New Review: Though it has its many flaws, there to this day remains nothing else like LA Noire, a game whose setting is still as alluring as ever

 This review is based off the Nintendo Switch remaster

In the midst of a console generation that seemed focused on presenting linear, cinematic experiences, Rockstar’s open world games stood out as products which, while containing strong narrative elements, still focused on gameplay and exploration first and foremost in a style they arguably helped to invent.

LA Noire is so interesting in part because it turns out to be something a bit in between those two types of experiences. Created by the troubled and now-defunct Australian studio Team Bondi, this remains their only game, a project that spent years in apparent development hell until Rockstar signed on as publisher and, by several accounts, helped guide it to completion. LA Noire, then, due not only to these reasons but also to its emphasis on cinematic detective interviews and investigations, manages to stand out amongst Rockstar’s lineup and most other open world games in general. At times LA Noire can feel almost unapologetically guided, more than you’d expect from its open world setting, but the explorable world nevertheless provides just enough of a taste of 1940s Los Angeles to pull you in, which, this being a remaster, looks better than it ever did, while the flawed and yet incredibly compelling suspect interviews continue to be a unique breath of fresh air all these years later.

The Switch version bumps the native resolution from the 720p that it was on the PS3/360 to 1080p, making it the only open world game so far on Nintendo’s new hybrid console to be presented in native 1080p resolution (Skyrim and Breath of the Wild max out at 900p.) It’s an impressive result for the Switch given the detailed and bustling environments, especially taking into account the constant movement of things like traffic. LA Noire has always been a great-looking game, but the extra clarity brought on by the jump in resolution makes a pretty big difference in how the world looks. When docked, certain graphical additions to the PS4/XBO versions of this Remaster, such as ambient occlusion, also make their appearance. In portable mode you lose some of these details but the game still looks great and performs more or less the same portably, though I’d recommend upping the brightness a little when playing on the go. It isn’t quite as fancy graphically as the PS4/XBO versions, but the Switch version still presents a notable enough upgrade over its 7th gen release to make it worthwhile. Some framerate drops unique to this version do present themselves on occasion and are fairly noticeable, which is a little unfortunate; they don’t take place all the time and by no means ruin the game, as LA Noire was never an especially fast game to begin with, but there are several instances here and there where I wished Rockstar would have maybe sacrificed a little bit of that 1080p resolution to help save the framerate, especially in certain action scenes towards the end of the game.

Moving on from visuals though, LA Noire still holds its own in a variety of different ways, including a somewhat gutsy focus on investigating crime scenes and interviewing suspects in place of things like fight sequences and shooting mechanics, which, while they still exist here, are not intended to be the meat of the game. You play as Cole Phelps, a cop with WWII history, as he makes his way up through the LAPD case by case. Though I still don’t feel he stacks up with some of the characters who have headlined titles from Rockstar games proper, I liked him a lot more in this remaster than I remember liking him back in the original. As very much a “duty first” cop, his personality quirks are subtle, but over the course of the game I found myself liking him more and more this time around. The remaster notably takes all the Cases that were sold separately as DLC on the PS3/360 versions and re-instates them into the story itself; these add a surprising number of hours to the game, and though I wished the Nicholson Electroplating case for example remained optional, for the most part their addition helps fill out the experience, especially when doing cases for the Vice Desk, and it’s somewhat surprising how much of this was removed from the original version to be sold separately, providing an interesting perspective on the increasingly present advent of DLC in the gaming industry.

LA Noire’s story presents itself on a case-by-case basis, with each desk Cole is promoted to having a series of cases, with a narrative thread often developing between them as you dig deeper and deeper. Each desk begins with a meeting in the police briefing room, at which point you then drive to where the game tells you to, investigate a crime scene for clues, and then, with the information gained from the investigation, you’re pointed to your next destination. Sometimes your investigation brings you to action scenes such as car chases, fistfights, and shootouts, all of which feel a little too cinematic and automated, but they help to shake things up and are generally exciting and fun to play.

Interviewing suspects though is where LA Noire truly tries to leave its mark, and these interviews are often show-stopping, as you study the motion captured facial expressions of your suspects and try to piece together the clues you’ve found to figure out how to best respond. The game lets you know with a rumble of the controller whether you’ve chosen the right conversation choice, so while some may say that this takes away from the realism a bit, I think the gratification from immediately knowing when I asked the right question and how many per interview I got right proves to be worth it. As the first of its kind, however, this was never exactly a perfect system, and its weaknesses begin to rear their heads as the game goes on and the interviews become more complex. All too often Cole’s resulting dialogue is not what I expected my choice to bring about, making it hard, even when flipping through my notebook of clues, to really understand the choices that the game is presenting me with. Playing LA Noire at times feels like exercise in guessing which choice I thought the game wanted me to pick, as opposed to going with the leads that I felt would have truly been the best way to proceed; likely not the developers’ intention. Simply put, it becomes clear how “scripted” the interviews are, which can be discouraging as you make what the game deems to be “the wrong choice” again and again with little idea as to why. The remaster does make an effort to fix this; it changes your response options from the “Truth,” “Lie” and “Accuse” from the original to “Good Cop,” “Bad Cop,” and “Accuse,” here. It’s a slight improvement which helps make the proper choice at times easier to figure out, but I think that, were there ever to be a sequel, question choices unique to each interview at hand would be the best way forward, as opposed to this general template that’s supposed to somehow apply to every interview.

But while its centerpiece mechanic is certainly flawed, there’s no denying its appeal when it does work the way you expect it to; similarly appealing is driving through a fairly large re-creation of 1940s Los Angeles, hearing the chirping of the birds as you wander through 1940s MacArthur Park in the bright California sun, or as you investigate a crime scene at the old railyard, the sound of car horns on the nearby roads echoing in the distance; LA Noire has a great sense of both place and atmosphere. Plenty of NPC activity dominates the bars, clubs, and other locations you may enter, and although the day and night system is unfortunately scripted, the environment does take on a very different look and feel at night, which is a cool thing. LA Noire’s setting and its sense of time and place both prove to be among its greatest assets, and go a long way in helping me to forgive its imperfections in its other areas.

