrades

If you’ve ever thought about streaming a Jackbox game like Quiplash or Drawful 2, you’re in luck. Jackbox has graciously added in a couple features that’ll make the game go a long way.

For starters, the interface for drawing and submitting captions lets you draw in two colors. Think of all the added depth! Aside from that, if you thought that the prompts were getting a little stale, then you have the option to make your own. Make one for your friends, for your family, and even your grandparents if you please. This adds a social aspect to the game that’s much-needed, in my opinion. You can share prompt episodes with others if you so choose.

For streamers specifically, Drawful 2 comes with a host of censorship options for prompts and drawings alike. If your players are more inclined to submit lewd images, you can filter them out for your audience. And that player stays filtered out for the rest of the game. To ensure that Twitch.tv players aren’t hiding behind an alias, there’s a feature to log in through Twitch as well.

via Arnie Niekamp on Twitter

Final Thoughts

Overal, Drawful 2 is solid. Like, really solid. It’s a vast improvement over the original and a good addition to anyone’s multiplayer arsenal. It’s got replay value, custom prompts, and it just feels nice. Would highly recommend. And if you’re feeling friendly, we’ll be hosting sessions where you can play along with The Lifecast crew as well. Consider this an open invitation.

 

Cover image via VideoGamesAwesome.com

Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator: The Best of the Best

June 21, 2016 dan Reviews

If you’ve been reading my articles, you may have noticed I have quite a love of fighting games. In addition to my love of fighting games, I also love heavy metal, and, on top of that, am complete and utter weeaboo trash. So obviously, Guilty Gear is a series that really resonates with me. The newest entry in the series, Guilty Gear Xrd -Revelator-, just came out two weeks ago, and I’ve been playing it ever since I got my hands on it. The previous entry in the series, Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, was known as the most anticipated fighting game of the year after its announcement, and had received critical acclaim upon release. How does the follow up to Daisuke Ishiwatari’s passion project do? Well, let me be straight with you here: Guilty Gear Xrd -Revelator- is the single greatest experience I’ve had with a fighting game.

Gameplay

When people talk about fighting games with a lot of mechanics, Guilty Gear is one of the first that gets mentioned. Guilty Gear Xrd -Revelator- (from here on out referred to as just “Revelator”) is able to hold on to a lot of complex mechanics without making learning and adapting to them difficult, thanks to its incredible tutorial mode. Normally I wouldn’t talk about the tutorial mode in a review, but Revelator is able to do the one thing other fighting games can’t: teach the game well. The tutorial mode puts you in a fun minigame-like environment where they present concepts to you and then ask you to execute them OUTSIDE of a battle situation, which allows inexperienced players to learn much easier, and opens up the game to a broader audience.

Image courtesy of Kotaku

The tutorial is fun! (Image courtesy of Kotaku)

Okay, now that I’ve gushed about how good the tutorial is, let’s get into the actual combat. Unlike Street Fighter, which is a 6-button fighter, Revelator is a 5-button fighter. In Street Fighter, you have 3 punches and 3 kicks, with each ranging from light to heavy. In Revelator, you have Punch, Kick, Slash, Heavy Slash, and Dust. Aside from punch and kick, I don’t really know what the names mean, but that’s what they’re called. Combos in this game focus more on chaining everything you can get together in a flurry of flashy hits and specials, as opposed to the more slow combos in something like Street Fighter. It’s very easy to make combos in Revelator, but to make good combos is going to take time and effort. Unlike in most recent fighting games where they are trying to lower the execution barrier, Revelator still retains the complexity the Guilty Gear franchise is known for. Don’t let that scare you off, though, because Revelator has this special little thing called Stylish Mode. A mode that originated in the other flagship Arc System Works fighting game, BlazBlue. Basically, Stylish Mode is a mode where you don’t need to have any skill in execution at all to do all these cool-looking combos, so you can just relax and have fun without going into a scene where everyone outclasses you. It’s a very good decision to include this because it allows the more casual audience to have fun and be invested in the game without having to spend hours learning someone that they might just wanna jump right into and mess around with.

Now, remember when I said that there are a lot of mechanics in this game? Well for the sake of keeping this review at a reasonable size I’m only going to explain the more important ones. That said, every mechanic in this game is important in some way or another, and you should totally learn the rest of them if you’re interested.

