Yakuza Kiwami is this year’s second release from the series. Sega started the year in North America with the release of Yakuza 0, a prequel to the main events of the series. Several months later, Yakuza Kiwami, the remake of the first game in the series, has been localized and released as well. If you’ve listened to our podcast at all, I’m not shy about calling Yakuza 0 my game of the year. It was, without a doubt, an amazing experience. It serves as the baseline for my view of the entire series, and how the other games are constructed. And if the game is any indication, then Kiwami is good.
Finally coming out of early access last week with its 1.0 update is Slime Rancher. I sat down with it for a long while over the last week, and I really liked it! If you’re here for the more nitty-gritty, keep reading. But if you’re just here for a solid game rec, you’re all good.
As 2016 comes to a close, gamers everywhere are talking about gaming’s best and worst of the year. When talking about the worst that gaming had to offer this year, I could pick the low hanging fruit by talking about No Man’s Sky or Mighty No.9 but there’s very little to say about them that hasn’t already been said at this point. Instead, I’d like to tell you about Oxenfree: The most disappointing game I played all year.
As its described on Steam, “Oxenfree is a supernatural thriller about a group of friends who unwittingly open a ghostly rift. You are Alex, and you’ve just brought your new stepbrother Jonas to an overnight island party gone horribly wrong.” It has very positive reviews on steam, particularlypositivereviews off of Steam, there seems to be an element of thriller to it–which I appreciate–secluded ghost island as a setting, gorgeous stylized graphics, the choices matter tag, so when I see this I’m thinking this game looks like something right up my alley. Months later, after being very high on my radar for quite a while, I finally got it and by this time, I’m looking incredibly forward to it.
Immediately once I start playing it, the first thing I notice is that this game runs like a potato on my laptop. In its defense though, my laptop isn’t too good for gaming. In any case, it took decades for a single scene to happen because there’s a lot of conversation in this game and talking speed is fine, but the animations for characters talking is incredibly slow because of the aforementioned potato-ism. And so each conversation was like a battle to the death with my impatience because after any sentence would end, I was generally waiting an extra minute or 2 to hear the response to it because the talking animation is still going. But as I said, I more or less excused the game for this since my laptop was the reason this was happening, and I didn’t have another way of playing it. This complaint wasn’t necessarily the game’s fault, but it certainly didn’t aid toward my attitude of it as the game trudged on.
via nightschoolstudio.com
So our story is that these high schoolers are going to an island on some kind of school trip–except that the rest of the group isn’t there yet? But also because our protagonist didn’t want to be alone on the anniversary of her brother’s death? The reason for their being there isn’t exactly made completely clear, so right off the bat the writing needs some help.
Now, our main characters are a group of high schoolers. And very early on I started thinking that, in the nature of writing realistic high schoolers, all these characters are shit heads. You play as Alex, who’s very much a special snowflake. We’re already off to a bad start because the only thing I hate more than characters who are written to be special snowflakes just for the sake of being special snowflakes is when the main character is a special snowflake just for the sake of being a special snowflake. And what’s worse is that this game goes out of its way to remind you that she’s a special snowflake on multiple occasions, only driving the nail further into the coffin.Then we have her “friends”: New step brother that nobody’s friends with yet, quiet girl, the guy who brought pot brownies, and bitchy girl that nobody likes and there doesn’t seem to be a reason why anyone invited her in the first place.
But again, I tried not to think about this too much since that’s just the nature of writing a set of realistic high schoolers. High schools are full of shitty people. So again, I let this one go thinking, “Well, these characters are high schoolers and high schoolers are shit heads, so it’s natural that they’d be shit heads. …Even if they’re shit headier than most high schoolers buuuuttt—”
Our supernatural situation is presented fairly early on after the world’s longest campfire game of exposition, courtesy of my laptop, and it’s that the ghosts are triangles…? At first I thought that was fine, a little weird but fine, I’m sure it’ll all make sense later on, it’s still only the first hour of the game. This’ll definitely be explained later on. (Spoiler alert: It was never explained later on.)
via polygon.com
If it isn’t already really obvious, by the one hour mark, I was already having to actively try to make myself like the game. After all, it looked so interesting and the reviews were so good–maybe it just had a slow start? Maybe the characters would get better? In any case, after your contact with the triangle ghosts, you and your “friends” get separated, (y’know because ghosts) but you’re able to find a way to communicate with each other so now you and your step brother are gonna go pick em up. And the process is…long, to say the least. Between the lagging on my laptop and the needlessly long and winding roads in the game, traveling from spot to spot was a pain, to put it simply. It was a pattern of click a few inches away from Alex, wait for her to finally catch up, wait a little longer, click again. For several hours of the game. (That alongside making decisions and adjusting your radio is all the gameplay you’ll see in Oxenfree–it’s very much a story and decision driven game.)