The game is somewhat repetitive; the cases usually involve some minor variation of its “drive-investigate-interview-drive-shootout” formula, and it becomes tiring as LA Noire nears its end. I will say that it bothered me much less when playing this remaster than I remember it bothering me while playing the original. I’m honestly unsure of why that is; maybe my gaming tastes have changed, maybe the now-included DLC missions added variety that wasn’t there previously, maybe it’s because I did more of the optional dispatch missions as I explored LA than I had back in 2011, at a time when I generally hated sidequests. But for whatever reason, the game on this playthrough overcame its feelings of repetition more than my previous experience with it, so I give it credit for that, even if I’m not sure what, if anything, this remaster did to make that the case. Still, other issues from the original continue to hang around; heading from point A to B can occasionally feel like a slog due to how big the map is, especially if trying to complete the dispatch missions, so an option for faster travel would have been appreciated. LA Noire also often gives you choices of where to go next but almost never lets you tackle objectives outside of its predetermined order, and, on a final note, it would have been nice if the game somehow let you know that you were heading to a location that would bring about the end the case. Far too often I found myself completing a case accidentally before getting to explore all the angles I wanted to beforehand, which is always frustrating.

Though structured as a series of Desks and cases, each with their own storylines and resolutions, there is a narrative woven through LA Noire that does eventually manage to make itself apparent. Throughout the game there are various newspapers you can find which trigger flashback cutscenes, depicting the slowly-developing story of a corrupted psychiatrist seemingly more interested in drug dealing than in helping his patients, a story which of course evolves as the game goes on. LA Noire also delivers flashback scenes to you between cases, focusing on Cole and his fellow troops during World War II, which also form into a narrative thread. The storyline that finally develops would have been a better fit for a much smaller game; instead, LA Noire’s plot remains mostly in the background until the last several hours, and while I found much of it to be compelling, ultimately I wished the game had focused on a strong central narrative instead of teasing you with it during and between individual cases for much of the game before (eventually) bringing it to the forefront.

But LA Noire, despite its numerous issues, was worth playing almost seven years ago and remains worth playing to this day. Its portrayal of Los Angeles makes for an incredibly alluring setting, and though there isn’t too much to do in it besides landmarks to spot and the dispatch missions to complete, the open world is a fun one to experience as you make your way through the game’s numerous (and often compelling) cases. Despite some unfortunate framerate issues in places, the Switch version looks noticeably sharper than it did on the PS3/360, and the changes made to the Interview system result in a slight improvement, even if the issues with it and the somewhat repetitive mission structure remain. LA Noire still feels very much like its own thing, and with the DLC missions now added (back) into the main story, even replaying it often felt like a new experience for me. It’s a game I recommend to those who haven’t tried it before, and while Switch owners should note the hefty install size (even if purchasing physically) on the system’s relatively limited storage space, it’s something I think is worth it for one of the quirkier Rockstar-published open world games.

4/5

Note; This review is based on the Nintendo Switch version.

New Review; South Park: Fractured but Whole outdoes its predecessor in numerous ways to deliver (almost) the perfect South Park gaming experience

One thing that remains so great about South Park, which has been on the air since 1997, is how much of the original team remains in charge of the show. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who created the series, along with many of the original staff of producers, animators, and writers, are still involved with and running South Park to this day. It’s a different scenario than what animation typically sees, where the creators often leave after a period of time and hand the reins off to someone else, but it has resulted in South Park still feeling authentically like itself after all these years. It may no longer deliver as consistently as it once did, but it continues to be smart, funny, and relevant 20 years later.

Between 2014’s Stick of Truth and now its sequel, The Fractured but Whole, the two games have represented some of the greatest aspects of the modern South Park universe. The visual style provides a seamless transition from story sequences to gameplay, making it feel from the first minute to the last that you’re playing an episode of the show. If you were to put the game and the show side by side, you wouldn’t notice a difference in presentation, whether during gameplay or a cutscene, and that’s something that’s nearly unheard of for a licensed video game based on a TV series.

It’s from this perfect visual template that you get to create your main character, known only as New Kid, a silent protagonist who arrived in town during the previous game and had to work his way up among the ranks of the South Park kids. A fun plot mechanic allows this same New Kid character to continue his journey, while once again giving you the freedom to custom design him, even allowing you to make him a female this time out. As with its predecessor, the events of Fractured but Whole take place in a fictional game that the kids are playing; last time it was a medieval RPG, this time they’re playing Super Heroes, making this an original story that doesn’t require knowledge of the Stick of Truth in order to follow it. Basic knowledge of the show, however, is probably recommended to get the most out of all the jokes, with the tone and setting being most similar to that of the series’ three recent seasons (19, 20, and 21).

Aside from the hilarious storytelling, voice acting, and music, which mirror the quality of what you’d see on the show, the biggest star of Fractured but Whole is the world that you have available to explore. As someone who has been watching South Park since I was a kid, it’s surreal to get to control a character in an open world version of the town, wandering into City Wok and seeing Officer Barbrady hanging out eating Chinese food, available to talk to. A cool gameplay feature involves you taking Selfies with various characters; take enough and you’ll level up in that category (which grants you EXP, as does leveling up in every category) which not only compels you to look for characters, but also to get the “status” that then allows several of them to agree to Selfie with you. You’ll encounter battles (such as 6th graders, crab people, among others) as you wander around, but they’re easy enough to avoid that it doesn’t become a big problem. The town that you have to explore features numerous quests to take on, buildings to enter, and items to find. There’s a ton to explore, which is both a blessing and a slight curse, as going from A to B can occasionally seem like a hassle, with a Fast Travel system that (like many things) feels somehow dated in our post-Breath of the Wild existence.

The town of South Park really does feel like a living, breathing world; exploring locations like Stark’s Pond is incredibly atmospheric, with the nightlife accompanying the Historic Shi Tpa Town and the slums of SoDoSoPa serving as solid new additions to Fractured but Whole’s version of the town. Canada also seems to be available, though apparently only for future DLC. For the earlier parts of the game, Fractured but Whole feels like a host of never-ending missions to complete, characters to meet, and items to find. It’s too bad that this scales back considerably as the game goes on, giving off the impression that with more development time, this often-delayed project could have better filled itself out with missions to partake in. What’s here is good, just very much centered around the first half of the game.