First off, there’s the Burst technique, which is a blast of energy that pushes your opponent off of you while they’re mid combo, mid block string, or anything really. It uses up burst meter, and you have to use it wisely, because of you burst and it doesn’t hit your opponent, you won’t get it back for a while, meaning your opponent doesn’t have to worry about being thrown away. There’s the Blitz Shield, which is a universal parry that everyone has, and making a good read and blitzing the opponent can lead to huge damage. You can also charge it for this really strong focus attack style move, which does good damage on its own and produces a crumple effect on the opponent, allowing for huge combo potential. Finally, there’s the most important mechanic of Revelator: The Roman Cancel. Red, yellow, and purple Roman cancels (here on referred to as RRC, YRC, and PRC), each do basically the same thing, but their uses vary on the situation. The RRC is used mainly as a combo extender. It interrupts your current animation and resets you, so you can follow up with literally anything and combo for even longer. The YRC is used when you need to maneuver a bit better, or start moving sooner. You use it to either adjust yourself to avoid an attack, or use it to reset your animation after throwing a projectile. Finally, the PRC is used in case you mess up and have to reset your animation to save your ass. Each mechanic is vital to competitive success in the game, and they reward players who master them very well, and punish players who don’t.

The Blitz technique. (Image courtesy of Hitconfirm)

The Blitz technique. (Image courtesy of hitconfirm)

The focus on combat in Revelator is the perfect blend of fundamentals and execution, revolving around a strong neutral game, but also needing big combos to deal significant damage. But the neutral isn’t something like Marvel where you’re hit once and you’re down. The tools given to you allow for many different styles of play in the neutral. Moving around is very fast and free-flowing as well.

My only complaint with the gameplay is the online. It’s not bad by any means; When playing within a few hundred miles, it works perfectly fine, with little to no lag. The only big problems the online has is handling playing people more than a few hundred miles away from you, and that the searching for matches is really tedious. In an at-capacity server, which is normally filled with people looking for player matches, your search results will only show you 2 or 3 people you can play with, even though there are clearly much more than that searching. That said, the online is still solid enough to play well consistently, and so long as you know what to do to get good matches, you’ll pretty much always get them. Like I said, it’s not bad, it just needs some work. The game is also only two weeks old, so these issues will likely be polished out down the road.

Looks and Sound

Arc System Works has always delivered some of the best-looking fighting games on average, and Revelator is no exception. It is by far the best-looking fighting game of the current generation, and one of, if not the best-looking fighting game period. The characters are very well-designed, and their models are beautifully made. The stages have so much color and life to them, and the environments are insanely cool locations that I would love to actually be in. The game runs at a smooth 60fps, and the characters’ movesets look really cool and really flashy, which make for an entertaining time for both the player and the watcher. Just like in -SIGN-, the opening animations for the fights enter this 3D-ish world, and eventually pan to the point of it becoming a 2D fighter. When supers happen, it enters this kind of 2.5D animation style again for the moves, and also at the end of the matches, when someone gets a KO. It’s absolutely gorgeous. Hidehiko Sakamura’s art style fits the animation of the game perfectly, and I really hope we get to see this kind of style with even more Guilty Gear entries to come, because it’s one of the best I’ve seen in Arc’s games. Not only is it just a genuinely great style, but it’s able to communicate the game’s “rock n’ roll” aesthetic perfectly.

LOOK AT HOW GORGEOUS THIS IS (image courtesy of Arc System Works)

LOOK AT HOW GORGEOUS THIS IS (image courtesy of Arc System Works)

Now, not only is it the best-looking fighting game you can get right now, but it’s also the best sounding. As I’ve said before, I am heavy metal weeaboo trash. I love metal (and I’m a weeb but that’s beside the point). The soundtrack of this game is full of nothing but heavy metal and rock, composed by the ridiculously talented Daisuke Ishiwatari. Songs range from the lighter part of hard rock to the heavier side of traditional metal, with a little bit of thrash metal thrown in for good measure. You’ve got songs like Suck a Sage, which are more hard rock, and The Lily of Steel, which are more metal. Every song is catchy and well-written. There isn’t a bad song in the game. In addition, not only does it have Xrd tracks, but you can unlock songs from pretty much every Guilty Gear from the past.