50 years later when you finally find them, you guys start to make a plan for how you’ll escape. Luckily for us, turns out Alex used to go to this island all the time with her dead brother, so she knows where the dead owner of the only house on the island kept a boat that’s surprisingly not dead. So they go to the house, and FINALLY we have some kind of more direct communication with our ghost pals via the girl that nobody liked or missed anyways. If the writers wanted the ghosts to possess a person with hopes that it’d put our moral compass in a tizzy, they chose the worst character for the job. (Not that there were any good choices, but this was still the worst choice.)
Up until this point, the ghosts have been screwing with us, making small fragments of time repeat, photobombing, etc. but sit down, friends. Let me tell you what finally made me admit to myself that I wasn’t having fun with this game, and that’s the brand of “creepiness” that this game uses.
Here’s where we enter the wonderful realm of subjectivity: What one person finds creepy, another may not. But like all things, there are many things that most people agree is creepy. And like all generalizations, these generalizations will evolve with time. So what this game uses to creep us out are red eyes, small time loops, radio static noises with mixed voices, intentional visual “glitches”, never explicitly stated satanic themes, and of course, those weird triangles.
When something is creepy, that means it creates a feeling of discomfort within us. Like robots in the uncanny valley, seeing a middle aged man look at a 16 year old girl for a little too long, or even something more conventional like a black cat walking under a ladder. Another big part of what makes creepy things creep us out is whether or not we’re used to it. Taxidermy is another thing that creeps most people out, but do you think that when a taxidermist looks at their collection they get creeped out? Probably not because they’re so used to seeing it that they’ve got used to it. It’s normal. And this is where Oxenfree falls.
Red eyes. Intentionally glitchy graphics. Radio static and mixed voices. Satanic implications that are never blantantly spelled out. These are all things you’ll find in other recent games that try to be creepy, or on an edgy 12 year old’s tumblr. Hell you’ll find these things in a Hot Topic. Red eyes? Okay, that’s a trope that’s been used since the beginning of time. Free pass. Intentionally glitchy graphics? Satanic themes that are never blatantly spelled out? Both things that have become very fashionable when trying to portray something as creepy in a more horror oriented way. Satanic themes that are implied by never blatantly stated are especially trendy lately. Not just in movies and games, but even in fashion–I can’t tell you how many girls I see sporting clothes or accessories with ouija boards these days. It’s hip, it’s trendy, and why wouldn’t it be? Because by the looks of all the recent horror movies, sometimes-explicit but usually just implied themes of Satanism or the devil are in.
As for the intentional visual glitches? Huge trope right now. Found footage and “based on true-ish events” movies are HUGE right now, and this trope is a STAPLE for them. And this trope translates very well into games, so we’ve had no shortage of its usage lately. Undertale. Pony Island. The Stanley Parable. I can go on, this goes back as far as Metal Gear.
Bottom line, the only traits they use to portray creepiness are all, in my humble opinion, trite, cliche, and overused. But because they’re what’s fashionable right now in this wonderful age where unexplicit Satanic themes that are never fully explained or explored are popular, of course that’s what they’re going to go for. The low hanging fruit. And I’m bored of that brand of creepiness. I’ve been bored of it for ages now. And because I’m used to seeing it so often in media, it’s no longer creepy to me. And worst of all, this game uses the most textbook version of that brand of “creepiness” as a crutch to distract from it’s poorly explained story, featuring characters that I just don’t care about.
via kotaku.com
Suddenly, the only reason I was playing this game was in hopes that everything would be explained or that the story would take a total 180, but neither wish came true. Such is the nature of a lot of stories like this, the evil, supernatural force is never quite explained. It’s just there because it happens to be there, and unluckily for you, you happen to be there, too. Go figure. The rest of the game went by like this. A story that was never fully explained, featuring characters that got no better despite the game’s efforts, gameplay that felt more like a chore than gameplay, I wasn’t getting any enjoyment from this game anymore.