Thankfully though, the main quest is ultimately compelling throughout. Starting again at the bottom of the totem pole and tasked this time with working your way up within the ranks of Cartman’s Coon and Friends band of super heroes, your journey takes you all over town, including into the headquarters of rival super hero group Freedom Pals. The story never fails to entertain. Fractured but Whole sticks with turn-based combat mechanics, but this time brings them into a decidedly more SRPG style, where you control your characters’ positions across a grid and take turns attacking or moving or defending. Though I’d fully expected to prefer the more basic turn-based battle mechanics of Stick of Truth, Fractured but Whole’s combat quickly grew on me, to the point where I may even be compelled to check out other SRPGs down the road. You get to pick a character class, but the game’s flexible about letting you change it and develop your character in a variety of different ways as the adventure goes on. Everything you do grants you points that level various stats up, (Toilets properly used, characters Selfie’d with,  items found, items created, fast travel locations unlocked, etc) and once you level up a stat, that EXP is then sent to your character, allowing him or her to equip new artifacts that increase the stats for all on your combat team.

The mechanics are simple enough that people, including those not familiar with SRPGs, can easily get the hang of them, but I found Fractured but Whole to occasionally present a fairly solid challenge, requiring me to rethink my strategy or my characters used in various situations in order to take down a strong boss. The moves during battle often require time-based input from the player, always keeping things interesting and allowing you to knock enemies into others or into your own characters for extra damage. It’s all surprisingly satisfying stuff. Other characters are used well as you explore, with numerous locked areas and puzzles requiring you to use another characters’ Fart Powers (such as Kyle’s Fartkour, which lets you leap across large chasms) to get through them. Fart-based powers also play a role in battle, keeping things interesting and often helping to provide you with the upper hand.

It’s a game that, in equal measure, encourages exploring but also doesn’t demand it. Fractured but Whole is much more quickly-paced than its predecessor; that game’s more aimless moments, like a sequence in space that felt like it went on forever, don’t take place in the sequel, leading to an experience that feels more focused but at the same time less adventurous. The storyline plays it fairly close to your typical Marvel origin story, focusing on your character developing as a Super Hero while not really venturing into surprising territory until towards the very end. It’s only in this area that Fractured but Whole disappoints when compared to its predecessor, as you have a cast of great super heroes and excellent writing, but by the end feels like it should have built to more than we ended up getting. There are great moments, many of them, and hilarious situations, but compared to its predecessor, Fractured but Whole ultimately feels less exciting and rewarding in the plot department once the credits begin to roll.

As mentioned earlier, the quests available to you similarly thin out as the game goes on, which not only reduces your need to explore the town, but also makes your character much slower to develop, with my team hardly evolving at all in the final 5-8 hours of this 30 hour or so adventure. These flaws don’t by any means ruin the experience, but they do prevent it from feeling like all of the potential from this great concept was realized, especially when you’re informed that you’re below the recommend level for a quest, yet other quests to advance your level seem to be non-existent. There are other nitpicks here and there; the real time elements to the combat system, where bosses will occasionally invoke real time aspects, shake things up but often feel more tedious than fun. The small text in the menus isn’t especially well-suited to this type of real time combat, forcing you to tear through them hoping to select an item before the boss takes his next devastating turn.

But these are fairly minor flaws in what is otherwise a great experience. South Park: Fractured but Whole presents a more focused, if a little bit less crazy, way to experience the show compared to Stick of Truth. The world of South Park has never been more fun to explore, and the SRPG battle system is accessible enough for beginners but at times challenging enough for everyone else, serving as a major improvement. The amount of side content available seems conspicuously absent in the final third of the game, and the occasional real time elements of the combat system could have been less frustratingly implemented, always seeming to surprise you on boss battles where dying forces you to fast forward through tons of barely-skippable cutscenes.

But in terms of playing through an episode of the show, complete with all the great characters, crazy writing, fun settings, and solid music, while at the same time delivering a legitimate open world SRPG, Fractured but Whole completely delivers. The story is the one area that doesn’t hit the absolute heights of Stick of Truth, but otherwise this is the better game and wholeheartedly recommended to fans of the show.

Long live South Park.
4/5.

New Review: Feeling rushed and offering very little that's new, Sonic Forces sadly proves to be another disappointment in Sonic's 3D journey

2017 originally looked like it would be the Year of Sonic. After his years on the Wii U yielded results ranging from tepidly-received to outright despised, 2017 promised to deliver us a brand new 2D Sonic game created by a small studio who clearly loved the series, along with what was to be a new 3D game from SonicTeam meant to take the series back to its Generations roots.

With the great 2D Sonic Mania released just a couple months ago, we finally saw, in many ways, a true successor to the Genesis Sonic titles, and the first Sonic game in many years that seemed to excite a large number of fans, both past and present, while reaching outside the Sonic bubble to invite those who hadn’t played a new Sonic game in years back into the fold. Sonic Forces, SonicTeam’s 3D effort, is unfortunately not likely to do the same.

It’s necessary I feel to start this off by saying that Sonic Forces is not a terrible game; there are 3D Sonic games that have been far worse, and Sonic Forces, though it refuses to allow itself to stand out in any way, is at least not the outright disaster that I’d begun to fear that it would be. At a fairly modest $40 price point, diehard Sonic fans who feel compelled to try it can’t really go too wrong, and may find some enjoyment from what’s here, which turns out to be not all that much. It’s difficult to recommend this game to anyone else, however, and all others would be far better off diving into Sonic Mania or some of the better 3D Sonic games instead.

Sonic Forces is not a memorable game. It’s a game so forgettable that each level fades from memory the moment they’re completed. As I type this, I can’t remember a single song from the soundtrack, I hardly remember what took place in the story, and can only vaguely recall the smallest bits and pieces of any given level.  This is a game where immediately upon seeing its credits roll, I returned to the “world map” to replay one of the fun stages, only to realize that I couldn’t think of a single one.