Story

The story concept of the Guilty Gear Xrd games is quite simple. Back in the far away time of 1999, people created a source of limitless energy that they called magic. Yes, they scientifically created magic. I don’t think I’ve ever written something as stupid as that, like, ever. Anyway, this magic was immediately used for war (go figure) and was used to create these biological weapons known as Gears (the title Guilty Gear actually has a meaning, believe it or not). There was a war. Almost 200 years later, a being known as Ramlethal Valentine declares war on the entire world and its inhabitants. These had been another incident like this with someone else who went by “Valentine”, so everyone was like “dude this is real we need to fight” and then everyone went to war.

And then plot happens.

It’s not NetherRealm Studios levels of good, but it’s still a pretty good story, with a lot of nice fights and entertaining characters. Except Elphelt. That waifu trash should go back to BlazBlue where she belongs. It’s only about 3 – 4 hours long, so if you’ve got a free afternoon, you can beat it.

Content

The sheer amount of stuff to do in Revelator is insane. It’s got a pretty good story mode, the obligatory versus, arcade, and training modes, and fantastic tutorial, which you can go back to and play minigames. On top of that, you’ve got the always fun Medal of Millionaire mode, which is pretty much Guilty Gear’s equivalent to coin mode in Smash, except actually good. After that, we have combo mode, where you’re put into a training room and asked to do specific combos, most of which are worthless in actual fights and are there just for fun. Then there’s mission mode, which is pretty much just the advanced tutorial, but with a LOT of tutorials on general situations and mechanics, but if you go to the next page in there, you something no other fighting game does: Matchup tutorials. That’s right, there are specific tutorials that allow you to gain matchup knowledge against other characters/techniques. This is incredible, and all fighting games should do this.

But wait, we still have to talk about the best mode of all: Fishing. Basically, you walk up to a lake and fish for unlockable things, like songs that can play in battle (including ones from older Guilty Gear games), character colors, avatar customization items, concept art, and more. And yeah, you could also just save up your in-game currency and buy them in the gallery, but that’s no fun.

The lobby system, where you walk around as that cute little thing. (Image courtesy of Fighters Generation)

The lobby system, where you walk around as that cute little thing. You can also fish here! (Image courtesy of Fighters Generation)

Even outside of modes, Revelator still has other things to do. When playing online, you have an avatar that is the most precious thing in the world, and it walks around the lobby and you get into matches by sitting at arcade machines and waiting for other avatars to walk up and sit at the same one. It’s so cute. And the best part is that you can customize your avatar. You can give it little square heads of the characters in the game, and change their body color to your liking, though you have to unlock those. And then there’s your plate, which is more or less your trainer card for the online. You can unlock custom frames, change your profile picture, and give yourself a title, normally composed of really goofy words. Mine is Magic Manly Mustache.

Conclusion: Should you buy Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator?

Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator is the single greatest experience I’ve ever had with a fighting game. It has an incredibly unique and balanced roster, fantastic blend of fundamentals and execution, and well-designed mechanics, along side a fantastic score and the best graphics I’ve ever seen in a fighting game. It’s got plenty of options other than versus and arcade mode to keep you from getting bored, and not to mention a pretty good and fun story. Fishing is great, and despite some issues with the online, I’m still willing to give this game the best score I can, because the online still works well so long as you know what to do.

Hitman Episode 3: Marrakesh Review

June 17, 2016 Adam Reviews

In the three episodes of Hitman we’ve gotten so far, they’ve all been set in very diverse locations. I don’t mean only setting wise, each of the three episodes gives us very different play styles that fit according to each location. In Paris, it was all about infiltrating a runway show. It had quiet outskirts and a very dense center, this allowed the player to do all of their dirty work on the outskirts and plan their way in. Sapienza was very sparse and had a lot of hidden entrances, this time the player could explore the vast setting of Italy and really plan how they got the job done. In Marrakesh, the area is as dense as it could be and it makes you react quickly and improvise frequently. Marrakesh provides the most unique experience while giving you plenty of options to dispense of your targets, making it the strongest episode of Hitman so far.

