tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51473576343419249072024-03-13T14:29:08.272-07:00NintendoSegaNintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.comBlogger134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-41126190237472921582024-02-07T19:41:00.000-08:002024-02-07T21:54:25.341-08:00New Review: Super Mario Bros Wonder delivers a creative, unpredictable, extremely weird and very fun 2D platformer<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY1QFEALaaJo5SDqe_9XEVdkcQi3mHLaYIySorsu5Rgmdo2nN71tMVbxsF1lw2BvwD8WvsmwMvMtwz3yCgBWRsOkwlcDqPl7gju79JAkxT0w6je1n5m8LSvJ8IrNanmx03RXMExWScOR94JM3kNSPaPxAPH0zvkW6eYSPu19aLQpDn-daLX3LJLaGVcFQ/s1280/blogspot%20super%20mario%20bros%20wonder%20review%20pic.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY1QFEALaaJo5SDqe_9XEVdkcQi3mHLaYIySorsu5Rgmdo2nN71tMVbxsF1lw2BvwD8WvsmwMvMtwz3yCgBWRsOkwlcDqPl7gju79JAkxT0w6je1n5m8LSvJ8IrNanmx03RXMExWScOR94JM3kNSPaPxAPH0zvkW6eYSPu19aLQpDn-daLX3LJLaGVcFQ/w381-h214/blogspot%20super%20mario%20bros%20wonder%20review%20pic.jpg" width="381" /></a></div><br />I never thought I’d see the day when a 2D Mario game would
win me over to this extent, but Super Mario Bros Wonder is not only a fun,
immersive, inventive, and at times awe-inspiring adventure through the brand
new Flower Kingdom, but it even tops Super Mario Odyssey as the best Mario
platformer this gen. <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Switch has seen a creatively-rejuvenated Nintendo
release one incredible game after another, and their latest take on 2D Mario,
their first since New Super Mario Bros U in 2012, proves to be one of the best 2D
platformers of the year, if not in recent memory. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nearly every decision made in the development of Super Mario
Bros Wonder was the right one; the plot doesn’t feature Peach getting kidnapped
yet again but instead tells a story in which she gets to be a part of saving
Flower Kingdom with all the others. Freed from the constraints of having to
take place in Mushroom Kingdom, and freed from the philosophy that 2D Mario has
to play it safe and closely mimic games from 30 years ago, Wonder from the
start feels fresh, invigorated, and genuinely unpredictable and delightful from
level to level. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Flower Kingdom is an expansive one, with something like 15
hours of playtime awaiting. Each “World” you visit features plenty of levels to
complete, along with a boss or two. The world map, a hybrid between 2D and 3D,
has sections where you can free roam in 3D from one level to the next, which opens
up all sorts of possibilities not only in terms of finding hidden secrets and
levels, but in giving off a true sense of scale, atmosphere, and immersion completely
missing from the previous several 2D Mario installments. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The levels themselves are creative, varied, well-paced, and
just the right length. The powers are fun to use and frequently entertaining. The
best new feature by far though is the Wonder Flower, which transforms each
level into a psychedelic, Alice in Wonderland-like trip, in which your goal is
to find each level’s hidden Wonder Seed. These sections are totally chaotic and
crazy, unlike anything I’ve seen in a Mario game, and many offer a good
amount of challenge to the proceedings. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Super Mario Bros Wonder offers a pretty decent amount of difficulty, with it only rarely devolving into frustration. The game maintains
the Lives system, something which other modern games of this type have been
doing away with, but it’s a good choice here and one that I still prefer over
the various alternatives to it. The levels provide just the right amount of
challenge, while still being designed to be beatable with only a limited number
of lives, creating the difficulty balance that (so far) really only the Lives system
delivers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The visuals are gorgeous throughout, with the worlds
appearing sharp, distinctive, and very smooth. Nintendo often has a strong
command of their hardware’s strengths and limitations, and Super Mario Bros
Wonder is a great showcase for that. Character animations and facial expressions
are also a major improvement from any previous 2D Mario outing. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The only areas where things fall a little short are in terms
of World number and the bosses; the boss battles are pretty underwhelming;
though they’re generally fun, and none are frustrating to the level seen from those
in Sonic Superstars, for example, I do wish that a little more was done with
them. They lack the creativity seen in other aspects of the game and often feel like an afterthought. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Super Mario Bros Wonder also only features 6 main Worlds
(plus an additional World-ish for the Final Boss segment of the game) for a
total of 7. Though there’s still a ton of content here, along with plenty of
post-game content, it’s similar to Nintendo’s shorter games during the Wii U
era, which often also only had 6 Worlds, as opposed to the typical 8. My guess
is that the developers just didn’t have the time, as the Switch, now having
been on the market for almost 7 years, is nearing the end of its lifespan, and
Super Mario Bros Wonder likely had to release in 2023. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That said, though an 8<sup>th</sup> World would have been
nice, ultimately what’s here is more than enough to warrant a purchase. Super
Mario Bros Wonder was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2023, a game I didn’t
expect to love nearly as much as I did given my lifelong preference for 3D
Mario, and the very standard, uninspired feel that 2D Mario’s had for well over
a decade. But Wonder breaks through, delivering a creative, unpredictable, extremely
weird and very fun 2D platformer, one with a sense of freedom and innovation
that I felt even Super Mario Odyssey held back on. The Nintendo Switch continues
to be a source of some of Nintendo’s best 1<sup>st</sup> party efforts in a
very long time, and Super Mario Bros Wonder is no exception. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>4/5</b></p>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-89094916260936331402023-09-28T14:19:00.009-07:002023-10-03T22:22:42.055-07:00New Review: Despite a genuine and noteworthy attempt at quality storytelling, Final Fantasy 16 also suffers from uninspired, repetitive gameplay.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaSAubFjs13OnhX9fHaz65xwt0a3RsZOsOrQ8MDMeWqKUyMAYq5Ds4bS4kpv_ub18R2z5U2By3PrvJBAfy8rZykRoq4b_12rEfZlz0DebTfpIPuRlpXPzClqUDONEgac6jKyRE7C_AdZPe8TDTgF8vtpPemtgr5m9NIT2-HWLAoduvwKDK5-9qvmNM6jo/s3840/Blogspot%20Final%20Fantasy%20XVI%20Review%20pic.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2160" data-original-width="3840" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaSAubFjs13OnhX9fHaz65xwt0a3RsZOsOrQ8MDMeWqKUyMAYq5Ds4bS4kpv_ub18R2z5U2By3PrvJBAfy8rZykRoq4b_12rEfZlz0DebTfpIPuRlpXPzClqUDONEgac6jKyRE7C_AdZPe8TDTgF8vtpPemtgr5m9NIT2-HWLAoduvwKDK5-9qvmNM6jo/w468-h263/Blogspot%20Final%20Fantasy%20XVI%20Review%20pic.jpg" width="468" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Final Fantasy, a series that played a key role in defining
the “modern RPG” multiple times since its creation, has struggled, like many
long-running franchises, to find its footing in the modern era. With each new
installment, it’s evident that Square-Enix is desperate to once again re-invent
the RPG franchise into something that will truly define what a Final Fantasy
game should be. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Setting aside the Final Fantasy 7 Remake project, it’s been
nearly 7 years since the last numbered entry, Final Fantasy 15, came out,
itself an intended spinoff that had been branched out into a numbered entry in
its similarly excruciatingly long development process. We’re many, many years now
from when this series was at its most creative and most influential; with
a growing number of years separating main installments, and with these new
games generally being solid, if somewhat forgettable, adventures, it’s been hard
not to feel like the last several entries have struggled, with varying degrees,
to capture the same magic. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Final Fantasy 16, in the end, doesn’t quite get there,
despite its best efforts, and while numerous aspects of the game show major
promise for the series going forward, others have me scratching my head as to
what exactly Square-Enix is attempting to achieve with its long-running, iconic
RPG series.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In terms of narrative and direction, Final Fantasy 16 gets
off to a very promising start. Producer Naoki Yoshida, himself having saved
Final Fantasy 14 from complete disaster, expressed his disappointment with the
fully open world Final Fantasy 15’s storytelling, and wanted to assure fans
that 16 would once again tell a truly memorable, compelling tale. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">His efforts to bring storytelling back into the forefront are
noticeable from the moment the game starts. The dialogue’s extremely
well-written, the voice acting as close to perfect as anything I’ve heard from
a Japanese translation; cutscenes put the characters and their interactions
with each other and their personalities front-and-center, and a few hours into
the game, I remember expressing that I hadn’t felt this way with a Final
Fantasy game in well over a decade. Main character Clive is incredibly
well-developed and likable, able to demonstrate not only ruthlessness (this is
the first M-rated Final Fantasy game and without a doubt earns it) but also a
sense of humor and unwavering determination that makes him genuinely
compelling. Even during Final Fantasy 16’s often extremely bland gameplay
quests, Clive’s dialogue and his interactions with others manage to provide
enjoyment. His past relationship with his younger brother, Joshua, is in many
ways the heart of the story, and both characters come across so well. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Others
come and go throughout; unlike many Japanese RPGs, Final Fantasy 16’s combat
system is purely action-driven and is focused so much on controlling Clive that
his companions in combat are swapped in and out all the time and often barely
register. Still, considering this, the other party members do as good a job as
they possibly can in leaving an impression given their somewhat reduced role in
the game. Special mention definitely goes out to Final Fantasy 16’s version of
Cid, easily one of the best and most entertaining Cid characters that this
series has seen, and that’s quite a legacy to live up to. Jill makes for a
strong female lead as well, and Torgal’s a great example of how games can
always benefit from introducing a main character who happens to be a dog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Though the characters are compelling and entertaining enough
on their nature alone, it has to be said that Final Fantasy 16 does stumble a
bit in its other storytelling aspects. The main scenario feels hazy and hard to
understand from the beginning, and doesn’t really manage to ever make itself
clear. It feels similar in this sense to Final Fantasy 13, which similarly threw
you into the action and setting, hoping you could pick up on what was happening
without much explanation. Until I completed 16 and read the plot synopsis on
Wikipedia, I never felt that I had much of an understanding of what the
Mothercrystals were, what purpose they served, why the world was the way it
was, and why the main characters were doing what they were doing or treated how
they were treated. It doesn’t help that the plot, in what often feels like an
attempt to extend playtime, sends Clive on meaningless, truly boring
sidequest-like main quests that lead nowhere satisfying and break the flow of
the narrative often at key moments. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Had Final Fantasy 16’s scenario and its presentation of it
met the excellent caliber of its characters and their incredible dynamics, it’s
possible that the game could have found a way to compete with the true classics
in the series in terms of narrative: instead, it falls short. At times, 16
feels like a page-turner, with me not wanting to put the controller down in
order to see what was next, which is something I haven’t felt from a Final
Fantasy story in a long time. While it’s unfortunate to say that it doesn’t
quite follow through, the genuine attempt to refocus on storytelling is a huge step in the right direction for this series, and one
that I hope it continues to attempt going forward. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The gameplay, on the other hand, ultimately comes across as
yet another failed experiment, though it too isn’t without its charms. It has
to be said first and foremost that while Final Fantasy 16’s combat system is
indeed more along the lines of Action Games like God of War, the game itself is
still very much an RPG, and still offers far more exploration, freedom, and
sidequests than the extremely linear Final Fantasy 13, which was actually turn-based.
So it’s important to understand that there’s varying degrees to all these
things. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In terms of looking at straight up combat, the system is
simple and fun on a basic level, and quite frankly I liked it much better than
the attempt at an action system featured in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake. You
have basic attacks and more powerful attacks to Clive himself, much of which is
done by mashing the Square button and Dodging, though the more powerful attacks
can be triggered by holding it. Much of your combat variation however comes
down to Eikons, 16’s version of Summons, which you break out with a button
press, and whose moves you use after they’ve spent several seconds charging up.
You unlock more Eikons as you go, and while you can only equip 3 at a time, you
can reset the Ability Points you’ve spent on one if, later in the game, you
want to use those to upgrade a new Eikon you’ve acquired and like better. I
personally just stuck with the initial three I acquired, and Final Fantasy 16
isn’t even remotely challenging enough to require you to seriously consider
your strategy, or to consider switching these up for any reason, but the
option’s there. </p><p class="MsoNormal">There’s not much in the way of health recovery; some Eikon
moves recover health after being used, and Torgal can be instructed to revive
an almost useless amount of Clive’s health as well, but for the most part,
Final Fantasy 16 relies on Potions and High Potions. You carry a handful of
each, and after dying in battle, the game gives you more. Bosses contain
Checkpoints within the boss fights, so at some point I realized that it was
best to go all out with using my limited selection of Potions/High Potions,
knowing that if I manage to reach the checkpoint, I could die, continue on from
there, and have them replenished. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It becomes pretty clear early on that Final Fantasy 16 is simply
afraid to challenge the player. It’s something that I’m conflicted about, being
someone who doesn’t like Action games very much, and as someone who rarely
finishes them, it’s likely that had Final Fantasy 16 been a difficult game, I’d
similarly never have reached the end of it. So it’s in that way that I’m happy
that the game is the way it is, but I wish something was done to lessen the
mind-numbing repetition of mashing the Square button, dodging, and Using Summon
Powers, which, once established, continues for basically the game’s entirety. You
can make some strategic use of the Stagger Gauge, but really only a couple
battles towards the end required me to do anything to break even slightly from
how I was fighting, or to modify my strategy in any way. Playing Final Fantasy
16 becomes, as a result, a mind-numbing exercise in repetition. </p><p class="MsoNormal">The game’s
quests don’t help much either; sidequests all follow the same blueprint of
accepting a quest from someone, going to exactly where the radar tells you to
go, fighting some enemies, and then Fast Traveling back. It’s bland, but
something at least expected, but this design carries into the main quests as
well, after a point, and in the second half you spend far less time discovering
new locations and seeing new things as you do wandering back and forth from one
mindless series of enemy encounters to another. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Some of Final Fantasy 16’s environments are jaw-droppingly
beautiful (such as the desert and its explorable town) but the majority are, by
design, dark, grey, dreary, rainy, and just not all that visually interesting.
Many of the environments are large, and certain ones link to each other where
they can be traversed between on foot, allowing for exploration and
backtracking. But unfortunately, Final Fantasy 16 makes use of a mandated Fast
Travel system, which majorly distracts from the feeling of this being a unified
world and takes away a lot of the sense of exploration and adventure. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Your
characters have a hideout, which serves as a home base of sorts. Once you leave
the hideout, you find yourself on a fast travel map, where you have to select
the next location you want to go to. There’s no way to walk from the hideout to
any other location, and no way to walk between locations that aren’t grouped
together, without warping back to the Fast Travel map and selecting it from
there. I’ve never been a fan of fast traveling in video games, and though I
understand that at times it’s useful, I find that in games that mandate its
use, it always detracts from the proceedings. At one point, the main characters
supposedly embark on a “long journey” to get to a distant desert; it takes 2
seconds to select it on the Fast Travel Map, then it cuts to them walking
through the desert. They spot a town and say that they need to stop there to
rest, as if they’ve been journeying for days. None of this translates to the
player, who was just with the characters back at their hideout 2 seconds ago. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To Final Fantasy 16’s credit, I certainly felt like I was
more a part of the world than I did in the towns in Final Fantasy 15, which
were big but felt dead and un-related to the narrative, and certainly more so
than in Final Fantasy 13, which removed the towns and explorable areas almost
entirely. Still, many times upon arriving at a beautiful, personality-filled
town, I wish the game would slow down a little bit and allow the characters to
spend more time there. Often, it only takes talking to one specific character
before it’s time to immediately venture off to the next location, though
thankfully a bunch of sidequests all then open in the town for you, should you
choose to hang around. Just don’t expect any of them to be particularly
exciting. Many of the game’s big cities remain off limits, visible only in
cutscenes, but without a question Final Fantasy 16 has explorable towns with NPC
interaction and sidequests, and it has areas with nice amounts of exploration.
So for those worried that FF16 has gone full-on action game, rest assured that
this applies mostly just to the combat system, not the rest of the gameplay. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Visuals are incredible, as is to be expected from this
series. The visual effects in relation to the Eikons are stunning, with some of
the best lighting effects I’ve ever seen attached to some pretty spectacular
cutscenes and even playable sections as well. The setting, while unique to the
Final Fantasy series, doesn’t otherwise feel especially original, with its
dark, dreary medieval vibes not my particular cup of tea, but it does look nice
for the most part. Characters look great and animate well, and the framerate
proved not to be an issue for me at all throughout. The true beauty to behold
is the almost complete lack of any load times to speak of, something that feels
almost unheard of, especially after the previous generation of gaming, but it’s
an incredibly nice touch. The only thing I found myself slightly missing is
this series’ famous use of elaborate CG cutscenes, which Final Fantasy 16 seems
to have done entirely away with. The in-engine cutscenes of course look amazing,
but some CG cutscenes too could have added additional weight to a few of the
big moments, and could have provided the story with a little more punch. </p><p class="MsoNormal">The
music, sadly, is entirely forgettable; as I type this, I can remember only the
2<sup>nd</sup> “hideout theme” and almost nothing else, which is such a bummer
after the incredible soundtracks that this series used to be known for.
Throughout the game it’s generally pleasant, but nothing that I’d ever really
have much of an urge to listen to again. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It's with a heavy heart that I regard Final Fantasy 16 as
such a mixed bag, but there it is. It takes some incredibly promising steps for
the series towards having a compelling narrative with memorable, truly
human-like characters, and though it ultimately falls short on that promise
because of a vague story, it comes closer than any Final Fantasy in recent
memory. The combat system is fast and fun, but ultimately repetitive and almost
mindless, a description that can also be applied to many of the missions you do
in the game, both those that progress the story and the side missions. It took
me a good while into this 40+ hour adventure for the repetition to truly set
in, and for the first half of the game I was fully onboard for the ride. Sadly,
as Final Fantasy 16 goes on, and on, and on, I grew more and more tired of it. </p><p class="MsoNormal">I’m genuinely confused as to what Square-Enix is attempting to do with this
series; any fan of Action Games is going to find the combat to be shallow and
incredibly easy, while RPG fans will likely mostly be wishing for a return to
battle systems that aren’t so reliant on constantly hammering the Square
button. It’s a direction that ultimately won’t please anyone, and at some point
I think the various developers and producers are going to have to take a look
and figure out exactly what is it that they’re trying to accomplish with this
action-driven approach, of which this is now the 3<sup>rd</sup> iteration, and
decide whether it’s even within their capabilities to achieve it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Final Fantasy 16 though, isn’t a total bust; it has its fair
share of fun, and a great cast of characters along with an (at times) very
compelling narrative. The battle system and gameplay mechanics are fun before
you begin to get tired of them about halfway through, and the visuals are a
feast for the eyes. Probably worth a shot for Final Fantasy fans with their
expectations set in line, but for everyone else (and I had to say this with
Final Fantasy 15 too) I’m just not sure that there’s ultimately enough substance
here to carry you across the finish line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>3/5</b><o:p></o:p></p>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-68288794093760995452022-12-10T16:40:00.009-08:002022-12-23T20:37:39.539-08:00New Review: Better than I ever expected it to be, Sonic Frontiers is a fun, addictive, and fully-realized Open Zone Sonic concept that easily approaches greatness <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY7JwRJsO6z4Cke8TyopoNDplED6FdicSvx6u9xWKd4CeMQFmtQyApx7hyqaG8P6lF55TT_YwDYj-AsRGAr6VLZWxInRNVxEP_v3D2RIu6WdPWZgrMVtX6CpVGR015KpgBvKsmZmAtqKVugjScQmmna0HaNADBh-6Nm9LqYZdE5q7jI_zWhd3s8v90/s1920/Blogspot%20Sonic%20Frontiers%20Review%20Pic.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY7JwRJsO6z4Cke8TyopoNDplED6FdicSvx6u9xWKd4CeMQFmtQyApx7hyqaG8P6lF55TT_YwDYj-AsRGAr6VLZWxInRNVxEP_v3D2RIu6WdPWZgrMVtX6CpVGR015KpgBvKsmZmAtqKVugjScQmmna0HaNADBh-6Nm9LqYZdE5q7jI_zWhd3s8v90/w437-h245/Blogspot%20Sonic%20Frontiers%20Review%20Pic.jpg" width="437" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Even after over thirty years in existence, Sonic can still
manage to surprise. Taking bold cues from modern open world games and
incorporating them firmly with boost-style 3D Sonic gameplay, Sonic Frontiers
is a game that, despite numerous cut corners and odd storytelling, is a real
crowd-pleaser of an action-adventure game. After the almost shockingly
underwhelming Sonic Forces, it’s a pleasant surprise to see that Sonic Team is,
thankfully, still capable of developing not just a competent entry in the
long-running series, but a nearly great one. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The game begins with Sonic and his friends becoming
separated, with the blue mascot finding himself alone on a deserted island, and
it’s easy at first to spot Frontiers’ obvious Breath of the Wild influences,
from the somber piano music to the atmospheric flourishes that hit you almost
from minute one. While I feel it would have been better and helped Frontiers
feel more original to have had a graphics style and art direction more in the
style of the Sonic Universe than the Legend of Zelda, the game still finds a
way to differentiate itself in a pretty major way from other open world titles,
and a couple hours in, I was fully able to understand what Sonic Team was
attempting with their “open zone” concept, and it’s one that, for the most
part, completely won me over. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There’s something so addictive about the flow of gameplay
with your arrival on each of Sonic Frontiers’ five islands, four of which are
fully-realized massive open world playgrounds. (One of them is a bit of a cop
out, but is at least pretty fun as far as cop outs go.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A mission marker guides you to where the game
suggests you go next to progress the story, but you can explore the islands and
accomplish your goals however you see fit. Similarly to the likes of Breath of
the Wild and Immortals: Fenyx Rising, there’s a lot of inherent fun in the idea
of completing an objective to fill in a portion of your map, allowing you to
see what each area has to offer and exploring it. In the case of Sonic
Frontiers, you complete bite-sized puzzles, most of which are simple but fun
exercises, and the feeling of satisfaction upon then seeing your visible map
expand is hard to put into words but it’s one thing that makes this formula so
compelling. Frontiers goes a step further by then changing the world itself,
adding a series of roller coaster-like grind rails to the areas that you
Reveal, making traversing the island as you fill in your map even faster. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The controls feel great and very fluid, and while Frontiers
still uses the boost mechanics that have become fairly tiresome in other recent
modern Sonic entries, somehow the open zone setting suits them very well, and
getting around, solving puzzles, zipping across the islands on speed boosts and
grind rails, along with fighting the various enemies, all feels, for the most
part, nearly perfect. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though the
traditional Sonic “levels” exist in the form of the Cyber Space segments (more
on those a little later) they’re a fairly small portion of what Sonic Frontiers
has to offer, but I was surprised to find that I didn’t miss them as much as I
thought I would. In a sense, the world you explore feels almost like a giant
Level, and though you follow the same formula upon arriving on almost every
island, the feeling of progression, from defeating mini-bosses, to completing the
Cyber Space levels, to filling in your map, to leveling up your character, to
talking to your friends to progress the story, it all flows very well and feels
not only addictive but truly fun. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Cyber Space levels are the closest Sonic Frontiers comes to
featuring your typical end-to-end Sonic stages, and though many of them are
fairly short, and they all use the same (re-used) visual templates, their platforming
is surprisingly fun and very well-paced, with your goal not only to just reach
the end of the stage but to complete various objectives, none of which feel
like a chore and the short length of the stages works very well in this sense.
The music, too, during many of these stages, is almost unspeakably awesome. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Upon collecting all the chaos emeralds, you fight a massive
boss encounter before clearing the island and getting to move to the next one.
These bosses are huge and are generally fairly fun to play, though there are
some frustrations associated with them that I wish had been addressed. You
fight each boss as Super Sonic, which means you have a time limit, as the amount
of rings you have depletes second-by-second. It’s important therefore to go
into each boss battle with a full collection of rings, and dying on a boss and
having to retry it doesn’t save this progress, forcing you to collect the rings
(and then having to journey back to the boss encounter) all over again. The
bosses also include something that I really wish video games would abandon by
now, which is the Sudden Death QTE. Yes, failing those dumb QTEs will cause you
to lose the boss fight and have to start it all over again, which is as
frustrating as it sounds. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As far as puzzles are concerned, most of those featured are
quick and fun, though there’s a very difficult puzzle towards the end of the
first island that needs to be completed before you can fight the boss, and it’s
such a tedious puzzle that I could easily see many, especially younger fans,
quitting the game right there and never going back to it, which would be a real
shame because it’s the only such puzzle in the whole thing and it happens so
early in the story. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As far as the story goes, it’s pretty nonsensical and difficult
to follow, eventually reverting to a strange series of flashbacks in a made-up
language starring characters who you really don’t get to care much about. The
moments with the Sonic characters interacting with each other at least fare a
little better, and the series really has come a long way from the days of amateurish
voice acting and strange dialogue that used to hamper the modern entries. Oddly
though, while the acting’s mostly solid, some of the key roles were recast for
unknown reasons, and even the voice actors who stayed on (such as Roger Craig
Smith as Sonic) seem to have been instructed to give subdued, “more serious”
performances. It all sounds a little weird and had I not known that Roger Craig
Smith reprised his role, I’d have assumed that Sonic was being voiced by
someone else, given how different the character now sounds. That said, the frequency of the cutscenes
and the presence of the overall narrative itself is much greater than I was led to believe
from the trailers, which is a good thing and keeps things interesting and well-paced,
even if the story being told is, frankly, pretty bad. And the lack of a single
boss fight against Eggman is also a little weird, though the character does
play a big role in the storyline. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Really Sonic Frontiers’ only major stumbles (aside from the
somewhat frustrating boss mechanics) are the obvious development short cuts.