From the moment it starts to the moment it ends, Forces feels like it’s on fast forward, and ironically not in a good way despite it being a Sonic title. Cutscenes end at odd moments and with no sense of narrative structure, while the levels themselves are almost all completed in under 3 minutes, with little time to even register your surroundings before your character flies across the finish line. The main story puts you in control of 3 characters; Modern Sonic, Classic Sonic, and an Avatar character you create. Each has their own style of gameplay, but each style requires very little thought or input beyond holding the analog stick right (or up) and occasionally jumping or boosting through brain dead enemies who simply stand there like statues awaiting their deaths. It barely mattered to me which character I controlled, as they all blur together into a series of automated loops and on-rails set pieces through levels that have very little context or purpose within the story. There have been some incredibly bad Sonic games, but rarely has one felt so haphazardly pieced together as Sonic Forces does across the 4-5 hours (if that) it takes to clear the main story.

After a tutorial level that feels short and straightforward but winds up being indicative of what you’ll experience from start to finish, Sonic Forces begins with Sonic being defeated by a new villain named Infinite. Despite several Sonic games and an entire cartoon series devoted to portraying Eggman as a goofy and ridiculously incompetent villain barely in control of his cohorts, in Forces he somehow manages to take control of the entire planet and is written as a fearsome and devious villain meant to be taken completely seriously. (Yes he still looks like a giant egg.) Classic Sonic, along with your Avatar who the developers almost seem to be trying to turn into Forces’ main character, teams up with the rest of Sonic’s crew to rescue the present day Sonic and save the world from Eggman’s grasp.

The story is all over the place; the jokes are halfhearted, while we’re given no opportunity to feel invested in any of the characters or a world that we barely get to know. Cutscenes are well animated but are over too quickly, instead becoming, in a depressing first for the series, radio conversations across a boring, static world map. Characters in these radio chats discuss a war we never get to see, with solders who we never get to meet. Classic Sonic and your Avatar character therefore vanish almost entirely from much of the story, as radio cutsenes don’t really work well with silent protagonists. Much of the cutscenes that do exist focus on Modern Sonic’s friendship with your Avatar character, who, as animated by SonicTeam, comes across as a blank slate with very little personality despite him being your own creation. The heavy-handed but underdeveloped themes of friendship and teamwork are clearly intended for a younger audience and will likely embarrass anyone over the age of 12. It wants so much to be taken seriously, but the story’s over far too suddenly to leave much of an impact.

Oddly enough, this same flaw defines the levels in Sonic Forces themselves. Modern Sonic, whose gameplay is essentially the boost-driven style seen in Sonic Unleashed, Generations, and Colors, is generally the most exciting visually, but the level design barely seems to exist. Large portions of the 2-3 minute levels are devoted to holding down the boost button as Sonic blasts through hordes of enemies who provide no resistance whatsoever. Periodically the camera will swing to the 2D perspective for some small bits of platforming, but for the most part you force your way through the levels with little resistance or finesse. Many of the set pieces look cool but are heavily automated and borrowed from previous entries in the series.

The Avatar character plays similarly to Modern Sonic, except instead of the boost feature you’re given some Wisp powerups which you can set in the main menu while on the worldmap. You can choose from a few, but I saw no reason to do so, as his Fire move is so incredibly overpowered that it decimates any enemy in your path with no exceptions, so why anyone would opt for another is beyond me. An aspect of Sonic Forces that will appeal to some is your ability to fully customize and deck out your Avatar. I found it fun for a few minutes, but there’s no effect on the gameplay beyond your initially chosen species, and I quickly became tired of hammering the X-button to skip through what feels like 500 notifications about each piece of new clothing you unlock every single time you complete a level.

Classic Sonic is fully 2D and is intended to play like the Genesis games. For whatever reason though, SonicTeam did not use the fantastic controls/physics from Sonic Mania, even though they borrow that game’s Drop Dash, a move I don’t remember feeling the need to use once in Forces. Classic Sonic’s handful of levels provide the game with some much-needed platforming, and as the only part of the game that you can’t simply boost your way through, they probably stood out the most for me. Still, they don’t hold a candle to the 2D platforming and ingenious level design featured in Sonic Mania, and as with the other characters’ stages, are over just as they seem to be starting to hit their stride.

Boss battles are another area in which Sonic Forces underwhelms. The 1st boss is unique, if not especially great, but all the others follow either 1 of 2 templates; chasing the thing down in 3D or ricocheting rocks back at it in 2D. Every boss essentially fights the same way with minor variations, and they stick so rigidly to their pattern that there are almost no surprises to be found.

None of this is horrible from a gameplay perspective, and that’s what’s in part so frustrating about Sonic Forces. Had SonicTeam felt compelled to design an actual game around these characters’ playstyles, had they put even the slightest effort into challenging or surprising the player, had the levels not ended barely a second after SonicTeam met the bare minimum requirements for designing a “Sonic level,” had the Avatar’s powerups actually mattered, had the game managed to justify any of the characters’ existences…..then Sonic Forces could have gotten past its awful storyline and been something special. Minute for minute, the Sonic core gameplay, which has existed for over 25 years, remains fun, even in a game as determinedly short and unremarkable as this one. For those truly wanting to play this, which I’d imagine are the series’ most diehard fans, $40 isn’t unreasonable for what’s on offer, though if you can wait, I’d hold off until Forces hits the $20 mark.

For everyone else, though, it’s incredibly difficult to find much to recommend Forces for, as it’s all been done better elsewhere. Give Sonic Mania a shot instead, and hopefully one day SonicTeam once again finds themselves inspired to truly deliver the platforming excellence that they were once known for. Unfortunately, that day clearly isn't yet here. And after playing Sonic Forces, I have real doubts that it ever again will be.

2.5/5  

Note; This review is based on the PS4 version

New Review: The greatest finale the Wii U could have asked for; Breath of the Wild transcends and redefines open world gaming for a new era

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a game that reminds me of why I fell in love with video games in the first place. It’s a game that transported me to a world so seamless and so fully explorable that I hadn’t thought it was possible. It not only re-defines my idea of an “open world” but my view of what video games can be. It’s a game where, by its end, the idea of leaving its gorgeous and vibrant world behind was nearly heartbreaking for me, and that’s something I haven’t felt from a video game in a long time.