When you start your mission in Marrakesh, you immediately realize that this isn’t the traditional in-and-out hit. Both of your targets are in two heavily guarded areas on opposite sides of the map. You quickly realize that you won’t be able to get away with that much when the whole area is filled to the brim with witnesses.

maxresdefault

As you start exploring and plan your infiltration a lot of “opportunities” will arise. Opportunities are Hitman’s way of telling you that there might be a way in if you follow through with what’s going on around you. Opportunities are multistep processes that will eventually lead you to your target. This time around the opportunities let you do some incredibly fun things. One of them you get to pretend to be a masseuse and snap your targets neck while massaging him. While in another one you can pretend to be a cameraman a drop a giant moose on your target. However, my favorite of the opportunities involves shoving a toilet onto your targets head. I won’t ruin all of the fun for you but trust me, it’s pretty damn awesome.

Source: Namelessdreadx37x

 In the other episodes of Hitman you don’t necessarily need to complete the opportunities because of the open nature of them but Marrakesh provides a much more tight and controlled experience, which I ended up liking a lot more than Paris, for example.

The opportunities also make replaying Marrakesh more fun than ever. In previous episodes the opportunities were often left to the side and it wasn’t that fun to see them through. This time around I ended up playing the mission multiple times just so I could see how each of them played out. Each of them have some bizarre and fun twist in them like the ones I mentioned earlier.

Exploring the areas of Marrakesh also end up being more interesting because of the nature of the mission. When going into places you’re never guaranteed to get away with anything. There’s always someone around to ruin your plan making your windows to get stuff done a lot smaller and a hell of a lot more satisfying when it all falls into place. This also makes it so you can’t necessarily brute force your way through the mission like you could in the other two episodes.

Bravely Second Review: Go for the Gravy!

June 13, 2016 Greg Reviews

Bravely Default surprised fans and critics alike as this handheld experience was the best example of a quality JRPG in years. It prompted Square Enix to reevaluate their design philosophy and upcoming releases. So how does this Bravely Second stack up? Find out next week!

As this is my first review I’d like to explain how I analyse games. I primarily look at games from three major perspectives: Narrative, Gameplay and Aesthetic. Narrative representing the greater story told as well as the ways the story itself is presented. Gameplay representing the interactive elements the player takes part in.  And Aesthetic representing the visuals, art style, sound design and soundtrack.

Story:

Your four heroes.

The story of Bravely Second follows Yew Geneolgia, heir to an influential religious family and his quest to live up to his family name. On the brink of a peace treaty between the Duchy of Eternia and the Crystal Orthodoxy an anarchist by the name Kaiser Oblivion kidnaps Agnes Oblige, the leader of the Orthodoxy. On his quest to save her, scared and alone Yew meets: Edea, daughter of the Leader of Eternia. Magnolia Arch, Ba’al Buster from the Moon. And Tiz Arrior, farm boy turned legendary hero after the events of the prior game in the series. Together Agnes’ Ba’al Busting Avengers face giant monsters known as Ba’al and the Kaiser Oblivion’s fearsome allies.

An adventure that will take them to the ends of Luxendarc! And Beyond!

Sounds pretty generic right?

The saving grace of this game’s narrative are the characters and how the game really doesn’t take itself all that serious even if when you think about it, some really awful things happen during the course of its 40 to 50 hour run. I wouldn’t say the characters are particularly well written, Magnolia constantly flops between complete badass super-spy, saucy seductress and naive teenager all throughout the story. But, at the end of the day the characters are written so earnestly that you can’t help but crack a smile and some of their antics. Their official group name is “Agnes’ Ba’al Busting Avengers” for Pete’s sake. A name they and many others refer to them as in earnest.

The best example is this silliness is in the line “Coup de Gravy.” Magnolia being from the Moon, speaks French. (Obviously) And when Yew hears this he combines the phrase “Coup de grace” with his love of food, notably gravy, into a term that would be repeated at even the most dire and serious of moments. “Coup de gravy.”