That’s not to say it had no positives though, it did do some things I enjoyed. The visuals, first and foremost, are fantastic. Second, I will preach to the ends of the earth that if at least half of your game’s gameplay is based in making decisions, there BETTER be different outcomes to these decisions–and I don’t mean a Telltale, oh it was different for 3 seconds but both options resulted in the same outcome anyways kinda different, I mean completely 100% different. And these different paths better lead to different endings, and on that front, Oxenfree absolutely delivered. Despite how slow and painful conversations were, I still felt like all my decisions actually held weight–and lo and behold, they did! In fact, it does that thing at the end where it gives you a percentage of how many other players made the same decisions as you, and I love that. I wish more games did that.
And finally, it’s not like this game didn’t even try when it came to the writing. There were these brief, evanescent moments where you can tell that they were trying to care about the situation more, or sympathize more with a character, or even just trying to really get you caught up in a moment. But alas, just as quick as you could tell that they were trying to make some headway with the writing, just as quickly it seemed to stop.
via indiehaven.com
The best example I can give of this is in that campfire game at the beginning. You can ask Jonas if he went to juvy and he’ll say no. Of all the questions you can ask Jonas this one seems the most far-fetched, especially at the time. Like, who do you have a crush on? How do you feel about your new family? How’s school? Have you ever been to juvy?And from right then and there, even though he denies it, the sole fact that such a standoff question in a game void of silly or irrelevant options is even there tells the player that he’s been to juvy. There’s no reason for the game to even bring it up otherwise. So the whole game you’re waiting to hear it him admit it. And it makes you curious about him. Why was he in juvy? Why won’t he tell us? You become curious about Jonas.
And then, close to the end of the game, when he finally tells you, he doesn’t even treat it like a big deal. He’s like, “Yea, I beat up a kid because he threw a baseball at my head and went to juvy. Didn’t say anything earlier because…aaaahhh I dunno’. “And then it’s never brought up again. There seemed to be no reason for it, other than for the sake of making you curious about him, ultimately with pretty much no payoff. Now, if he had told us about juvy–if maybe some event happened there that changed his personality, or even just being there changed him and he described what it felt like to be there, that’d be one thing. That’s payoff, because now we’re getting some tangible character development through backstory. But we don’t. Like, that conversation could’ve been anything else. We don’t learn anything new about Jonas that we didn’t already know without being told.
Seriously, you can replace the word “juvy” in their conversation about it with the name of any other place and it doesn’t make a difference. You can make it Walmart. And nothing about his character changes. That’s how you know this isn’t giving us any character development. It’s not even used as a way to show that now he feels more comfortable around Alex, because he flat out says that he’s telling Alex this so that she’ll know before someone else in their group finds out and uses it against him. The strategy was there in this attempt at character development, but since the payoff wasn’t, it doesn’t do us any good.
On a scale from 1 to 10 I’d give Oxenfree a 4. It’s not that it was bad necessarily it just wasn’t good, either. Even when you put away how poorly this game ran on my computer and how I just don’t care for the generic, edgy 12 year old on tumblr brand of creepiness that this game uses, the writing just isn’t good. You can tell that they’re trying to write it well, but the magic just never happens. Strategies to help emotionally invest the player are certainly there, but never with any payoff. Especially in light of how much I wanted to love this game, it just makes it all the more disappointing for me. But will Oxenfree be remembered in 2016 alongside the likes of Mighty No. 9 and No Man’s Sky? Certainly not. On the contrary, this game is mostly praised. But for me, at the very least, although this wasn’t necessarily the worst game of 2016, this was easily the most disappointing.
Catalyst Labs released Shadowrun: Anarchy this past week, and naturally I picked up a nice PDF copy. I then printed out that copy and stuck it in a binder. And then I read it. And let me tell you, I liked what I saw. Shadowrun is notorious at this point for having an overly complex system of dice pools, character creation, and in fifth edition, matrix and astral plane actions in addition to everything that happens on the physical plane. Trapped in a musty cellar? You can alter players’ dice pools on the conditions. Need to hack into some club’s server for a mission? Get out your dice. It’s no surprise that most GMs, myself included, offload some of these things to their players. You wanna register this sprite? Do your tests. Be honest if you glitched.
The Rundown
Shadowrun: Anarchy (or just Anarchy from here on out) seeks to correct some of these things. Most notably, it emphasizes the fact that it’s a collaborative storytelling effort. The GM is there to guide the story along with the help of the players, not so much create a world that players inhabit. From the get-go I can see Anarchy being great for one-off campaigns where people don’t have a lot of time to sit down and plan a run.