Whether budgetary or because Sonic Team didn’t have the time that they needed,
evidence of cut corners rear their heads pretty regularly. One of the chaos
emeralds you have to collect is basically given to you by each boss, while the
enemy types and mini-bosses you face are limited to only a couple per island
that you fight over and over again. You’ll fill in Sonic’s skill tree long
before the game ends, and the Cyber Space zones aren’t given identities of
their own, re-using assets from Sonic Generations and only having a couple
variations (Chemical Plant, Green Hill Zone, etc.) It’s too bad because the
Cyber Space zones are a lot of fun, and it’d have been cool if they were
differentiated from each other by being fully-realized Levels, instead of
re-using tired backdrops. Four of the islands look very similar to each other,
even though they all play quite differently in terms of exploration, with only
the desert really standing out from the pack on a visual level. The fourth island,
as mentioned earlier, is basically filler and not at all like all the other
ones in terms of things to do and exploration. Pop-in and framerate hitches are
pretty rampant (on the PS4 version) and though not as big a deal as I thought
they’d be, they do make the game feel a little rough around the edges. The
ending, too, really disappoints, with a forgettable final boss that’s far
easier than all the others, while the final cutscenes feel incredibly rushed as
well. The ending does save itself in literally its final 10 seconds before the
credits roll, with an emotional moment that comes across as meaningful, even if
everything else feels like it’s on fast-forward. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It should be noted that playing on Hard mode unlocks an additional
little “boss fight” during the final boss, but other than the game bizarrely
cutting away from the fight on Normal and Easy and jumping right into the
ending, I think people who would rather play Sonic Frontiers on Normal or Easy
should rest assured that the Hard Mode-exclusive boss is more of a
mini-game than a boss, doesn’t add much of anything to the game, and can be
played after the fact by switching to Hard Mode after beating the game and
trying the boss again. Still, the whole concept and execution of a “final boss”
fight exclusive to one difficulty setting comes across as lazy and poorly
thought out. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But gripes aside, Sonic Frontiers is a game that’s so much
better than I ever thought it would be. It controls like a dream 90% of the
time, the mechanics of bouncing around the environments and the Cyber Space
levels feel refined and nearly perfect, and the wide array of things to do on
each island and the freedom you’re give to do them, not to mention some incredibly
good music and solid (if repetitive) graphical presentation, make Sonic
Frontiers a near-great game. Had the Cyber Space levels been fully-realized
levels and given their own identities, had the game not cut so many corners in
terms of mini-bosses and visual design, and had the final boss and ending not
been such a (mostly) let down, we’d be looking at a true Sonic classic. But Sonic
Frontiers comes close enough and, I have to say, is such a near-great game in its
own right, that it’s one I’d fully recommend to fans of the series and one that
I’d even encourage non-fans who might be interested to check out. This
iteration might not get the critical recognition that it deserves, but next
time, if Sonic Team continues down this path, we might have something even more
special. <o:p></o:p></p><b>4/5</b><p></p><p><b>Note;</b> this review is based on the PS4 version.</p>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-71398334410934109102022-08-03T18:55:00.008-07:002022-12-10T16:18:59.299-08:00New Review; Correcting the record on Grand Theft Auto V, a game I was wrong about all those years ago <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUMw0HXrv1Xza3YqAuCQCR7G7oc8YhZIESQicPO04z_sbfDOyGvHwb1xKk1lXjB6svPW1RrllxVYpIrBPwRh8wYjSMvtu7otnFyTuhNIiDjMCDCz3TKqQHwhA3DL850jGPuEdPWuXVRhYxHxykWuvCx_WjDtwafi4Ugnox6iH39qG1V7oFIIg0vJw/s1920/Blogspot%20GTA5%20Review.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUMw0HXrv1Xza3YqAuCQCR7G7oc8YhZIESQicPO04z_sbfDOyGvHwb1xKk1lXjB6svPW1RrllxVYpIrBPwRh8wYjSMvtu7otnFyTuhNIiDjMCDCz3TKqQHwhA3DL850jGPuEdPWuXVRhYxHxykWuvCx_WjDtwafi4Ugnox6iH39qG1V7oFIIg0vJw/w437-h246/Blogspot%20GTA5%20Review.jpg" width="437" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">There have been times where I’ve been completely wrong with
my opinion on a video game, especially a video game that seems to be beloved by
the rest of the world. In certain cases, my opinion changed upon giving the
game another chance in the form of an HD Remaster, where various graphical
boosts and quality of life improvements, along with maybe reduced expectations,
have allowed me to love games that I previously struggled to get into. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Grand Theft Auto V on the Xbox 360 was a game that, for
whatever reason, I majorly disliked upon its release in 2013, and for nearly 10
years, was the only modern Grand Theft Auto game that I’d never finished, my
Xbox 360 Red Ringing as I neared the end of the game resulting in me having to
watch the rest online. It was weird, as a huge fan of Rockstar Games and their
iconic GTA series, that I didn’t like GTA V, and though my thoughts at the time
were undoubtedly sincere, I have to admit, upon finally giving the game another
shot nearly 10 years later, that I had no idea what I was talking about. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">GTA V is of course a great game, one that has been beloved
for nearly a decade and has remained a top-seller for nearly a decade. It still
has its flaws, and though I haven’t gone back and re-read my review of the 360
version of the game before writing this one, I do remember some of what I
wrote, and those flaws are still intact. But Grand Theft Auto V is an
atmospheric, exciting, incredibly fun, and visually striking game that presents
its city of Los Santos and its wild surroundings in a loving, very detailed
way. Though it carries several of the weaknesses common in games from the 7<sup>th</sup>
generation of consoles, it in many ways stands above its fellow open world
adventures from that area and largely holds up incredibly well today. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Grand Theft Auto V is unique so far for the series in that it
stars 3 playable characters who you can switch between on the fly. You can do
this when exploring the open world, each character often having their own
available missions at any given time, even if the game more or less dictates
which character ultimately needs to be selected in order to progress through
the main story. During the missions, which often take the form of multi-part
heists, the characters can also be switched between, all of this putting a fun
spin on the typical GTA proceedings. GTA V may not really rock the boat in any
major way in terms of the series’ famous formula, but changes such as the
multiple playable characters and the frequent heists and setups help it to
stand out, while returning a lot of the craziness and wackiness that was in
short supply in the far more grounded Grand Theft Auto IV. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The game begins with three characters in the middle of a heist
mission, something along the lines of a tutorial, and admittedly offers a less-than-impressive
first impression; the grimy interior corridors, lack of awareness as to who the
characters are, and the lack of ability to save for something like the first 30
minutes of the game feel like just as much of a bad start as they did to me on
the Xbox 360. Once you do get set loose into the open world though, the magic
of Rockstar’s incredible visuals and art direction, along with their great
talent for immersive music and atmosphere, takes immediate center stage. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You play as Michael, a retired bank robber-turned family
man, along with Franklin, a young man who repossess cars in South Los Santos,
and of course Trevor, a deranged and truly psychotic individual who does have a
certain charm to him that was completely lost on me the first time I played
through the game. Each character is given their own fairly comprehensive setup
before they all eventually team up, but admittedly the narrative doesn’t treat
them all equally, with Trevor and Michael having a history together that
ultimately plays a big role in the game’s events, while Franklin gets, without
a doubt, the short end of the stick. His character’s likable and I was
generally interested in his life and his friends, but unfortunately every time
I switched to him, his map always seemed almost empty, without much to really
do, and it becomes clear pretty quickly that GTA V’s really Michael and Trevor’s
show. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Certain flaws like that do exist throughout Grand Theft Auto
V, and they aren’t flaws that ruin the game in the same way that I once thought
they did, but they come across as development oversights that I’m surprised
this massive team didn’t catch. The driving controls and physics are all over
the map, with driving greatly sped up from its sluggish handling in GTA IV, but cars still spin out with alarming frequency, and there’s no
consistency whatsoever as to which types of objects you can run over and which
ones will stop you completely in your tracks. It’s a true testament to the
quality of the rest of the title that frustrating driving controls, despite
cars playing a huge role in the proceedings, don’t hurt the overall game too
much, even though they have the potential to.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Simple actions that could be done with the press of a button
are instead given multi-step control prompts, leading me to constantly have to
remind myself how to shoot from a vehicle, or how to check the current radio
station, or how to change my weapon. It’s something that was common in the 7<sup>th</sup>
console generation and GTA V definitely reminded me of it. Other little things,
like character conversations while driving continuing on long after you’ve
reached your destination, feel surprisingly sloppy, as it forces anyone who
wants to hear the whole conversation to sit at the location and wait for it to
end before exiting the car and proceeding to the mission, making me wonder why
they didn’t better match the length of the conversations to the expected drive
time. The game can also be frustratingly unclear as to what exactly it wants
you to do, especially during any section that involves flying a plane or a
helicopter, and Rockstar seems to under-estimate how difficult certain things
are, such as in a particular mission where you have to land a plane, and in another
where you have to drive a motorcycle on top of a train. That the game isn’t
more forgiving during missions like these makes them frustrating in a way that
I don’t think was intended by the development team. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The characters, though, I found to be genuinely likable this
time around. Michael and his horrible family are a constant source of laughs,
while Trevor, terrifying as he is, managed to win me over, at least in a sense.
Franklin’s under-utilized but he serves as a decent anchor between his two
crazy cohorts, and the way they all function together is compelling. The
argument can certainly be made (and I’m sure it’s one I made back in 2013) that
the cartoonish characters are a step down from the more realistic, human casts
of GTA IV and GTA: San Andreas, but I find myself able to appreciate the
entertainment value of GTA V’s characters too. Maybe as I get older, it’s
becoming easier for me to appreciate things for what they are instead of
wishing they could be something else, or maybe I didn’t appreciate them with an
open mind back then, it’s hard to say. But I did feel a genuine affection
towards these characters by the end of the game, though it has to be said that
one of the three available endings is significantly better than the other two. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Where GTA V shows its age is mostly in the size of its world.
The size of the map is absolutely huge, but the portions that exist outside of
the city of Los Santos dwarf those of the game’s signature city by such a huge
margin that it has the effect of making Los Santos feel so much smaller than
intended. The game as a result takes you outside the city so frequently that it
makes it feel less developed than the cities in other Grand Theft Auto titles,
whether or not that’s actually the case. It’s a design choice that makes sense
in what was a notoriously difficult generation for open world games, and it
undoubtedly made it possible to release the game before that generation ended,
but it’s the one thing that stood out the most to me as someone revisiting the
game all these years later. If you have any familiarity with the city of Los
Angeles it’s hard not to notice how much
smaller Los Santos feels than the real thing, with the omission of the San
Fernando Valley entirely, along with your ability to clearly see the Downtown skyline from the Santa Monica Pier, both standing out in a pretty major way. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Otherwise though, GTAV does a great job at capturing the set
and setting of LA, or at least, the LA as it existed in 2013, when the game originally
released. Though Los Santos feels quite small by today’s open world standards, it
still leaves a great impression by the game’s end, as do at least two of the three
main characters. It may not have the emotional weight of some of the other GTA
installments, but its over-the-top craziness and top-notch atmosphere, along
with many incredibly fun missions, help GTAV stand out despite its occasional
frustrations and strange game design oversights. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is obviously not a review that’s going to get much
attention now in 2022, as almost everyone’s played the game by now, but it’s a
review that I felt compelled to write, if for no other reason than to correct
the record left by my review of the original GTAV back in 2013, a game which I
was entirely wrong about. Though it’s always better when studios focus on new
releases as opposed to remasters, the beauty of remasters is that they can give
games second chances, and in my case, more often than not, the second chance
has allowed me to appreciate a title that I just didn’t back when it originally
came out. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not a perfect game, but truly a great one. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>4/5</b><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Note; </b>This review is based on the PS4 version</p>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-77773651618051734682022-05-02T15:49:00.004-07:002022-10-07T22:43:29.950-07:00New Review: Repetitive, ugly, and incredibly boring, No More Heroes 3 is probably the final nail in the coffin for Grasshopper Manufacture.<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtRkDWbRudb1soZ3ttPbFhNb1AzuF6C2Ycq2ri7jdzJqwoJFCiiIN64_I6LTBgaBxGBBgr_SZpDC5M_bJ-shTMyle1HtWjvWcy8-hpjqsNvPzzpeRT61jxwzxOcji8587Zi4StHFn-_Et-FXVKHOsuIZCT8kAN-Cegii-cWG1hymmcZEN7hgAE9gmm/s1280/Blogspot%20No%20More%20Heroes%203%20review.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtRkDWbRudb1soZ3ttPbFhNb1AzuF6C2Ycq2ri7jdzJqwoJFCiiIN64_I6LTBgaBxGBBgr_SZpDC5M_bJ-shTMyle1HtWjvWcy8-hpjqsNvPzzpeRT61jxwzxOcji8587Zi4StHFn-_Et-FXVKHOsuIZCT8kAN-Cegii-cWG1hymmcZEN7hgAE9gmm/w416-h234/Blogspot%20No%20More%20Heroes%203%20review.jpg" width="416" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Repetitive, ugly, and incredibly boring, No More Heroes 3
just might be the final nail in the coffin for me as far as any hopes that
Grasshopper Manufacture will ever go on to recapture the magic that made them
such an interesting studio during the era of Killer 7 and the original No More
Heroes.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It hurts to say, especially as someone who was once a huge
fan of Suda 51 and his crazy, stylistically violent games, but I haven’t
enjoyed anything his studio’s put out since 2008. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There were glimpses here and there of fun and cooky artistry
in games like Shadows of the Damned and the James Gunn-penned Lollipop
Chainsaw, but to increasingly diminishing results and not nearly enough to have
overcome their rough gameplay and lack of depth and polish. After trying twice
but being unable to force myself through the unbearable Killer is Dead, I’d all
but written off the indie studio, though I couldn’t help but give them one more
shot with No More Heroes 3, which promised the return of Suda 51 to the Director’s
chair, (albeit as a co-director) something he hadn’t been for the majority of
Grasshopper’s output following the original No More Heroes. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On a very surface level, No More Heroes 3 feels more like a
sequel to the original game than to the far more limited No More Heroes 2;
returning from the 1<sup>st</sup> game is the ability to explore the world of
Santa Destroy, the GTA-like hub where you travel from place to place and embark
on missions and side missions. You are Travis Touchdown, the incredibly nerdy
and angry main character who, as is series tradition, must move up the ranks of
Assassins by challenging and killing various bosses, each complete with their
own backstories, the pre-boss conversations with Sylvia also returning after
their absence in the previous game. As with the original No More Heroes, you
spend time in between assassination missions taking on odd jobs around town to
earn the money necessary to qualify for the missions themselves. No More Heroes
3 replaces the traditional pre-boss hack and slash levels with individual
combat missions scattered throughout the open world that also have to be
completed to unlock the Ranked Assassin Missions, which now just takes you
directly to the boss fight. It’s a choice that makes sense in the context of
today’s open world games, but one that ultimately makes this third installment
feel more slow-paced than the others. Still, it’s something different, and the
studio bringing back many of the features that were removed from No More Heroes
2 was a reason for me to be somewhat interested in giving this a shot. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The results, unfortunately, are depressingly bad. Almost
from minute one, I found myself struggling to follow the lengthy, jumpy,
confusing cutscenes that open the game up. Once I finally did catch up and
manage to figure out exactly what was going on, I was able to somewhat
appreciate the interesting dynamics between the game’s villains, and there are
a couple somewhat humorous moments throughout, though the majority of No More
Heroes 3’s attempts at humor land with a thud. Sadly however, despite this
being the first return of Travis Touchdown (spinoff aside) to his own proper
game in over 11 years, I was hit with a wave of indifference from almost the
minute the game began. The open world’s ridiculously fragmented into tiny,
poorly-designed pieces that are unlocked like levels and just aren’t any fun to
explore. The “alien” theme’s both generic and under-developed at the same time,
while the graphics are bathed in a dark, dreary, blue tint that makes this
easily the worst-looking numbered No More Heroes game yet, despite it being the
first in HD. Santa Destroy in the original game had a bright, fun, cel shaded summer
vibe to it, but the open world in No More Heroes 3 (where you spend the
majority of your time) feels entirely devoid of life and atmosphere outside of
the Perfect World section of the map, and never managed to immerse me or
develop any sort of sense of place. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Everything, presentationally, about No More Heroes 3 feels
like the wrong choice, from the constant stream of in-game credits sequences
that begin and end each “chapter” to the bland, forgettable and often downbeat
music that plays throughout. The homages to the 8-bit era that this series has
always dabbled in are cranked up to 11 here, and serve as a complete
distraction. The deliberately pixelated radar in the corner of the screen is so
hard to use that I almost always had to pull up the full-size map just to have
an idea of where I was going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This map
strangely displays a huge chunk of the world that you’re never actually allowed
to visit, and the load times that take place through all of this feel abrupt, disruptive,
and excessive. The game (which lacks an auto-save feature) once froze on me at
the worst possible time, forcing me to repeat about a half hour of playtime
over again. Chapters are bookended with pointless cutscenes featuring Travis
and one of his friends sitting in his living room discussing Takashi Miike
movies. In addition to the scenes being presented with all the visual flair of having
been recorded off a security monitor, the dialogue between the two characters
isn’t funny at all and doesn’t even seem to be attempting to be, and as someone
unfamiliar with Miike’s movies, I of course had little idea what they were
discussing. Even if I had, though, their analysis is incredibly shallow and not
particularly interesting; I get the sense that I could find more in-depth
analysis from high schoolers on a Miike-devoted message board. The payoff from
having to sit through these puzzling cutscenes comes far too late to have been
worth the effort. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That isn’t to say that everything about No More Heroes 3 is
horrible; the combat system remains fun and fast, albeit veering into
frustration a little too often and easily, just like it did in No More Heroes 2
and all of Grasshopper Manufacture’s games since. Still, battles are chaotic
and visually striking, and the leveling up system for Travis offers a solid
amount of customization. Boss encounters still don’t have the depth,
personality, or the extravagance of the fights from the original game, but
they’re more or less on par with its sequel in providing interesting personalities
and solid gameplay variety. As with its predecessors, motion controls are
integrated perfectly, in a way that isn’t even close to being excessive but one
that feels so satisfying. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The quirky odd jobs, however, are tedious and lack any of
the charm of either previous No More Heroes game. After trying a couple of them,
I decided to focus entirely on combat challenges as a means to earn money
instead. The characters you encounter around the world are strange in the usual
Suda 51 way but lack a lot of the charm that existed in the original, with No
More Heroes 3 often feeling like it’s trying desperately to grasp something
that the studio just doesn’t seem to have in them anymore. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is most clear in the storyline that propels the adventure
forward. Every tone that it strikes just hits the wrong note; Travis seems
angry and unpleasant, almost all of the likability he had in the first two
games somehow nonexistent. The villains are both too menacing to be truly funny
and yet too funny to be taken seriously, and the side characters (especially
Shinobu) are given so little to do that I wondered why they were even included.
The writing itself is oftentimes incomprehensible and never as funny as it
seems to think it is. Travis yelling out the names of various fruits every 10
seconds in battle is supposed to be funny because of its randomness, but
weirdness just for the sake of weirdness isn’t automatically deep or funny; it
actually has to go somewhere, and No More Heroes 3’s just doesn’t. As with many
modern GHM games, cutscene after cutscene ends with thoughts of “huh. That was
weird,” with the studio seeming to think that weirdness alone makes them
profound, or hilarious, or innovative. But as with all of their modern games,
they simply come across as weird, but little else. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s sad how far Grasshopper Manufacture seems to have
fallen. As someone who loved the original No More Heroes and the divisive
Killer 7 before it, nobody was hoping more than me that No More Heroes 3 would
see a return to at least some of that former glory. Unfortunately, the
aggressively confusing storyline, tonal inconsistencies, terrible visuals and
presentation, a boring, soulless world along with repetitive, unexciting
gameplay ends up leaving almost nothing for me to recommend about No More
Heroes 3, even with a solid and usually fun combat system. I do hope that the
studio can somehow manage to find its sweet spot in the HD era at some point,
but I worry that they just don’t have the amount of people, the budget, or the
focus to pull it off. As a former fan of Suda 51’s strange and inventive games,
it’s a difficult pill to swallow, but something that just seems to be, for now,
the way it is. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>2/5</b><o:p></o:p></p>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-48616133830969536272021-11-24T20:57:00.004-08:002021-11-25T19:09:31.629-08:00New Review; Structural problems aside, Skyward Sword HD proves to be a great way to experience an often-overlooked Zelda game<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jaz6RCBiNCg/YZ8W8eQJCtI/AAAAAAAAAdY/qjhthkrVX60_nu_n_6pKdKUFXs8qsiRJQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/blogspot%2Bskyward%2Bsword%2Breview.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="207" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jaz6RCBiNCg/YZ8W8eQJCtI/AAAAAAAAAdY/qjhthkrVX60_nu_n_6pKdKUFXs8qsiRJQCLcBGAsYHQ/w368-h207/blogspot%2Bskyward%2Bsword%2Breview.jpg" width="368" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">At long, long last, the somewhat divisive Legend of Zelda:
Skyward Sword has been given new life in the form of an HD remaster. Arriving
years after the remasters of Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, and
Twilight Princess on the 3DS and Wii U, respectively, Skyward Sword HD now has
its turn to be both discovered by those who missed out on its charms back on
the Wii, and of course to be experienced a second time by those who have played
it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Skyward Sword has always been a somewhat controversial entry
in the series, having been developed exclusively for the Wii and taking full
advantage of its motion controls; specifically, its Motion Plus peripheral.
This fact, along with its release towards the end of the Wii’s lifespan at a
time when many had moved their attention to other consoles, meant that Skyward
Sword was a game that many fans haven’t played or finished, making it ripe for
a remaster. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It comes to the Switch with full 1080p visuals at 60 FPS,
with various improvements to tone down the game’s somewhat aggressive hint
system, speed up the dialogue boxes, and other little tweaks that go a long way
towards a smoother experience. The most major addition is the button-only
control scheme, which allows you to use the right analog stick to recreate the
game’s motion elements. As someone who always felt that Skyward Sword was
somewhat under-appreciated, I was looking forward to the game being given a
second chance, and of course was looking forward to getting to re-experience it
myself. I’m happy to report that Skyward Sword HD is the definitive way to enjoy
the game, even if the Joy Cons have to be recalibrated in motion mode far more
frequently than they should be, and even if aspects of the game’s structure are
more flawed than I remember them being, something I similarly remember thinking
with Wind Waker’s HD remaster a few years ago. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A surprisingly cinematic introduction sets the stage pretty
quickly for what promises to be a much more story-driven Zelda game than its
predecessors. The dialogue remains text-based, sadly, but the cutscenes are
very well-presented and as movie-like as I think text box cutscenes have ever
managed to be. Taking place in a village in the clouds called Skyloft, the
citizens of this world live above an undeveloped, far more dangerous world
below the clouds, one which consists of essentially 3 areas that are traveled
through and are further explored numerous times as the game progresses. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The humans explore the sky world by riding on birds called
Loftwings, while numerous Skyloft citizens train to be knights, who, among many
other things, rescue those who fall from the sky island. Skyloft’s a town with
a lot of character, and serves as a pleasant, albeit fairly under-populated,
hub world of sorts, where numerous side quests can be taken on and where
charming NPCs can be interacted with in typical Zelda fashion. The sky world
you can explore is somewhat reminiscent of the ocean from Wind Waker, though,
it has to be said, on an almost astronomically smaller scale, and with very little
in the way of populated islands to visit beyond Skyloft’s boundaries. Still,
there’s something cool about leaping from Skyloft, summoning your Loftwing, and
(after an unfortunate but brief second or two of loading) soaring through the
clouds. The little islands scattered throughout house treasure chests, which
have to be activated in the world below before they can be accessed, along with
a bar called The Lumpy Pumpkin and one or two other cool little gems. Still,
there’s not much out there, and the vast majority of Skyward Sword’s
exploration and gameplay takes place in Skyloft and on the ground. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But first, the scenario. It’s in the midst of a ceremony
where Link is about to be made a knight that Zelda is swallowed up by a
mysterious force and dragged through the clouds, initiating Link’s journey
below to rescue her. What’s fairly cool about the way Skyward Sword plays out
is that Zelda is both brimming with personality and also bravery; far from
being captured, she teams up with another character named Impa and sets off on
her own journey. At risk of overselling the plot too much, it’s true that in
typical Zelda fashion Link undergoes much of the journey on his own, and the
game follows the standard Zelda blueprint of minimalist storytelling and object
collecting, but Skyward Sword sees it being given the greatest emphasis it has
ever been given in this series (even more so than in its successor, Breath of
the Wild) and there are one or two scenes that are genuinely impactful
emotionally, and are pulled off incredibly well and seemingly effortlessly.
It’s a story definitely worthy of its journey. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As Link pursues Zelda into the land below, he finds a world essentially
divided into 3 different areas, (Faron Woods, Eldin Volcano, and Lanayru
Desert), areas which expand as Link learns new abilities and the story
progresses. The locations serve as cool areas each with their own compelling
charms and surprises (possible exception of Elden Volcano aside) but it feels
like a sad limitation that you can’t travel between them on foot in-game as one
full world, instead having to choose one to descend to from the sky. It’s
something which bothered me much more today than it did back in 2011, making
each area feel segmented from each other, lessening the feeling of full
exploration. Exploring the sky world seems like it was meant to be a
replacement for this, but given how barren much of it is, and given the fact
that the majority of its treasures have to first be unlocked on the ground
before they can be accessed in the sky, it makes Skyward Sword unquestionably
feel like it’s among the most linear of the series, even though there’s still
quite a bit to explore and even though at one point towards the end you’re
given the ability to progress through the rest of the story somewhat
non-linearly. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Skyward Sword’s gameplay contains both some of the series’
best along with some of its more tedious. The dungeons, unquestionably, are the
most fun the series has seen, with excellent pacing, great use of Link’s
abilities, the addition of in-dungeon save points, and some clever puzzles. The
much-dreaded Water Temple here is actually a full-on blast, and arguably the
most fun dungeon in the game. As someone who found its predecessor, Twilight
Princess, to have had a few too many dungeons, Skyward Sword’s a Zelda game
that could have used at least one or two more of them, and falls into the same
trap of Wind Waker in that towards the end it recycles previous dungeons rather
than having contained a much-needed additional one or two. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The bosses range from some of the series’ cooler ones to
bland, swordplay-driven encounters, but thankfully the majority of them are a
lot of fun. Like the rest of the game, dungeons make frequent use of the motion
controls, though as Skyward Sword HD is now fully playable without them, they
should hopefully serve as much less of a barrier to people’s enjoyment of the
game. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The area in which motion controls have the largest impact
(and where they thankfully work the best) is in combat. Enemies have to be
targeted with your sword at certain angles, with swiping your Joycons at those
angles triggering 1:1 motion. It’s something that worked quite well on the Wii
and it works very well here too. Combat’s so satisfying with motion that while
I tried switching back and forth between motion and non-motion controls, I
ultimately stuck with the motion ones because they just make combat feel so
much more vibrant. Playing without motion still features the same targeted slash
mechanics, though this is achieved by sliding the right analog stick in the
directions needed to defeat enemies. This is also something that works well,
and its addition serves as a good choice for people who just can’t stand motion
controls. The only major weakness to using this mode is that you lose some of
the seamless camera control offered in motion mode, as button-only mode
requires you to hold down the trigger before using the right analog stick to
move the camera, since otherwise the right analog stick is taken up by the
sword controls. It’s a slight drawback and something to consider when deciding
which control scheme to use, though thankfully the control methods can be
switched at any time. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The biggest issue that’s exclusive to this remaster is that
the Joycons need to be recalibrated almost constantly, at least, in my
experience. It was something that occasionally had to happen with the Wii
Motion Plus, which required the Wii Remote to be set flat on a table and
recalibrated with the TV. Though Skyward Sword HD thankfully streamlines this
to simply pointing your Joycon at the center of the TV and pressing Y
instantaneously, this has to be done almost all the time; whenever I wanted to
use a non-combat ability that required motion for its movement, (which is most
of them) the motion seemed completely off, and had to be recalibrated. It feels
almost broken, and served to constantly remove me from the immersion that the
developers intended. Were it not for the fact that the motion controls are more
reliable (once calibrated) and that Skyward Sword HD is far more forgiving with
various motion actions than the original, I’d almost argue that the motion
controls worked better on the Wii because the controller didn’t have to be
recalibrated so frequently. All in all, it winds up being a draw. As far as the
enjoyment of using motion controls is concerned, the powerups are all fun to
use, fitting the Boss Keys into their slots is always a cool little exercise, and
the motion elements keep things fresh and interesting. What remains tedious
with motion controls is flying your Loftwing, and it's a bummer that using an
analog stick (while in Motion Control mode) wasn’t an option, as it’s really
the only thing that I’d rather have used the Button Only control scheme with. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Visually, Skyward Sword HD is a beautiful game. The art
style was one that I struggled with on the Wii, feeling unsure of what they
were going for and thinking that things looked colorful, but incredibly blurry
and washed out. In Skyward Sword HD though, what was intended with the visual
style is far clearer, and the game looks gorgeous in most areas. It’s
unquestionably one of the weaker art styles the series has seen, but with this
remaster I’m now much more able to appreciate it and understand it, and overall
I’d have to say that it works quite well for what it is. Musically is where
Skyward Sword really shines; it goes with a full orchestrated soundtrack, but
unlike many other MIDI series that attempt this (Tales of, Atelier, Dragon
Quest) Skyward Sword pulls it off without losing the charm and vibrancy of the
music this series has always been known for, and it sounds incredible. Aside
from the high quality of the music, the tunes themselves are some of the best the
Legend of Zelda has seen from the beginning. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Though this remaster goes a long way towards fixing several of
Skyward Sword’s issues, several still remain. There’s no quest menu for
sidequests, forcing you to remember who assigned them to you and what the quests
were. I found myself using the Switch’s snapshot feature to note whenever I
took on a sidequest, which is a semi-solution, but still feels sloppy. Finding
quests to take on can also be a challenge, as many citizens of Skyloft seem to
spend most of their time in their homes, which means you have to randomly enter
house after house searching for NPCs who will offer you quests to take on.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It's in this sense that while there’s a solid amount of
people to interact with in Skyloft (though considering its supposed existence as
the home for all of humanity, it just doesn’t feel populated enough to serve
that purpose) and many quests to take on, it never really feels like it, and
much of the side content will likely remain hidden from many players as a
result. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These issues were completely remedied in Breath of the Wild,
thankfully, but even in 2011 Skyward Sword’s weaknesses in this area were
readily apparent, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with the game’s lack
of any sort of interface for locating and tracking side content always feeling
like an obvious oversight. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What I didn’t seem to notice back then, but what feels like
a significant drawback today, is Skyward Sword’s segmented world. Though each
of the game’s 3 ground areas greatly expand to reveal new locations as you
progress through the story, that they’re all separated from each other gives
them a very disconnected feel. It doesn’t help much that the game design’s
incredibly repetitive; it follows the same formula when you arrive at each area,
each time, which begins with an incredibly frustrating Dowsing section, where
you have to wander the environments in a Find the Object mode before you can
progress the story, something that I grew to dread each time I arrived at a new
location. Two of the three locations (exception being Eldin Volcano, which is
pretty much exactly as it first seems) offer some very cool surprises and interesting
mechanics, but the formulaic nature of Skyward Sword’s progression becomes
abundantly clear early on, and it’s hard to pretend that it doesn’t exist,
especially once the game stops throwing new dungeons in your direction towards
the end. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword however is a game that was a
blast to re-experience. 10 years later, I still feel that it’s criminally
underrated among a faction of the Zelda fanbase, and hopefully this remaster,
with the option of turning off the motion controls, will help it find new fans.
