I must admit I was quite surprised at Sony’s press conference at E3 this year. The announcement of a new God of War, a remaster of Crash Bandicoot, and we finally got a release date for The Last Guardian. But what I was most shocked to see was the announcement of the seventh Resident Evil game.
Its been quite awhile since we’ve had an actual scary Resident Evil admittedly. Image Source: amazon.com
My first assumption on seeing the trailer was that it was going to be completely in VR. So along with the game itself, you would need to pay an extra 400 dollars to play it. Thankfully, after some interviews with the developers, that turned out not to be the case. While it is compatible with VR, its not needed. However, it does take place entirely in first person perspective, which I feel both optimistic and worried about at the same time.
The demo has already set the stage for a very creepy and disturbing atmosphere. Image Source: The AV Club
First off: the good. From the trailer and the demo, the game looks gorgeous. The lighting seems to set a wonderfully creepy vibe that I’ve missed in the recent Resident Evil games. The small location is ripped straight out of a nightmare with rotting carcasses, decaying walls, moving mannequins, and notes that seem to be moving on their own.
The small setting itself is also a positive for me. Resident Evil 6 was a world-sprawling narrative going from America, to Europe, and then to China. That’s good for an adventure game, but it doesn’t let you soak in the world around you as much. You’re too busy jumping from one set-piece to another to savor it. The feeling of restriction and confinement only heightens the dark and horrific atmosphere that you feel enthralled in within the demo for 7.
More characters for RE6, but most rely too much on established traits in previous games instead of pushing any personality. Also there’s a near total abscence of horror. Image Source: Gazette Review
But now we come to the bad. I love the atmosphere that can already be seen and the world that’s presented, but it doesn’t seem like Resident Evil to me. Or at least, not yet. There has been no mention so far of the T-Virus, Umbrella, the BSA, The Raccoon City Incident, or even the word infected. From the demo its hard to tell, but there seems to be no zombies in sight.
The backwards cabin with a killer in it can be very scary. But that’s not Resident Evil. To me, Resident Evil is being caught in a world that is constantly trying to kill you. You need to make sure you have supplies and are always ready. Being alone with an army of walking, biting, and voracious zombies is what is at the core of what makes these games so great. Maybe the killer is infected with a new kind of virus, maybe not, but so far there’s very little evidence to support that.
Its great to see that Capcom is listening to the fans and going back to horror for Resident Evil. But only time will tell if this is a new beginning, or a failed experiment.
Is he infected or just a crazed killer? Only time will tell. Image Source: Trans-Scribe at Blogspot.com
Now that we’re halfway done with the year and E3 has passed, now is a great time to look around us and start thinking about what the best games of the year have been so far, what we’re still excited for, and what the biggest disappointments have been so far. It’s been a very hectic year for gaming: A new generation of Pokemon is on the way, the Wii U’s impending end when we find out more about the NX, new versions of the PS4 and X-Box One on the way, Kojima returning to the game industry, the return of Star Fox and Resident Evil, a 5th Street Fighter game, the upcoming 25th Anniversary Party of Sonic the Hedgehog, 4K gaming, and of course the beginning of The Lifecast to name a few of the most notable events.
We’ve already had some great games come out this year: So what’s left to be excited for? E3 gave us some great titles to be excited for but most of them won’t be out until next year. There’s still plenty of games coming out this year to be excited about, however. If you’ve been wanting some good titles coming out this year to keep your eye on, let me recommend you these 10 games coming out this year that I’m excited for (in no particular order.)
Zero Time Dilemma
This one comes out on the 28th of this month, so fortunately, the wait won’t be much longer! It’s going to be the third and final installment of my favorite handheld series Zero Escape, home of 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward. The Zero Escape franchise is all about puzzles, the emphasis of choices, and quantum physics. In each game, you play as someone who’s been trapped in a confined space with 8 other people who’ve all been kidnapped by a mysterious man called Zero. You try to escape while solving the mysteries of why you’re there, who Zero is, why he kidnapped you, and so on. Each game emphasizes beating the game multiple times to get through multiple endings and fully understanding the consequences of your choices. The trailers make Zero Time Dilemma out to be much more dramatic than any of the other games, not to mention more visually stunning! A caveat, however, is that these games shouldn’t be played out of order: If this game looks interesting to you, yes, you need to play 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward first. The developer’s have already stated that answering questions that have been unanswered since 999 will be addressed, so you run the risk of both not fully understanding what’s going on and its significance, and spoiling 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions:
This one comes out on the 24th of this month for Wii U. Like Zero Time Dilemma, the wait won’t be much longer. I like Fire Emblem. I like Persona. So I should probably like a game that’s basically Persona with Fire Emblem characters, right? Although I never got the chance to actually play it, I did watch other people play the demo at PAX East this year. It doesn’t look great, but it does look like something that I would try playing if I only had a Wii U.