That being said, Anarchy gives players and GMs a lot to work with when it comes to character resources. NPCs and player characters have a dedicated chapter which includes a smattering of 60 fully-realized, fully-playable characters in every species, race, gender, and archetype imaginable. It’s incredible how many are in the book. In addition, Anarchy gives GMs a variety of goons to throw at their players. These range from large rats to small dragons and everything in between.
Playing the Game
Anarchy’s character creation process is pretty straightforward. Characters pick their metatype, helps and hindrances, and character-defining cues. This is what’s new to Shadowrun in this version. As opposed to a dedicated GM running a sandbox that players get to experience, the GM acts as that one guy in an improv play that knows what they’re doing. In fact, most of Anarchy is like an improv play: there’s a lot more responsibility on the players to keep the story moving. Turns of gameplay are broken up into narrations, and players can expend plot points to make the story go where they want it to or keep their characters… you know, alive. Which is something I appreciate.
The cue system, as it’s called, gives players plot points to start out with and at the GM’s discretion, gives them more for exceptional narrations. Players do cool things, players get rewarded. Players have a say in the story. If they don’t like it, they can change it. It’s an engaging, fast-paced change from the typical tabletop model where decisions can come back to haunt players. In long-term campaigns, that still persists, though in shorter one-offs, it’s a lot more hands on.
Playing the game this past week went about as smoothly as I’d hoped. The premade characters helped out a lot. (GM Tip: Put character sheets in page sleeves so that players can use dry-erase markers on them. Pencils can tear paper and it keeps the sheets in pretty good condition.) The three players I had picked out characters with ease and we got down to running. We poked fun at the dad-joke cues that some of the characters had, and I led them on a run.
A sample Anarchy character sheet.
Quirks and Overall Adaptability
I think the hardest thing about running a game of Anarchy was letting go of a lot of the control you have as GM. As a fiction writer primarily, I have set places I want my stories to go and I spend a lot of time building the world they take place in. I’ve been worldbuilding for our upcoming Shadowrun show for weeks, and I still have a fair bit to go. I want things to be as realized and intricate to my players as they are to me. Anarchy takes a bit of that away because players can change things so easily. It’s not something I was really prepared for at first.
Another thing is some places in the book that haven’t exactly been proofread. Some paragraphs reference the alpha test version of Anarchy, which is pretty funny to look at now. Then again, every first-edition has its quirks.
There are other things that just come with the nature of Shadowrun. There are still a lot of rules, and some of them aren’t explained so well. I still have no idea how to orchestrate matrix or astral combat, let alone meatspace combat. Even though skills have been greatly simplified, it’ll take some getting used to.
Also: players get three plot points to start each game session. I mistakenly gave them none. (Sorry guys.) Other than the fact that getting used to a different version of pen and paper RPGs takes time, I didn’t see a problem with it. Catalyst Labs also included a guide on how to convert Shadowrun 5E to Anarchy and vice-versa. Which is incredible. The cues system really exists as something that can be removed, as well, so adapting it to a different setting wouldn’t be a stretch by any means.
Final Thoughts
While I enjoy the finer details of Shadowrun’s vanilla 5th edition, I find myself wanting to use Anarchy in more and more campaigns. It’s good news for my players, it offloads some of the nitty-gritty things that GMs go through, and it makes for a really nice experience overall. It’s interesting to see a pen-and-paper RPG styled more like a board game than anything else, and I like the direction Catalyst Labs went with Anarchy. To me, it’s a kind of party trick to keep in my back pocket. Anarchy makes it quick and easy to get a few friends together and run a session. It’s an incredible introduction to some of the conventions of tabletop RPGs, and Anarchy presents it in an easy-to-learn format. 10/10, Catalyst Labs. Well done.
Overall, I’m super in love with this release. Can you tell?
Kirby Super Star is one of many classic games celebrating a milestone this year. Along with Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot, Kirby Super Star is now 20 years old.
Released on the SNES in 1996, Kirby Super Star set itself apart from previous entries in the series. The game still had the series’ trademarked copy ability gameplay, colorful graphics and upbeat, addictive music.
However, to quote the 80s classic This is Spinal Tap, “It goes to eleven.”
Kirby Super Star offers players 25 unique copy abilities, eight creative sub-games to play and some of the best music on the SNES. It also contains one of the more distinct and entertaining two player modes in any platformer. The game also contains top notch controls.