Speaking for myself however, the motion controls are an essential part of the
game’s experience, and I wound up keeping them on, even if the constant need to
recalibrate the Joycons kills the immersion and winds up feeling like a step
back from the Wii Motion Plus. The story here is easily the best-told in the
series, with some genuinely moving moments and great characters and settings. The
dungeons and music are also easily some of the series’ best to date. Skyward
Sword’s repetitive and formulaic progression, the segmented nature of the world
below, a tragically empty sky and a lack of a quest menu does leave a mark, as
does the developers’ decision to re-use previous dungeons and bosses towards
the end, something Wind Waker fans will definitely be familiar with. In fact,
as with Wind Waker HD, the structural weaknesses of the game design became far
more apparent to me when re-experiencing it than they were back when I’d first
played it, and though it does tarnish my thoughts on the game a little bit, Skyward
Sword HD is overall one I’d easily recommend, and one that, flaws aside, holds
up well and was fully deserving of what turns out to be quite a solid HD
remaster. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>4/5</b><o:p></o:p></p>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-23927531876653704082021-04-26T15:05:00.006-07:002021-04-26T15:06:36.577-07:00New Review: Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time doesn’t manage to live up to its predecessors; and with the possible exception of the first game, it doesn’t even come close <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P9R2g-QpFN4/YIc2Y6oc_CI/AAAAAAAAAcM/ifSUROleE0wtr1JWVvcpjpzcxc0jWWpNwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/blogspot%2Bcrash%2Bbandicoot%2B4%2Breview%2Bship.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="260" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P9R2g-QpFN4/YIc2Y6oc_CI/AAAAAAAAAcM/ifSUROleE0wtr1JWVvcpjpzcxc0jWWpNwCLcBGAsYHQ/w464-h260/blogspot%2Bcrash%2Bbandicoot%2B4%2Breview%2Bship.jpg" width="464" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is a game that I realized
fairly early on wasn’t going to live up to my hopes for it, and sure enough, as
things progressed, what little enjoyment I had dwindled further and further. It
isn’t an easy thing to report, as someone who grew up playing video games back
in the days when each of the big 3 (Sony, Nintendo, Sega) were represented by a
cartoony mascot with tons of personality and a gameplay style all their own. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Though Sony’s development output has shifted wildly from the
days when a goofy bandicoot served as the face of the Playstation brand, many
of us who gamed in the 1990s fondly remember our adventures with Crash
Bandicoot. I’d been hoping for years that the series would be revived for the
modern era, and the success of the recent Crash Bandicoot N’Sane Trilogy made
this all but inevitable. Sure enough, a proper sequel has now been developed,
and It’s About Time attempts to capture the magic that made Naughty Dog’s
original Crash Bandicoot games such memorable platformers back in their day. <br />
<br />
You can tell by my review score of course that I don’t think it does, but why I
failed to find Crash Bandicoot 4 to be enjoyable on almost any level is due to
something very straightforward; the removal of the Lives system. It’s a strange
thing, because on paper, removing this outdated mechanic would seem like it’d get
rid of a lot of frustration, but instead, it does the exact opposite. The Lives
system required Naughty Dog to design their levels in a smart way; they could
be difficult, and often were, but they couldn’t be so difficult that
people wouldn’t be able to finish the game. Because of this, Naughty Dog managed
to create levels that were quite challenging, but they weren’t relentlessly
challenging; you were allowed to have fun in between the challenging sections,
allowed to have minutes at a time where you weren’t dying over and over again, and
instead enjoying the fun platforming mechanics and beautiful worlds. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Toys For Bob, who developed Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About
Time, is under no such obligation; you’re granted an unlimited number of lives,
giving the developer the freedom to design the levels with as many hazards,
enemies, and blockades to your progress as possible. They can do this because
there’s no such thing as getting a Game Over, no matter how many times you die.
Rather than making the game more fun, this turns It’s About Time’s levels into
tedious exercises in trial and error, where dying upwards of 20 times per level
in the latter portion of the game becomes commonplace. As a result, I was
denied the feeling of ever being on a roll, of mastering the level, of enjoying
myself, because I seemingly couldn’t walk more than a few steps at a time
before being instantly killed by something offscreen, or falling through one of
the many bottomless pits that overwhelm pretty much every area. The number of
checkpoints isn’t horrible (albeit it could certainly be better) and the game
will throw additional ones your way if it sees you dying enough times on any
given part, but even without the fear of having to restart entire levels over
again, having to repeat section after section after section until I had them
memorized isn’t much of an alternative. It’s just frustrating. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On a lesser, though still significant note, the removal of
the Lives system also takes away the fun of collecting Apples during the levels
and finding secret bonus areas, because while in previous Crash games this
provided much-needed additional Lives, here, the only purpose of collecting
Apples is to award you with bonus skins, but these, along with Crash 4’s other
rewards, are so difficult to earn on your first time through any given level
that I felt like I wasted my time even trying, further damaging the formula and
making the game less satisfying to play. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s important to note that Toys for Bob does an admirable
job of capturing the Crash Bandicoot art style and vibe, though the Switch
version, it has to be said, is a little on the blurry and jagged side. The cutscenes are
funny and charming, even if the character of Crash himself, in my opinion
anyway, feels far goofier and over the top than he was originally portrayed.
Still, there’s a good sense of humor to the game all throughout, (including an
incredibly funny bit during the end credits) and there are hints of a more epic
scope that never quite materialize, but occasionally makes themselves apparent. The
addition of other playable characters is a cool touch, and the story itself has
its fun twists and turns, making good use of many of the returning characters.
Some of the new powerups are fun and shake things up, while the various boss
battles are actually pretty great; unlike the rest of the game, the boss fights
do manage to strike the right balance between fun and frustration. There’s good
stuff in here, to be sure, and Toys for Bob has their heart in the right place,
but the game simply sinks under the weight of its unforgiving level design,
resulting in something that looks and sounds like Crash Bandicoot, but that
just doesn’t have any of the fun or any of the pacing, and unfortunately in a
game like this, that’s a pretty big oversight. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time doesn’t manage to live up
to its predecessors; and with the possible exception of the first Crash
Bandicoot game, it doesn’t even come close. Though removing the Lives system
was intended to alleviate frustration and take the series forward, it instead
gave Toys for Bob the freedom to design tedious, pit-filled, trial-and-error
levels that just aren’t any fun to play. Rather than getting to enjoy
conquering the various stages, you’re forced to stumble along, bit by bit,
dying endlessly along the way, until you can hobble Crash or Coco across the
finish line at the end. I don’t doubt that this might very well be many
people’s cup of tea, and there are worthwhile elements (such as the boss
battles and the cutscenes) that I did find myself enjoying. All in all though, there’s
no way I can recommend the latest Crash Bandicoot game, and after waiting for
so long for it, that definitely hurts a little bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b>2/5</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Note; </b>This review is based on the Nintendo Switch version</p>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-63681100623331944202021-03-19T17:34:00.005-07:002021-03-19T17:51:13.515-07:00New Review: A constant delight and a true blast to play, Immortals: Fenyx Rising is some of the most fun I've had with a game in years <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wWxonJZmVdQ/YFU7159qbpI/AAAAAAAAAbo/n-Qn0uVHLB0mLsWVMLZTv1-2dAblBQs4gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Blogspot%2BImmortals%2BReview%2Bpic.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="279" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wWxonJZmVdQ/YFU7159qbpI/AAAAAAAAAbo/n-Qn0uVHLB0mLsWVMLZTv1-2dAblBQs4gCLcBGAsYHQ/w497-h279/Blogspot%2BImmortals%2BReview%2Bpic.jpg" width="497" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Immortals: Fenyx Rising is the rare game that delights in
almost every sense of the word. As a charming, funny, and whimsical adventure
in a fully explorable open world, Immortals is a breath of fresh air not only
when compared to other AAA Western games, but compared to its open world peers
as well. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After being sidelined for much of the 7<sup>th</sup> console
generation in favor of far more linear and faster-paced styles of gameplay, we
saw with the 8<sup>th</sup> generation a promising return to more open game
design; where video games were more explorable, more interactive, and less
constrained by shooter-influenced pacing. There’s still a difference between
this, however, and the type of open world game pioneered with 2017’s Legend of
Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a game referred to by Nintendo as an “open air” style
of game, whereas not only is the world large and explorable within its paths,
but where everything off the beaten path can be climbed up, flown over, and
chopped down too. In this type of game, there isn’t a single mountain peak off
in the distance that can’t be flown to and climbed up, not a single lake that can’t
be swum through, and the main story quests can be taken in any order. No
surface is off limits to exploration or interaction.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Immortals: Fenyx Rising is the first “open air” styled game
I’ve played since Breath of the Wild, and much of what made that game such a
compelling adventure and its world such a blast to explore is recaptured here.
Nintendo’s 2017 epic still remains ahead of the curve in several ways, which
shows what a once-in-a-lifetime experience a game can be, but Ubisoft does a
great job with this formula and has created an incredibly memorable adventure in its
own right. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The story begins with two gods, Zeus and Prometheus,
discussing their dire situation at the top of a snowy mountain; the evil god
Typhon is raging throughout the Golden Isle, and Prometheus makes a bet with
Zeus (who’s imprisoned) that Typhon will be beaten by a mortal. Though
skeptical, Zeus begrudgingly listens to Prometheus tell the story of Fenyx, the
mortal who he claims will save the Golden Isle from Typhon. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The two gods banter with each other fairly frequently
throughout the game, taking on the form of narrators as the two of them comment
on what’s happening, argue with each other, and provide context to some of the
events taking place. Aside from being genuinely funny, the addition of Zeus’
and Prometheus’ dialogue keeps the two gods in the mind’s eye, even though they
spend much of the story off-screen, and the constant reminder that Fenyx’s
journey is a tale being told from one god to another adds a level of uniqueness
to the story that helps make it a lot of fun. Fenyx begins her or his journey
washed up on the Golden Isle, Immortals’ colorful open world, and you’re
quickly set free into this "open-air" playground. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You’re given the ability to customize Fenyx’s gender and
appearance; given that the game was primarily marketed with the female version
of Fenyx, that was the one I chose, so I can’t comment much on how different
things might be with the male version of the character. But I found Fenyx as
she existed in my game to be incredibly likable; the way she interacts with the
other characters, her facial expressions, and her general outlook on her
situation is nothing short of endearing. The dialogue throughout comes off as
so effortlessly funny that it’s really nothing short of an achievement. Though
armor you equip to Fenyx changes her appearance in-game, there’s a cool little
touch where helmets, etc disappear during cutscenes; something allowed by Immortals' cartoony visuals, which lets Fenyx remain expressive during the game's events, which is a very good thing. The accents that the characters
all speak in initially took me a little while to get used to, but ultimately they
grew on me and I couldn’t imagine the game without them. The other characters
on the journey are equally funny and likable; from Zeus and Prometheus to
Hermes, to the various gods who you free who then take their positions atop the
tower as you progress through the game. The warm and funny storytelling along
with the vast, colorful world makes Immortals: Fenyx Rising always a delight to
turn back on and play. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Somewhat similar to other open world games, The Golden Isle
is divided into regions, which can be seamlessly traveled to either on foot,
horseback, or (similarly to Breath of the Wild) through flight by gliding down
from above. Each region is clouded on your map however until you scale the
region’s goddess statue, which not only unlocks the various Main Quest events
that take place there, but which fills in your map and allows you to
pinpoint points of interest on it. Immortals is a slight step back from Breath
of the Wild in that this is no longer done purely by sight; in Immortals, the
camera zooms in on the world from high up, and you use the right analog stick
to guide an icon across the vista, the controller rumbling when you happen upon
a point of interest. Once you highlight it, the object (whether it’s one of the
game’s many Vaults, crystals called Ambrosia which increase your max HP, puzzles which can lead to treasures or items to teach
Fenyx new abilities, etc) appears on your map and on your compass at the
top of the screen. Despite feeling a little more video game-y and less natural,
it’s a bit of game design that still offers much of the same satisfaction here as
it did in Breath of the Wild, where the idea of increasing the stats of your
character, whether that be HP, stamina, or earning new abilities, offers almost
constant encouragement to venture off the beaten path and explore each region
as much as possible in between story missions. Even with the greater focus on places of interest being waypointed from above, the sense of
exploration and the joy in venturing through the world on foot or by flight
remains much the same, making the fast travel system something that just feels completely
unsatisfying to use compared to purely exploring the world instead when
venturing from point A to point B. Immortals gives you the option to travel by
horseback as well, though given how wildly uneven and cliff-filled the Golden
Isle’s terrain is, it’s a feature that really doesn’t make much sense here and
doesn’t feel at all intuitive, so I forgot about it almost immediately.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While certainly smaller in size than the open worlds in many
of these types of games, the fact that it’s 100% explorable makes a huge
difference when compared to something like Ghost of Tsushima or Horizon Zero
Dawn, where you’re effectively traveling up and down on paths through what
essentially amounts to a giant corridor, with natural barriers on either side
preventing you from venturing more than a slight bit off the beaten path. As
with Breath of the Wild (though, it has to be said, not nearly as large and
lacking things like towns) Immortals allows you full 360-degree exploration
of the world at all times, and the ability to climb up, jump off, or fly to and
from pretty much every single thing you see makes a huge difference between
these “open air” games and their contemporary free-roaming peers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One area where Immortals: Fenyx Rising handily outperforms
Breath of the Wild is in its combat system, which offers fun hack-and-slash
gameplay but without having to worry about your weapons breaking, and the tons
of new moves and techniques that can be learned over the course of the game
keep things evolving. Combat is fluid and satisfying, rarely feels like a drag,
and offers a nice amount of challenge as the game goes on. The framerate on the
Switch version holds up surprisingly well given the amount of action taking
place on screen, and taking into account that this was developed primarily for
machines more powerful than it, it feels like quite an accomplishment. The
visuals are gorgeous and colorful, and though of course the draw distance and
levels of detail and resolution aren’t what you get on next gen systems like
the PS5, or other current gen systems like the PS4, the Switch version manages
to capture the essence of this game’s graphical presentation incredibly well
and proves to be a perfectly valid way to experience it. Immortals is
also mostly bug-free, which is great, though it does unfortunately suffer from
occasional crashes; in my experience, probably once every 10 hours or so.
Thankfully, the game features a very frequent auto-save feature, so the amount
of progress I lost from one of these crashes was almost never more than a
couple minutes, but it’s still a problem that shouldn’t exist in any game, and
it’s something that I hope continues to be patched out as time goes on. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Aside from a late-game misstep (which I’ll get to next,) and
the occasional crash, really the only gameplay flaw I can really think of with
Immortals: Fenyx Rising is that the Vaults are by their nature just a little
too long. Equivalent to the Shrines in Breath of the Wild, you encounter them
while exploring and they lead you to mini-dungeons, where completing some sort
of puzzle or combat sequence offers you a reward; in this game’s case, Golden
Amber, which, when enough are collected, allow you to increase Fenyx’s stamina
gauge, along with whatever treasures are found inside the Vault. But while
Breath of the Wild made the very smart choice to keep its shrines short enough
where attempting them never felt like too much of an interruption, Immortals
makes these a little too long, which serves as a slight disincentive to enter
them, even if you want their rewards, because you know you’ll be in them for
just a little longer than you really want to be. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Where Immortals stumbles a bit is in the later portion of
the game, where Fenyx must ascend a snowy mountain. It’s a mountain where the
terrain is much too cold for you to explore without your energy being almost
immediately depleted, resulting in there being only one real path to the top of
the mountain, one which includes various puzzles and enemy encounters. It’s
here and only here that your complete freedom to explore works
against the game, as it’s so easy to get lost or lose the path, and so difficult
to find your way back to it, that I was constantly checking a guide during this
part of the game to make sure I was headed in the right direction, which I usually
was. But I was so afraid of venturing into the wrong area and not being able to
find my way back that I felt I had to constantly check to make sure I was
heading in the right direction, which took away almost all the fun of playing
through this segment. Had either this mountain ascent been more forgiving with your
pathways up, or had Ubisoft made just this one part of the game a little more linear,
then it would have fixed the problem, but sadly, it’s a frustrating
trek that goes on for much too long. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Immortals does recover from this issue however for some very
worthy final bosses, and things end on a high note, albeit one with no ending
credit sequence, something that takes away from the finality of the ending and
something that should always be included. (The credits can be viewed from the
main menu, which just isn’t the same.) At over 55 hours, including plenty in
the way of exploration and side content, Immortals: Fenyx Rising is the perfect
length, and similar to very few other games, it was a world and characters that
I was sad to leave behind. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a new IP released at the end of a console generation,
Immortals: Fenyx Rising has an uphill battle as far as competing for attention
goes, but it’s a game that I hope more and more people discover. With a true
sense of fun and whimsy, endearing storytelling, great combat, and a vast world
to fully explore, I loved this game from beginning to (almost) end. A somewhat
frustrating snowy mountain ascent near the end does leave a bit of a mark
against it, and the Vault dungeons should have been just a little bit shorter.
But this is a beautiful game, and a nothing short of a blast to play. Whether on the
PS4/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch, or whether next gen on PS5 or Xbox Series X, I
can’t possibly recommend this game enough. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>4.5/5 <o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Note</b>; This review is based on the Nintendo Switch version. </p>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-55291814741121400122021-02-08T19:18:00.005-08:002021-02-08T19:41:09.977-08:00New Review: Glaring technical issues and bad shooting mechanics aside, Cyberpunk 2077 proves to be an unintentionally nostalgic throwback that I enjoyed in spite of itself <p> <br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Daqa5FbqIs4/YCH7j_D3QJI/AAAAAAAAAbI/tYVCZlO1YwspNZOEVLfZpvqrZcvDu9E7ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1920/Blogspot%2BCyberpunk%2B2077%2Breview.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="291" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Daqa5FbqIs4/YCH7j_D3QJI/AAAAAAAAAbI/tYVCZlO1YwspNZOEVLfZpvqrZcvDu9E7ACLcBGAsYHQ/w518-h291/Blogspot%2BCyberpunk%2B2077%2Breview.jpg" width="518" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal">What a strange, strange game. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s hard to review something like the incredibly
highly-anticipated and now quite controversial Cyberpunk 2077, especially
knowing that much of what I say will ultimately come across as a backhanded
compliment. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a game that was supposed to end this current console
generation on a high note while ushering in the next generation of open world
RPGs, Cyberpunk 2077 fails to do what it set out to do in such an incredible,
brazen fashion that it could serve as a showpiece for a studio not being on the
same page with itself. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I say this as someone who ultimately enjoyed my time spent in
Night City; Cyberpunk 2077’s intriguing and sometimes dazzling cityscape. The
story told and characters featured rarely dip below surface level, floating in
a sea of ultimately unrealized potential while still squeaking by with just
enough charm that they manage to entertain. The world of Night City is one that’s
both compelling and expansive enough for me to wish more was done with it,
where I could have really gotten to know “which district boasts the best
burrito in town,” or “how many stations are in the endcart system,” both things
mentioned in a stylish trailer for the game prior to its release, but things which
sadly don’t translate to the final product. You drive around Night City, with
atmospheric tunes on your car or motorcycle’s radio, in the same way you would
in Grand Theft Auto, with certain neighborhoods standing out from the pack as
you go, but ultimately serving as for the most part a platform through which to
travel atmospherically from one mission or sidequest to the other. Even setting
aside the game’s dramatically underperforming technical aspects on the base PS4,
which I’ll get to in a bit, Cyberpunk 2077 feels less like a fully-realized RPG
or the future of open world gameplay as it does a throwback to GTA-style open
world games released during the Xbox 360 era. It’s something that I wound up
liking about it, as it’s an era I still have fond memories of, and Cyberpunk
2077 ultimately feeling like a throwback to those times made playing it a very
enjoyable experience for me, even if I’m fairly sure it wasn’t the game that
developer CD Projekt Red intended on making. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Trying to figure out what they planned on making proves to
be incredibly difficult, as 2077 has the very distinctive feeling that other
massively-budgeted AAA games that disappointed upon release have had, which is
the feeling that the setting, the technology, and the various concepts had been
in conceptual development for many years, with the creation of the main game
itself being a rushed afterthought forced in during the final years of the project’s
development. Major concepts introduced into the scenario, such as the “brain
dance” sequences where you form conclusions after reviewing memories from
different speeds and angles, at first feel like they’ll play a major role in the
storyline, but instead show up once or twice before being forgotten entirely.
The idea of main character V being implanted with the digital spirit of Johnny
Silverhand, (voiced by and looking, I have to say, incredibly distractingly
like Keanu Reeves) feels like it was meant to go into far deeper territory than
it ultimately does, as does V’s relationship with numerous other characters he
comes across during Cyberpunk 2077’s relatively brief (by genre standards) main
story. Some of these characters are given more depth through completing certain
sidequests, (something highly recommended if you want to get your money’s worth,
as well as to level up your character) but for the most part their existence
fits into the theme of a game where the roadmap was seemingly set for something
vast and expansive, but where the developers just didn’t appear to have the
time to get to. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Cyberpunk 2077 takes place in the 1<sup>st</sup> person
perspective, something that I’ll never understand the appeal of for games like
this one. It isn’t that FPS games are impossible for me to enjoy, but for
developers who are attempting to tell a story and connect us to the main
character, I’ll never understand why the decision would be made to force the
character off the screen. V’s thankfully not a silent protagonist, and he’s
given plenty of dialogue and plays a central role in Cyberpunk 2077’s scenario.