It isn’t often that a game like this one comes along. This is a world that, nearly from the start, you’re fully capable of exploring, or attempting to explore. It’s a game that allows you to climb any wall or cliffside you see, reaching the top and jumping off, soaring perhaps for miles, with the ability to land anywhere you want, including seamlessly into bustling villages or into the depths of a dangerous forest. Not only does Breath of the Wild’s brilliant game design truly allow you to explore and interact with anything the eye can see, but it encourages it at every turn.

Watch towers dot the horizon; climbing them and activating the terminals at the top will fill in that portion of your map; from up there, you can take a look in every direction; those other towers in the distance? You can mark those on your map. Spot the red glow of a yet-to-be-discovered shrine below? You can mark it for later or even glide right down to it. As you approach the landscape below you’ll see no shortage of varied environments to explore and get to know. From the start the main quest location is always illuminated on your radar; but what makes Breath of the Wild such an incredible experience is the world in between, and how the game beckons you and then makes it so easy to explore it at every single turn.

The adventure begins with Link waking up in some sort of chamber. Futuristic tech dots his surroundings, as it does throughout Breath of the Wild. The first image you see upon exiting the chamber however is an untamed wilderness; a Hyrule completely taken over by nature and its often dangerous inhabitants, both the mechanical and the living.  

It took me some time to come to grips with such a melancholy setting. The bustling towns and villages where humans and familiar Hyrule creatures gather are warm and filled with life, making the descent back into the wilderness upon leaving them seem incredibly lonely. The music is beautiful but sparse, leaving instead the ambient sounds of the wild to take center stage. The charming and funny Zelda dialogue is present throughout, including for the first time voice acted sequences, some of them incredibly well-presented. But this is among the loneliest of Link’s adventures, and at first I wasn’t sure what to make of such a bleak setting. But as I progressed through Breath of the Wild, something else started to happen; I began to make this world my own.

Your impact on Hyrule is visible to you at all times; shrines that you complete (little puzzle rooms which give you the shrine orbs necessary to increase either Link’s heart or his stamina gauge) change their glow from Red to Blue, as do the towers you’ve activated. With each activated tower, more of your map fills in. As you explore on the ground, locations you discover are immediately labeled on your map as well. Once you free each of the four Divine Beasts, they point their weapons of light visibly at Hyrule Castle; the final dungeon and one accessible from almost the beginning of the game. You can see all of this, both explored and unexplored, off in the distance at all times. It’s theoretically possible to turn off your radar and the HUD entirely and simply play through the game without them, using clues from NPCs and the glowing lights on the horizon as your guide.

At first, the huge amount of freedom given, including the ability to enter some incredibly tough areas, can be a little overwhelming. Before you can purchase the adequate clothing, certain regions of Hyrule (such as the peaks of the coldest mountains or the depths of the hottest deserts) damage Link second-by-second. Various campfires scattered throughout the landscape can be used to prepare food; a source of nutrients such as health recovery and cold and heat resistance, for example, to help you on your journey. For the first time in this series, your weapons and shields are expendable; though almost every enemy drops a new one, it’s at first a challenge to get used to the idea that your weapons and shields will last for only a few enemy encounters before breaking.

Breath of the Wild is incredibly refreshing not only for the way it trusts you to get the hang of surviving its world and the freedom it gives you to form your own strategy, but also in the way that it doesn’t bog you down in tutorials or go easy on you in the slightest; something unusual for most Nintendo games and a huge break from the increasing linearity and hand-holding of some of the more recent Zelda installments. The auto-save feature is just frequent enough that it will usually help you out of a jam, but not forgiving enough where saving often from the start menu doesn’t come completely recommended as well.

The game’s main 4 dungeons can be tackled in any order. The shrines, of course, can be completed in any possible order as well; you’re given all of Link’s powers in the first hour of the game, afterall. Shrines serve as a source of many of the game’s puzzles. Once they’re visited, they’re added to your map and serve as warp points even if not successfully completed, further adding to your feeling of “discovering” the world. These shrines are generally short enough that they don’t feel like interruptions when you step off the path (so to speak) to take them on; the game audibly alerts you to their presence, and while there isn’t an infinite number of them, (apparently around 120) there never seems to be any shortage of them. With each completed shrine, you obtain a shrine orb, four of which can be redeemed at various goddess statues throughout Hyrule for an additional heart or an increase in your stamina; both are essential in different ways, and it’s ultimately up to the gamer how they power Link up, further adding to the sense that how you play through Breath of the Wild is entirely up to you.

Traditional Zelda dungeons exist, to an extent, in the form of the Divine Beasts which progress you through the main story; it’s here and almost only here where Breath of the Wild slightly stumbles. Boarding the Beasts, done with a partner character whom you meet over the course of the story, is almost always a thrilling and intense experience. The dungeons themselves, however, lack the sense of clockwork progression that Zelda dungeons typically are all about. Their respective bosses, despite slight differences, all follow the same basic blueprint, which feels like a missed opportunity given how well known this series has been for both its varied dungeons and boss encounters.

Similarly, the lack of handholding and the game’s freedom hurts Breath of the Wild in only one way; it’s far too easy to miss talking to a certain Korok character early on in the game, which means it’s far too easy to miss out on the chance to expand your character’s weapon, bow, and shield inventory as the game progresses. I found out about this much later in Breath of the Wild than I was intended to, and as a result, I had to manage my inventory more aggressively than I actually needed to as I played through much of the game. This Korok quest also helps point you in the direction of the famous Master Sword, something I would have also missed out on had I not taken time before the final boss to go back and seek it out once it became clear that the story wouldn’t bring me there on its own.

There are other little quirks here and there; though still a gorgeous game, the 720p native resolution of the Wii U version (Switch version outputs at a better 900p) and the at times incredibly erratic 30 FPS framerate are a step down from the 1080p presentation and smoother framerates we’ve become used to with the Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD Remasters, though Breath of the Wild's technical achievements otherwise dwarf those games in every aspect. Similarly, the more minimalist approach to the storytelling means that Zelda herself, though memorable, remains a mystery in many ways should you not choose to seek out the optional Memory sequences, which go a long way in helping flesh the character out. Though many of these Memories are fairly inconsequential, it’d have been nice to have seen a couple of the more important ones within the main story itself. In typical Legend of Zelda fashion, the game’s ending also disappoints slightly, never quite managing to feel as epic or complete as the adventure that lead up to it.