Yiik
This game was the biggest hidden gem of PAX East: It’s an Earthbound-inspired post-modern RPG set in a hipster’s paradise in the 90’s and in case you haven’t heard: I absolutely love Earthbound. Gameplay is turn based and like Earthbound, uses real-world objects and even instruments–many of which need specific button-pressing to use, and it’s quite fun. The graphics are very stylized and charming, the developers seem to really understand the kind of world they want the game to be set in, and the story seems intriguing: You and your friends are looking for a girl who got sucked up by something otherworldly and disappeared. To quote the game’s website, “This is a story about what happens when you look for someone who can’t be found “ The game’s site also states that the game will have a 25 hour story, 6 unique dungeons, and an expansive soundtrack featuring songs by Toby Fox, Andrew Allanson, Hiroki Kikuta, and Calum Bowen amongst others. This game is supposed to be out sometime this summer, though there’s no confirmed date nor month. Once it’s out, it’ll be on Steam, PS4, PSVita, and Wii U.
No Man’s Sky
A gorgeous, Isaac Asimov-inspired adventure game set to come out August 9th for Steam and PS4, No Man’s Sky has done an incredible job generating hype. The game’s site calls it a “truly open universe” and emphasizes that this is a game about exploring a beautiful, well-built universe with more than 18 quintillion planets to explore. Needless to say, if this game lives up to these claims, this could be the biggest exploration game (second to Minecraft, if you want to get technical) to date.
Pokemon Sun & Moon
Duh
We Happy Few
I probably shouldn’t want this game after PAX East: I waited 90 minutes in their line to play the demo, finally got to the front, where I was only able to play for less than 5 minutes: They bragged about it being a rogue-like game, and that for the purposes of the demo, after you die it should give you the option to continue. I died, but was never taken to the continue screen and was kicked off because they had to keep the line moving. Needless to say, I was pretty bitter. I still am, although I did comment about it on their facebook page where one of the devs did apologize. That said, it’s really hard for me to talk about the gameplay because, well, I didn’t play it for hardly 5 minutes. What I can tell you is this, though: What got me the most interested in this game is the fact that the devs are saying it’s very Bioshock-inspired and Bioshock is my favorite game of all time. Mix that with some beautiful graphics, a very intriguing plot about drug addictions, and a very well-built world and you have a recipe for getting my attention. There are two things keeping me very hesitant, however: First of all, Compulsion Game’s track record.
(via CompulsionGames.com)
The only other game they’ve made is a platformer called Contrast and in theory, it sounded like a great, game, too! Bioshock inspired, beautiful graphics, intriguing story, and platforming where you use your shadow! That sounds awesome, right? I thought so and bought it on a Steam sale, but a very short duration, a story that never really got much more fleshed out than its description, and an overwhelming abundance of bugs and glitches ruined this game. Had it only been longer, had its story fully-realized, and had been well-patched, Contrast could’ve been a fantastic game. Needless to say, there’s nothing indicating We Happy Few won’t be the same way—but there’s also nothing indicating that it will be. Regardless, the bottom line is, I’m worried We Happy Few could fall into the same situation as Contrast.
Secondly, We Happy Few doesn’t seem to know what kind of a game it wants to be. The developers told me it was a Bioshock-inspired rogue-like survival game with first-person shooter, mystery, survival, and puzzle elements—that seems like an awful lot to be going on at once if you ask me. It’s possible it could pull it off, but the sheer amount of genres it seems to be trying to pull off makes me worried that they’ll try to do too much in too little time.
Despite all this, the trailer looks interesting and I haven’t heard bad things about the demo and from the 5 minutes I played of it, it seemed okay. I do love Bioshock, and so do these developers—so perhaps I’ll find solace in the Bioshock-inspired elements of the game. I guess I’ll find out when I’m finally able to play it—it’s supposed to come out for Steam and X-Box One sometime this year, and early access starts July 26th.
Mighty No. 9
(via MightyNo9.com)
Perhaps I shouldn’t say I’m as excited about this game as much as I am just curious. I’m sure by now most, if not all, of us are at least familiar with the story of Might No. 9, but just in case, let me briefly summarize: This game is meant to be a spiritual successor to the Megaman games and is being developed by Keiji Inafune—the man who made Megaman—with no involvement from Capcom whatsoever. It had overwhelming success on Kickstarter and everyone was super excited about this game. Originally, it was supposed to come out April 2015, but needless to say, that didn’t happen. Delay after delay, secretive development process, slipshod graphics, and arguably the most cringy trailer in gaming history killed most of the hype that this game had generated.
Its latest release date is June 21st –tomorrow. Needless to say, it’s a little too late to delay it now, so I think this release date is finally the one. I guess we’ll finally find out if it will live up to its initial hype or if everyone was right to stop caring about this game.
Final Fantasy XV
Like Mighty No. 9, perhaps “excited” isn’t as good a word to describe how I feel about it as much as “curious.” This game’s legendary 10-year development has fans wondering if it will have been worth the wait, and frankly, I’m not entirely sure. First of all, there’s the matter of the story. Originally this game was supposed to be Final Fantasy Versus XIII—a spinoff game for Final Fantasy XIII. Two sequels that somehow managed to be worse than Final Fantasy XIII later, however, I guess Square Enix started to realize how unnecessary another Final Fanasy XIII game would be. It makes me very curious about how they handled this change and if we’ll still see elements of XIII in the game. The combat demo we saw didn’t look particularly exciting, nor did it remind me much of a Final Fantasy game, to be honest. I really wish they’d return to the turn-based system from Final Fantasy X, but I realize that’s a very specific thing to nitpick at. It does look like a very expansive game though, and of course, I’m really curious to see how they’ll incorporate VR. This definitely won’t be a game that I preorder nor get on day 1, but it’s definitely a game I’ll be keeping a close eye on. It comes out September 30th on PS4 and X-Box One.