It’s all the more reason I found it to be a bummer that the only times you
really get to see him or her are when looking in a mirror, (assuming his or her
reflection properly loads) which for me greatly disconnects me from the
character. Though the myriad of technical issues are what will likely stand out
for most as the defining flaw with the game, my biggest issues with it are instead
all related to the FPS viewpoint and the shooting-focused gameplay that serves
as the backbone of many of the main story missions. The shooting segments,
which rely on a mixture of hacking security cameras, stealth, and gunning down
enemies, do their best to drag the game down. Guns run out of ammo seemingly
incredibly quickly, and though there are plenty of firearms to collect from
fallen enemies, the amount you can carry at one time is incredibly restricted,
leading to much time spent throwing away or disassembling guns to make way for
new ones, something which takes a lot of the fun away from loot hunting and the
shooting segments. It eventually got to the point where I gave up on guns
almost entirely, choosing to focus instead on using my melee weapon; which, to
Cyberpunk 2077’s credit, its gameplay system gives you the freedom to do, but
unfortunately the limitation handicaps the main focus of the combat sections,
making many of them a drag. Stealth gameplay when sneaking past the enemies sometimes
works and often it doesn’t, as I found it almost impossible to tell, when
sneaking around an enemy, whether they’d be able to see my character or not. The
fact that many of the main story missions are designed with the expectation
that you’ll use stealth at least through parts of them just adds a level of
frustration to the proceedings that can rear its ugly head. The checkpoint
system doesn’t work nearly as well as it should, and I found myself manually
saving during action sequences whenever the game allowed it because the auto-save
doesn’t happen frequently enough to be relied upon. Why do so many Western RPGs
fall into the trap of thinking that they have to be shooters? They have so much
more to offer in other areas, and the shooting, which these developers aren’t
good at, just brings it all down. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite these negatives, however, and they’re big ones,
exploring Cyberpunk 2077’s world is an incredible amount of fun. Night City’s broken
up into various districts, with a navigation map that’s nearly perfect and
makes breezing through the city at ridiculously high speeds not only easy, but
a blast. It helps too that driving gives you the option to switch to the 3<sup>rd</sup>
person view (assuming the feature doesn’t glitch out) so it’s during this time
where for me Cyberpunk 2077 feels most alive; journeying through Night City,
receiving a nearly constant stream of calls and text messages on your phone
begging you to participate in side missions. The game helpfully indicates the
difficulty of each mission in the menu, giving you a good idea beforehand what
you’ll be getting into. Unlike many of the missions of the main story, the
sidequests are almost universally fun to play, and some make use of the game’s
features better than the main story itself, including a mission where you have
to make dialogue choices that can, or can’t, save someone’s life. The tone of
Night City, and the game as a whole, is much darker than I’d expected from the
trailers and commercials, which depict a bright, sunny city complete with palm
trees and Rockstar Games-style humor. Though it does somewhat feel
aesthetically like a super futuristic vision of sunny LA, the world of
Cyberpunk 2077 is dark, foreboding, unpleasant, very harshly-scored, and
intensely shot. It isn’t a game that attempts to give you a warm, fuzzy
feeling, and admittedly it took me a few hours to adjust to the tense
atmosphere. That said, it’s a compelling world; V’s apartment building feels
like a city within itself, packed with NPCs and featuring floors of open-air
retail, apartments, and a ton of atmosphere. It made me wish so much that the
missions in Cyberpunk 2077’s main story focused more on Night City and its
people and neighborhoods, instead of forcing you into frustrating stealth and
shooting sequences. With its grimy apartments, lively bars and clubs, very sketchy
characters and illegal ripperdocs, Night City’s truly the star of the show here
and I loved exploring it. It reminds me a lot of Omikron: The Nomad Soul; a
PC/Dreamcast game from Quantic Dream with a similarly dark and heavily
atmospheric futuristic city, but presented in a way that Omikron’s developers
could only have dreamed of. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m sticking this last section at the end because it’s
something that will likely change over time and I don’t want to make it the
defining aspect of the review; but at launch, Cyberpunk 2077 was indeed a mess,
and as I write this now nearly 2 months later, instances of the game crashing,
horribly fuzzy graphics, features not working the way they’re supposed to, and
an at times very poor framerate have been…I hesitate to say fixed, because they
certainly haven’t been fixed, but they’ve been greatly improved through the
various patches, (some of them, anyway) with another major patch supposedly on
the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The graphics on the PS4 still
look nothing at all like how they were marketed, but the unacceptably fuzzy
visual output that was there at launch has since been fixed, resulting in
a major improvement. The couple times Cyberpunk 2077 crashed me were all in
my first couple weeks with the game, so that might have been fixed as well. The
less fuzzy graphics allow the great art direction to shine on the base PS4 much
more that it did on Day 1, and various glitches that occurred for me stopped
happening as I progressed through. Many glitches certainly still remain
however; your viewpoint when switching from 1<sup>st</sup> to 3<sup>rd</sup>
person when driving sometimes won’t change, forcing you to restart the game if
you want to switch perspectives. The final boss somewhat anticlimactically
glitched in midair as I fought it, trapping it there and allowing me to pummel
it mercilessly until the fight ended. Certain side missions, which required me
to wait a day before being contacted by someone or for something to happen,
still remained completely dormant in my Journal until much later, when the game
suddenly seemed to remember to progress them for me. Answering calls, texts,
etc is far from seamless, with often multiple seconds in between the time you
answer a phone call until the point where you hear the caller’s voice. Icons
and notifications that pop up on your screen sometimes remain frozen there, not
disappearing until many minutes later. Cars you see in the distance will vanish before ever approaching you. What’s gotten the most attention but
what bothered me the least is the framerate; a sluggish framerate for me isn’t
necessarily a deal-breaker if the game’s otherwise enjoyable, and for the most
part Cyberpunk 2077 on my base PS4 runs in a way that I was okay with; there
are pauses here and there as you drive or walk around Night City, which are
certainly noticeable but not for me a big issue. The framerate during the
shooting segments however is abysmal and though they were my least favorite
aspect of 2077 anyway, the slideshow-like framerate during them (still, after
numerous patches) doesn’t help. I’ll say that the game doesn’t perform as
horribly as I think some believe it does; it’s by no means unplayable, and frankly
there have been other games (such as Remedy’s Control last year) that I thought
ran far worse that didn’t seem to attract even a fraction of Cyberpunk 2077’s
negative attention. Still, it’s a release that shouldn’t have been allowed to
happen the way it did, and publishers I think would be smart to focus on how
deceptive marketing and releasing an unfinished product can irreparably damage a game’s reputation, with this game likely being a sad but
very clear example. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Cyberpunk 2077 is a game that I wish was more developed; that
more time and effort could have been devoted to allowing us to truly sink our
teeth into every corner of this world the way many of us expected to, rather
than what ultimately feels like a more commercial but uninspired decision to
focus on shooting and explosions. But what’s here, at least in terms of Night
City and the more RPG-like aspects, is great. Though much of the shallow-but-entertaining main story has
already faded from my memory, the world that it inhabits is something that will
likely remain in my mind for quite some time. V’s journey through the
compelling Night City may feature an under-developed plot and many bland,
frustrating shooting sequences, but the world’s such a blast to explore, the
sidequests so frequent and many of them incredibly fun, and when it’s firing on
all cylinders, Cyberpunk 2077 brings back the feelings of the golden years of
Xbox 360/PS3 gaming, and it’s a bit of nostalgia that I definitely wasn’t
expecting. There isn’t a doubt in mind that this wasn’t CD Projekt Red’s
intention, and definitely isn’t how the game was marketed. I’d love to one day
see some sort of documentary exploring how an attempt to release what was
supposed to be a genre-defining jump into next gen open world RPGs turned out
to be this. But ultimately, in spite of itself…and there’s a lot of caveats
there…I enjoyed the game. I think there are other people who will also enjoy it,
though likely not the majority of those who purchase it. There are huge issues
here, even aside from the presentational disaster that in many ways it still is,
but it’s undeniable that I had fun with Cyberpunk 2077, and it’s a world that,
all said and done, I wish I’d gotten to know better. Beating a game and wanting
more is better than having wanted less, and it’s a game that I have to say I
recommend, albeit after doing due diligence on whichever version you would plan
on buying. <br /><br /><b>3.5/5</b><br /><br /><b>Note;</b> This review is based off the PS4 version, played on the base PS4 console. <o:p></o:p></p>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-86840581972588250012021-01-21T14:18:00.004-08:002024-02-10T21:20:15.905-08:00New Review: A robust new combat system greatly helps, but ultimately can't save, the otherwise tired and grindy Yakuza: Like a Dragon <p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ySaBTXXk0jM/YAn9fcdmfmI/AAAAAAAAAaw/WuRlYZdF28Qxgqm7u_xtq1qrfQQeKw73wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1920/blogspot%2Blike%2Ba%2Bdragon%2Breview%2Bpicture.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ySaBTXXk0jM/YAn9fcdmfmI/AAAAAAAAAaw/WuRlYZdF28Qxgqm7u_xtq1qrfQQeKw73wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/blogspot%2Blike%2Ba%2Bdragon%2Breview%2Bpicture.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It’s hard to think of another series that I’ve developed such a
love-hate relationship with as Sega’s long-running Yakuza franchise. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Originally debuting in Western territories in 2006(!), the
original Yakuza began the tale of Kazuma Kiryu, with a focus on lengthy
cutscenes, a vibrant and explorable city loaded with sidequests, beat-em-up
gameplay, and a ton of style. Though it was met with popularity in Japan almost
instantly, its debut on the near-dead PS2 at a time when Sega West’s marketing
was almost nonexistent meant that Yakuza hardly had a chance to make a blip on
Western shores. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As it boomed in Japan, Yakuza went on to enjoy somewhat of a cult
status over the years in the West, primarily among Sega fans, with some
installments not seeing Western release until years after their Japanese
counterparts (if at all). Despite all this, the series has enjoyed a resurgence
in Western territories in recent years, with Yakuza: Like a Dragon being
granted its biggest marketing push yet, with the return of English voice acting
for the first time since the original game after being inexplicably left out of
the series for what was essentially 14 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It makes sense that Yakuza: Like a Dragon (known as Ryu Ga Gotoku 7 in
Japan) would be seen as a chance by Sega’s Western divisions to start things fresh;
with Kazuma’s story ending in Yakuza 6, Like a Dragon sees the introduction of
a brand new cast of characters, and opts to take place mostly in an entirely
new city, with a shift from brawler-style combat engine to a turn-based battle
system. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It’s an ambitious shift to say the least, one that in several ways
winds up working surprisingly well. Though Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s presentation
still feels outdated in many ways, something that’s become a bit of a theme
with this series, its take on turn-based combat is surprisingly modern and has
real potential, not even just for this series, but for turn-based battle
systems in general. It’s easily Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s biggest surprise, and
while it’s a bummer that the rest of the game aimlessly sputters along, its
combat system will hopefully breathe some new life into turn-based RPGs, and
that alone is something that’s deserving of praise. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Despite having played the Yakuza series from the beginning, I’ve over the years began to develop a love-hate relationship with the games. As with most series’
that receive annual sequels, the amount of innovation and invention from game
to game varies wildly. For every Yakuza game that seems to take substantiative
steps forward, (Yakuza 6 being the most recent example) there are then several
others that feel like retreads, with gameplay that just, for the most part,
hasn’t changed much at all since 2006 and which has, on many occasions, put me
to sleep as I was playing. It’s in this way that the Yakuza series has always
felt so strange, its presentation varying from genuinely impressive cutscenes
and a truly staggering number of sidequests to take on and things to explore,
to feeling so outdated in its use of (up until incredibly recently) archaic
save point and item management systems, an over-abundance of voice-less text
boxes, and gameplay that consists almost entirely of being told to walk from
Point A to Point B across town and getting in battles along the way. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Yakuza 6 took some major presentational steps forward in the sense
that it eliminated the text box cutscenes (which have sadly made a return for
Yakuza: Like a Dragon) and moved the interface from being overly-focused on a
clunky Start Menu to instead consisting of a sleek and modern in-game Smart
Phone design (again, sadly walked back in Yakuza: Like a Dragon). Other
elements from Yakuza 6 that I hoped would’ve continued to stick around, such as
its more focused narrative with at least some sense of pacing, have also fallen
by the wayside in this 7<sup>th</sup> installment, which features a fairly revolutionary
take on the turn-based battle system but which otherwise feels like its
gameplay could have been swapped in from any of the series’ weaker entries. Along
with the truly unfortunate addition of level grinding and the introduction of a
brand new city that feels like little more than a traversable highway with barely
even a handful of shops to interact with, this new tale ended for me as a
bland, forgettable adventure. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Yakuza: Like a Dragon stars new character Ichiban Kasuga, who, in
a fairly similar way to Kazuma Kiryu, takes the fall for someone else and
serves time in prison at the start of the game, being ultimately released into
an entirely different world. Ichiban’s a compelling character; both funny and
instantly likable, he presents a solid anchor for the rest of the game. Left
for dead and awakening in a homeless camp in the city of Yokohama, Like a
Dragon gets off to a very strong, albeit oddly-paced, start. Ichiban’s mentored
by Arakawa, the patriarch of Ichiban’s Tojo Clan family, who has a tragic but
fascinating backstory, and his bond with Ichiban feels incredibly real. The
initial scenario presented is compelling, but the plot ultimately and very
quickly falls into a haze of seemingly disparate parts that don’t manage to
form cohesively into a whole. It jumps haphazardly from a fairly bland
counterfeit bill investigation to a long series of tedious odd jobs, to an
unintentionally goofy anti-crime group known as Bleach Japan, to ultimately an
anti-climactic political election that comes out of nowhere and suddenly takes
center-stage, with none of these elements leading anywhere satisfying.
Characters introduced earlier on in the story are entirely forgotten by the
end, with, this being an RPG, much of the focus being instead devoted to your main
party members. Much of their development takes place in optional conversations
in the Survive Bar, an aspect of Yakuza: Like a Dragon that wields promise, but
one that similarly devolves into a series of forgettable anecdotes and truly
endless dialogue sequences. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Though I generally wouldn’t put so much weight on a game’s
storyline, Yakuza: Like a Dragon doesn’t offer much choice, as outside of
battle, sitting through cutscenes and dialogue boxes is where you’ll spend the
vast majority of your time as you progress through the story. Yakuza is
certainly no stranger to long cutscenes, but Like a Dragon’s are almost
stunning in their inability to end. There’s not a single cutscene or dialogue
sequence, even minor ones, that wouldn’t have been vastly improved by being 10
minutes shorter, and that’s almost a generous estimate. Even though much of the
dialogue is well-written and truly well-acted, and even when legitimately interesting
events are taking place, there’s no sense whatsoever that the developers were
concerned about pacing or about the scenes flowing naturally. It isn’t that I
don’t like a good story, and as a kid I loved almost any game that featured
long cutscenes. But in 2020/2021, long cutscenes on their own aren’t as
impressive as they were, say, back in 2006. And in a story, especially one that
demands so much of your time, it’s important that all of its elements actually
have something real to say, some ability to justify us sitting there for 20-30
minutes at a time listening to the characters ramble on and on. Despite me
having been compelled by several Yakuza stories in the past, Yakuza: Like a
Dragon’s plot failed to hold my attention throughout, and with the fact that
the story’s such an inescapable part of what the game is, it’s hard to just let
that slide. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Though many entries in the Yakuza series have taken place in new
cities in addition to its iconic Kamurocho Red Light District, Yakuza: Like a
Dragon makes the much-needed decision to take the most decisive break yet from
that city’s vibrant but by this point torturously familiar neighborhoods and
alleyways. Only small bits of Like a Dragon take place in Kamurocho, with much
of the attention shifting to the <span style="background: white; color: #202122;">Ijincho
district of the city of Yokohama. It’s a positive change theoretically, but
consisting of what feels like a collection of wide and empty highways and
thoroughfares that you’re forced to traverse across, with very few buildings to
enter and a nearly non-existent sense of life, Ijincho feels very
under-utilized by the story and for the most part just sits there, serving as a
dungeon to walk through on your way from cutscene to cutscene or text box to
text box. Though the plots of previous Yakuza entries took the player through
packed, vibrant bars, nightclubs, and karaoke venues, into intense underground
fighting arenas, and into chases across city rooftops, Yakuza: Like a Dragon
does almost none of this. Ijincho’s nightlife consists of a “bar district”
that’s simply a narrow street with about 5 buildings, almost none of them open for
you to either explore or to have its plot take you through them. In fact, by
and large, aside from the main bar your characters hang out at and one or two
other locations, Yakuza: Like a Dragon makes almost zero use of any of Ijincho’s
buildings or neighborhoods, other than to have you trek through them. There are
little ethnic enclaves sprinkled throughout, none of them playing any sort of
role in the story but at least feeling like something, but for the most part
Ijincho feels big but empty and not especially visually appealing. At one point
you revisit a tiny section of the city from a previous Yakuza game, and the
sense of life and vibrancy you’re hit with almost instantly upon stepping foot
there in comparison to the quiet, lifeless Ijincho district is nothing short of
startling. The story even robs Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s new city of being the
site for the game’s finale, which, while expected, is still
disappointing and serves to cement Ijincho’s status for now as simply an
underdeveloped backdrop. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It turns out that the new battle system, in spite of the
hours upon hours you’re forced to level grind in order to complete the main
story, is Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s saving grace. Though turn-based, it feels
exciting, fresh, and actually very entertaining. Characters can knock into
others and damage them as they rush over to attack the selected enemies. Button
prompts as you attack and to defend are crucial, objects on the ground that
your character approaches as they attack the enemy can be used, and the
over-the-top special moves and the way the enemies taunt your characters are
hilarious. I wouldn’t have expected to like it the way I did, but quite
honestly it’d be hard for me to return to the repetitive button mashing
beat-em-up battle system of the previous entries after experiencing this one.
If they can get the level grinding under control and create a job system that
doesn’t actively dissuade you from using it by forcing you to start each new
job at Level 0, I think it’d be great path for this series to continue down.
The way the turn-based battle system’s referenced into the story, with Ichiban
explaining that he was trained to fight all his life by studying the Dragon
Quest series, (so of course he fights in a turn-based way) is actually a very
endearing/funny bit of writing. The emphasis on MP and using Abilities over the
series’ previous tendency to force you to constantly purchase and flood your
inventory and item boxes with recovery items is a good improvement as well. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another area that Yakuza: Like a Dragon excels in is in its
performances. It marks (finally) the return of English voice acting to the series,
and the actors almost universally offer incredible performances. Major props
especially to the voices of Ichiban and Arakawa (voiced surprisingly well by
George Takai) but almost all of the performances are great across the board.
Japanese voice acting’s also available for those who prefer that, which is a
nice touch, but the dub’s excellent and definitely the way I’d personally
recommend the game be experienced. The music on the other hand’s very
forgettable, and I can’t remember a single track from the game as I write this.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the end, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, despite making changes
I’d hoped the series would make for years such as featuring a brand new cast of
characters and a more decisive move to a new setting, ultimately frustrates and
disappoints. Any time the story begins to feel like it’s picking up steam, the
game forces you to stop dead in your tracks to either have to grind for cash in
order to progress, or to level your characters up in a “battle arena” that has
all the personality of an elevator shaft, just to beat boss battles that are
far above and beyond the difficulty of the enemies in the city streets or in
the “dungeons” leading up to them. Steps back in presentation and interface
from the much more modern-feeling Yakuza 6 are equally disappointing, as is the
emphasis on truly never-ending cutscenes detailing an under-developed plot in a
bland new city that fails to develop any attachment to the player in the way
that several previous Yakuza cities have. By far its biggest change and the one
that pays off the most is the switch to a turn-based battle
system, which is a ton of fun and something I’d love to see refined and brought
back in future Yakuza installments. It’s just a shame that it exists in such a
grindy, otherwise forgettable adventure. In dropping the “7” from the title for
its Western release and with its excellent English dub, it appears that Sega
sees this as a jumping in point for new players. It’s hard for me to recommend
this fairly sleepy game as a starting point, however, and though it has some
very promising new ideas, Yakuza: Like a Dragon is ultimately best suited to
die-hard fans of this long-running series. And I’m sure they’ll enjoy it, as
they’ve enjoyed all the others. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>2.5/5</b><br /><br />Note; this review is based on the base PS4 version<o:p></o:p></p>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-88212514078899147552020-08-11T17:17:00.004-07:002020-08-11T17:28:33.216-07:00New Review: It may not resonate for long after it's beaten, but Yoshi's Crafted World is a fun, pleasant 2D sidescroller<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H8z1K7UsPU4/XzM0qpJ39AI/AAAAAAAAAZk/7ZTDLQMaHbgYGc1HwlMsrSnKRWdb2fMXgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/blogspot%2Byoshi%2527s%2Bcrafted%2Bworld%2Breview.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H8z1K7UsPU4/XzM0qpJ39AI/AAAAAAAAAZk/7ZTDLQMaHbgYGc1HwlMsrSnKRWdb2fMXgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/blogspot%2Byoshi%2527s%2Bcrafted%2Bworld%2Breview.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Yoshi’s Crafted World is a pleasant experience, the type
that I’m growing increasingly attached to as I get older. There’s something
just so inherently enjoyable about kicking back and turning on a video game
that’s simple and fun to play, one with vibrant and colorful visuals, one that
rewards thought but doesn’t require too much of it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For so long I hated Nintendo’s increasing focus on simple
platforming sidescrollers; a practice they began during the later years of the
Wii and one which has continued to stick around to varying degrees since. But
all these years later, I feel I’m finally beginning to understand the appeal.
As life becomes more complicated in so many ways, especially amidst our current
(as I write this) COVID-19 existence, there’s something to be said about a game
that’s pretty much the essence of pure, simple fun, and that’s what I found
Yoshi’s Crafted World to be. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the risk of overselling it, I’ll note that it’s definitely
a little shorter than I’d have preferred for a full priced $60 title, so I
think it’s something to bear in mind. But I enjoyed it as I played it, and
though it might not stick around too much in my memory going forward, it’s
still a fun platformer and one worth a look for people who like that sort of
thing. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Developer Good Feel has come to specialize in these types of
charming, 2D sidescrollers, beginning with the truly great (and often
misunderstood) Kirby’s Epic Yarn. It was a much better game than their previous
platforming effort, Yoshi’s Wooly World on the Wii U, which was still fun but
not nearly as well-designed, and its reliance on an unforgiving collectible
mechanic meant that a lot of its content was inaccessible to anyone who didn’t
go out of their way to find and collect almost *everything.* Yoshi’s Crafted World
finds itself somewhere in between the two; a significantly better effort than
Wooly World, though still not hitting the heights of the ingenious Epic Yarn. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As with the studio’s previous efforts, the platforming
gameplay here in Crafted World is designed around the environment and its
materials. The platforming involves making use of a world that seems like it
was crafted for a school art project, (a spin on the wool/yarn motifs of their
previous efforts) along with a cool new ability to venture into the backgrounds
and foregrounds of stages in the midst of levels, all of which provides a cool new
take on the usual tropes that Nintendo games often feature. (Fire world, beach
world, etc.) The platforming itself feels smoother and more fluid than in Good
Feel’s previous Yoshi effort as well, and while collecting Daisies throughout
the levels is necessary to remove barriers on the world map to progress, doing
so rarely forces you to go too far out of your way, while also serving to
provide the incentive to explore down multiple paths and trying to find hidden
areas as you play. Only one time did I actually have to stop my progress to
collect Daisies to proceed, with the rest coming to me naturally as I played,
which is ultimately the perfect way to implement this type of system. Once you
clear the story mode, there are additional levels to unlock; these require a
more aggressive amount of Daisy collecting in order to enter, which is a little
unfortunate, as after taking a lot of time to collect the Daisies needed to unlock
a couple of them, I decided to forgo the rest of the extra levels, but it’s at
least handled better than it was in Yoshi’s Wooly World, and thankfully only
rears its head in the post-game. <br />
<br />Crafted World makes use of Unreal Engine 4, allowing for some very
cool visual effects not typically seen in Nintendo games, along with
unfortunately a significantly lower resolution than you’d usually expect in a
2D sidescroller. The heavy use of the depth-of-field blur also comes across as
a little too much at times. The world’s still beautiful and very colorful,
however, and that, along with the visual tricks brought to us by Unreal Engine
4, makes its low resolution far less noticeable while playing it. I’ll add
though that when jumping back into Persona 5 Royal afterwards, I instantly
realized how comparatively sharper that game looked. The music’s Crafted World’s
weakest aspect; it’s fine, there are one or two nice tracks that stood out to
me, but the majority’s forgettable and at times even slightly annoying. It’d be
great to see Good Feel make some big steps forward in this regard for whatever
their future games might be. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yoshi’s Crafted World’s a fun, pleasant, breezy 2D
platformer with pretty visuals, smart level design, and solid gameplay mechanics.
It’s a little shorter than I’d have liked, and ultimately I don’t find myself
remembering too much about its specifics after the fact, but there’s something
I so inherently enjoyed about turning on a video game and not being hit with a
barrage of incredibly complicated gameplay mechanics and long load times. It’s
challenging in the right areas but not a tough game, and one that’s genuinely
fun. I always looked forward to playing it, and enjoyed my time with it almost
all throughout. I’m not entirely sure I’d recommend it at $60, but if you can
find it for any cheaper and like 2D platformers, it’s definitely a worthy
purchase that offers more than its share of solid, pretty platforming. <br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /><b>3.5/5 </b></span><o:p></o:p></p>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-21512783189534181072020-07-06T21:05:00.002-07:002020-07-06T21:26:23.103-07:00New Review: Luigi's Mansion 3 is a dreary, repetitive and tedious game almost from minute one <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NZOcRDu-wE8/XwPvOlVhT7I/AAAAAAAAAZM/7x8-mR67v0AQIxACxdzKcyPOE2VD8aBvgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/blogspot%2Bluigi%2527s%2Bmansion%2B3%2Breview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NZOcRDu-wE8/XwPvOlVhT7I/AAAAAAAAAZM/7x8-mR67v0AQIxACxdzKcyPOE2VD8aBvgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/blogspot%2Bluigi%2527s%2Bmansion%2B3%2Breview.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /><br />Luigi's Mansion 3 is a dreary,
repetitive, and tedious game almost from minute one, and clocking in at nearly 15 hours, is one long nightmare to play. It’s an unusual misstep from
Nintendo, whose major 1<sup>st</sup> party tentpole games almost always provide
a fun, fluid, and charming gameplay experience that flows well throughout. Luigi's
Mansion 3's many failings, including its complete inability to do this, makes more
sense upon learning that it wasn’t developed in-house by Nintendo, but instead
outsourced (like Luigi's Mansion 2) to developer Next Level Games. This fact at
least helps to explain why it suffers from issues almost never present in
Nintendo's in-house releases, such as the lack of ability to skip pre-boss
cutscenes after dying and having to retry them, along with things like a poor
menu interface and bosses that attempt to be so "cinematic" that it
sometimes feels like it takes forever before you're allowed to begin damaging
them.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The biggest problem though by
far that plagues Luigi's Mansion 3 is that its gameplay never feels fun or
controls well, and that it fails to change or evolve in any meaningful way from the opening moments until the credits roll.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I'll admit up top that this is
my first trip in many years into the Luigi's Mansion universe. I found the
Gamecube original to be fun back in 2001 but remember little about it, except that
the mansion was more exploration-driven, in an almost Resident Evil style,
whereas Luigi's Mansion 3 is designed in the style of a hotel, with each floor serving as its own "level." Progression
takes the form of completing a floor and snagging the Elevator Button that allows you to proceed to
the next one. It's more along the lines of what I understand Luigi's Mansion 2 does with
the formula, though admittedly I haven't played the 2nd one.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Given how long it's been since
I played the original Luigi's Mansion, it's possible that its poor gameplay mechanics
have been here from the beginning, and that I just didn't remember how unfun
sucking the enemies up with the vacuum cleaner is; how even by the game's end I
never fully got the hang of whether the aiming was inverted or not, how almost
every single enemy variant goes down the exact same way, or how the vacuum
cleaner never gains any new abilities throughout the game. I’m not sure
if these issues existed in the original, though I feel like I’d have remembered
liking it a lot less if they had, but regardless, the core gameplay here just isn't any fun, and all too quickly stops offering any new surprises. Boss battles look cool, but other than one or
two fairly inspired fights, the rest of them are defeated in the exact same way that the other enemies are. When the boss fights do step outside their typical comfort
zone, they feature slow, long move cycles that you're forced to wait through
until you have the one scripted opportunity to damage them. If you happen to
miss it, you have to wait through them all over again. And repeat until the
boss is finally defeated.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">This same basic flaw applies
across the rest of Luigi's Mansion 3 as well. The vast majority of the puzzles
the game provides you are solved by happening to shine your Dark Light
device at the right object in a given room to trigger a path forward. Rather
than being fun, the requirement that upon entering a room you must take your
Dark Light device out and spend time shining it at all the walls and objects in
search of a path forward feels like busy work and even further slows the pacing
of an already slow game. On the few occasions where the developers do provide
more elaborate puzzles to you, their mechanics are incredibly poorly explained,
(the TV puzzle being the worst offender) and these too feel like they
go on for far too long, even once the puzzle is figured out. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div id="yiv0604708019yMail_cursorElementTracker_1594086151186">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Luigi's Mansion 3's big new addition is the fairly gimmicky Gooigi, a goo-like replica of Luigi who can be summoned and
controlled, with you able to switch between one or the other on the fly to
solve certain puzzles or to defeat certain enemies. Given how relatively little
Gooigi is used, though, and the fact that he has no personality and very little
narrative interaction with the title character, all gives him the feeling of
being a Nintendo-mandated addition that the developers had very little
enthusiasm for. Indeed at times it almost feels like the game forgets about him
entirely for hours on end. As with Luigi himself, Gooigi's moveset and
abilities don't change at all throughout the game. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div id="yiv0604708019yMail_cursorElementTracker_1594086151186">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div id="yiv0604708019yMail_cursorElementTracker_1594088569166">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">There are secrets to be found in many of
the hotel's areas; all just lead to collectable money, which is essentially Luigi's
Mansion 3's currency. But with a whopping 3 items (!) available to purchase in
the shop for the entirety of the adventure, going out of your way to find the
hidden dollar bills exists with no incentive to speak of, other than an
arbitrary letter grade given to you upon the story's completion. I don't
remember what grade I received and really couldn't be bothered to care,
honestly. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div id="yiv0604708019yMail_cursorElementTracker_1594088569166">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div id="yiv0604708019yMail_cursorElementTracker_1594088569166">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">There's just one final thing I'll get
into, but it's one that's such a glaring example of bad game design that I
wouldn't be doing it justice without awarding it its own paragraph. On certain
occasions after clearing a Floor and earning the Elevator Button to progress to
the next one, the game will immediately snatch it back from you courtesy of an
annoying cat ghost character, which then forces you to backtrack through
previously explored areas and floors in an attempt to catch the cat ghost to
get the Button back. When you do manage to find it, you have to fight it the
same…exact…way… every single time, before it'll relinquish the Button to you.