But those are just nitpicks; it may be true that no game can be perfect, but Breath of the Wild comes incredibly close. There are so many ways that Nintendo could have faltered; shrines could have taken too long or been too hard to find. It could have been far too difficult to escape a tough situation, which would have discouraged going after the game’s toughest monsters (You can warp from an area at any time, even in the middle of battle). You could have had to complete the shrine to gain access to it as a warp point (thankfully not the case.) It’s in this sense that while Breath of the Wild is often a challenging game, it knows to be forgiving in all the right places, and it’s an incredibly rare experience where almost all the pieces fall perfectly into one, where nearly every decision made in its development feels like the best decision. I didn’t think that Nintendo had it in them to produce a game of this magnitude and of this quality, one which puts even many seasoned “open world” developers to shame.

But a quick anecdote on Breath of the Wild’s world, as I near the review’s end. At one point I exited a shrine, its now-blue glow illuminating the walls of the nearby cliffisde. I’d stepped into a rainstorm, lightning threatening to strike my equipment and deal me heavy damage. Though I could have simply chosen to warp to a different location, I was aching to instead explore my nearby surroundings. There was a way; I could have chosen to replace my metal sword and shield before setting out into the storm, but instead I chose to stay under the shrine’s protective covering, watching as the fierce downpour eventually abated, the setting sun emerging and drenching the vast landscape. Up on a nearby hill, I could see smoke billowing from distant huts as night set in, the light wind gusting as the sound of the crickets began to take shape.

It’s been years since I remember playing a game like this one, a game whose world seems so incredibly filled with life, where the possibilities for exploring and evolving your character feel so simple and almost endless.

Breath of the Wild rightfully deserves to be called one of the greatest games ever made, and one of the greatest achievements ever in open world gameplay and storytelling. Much like Ocarina of Time back on the N64, I have little doubt that developers will be learning from Breath of the Wild for years to come. Whether playing this as the finale to the Wii U or as a first experience on the Nintendo Switch, it’s a beautiful, incredible game and one that arguably redefines open world gaming for a new era.

5/5

Note; this review is based on the Wii U version

New Review: Many will consider Yakuza 0 to be the best one yet. For me, the static gameplay outside of combat may have finally taken its toll

It pains me to say that franchise fatigue may be finally setting in for Sega’s long-running Yakuza series, which originated on the PS2 and which has seen an almost nonstop tradition of annual releases since.

The first Yakuza (known as Ryu ga Gotoku in Japan) was a breath of fresh air when it landed on Western shores in 2006; the game’s strong storytelling, fun combat system, and vibrant Japanese open world city took inspiration from everything from Grand Theft Auto to the Shenmue series. And though aspects of its game design were dated even then, the Yakuza series managed to strike a chord with a huge fanbase in Japan, and developed a cult following in the West, and I was eager to devour every non-spinoff entry Sega opted to localize.

Yakuza 0’s a strange one to review, because on the surface and viewed apart from the context of how many similar games to this I’ve played by now, I’m sure it can arguably be called the best one yet. It scales back a ton on the filler gameplay and characters which have permeated the series from parts 3 on, and being the first on the PS4, its graphics are a fairly noticeable step above past entries despite its obvious PS3 origins. It also features the battle system that Yakuza arguably should have had from the start, and fan favorites Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima serve as the sole playable characters.

It finds itself in the unique place where it can actually be a strong jumping in point narratively for newcomers, as it starts all the way back at the beginning, telling the origins of both characters and their battles from within the Japanese underbelly, offering something for both old and new fans alike.

And yet, somehow I found myself enjoying it far less than any installment to date. This is the 6th game, everybody, (the actual numbered Yakuza 6 will be out in the West next year) not including a host of spinoffs. So whatever improvements Yakuza 0 manages to make, it can’t escape the fact that we’ve done this all before. Sega’s been throwing more and more onto an old, rickety framework for years with this series to further and further diminishing returns, and with 0 I think I might have finally had it.

But let me step back a bit. Serving as a prequel, Yakuza 0 is a solid place to step in for newcomers, though many will be surprised by how dated it is, and it *is* dated. Newcomers may or may not be bothered by Yakuza 0’s various 6th gen quirks, including its use of the save point/item box system despite it adding nothing to the game, or the fact that accessing your Inventory in the heat of battle is still done by hitting the Start Button (far out of reach on the PS4 controller) and then scrolling through an Options menu, or that you still can’t do something as simple as placing a mark on your map, or of course that hours upon hours of Yakuza 0 are spent reading lifeless text boxes and the “not quite, but almost” random battles that take place frequently as you try to explore the town.

As someone who has been with the series since day 1, and someone who has seen its gameplay in between battles undergo very little evolution game after game, I find myself finally on the verge of losing interest.

But to some, these remnants of decade-old game design are part of the Yakuza series’ charm, and this is a series that has always had charm to spare. From the comically over-the-top violence in its beat-em-up combat system, to its hilariously-written sidequests and “more badass than badass” main characters, not to mention two at times truly immersive cities to explore, (both of course returning from past games) what makes a Yakuza game a Yakuza game is certainly still here and on full display, so fans who aren’t bothered by these frustratingly outdated aspects will likely have a blast. And I did too, up until a point.

One source of my enjoyment is that Yakuza 0 features a much-improved combat system involving the ability to switch battle styles on the fly, each feeling incredibly different from one another. Both Kazuma and Majima have their own variations on these styles, which adds a whole new level of strategy to the proceedings. The upgrade system’s fairly simple as well, with money serving as both the in-game currency and as the way to level up your characters, and it works fairly well for the most part. The difficulty has also been slightly increased from the too-easy Yakuza 5, which is a good thing and kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.

It’s a shame then that much of the combat is centered around nameless punks who show up to block your path as you wander through the streets, making battles feel more like an interruption than something to look forward to. It’s possible, but often difficult, to run away from these mundane pursuers, but in an industry where combat's increasingly being woven far more organically into the proceedings, Yakuza’s continuing effort to treat it like an interruption makes the minute-to-minute experience of going from Point A to Point B feel like a drag.