Star Ocean 5
I’ll be honest: I’ve never played a Star Ocean game. I’ve been interested in the Star Ocean series for a while now however, and after watching the demo at PAX East, I’m even more interested in it. Beautiful graphics, fun combat, and of course knowing that Square Enix is behind it, all make his game look very promising. This one will be out later this month on the 28th for PS4.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice
There’s not a large difference between how much I love Ace Attorney versus my love of Zero Escape. Ace Attorney is a hilarious, fun, and incredibly clever series following defense attorney, Pheonix Wright, who always knows that his clients are innocent and will do anything to unveil the truth! I’ve been a huge fan of the Ace Attorney series since the release of Apollo Justice, so I’m more than welcoming for a new game in the franchise. There are 2 things that make this game really stand out from other titles that have fans the most excited. First of all, the setting:
We’re no longer in America/Japan (depending on what language you get the game in)—we’re in a remote, very traditional Japanese island with no formal court system. Instead, they rely on spirits revealing the truth. How is this going to play into the plot? What new gameplay mechanics will this give us? And of course, most importantly…
(via usgamer.net)
Pheonix’s beloved sidekick Maya Fey is finally back after a long absence that was never explained nor addressed until now. Not only are fans happy to see she’s back, but we’re also excited to find out what she’s been doing and why it hasn’t been talked about until now.
Spirit of Justice will be a digital-only release for the 3DS in September.
That’s right, folks, it’s that time of year. The time where we all gather ’round our computer screens and talk about what we saw at E3 that we actually liked. Of course there’s a handful of things that I couldn’t have guessed would be shown. Others I knew would be teased, and I’m even more excited for them now than I was last week. So: shall we?
This shouldn’t come as any surprise if you’ve read my author description on this site at all. (via ScreenRant)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Much like anyone who watched Nintendo’s Treehouse over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday, I, too, really want to see the newest in The Legend of Zelda’s franchise. Breath of the Wild looks like it’s going to be huge, and I mean that literally. Nintendo teased us to only 2% of the game’s world, and I really hope that’s true. Since I got into the series I’ve wanted a game I could fully immerse myself in, and this seems like it’s a step in the right direction.
On top of that, it’s rumored that the story isn’t linear, per se, but that you’ll be able to go fight the final boss even at the beginning of the game. I think this is especially interesting for speedrunners, as it’ll make that sub-20 minute Ocarina of Time run look pretty damn mediocre. Of course, running a two-day treehouse at E3 wasn’t ideal, though it was nice to be able to tune in for a few minutes at a time for news. Good job, Nintendo!
Next up! Horizon Zero Dawn doing what it does best thus far: generating hype. (via GameSpot)
Horizon Zero Dawn
To say I’m excited for Horizon Zero Dawn may be a bit of an understatement. I like fantasy, archery games, and I like cyber, mechanical games. I also happen to enjoy games with a female protagonist. Call me politically correct, if you must, but playing as a dude 90% of the time in games is boring. Not that I won’t, but hey. Change is good. (Unless that change is 4k.)
It seems like it’s hard for developers to make a survival-action game and have it be colorful, but with Horizon, that’s not the case. The colors are striking and rich, and it’s going to stand out, especially when I play it in my drab-colored living room. The story seems expansive, the gameplay seems novel, and overall the game promises something that at least looks good.
Speaking of striking visuals, it’s time for my final most anticipated game of E3 2016. (via Playstation Lifestyle)
ABZU
Similarly to the other two games in this list, ABZU is richly colored, story-driven, and, well, anticipated. Like its predecessor Journey, it promises an immersive musical score with Austin Wintory returning for its composition. It should be noted, though, that ABZU is not a sequel or a successor to Journey. It’s different.
While some people may not like Journey or even think it’s a game, I probably won’t be able to get enough. If the game’s going to be pretty short, that’s fine. I liked Journey and Flower all the same. What I’m looking forward to the most about this game, though, is the fact that it’s coming to Steam. I can finally play a thatgamecompany game in the comfort of my own home. A PC’s all I got.
And now, for everything else. (via GameSpot)
Honorable Mentions of E3
That’s not all that got teased at E3, and that’s not all that I’m hype for. Now that I’ve heard more about games like Days Gone and Resident Evil VII, the future looks promising for gaming. I want to know more about Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding, though, as I’m curious to know why Norman Reedus oil beach fetus was the first thing that he decided to make after leaving Konami. Then again, maybe some mysteries are better left unsolved.
That being said, I don’t think my wallet’s going to be able to keep up with the upcoming gaming binge. Regardless, almost everything shown off is something I want to get to at some point or another. Except for Resident Evil in VR, that just looks like it’ll make me afraid of the dark again.