After two decades and several legitimately fantastic entries in the series later, is Kirby Super Star still great? Are gamers looking through pink tinted glasses? Does its remake, Kirby Super Star Ultra, overshadow it? Or does Kirby Super Star still stand on its own and deserve to be put into every SNES owner’s collection?
What makes Kirby Super Star so great? Variety of course! Similar to any work of art, there are several factors that make Kirby Super Star great and it’s strongest trait is its variety. Each of the sub-games are all creative and worth checking out at least once. However, a player should play them all in a row to get a true one-of-a-kind Kirby experience.
The variety in Super Star feels more concise and straight to the point than its remake. There is just enough sub-games where none of them feel tacked on and the copy abilities are a perfect assortment. The game is also not terribly long and overly stuffed.
Super Star Ultra adds a lot of mini-games and special modes, on top of the enhanced graphics and sound. However, Super Star Ultra is spread a little bit too thin. The extra stuff is just there. Getting the chance to throw down as Meta Knightis fun and the online multiplayer is great, but they aren’t particularly needed additions.
Copy Abilities are EVERYWHERE!
Along with the sub-games come the copy abilities. With 25 unique ways to defeat enemies, Kirby Super Star also introduces the Kirby Hats. Kirby will change color and wear a different hat or hairstyle to coincide with the ability. It’s a nice graphical change that keeps the variety up.
There is also not one copy ability that is not useless. The classic abilities of Fire, Sword and Stone are there. However, the more creative ones, Yo-Yo, Suplex and Ninja make appearances in Kirby Super Star. Fighter Kirby makes his first appearance in the game as well!
The game allows for experimentation, as it does not penalize you for not having a particular copy ability. If someone wants to play through only using Fire, they can! If they feel like switching out every few seconds, players can!
It’s strange to think about, there is a significant amount of freedom and choice in a Kirby game.
Twice the Fun with Two Players! Playing the game as just Kirby is a fun time. Using the abilities to create a second player makes Kirby Super Star more of an unadulterated blast. Player twos will take control of one many cartoonish enemies Kirby copies abilities from. For example, if Kirby gets rid of his ability, than Player Two will become that enemy. It makes for some real fun gameplay combinations and silly, but fun, moments.
The “8 9 Games in 1!”
The whole game available on a corkboard. Image courtesy of Kirby Wiki.
Kirby Super Star boasts the “eight games in one” slogan right on the box. The games are all interesting and remarkable in their own right. The “eight games in one” schtick may appear gimmicky. It is technically nine, counting the mini-games. However, each sub-game contains its own story, challenge and even graphical aesthetics, along with slight positive updates to the gameplay.
Whispy Woods in 16-bit! Image courtesy of Game FAQs.
Spring Breeze is a loose remake of Kirby’s Dream Land, but now with the copy abilities. It’s a fantastic start to the game and hooks players in with its colorful graphics. Level design and bosses are all great, but it’s just an appetizer to the main course.
Fighting off Dyna Blade with two players! Image courtesy of VG Museum.
Dyna Blade is the first original game on deck. It’s up to Kirby to defeat the title character, who has been terrorizing Dream Land. The map system is a lot like Super Mario World, and is an extended version of Spring Breeze. It just happens to have better level design, boss fights and a memorable final one with Dyna Blade herself.
Finding treasures of all worth! Image courtesy of Moby Games.
The Great Cave Offensive is the Kirby series attempt at a Metroid style game. Kirby has fallen into a massive cave and find his way out, while spelunking for treasure. Also, Kirby must fight off several unique bosses, including one that is a hysterical parody of Final Fantasy’s turn based combat. The Great Cave Offensive is definitely the most difficult for players and it is a MASSIVE part of the game. However, there are players who don’t want to leave the caves and just keep exploring.
Gourmet Race has Kirby and the nefarious and hilarious King Dedede competing in a foot race to see who can eat the most food. The music is beyond memorable and has been remixed more than a few times. This is also a blast because of how competitive it is.
Revenge of Meta Knight, arguably the darkest of the eight games, has Kirby stopping his rival from conquering Dream Land. Meta Knight and his cronies send just about everything after Kirby, including a combat lobster and a MASSIVE gun. The speed run nature of the gameplay, appearance of the fan favorite Meta Knight and pulse pounding music make Revenge of Meta Knightone of the more memorable sub-games in Kirby Super Star. The dialogue between Meta Knight and his army is also enjoyable.
Kirby in the final battle of Milky Way Wishes! Image courtesy of VG Museum.