Speaking of food, the characters in this game talk about food alot. Like an insane amount, I’d say one-fourth of the game’s total dialogue is about food. And that has to be the best part of the writing in this game. Nothing humanizes a character better than knowing what they like to eat. Not only do they flesh out characters with these campfire chats they world build as well. The characters will comment about the local food or combining dishes of different regions.

It’s brilliant.

The precedent was set for strange meta story telling in the prequel and Bravely Second does not disappoint in that regard. I won’t go into too much detail, butitssick.

Overall if you can handle some of your standard anime cheese, like “MY FRIENDS ARE MY STRENGTH!” and “YOUR HUMANS AND YOUR LOVE MEANS NOTHING TO ME FUFU!” Then there is absolutely no reason to skip out on this one.

Gameplay:

Bravely Second’s gameplay is easily its strongest aspect with combat so engaging you won’t even mind grinding. Bravely Second is your standard turn based, 4 person party JRPG with a few unique twists, namely the Brave/Default system. First, whenever you take an action you can spend something known as a Brave Point(BP) to do that same or another combination of actions up to 4 times in a single turn. This is known as the “Brave” action. Secondly, instead of your defend or block action you have the “Default” action. This grants your player additional defense for that turn and grants you additional BP. If you start your turn with negative BP that turn is skipped and you gain 1 BP per turn until you are positive. So as the player you must manage knowing when to Brave and when to default. While seeming somewhat straightforward this is a very complex system that will probably take you a good amount of your time with the game to truly wrap your head around. But when you do you will discover that Bravely Second has the most well crafted and engaging combat system in JRPG history.

That’s right! I said it!

To help with the learning process here are a few examples of optimal use of the Brave/Default system:
– During exploration your may want all your units to Brave for the full amount to clear the battle quickly as there will be no consequence to having negative BP.
– Oh shit! Healer’s down and not only do  you need to make sure he/shes’s both back up but you also need him/her to be able to survive the monsters next attack! So, you Brave and throw both a phoenix down and a hi-potion their way.
– You’re party is low and you’ve examined the boss and you see he’s at low health as well! You make your healer cast some spells to stabilize everyone to the point when you feel confident you won’t get wiped! You have your tank protect the healer while this is taking place cause if they go down your screwed! You have your two other units default so your healer doesn’t have to spend additional BP reviving them and so that they can potentially fully brave two turns in a row finishing off the boss. Woo! Get it?!

Next is the Class System. As you journey through Bravely Second you will unlock classes and these are not specific to any character so you’re free to mix and match as you please. As you gain levels within that class you gain new passive and active abilities. You can then equips two class sets of actives and you can equip passives from any class. Seems pretty straightforward but what makes this such an excellent system is the ludicrous amounts of synergy between the classes.

Each time you gain a new class you gain potential for new strategies and synergies!

For example lets look at the wizard class. The wizard’s specialty is known as “Spellcraft.” Spellcraft allows you to manipulate ANY spell in special ways such as: casting it at the start of a turn, casting that spell as an AOE, casting that spell to proc at the end of turns for several turns, and much more. Combine all that together and you get one of the most satisfying progression systems in any RPG.

Here’s what a pretty basic character build might look like.

Magnolia:
Main Class: Knight – Throws themself in front of enemies attacks with large defensive statistics.
Sub Class: Swordmaster – Abilities that increase aggro and retaliates after being hit.

Passives:
Counter:(Swordmaster Passive) Chance to retaliate when hit by a physical attack.
Stand Ground:(Freelancer Passive) Chance to live with 1 HP when dropped below 0.
Counter Amp:(Swordmaster Passive) Increase counter damage.

This build fits neatly into the “Tank” archetype having high defenses, actively defending allies, and benefiting from doing so. And on the off chance you do fall you’re using someone from a third class, Freelancer, to help you as well.

Here’s what the Core Gameplay Loop looks like:
– Plot directing you to a dungeon
– Traverse landscape to arrive at dungeon
– Solve Dungeon’s puzzles whilst handling the new combat encounters within.
– Encounter Boss which unlocks a new class
– Explore potential synergies between new classes and old.
– Reach new town and buy new gear.

Aesthetic:

Bravely Second sports nearly identical visuals and art style to its predecessor. In other words its one of the best looking games on the 3ds. The game combines chibi character models and beautiful backgrounds that resemble water color paintings. This perfectly represents the world of Luxendarc which is both charming and beautiful.