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.
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.
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.
Or, why we absolutely do not need 4k gaming any time soon.
Let me preface by saying that I have a background in tech. I’ve been up to snuff on computer hardware for a while, some legends estimate that it’s been exactly half my life at this point. (But I digress.) I’ve seen the transition from dial-up internet to DSL to whatever kick-in-the-pants speeds we have now. And that’s been great! I remember when standard definition capture cards were expensive. Point being, I’ve been through a lot of tech “revolutions”.
Yeah, I was even there for this bad boy. (Image from Brainless Tales)
For the most part, they were great. It was cool to suddenly see videos and movies in clearer resolutions. Movies were the first big thing to make the transition. And it was cool! Suddenly the big screen in the movie theater didn’t seem so big, and it didn’t seem as special. I could see whatever I saw there in my house, no problem.
Fast forward almost two decades and, full disclosure, I’m so sick and tired of having 4k gaming, 4k video, 4k vlogs of someone running errands at the supermarket pushed down my throat. We’re not even at the pinnacle of HD video yet. Phone video still, quite honestly, looks like shit in some cases.
And as a species, humans still have fixated on the best and newest thing. And that happens to be 4k. This frustration is no doubt brought on by Microsoft’s E3 conference this past Monday, where they announced Project Scorpio, slated for a holiday 2017 release. It’s all well and good that Microsoft wants to push the boundaries of what they think is possible.
The thing is, we can’t even get many games to run at a full 60 frames in 1080 HD. We’re not there yet. I’m going to pull examples from Playstation 4 releases here, but the difference in processing power between the current PS4 and the Xbox One consoles is negligible. Fight me.
Behold, your competitors. (Image from WCCF Tech)
For some of the biggest releases in gaming this past year, there have been frame rate issues. It’s not that a game can’t get up to 60fps regularly, it’s that they’re having trouble hitting 30, in some cases. The Witcher recently introduced a patch to improve sections of the game that were consistently running at 20 frames. Bloodborne, what I consider to be one of the best-looking games on the PS4, is locked at 30 frames and has trouble getting in that many when there are masses of enemies on-screen.
I’m not here to discount console gaming, despite the fact that I’m not a console gamer myself. The truth of the matter is that consoles are not at the level of 4k gaming and they won’t be for a while. PCs, with their ever-improving arsenal of new graphics cards and DDR4 RAM, can’t do 4k gaming yet at a reasonable framerate. In my opinion, the so-called dream of 4k gaming is so far off that I just don’t think we should try for a while.
That being said, I don’t want a standstill of improvement. Make high definition gaming more crisp. Optimize games to run at 60 frames on consoles. We need to concentrate on bettering what we have rather than moving on to something that may give us a worse result if pushed too soon.
There’s a difference, but it’s a slight one. (Image from Digital Storm)
I admit that there is a difference between 4k and full HD. There’s also a difference between standard definition and HD, but it’s a bigger jump than this. The main difference I see between the two shots is the crispness. 4k looks real crisp. Conversely, the HD image just looks like it needs a boost in dynamic range to match.
All of this rambling is to say that, hey, maybe we don’t need 4k video. As humans, our eyes can’t tell the difference between 4k and 1080 when it’s in motion. A still image is one thing, but in some cases a film camera can produce a better image than a digital one, right? There’s a reason brands like Leica still make film cameras.
Another thing is, 4k video is still wicked fackin’ expensive dude. It’s expensive to develop for, expensive to own, and expensive to mass-produce consoles that will run 4k. The price point will not even be in the ball park of affordable for a very, very long time. I’d argue that video games just aren’t affordable, period, but that’s another article for another day.
Now, is this one article going to stop 4k from being pushed in video games? Absolutely not, I don’t think I have that much power or influence over anyone. Was it necessary? Nope. Then again, neither is 4k gaming.
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.
With E3 starting later today, everyone’s getting out their bingo charts and praying to the video game gods that their dream-game is finally confirmed or that they’ll see new footage of that super-cool game that was announced a while ago. (Including myself. C’mon, Mother 3!) Last year we received several amazing, unlikely announcements for such dream-games finally confirmed: Most notably the Final Fantasy VII Remake, Kingdom Hearts 3, and Shenmue 3. With those finally confirmed, gamers are finding more games to fantasize about announcements for, and I’m of no exception. Here are 5 games that I’d absolutely adore to see confirmed at E3, but as I’ll explain, I’m very aware how very unlikely it is. (Alternatively, think of this as a list of games that I think deserve sequels.)
The World Ends With You 2
Image courtesy of PopMatters
The World Ends With You is a very interesting case. It sold well and is generally considered to be one of the best games on the Nintendo DS. Without spoiling it, I’ll also say that the ending is very heavy sequel-bait because so much of the story is left unexplained or unclear. Moreover, it’s a Square Enix game that got to cross over with Kingdom Hearts 3D. You’d think it’s a no-brainer for a sequel, and yet here we are 9 years later and still no sequel. The closest we’ve had to a sequel (other than cameos for the main characters in Kingdom Hearts 3D) is an iOS and Android release of the game. Especially if the TWEWY characters are going to be important to the rest of the Kingdom Hearts story, there’s no reason to not make a sequel—especially since Square Enix seems to be really pushing the new Kingdom Hearts games, which is a blessing and a curse. The reason I don’t see this happening anytime soon is because Square Enix seems to really have its hands full between Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy VII. I’d love to be proved wrong and to hear this announced, but I certainly won’t get my hopes up until at least one of those projects are complete.