These segments can take up to 30 minutes at a time of retracing your steps and
fighting this repetitive boss again and again, and it becomes increasingly
frequent as the game rolls on. It adds nothing to the experience, it's
frustrating, it's uninspired, and it almost immediately erodes any satisfaction
given by clearing a Floor and thinking you’re about to progress
to the next one.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div id="yiv0604708019yMail_cursorElementTracker_1594088569166">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div id="yiv0604708019yMail_cursorElementTracker_1594088569166">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I was genuinely surprised when I was hit with the realization a few hours in that I just wasn't going to like this game; that this was all that Luigi's Mansion 3 was, and all that it would be. Nintendo games, though they can have their flaws in
many other areas, are usually able to at the very least get fun gameplay and
gameplay mechanics down. They usually feature a true sen</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">se of progression, with
your characters earning new moves and abilities over the course of the adventure to
shake things up and deliver an evolving gameplay experience. With Luigi's
Mansion 3, I can say with pretty full confidence that if you're not thrilled
by the controls, mechanics, and abilities that Luigi has in the first 30
minutes, then you won't like the rest of the game, because that's really all that it has to offer. The graphics are great and presented
in full 1080p, but the claustrophobic rooms and corridors that you’re forced to
tread through in order to reach one repetitive enemy encounter after another
makes the sharp image hard to appreciate. Coupled with tedious gameplay
mechanics, unskippable cutscenes, and a forgettable Gooigi gimmick, there’s
very little to recommend Luigi’s Mansion 3 by, and definitely one of Nintendo’s
bigger disappointments this gen. Stay far away.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><b>1.5/5</b></span><o:p></o:p><br />
<br />NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-46671429341821202092020-05-13T18:29:00.001-07:002020-06-01T18:51:47.631-07:00New Review: Final Fantasy VII Remake manages to capture and expand upon much of what made the first part of the original game so compelling<br />
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<br />
<br />
All said and done, playing Final Fantasy VII: Remake was a
definite trip. It wasn’t a game I thought I’d like, or one I was sure I’d even
play, given my somewhat less than enthusiastic response to the original Final
Fantasy VII along with what I thought was a bad decision to split the Remake
into multiple parts, with this current game only covering Cloud’s adventures in
the city of Midgar and the rest of it scheduled to arrive later.<br />
<br />
I found Final Fantasy VII: Remake though to be surprisingly
faithful to the tone, atmosphere, and spirit of the original game, managing to
somehow capture the inventiveness of that gaming era all while updating it successfully
to what gamers expect of games today. To do this while expanding what was only
the first 6 or so hours of the original Final Fantasy VII into a full 40 hour+
game was a major accomplishment. It’s a fusion that’s pulled off surprisingly
well, and though this is by no means even close to being a perfect game, I
found Final Fantasy VII: Remake to be a compelling RPG and one that really made
me think about how gaming has evolved and changed over the years, both for
better and for worse.<br />
<br />
Final Fantasy VII told the story of Cloud, a former soldier
in a world that’s essentially ruled by a massive corporation known as Shinra,
who not only reigns over the metropolis known as Midgar, but essentially wields
control of the planet by using its lifeblood, Mako energy, for power and
control. Cloud serves for hire for the eco terrorist group known as Avalanche,
which bombs various Shinra Mako reactors throughout the city. His childhood friend
Tifa is a part of the group, along with the always-cursing Barret and the
likable Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge. It’s a storyline that actually resonates just
as well today as it did in 1997, with humanity’s reliance on oil seemingly virtually
unchanged after all these years. Presented here of course with incredible
advancements in storytelling, cutscenes look and animate beautifully, giving
the characters life that I didn’t think the original managed to pull off. All
throughout Final Fantasy VII: Remake, in fact, I found myself realizing that
this is what the developers of the original game were going for; this is what
they’d envisioned, but couldn’t pull off in 1997. I worried that this remake
would feel like something entirely different, but this is Final Fantasy VII,
without a doubt. And it’s something to behold. <br />
<br />
My thoughts on Final Fantasy VII were complicated; I’d played it many years
after the fact, having gotten into the series with Final Fantasy X on the PS2
and then working my way backwards. I appreciated that VII was a truly
groundbreaking game for its time, but having played it after what were in my
opinion the far better games that followed, I found its characters and world to
be flat and mostly uninteresting, with the pacing constantly interrupted by
terrible mini-games, and the storytelling often hurt by a flawed English
localization. Interestingly enough, I found the first 6 hours of Final Fantasy
VII in Midgar to be the game’s best, with the city’s slums, their residents cast
in the constant shadow of the plate above their heads which houses the city’s
wealthy, proving to be a compelling and intriguing setting. It was a gritty and
very sci-fi oriented story, one that I thought became less interesting once the
characters left the city and the game became a slog across far more bland
environments in pursuit of a very creepy but not especially likable villain.<br />
<br />
It’ll be interesting to see whether the improved
storytelling will help me to appreciate the rest of the game, whenever the
future episodes happen to arrive. As a standalone title though, the first part
of the Final Fantasy VII Remake saga works well as its own adventure. Given how
long it took to develop this part though, as has sadly become customary for
games from Square-Enix, I’m hoping I’ll get to experience the rest of this saga
before I’m in my 50s, but who knows, honestly.<br />
<br />
The biggest factor that differentiates Final Fantasy VII:
Remake from the original, aside from the content added to spread it out into a
full game, is the battle system. Remake gets rid of the original’s turn-based
battles in favor of something more along the lines of what was featured in
Final Fantasy XV, where you run around the battlefield hacking and slashing at
the enemies in real time. Though the AI here does control your teammates, it
operates on only the most basic of levels, with the game expecting you instead
to take control of the character you want to use with the d-pad and issuing
them a command. It’s a bit of a weird system in that the AI which controls the
other characters has been dramatically dumbed down from where it was in XV, and
you’ll find yourself having to take control of your AI partners whenever you
need them to do even the most basic things such as healing or using specific
abilities.<br />
<br />
I found battles generally to be fun and satisfying as far as
fighting regular enemies were concerned. Attacking the enemy fills up their
Stagger gauge; doing certain types of damage to certain enemies fills it much
faster. Once staggered, the enemy sits there stunned while your attacks do
significantly more damage against them. It’s a system that’s been more or less
present in the series since Final Fantasy XIII, and it’s one that still feels
incredibly satisfying. Each character plays very differently from each other,
with two different types of attack styles that can be switched between on the
fly; one of them more powerful but slowing your movement. Final Fantasy VII’s
oft-praised Materia system remains mostly intact here, with equipping the
various Materia to your weapons (such as Cure, Fire, etc) and watching them
evolve the more you battle with them a cool way to customize your characters.<br />
<br />
Less satisfying is the new stat and summon systems; each weapon has its own
Sphere Grid-like system, where you earn AP through battle to upgrade things
like “HP+ 250” and “New Materia Slot,” in a spacey menu that looks slick but
feels hollow. You lose these advantages when you equip a new piece of
equipment, making it hard to tell when coming across a new weapon or armor
whether it’s more beneficial to equip it or to stick with your original. Each
weapon’s “main skill” becomes permanently learned once unlocked, but I’m
genuinely not sure whether I ever accomplished that or not, or whether it’s even
worth using old weapons until that point. The Summon system returns from Final
Fantasy XV, where once again the ability to use summons is completely out of
your control, the game seemingly allowing it only when you’re getting your ass
kicked. Somewhat frustratingly, you only come across 2 summons over the course
of the main story; with 3 controllable characters in your party at once, that
means you’re either stuck sharing 2 summons between your entire party, or you’re
forced to seek out additional summons through side missions or, of course, if
you happened to preorder the game from the right place. Needless to say, not my
favorite way to go about it.<br />
<br />
Where the combat system completely falls apart is during the
boss battles, where the number of frustrations pile up one by one. The first
big offender is their excessive length, which dramatically increases the
frustration you face when you die and have to start the entire fight over
again. Bosses just seem to have far too much HP, and in fights where targeting
specific parts of them provides an advantage, those parts are often hard to target
amidst all the chaos. As with Final Fantasy XV, I found myself having to use
far more HP recovery items than I had in previous entries in the series, which
focused more on magic as an affective way to heal and to revive your
characters. Unlike Final Fantasy XV though, Final Fantasy VII: Remake’s bosses
are far more challenging, and not having a major stockpile of Phoenix Downs in
your inventory (and they’re expensive to purchase) can ultimately make certain
fights incredibly frustrating.<br />
<br />
One reason for this is that bosses have the
tendency to unleash majorly destructive attacks with wide range seemingly
without warning, the block and dodge buttons hardly enough to stop them.
Annoyingly, you’re prevented from using any items or magic abilities until your
ATB gauge fills up, often creating an inescapable loop where the boss kills
your fellow party members, as you run around the battle arena waiting for your
ATB gauge to charge up, which then allows you to finally revive one of them,
but not heal them afterwards;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for that,
you’ll have to wait for the ATB gauge to fill up yet again, assuming the enemy doesn’t
kill them again before this can happen. During times like these it’s sometimes almost
better to restart the battle from the beginning than having to keep doing the
dance of trying to revive your fallen party members.<br />
<br />
It’s not that I don’t like a challenge; Final Fantasy XIII
was incredibly challenging I thought in a fun and strategic way. Final Fantasy
XV was too easy and I’d have preferred for things to be tougher, but Final
Fantasy VII: Remake’s issue is that it goes about its difficulty the wrong way.
It’s a fun battle system that, more often than not, falls apart during the boss
fights, which just don’t provide the same level of satisfaction as the fights
during the rest of the game.<br />
<br />
Outside of bosses, combat works well most of the time, which
is good, because Final Fantasy VII: Remake features a lot of combat. With a
majority of the game’s new areas (somewhat disappointingly) focusing mostly on
lengthy dungeon/combat sections, it’s a good thing that the battle system is at
least fast and fun during Remake’s many regular encounters. It has to be said
though that I can’t help but feel disappointed that Remake didn’t take this
opportunity to give us more time to explore Midgar’s wealthy districts on top
of the plate instead, or even see some new towns in the slums. Not that town
exploration’s completely absent, however; you’re given more time in the slums
of Midgar than in the original to wander around the town-like areas completing sidequests
for the locals. The side missions are unspeakably bland, but at least their
inclusion and the additional story-focused moments in Midgar’s residential areas
prevents Final Fantasy VII: Remake from feeling like a claustrophobically linear
journey the way Final Fantasy XIII did. You’ll have to finish the sidequests
before you complete the chapter they’re in, though, which does take away some
of the feeling of open-endedness that they provide.<br />
<br />
Other than the boss battles, the biggest gripe I have with
Remake is that it features what might be one of the worst navigation maps I’ve
used in a long time. You can switch to the more traditional GTA-style map with
the L2 button, which is at least significantly better than the awful Elder
Scrolls style navigation display that’s set as the default. But even this map is
fairly unhelpful and bound to lead you straight into walls instead of pointing
you forward. The full screen map visible in the main menu is also fairly
lacking, as it divides the city into sections, taking away from the feeling of
Midgar being a full world to explore, even if by the end of it there are tons
of locations to return to. Segmenting the world on the big map also makes it harder
to tell which locations you’ve been to when backtracking, or which road leads
to which place. While certainly better than this team’s previous work in Final
Fantasy XIII as far as exploration’s concerned, I’m a little worried about how
they’ll handle what’s supposed to be the vast world map that becomes available
in Episode 2.<br />
<br />
On a story note, Final Fantasy VII: Remake is more faithful
to the tone of the original game than I ever thought it would be, and in many
ways, it remains in lockstep with it. This is definitely better than what I was
hoping for, and never does it feel non-cannon or outsourced in any way. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s not to say that it doesn’t have issues,
however. Remake makes changes to the fates of certain characters, and the changes are handled in such a
heavy-handed way, and in a way where it’s not even really clear what actually took
place, that I questioned why they bothered to do it.<br />
<br />
The game’s final few hours are similarly mishandled; as with
many RPGs today, Final Fantasy included, entering Remake’s final dungeon
doesn’t simply mean a challenging path to the final boss, but instead it means
hours upon hours of combat, boss fights, and action scenes…..never seeming to
end. This isn’t a problem unique to this game, but it’s one that I wish hadn’t
become the norm. As the dungeon and boss battles and plot revelations rattle on
and on, they become tiring, as if we’re being trapped in a Michael Bay movie
that I couldn’t just sit back and watch the mindless spectacle of. <br />
<br />
Remake also makes the decision to fit Sephiroth into the
proceedings, despite him only having a tiny, mostly off-screen role in the
Midgar portions of the original game. Some fans might be happy to see him and
Jenova make their early appearances, but I found them to be forced and
unnecessary, and people who are new to this story will have no clue about the
significance of this character and why he suddenly keeps showing up. The ending
encounters also expand Aerith’s role in ways that I’m not thrilled with, but
I’ll stop there. These are really the only blights on Final Fantasy VII:
Remake’s otherwise great storytelling, which makes for a compelling journey
through a very intriguing world; far more than the original did. I just wish I
didn’t find myself cringing whenever Sephiroth and whatever those weird spirit
things are kept forcing their way into the story. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>
<br />
Remakes are always a daunting prospect, and Final Fantasy
VII is such a beloved property. As someone who didn’t find that particular
installment to be nearly as compelling as several of the others, I have to say
that I thought Remake really elevated the original’s storytelling and its
characters to turn them into something great, some long dungeons and a
never-ending final several hours aside. It’s faithful to the original game and
really captures the tone and vibe of Midgar perfectly. The combat system’s fast
and fun but often a nightmare during bosses, with the few diversions from the
original’s story similarly proving to be hit or miss. Music’s
overly-orchestrated and far from Masashi Hamauzu’s best, while exploring the
world can feel unintuitive due to its segmented nature and poor mini-maps. But
whether it’s the quiet moments in the bar in Sector 7, or Cloud and Aerith
traversing the slum’s rooftops together, or of course the eventual appearance
of Red XIII, Final Fantasy VII: Remake manages to capture beautifully and
expand upon much of what made the original game so beloved to begin with. It
isn’t perfect, but it’s an adventure I’m incredibly eager to continue, and hope
we won’t have to wait another entire console generation to get to do. <br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />
<b>3.5/5</b><br />
<br />
Note; this review is based on the PS4 versionNintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-29788442114371745742020-03-11T17:07:00.000-07:002020-03-11T17:18:58.328-07:00New Review: Although a big step back from its predecessor, Life is Strange 2 overcomes a shaky start to provide a solid adventure<br />
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<br />
<br />
Life Is Strange is an episodic and story-driven Adventure
series, one which occupies a world brimming with charm and warmth.<br />
<br />
The original game starred teenager Max Caulfield, a student
at Blackwell Academy in a small town in suburban Oregon, and had the vibe and
presentational style of an indie flick, with the mystery that enveloped the
academy venturing into some startlingly dark territory. It was carried by
strong characters, a compelling setting, and a Butterfly Effect-like power that
allowed Max to rewind time. Very often, you’d have to make crucial decisions that
would have real impacts on the world around you.<br />
<br />
Told episodically, Life is Strange garnered increasing
popularity and critical praise as it went on, and wound up developing a large
following. <br />
<br />
I have to say that Life is Strange 2 isn’t the same home run
that the original game was; in fact, in many ways it feels like a definite step
back. Much of this is due to deliberate decisions made on the part of developer
DontNod Entertainment to move from the format of a contained, developing world
to a Last of Us-style road adventure, where likable main character Sean Diaz
and his fairly aggravating younger brother Daniel find themselves on the run
after a series of horrifying, if slightly unbelievable, events. As they journey
south from Washington state to Mexico, they encounter various types of people,
some friendly and some hostile, and fight for survival with very little money
as law enforcement hunts them down.<br />
<br />
There are ways that these narrative choices result
inevitably in a smaller, lesser game than its predecessor, but I’ll come back
to those in a bit. Life is Strange 2’s biggest improvements over the original
are in its presentation; this is a gorgeous game, its visuals bringing its
world to life, its dialogue relying less on the slang that proved somewhat
divisive last time around. Though I have major issues with Daniel, Sean himself
proves to be a great main character, and while the 1st episode gets the game
off to an almost cartoonishly awful start, Life is Strange 2 does ultimately
hit its stride by the time it reaches Episode 3, and continues on well for its
2<sup>nd</sup> half despite an anticlimactic ending.<br />
<br />
It remains very fun to wander DontNod’s beautiful, intimate
environments, with no shortage of objects to interact with, the acoustic guitar
music setting the scene well, and a series of mostly well-acted, occasionally
compelling characters and decisions moving the plot forward in interesting
ways. The game still brims with character, from Sean’s ability to sit down and
sketch out the various environments he comes across, to the funny comments he
often makes and the hand drawn nature of many of Life is Strange 2’s menus. In
what’s by far the game’s best episode, Episode 3, Sean and Daniel find
themselves in a deep forest, living in an encampment with a crew of endearing marijuana
cultivators, who bust their assess for an abusive boss. It’s here and really
only here that Life is Strange 2 manages to channel what made the original game
so incredible; the sense that your choices mattered, that they affected the
people around you. Living with and interacting with this group of misfits
really allows Sean to come into his own as a character, and gives him some
much-needed time to associate with people other than his often-irritating little
brother.<br />
<br />
It’s here that Life is Strange 2 hits its stride, and though
episodes 4 and 5 don’t quite manage to live up to this fantastic part of the
game, the stakes from that point on feel more human and more urgent, and things
power through well to its final act. It’s commendable that Life is Strange 2
was, in the end, able to moderately win me over despite an opening episode (and
about half of the 2<sup>nd</sup> episode) that had me majorly wondering whether
I’d even finish the game.<br />
<br />
What ultimately stops Life is Strange 2 from living up to
its predecessor is the “road game” format. Each episode brings Sean and Daniel
to a different location entirely, with few of your decisions seeming to carry
over or make much of a difference once the story whisks these characters
hundreds of miles away. While Life is Strange featured a cast of likable side
characters and a school and town that grew as you played, part 2 sacrifices
this almost entirely for a story that keeps these characters almost constantly
moving, giving you no ability to see the results of your choices on the world
other than through brief letters/asides Sean receives.<br />
<br />
Along with this, the story feels far more inflexible; very
few of the choices I make seem to have any impact on what the game ultimately
wants to happen, with Daniel often stubbornly refusing to listen to Sean no
matter what I tell him to do, forcing the story down its clearly pre-determined
path. The writers appear to be under the impression that Daniel’s likable, but
almost every misfortune that befalls the brothers seems to be a direct result
of Daniel’s stubborn actions, and as a result Sean’s forgiving nature and his
seemingly unwavering devotion to his brother becomes painful to watch. It’s
true that in these types of games the degree of choice you have is almost
always somewhat of an illusion, but Life is Strange 2 is transparent about it
to the point where you learn almost immediately after making what’s supposed to
be a major choice that it doesn’t matter, that the story will continue heading
where it wants to go regardless. Even with its narrative-driven focus, Life is
Strange still felt like a video game, whereas Life is Strange 2 sees the series
veer much more definitively towards being an interactive movie.<br />
<br />
That the intriguing time travel mechanic from the original
(along with its gameplay additions, such as puzzles, and the narrative
importance that it offered) has been replaced by a very lame “hovering” power
not even revealed until Episode 2, one which you’re never really given much
control of and which feels more like an afterthought than something truly
important. Life is Strange 2’s use of source music, something done so well in
the original, feels here forced and much more self-aware, something that I’d
say carries over to numerous aspects of this sequel. Sequels are hard, because
the developers are under immense pressure to replicate what made the original
games so successful, while also providing a new experience and evolving the
formula. Life is Strange 2 stumbles a bit with each, delivering a fun and
somewhat memorable journey, though one that I can only call a step back from
its predecessor.<br />
<br />
Despite a rocky start though, Life is Strange 2 does manage
to recover. Its shortcomings are evident throughout, especially as it relates
to the original game. In going with a story that never stays in the same place
for too long, you lose the sense of being part of a world that develops around
the decisions that you make. You lose (until you reach the second half of the
game) the cast of characters whose relationships and connections you play a
role in cultivating. You also lose the very cool and innovative time travel
mechanic. Life is Strange 2 attempts to meld all these elements into Sean’s
relationship with his younger brother, but Daniel disappointingly just seems to
do his own thing regardless, and manages to come across as selfish and
irritating in the process. All that said, once it finally hits its groove at
Episode 3, Life is Strange 2 managed to hook me. In the end, it’s one that I
can say I cautiously recommend to fans of the original, as long as they go into
it with the right expectations. Those new to the series I’d encourage to try
the original Life is Strange first, because aside from its visuals, it’s a
better game in almost every sense. Still, Life is Strange 2 isn’t without its
charms and its moments, many of which occurring later in the game, and it’s a journey
I’m ultimately happy I went on.<br />
<br />
<b>3.5/5<br /></b><br />
Note; This review is based on the PS4 version<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><b></b><b></b>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-65795126364184998402020-01-27T15:48:00.000-08:002020-04-03T17:23:33.403-07:00Amazing that it exists. A fun and beautiful indie title that can't quite manage to live up to its predecessors <br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
It’s difficult to put into words the feeling I felt as I
held, finally, my copy of the 3<sup>rd</sup> installment in the long-running,
but long-dormant, Shenmue series.<br />
<br />
Releasing nearly 20 years after the launch of Shenmue II,
the advent of Kickstarter crowdfunding had finally allowed Yu Suzuki to
commence development on the third installment, and, of course, as a fan from
back in the day, getting to play the game was something of a surreal
experience. Shenmue III was a game that was never supposed to exist, a game
that its publishers had forever shunned, a resolution to a cliffhanger ending
that would never be resolved.<br />
<br />
My reaction to getting to play Shenmue III, after all this
time, can only be described as a complicated one. Shenmue I and Shenmue II on
the Dreamcast (and Xbox) were my favorite games at the time I played them, and
though few games from that era have aged flawlessly, I still feel that way
about them today. Majorly ahead of their time, the first two Shenmue games offered
a fully living, fully breathing open world to explore, one where every single
person you saw could be questioned and interacted with, where nearly every
building could be entered, and where an in-game clock and living NPCs going
about their daily business kept the world moving. It was in this world that Lan
Di, the member of a Chinese cartel, murdered teenager Ryo Hazuki’s father in
his dojo, stole the Dragon Mirror belonging to him, and departed into a rainy
night. Ryo vowed to get revenge, his journey taking him from his small but
bustling hometown in Japan, to the massive city of Hong Kong and the isolated
forests of Guilin in mainland China.<br />
<br />
Picking up immediately where Shenmue II left off, Ryo and his
mysterious new companion Shenhua learn that her father had recently disappeared
under mysterious circumstances. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shenmue
III begins in the larger-than-expected Bailu Village, which gradually opens up
to you and allows you to explore more and more of it as the first half of the
game goes on. The second act sees Ryo and Shenhua journey to the port city of
Niaowu, which offers a more exciting and vibrant setting while also exposing
many of Shenmue III’s unfortunate limitations.<br />
<br />
But first thing’s first. Shenmue III plays at its core
similarly to the first two games, in which Ryo wanders through the
fully-realized environments, interacting with locals, and learning clues which
progress him and the story forward. Most people you see in Shenmue III can be
interacted with, and though these interactions take a definite step back from
Shenmue II’s, in which you were able to choose between different questions to
ask them and even be walked to your destination, it’s still impressive how many
people are available to converse with, and how much dialogue (nearly all of it
voice acted) the developers have managed to squeeze into a far more limited
budget than that of the first 2 Shenmue games. Various action sequences, such
as fights or the occasional chase, show up to provide some excitement, but
likely for budgetary reasons, these are an incredibly rare occurrence in
Shenmue III, giving the game an even more likelihood of appealing strictly to
the fans than it otherwise might have had the developers been given more money
to play with. Shenmue III is slow, and without the big action sequences and
fights to break things up, those who don’t find themselves wrapped up in this
world and Ryo’s journey may struggle to see what the big deal is.<br />
<br />
For fans though, the real star of the show is how at least
the basics of the Shenmue series have been very well maintained. Wandering
through the village and then the city, Shenmue III gives you the ability to
gamble and perform part time jobs for money, the ability to play arcade games,
and the ability to explore the shops and see the painstaking detail that went
into giving each one its own identity. And of course, you have the ability to
interact with the NPCs and learn the clues that progress the story forward.
This is all still present and still the driving force behind Shenmue III. The
game does feel, in many ways, like a solid sequel to the second game, even
while it lacks the budget and the massive development teams awarded to its
predecessors, which has, inevitably, resulted in a game that doesn’t live up to
them, as much as it tries and as much as it makes the absolute most of its
circumstances. <br />
<br />
Lots of bits of fan service exist, from various items and photos to stories
that Ryo recounts to Shenhua about his life in Japan and of the friends he met
there. At one point you’re able to buy phone cards to call some of the
characters from the previous two games, and though these conversations somehow
feel non-cannon and feature (disappointingly) wildly different voice actors who
mostly don’t even attempt to sound like their predecessors,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>there’s something wonderfully surreal and
compelling about the ability to converse with these characters again. Even if,
for some reason, the writers have entirely forgotten that Guizhang was supposed
to eventually join Ryo in China.<br />
<br />
There have been various new features added to Shenmue III,
ranging from a brand new fighting system to the need for Ryo to eat food to
recharge his stamina (HP) throughout the day. A fun conversation system with
Shenhua exists in the first half of the game, which gives Ryo some much-needed
development and arguably fleshes him out more than both Shenmue 1 and 2 managed
to do. The battle system is under-explained and does take some time to get used
to, but manages to satisfy in its own way as the game goes on despite its
fairly unforgiving nature. The actual need to train and level up to increase
your stats is a cool addition to the series, while the food system
unfortunately isn’t, making getting around an outright chore when Ryo runs low
on health and is then only able to run for short distances at a time. These
types of “running systems” are rarely ever fun in video games, and Shenmue III’s
is no different. I’d have happily taken the game without it, and it would have
been much better for it. The sidequest system however is very much improved,
feeling in some ways similar to how it does in the Yakuza series, and though
it’s still sometimes tough to keep track of your various sidequests, Shenmue
III represents a big step forward in this regard over its predecessors.<br />
<br />
Where Shenmue III lands on most fans’ lists will ultimately
depend on how forgiving they are of its more limited nature. Though the environments
to explore in Shenmue III are very large and detailed (though, it has to be
said, not on the level of Shenmue II’s) evidence of its crowdfunded nature are
evident in other aspects. It’s important to bear in mind that Shenmue III
shouldn’t exist at all; in its final form, we have a game funded with a very
small budget, with a very small development team. Shenmue I and II were given
enormous amounts of money and the development support of Sega, who was (at the
time) a major console manufacturer. I’m happy that Shenmue III exists, and am
100% sure that its existence as an indie game is a far better fate for it than
alternatives, such as Yu Suzuki finishing its story through some sort of movie
or comic book, or through the ill-fated Shenmue Online. It’s in this nature
that Shenmue III’s definitely successful at what it attempts to do, which is to
provide a quality sequel to Shenmue II that delivers a similar experience and brings
at least some closure to what fans were expecting.<br />
<br />
It's the story, however, where Shenmue III surprisingly
disappoints the most. Cutscenes are very rare, with much of the plot
progressing through in-game conversations with other characters. When cutscenes
do show up, they feel low-budget and amateurish. The villains all fail to
generate any sense of presence, ranging from laughably un-threatening gang
members (frustratingly referred to as “thugs” for the entirety of the game, a
word that feels like it’s said hundreds of times and quickly becomes
cringeworthy) to Chi You Men characters who spend almost the entire game off
screen. Chai returns from Shenmue I but fails to justify his reappearance and
definitely doesn’t live up to the iconic villain’s role in that game. Despite a
shockingly anti-climactic introduction, Ren from Shenmue II is handled a bit
better as Ryo’s partner in crime while in the big city, though he too isn’t
allowed to leave the same lasting impression that he and other previous Shenmue
main characters have had. Shenmue was certainly never something like Final Fantasy,
but its characters in the past managed to elicit real emotions and leave a
mark; for whatever reason, their adventures with Ryo in Shenmue III almost all
feel hollow and forgettable. Things progress very little in the “grand scheme
of things” by the time the credits roll, with a true howler of a cliffhanger
ending that even as far as cliffhanger endings go doesn’t come close to the
beautiful ways Shenmue’s I and II wrapped up their stories. It’s a horrible
ending by almost any standard, and I’m really hoping for a Shenmue IV, if for
no other reason than to have III’s terrible ending not be the last we see of
the Shenmue world. QTE action scenes (where button prompts come up in the
middle of cinematic chases or fights) happen only a small handful of times over
the course of Shenmue III, though this turns out to be a blessing, as they’re all
nearly impossible to pull off on the first attempt, with
failing-and-memorization seemingly the only way to pass them. It’s
disappointing, as the fights and QTEs were some of the best aspects of the
previous installments, and they provided much-needed excitement and shook
things up gameplay-wise. Here the fights are often where the game gets most of
its challenge, and though leveling up makes sense as a way to progress through
them in an RPG sense, it’s hard not to feel a sense of dread, rather than
excitement, as a result when a fight does show up. Similarly, the less that’s said
about the (thankfully only) two puzzles that make their way into Shenmue III,
the better. They aren’t good.<br />
<br />
Music is a surprising shortcoming in Shenmue III as well, as
it’s an area where the series has always excelled. The vast majority of the
songs here are re-used from Shenmue II. Though of course these are still great
songs, and my heart actually ached when certain ones unexpectedly made an
appearance, it takes away much of Shenmue III’s individuality, and reminded me
of how incredible its predecessor was at almost every given turn. The handful
of new songs created for Shenmue III on the other hand are the least memorable
the series has seen, and all prove to be incredibly short and loop irritatingly
frequently. It’s undoubtedly for budgetary reasons, which is why it hurts me to
be tough on the game for this aspect, but given what a huge role music played
in the first 2 installments, I couldn’t help but wish that some of the money
that was spent on allowing you to open almost every drawer you see could have
instead been spent on creating a full new soundtrack. Debuting in the early
2000s, Shenmue I and II understandably suffered from uneven, at times laughably
poor, English voice acting. Shenmue III’s doesn’t reach those lows, though many
of the performances do feel flat. Corey Marshall returns as Ryo, which is a
great thing for posterity if nothing else. It’d have been nice if other English
voice actors (some of whom were very vocal about wanting to return for Shenmue
III) were included, or if the new actors had at least attempted to sound like
the characters they were voicing. Japanese voices are also available, for those
who prefer that.<br />
<br />
There are a few other flaws that (similar to the QTE
implementation) aren’t due to budgetary issues that I wish had been resolved or
handled differently. You can’t skip through the dialogue when talking to NPC
characters, which makes asking around occasionally feel like a chore. This is especially
true in the city, where many of the NPCs you see wandering around actually
can’t be talked to, which is a first for the series. Instead, you’re limited to
interacting only with Niaowu’s many shopkeepers, forcing you to sit through
their sales pitches before getting any info from them. The new gambling system,
which requires you to use “tokens” which are exchanged for prizes, which have
to then be sold at pawn shops for cash, feels unwieldy and unsatisfying, as the
amount of money you ultimately take home from this 3-step process never feels
like as much as I thought it was, taking a lot of the fun out of the gambling
mini-games. The game doesn’t tell you whether you already own an item before
purchasing it, causing me a ton of frustration when I spent over $1000 on a
“new move” only to see that I already had it in my inventory. I wish food had
either been less expensive or the exhaustion system had been more forgiving,
and the final battle is disappointing, to say the least. The fact that you have
to grind for money and win a series of tournament fights, not once but twice,
over the course of the adventure is also a shame and feels very uninventive. As
I type this, a patch has just been released (2 months after Shenmue III’s
launch) which may or may not address a couple of these issues, but as usual,
I’ve already long finished the game by this point, so it’s hard to see this as
anything but too little, too late.<br />
<br />
Moving back away from the negatives, though, Shenmue III
does certainly look the part. Developed using Unreal Engine 4, the vistas and
scenery are always beautiful. Though the environments ultimately don’t reach
the level of detail and activity that Shenmue has previously featured, they
still manage to impress, in a huge way, and it’s very hard not to feel the
“Shenmue vibes” as you wander around. I did find the design mechanism in which
Bailu Village slowly reveals itself to you to be jarring in a series that had previously
offered complete freedom almost immediately, but it ends up working well, with
the ability to explore more of the village always an exciting thing when it does
pop up as the story goes on. In general, despite its flaws, which are plainly
evident throughout, Shenmue III is a lot of fun. Progressing the story through
detective work remains as satisfying as it did in the first 2 games, and the
beautiful and bustling environments are still great to explore. The day and
night system returns, albeit with a 9:00 PM curfew (why?) giving many, though
not all, of the areas a cool scene when day changes to night.<br />
<br />
Shenmue III is in the end a very tough game to review. It’s
definitely no Shenmue II….that much is ultimately clear. It isn’t even Shenmue
I, in many ways. These two games were made with very different resources and
development teams, resulting in gaming experiences that were simply never going
to be replicated in an independently-developed, Kickstarter-funded game. At
what it is, however, Shenmue III exceeds expectations in many ways, and it’s
incredibly surprising what Yu Suzuki and his small team managed to accomplish
here. Though it has major shortcomings, including a disappointing story and
soundtrack, along with botched QTEs and new features that feel determined to
detract from the fun, there’s no denying that Shenmue III provides a beautiful,
atmospheric, and in many ways satisfying sequel that manages to at least come
close to living up to the nearly impossible expectations that were set upon it.<br />
<br />
It’s hard not to wish that Shenmue III could have been the
big budget, AAA follow-up that the first two entries deserved. But for what the
game is, it delivers beyond what I think anyone could have reasonably expected.