But forget all that ’cause this game’s soundtrack is fuckin’ bonkers.

This is the general boss theme. What? Who? Why is it so intense? Who is this for? Why does this cute ass game where we say shit like Coup De Gravy has such an intense boss theme? I don’t know and I don’t care, because I love this song.
The soundtrack isn’t all heavy guitar as the comment sections say, there does exist some variety. While I do agree with alot of the sentiment that the variety of instruments in the Default’s OST was preferable, all that matter in the end is, “Are these tracks fuckin’ tight?”

And the answer is a resounding yes.

But there is a serious amount of guitar, and depending on who you ask may or may not be the best thing ever.

The only problem with this soundtrack is sadly a lack of variety. While I love that first theme I linked you do end up fighting ALOT of bosses and there is such a thing as “Too much of a good thing.” If that boss theme was for one of the bosses I wouldn’t hesitate to call it one of my top 10 favorite tracks of all time. But the more bosses I fought the more it faded into the background and the more the magic slipped away. And this is true for a few of the themes. Especially since there are some tracks that are from the PREQUEL!

Conclusion:


In conclusion, Bravely Second is a fantastic game and one of the best on 3DS, particularly if you have no experience with its predecessor. But as a huge fan of the first game there are a lot of issues I cannot ignore. This game relies far too heavily on things established in Bravely Default. In Bravely Second you are exploring the same overworld, with a good 80% of the dungeons in the game being reused, and two members of your party are from the prior game in the series. Even a good chunk of the boss fights in the game are ripped straight out of the prequel. But at the end of the day I’m happy that I picked this one up, and I think you will too.

Now for my recommendations.

  • If you were a huge fan of Bravely Default, get this game
  • If you’ve never played Bravely Default and are a fan of RPG’s, get this game.
  • If you’re a fan turn based RPG’s in particular this is definitely worth checking out if only for it’s combat and progression systems.
  • If you were lukewarm or just liked Bravely Default, while this is a better game overall I’d say skip this one.

Fallout 4 Far Harbor Review: Far From Home

May 30, 2016 Adam Reviews

*This is a review of the PS4 version of Far Harbor and I cannot speak for the performance issues on PC*

 

Far Harbor is Bethesda’s first meaty expansion for the underwhelming Fallout 4, they had some additions like Automatron and Wasteland Workshop, but this is the expansion that everyone was looking forward to.

Taking place on Bethesda’s representation of the Coast of Maine, Far Harbor starts you right where you left off the last time you played Fallout. Unfortunately for myself, the last time I actually played Fallout before this was back in December so it ended up being a little jarring trying to remember where the hell everything is. Much to my surprise, I forgot I managed to piss off every faction and was immediately being shot at upon loading the save.

After I handled all of that, I started the expansion. You arrive at Valentine’s office and quickly learn that a girl named Kasumi Nakano is missing and you have been hired to go find out where she is. You go look for evidence around the house, and this is when I was immediately reminded that I was still playing Fallout 4.

After finding out she went to a place called Far Harbor, you follow suit and go find out what’s really going on. Upon arrival, you’re greeted by one of the new factions called the Harbormen. The introductions are quick as you’re thrown into a fight with creatures that come from the Fog. The dreaded, dreaded fog.  And with an otherwise very interesting introduction, this is also the first time you realize how much of a problem the fog is going to be. It’s not because the enemies are tough or anything, but because the frame rate drops substantially whenever you’re fighting anything in the fog. Unfortunately for the players, the entire island is covered in this fog and this makes traversal through the island almost unbearable. Which is a shame, because I really like the aesthetic of the island. It presents itself as very eerie and mysterious. Throw in some abandoned ships and sea creatures and I’ll be bound to enjoy the look.

In between meeting these factions, you get an important quest that the Children of Atom have useful information and you need to go get it. Once you get to the computer that has what you need, it sends you to this virtual world and you find out that there’s puzzles separating you from potentially having fun again. On PS4, this area runs like crap and the puzzles aren’t fun whatsoever. It’s basically just horrible filler that made me angrier at the game just for including it. It almost felt like the game was wasting my time. Just take a look for yourself.