Silent Hills
Image courtesy of express.co.uk
There’s no suffering like the suffering of Silent Hill fans in recent years. It’s been a long time since Silent Hill has had a good game released, but Silent Hills (also known as P.T.) was ready to change that: Silent Hills was ready to bring life back into this dying cash cow of a franchise. Fans and new players alike were hopeful: I mean, why wouldn’t they be? Guillermo del Toro and Hideo Kojima were going to be working on it. There in lied the problem, though. Months later, Hideo Kojima left Konami, and Silent Hills left with him a cancelled game with no word on what was going to happen to it. To add insult to injury it was removed from the PlayStation store as well. In its spirit, an indie game called Allison Road hoped to fill the void that Silent Hills left behind, but only last week was cancelled. As far as we know, Silent Hills, despite its large following, is a dead project right now. Of the games on this list, I’ll admit that this one, while still unlikely in the near future, is still the most probable game of being announced on this list because it’s so recent and still so talked about—even by developers. The largest problem here though is Konami, who doesn’t seem very willing to want to reboot Silent Hill at all—let alone the right way.
Image courtesy of YouTube and Konami not knowing how to reboot a well-loved series. Metal Gear fans learned this hard lesson recently, too.
Final Fantasy VI Remake
Image courtesy of Neoseeker
Now that VII has been confirmed for getting a remake, why not make the next fan favorite of the older Final Fantasy games? I played this game for the first time last year, and while I was thoroughly impressed enough to call it my second favorite Final Fantasy game, there was one thing I couldn’t stop thinking while I was playing it: This game would be absolutely astonishing in 3D. The environments, the characters, the combat, it’s all begging to see the light of beautiful HD graphics. I want to see Kefka’s face twist and writhe as he laughs maniacally, I want to see a more animated transformation for Terra, I want to see the opera scene as cinematically as possible—and I know I’m not the only one, as Final Fantasy VI is generally considered to be arguably the best 2D Final Fantasy game, as well as one of the best Final Fantasy games of all time. Kefka, in particular, is still usually called the best Final Fantasy villain since he’s the only villain to have actually succeeded in his evil plans. If Square Enix took a temporary break from making new Final Fantasy games after XV is complete to remake some of the older Final Fantasy games as they are with VII, I’d be perfectly fine with that.
A New .hack// Series (that will get an English release)
Image courtesy of lukalovesgames.blogspot.com
I will proclaim my overwhelming love of .hack until I die: The .hack games, particularly the G.U. Trilogy, are some of the finest JRPGs to have graced gamers. Despite this, we don’t really see much love for them here in the West. The last time a .hack game was released here were the G.U. games—not to say Japan got much more, they got .hack//Link (basically a spin-off game on the PSP, nothing horrendously important), a crossover campaign with a mobile Sword Art Online game, and a fighting game that wasn’t entirely well-received. Kite, BlackRose,and Haseo are all playable characters in the Project X Zone games, and that’s as close as the States have got in the last few years. Especially with G.U. Celebrating its 10th birthday this year, I think it’s about time CyberConnect2 or Bandai Namco or someone—anyone—announced a new .hack series. Especially with the implications we received in the .hack//Quantum anime and the End of the World movie that came out a few years ago, there’s plenty of ways to write a new storyline for a new, main series set of .hack games to be released both in English and in Japanese. At the very least, I’ll settle for an HD edition of either .hack series—something to make them more accessible, not to mention cheaper. Please, it’s been so long, we’re starving for new .hack content.
I love hidden gems. Small projects out of the public eye you feel happy that you were able to find. But when time goes on and you find out a lot of other people have found this hidden game, you’re ecstatic! A game that only a few people put so much time and effort into is finally getting the recognition that it deserves. However, when does it spiral out of control?
What was once a surprise horror ride became an agonzingly over-saturated internet fad. Image Source: Sub-cultured.com
It’s a lot like hearing a song from a band you’ve never heard from on the radio. The first time you really like it. It turns out it suddenly becomes big on the Billboard top 100 and you always try to catch it on any station. But times passes and the song is played again and again and AGAIN. At this point, you’re wishing the song was never made. That’s how I feel with a few indie games that have come out so far.
Take for instance Slender. It was a creepy and minimalist game that relied on jump-scares and the players’ own fears of being followed to be scary. While it is by no means warranting fifty spin-offs, I believe it still did very well with very little. But then more copies of it were made, more fan-films, and oh GOD the fanart and fanfiction.
I think its safe to say that this series may have gotten just a teeny bit out of hand. Image Source: Design and Tend.com
But I’m not going to knock anyone’s interpretation of a source. Thats one of the great opportunities of the internet, to share with everyone your view of the material. That being said however, it can still become a bit much.