It’s far from perfect, but what we have here is a fun, polished, and epic
adventure. It’s Shenmue, without a doubt. And that’s something that shouldn’t
be taken for granted.<br />
<br />
<b>3.5/5</b><br />
<b><br /></b>Note; this review is based on the PS4 version<b></b><br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-54989301673953891852019-09-05T21:00:00.000-07:002019-09-05T21:00:13.324-07:00New Review: Disappointingly average and incredibly repetitive, Judgment lost my interest long before its conclusion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xeyQd9bEORM/XXHVKLzSLGI/AAAAAAAAAWc/Ktv0hSf_z50FrafEi7nU9mLhJXYqM1DQACLcBGAs/s1600/blogspot%2Bjudgment%2Breview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xeyQd9bEORM/XXHVKLzSLGI/AAAAAAAAAWc/Ktv0hSf_z50FrafEi7nU9mLhJXYqM1DQACLcBGAs/s320/blogspot%2Bjudgment%2Breview.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #181a1b; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Well, here we go again. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #181a1b; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Another
year, which marks the release of another game in Sega’s long-running and
tragically annualized Yakuza series. It was a series that burst onto the scene
in 2006 as a unique fusion of GTA with beat-em-up elements, along with very
strong storytelling, existing within a charismatic and explorable city. Though
new entries release every few years which somewhat reinvent and revitalize the
formula (such as 2018’s strong Yakuza 6) the rest of them very quickly fall
into the trap of treading familiar territory, often to increasingly diminishing
results.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #181a1b; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Despite
being originally positioned as a new IP, Judgment in practice makes no effort
to differentiate itself gameplay-wise from the series upon which the majority
of its formula originates. Even with a promising start and some gorgeous
visuals, it by and large comes across as a lower budget spinoff. It has moments
of strong storytelling, as Yakuza games often do, but Judgment is far too eager
to stop its momentum dead in its tracks for tedious filler missions that have
all the presentational flair of PS2-era side content. These missions however
are required to progress the story, and though not difficult, as with the rest
of the game, they bog the entire thing down whenever its narrative seems to be
gaining momentum.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #181a1b; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">But
let’s step back for a minute. Judgment stars new main character Takayuki
Yagami, a former defense attorney who left that career to become a detective
after a man who he successfully defended went on to commit another murder.
Joining a law office in Kamurocho, Yagami becomes involved in the defense case
of a Yakuza member named Hamura, where things reveal themselves to be not quite
what they seem.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #181a1b; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Yagami
and his detective partner Kaito are both likable and compelling, and though
Japanese voice acting is available, the English dub happens to be fantastic,
and at the start, with the gorgeous visuals of neon-drenched Kamurocho, and
upon seeing Yagami’s office-slash-apartment, I was initially very excited by
the prospect of where my adventures in Judgment’s world would take me.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #181a1b; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Unfortunately,
you’ll get to experience almost all of this in the first couple of hours. The
detective elements are incredibly shallow and follow one of only a small
handful of different blueprints. There’s the “find the object” investigative
missions, a mechanic that’s almost always the least fun element of any game
that it’s featured in. There’s chase scenes, which are cool but grow repetitive
as they offer nothing new as the game goes on, and then there are missions
where you follow someone down the street, which similarly never veer from their
pattern and stretch on for far too long. Drone missions occasionally show up,
but feel like an afterthought, as they only offer more “find the object”
gameplay, with you simply using them to scan the environments for whatever the
game wants you to find. Aside from an under-utilized camera mechanic and the
occasional need to pick a lock, Judgment simply recycles these same mission
blueprints again and again, with nothing happening to spice them up or to
provide anything beyond what you experience in their initial reveals. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #181a1b; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Everything
else is textbook Yakuza; you’ll wander the city, which is atmospheric but in
this case very small, heading from point A to B and getting in random battles
along the way. The combat system features two different styles to switch
between, with one being good for one type of battle and the other being good
for another one, though as the game went on I forgot about the other style
entirely. A new feature requires you to seek out a doctor to heal yourself from
“permanent wounds” from certain enemies; it’s different, but doesn’t do much
either way for the game. Battles occur when exploring Kamuracho at an
alarmingly high frequency, and avoiding them, while possible, is frustrating,
as enemies will follow you seemingly across the entire map before giving up,
requiring you to either engage them to get it over with, or to run a ridiculous
distance out of your way in order to avoid them. Most of these types of enemies
provide very little EXP for your trouble. As with all Yakuza games, the
combat’s fun on a basic level, and there’s an okay amount of character
customization, but battles in Judgment are mind-numbingly easy and
straightforward, making their existence feel like nothing more than a rude
interruption as you try to head from one place to another.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #181a1b; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">It’s
this area too where Judgment disappoints, as the vast majority of the story is
spent wandering back and forth between the same tiny selection of locations
over and over again; Yagami’s apartment, a bar, the law office, and a hidden
casino. The bulk of your experience in Judgment involves traveling from one of
these locations to the other, over and over again, and it’s this repetition,
which carries over to all aspects of this game, that sinks it. There’s very
little to see here that you haven’t seen in Judgment’s first couple hours, and
the game stretches its thin storyline across well over 20.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #181a1b; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">It
doesn’t take long to discover how incredibly little Judgment has to offer. The
explorable world is tiny even by series standards, and the side content
available to you, in the form of side missions you can take on and Friendships
and Relationships you can develop, is so boring that I almost recommend
skipping over it entirely. Even cool features that the game teases you with,
such as the ability to decorate your apartment and a number of records you can
collect for your record player, reveal themselves to be laughably limited in
scope, and you’ll exhaust those possibilities after just a couple hours of
playing.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #181a1b; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">But
Judgment goes on and on and on. Everything offered in the gameplay department
is introduced up front, with the game repeating its shallow and limited mission
types and battle sequences endlessly until you fight through its long-winded
but unexciting final sequences. The plot does take you to some cool areas, and
Yagami’s a great main character, but the bland filler missions kill the pacing
at the worst possible times, presenting some truly lame attempts at humor and
never managing to take the hint. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #181a1b; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">As
long as you’re not sitting through one of the many static, text box-ridden
cutscenes, Judgment looks great and generally runs well, the occasional
framerate hitches (on the Standard PS4) and odd pauses aside. The presentation’s
slick, giving it the look of a current gen game, something the Yakuza games in
the past have struggled with. But visual competency really only goes so far.
With such tired, uninspired gameplay and a world that’s so small and limited, I
find it hard to recommend this game to anyone. Yakuza fans I think would be
better off waiting until next year, when the inevitable Yakuza 7 will release,
and those new to the series would be better served by jumping in with almost
any other installment. It’s a bummer, because Yakuza 6 I thought was such a
promising comeback for what’s become an increasingly tired and predictable
series.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: #181a1b; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Judgment, on the other hand, is another example of why I almost
lost interest in it entirely. Great presentation and English voice acting
aside, the game’s so incredibly, thoroughly, disappointingly average, and the
sheer repetition of its gameplay wears out its welcome long before its
forgettable conclusion.</span></div>
<br />
<b> 2.5/5</b><br />
<b></b><br />Note; this review is based on the Standard PS4 version.NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-10628371967053177902019-06-19T16:35:00.000-07:002019-09-05T20:59:41.744-07:00New Review: While still a deeply flawed work, The Zodiac Age improves upon FFXII in ways that allow its positive attributes to shine through (Nintendo Switch)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K_As19twuq8/XQrGkGYIRvI/AAAAAAAAAVk/-lfVeomE2rQlpbWMrdqOLI8TPKm_9ZryACLcBGAs/s1600/blogspot%2Bfinal%2Bfantasy%2Bxii%2Bzodiac%2Bage%2Breview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K_As19twuq8/XQrGkGYIRvI/AAAAAAAAAVk/-lfVeomE2rQlpbWMrdqOLI8TPKm_9ZryACLcBGAs/s320/blogspot%2Bfinal%2Bfantasy%2Bxii%2Bzodiac%2Bage%2Breview.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age was a remaster that I never thought
I needed. As someone brought onboard to the series with Final Fantasy
X, which became one of the most captivating and influential games I’ve
ever played, I’d ignored the subscription-driven Final Fantasy XI and
immediately jumped into playing the other games in the series, becoming a
huge fan and looking forward to the 12th installment throughout its
many years of development. Sadly, Final Fantasy XII would prove to be
the first game I’d spent years highly anticipating, only for it to
arrive and to truly let me down. In my <a href="https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps2/459841-final-fantasy-xii/reviews/108969" target="_blank">review at the time</a> I called it a
“hollow and soulless installment,” and though many of my criticisms of
the game remain, The Zodiac Age does a great job of improving upon the
original in ways that, while still a deeply flawed work, makes the whole
thing less of a grind and allows some of its more positive elements to
shine through in a way they hadn’t previously. <br />
<br />
Final Fantasy
XII immediately makes an effort to differentiate itself from its
predecessors by focusing on a small, politically-centered storyline, one
in which the majority of the characters hardly seem to have any
investment. With the party dynamics and the characters’ relationships to
each other pushed far into the background, XII’s storyline focuses the
majority of its time on a political conflict between multiple empires,
with one essentially becoming a military dictatorship intent on
capturing its neighbors. The story does have its moments, and there are
places where it offers a surprise or two, but its more limited nature
allows the game do what it truly seems to want to, which is to become a
combat-driven slog across huge, (and I mean huge) landscapes and
caverns, where beasts freely roam, and where your characters get endless
time to make use of the game’s truly fun and often satisfying combat
system.<br />
<br />
Though the scope of the world’s incredibly impressive,
especially for a game released back on the PS2, it was a world where
exploring became marred in tedium; when it can take up to 5 hours for
your characters to hop from one city to the other simply to progress the
story, my motivation to venture off and explore was next to zero. The
Zodiac Age’s best asset by far is the Speed Up feature, which allows
you, with the press of a button, to put the game on fast-forward,
speeding up not only your character’s movements but also the speed of
battle, and since Final Fantasy XII’s combat system is mainly driven by
programming your characters beforehand and watching them battle it out,
the game’s a perfect fit for this feature in a way that something like
Final Fantasy IX wasn’t. In speeding up the proceedings, nearly every
single aspect of the game is improved. The sparse narrative feels more
fulfilling, as the gap between cutscenes is greatly reduced. I generally
played the game at normal speed, but the ability to fast forward it
when needed, (something that became increasingly needed, as far as I’m
concerned, the further I got in the game) proved to be a major
game-changer. Now, when I see a place on the map that I haven’t been to,
I can switch on the fast-forward feature and suddenly I don’t mind
venturing off to explore it. I got to more fully explore the game’s
towns, such as Rabanastre, without the frustrating aspect of how long it
takes Vaan to walk from point A to point B across these unnecessarily
large, corridor-like NPC areas. And the hours upon hours of battle that
the characters find themselves in as they cross many of these areas and
the game’s enormous dungeons is not only significantly reduced, but it
allows the combat system to remain what it always was, which is fun.<br />
<br />
The
Zodiac Age makes other improvements as well; the License Board system,
in which your characters learn skills and bonuses, such as increasing
strength and Max HP, no longer allows all your characters to become
clones of each other, as the original Final Fantasy XII all too easily
wound up doing, as you now select Jobs in the beginning of the game,
tailoring your characters’ leveling up to that job. You have the ability
to add a second job to each character later in the game, and though it
may occur at too late a point for it to leave the impact that it
otherwise could have, it does come in handy in the event that you miss
out on certain abilities, such as a way to remove Disease, one of the
series’ most unfair status ailments and one of the hardest to cure.<br />
<br />
These
somewhat unfair gameplay elements from the original Final Fantasy XII
are still present throughout The Zodiac Age, and though essential
additions, including the auto-save feature, make these far less terrible
than they once were, they still prove to be frustrating. Save points
that aren’t really save points, but disguised enemies who come alive to
kill your characters when they’re at their most vulnerable, enemies in
the field that are nearly impossible to flee from, as they’ll continue
to aggressively pursue your characters half way across the map before
giving up, the fact that you can’t switch characters in battle if
they’re selected by anyone or anything, not to mention the fact that
doors are very difficult to open when surrounded by enemies…..these
problems still remain. That the game now regularly auto-saves helps to
shield The Zodiac Age from the ramifications of some of these design
choices, but it’s needless to say still a problem, and a constant
reminder of what Final Fantasy XII originally was.<br />
<br />
The Zodiac Age,
in the fact that its features encourage more exploring and therefore
more level grinding, is arguably much easier than the PS2 original,
though when the challenge does present itself, it seems to do so in the
wrong ways. A frequent occurrence, as with the original Final Fantasy
XII, is that the enemies in the dungeons are often far harder to defeat
than the bosses at the ends of them, and these enemies aren’t difficult
for any reason other than for how the dungeon design eagerly puts you in
situations in which you’re surrounded and overpowered, with little
means to escape and with ever-decreasing numbers of Phoenix Downs at
your disposal. At such points, Final Fantasy XII will often advise you
to create a second save file, knowing that you have no way to escape
from the dungeon should you need to stock up on items/weapons to
complete it.<br />
<br />
As with the original, characters not participating in
battle don’t gain any EXP points, and while they still receive License
Board points, un-used characters eventually become entirely incapable of
damaging enemies unless they’re brought back into the main party (a
mere three party members,) to be leveled up. Given that this takes away
valuable EXP from your Main Three, and given that switching characters
during battle is so difficult to do, it becomes impractical to use all
of your characters, and therefore almost a given that half your party
becomes nearly useless in battle about a quarter of the way through the
game. Other Final Fantasy games offer story scenarios that mandate the
use of certain characters in order to prevent them from falling too far
behind. Final Fantasy XII has nothing of the sort, and while a simple
solution would have been to allow non-party members to receive even just
50% of the EXP of those participating, that isn’t the case, and as with
the original Final Fantasy XII, half my party became useless shields,
to be called into battle to quickly cast Limit Breaks (here called
Quickenings, and fairly poorly explained) before being immediately
killed off by the enemies.<br />
<br />
Gameplay-wise, though, Zodiac Age is
something that I can overall deem a success. With the speed up system
and the auto-saving eliminating the sheer tedium of trudging through
seemingly never-ending environments and enemies, along with the greatly
reduced fear of dying and losing hours of progress, Final Fantasy XII:
The Zodiac Age remains fun to play almost throughout. It’s a feat that
the original Final Fantasy XII couldn’t manage, and arguably addresses
one of the original’s biggest flaws, even though many of them still
remain. Despite these features, the never-ending slew of final dungeons
are a real test of patience, and while they erode some of the good will
built up by the rest of The Zodiac Age, they don’t prove to hurt the
game enough this time to stop me from having enjoyed it. And for a game
that I originally hated, that’s a definite achievement. <br />
<br />
Despite being greatly helped by the improved gameplay pacing, Final
Fantasy XII’s storyline remains somewhat of a weird being and a bizarre
contradiction. The Shakespearean dialogue is very well acted and
written, but the scenario itself falls victim to some head-scratchingly
poor writing choices and a complete lack of character development. We’re
expected to believe early on in the game, for example, that not a
single one of the main characters, or anyone who they interact with,
would recognize Princess Ashe, who joins the party under a fake name and
goes along with their adventure. That Final Fantasy XII opens with her
very widely-viewed and celebrated wedding, one in front of the entire
kingdom, makes it impossible to accept that nobody in the party or
anywhere else would recognize her as she travels with them. This isn’t
something that’s explained in any way by the narrative, it’s just
something that we’re supposed to accept; nobody in this kingdom,
including Basch, a royal knight, is apparently able to recognize their
own princess when they see her walking down the streets of Dalmasca,
after having supposedly committed suicide, to boot.<br />
<br />
Contrived plot
developments such as this one occur numerous times throughout Final
Fantasy XII, and the game just doesn’t seem to be aware of how senseless
they are. Other moments, such as the empire blocking off entire city
streets to prevent the public’s access to a mine, only to have the
mine’s gigantic entrance left completely unguarded (none of the main
characters comment on this odd phenomenon), along with an entire major
city that somehow functions despite demanding that people wander the
streets doing good deeds for rich strangers in exchange for pieces of
wood in order to be allowed to ride the subway system, all stretch the
story’s credibility at every turn.<br />
<br />
Setting things like these aside
though, the plot, even with its sophisticated dialogue presentation and
some genuinely strong political intrigue, fails to delve deeply enough
into any of its themes. Vaan just isn’t allowed to be much of a main
character, and he spends most of the game either not saying anything at
all, or goofing around with his friend, Panelo; she too has no reason
for being there. Princess Ashe tries to take the mantle as the “main
character,” but even when she has a major, world-changing decision to
make later on in the game, the other characters appear to be (at best)
only mildly interested in what her choice might be, rendering the whole
thing weightless. Even with it being seemingly the writers’ top
priority, the political drama is sidestepped almost entirely in the
game’s final third with a hunt for various Powerful Items, a development
as predictable as it is disappointing. Various airships dot the skies
of Ivalice, and air piracy appears to exist, with Balthier being a sky
pirate, and Vaan aspiring to be one. But they play no role in the story,
and there’s no glimpse whatsoever into what it would be like to be a
Sky Pirate in Ivalice, why they’re necessary, or even why airships are
used, with warping between save points seeming to be a much more
efficient means of travel.<br />
<br />
There are moments of greatness here,
but even with the improved pacing, Final Fantasy XII’s storyline is only
slightly better than I remember it being. It’s a bummer, because with a
strong story, the Zodiac Age may have been something that I could
conceivably see as being a much stronger entry in the numbered series.
But those flaws remain, and though I enjoyed playing it, I don’t expect
that I’ll ever feel the need to play it again, or that this world of
Ivalice or its characters will remain in my mind for much longer now
that I’ve beaten it.<br />
<br />
The soundtrack does receive a bit of a
facelift, with a re-orchestration that brings out the songs’ better
moments. Many of the tracks are generally good, and they often head in
surprising and unexpected directions, but others, including much of the
dungeon music and even the music that plays in places like Balfonheim
Port, can be downright annoying. Composer Hitoshi Sakimoto also seems to
take the lazy route at times, with generic “combat music” playing while
exploring places like the Phon Coast, rather than music that better
fits the individual settings. It’s true that these songs as a result can
be used interchangeably in numerous locations, but it does further take
away from the world’s personality quite a bit. The English voice
acting’s of excellent quality, arguably one of the best-acted games in
the series, even if we’re still stuck with the hollow, echo-y
compression effect used on the voices back in the day in order to fit
the game onto a single PS2 disc. You have the option to change between
Japanese and English voice acting, along with the ability to use the
original or the remastered soundtrack; that this all fits onto a Switch
cartridge along with the HD assets is incredibly impressive, even if the
Switch version unfortunately only outputs at a native 876p compared to
the full 1080p seen on the PS4/Xbox One versions. The game still looks
great though; it’s a huge update over the original, and while it lacks
the sharpness of the (admittedly much smaller) Final Fantasy X Remaster,
it’s still impressive how well the visuals have held up today, how good
the remastering looks, how large the world still feels, and how great
the re-orchestrated OST sounds.<br />
<br />
All in all, Final Fantasy XII: The
Zodiac Age is a game that I’m glad I played. It makes notable
improvements over the original, allowing for a faster-paced, far less
frustrating experience. My original complaints about Final Fantasy XII
still stand, and in fact many still do permeate this updated version,
preventing me from putting The Zodiac Age into the top echelon of modern
Final Fantasy games. But the changes made allow the game to flow a lot
better, and make for a more fulfilling, much more forgiving adventure.
Despite incredibly strong dialogue and top notch acting, the storyline
still majorly struggles under its iffy scenario and lack of focus, with
easily the least-developed main cast of characters in the modern series,
and several endless dungeons too many. Still, while I can’t
wholeheartedly recommend Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, I had a
blast with it despite its many flaws, and Final Fantasy fans who either
haven’t played Final Fantasy XII, or who have always wanted to give it
another shot, may very now have a version that I can say may be worth a
look. Given how much I truly despised the original Final Fantasy XII,
that’s definitely a win for Square-Enix.<br />
<br />
<b>3.5/5</b><br />
<br />
Note: This review is based on the Nintendo Switch versionNintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-87055086286953064632019-03-28T17:05:00.000-07:002019-03-28T17:07:03.889-07:00New Review: Ys VIII provided me a fun, if imperfect, JRPG to sink my teeth into <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dMtQVsd5V-0/XJ1bI5hpPEI/AAAAAAAAAU4/540BDpoYpSE30W6O7Bv3Yy41rg3CDCOlQCLcBGAs/s1600/blogspot%2Bys%2Bviii%2Breview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dMtQVsd5V-0/XJ1bI5hpPEI/AAAAAAAAAU4/540BDpoYpSE30W6O7Bv3Yy41rg3CDCOlQCLcBGAs/s320/blogspot%2Bys%2Bviii%2Breview.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Despite being such a force during the PS2 era, high quality,
quirky Japanese RPGs have become somewhat tougher to come by in recent years.
Ys was a series that I hadn’t heard of before, other than from vague mentions
and the occasional sight of one of the games on the shelf. Ys VIII’s port to
the Switch seemed like a good opportunity to give this long-running JRPG series
a shot, and though not without its flaws, all in all Ys VIII provides an
enjoyable experience, and one that will definitely encourage me to check out
future series entries down the line. <br />
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The game begins with series silent protagonist and
adventurer Adol Christin onboard a passenger ship, setting sail for other
continents. In the early minutes of the game, you’re able to wander the ship
and chat with several characters, many of whom of course play a role in your
journey once a mysterious monster causes the ship to crash onto a deserted
island. Once a few other survivors are found, they lay the groundwork for
Castaway Village, their home base from which they venture out, searching for other
survivors and clues to help them off the island. </div>
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The adventure progresses in a linear and yet nonlinear fashion.
You’re given plenty of ability to explore the island and to backtrack, with new
parts of the island being unlocked for you only once Adol has found enough survivors,
who are then added to Castaway Village, to clear away debris blocking the path.
It’s a system that feels surprisingly satisfying, as it allows the game to
reveal itself slowly to you, as many linear JRPGs do, but with the full ability
to return to previous locations, including with new abilities that unlock new
areas within them, as well as a ton of sidequests to take on. It gives Ys VIII
a linear but open world feel that manages to strike the right balance. Watching
your party in Castaway Village grow, seeing the new things they each bring to
the table, and watching the encampment expand as you progress is incredibly
satisfying. The localization, which was so flawed initially that it prompted a
full apology from NIS America upon its Western launch back on the PS4, is now fine
as long as you download the patch, (this is true on the Switch as well) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with only a few grammatical errors still
present. The voice acting and updated script is solid throughout. </div>
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Ys VIII’s characters are likable enough, and plenty of
dialogue takes place between them over the course of the adventure. I wouldn’t
say ultimately that any character leaves too much of a lasting impression, but
they’re all fun to venture with, and the whole cast has a pleasant, understated
dynamic. There are times when things get intense for the group of castaways on
this hostile island, and there are a few solid surprises throughout and some
genuine emotional investment. </div>
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This all comes packaged with an incredibly fun Action RPG battle system,
one simple enough to get the hang of, but one which provides a solid amount of
depth as the games goes on. Updating your weapons and equipment, the creation
of clothing, the brewing of items, the learning of new skills, and a growing
cast of playable characters keeps the battle system evolving as you progress. You
can alternate between which character you control, with the AI handling the
other two. Battles are fast-paced and fun, never getting in the way of exploring
and not too difficult to avoid. The emphasis on the use of items (as opposed to
magic) is the one aspect of combat that frustrated me, as it requires frequent
trips back to Castaway Village to restock, along with the occasional need to search
the island for the appropriate ingredients to brew more. This is generally not
a big problem, as traveling can be done with a warp feature and is quite easy
to do, but it does make some dungeons less fun than they could be, and requires
items to be a larger part of my general strategy than I usually prefer. <br />
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Ys VIII does stumble in a few areas. Released initially as a
PS Vita game, it was remastered for the PS4 and now for the Switch. Its Vita
origins are plainly visible throughout, and while I can’t speak for the PS4
version, the Switch version at least does have a few issues that I wish had
been fixed. Though graphics appear to be at a higher resolution than what the
Vita could have managed, the technical limitations of Sony’s handheld shine
through at numerous points. The Switch version operates at 30FPS unlike the PS4
version, which is 60FPS, so bear that in mind. Even so, there are some drops
present on the Switch, even with the lower targeted framerate. The bigger issue
for me though is the framerates of the enemies in the distance, which are so
ridiculously low that it gives them a jerky performance and makes their
movements look like a slideshow until you get close enough for the game to
render them at full 30FPS. It looks terrible and it constantly took me out of
the game. The music that’s here is often good, at least as far as the story
events are concerned, though the few songs that exist repeat so constantly that
it actually became repetitive to me. The music while exploring can be immersive,
but I wish they’d done away with much of the generic, electric guitar-squealing
rock jams in the combat areas and instead gone with something more atmospheric.
<br />
<br />
On a final note, Ys VIII goes on for a little too long. I thoroughly enjoyed my
time playing it for much of its length, and in the final third, the plot fully
kicks in. A very cool city location is revealed, and things get incredibly
interesting. It’s a shame then that the game essentially becomes a dungeon crawler
at this point, with far too much time spent returning to the same dungeon areas
to fight endless numbers of enemies and bosses, and it feels like it goes on
and on. The scenario’s interesting, but the characters aren’t quite strong
enough to withstand the repetition of the game design, and for the final
several hours of the game, I wanted nothing more than for it to end. Which is a
shame, because I really liked much of it. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still, Ys VIII was a good experience for me. The
action-based combat system’s great and incredibly addictive, and it’s deep
enough and fast enough that exploring’s always fun, even with a degree of
backtracking throughout. The map could have been better, and I wish the
repetition had been cut down, especially in the game’s final act. Issues with
Ys VIII’s origins as a Vita title, including a bunch of non-voiced story
sequences, a high-quality but small soundtrack, and the somewhat dated visual
look do leave a mark, but I’m excited to check out what this series could become
going forward. The Switch version’s a solid way to check out the game, though the
PS4 version likely comes closer to mitigating its Vita shortcomings. The final
several hours drag, but all in all, it was great to get to sink my teeth into
another addictive, high quality Japanese RPG. I eagerly look forward to the
eventual Ys IX, and should they take care of some of VIII’s pacing-related
issues, we might be truly looking at a gem. <br />
<br />
<b>3/5<br /></b>Note;<b> </b>this review is based on the Nintendo Switch version. </div>
NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-16249751208002272752019-01-15T22:16:00.002-08:002019-01-15T22:31:35.968-08:00New Review: A beautiful game that doesn't come close to hitting the heights of its predecessor, but Red Dead Redemption 2 still manages to entertain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It’s been over 5 years since Rockstar Games’ last major title, the
hugely popular GTA5, and for fans of the ambitious studio’s massive,
story-driven open world games, it felt like a very long wait for their
next big adventure. This is especially true with that adventure
happening to be a sequel to Red Dead Redemption, which proved easily to
be among the 7th generation’s best games. Red Dead Redemption 2 was
always slated to be a massive project, with Rockstar essentially merging
all their many studios together and working almost exclusively (DLC and
remasters aside) on the title for the past who-knows how many years.<br />
<br />
Red
Dead Redemption 2 does deliver, at least, in a certain sense. I have to
say, I don’t consider it to be one of the studio’s better games, and
certainly find it to be a notch or two below its excellent predecessor.