Finally, after blowing through each game, the player unlocks the penultimate sub-game, Milky Way Wishes. The Sun and Moon are fighting caused by an unknown entity. Kirby’s friend Marx shows up to help. Milky Way Wishes has Kirby traveling throughout the galaxy. Stopping from planet to planet, Kirby notices the damage the Sun and Moon are doing, which results in some unique level design and steep challenge. Milky Way Wishes is also the only game in the franchise to have the Copy Ability Deluxe feature, where Kirby must find the abilities and stock them. It also contains one of the best final bosses in any Kirby game.
Facing off against Meta Knight in the Arena! Image courtesy of https://happyhibisci.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/kirbys-super-star/
The Arena is Kirby Super Star’s boss rush mode and is easily the most difficult of all the sub-games. The Arena only gives the player five Maximum Tomatoes to recharge on health to fight all of the game’s bosses.
Rounding out Kirby Super Star are two mini-games. Megaton Punch and Samurai Kirby are quick games involving timing. Megaton has Kirby facing off against strong enemies by testing his strength. Samurai is stylish like a classic samurai film and has Kirby taking out enemies similar to the quick draw mini-game in Kirby’s Adventure. The two mini-games are fun to play around with when you need a break from the actual game.
Everything Else Fires on All Cylinders Kirby Super Star’s other features like its graphics, controls and sound are about as flawless as a 2D platformer can be. No one will ever feel like they are out of control or they won’t brush off the graphics as being “just another SNES game.” And no one will be able to not hum the theme to “Gourmet Race” after playing it. It goes without saying the features that make up video games (controls, graphics, etc..) are phenomenal in Kirby Super Star.
The Great Cave Offensive is perfect for showing off the graphical capabilities of the SNES. Image courtesy of Moby Games.
There are many SNES games that are as colorful and full of energy and take full advantage of the superior sound capabilities. Kirby Super Star absolutely deserves to be on the list of SNES greats like Super Metroid or Chrono Trigger in terms of using the hardware to its full potential.
My personal experience with the game…
I first played Kirby Super Star back in 1999. One of my childhood friends had an elusive SNES still kicking and owned a copy of Kirby Super Star. Now, I had only played Kirby’s Dream Land 2 on the Game Boy, so to say my experience with the Kirby franchise was limited is accurate. On my friend’s birthday, we all decided to head over in his basement and start playing away.
Within the next few hours, I don’t remember playing anything else but Kirby Super Star. All I wanted to do was conquer the Halberd as Kuckel Joe one more time. I wanted give back the food to Dream Land from Dyna Blade or just race King Dedede. I wanted to play as every enemy who had Kirby’s abilities. I just wanted to play this game!
As the years went by and several “edgy/mer-I-hate-Nintendo” phases later, I bought a Wii. Mostly to play games on the Virtual Console.
One summer, I downloaded Kirby Super Star from the Virtual Console on a whim. The same feelings I had when I played the game back in 1999 came flooding back nearly 11 years later. The gameplay still held up after all these years and I couldn’t believe it. I even found myself enjoying it more than the other Kirby games I downloaded.
Not counting RPGs, it’s the most played game on the Virtual Console for me.
I’ve always had a soft spot for the Kirby franchise and will always love Kirby Super Star. It’s one of the few video games where I can play for five minutes or five hours and still be happy. To me, it’s the only Kirby game that feels fresh every single time I boot it up. Kirby Super Star is just simply fun. It doesn’t tell a deep story, it does not completely reinvent platforming. Kirby Super Star just does everything right and keeps players entertained, no matter what.
For those who are curious, Revenge of Meta Knightis my personal favorite sub-game and the Yo-Yo ability is my favorite Kirby copy ability of all time.
Kirby Super Star is still great even after two decades and a remake Ask any Kirby fan what their personal favorite is in the series and it will usually differ. However, one game in the series all fans can agree is legitimately great is Kirby Super Star. The perfect graphics, sound and control build up the experience. It is the gameplay that is chock full of diversity and choices that sets it apart.
Kirby Super Star does its job so well that it is the measuring stick for many Kirby games have copied it. It’s also a game many gamers have fond memories of.
Happy 20th, Kirby Super Star! A game this legitimately great after all these years deserves to be played by anyone. It truly is one of the best SNES games and an honest classic.
Happy 20th Kirby Super Star and a happy 24th to you too, Kirby! Image courtesy of Game FAQs.
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!
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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–
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.
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.
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.
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.