The frustrating thing for me is that these issues are not stemming from any sort of technical constraints; that’s something I’d at least be understanding of. Instead, they seem to stem more from a developer strategy to reuse much of the framework from game to game, even aspects of it that don’t make sense anymore. And aspects that did (such as Yakuza 5’s sidejobs or Yakuza 3’s photography mechanic) are inexplicably absent from 0.

Certainly the load times that the series once had when going into battle are basically gone, and the neverending stream of text boxes that convey much of the game’s narrative are, as in Yakuza 5, thankfully voice acted, albeit in Japanese, so eye strain when reading them is still very much a factor. That Yakuza 0’s well-directed, thrilling, and cinematic cutscenes have to often transition into text boxes is likely budgetary, but the game does additionally feature a few cool comic book-style cutscenes which could have easily been the solution to this, though it sadly only makes use of these once in a blue moon.

In the end, Yakuza 0, like its predecessors, offers improvements to its battle system, while the gameplay outside of it remains disappointingly stagnant. It still has the goons randomly appearing in the city streets to get in your way, it still sends you on uninspired shopping trips, it still forces you to wander aimlessly looking for …something to happen when the game occasionally opts not to provide you with a Radar Blip. The two cities you explore are almost identical to their appearances in other Yakuza games; Kamurocho is even missing its rooftop and underground areas. The phrase “more of the same” has never felt so appropriate, and after 5 games of this, that just isn’t enough to grab me anymore.

The story at least benefits greatly from an improved focus over the sprawling, multi-character storylines of Yakuza’s 4 and 5. Yakuza 0 provides helpful catchup videos when switching back and forth between Kazuma and Majima’s storylines, and there’s a part of me that will always find myself compelled by the intense, clockwork narrative this series presents. Here too though Yakuza 0 falls into some of the same traps of its predecessors; dialogue (in the non-cinematic cutscenes) circles the point again and again; nothing’s said without being said twice. Characters are written to be so “badass” that their deaths almost always feel like their own fault. In addition to Yakuza 0’s surprisingly light use of strong supporting NPC characters, we’re again treading down the same well-worn paths: those being of course the path of revenge, and that of fragile female characters always in distress. Any time the game seems to be edging into exciting new territory, it falls right back in line behind its tired ideas and narrative shortcomings; characters who waste their last breath telling others to RUN only to have the others stand there in total shock nevertheless, villains who are smug and slimy and not especially compelling, people standing around taunting and lecturing those who they intend to kill, and did I mention the most inconsistent kidney injury in the history of anything?

It’s sad because it leads to a truly beautiful ending, and a great closing point to both where the series has been and where it will go; a very impressive feat for a prequel and something that, as a longtime fan, was nice to see. In fact the finale itself is awesome and beats Yakuza 5’s pop concert by a mile. Reviewing this has been a challenge because I know that on paper, this is a Yakuza game, and it does that, well, the way it always has. People looking for this, or people new to the series, may find themselves enjoying this game, just like I did with Yakuza 1 back on the PS2, and several of them since.

All these games in, I guess it’s just no longer enough to do it for me.

3.0/5= Fair

New Review: Despite a terrible final act, FF15 proves to be a great open world game, if not quite a true Final Fantasy one.

Final Fantasy 15’s opening moments had caught me completely by surprise. 

All throughout the game’s massive time in development I’d cringed every time I’d seen footage, every time I’d heard details, every time I’d witnessed another shift in direction towards road movie territory and CGI films. 

But once I’d booted the game up on the brand new PS4 that I’d (doubts aside) purchased to play it, I was stunned to realize how much Final Fantasy XV’s opening moments grabbed me. It wasn’t the bland action scene that actually opens the adventure before flashing back, but the scene that followed it. My main characters found themselves in the middle of a vast open world, complaining about their predicament while pushing their car along the road, a very cool theme song from Florence and the Machine playing over the soundtrack. 

Shortly afterwards, they arrive at what resembles a rest stop, and immediately you’re free to wander around listening to NPCs, to progress the storyline, and even to take on Hunts and venture out into the world, and what a world it is. Final Fantasy XV instantly proves itself as something truly different for this series, and I fell in love with its atmosphere and characters almost from the get-go. By the end, it doesn’t quite live up to its promise, partially due to its lacking storytelling and a complete pivot towards blandness in its final third. But for much of the experience I was thinking of it as among my top “open world” RPGs ever, and while it never really felt right to me as a Numbered Final Fantasy game, I thoroughly enjoyed my journey through Final Fantasy XV. 

What gets my full praise is the vast, fully explorable world. Having begun the series with Final Fantasy X before working backwards, I never got to experience what it was like for PS1 owners back in the day to be blown away by the worldmaps in VII-IX, but when I managed to unlock the Chocobo-riding feature in XV and got to ride across the plains, I caught a glimpse of what that must have felt like. XV’s world isn’t an especially populated one; outposts, (which usually consist of resting quarters, a diner, a couple shops, and that’s about it) dungeons, and campsites dot the otherwise empty world. You only visit two actual cities over the course of the adventure, and even there many of the NPCs your characters meet serve very little narrative purpose and get nothing resembling development. 

Instead, Final Fantasy XV presents itself as a road trip; many of the events in the actual story, regarding warring kingdoms and empires, are mostly only glimpsed by listening to the radio. The journey is instead about Prince Noctis, Gladiolus, Ignis, and Prompto (names I had to Wikipedia the spellings of to write this review, a first for FF for me) as they travel the kingdom in a car, taking photographs of each other, listening to music, and stopping at camp spots along the way. Make no mistake, this is a full-on open world game; most people you meet outside this main group of four characters serve almost no purpose except to sell you items, give you quests, or provide small banter in towns. Though there are cutscenes throughout, much of the story and character interaction takes place as you play. It’s similar in that regard to games like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. 

What helps Final Fantasy XV to stand out is how wonderfully Japanese it is. Its Japanese roots shine through, in everything from the character designs to the art direction (which is most like Final Fantasy VIII) and the combat system, which, while action-driven, thankfully never enters button-mashing territory. The dynamic among the cast of characters is surprisingly lighthearted, at times feeling almost more like a Tales game than what one might expect from Final Fantasy. The dialogue is very well-acted and it, along with the writing, gives the game a natural feel. 