But the world crafted here has been brought to life with painstaking
detail, and the size of the seemingly endless map available for you to
explore is very much out of this world. As a prequel to Redemption 1,
RDR2 stars new character Arthur Morgan and tells the story of the Van
der Linde gang of outlaws, which includes RDR1 protagonist John Marston
in a larger role than I expected, as they attempt “one last heist” which
will allow them to escape the dying Old West for good.<br />
<br />
Arthur
Morgan grew on me fairly quickly. I was a little concerned after seeing
the trailers, which depicted him almost as an evil Trevor-like
character, but much like John Marston, Arthur’s actually incredibly
likable and has at least somewhat of a conscience and a level head,
especially as the gang around him becomes more and more desperate. A
plot development that admittedly arrives a little later than I’d have
liked further helps to cement Arthur as one of Rockstar’s great main
characters.<br />
<br />
The story he’s saddled with though just isn’t that
great by the studio’s standards. As with GTA5, a game that I, unlike
seemingly everyone else, struggled to get into, the plot here mainly
takes the form of a series of heists, each one presenting differing
circumstances but still managing to feel very similar to each other,
both narratively and from a gameplay perspective. Upon arriving in each
new town-like area and establishing your hideout nearby, Arthur
undertakes a series of missions which build to the various attempted
robberies. Until much later in the game, including a very cool and
innovative epilogue, the story seems a bit aimless and doesn’t feel that
it’s building to much. Outside of Arthur, most of the characters don’t
manage to leave a mark, and this is despite seemingly endless hours of
dialogue as you traverse on your horses from one area to the other.<br />
<br />
Still,
Arthur Morgan’s journey is enough to carry the day, even if it doesn’t
live up to those that preceded it. It’s a lot of fun to arrive at each
new location, watching as the gang’s hideouts develop, and getting to
explore and become acquainted with the towns (and the one large city)
that you find yourself in. Visually, Red Dead Redemption 2 really pulls
out all the stops. Other than the lack of interaction with the foliage
(something which has stuck out to me in each post-Breath of the Wild
game I’ve played) and a few framerate drops in towns here and there, the
visual presentation is nearly flawless. It’s so photo-realistic, in
fact, that it’s hard to imagine where things can go from here in this
graphics style. The snow areas in particular are stunning, and the draw
distance, as you stand atop a hill and survey your surroundings, is
incredible. Many of the towns you explore are a little on the small
side, but the level of activity, detail, and visual effects squeezed
into them is excellent. The time spent in the city of Saint Denis easily
proved to be my favorite part of the game, and I wished far more time
was spent in this huge, vibrant, life-like city. <br />
<br />
Exploring the
world proves seamless, with no load times to speak of as you traverse
from one end of the map to the other, including watching the barren
environments gradually become urban centers as you approach the towns.
Other than when you die, or fast travel, or when you first boot up the
game, it just doesn’t need to load. And that’s an amazing thing. These
aren’t empty, deserted fields either, as you’ll encounter numerous NPC
activity along your way; from people who ask for your assistance, to
those trying to rob others (and even you), the world feels alive at many
points. Granted, while I eventually began ignoring much of these
entirely, as the rewards they offer you don’t usually feel worth the
effort, it’s always something I appreciate when trekking from one area
to the other, the sense of activity and vibrancy.<br />
<br />
The gameplay is
oddly enough a mixed bag, as it replicates RDR1’s strong foundation,
which is a lot of fun, and remains fun here, while building on top of it
new features that frankly just miss the mark. As with RDR1, you
traverse with your beloved horse across various gorgeous environments,
completing missions for people as you dig yourself deeper into your
story, and engaging in many Wild West gun battles along the way. The
crazy bullet time-like shooting system from RDR1 sees a return here, and
it’s always satisfying to bring out in the heat of battle.
Unfortunately, in a misplaced effort to appeal to the art of “realism,”
everything in Red Dead Redemption 2 incorporates simulation aspects that
just feel unnecessary, and actually bog the game down when you try to
make use of them. It’s possible to spend 15 minutes traveling across the
world for a sidequest, only to get there and find that it’s
time-specific and no longer available, giving you little choice but to
either set the controller down for a long period of time, or to simply
travel all the way back. You can hunt and skin animals to either donate
to your hideout or to sell, with these animals degrading over time
should you not return immediately with them. You’re encouraged to eat
food or drink/smoke to regularly to recharge your various “cores” which
affect how much your health regenerates, your stamina, etc. Guns have to
be cleaned regularly to improve their performance, your horse is
supposed to be cared for, your hideout is supposed to be donated to
regularly, with the the list going on and on. I just never found any of
this to be especially rewarding, and as the game progressed I wound up
entirely ignoring almost all of it, and frankly I think the experience
is better for it. It doesn’t help that every action feels so belabored;
even picking something up off the ground requires you to stand there for
a few seconds holding X and watching as Arthur stoops down, grabs the
object, and slowly stands up and pockets it. This sense of realism is
impressive at first, but after a while I grew tired of it and just
wanted the game to speed up. This is something that carries through all
aspects of RDR2. Going to a gun shop to purchase guns requires you to
watch Arthur lean over a catalogue and methodically flip through each
page, reading the nearly illegible handwriting or opting to pull up a
text description. I wished numerous times that I could just push X in
front of something, read it, and be on my way, but Red Dead Redemption 2
tries so hard to be realistic that every time you have to interact with
objects in the environment or in shops, it all feels tedious and not
worth bothering with. The Wanted Level system also feels like more
trouble than it’s worth, and I made it a point to completely avoid
playing Arthur as the “villainous” character, in part because it’s such a
pain to remove your wanted level, which can take place from something
as simple as brushing up against an NPC when riding your horse through
town. Like many games today, Red Dead Redemption 2 makes an overt effort
to be cinematic, with missions and large parts of the gameplay
seemingly focused on simply pressing the buttons that the game prompts
you to press, watching as cinematic things happen. It’s something that
seemed cool back when Uncharted 2 came out, but now that we’re several
years into the 8th gen, it’s something that I wish developers would just
move on from, as I find it increasingly difficult not to feel detached
from the proceedings when the majority of control over my character is
constantly being ripped away from me to show me “cool stuff.” And unlike
regular cinematics, you can't even put the controller down and enjoy
them, as you're often asked to push the prompted buttons.<br />
<br />
Traveling
the world, as gorgeous as it is, occupies a huge portion of your play
time. You travel far on horse to reach the missions, then travel far on
horse during the missions, and have to travel back on horse afterwards.
There’s a fast travel option hidden within the game that can be
unlocked, but once I did, I found it to be so incredibly limited that I
only used it around once or twice before forgetting about it entirely.
Train stations do exist throughout the world for quick travel, and these
are helpful, although similarly, they have to be painstakingly traveled
to. Unlike the vehicle in, say, Final Fantasy XV, horse travel just
isn’t all that fun, requiring you to constantly either tap the X-button
or, if you switch to cinematic mode, holding it. The world’s huge, but
you’re very much encouraged to stay on the various roads, as
environmental objects such as trees and shrubbery can easily throw you
from your horse should you venture far from the beaten path. Even when
during the missions, and compelling dialogue takes place among the
characters as you move, the traveling aspect feels almost entirely
devoted to demonstrating the insanely gorgeous environments to you, and
this is nice, but there’s only so many times I can be impressed by that
across this very long game. Red Dead Redemption 2 feels like the first
game from Rockstar where visuals were designed to be the star of the
show. Being the developers of typically fully open-world adventures,
their games were rarely the prettiest-looking on their respective
systems, often going with cartoony and stylized visuals to make up for
it. This is really the first time I felt a game from Rockstar fall into
the modern day trap of attempting to be too cinematic, becoming too much
about immaculate presentation while the gameplay just kind of sits
there. The missions all follow a very predictable pattern; ride your
horse with others to a location, where all sorts of dialogue takes
place. Get to the location, something or other happens, which often
leads to cover shooting gameplay that very quickly blends together; it’s
hard not to notice a surprising lack of imagination as to how the
characters get out of most situations. This is the format for easily the
majority of the missions you’ll come across in Red Dead Redemption 2,
and it’s unfortunate that the same amount of attention that went into
creating the gorgeous world hadn’t gone into the mission design.
Rockstar also sadly does the Horizon: Zero Dawn thing, where you’re
stuck in a linear and cinematic “opening mission” for the early hours of
the game, something that’s always frustrating in what you know will
eventually be an open world adventure, which makes the opening hours, so
crucial for pulling me into a game’s world, a chore that I’m eager for
to end so I can finally begin exploring.<br />
<br />
I know it sounds like
there’s a lot to be disappointed with, but it’s important to note (and I
can’t stress this enough) that despite the endless horseback riding,
the less-than-inspiring mission design, the unnecessary emphasis on
realism, and the unenjoyable new features, Red Dead Redemption 2 does
deliver something special, and I was always eager to switch my PS4 on to
dive back into its world, flaws and all. Even with the frustrating new
additions, the strong foundation
established in the previous Red Dead Redemption remains compelling even
to this day. The level of quality and care that Rockstar almost always
brings to the table in terms of the overall experience is impressive,
even when the individual parts may not be all that great, as is the case
here. It’s a world brimming with character, quests to take on, beasts
to hunt, and gorgeous, bustling towns and cities. The voice acting’s
excellent, and the music sets a cool, subdued mood as you venture
through the wilderness; the atmosphere’s almost top notch, second only
to something like Breath of the Wild this gen. Red Dead Redemption 2 is
very much a game where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,
in that for all its very “workmanlike” elements and issues, when I beat
the game and put the controller down, it was an adventure that I’m truly
glad I went on, and saw through to the end. It leads into Red Dead
Redemption 1 perfectly, with an epilogue that’s just narratively a work
of genius, even though it too drags in places. It takes a long time to
get there, and the early hours of the game often feel painstakingly slow
paced. But once I managed to sink my teeth into the story and ignore
many of RDR2’s unneeded new simulation elements, I got to enjoy what’s a
memorable, if imperfect, adventure. I hope that future games from
Rockstar don’t take so long to develop, and don’t feature such an
emphasis on graphics and cinematics over pure fun factor and
inventiveness. But hey, they know how to develop a game, and issues and
all, this is definitely one heck of a game.<br />
<br />
<b>3.5/5 </b><br />
<br />
Note; this review is based on the PS4 version.<b> </b>NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-71437614606780049412019-01-02T21:09:00.001-08:002019-01-02T21:16:36.726-08:00New Review: It’s a shame that Shenmue I and II isn't what it could've been, but experiencing these iconic games one more time is a gift that shouldn't be missed<br />
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<br />
With the abrupt cancellation of the Sega Dreamcast, which was
gaming’s first 128 bit console and Sega’s final effort in the hardware
business, we saw many incredibly promising games and potential
franchises relegated to the dustbin of history. Few have gained as much
notoriety as the Shenmue series; due in part to their notoriously high
development costs and Shenmue II’s legendary cliffhanger ending, along
with Sega’s apparent policy not to so much as speak of them for what
became something like 15 years, what was a series that many thought
would never be finished has finally been given the chance to continue
on.<br />
<br />
The announcement a couple years ago that Yu Suzuki was
planning to finally develop Shenmue III was a momentous occasion that
took the industry by complete surprise. With the long-awaited 3rd
installment finally on its way, Sega has, for better or for worse,
decided to deliver HD remasters of the first two iconic open world
games, and Shenmue I and II is the result.<br />
<br />
The Shenmue games were
almost unheard of in how they upended what seemed possible in gaming
back when they released in 1999-2002. You play as Ryo Hazuki, a teenager
who returns home one day to find a sinister man, Lan Di, confronting
his father. Lan Di demands a mysterious object called the Dragon Mirror
before killing Ryo’s father and departing in a black car. Ryo vows to
take revenge, and sets off into the fully realized open world setting of
Yokosuka, Japan, talking to people and looking for clues that
eventually leads him to China, where Shenmue II continues the story and
pulls Ryo much deeper into the criminal underworld.<br />
<br />
Released at a
time when many video games still didn’t have voice acting, Shenmue lets
you talk to anybody you see; 100% of the characters are voice acted. In
something that’s still incredibly rare even today, the Shenmue games
allow you to enter almost any single building, complete with their own
shopkeepers, their own music, and other NPC characters entering and
exiting the stores, restaurants, and bars that you find yourself in.
Every time Ryo gets a clue that pushes the story forward, a notebook
icon on the screen glows, and reading the note tells you your next
objective. It’s a system that’s incredibly satisfying, and the numerous
different ways you can arrive at the same conclusion (say, by talking to
one person instead of another, setting off a different chain of events)
means that even having played these games more than a dozen times over
the years, I still managed to witness scenes that I’d never seen before
when playing this remaster, which really goes to show just how much they
had to offer.<br />
<br />
Though much of the Shenmue experience consists of
wandering through ambient, beautifully-scored worlds and interacting
with locals, friends, and business owners who all operate on their own
schedules, there are fights and action scenes that break things up.
Despite featuring a form of the complex Virtua Fighter fighting engine,
the fights only rarely offer much of a challenge, but they’re always fun
when they do show up. QTEs, which the Shenmue games helped to
popularize, are also cool, especially when they involve chasing people
through the streets and dodging obstacles, or slamming someone across a
bar counter or into a food stand.<br />
<br />
Shenmue I is hurt a bit more by
the passage of time than its sequel, mainly in that its fights and QTE
sequences feel short and simple by today’s standards. As a result, these
action scenes lose a bit of their punch, making Shenmue I feel
slower-paced as a whole than Shenmue II and its far more exciting action
sequences and encounters. That said, neither game is designed to be a
thrill ride; wandering through town (or in Shenmue II’s case, wandering
through the city) and looking for clues is certainly no Call of Duty or
Uncharted, so those going in expecting an action game or even a
beat-em-up similar to the Yakuza series will likely be disappointed. And
that was true back when Shenmue first came out, as well; gaming at the
time was still very arcade-driven, so even back then, the Shenmue series
was somewhat divisive in that you either loved it or hated it. Shenmue
II does greatly up the ante in the action category, its occasionally
slow first half aside, and Shenmue I has its thrilling moments as well,
but generally speaking these are not action games, or fighting games,
and were never intended to be. Instead, the beauty of the Shenmue series
has always been immersing yourself in their environments: watching day
turn to night as snow begins to fall on the quiet neighborhood of
Sakaragaoka, arriving home and noticing Ine-San dusting the house,
swinging by the local arcade and playing some video games or some darts
to kill time, or wandering into a hidden warehouse on Fortune’s Pier to
gamble your money away. The number of activities to do in the world may
no longer be unsurpassed when compared to the open world games of today,
something especially evident when playing Shenmue I, but the atmosphere
and the level of interactive detail that exists, I’d argue, remains
almost unprecedented to this day.<br />
<br />
Both Shenmue I and Shenmue II
were games that I’d considered the best I’d ever played back when they
released and over the years, and they remain that way today. There was
simply nothing like them at the time when they released, and though many
of their mechanics have since been adopted by others, there really
still isn’t anything that looks, feels, or plays like Shenmue. That’s
not to say that the games don’t have their faults, something worth
bearing in mind especially now that these are older games, having been
released over a decade and a half ago. Some of these faults could have
been smoothed over had this remaster been even slightly more ambitious
(more on that later) but without a doubt there are genuine faults in the
game design that haven’t gone away with age. Shenmue I locks you onto a
more linear path in its final act, as Ryo attempts to infiltrate a gang
and gets a job moving forklifts in a crime-ridden harbor. This part of
the game is still a lot of fun, but having your character automatically
teleported to work in the morning and then keeping you in the harbor
until nightfall felt like it took away a lot of the freedom that you’d
previously been given, and that remains something that I’m not thrilled
with today. Similary, the original Shenmue can feel frustrating at times
as you struggle to find “the right person” to talk to in order to
progress the narrative, an issue that doesn’t happen often, but when it
does come up it can be fairly tedious. Shenmue II largely fixes the
latter issue but struggles with its pacing in the first half, though it
more than makes up for it as it goes on. Still, the first few hours of
that game can feel even a little boring at times, with a mandated
mini-game involving airing out books in particular stopping its early
hours dead in their tracks. I hope it doesn’t prevent people from
continuing with what, all said and done, turns out to be an incredible
experience, as it’s true that playing these games does require a bit of
patience at times.<br />
<br />
Visually, the Shenmue series really pushed the
Dreamcast hardware to its limit when it originally released, and it’s
still mindblowing that Sega’s final console was able to deliver these
incredibly demanding games during what was still essentially the PS1/N64
era. Shenmue I and II features the same visual assets but presents them
in full 1080p. Certain textures do show their age, especially on the
characters, and the pop-in/pop-out of NPCs hasn’t been fixed, but in
terms of sheer detail and atmosphere, both games hold up well today, and
the improved lighting system presents a noticeable improvement.
Probably the biggest night and day difference between this remaster and
the originals is the removal of the load times, something the original
releases understandably struggled with, which is a huge boost to this
version and alone makes a major difference in the fluidity of the
experience. Unfortunately, the audio of the voice acting, especially in
Shenmue I, sounds incredibly compressed by the standards we’ve become
used to, and it made toying with the audio settings necessary for me to
find a volume that I liked. This is the type of thing that could have
and should have been smoothed over. That said, for the first time in
series history, Shenmue I and II allows you to toggle between English or
Japanese voice acting, which is a great addition, despite the somewhat
legendary notoriety of the English dub. I personally feel that Shenmue I
still plays better in English; the quality of the NPC voice acting
varies wildly from the acceptable to the strangely awful, but the main
characters’ English voice actors actually bring a distinctive and
memorable flavor to each of them; maybe it’s nostalgia, who knows, but
there’s a strange charm to Shenmue I’s English dub that actually made it
hard for me to enjoy playing it any other way. Shenmue II, on the other
hand, saw a bit of a step down from even Shenmue I’s inconsistent
dubbing; Corey Marshall returns as Ryo, and despite doing a good job in
Shenmue I, and despite him being a huge fan of the series, he sounds
utterly bored throughout Shenmue II, something he hopefully manages to
fix with his work in the upcoming third installment. Shenmue II still
has its good English performances (Yuan and Ren, especially) but if
you’re going to play one of them in English and one of them in Japanese,
I’d recommend Shenmue I in English and Shenmue II in Japanese,
personally. Regardless of which you choose, the option is always there
and can be changed on the fly, which is a wonderful thing and a lot of
fun to mess with.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, my praise for the quality of the
Shenmue I and II remaster ends there. It’s great to get to experience
these incredible and unique games again, so in a sense, the somewhat
sub-par quality of the porting is something that I’m ultimately willing
to live with, even knowing how much more this remaster could have been
with a little more time and a higher budget. On launch day and for
months after, both games were riddled with glitches and bugs; not even
just minor technical glitches, but objects meant to be interacted with
that were completely non-functioning, the existence of major audio bugs,
and even full on lighting systems being completely missing in action.
A couple patches (which sure took their time to arrive on consoles)
fixed many of these problems, though a few still remain. It was sloppy
and rushed and, given how long fans have been waiting for this,
completely unacceptable that Shenmue I and II was allowed out the door
in the state that it was in. While I’m glad these issues have ultimately
been almost totally (but not completely) patched out, their existence
really took a toll on my enjoyment of playing through these games again.
The lack of significant graphical updates is also disappointing, given
the potential that was offered by today’s hardware. Thankfully, both
games were technical powerhouses back in their day, so the fact that
their visual assets (such as textures) weren’t upgraded whatsoever here
(aside from the bump in resolution) is not a deal-breaker, though every
poorly-textured tie and strange-looking face serves as a constant
reminder of what this remaster could have been had it been given less of
a lazy treatment by UK developer D3t and publisher Sega.<br />
<br />
The
improvements that are made are inconsistent; Shenmue I now allows you to
save anywhere you want like its sequel did (the original only let you
save in Ryo’s room) which is good, but D3t didn’t see fit to import
Shenmue II’s time jump mechanic or its ability to let you skip cutscenes
after losing a fight or QTE, both of which seem like no-brainers but
still for some reason remain Shenmue II exclusive. Both games still
feature a 4:3 ratio in the cutscenes rather than enhancing them to 16:9
like the rest of the game; Shenmue I’s are tolerable, but Shenmue II’s
are squeezed into such a small portion of the screen (due to part II’s
additional letterboxing) that it really takes some time to get used to.
The slowdown that still exists here and there in Shenmue I, especially
in the harbor area, is noticeable, as the game shouldn’t be doing much
of anything to make the PS4 hardware sweat. Shenmue I’s newly-designed
title menu looks and sounds cheap, and the revamped in-game menus are
cumbersome and take up far too much of the screen. The music, which is
incredible and a gigantic asset to both games, experiences inconsistent
sound quality on modern TV speakers, with some songs sounding a little
strange while others come across as outright glitchy.<br />
<br />
Thankfully,
the price is at least right. With a $30 price point, Shenmue I and II is
a steal, as you get two unique and incredible games with plenty to
explore and to experience, while bumped up to a modern resolution and
with the removal of load times. Throw in the ability to switch between
English and Japanese voice acting, and there are definite merits to this
remaster, even if they aren’t quite what I’d expect for such an iconic
release from a major publisher. Without a doubt, further visual and
audio improvements would have been nice, and some aspects of these games
of course haven’t aged as well as others, but it remains the case that
as long as you download its post-release patches, Shenmue I and II is
easily the best way currently to experience these games in all their
glory.<br />
<br />
You can read my more in depth thoughts on the two games if you check out my
past reviews of both, (<a href="https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/dreamcast/198621-shenmue/reviews/91046" target="_blank">Shenmue I</a> and <a href="https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/xbox/561258-shenmue-ii/reviews/65100" target="_blank">Shenmue II</a>) but each offers incredibly distinct experiences.
Shenmue I’s small town setting is wonderfully realized. You run into
neighbors and shopkeepers you know as they go about their day to day
lives, while heading home from Dobuita’s shopping street takes you
through the quiet, beautiful residential neighborhoods of Sakaragaoka
and Yamanose as the snow begins to fall, something so peaceful that it
feels so incredibly real. Shenmue II sees Ryo leave his home and friends
behind as he travels to the massive city of Hong Kong, where
environments are less detailed but far larger and packed to the brim,
providing so much more to explore, your adventures taking you from a
sketchy Pier and the bustling streets of Wan Chai to both the dangerous
and intriguing Walled City of Kowloon and the forests of Guilin,
resulting in a much larger and more thrilling, if a slightly less
immersive and character-driven experience. Both games provide very
different yet similar journeys, and if you’re new to them, the ability
to jump into Shenmue II immediately after finishing Shenmue I is an
amazing thing that I'm incredibly envious of. This isn’t how I would
have chosen to port these games. But accepting the bare-bones nature of
this port for what it is, if you have the patience for their
occasionally slow paces and really allow yourself to be absorbed into
their worlds and brought along on their adventures, then the opportunity
to try these games out (or to replay them) shouldn’t be missed. In many
ways, Shenmue I and II served as the basis for much of what we see in
both modern day open world and cinematic gaming, and it’s great that
many more people will have the opportunity to check them out.<br />
<br />
<b>3.5/5</b><br />
<br />
Note; this review is based on the PS4 version. NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-35910849464360380142018-10-07T17:49:00.005-07:002023-02-04T23:24:24.847-08:00My thoughts on Life is Strange 2: Episode 1 (Roads)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dDIS-59BOhY/W7qpZT2KatI/AAAAAAAAATk/uuhe67viGJQ8OAb3JRD0sFTn6ir_Qgg9wCLcBGAs/s1600/blogspot%2Blife%2Bis%2Bstrange%2B2%2Bepisode%2B1%2Bthoughts.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dDIS-59BOhY/W7qpZT2KatI/AAAAAAAAATk/uuhe67viGJQ8OAb3JRD0sFTn6ir_Qgg9wCLcBGAs/s320/blogspot%2Blife%2Bis%2Bstrange%2B2%2Bepisode%2B1%2Bthoughts.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Life is Strange 2: Episode 1 was an experience that was so
disappointing to me, and one that over its few-hour runtime I was eventually begging
for to end. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I say this as someone who really enjoyed the original Life
is Strange; I’m bummed that I apparently never got around to reviewing it, but
I found that its likable characters and their experiences in school and the
surrounding town of Arcadia Bay worked well with a fantastic time travel
mechanic to deliver a truly unique adventure. It was visually alluring, there
was tons in the world to interact with, and the presentation was superb; the ending that I got at the completion of my journey still haunts
me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’d had misgivings about Life is Strange 2 leading up to its
release, mainly due to its emerging direction as more of a “road trip,” scenario
starring two brothers, something that I didn’t see working well at all. The
first episode sadly did little to prove me wrong, coming across as an
uninspired Last of Us knockoff dominated by a surprisingly mishandled political
storyline and a bunch of dull gameplay to boot.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bear in mind that this isn’t a “true” review; I plan to
offer my final thoughts on the game once I complete it, but after playing
Episode, 1 I’m beginning to wonder if playing through all 5 episodes is
something I’ll even manage to accomplish. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Things get off to an alright start; the interactions Sean
has with his little brother Daniel and his childhood friend Lyla are solid, if
occasionally less-than-impressively acted, but after a series of events, which
are quite dramatic if not entirely believable, the two brothers find themselves
on the run through the wilderness on an adventure South. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The gameplay through almost the entirety of Episode 1
consists of walking forward, collecting things, and bringing them to someone.
The branching dialogue sequences that were so compelling in the original game
evidently don’t have much of an impact on the chain of events in the sequel;
despite opting not to steal anything from a convenience store that the two
brothers find themselves in, the plot progresses forward as if I had
regardless. The lively, ambient and NPC-filled settings of the original game
are replaced by repetitive, empty wilderness, and a little brother who began to
get on my nerves as the first episode neared its end. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s as much to interact with as there was in the first
Life is Strange as you move about many of these environments, but it isn’t
nearly as satisfying since so little seems to mean or offer anything to your
characters or their adventure. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Life is Strange 2 Episode 1 also suffers from some clumsy
writing and badly-handled political themes. The game’s heart’s in the right
place and I agree with its message, with the story it tells involving two
Mexican-American brothers living with their father who (I think? The game’s not
entirely clear) may have come to the United States illegally many years ago.