I’m sure a lot of people are sick to death of hearing about Five Nights at Freddy’s, the indie horror game that has spawned so many sequels, a novelization, an rpg, an upcoming feature movie, and merchandise in almost any GameStop. The original game caught on fire with Youtube for its originality and atmosphere. But soon the novelty wore off and a lot of people became sick of it. Yet, at the same time, it still had a fanbase that was always itching to see what was to come next. One group is happy and another is fed up.
So what determines when one group’s want means more than the others?
I was surprised this indie game didn’t skyrocket as big as FNAF, but it still got just enough attention and praise without being over-hyped. Image Source: thegeekieawards.com
It’s a hard question to answer, but when there is a large dedicated fanbase, it’s hard to ignore. However, it’s easy to see that as time goes on those dedicated fans grow fewer and fewer. They oftentimes get sick what could be seen as the same thing over and over again. I think this can be seen as the FNAF series has gone on. Around the time of the second or third sequel, it was possibly one of the most popular things on the internet. Now? Another game was announced but a lot less is being talked about it. The fans have whittled down considerably.
When the game is distancing more people than its pleasing, then its time to stop. At that point, whats being made isn’t being made for quality, but only to pander. And with that, the fans need to convince themselves more and more that its worth their time and money. That series should stop where it is, and the creators, who were creative enough to make the original, should divert their attention into something new.
Despite the controversy with its designer Phil Fish, Fez was a beautiful and original indie-puzzle game that maybe doesn’t even need a sequel, and can inspire other creator’s to be original. Image Source: Polygon.com
In the beginning it may be hard for die-hard fans to accept the finality of a game series, but soon they can see what it helped to do: help other creators think even more outside the box. Keep looking, and you may be able to find something that got you just as excited as the old series.
Being a huge fan of the Persona franchise, I got really excited a few days ago when Atlus gave us a more solid American release date for Persona 5 and opened preorders for the special edition called the Take Your Heart edition. Alone, Persona 5 will cost $60 on PS4, whereas the Take Your Heart Edition is $90. Given all the merchandise it comes with and how much I love Persona, an extra $30 seems like a good price to me. That’s why I decided to preorder the Take Your Heart edition. Telling a good friend of mine who’s not into gaming that I was planning on spending $90 on a video game (even if it comes with a lot of merchandise) was interesting though: She couldn’t seem to fathom why anyone would spend more than $30, let alone $90 on a video game. And that got me thinking: What’s the most expensive game I own?
I immediately thought of .hack//Quarantine. I absolutely love the .hack// games, and at Anime Boston this past year, I finally bought a copy for $150. That’s about the average price it goes for because it was released in such small quantities. Given how great its condition was, I’d say it was actually a really good price. Ones in condition this good that still have the DVD, manual, etc. generally go for closer to $200. In hindsight, what happened was like something out of a movie:
The face of bad decisions
It was Sunday, the last day of the con. I was with a group of friends (the same group of friends who write articles for this site, in fact) and the dealer’s room was only going to be open for another 15 minutes so we were doing a last minute sweep. There was a wheel-spinning game set up, and some of my friends wanted to try it. To do so, however, they had to wait in a line, and I noticed one of my favorite local game stores had a booth next door. It was taking my friends a bit longer than I thought to wait in line, so to pass the time, I decided to check out the gaming booth. Dead center of their booth when I got there was none other than .hack//Quarantine: Perhaps not quite my holy grail of rare games (that would be Earthbound) but probably the next best thing—the holy reliable water bottle that you bring everyday to school and/or work. I’d been saving up money for a year to finally buy this game at PAX a few months later, but here it was right in front of me now. Looking at me. Taunting me. I knew I wanted it, and the owners of the booth knew I wanted it, too.
“There was someone else eyeing it down earlier who said he was gonna’ come back for it once the dealer’s room started to close down,” one of the employees told me, “But he was being really rude and annoying so I really don’t want him to have it. If you wanted to buy it now, I’d let you.” The dealer’s room was closing in less than 10 minutes at this point: I had to make a decision and I had to make it fast, and in a fit of passion for wanting to complete my .hack// collection, I responded to her with the utmost joy and the utmost knowledge that I’d heavily regret what I was doing the minute it came time to go grocery shopping, “Fuck me up, fam.” And so for a mere $150 I took home .hack//Quarantine with less than 5 minutes to spare. To be honest, knowing that I own this game that I’ve wanted so much for so many years is still a little surreal.
In terms of money, .hack//Quarantine is easily the most expensive game I own. (The second and third most being .hack//G.U. Games, ironically enough.) But there are other ways in which a game can be expensive. Dictionary.com defines “expensive” as, “entailing great expense; very high-priced; costly.” Nothing is said about money. So what other games have been expensive for me? And how? What did they cost me? For my first example I’m going to take you to the very beginning of my gaming “career.”