Source: HarryNinteyFour

The other two factions you meet along the way are The Children of Atom, who are nuclear energy addicted crazy people with no real relevance to the storyline and Arcadia, who are a group of Synths. Most of the important quests are linked to Arcadia as DiMA, the lead synth is the character you’re dealing with a lot of the time. None of the newly introduced characters are necessarily interesting either, most of them are one track minded and don’t add anything to the story other than “I’m a synth and synths are great” or “I’m not a synth and I hate synths” until much, much later in the expansion.

However, every character in this expansion seems to have two things in common. One being, their hatred of the fog and the other being how much the Children of Atom suck. The game doesn’t do much to sway your opinion from this and it ultimately ends up with the player not necessarily caring about what happens to them. *HEAVY SPOILERS, SKIP A FEW SENTENCES AHEAD IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE SPOLIED* Which is why I ended up blowing them up to smithereens the second I had the chance to. Right when I was almost finished with the game they give me this decision, so I finished all of my side quests with them and quite literally, blew them to the wind. Now, the really unfortunate thing about this is that there’s no repercussions for this decision whatsoever other than one line of dialogue. When I went back to Far Harbor, it went a little like this. The leader said my decision to do this was unbearable and wasn’t justified. That conversation ended and I started another one with the same character. She then began to praise me for all of the fantastic work I had done for them so far. It was a very polarizing minute and a half.

Since this is probably the last time I’ll be playing Fallout, there was nothing keeping me from doing whatever horrible actions I wanted to do. I feel like now, more than ever the game needed consequences for your actions but I literally eradicated an entire faction for no good reason other than wondering what could happen. *SPOILERS OVER* The finality of this expansion was something I think worked against it substantially. Even if they plan on making more expansions, which they do, they make this whole expansion feel like one last trip back to the wasteland.

Source: Kotaku Australia

Source: Kotaku Australia

The expansion ends on a high note and actually wraps the character arcs up a lot better than I was anticipating. However, they don’t necessarily give you any reason to go back to the island. It ends with you leaving in the boat that you came in with and I think it ends like this for a few reasons. One, so they can load in a whole new island because the game already runs like crap without the added island to it. And the other being because it thematically fits. I ended up finishing all of the side quests before I saw the ending and it felt like that was the way to play this properly. By the end of it I had a good sense of accomplishment in my pocket and the way it ends gave me a sense of relief. Unless you care about settlement building or want to find secrets, there’s no reason to go back after you finish the main & side quests which took me roughly 12ish hours give or take.

Stardew Valley: A Better Harvest Moon Experience than Harvest Moon

May 29, 2016 Kennedy Reviews

The first game I had on the Gameboy Advance was Pokemon Ruby. For many months, it was also the only game I had on the Gameboy Advance. After I had thrown about 300 hours of my life into it I started to think, “Wow. Maybe I should look into getting another game or 2 for this.” Lucky for me, my best friend at the time had been playing this “Cool new game!” called Harvest Moon: More Friends in Mineral Town. Being only 11-years-old at the time, I thought it sounded stupid and I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around how she was having so much fun with it. That is, until I played it myself. It had a very addictive quality to it—there was so much to do and you wanted to do it all. I couldn’t put it down and at the time I never quite pieced together what about it made it so charming. That is, until I played Stardew Valley.

Stardew Valley is a country-life RPG/farming simulator game made by ConcernedApe (Eric Barone) back in February of this year. More than being simply Harvest Moon inspired, Barone has said in multiple interviews that the original idea for Stardew Valley was to be something like his perfect Harvest Moon game.

The inspiration taken from Harvest Moon is clear right from the start of the game, as it shares a similar premise to most in the franchise: You’re growing bored of modern life and you’ve suddenly inherited a farm. Now go be a farmer. The originality this game has it also clear from the beginning of the game, however, as it does something that no other Harvest Moon game does despite many fans wishing it: It allows you to customize your character entirely, which is a very nice touch and only deepens the feeling of this game being so personal.