Exploring the vast world is pretty painless, though I wish the characters ran a little faster. The car can almost always be set to auto drive, allowing you to sit back and enjoy the gorgeous 8^th gen scenery. (This can be skipped for 10 gil.) Letting the car drive itself is recommended, as it can only move along paved roads anyway and its controls aren’t the best. Other means of travel include of course Chocobos, which you can rent and take pretty much anywhere, and yes, on foot as well, though it isn’t recommended for long journeys. The world’s seamless, with no load times separating the field from towns or outposts, and combat’s much the same way. 

A big issue I tend to have with action RPGs is that they become far too grind-heavy and button-mashey. Final Fantasy XV avoids this in two different ways; its combat system is more about holding buttons rather than pressing them, and its difficulty is kept fairly moderate throughout, which will likely be appreciated by turn-based fans but may bum out those who are well versed in action RPGs. Fans may also be upset that Noctis is the only controllable character, and that you can’t even issue commands to the others, though thankfully it didn’t prove to be a huge problem for me. 

Hunts, which can be taken on at diners and other eating establishments, are fully encouraged, not only as a primary source for gil (which does not come from winning battles) but also for EXP points. Interestingly, Final Fantasy XV doesn’t allow your characters to make use of those EXP points to level up except at campsites, inns, or other save points. AP, which allows you a ton of character customization across an upgrade grid, can be used anywhere. It’s a clever idea that further enforces the “road trip” theme, and I ended up appreciating it. The game features a very clear quest menu, both for main story quests and sidequests, and allows you to set blips on your radar accordingly, making stepping off to do side missions something that’s fun and rewarding, not something that feels like an interruption. Doing these is a major part of the Final Fantasy XV experience, and just breezing through for the story might not prove nearly as satisfying. 

It's good that exploring the world itself winds up being such a treat. I’d have loved for the locations you visited to have more of a narrative purpose, but the graphics, which are gorgeous, and the music, which is good if not exactly Final Fantasy caliber, helps bring a lot of personality to the adventure and its world, and it was a world that minute-for-minute I had a blast exploring. 

What goes wrong with Final Fantasy XV isn’t enough to break the game, or to make the game un-recommendable. But these are issues that oddly enough give a game that spent over 10 years in development the feeling of being rushed. Everything plot-wise in the first 2/3 of the game left me wanting more; the characters are so likable (Prompto though feels like a next gen version of Zell, which gets old fast) and the cutscenes so well directed and acted, that I was dying to see more of them than what the game shows you. Snapshots that Prompto takes can be viewed at the end of chapters and at save points, and they show the characters laughing and having a great time at the locations you’ve visited. Why not show some of this to us in cutscenes? Why do characters mention things in passing, (“hey, I noticed in that town you were talking to this person….”) that the game never shows you? Why are almost all the characters outside your main party forgettable RPG templates with no motivation or development? Why is a character’s fate revealed but given not even a second of explanation?

As much as I loved much of my time spent in the game’s first 2/3s, its shortcomings in story and character development, while nothing new for the open world genre, feel bizarre in a Final Fantasy game, especially one given the Numbered treatment. The characters interact very frequently as they traverse the world, and the little plot that’s here moves at a decent enough pace and is well-presented, so it isn’t a silent slog across barren plains like Final Fantasy XII was, which was also sparsely-plotted. But there’s no denying that if you buy FFXV entirely for the main storyline, there’s no way that you won’t come off at least slightly disappointed. 

The developers’ answer to this comes in the game's final third, where a series of events abruptly plunge the narrative into full gear. Though at first I was excited by this more story-driven direction, it turns out that finding yourself suddenly on rails after a whole adventure of freedom just doesn’t work. Granted, you can return to the open world if you choose thanks to a time travel mechanic at save points, but it no longer takes place in the context of the story, which instead forces you through drearily industrial-looking environments and a narrative that somehow feels so simple and yet so ridiculously hard to follow. The sudden melodrama might have meant more if we’d gotten a basis for how these characters became friends and how much they truly mean to each other, but in the far more easygoing first 2/3s, there just wasn’t enough of this to allow me to really care about the events which unfold in the game’s final hours. 

The penultimate Chapter 13 proves to be the biggest offender, where your weapons and party members are removed from you for an unbearable amount of time as you’re dropped into a set piece right out of Resident Evil 6, wandering through sprawling corridors looking for security access card keys as the villain cackles at you over the loudspeakers. Beginning with Final Fantasy XII and continuing with Final Fantasy XIII, this series has developed the unfortunate habit of forcing you into one giant, long dungeon as you near the end of the game, and with Chapter 13, Final Fantasy XV again falls victim to it, dragging what little goodwill still exists in the game’s final third down with it.

In the end, it’s the narrative elements that wind up being Final Fantasy XV’s biggest roadblock to true greatness. There are other issues here and there; the camera can be all over the place during battle, magic is ridiculously hard to use, summons show up seemingly at random, load times after loading up a save file or dying are incredibly long, and the jump button serves little purpose except to make your character jump when you’re trying to talk to other characters. But by far the biggest issue with Final Fantasy XV is that as enjoyable as its first 2/3s are, I just wished that we’d had a beautiful, character-driven storyline running through them. The attempt to provide one towards the end backfires completely and hurts the game more than it helps it. There was a time where Squaresoft was able to release games with central exploration elements, while still managing to tell truly memorable, character-driven storylines. Final Fantasy’s VII-IX are really all that Square-Enix has to look at to see that. 

Final Fantasy XV though proves to be a mostly awesome experience. Despite its lacking narrative aspects, I loved the little road trip through Eos that serves as the basis for this adventure. It’s something XV almost manages to fully pull off, and though its linear and melodramatic final act holds it back from greatness, in the end it doesn’t stop me from recommending Final Fantasy XV. 

I just hope that Square-Enix realizes at some point that you can still tell a great story in a game with open world elements; and that doing so doesn’t require throwing their characters into endless dark corridors. 

3.5/5= Good