My family got our first gaming console in 2001: The PS2. My Godparents got it for us for Christmas with a game called Okage Shadow King. I’d never touched a video game before this one, and playing it was one of the hardest things ever: A turn-based JRPG doesn’t make a good first video game for a 7-year-old like myself at the time. It was confusing. It was hard. Nothing made sense to me. I couldn’t even read some of the words—let alone understand them. I constantly asked my dad—who, at the time, had recently got his PhD—to help me and not even he knew what to do. It was a sign that this game had to go.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
Being so inexperienced with video games (and a dumb 7-year-old) I started to think that maybe all video games were this way. Maybe video games were just much less fun than I thought they’d be. Maybe it’s just not my thing. When we finally got a few new games for the PS2—all of which were racing and BMX games—I was a little hesitant to play them because I thought they’d be like Okage again. After watching my dad play and have fun with it a few times though, I began to realize that these games were different: These games were fun.
Regardless, I got so angry with Okage Shadow King that it almost ruined video games as a whole for me. I was ready (or as ready as someone as young as I was can be) to never play video games again if it was going to be that irritating. (And look at me now: JRPGs are my favorite genre. If that’s not irony I don’t know what is.) Okage Shadow King was expensive in the sense that it almost cost me my love of gaming—which I would ultimately discover months later once we got Jak & Daxter.
Here’s another one: Time. Which game has been the most expensive in consuming the precious hours of my life? In one save file, Pokemon Ruby. It was the first GameBoy game that I had and more importantly, the first game I had that was mine. Not a game that I shared with my siblings and my dad on the PS2 but just mine. Like any other child in the early 2000’s, Pokemon consumed my life. Starting the video games only made it more apparent. I found it really hard to put it down—it was (it still is) an incredible game. And the graphics were so nice. And the new Pokemon were so great. I caught every Pokemon in the dex fair and square with no cheats whatsoever except for Feebas and Milotic which still haunt me to this day. Regardless, as of right now, my save file in Pokemon Ruby has 363 hours into it. That’s the longest continuous save file I have.
Image courtesy of expertshop
Overall, I’ve probably put more time into Jak & Daxter, though. As I just mentioned, it was the game that got me into gaming. After we got it, my sister and I would do nothing but play it all day every day for months. We’d restart it, do all of our favorites tasks over, and we’d do this day in and day out starting more save files than we could count because we got through them so quickly. To this day, Jak & Daxter still remains a permanent fixture in my PS2 library which I still replay every so often. I can still 100% it no problem—in fact, these days I can beat it faster than I ever could’ve before. There’s no way for me to know how much time I’ve put into this game total, but seeing as how I’ve been playing it continuously for more than 10 years, I’m pretty confident that I’ve put more time into it overall than in my Pokemon Ruby save file.
Here’s one final (and more recent) example of another way a game has been expensive for me: There’s a game that cost me my Wii. Here’s the story: I’ve been a huge fan of One Piece for 11 years now. Back in my early One Piece fan days, its North American rights were owned by 4Kids. Some will recall it was a mess of censorship. When they got the rights to the show, they had no idea how dark it would eventually get. They omitted the entire Whiskey Peak arc, which made it really hard for them to transition into Alabasta, which was also heavily censored. It was a mess of continuity errors, contradictions, and of course, rubber knives.
This only made it a bigger deal when Funimation took the rights to One Piece out of 4Kids dying hands in 2007. Fans everywhere rejoiced—myself included. Around the same time they started showing trailers for the dub, they announced that they were bringing One Piece: Unlimited Adventure for the Wii to the United States to celebrate. This would be not only the first One Piece game to come out in the U.S. in 2 years, but honestly, the first really good One Piece to come out in the United States in general. (Although admittedly, I did sink a lot of time into Grand Adventure.) This would be the first real exposure to the Funimation dub most of us would have since the DVDs were coming out around the same time. This was a huge deal. My sister and I got a Wii for Christmas in 2007 (note: Unlimited Adventure came out January 2008) so I was beyond thrilled. Finally, a One Piece game with good voice acting and more adventure. And you know what? It lived up to the hype. I absolutely love Unlimited Adventure. I played it day in, day out. My sister didn’t really stop me since the only other game we had on it was Wii Sports and by the time I got Unlimited Adventure, we’d already got our time out of it. I got to a point where I wouldn’t even bother taking it out of the Wii when I finished playing it because I knew I’d be back to it soon. Being only a recent Wii-owner, I didn’t realize that was a problem.
Image courtesy of covershut
One day, I believe it would’ve been in March or April of that year, I tried to take the disc out. It wouldn’t come out. Maybe I didn’t push the button hard enough? I kept trying and trying, but the disc wouldn’t come out. I asked my parents for help, but nobody could get the disc out. As I learned the hard way, this was just a thing that happens to Wiis that you forget to remove your game from for more than a few days: They just won’t come out anymore. The ejector stops working. To repair it would cost more than the game itself. To get a new console was out of the question. Unlimited Adventure was stuck in there. Our Wii had just turned into an Unlimited Adventure machine. Being the only One Piece fan in my house, that didn’t sit too well with anybody else—especially my sister who never got a chance to play any good games on the Wii. It’s still there to this day, though I haven’t booted it up in years. It recently came to my attention that because it didn’t sell horribly well, Unlimited Adventure is a semi-rare game, which only makes this more disappointing. Even now, to repair my Wii would cost me more than it would for me to go out and buy a used Wii at most retailers.