Image Source: Game Informer

Perhaps the best thing about Stardew Valley is the freedom this game allows you. Although the game encourages you to be a farmer (by, well, giving you a farm) there are plenty of other options available to the player: Mining, fishing, forging, and adventuring, for instance. Right off the bat, this game sets you loose in a world with dozens of new things to try and in any order and for however long you please. This freedom ensures that no two players will play this game exactly in the same way and adds a layer of interest to this game and discussions on it. There’s no linearity in this game whatsoever: You do what you want when you want.  As for gameplay for these different activities, it’s kept very simple and minimal—as it should be in a relaxing game like this.

If the sense of freedom in Stardew Valley isn’t the best part of the game, then the characters are. The idea of Stardew Valley is, “You’ve moved into a farm in a small town. Make a living.” so naturally, making friends comes with that—you can even get married in this game. (And for bonus points, all the marriage candidates—both men and women—are available to you regardless of your gender) All the characters are written to be both incredibly unique and incredibly realistic. The more you talk to them and give them gifts, the friendlier they’ll be toward you (as measured by the hearts in the game’s menu) and their dialogue reflects that. All the characters have different events that can be triggered when they like you enough, as well.

The events are easily the next biggest highlight of this game—every character has very unique events, all which help you learn a lot more about the character. At the same time, all of the events seem pretty realistic, and like something you’d do with a friend in real life. Non-marriage candidates don’t have as many events as the potential marriage candidates, in fact some characters only have one event, leaving much to be desired in their character development. As characters grow to like you their dialogue will change to reflect this much more friendly atmosphere you now share with them, but that still only leaves the player starving for more time with them and to know more about them.

Image Source: Stardew Valley wiki

The only major problem in the character writing in this game comes from after you get married. After you get married, you can no longer get the other marriage candidates any farther than 8 (out of a possible 10) hearts full in the menu. (If it’s not already obvious, 10 meaning that you maxed them out.) Not only this, but if you want to give any of them gifts for any reason, including their birthday, your spouse—regardless of who it is, what day it is, of anything—will get angry.

Most of this games problems lie around the same area. As mentioned before, there’s a lot to do in Stardew Valley and you’re free to do it in any time and order you so please. That said, most of it can be completed within ~50-60 hours. It’s around that time, around the ~30-40 hour mark, that you’ll start feeling bored of the game since you’ve likely discovered all the surprises and events by the time. By this time, you probably know exactly what your favorite townspeople are gonna’ say on certain occasions. You’ve probably done most, if not all, of the achievements you wanted. You’ve probably tried everything this game has to offer by this time, and the game starts to lose its freshness very quickly.

Barone realizes that this is a common complaint with the game, though: Earlier this month, he announced that he’ll be working on patch 1.1 which will give you more dialogue with your spouse, create more events with non-marriage candidates (and even add 2 marriage candidates), add more secrets and surprises to the game, and even add a multiplayer version of which we still know nothing of. Arguably the most notable thing he said he was in the process of doing was getting a console release of Stardew Valley.

In the spirit of (most) Harvest Moon games and Animal Crossing (from which it also takes a lot of inspiration) Stardew Valley should absolutely be on a handheld console—more specifically the 3DS because the layout could be transferred easily (I imagine you can just put the menu and the backpack on the bottom screen). Being such a personal game, playing it on a hi-def TV with a PS4 would feel too grandiose for the modest and charming world of Stardew Valley.

Image Source: Steam Community

With having so much to do and total freedom in when and how you’ll do it, it’s no wonder that Stardew Valley is such an immersive and addictive game. It’s a game that you can play entirely how you want, and beyond being incredibly fun, is also incredibly relaxing. It’s major flaws come in its little late-game content and the occasional bug—usually nothing major, however, there has been multiple cases of people (including me) losing their save data on more than one occasion toward the game’s beginning. As long as you back up your saves though, this isn’t an issue.

As it was intended to be, this game truly feels like an improved Harvest Moon game–so much so that it shouldn’t be called a Harvest Moon game since they have many major things that set it apart. (EX: The lack of linearity and customization options Stardew Valley has) An incredibly solid, well-crafted game, and downright charming game, I’d give Stardew Valley an 8/10: Something I’d absolutely recommend to anyone who needs to relax for a bit or enjoys Harvest Moon/Animal Crossing-esque rpgs.