When the story focuses on them and their family, which is rife with love and a
sense of humility, it’s done incredibly well, and I think would have more than
served its purpose had they left it at that; a surprisingly necessary reminder
that despite all our politics surrounding this issue, these are still human
beings. And that’s a message that I think occasionally gets lost in the shuffle
of our current political climate. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sadly, Life is Strange 2 makes sure this message has no hope
of resonating beyond the choir by devoting a good deal of Episode 1 to the
brothers encountering portrayals of openly racist and hostile Trump supporters at seemingly every turn,
to the extent that it begins to feel a little ridiculous. Racism has been and
remains a huge problem in the United States, but the notion that a teenager of
Mexican descent can’t enter a convenience store in Washington state without being literally kidnapped
by a racist shop owner and held against his will as ICE is called is far
removed from any reality that I’m aware of. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Between its uninspiring gameplay and its often farfetched
story, Life is Strange 2 really struggles to get off the ground in its opening
episode. If you aren’t wandering the woods collecting sticks or being forced to
entertain your little brother, you’re watching storytelling that occasionally
works, while at many other times becomes bogged down under its wildly
mishandled political ambitions. I’m hopeful that future episodes change course,
but after Episode 1 I just can’t say I’m especially eager to continue playing. The
mishandled storyline is one thing, but the gameplay doesn’t offer much of
interest, and the brothers move around too much to allow for the strong cast of
supporting characters that helped propel the first game to develop.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Life Is
Strange 2: Episode 1 still has developer Dontnod Entertainment’s trademark
dialogue and quirky, stylistic presentation, and the moments that are effective
are nice, but all in all I’m hoping that Episode 1 was just a fluke and that
they course-correct as this sequel goes on. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(<b>Note</b>; this is a preview, not a review, so there won't be a score. I'll preview each episode, while reviewing the entire game should I manage to complete all of them.) </div>
NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-57400301436800904912018-09-09T13:17:00.000-07:002018-09-09T13:17:17.973-07:00New Review: A blast from the past to a simpler, more lighthearted time for gaming: Crash Bandicoot is still fun to this day. <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FM-bh4V9Pzw/W5V9OAvvIgI/AAAAAAAAATQ/4T0tm_MJkNYsPNuVX3MoqB6hqEQPmVTfgCLcBGAs/s1600/blogspot%2B%2Bcrash%2Bbandicoot%2Bn.sane%2Btrilogy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FM-bh4V9Pzw/W5V9OAvvIgI/AAAAAAAAATQ/4T0tm_MJkNYsPNuVX3MoqB6hqEQPmVTfgCLcBGAs/s320/blogspot%2B%2Bcrash%2Bbandicoot%2Bn.sane%2Btrilogy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With much of the industry, including Crash Bandicoot creator
Naughty Dog, having taken a dramatic shift towards dark, violent, and largely
cinematic games, it’s been refreshing to see over the past couple years what
appears to be a counter-shift back to when games were simpler, brighter, and
just generally less afraid to come across as light and fun. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is one such example, with
Vicarious Visions doing a pretty excellent job of bringing the 3 PS1 main series
Crash Bandicoot games to the current gen, giving them a fully modern graphical
overhaul and adding in a handful of other little tweaks and features. These 3
platformers (or at least, Crash 2 and 3) have for the most part held up well, with
definite credit to the talents at Naughty Dog, given the fact that Crash
Bandicoot was one of the first ever 3D platformers. The original Crash is
understandably the weak link here, with a frustratingly steep difficulty spike
early on and a reliance on trial and error, but it still plays well and
ultimately laid the groundwork for the incredibly fun and entertaining Crash
Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. Together the 3
games provide a worthy collection and an enjoyable dive back to the 90s, where
platforming reigned supreme and set the tone for much of the rest of the gaming
industry.</div>
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Taking a different tactic from Super Mario 64, which had
released a few months prior and delivered fully explorable 3D worlds as its
centerpiece, the Crash Bandicoot series instead took the pacing and linear feel
of a 2D sidescroller, but flipped the camera behind your character and had him
or her run up the screen in 3D as opposed to running from left to right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The result was pretty cool, with the games
delivering quick, fast-paced, and often challenging levels, with boss battles
appearing regularly throughout, and 2 and 3 offering a 3D hub section
in between levels. </div>
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The Crash Bandicoot series takes place on an archipelago
known as the Wumpa Islands, with the dim but likable Crash Bandicoot and his
sister Coco taking on the evil Dr. Neo Cortex and his minions. This is all
presented in a fun way, with the narrative elements taking a greater presence
beyond the first Crash Bandicoot game, delivered with quality voice acting and
well-designed characters, giving the cutscenes a charming presence. Crash 1
features the most limited use of its world and characters, existing in a mostly
tropical setting clearly inspired by the Donkey Kong franchise and featuring
little in the way of interaction between Crash and his arch nemesis. Crash 2
and 3 then switch things up, throwing in a 3D warp room between levels as
opposed to the original’s 2D map, this setup now allowing you to return to a
hub where cutscenes take place, as well as the warp concept allowing the
developers to greatly expand upon the level variety and move the series beyond
the mostly island setting.</div>
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The levels are all pretty short and quickly paced, but in
many cases quite challenging. Crash dies if he’s touched by any of the enemies
or falls down any of the crevices. The levels use a checkpoint system, with
checkpoints usually being well-placed, while losing all of your lives results
in a game over and forces you to restart the level over again. Collecting
apples grants you additional lives, and Crash can be shielded by the Aku Aku
character, who can be collected throughout the levels and grants Crash a 1 or 2
hit immunity from the baddies, or even full-on invincibility from them for a
short period of time. The levels contain much in the way of hidden goodies,
from collectible objects that grant you “the full ending” to bonus stages, to
branching paths and the incentive to eat each and every apple. It’s impressive
how much replay value Naughty Dog was able to squeeze into fairly short levels.
Vicarious Visions has added a couple extra levels as well, which are incredibly
challenging and will definitely test Crash Bandicoot fans’ skills should they
attempt them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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As was said before, Crash Bandicoot 1 is by far the weakest
in the trilogy, as would probably be expected. The difficulty ramps up almost
immediately, and the occasionally poorly explained control segment and the
relative lack of a narrative don’t do much to take the attention away from the
increasingly frustrating try-and-die mechanics on display in the levels. The
series though turns the corner in a major way with parts 2 and 3; while still
challenging, both of the sequels have a far better handle than the original
does on how to balance difficulty with frustration. Crash Bandicoot 2
especially features the best story presentation and the best in the way of
level variety. Crash Bandicoot 3 isn’t a slouch either, adding the fun Coco
levels involving a tiger and the Great Wall of China, which are just as cool now
as they were back then, along with a host of new powerups for Crash that expand
as the game goes on. Other additions to the third installment, such as racing
and dogfighting levels, haven’t held up nearly as well. As a kid, I remember
favoring Crash Bandicoot 3, probably due to the game’s increased craziness. As
an adult though, Crash 3 now seems to me almost like that Hollywood sequel that
ups the ante to such an extent that you lose a little bit of the heart in the
process; thankfully the game doesn’t fall into that trap, but when you have
levels involving medieval wizards and motorcycle racing, it comes pretty close.
Crash 3’s hub world display is also much clunkier than its Crash 2 counterpart,
and the cutscenes that propel the story forward are a good deal less interesting.</div>
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But despite various flaws here and there, all 3 games are
still fun. Crash Bandicoot 2 would almost be worth replaying again just on its
own, and its platforming and level design (despite a surprisingly easy final
boss) represent 32 bit platforming at some of its best. Throw in the other two
games as well and you have a must-have collection that so awesomely recalls
elements of the Playstation era, and it’s definitely a treat to get to
re-experience it. </div>
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As was stated earlier, the visuals have received a major
overhaul, bringing them very much up to speed with current gen gaming. The
series’ 32 bit heritage of course still peaks its head out in various aspects,
but this is a full remake graphically and by today’s standards
it looks pretty nice. Seeing visuals and character design from the PS1 era remade
in beautiful HD means that these 3 games have a look incredibly distinct from much
of what else is currently out there. There are various things that I have small
issues with; I prefer Naughty Dog’s art direction to that of Vicarious Visions,
as some of the games’ darker color tones have been substituted for much
brighter, bloomier surroundings, and it would have been nice if things like a retry button had been included, or if there was an option for subtitles during
cutscenes, especially when playing on the go. But this is a high quality remaster,
one both faithful to the originals and one that also evolves the look to make
sense on modern hardware, and it’s a job well done. </div>
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The Switch version looks good, with incredibly short load
times and only occasional brief framerate stutters. For the most part it runs
very well. The resolution does seem a bit low for what’s on display; it outputs
at native 720p when docked and even lower when played in portable mode, which
is a step down from the PS4/XBO versions. Given some of the other games that we’ve
seen on Switch so far, it’s hard not to feel that Crash Bandicoot N. Sane
Trilogy could have done more with the Switch hardware, at least as far as
resolution is concerned. It still looks nice on the TV, though when playing
portably I found myself noticing a much blurrier look; not a game I’d use to
show off the Switch’s handheld capabilities, that’s for sure. For me, the
ability to take N. Sane Trilogy out and about made this issue worth it, but it’s
worth noting that for those looking to play this trilogy with the best visuals
possible, that the Switch version does feature some cutbacks in this regard
when compared to its PS4/XBO counterparts. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It can be an interesting experience to revisit old games,
especially those from 3D gaming’s earliest days. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane
Trilogy delivers, with Crash Bandicoot’s 2 and 3 holding up very well and
proving to be a lot of fun. The characters are likable, and there’s a
lightheartedness and simplicity that just doesn’t exist in a lot of modern
gaming that’s such a refreshing thing to re-experience. As someone who fondly
remembers the PS1, it’s great to get to enjoy the sense of humor and the visual
style that permeated Sony’s 1<sup>st</sup> console. It’s missing the occasional
features you’d expect in a modern game (subtitles, retry button) while Crash
Bandicoot 1 has some frustrating difficulty spikes and iffy controls in places.
But overall, this is a solid collection of great games that’s worth
re-experiencing, or even experiencing for the first time. Fun and recommended. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>4/5 </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Note; this review is based on the Nintendo Switch version.<b> </b></div>
NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-88709367469809682602018-08-02T16:42:00.001-07:002018-08-02T16:42:52.927-07:00New Review: Though still held back by the limits of exactly what it is, Detroit: Become Human is Quantic Dream's best game yet<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ko-5qDvGu1o/W2OW9fSh98I/AAAAAAAAAS8/VY9ehdXhdfQOgDMSSXzzLSjmP7QxcaCYACLcBGAs/s1600/blogspot%2Bdetroit%2Bbecome%2Bhuman%2Breview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ko-5qDvGu1o/W2OW9fSh98I/AAAAAAAAAS8/VY9ehdXhdfQOgDMSSXzzLSjmP7QxcaCYACLcBGAs/s320/blogspot%2Bdetroit%2Bbecome%2Bhuman%2Breview.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Quantic Dream has become a studio which, for better or for
worse, is known specifically for creating a certain type of game, and Detroit:
Become Human is very much one of those games. It places its cinematic nature and
characters first and foremost, with the most important bits of gameplay taking
place from within its cutscenes, during which your responses and actions have
major impacts on and determine the narrative. </div>
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That isn’t to say that you don’t have the ability to control
your character through various environments and complete rudimentary quests in
between the story sequences, and Detroit: Become Human makes this aspect of
gameplay more enjoyable than it was in their previous efforts, especially the
oddly forgettable Beyond: Two Souls. As with other Quantic Dream games, I still
can’t help but wish at times that there was more to sink my teeth into from a
gameplay perspective; just a little bit more to explore, a way to pull off
interactive action sequences without relying on QTE prompts, and a way to
escape the nagging feeling that the story could have been much stronger had it
not been so determined by my choices. </div>
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All of that said, Detroit: Become Human can arguably be
called Quantic Dream’s best work to date, a game whose futuristic environments
are often beautifully realized, its characters easy to become attached to, and,
of course, the seemingly endless amount of decisions and dialogue choices that have
major effects on the progression of the story. </div>
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As far as the dialogue system is concerned, similarly to
Quantic’s past games, you have only a short amount of time to make major
decisions during cutscenes, and the studio does a great job of making many of
them morally ambiguous; too often these types of games boil down to thinly
disguised “good or evil” choices, with the gamer making a choice more because
they want their character to be a “good guy” or a “bad guy.” In Detroit: Become
Human, it’s very tough to tell which choices are which, and the many possible
outcomes of each choice have only a short time to run through your head before
time runs out on making your decision. The game isn’t afraid to provide
seemingly any type of story outcome, including the ability for any of your main
characters to be permanently killed off from a decision that goes badly. A
flowchart displays at the end of each chapter, showing the path you took
intermingled with the numerous other branching off points, revealing just how
many different directions the scene could have gone had you done something
differently, and giving you the ability to see the percentage of other players
who made the same choices as you did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
can see why this feature has been Detroit: Become Human’s most controversial
aspect, as it does serve as a regular reminder that you’re playing, of course,
a video game, but I thought it was an incredible addition, as not only does it
show you just how many different paths a given scene could have taken, but it
provides an incentive to return to scenes after the fact, potentially improving
the game’s replay value for those interested in seeing the many different ways
a scene can go, and the effects the various outcomes can have on the rest of
the game.</div>
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Detroit: Become Human tells the story of three different
androids in a futuristic version of the city of Detroit, in a world where androids
play a major role in people’s lives, but live in servitude and are essentially
treated as second class citizens. This takes place against the backdrop of potential
world conflict, as the United States sits on the verge of WWIII with Russia as
the country begins making moves to take the Arctic. Detroit stars Kara, Connor,
and Markus as androids who co-exist in different parts of the city,
working/living alongside humans. The world’s entering a bit of a crisis, as an
increasing number of androids are beginning to malfunction; in other words,
beginning to develop human consciousness. The game cuts between the characters on
a chapter-by-chapter basis, with them having minimal, if any, interaction with
each other, but with each scenario blending well together, and all three given
strong narratives that propel the game forward. Any of them can live or die,
succeed or fail, or seemingly anything in between, based on your choices. It’s
here that Detroit demonstrates the largest leap forward for Quantic Dream; in
their previous games, and most evidently in Beyond, there was always the
feeling that your choices didn’t make a difference except on a mere surface level,
and here, from the beginning, that’s clearly not the case. </div>
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Ultimately, this is Detroit’s biggest accomplishment and yet
also its biggest weakness. Looking at the Quantic Dream formula, it’s hard to
think how the system can evolve much beyond what Detroit has accomplished. The
impact that you can have on the story at almost any given second is
astonishing, and some of the interactive action sequences, including a showstopping
chase through the city’s rooftops, are pretty awesome and inventive. The fear
of failure or an undesirable result is ever-present given the game’s ability to
present such outcomes, which adds a level of well-earned tension to many of its
scenes. </div>
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The downside is of course that it’s very difficult to
provide such freedom without it impacting the story. I was ultimately happy
with and proud of the ending that I was able to achieve, but at the same time,
having a character, one who I’d grown attached to over the course of the game,
killed off for something as accidental as failing a QTE, and therefore causing
me to miss out on the entire conclusion to the character’s story arc, just wasn’t
fun. If this had happened during a movie, it would be so anti-climactic that
the crowd would’ve booed the scene. To be fair, such a dire outcome isn’t
commonplace, but it did happen to me and as a result it really hurt the story that
was told to me. It serves as the clearest example of the game’s most impressive
feature also in the end hurting my experience with it, through no real fault of
its own; it did what it was supposed to do, and it’s hard to fault it for that.
I’m a fan of the deadly consequences lurking within Detroit: Become Human,
though I’d say for future games I’d be happier if Quantic Dream made the permanent
death of a main character a bit harder to achieve than it can be here.</div>
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As with most other of these cinematic types of games, the
exploration progresses in a linear fashion, with you limited to small areas
dictated by the story. Though the enclosed nature of each environment (such as
a single city street or a house’s living room) does occasionally feel
constricting, Detroit makes the environments a lot of fun to fully explore,
with clues that you find and observations that you make giving you additional
(often beneficial) choices during the upcoming cutscenes. In that sense, diving
into all that each little environment has to offer almost feels like this
game’s version of sidequests, (ones with an immediate payoff, to boot) and the
bustling futuristic urban environments you find yourself in look fantastic and
give you a great opportunity to experience and explore Detroit’s world
firsthand. I did wish there was a bit more of this, and the lack of a “run”
button is unfortunate, but the game otherwise controls well as you explore, and
these sections add quite well to the rest of the experience.</div>
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The music is really the only aspect of Detroit’s
presentation that I wasn’t thrilled with. Similar to Heavy Rain, the soundtrack
here consists mostly of subdued, melancholy piano tunes and other downbeat
music throughout. It isn’t bad, and at many times it sounds pretty and does
elicit some emotion, but as with Heavy Rain, I just find this type of
soundtrack to be depressing, and especially given Detroit’s sci-fi, futuristic
elements, I wish they’d have come up with something different. The voice acting
though in general is great, providing the characters with a natural, down to
earth feel, and for characters who are androids, that’s definitely an
accomplishment. </div>
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Detroit: Become Human was a game that managed to impress me.
I’ve had a bit of a declining interest in games from Quantic Dream in recent
years, having enjoyed Indigo Prophecy, and finding Heavy Rain to be equally
compelling but a good deal less satisfying. Beyond: Two Souls had its moments,
but was a game I hadn’t even bothered to review and find myself hard-pressed to
remember much of anything about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d had
my doubts that Detroit would click with me, especially with my gaming tastes
having shifted in a much more exploration-driven and gameplay-focused direction
following The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild last year. But I have to say,
this game really takes the Quantic Dream formula and evolves it in a major way.
The amount of control you have over the narrative and the fate of your
characters at almost any given moment feels unprecedented, illustrated between
chapters by a great flow chart system that fully and effortlessly communicates
this all to you from minute one. The environments you get to explore when not
watching cinematics remain limited in their scope, but offer a huge amount of
objects and clues to interact with, things to take note of, and atmosphere to
take in. Detroit: Become Human isn’t perfect, and the amount of freedom it
offers you to shape the story can really take its toll on the story itself,
should things not go the way you intended them, especially if it’s due to a
simple mistake or to not understanding what the game’s asking of you. I do
wonder whether there’s really anywhere for Quantic Dream to go from here, and
hope, as I’ve done for years, that one day they attempt to deliver another open
world, Omikron style of adventure. Until then, though, Detroit: Become Human
is, I think it’s safe to say, their best work yet, and though the limitations
that come with such a guided, cinematic experience do hold it back, it does
manage to excel within those parameters and deliver a compelling,
thought-provoking adventure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Detroit: Become Human is available exclusively on the PS4. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b>3.5/5 </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b> </b></span></div>
NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-87578025400182824912018-06-14T21:21:00.001-07:002018-06-14T21:52:36.707-07:00Preview: Though I'm happy it's finally coming West, Shining Resonance Refrain doesn't quite manage to do it for me<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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table.MsoNormalTable
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mso-para-margin-left:0in;
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YUs50L7rlu8/WyM-Yz5fPjI/AAAAAAAAASY/pb7bXBcpzCsJHRHme_8r8ak7MRPmGhzMQCLcBGAs/s1600/blogspot%2Bshining%2Bresonance%2Brefrain%2Bpreview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="900" height="179" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YUs50L7rlu8/WyM-Yz5fPjI/AAAAAAAAASY/pb7bXBcpzCsJHRHme_8r8ak7MRPmGhzMQCLcBGAs/s320/blogspot%2Bshining%2Bresonance%2Brefrain%2Bpreview.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, Shining Resonance Refrain has been given a demo! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Shining Resonance was an RPG in the Shining Force series, which released on the PS3 in Japan
in 2014 and stayed there exclusively, a move fully characteristic of Sega at the time. But continuing a positive trend
beginning with the acquisition of Atlus, this recently-released PS4
remaster of the game is this time being granted a worldwide localization on multiple systems, including
the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have mixed feelings about it, especially after playing the demo, which just
released on its respective eShops. I’m thrilled that a Japanese-looking
and playing game is receiving a wide release and a fairly solid marketing push
from Sega’s Western divisions, especially after years of this not being the case. I hope
it does well enough to encourage this type of treatment in the
future, and as a result, really wish Shining Resonance was a game that appeared to hold up better today. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The demo didn’t exactly win me over, to put it mildly. I
hadn’t expected it to, given the original release’s somewhat
unenthusiastic reception back on the PS3, but it was still a bummer to see that
my initial fears about Shining Resonance proved to be correct. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A decent action-based battle system is on display, with the
demo giving you the opportunity to try out numerous characters, who play quite
differently from each other. Nothing feels especially mindblowing, but Refrain,
at least from a gameplay perspective, seems to be capable of delivering a competent action RPG.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
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Unfortunately, the game’s clearly low-effort presentation majorly
sinks the whole enterprise for me. The story is presented through long
cutscenes delivered with zero cinematic flair by character portraits and text
boxes, which would be fairly understandable on the 3DS, but easily feels
outdated on the PS3/PS4/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch. Adding insult to injury,
there seems to be no way to set the text to auto-scroll, forcing you to
continually hold the controller and hammer the A button progress the dialogue, something that just doesn’t feel right for a major release in 2018. Two
or three cinematic scenes in the demo aside, it appears that the vast majority
of the game’s story will be presented in this static, dull fashion, and even in this short time with it, the long lengths of these sequences drove me crazy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So yeah. I dunno. I like that Shining Resonance Refrain is
being given a larger than expected push by Sega’s Western branches, including a
somewhat decent-looking (dialogue-wise) and sounding localization. The battle system seems
alright, but even in native 1080p the visuals don’t look great, and the story
presentation feels unnecessarily bland and outdated, with its long-winded bits of statically-presented
dialogue quickly becoming a chore to sit through. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I appreciate being given the opportunity to try it out, and
encourage anyone who may be interested to do the same, but at this point I
can’t say that I’ll be giving Shining Resonance Refrain a purchase when it
releases on July 10th. It doesn't seem like a bad game, but a pretty standard JRPG that will likely be of interest to some, who will undoubtedly be happy to finally see it localized. I hope to see future JRPG efforts from Sega that are localized with similar enthusiasm, hopefully games that feature a more compelling presentation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Note</b>; this preview is based on the demo for the Nintendo Switch version, though the PS4/XBO/Switch versions are said to be more or less the same. </div>
NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147357634341924907.post-15235773858600686612018-06-02T02:18:00.000-07:002018-06-06T00:10:24.341-07:00New Review: Mario Odyssey plays it a little too safe for my liking, but the fun and the charm it offers is hard to resist<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uJQd2b3KIss/WxJXzXlp2PI/AAAAAAAAASE/DJYAgWuMzoIJpaouPE0ggSNg5S5JW1uWACLcBGAs/s1600/blogspot%2Bmario%2Bodyssey%2Breview.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uJQd2b3KIss/WxJXzXlp2PI/AAAAAAAAASE/DJYAgWuMzoIJpaouPE0ggSNg5S5JW1uWACLcBGAs/s320/blogspot%2Bmario%2Bodyssey%2Breview.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Super Mario Odyssey is a game that I thought I’d like much
more than I did, and it’s puzzling, because I enjoyed my time with it quite a
bit. For all that it has, and it has a lot, it feels somehow empty, and the
experience, though memorable in its own right, was one I finished with fairly
mixed feelings. This has been a tough review to write, in part because of the
excellent quality and the high level of polish that Mario’s latest adventure
brims with at every turn. The eagerly-anticipated return of the Mario series to
an open world, sandbox-style game is something I greatly appreciated, and
there’s absolutely no denying that 3D Mario controls as excellently as ever and
that there’s no shortage of fun to be had. I guess I just expected it to be more
memorable. I thought it would push the envelope more for the Mario series than
it does, that it would evolve its storytelling, that the various kingdoms would
be larger, that they’d feel more connected to each other than via a static map, that the bosses would present just a bit more of a
challenge… that the game would be just a little bit more daring. </div>
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But let’s step back for a second and take a look at how the
Mario series has gotten to this point.</div>
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Though Super Mario 64 arguably helped to invent what we now
know of as open world gaming, the Mario games shied away from this
approach as time went on. Super Mario Sunshine kept its open world aspects
fairly intact, but then Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii and its sequel came
along. Both were incredible games, but both were unmistakably designed more along the
lines of the quickly-paced “start-to-finish” level style of Mario’s 2D incarnations.
This served as a major contrast to the more exploration-driven 3D series up
until that point. Galaxy 2 went as far as to eliminate the idea of an
explorable 3D hub world almost entirely, a direction more or
less maintained by the similarly linear Super Mario 3D World on the Wii U. </div>
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The return of exploration to Super Mario Odyssey was
much-celebrated, though it doesn’t entirely manage to re-create the scope of 64 and Sunshine, mainly because its world is broken up into various smaller
“kingdoms” which are separated by a repeating cutscene/load time after being
selected off of a 2D map. The locations themselves are of course fully explorable,
but the disconnect between them takes away from the feeling that this is a
singular world to play around in. There’s an attempt to connect the kingdoms
through hidden paintings that warp you from one to a secret area on
another; an incredibly cool concept that unfortunately plays only a small role
in the game. Similarly, characters from some kingdoms make appearances in
others, which is another great idea, but these both feel more like
window-dressing than a solid force that pulls together what’s otherwise a
fairly fragmented world. None of these fragments are quite as impactful as
Super Mario 64’s Peach’s Castle, in large part because it was a singular,
seamless world, which Odyssey’s simply isn’t.</div>
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The strangest thing for me in retrospect is that Mario
Odyssey arguably peaks with one of the game’s earliest kingdoms. It surprisingly
isn’t the Metro Kingdom, whose New Donk City was predominantly featured in the
game’s marketing, but rather the Sand Kingdom, the first you get to explore
after two small tutorialized ones. Whether it’s the little village of
Tostarena, surrounded by expansive sand dunes and underground worlds, modes of
transportation including zipping through electric wires and riding on creatures
called Jaxis, or a story-driven change to a beautiful, haunting night time
reminiscent of Breath of the Wild, the first major world you get to sink your
teeth into is truly amazing and sets a high standard for the rest of the game. It’s
a mark that the following kingdoms don’t seem quite able to meet. They all have
their own story missions to complete, their little NPC areas, their unique
features and currencies. But none match the expansive scope and true sense of
adventure felt in Mario Odyssey’s first couple hours in the Sand Kingdom, the
only one for me which captures the adventurous spirit that Mario Odyssey
seems aiming to deliver. Though to be fair, a couple of the others do come
close. </div>
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It’s initially a bummer, but thankfully the
incredible level
of personality and amount of sheer invention and sense of detail
throughout Mario
Odyssey helps to lessen the disappointment. The Metro Kingdom has a
jazzy,
vibrant feel to it, with a bustling sense of activity and vibe that I
certainly
don’t remember having seen in a Mario game before, while sunset in
Bublaine of
the Seaside Kingdom is something truly beautiful and relaxing to boot.
The many
kingdoms that you get to explore across the world of Mario Odyssey brim
with
such a sense of life that I couldn’t help but wish more had been done
with
them. The story mission that takes place in each one is over rather
quickly,
and due to the incredibly small role that the NPC characters in each
world play
in the proceedings, little seems to be truly at stake despite the dire
circumstance each kingdom finds itself in. It’s here that the Mario
series’
historic focus on minimal storytelling proves to be a hindrance; in an
imaginative world filled with charming characters and excellent bits of
dialogue, it’s simply a missed opportunity that none are given the
chance to
leave a mark. Even your companion Cappy, who’s relegated mainly to
repeating
gameplay hints to you when traveling from one kingdom to the other, has
little
to say or offer beyond the game’s opening hours. The main story
meanwhile can't wait to let you to travel to the next kingdom, and
though you’re welcome to hang back and continue exploring and collecting
Moons, (Odyssey’s
version of Stars or Shines) it made me wonder what the game’s hurry was,
and
why it couldn’t give us a more substantial story to experience on each
world
before telling us to rush off to the next one. </div>
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That said, the benefit of an exploration-driven Mario game is that you
can play it how you want. As was mentioned, you’re able to hang around
and continue exploring and collecting Moons, and while many of the kingdoms aren’t as
large as I’d have liked, they almost all have no shortage of secrets and
tons to interact with. Mario Odyssey’s
platforming itself, with takes place in either 2D or 3D, is for the most part
self-contained, separated through a warp function from the exploration. As far
as 3D Mario is concerned, the platforming sections don’t have quite the same
magic of those featured in the Galaxy series, or even 3D World, with Odyssey focusing
more on its exploring and collecting. I think a better balance was there to be
had, but it’s nevertheless always fun to stumble across a hidden platforming
section, and the game does a pretty good job of letting you know if there are
still Moons or currency to collect within them, or whether you’ve already found
all there is to find, which is helpful. </div>
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Visually, Mario Odyssey is often quite gorgeous. The
kingdoms you explore have incredibly distinct visual styles, and the game
handles itself well at 60FPS (save for some understandable stuttering in the bustling
New Donk City) which is a pretty great accomplishment given the speed and fluidity
in which Mario can move through the non-linear level design. As with much of the
rest of the game, I wished its art direction took a few more risks in
places (an equally derivative food kingdom replaces the standard fire kingdom,)
but when Mario Odyssey does try something new, such as a massive dragon boss that’s
very much out of the realm of what you’d expect from a Mario game, it pays off.
I just wish there was more of it. The music similarly doesn’t break down any walls, but it’s often
pleasant and atmospheric, and, on rare occasions such as a quiet night
in the Sand Kingdom or the jazziness of New Donk City, manages to stand
out.</div>
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I’d like to end by repeating the point that Super Mario Odyssey is a
lot of fun. I don’t want my disappointment with it to turn you away from giving
it a shot yourselves, especially if you’re excited about it. As a showing of
the Switch’s capabilities, in providing a charming world with endless hours of
gameplay and content to access, including an incredibly lengthy post-game, and
in delivering a quality title that fans would expect from Nintendo’s main
mascot, Mario Odyssey certainly does its job.</div>
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It’s possible that Breath of the Wild, which came out in the same year
that this game did, took some of the wind from its sails, as it did for
many of its fellow open world-style games. I tried my best
while playing not to compare the two, because they’re of course very
different experiences, but it was hard not to wish that the spirit of
some of that game’s more daring innovations made it across to Odyssey’s
development, especially as its opening hours seemed to indicate that it
might have. Doing my best to
remove the latest Zelda game from the equation, however, Mario Odyssey
still
plays it a little too safe for my liking. The idea of an epic,
world-traversing
Mario game had many possibilities, but the decision to keep its
characters and narrative aspects firmly
in the background, and the decision to break its world up into many
smaller-than-expected pieces goes against these possibilities and leaves
us with a fun and
polished, albeit a somewhat predictable, experience, and as a result one
just not
as adventurous as I’d have hoped for. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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An enjoyable game and a fun way to try out your brand new
Switch, just don’t expect it to do much to innovate or to really take this
series to places it hasn’t gone before, despite the huge possibilities its
concept offered to do so. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<b>3.5/5 </b></div>
NintendoSega54http://www.blogger.com/profile/03845822920075491854noreply@blogger.com0