After this happened I seemed to notice more and more Wii games I wanted to play: Okami, Muramasa, No More Heroes, Mad World, Punch Out, etc. I still haven’t played any of them on the Wii (though I did get to play the PS2 version of Okami and the PS3 port of No More Heroes.) Muramasa in particular mocks me to this day. All these games that I could never play all because I thought it’d save time leaving Unlimited Adventure in the Wii. Unlimited Adventure cost me my Wii and in turn, the opportunity to play other great games on the Wii. I’m sure I was grounded when this happened, too, if that counts for anything.
The Beginner’s Guide came out on Steam last October as a much-anticipated follow up to Davey Wreden’s first game, The Stanley Parable. It’s not a sequel, so rest easy. The Stanley Parable was a great little game in and of itself; however The Beginner’s Guide felt like it had more weight to it.
A segment of The Beginner’s Guide, placed in space. (Image from AVClub)
The big similarity between the two games is that they’re both made in the Source engine, so the gameplay, look and feel, and sense of progression are the same. I really have nothing to say in this regard, they’re both pretty standard on this front.
Where they differ is the content of the story. They’re both narrative-driven. In The Stanley Parable, you play as Stanley. For the most part, it’s linear. There are multiple endings and it’s all very whimsical. It’s some good fun!
The Beginner’s Guide gets a bit more serious than I would have expected. It details the friendship of Davey and someone nicknamed Coda. Coda turns out to be Davey’s inspiration for making games, and through the game we learn the extent of their friendship.
All the humanoid figures that appear in the game take on this shape, more or less. (Image from The Jimquisition.)
Early on, Davey presents players with snippets of Coda’s games. They’re mostly short playthroughs, going through a specific point in each of Coda’s games. Each beginning is designated by Davey giving players a short description of what the circumstances were surrounding each game. Whether he or Coda was going through hardship, or whether they weren’t. He assumes that what Coda put into his games was a reflection of his emotions at the time.
The rest of this post contains spoilers for The Beginner’s Guide.
As the game progresses, we learn more and more about Coda through Davey’s monologues. The deeper we get, though, the more of an enigma Coda becomes. He’s this person who creates these weird, seemingly random games with no solution. He puts lampposts at the end of them as a signature. And the whole time, why? Why does he do the things he do, and why is Davey so obsessed?
This isn’t even the final level in the game. (Image from BoingBoing)
The final level takes place in a tower that Coda developed and sent to Davey. As you walk through the various pitfalls and traps that this tower has to offer, Davey monologues about how Coda has suddenly become closed off, reclusive, and seems like he doesn’t want to share anything with Davey. In previous levels, Davey remarks about how private of a person Coda was initially. After all, they met at a game jam. Coda made games, and that was pretty much all he did. Davey thought he was incredible… and by the looks of the game, he still does.
Coda didn’t share his work with anyone. He may have been reluctant to even share it with Davey, and when he did, Davey may have been the only person he showed, period. Sensing this greatness, Davey shows other people.
After what I assume would be the point where Coda finds out about Davey’s sharing his games, everything starts getting weirder. The games don’t make sense. They’re unsolvable puzzles, and Davey is perplexed by it all.
Going back to the final level, Davey tells us, pretty plainly, that Coda has cut contact with him. And rightly so, he even says himself. Davey had developed a sick obsession, and during the game’s final moments, Davey reads Coda’s final email aloud. It’s plastered on the walls, and there’s no way Davey can deny that he ended up hurting Coda more than he could have thought. But it’s all for the good of giving him recognition, right? Surely it was righteous.
This is one of the more disturbing levels in the game, and what I think is Coda’s most direct description of how Davey’s actions have affected him. (Image from BoingBoing)
No. It wasn’t.
Coda states that pretty clearly. In his levels, in his strongly-worded email, in the way that Davey feels about him after he cut contact.
And so we’re left with Davey’s guiltiness in ruining their friendship, and yet begging for Coda to at least talk to him again.
We’re left with a man who wants a resolution.
If you’re musically minded, the term “coda” might call up a definition, which would be: “a term used in music primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece (or a movement) to an end” (thank you Wikipedia). We know that Davey never learned Coda’s real name. Each level ends at a lamppost, and we learn that it was Davey’s doing, not Coda’s. Coda never intended to be a be-all, end-all for Davey, it just turned out to be that way, and I can’t help but think Coda planned that from the start.
Overall, though, The Beginner’s Guide gave me more of a plot twist than any other game has. Period. I was honestly expecting Davey to reveal himself as Coda, not reveal that he destroyed a friendship by being too proud of his friend and betraying his trust in the process.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved the game, but it made me feel awful for rooting for Davey the whole time. He played the victim too well, and I hate that I fell into that.
I do still love it though, because I don’t think that any other medium would have been able to get the point across so damn well. The thing about video games is that a developer will create a world with complete control over how much you know about it. They literally build the narrative up right before your eyes, and to have it taken away and marred in just a few sentences is one I’ll never forget.
It goes to show that video games don’t have to be based in fiction, either. Often times we forget that creative nonfiction is a genre of storytelling, and I appreciate that this game is part of that realm.
