Tag: platformer

The Little Things

RKasa

March 22, 2016

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March has been a mixed bag of a month. Between Daylight Savings, the fluctuating weather, and other circumstances, I wasn’t sleeping well for awhile, but now I’ve more or less adjusted. My comics backlog has grown bigger thanks to a big shipment of manga from Right Stuf, a couple of used bookstore pickups, and the arrival of a certain long-awaited graphic novel. I’ve also started trying out some new recipes for a change.

As for gaming, that’s been going more or less okay since my last post here, and the games themselves have been about as much of a mixed bag. I beat Disgaea 3; the ending was all right, though since learning that the sidequests are as grindy as expected, I officially put it down not long after. Before that, I went back to and finally beat Legend of Dungeon, using a class I hadn’t given a second thought to before; it’s still not at version 1.0 yet, but I’m just glad to be done with a second roguelike/like this year. Speaking of which, I took up Spelunky again and made quite a bit of progress, though it will be a long time until I actually beat it.

In addition to continuing on with Bravely Default and picking up Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA 2 again, that about wraps it up for February. Moving on to March, the first game I beat this month was the hot new release Firewatch. It is a beautiful and (mostly) well-crafted game, though a little bit of a victim of its own hype. The story is not mind-blowing but still decent; the save system leaves much to be desired; and the characters, music, and so forth were well done; but the real star in this game is the environment. Firewatch is set on a small parcel of US National Park land, and each little area within is distinctive in many ways. Aside from the climbing rocks (which are especially gamelike in a certain part), the wilderness here feels like a real place, and is easily the best thing about Firewatch.

This was not, however, the first game I started in March. That honor goes to Pokemon Blue Version, which, along with Red and Yellow, came out on the 3DS Virtual Console on the date of the series’ 20th birthday. Pokemon’s first generation is the only one I hadn’t played in some form, and, given how pricey original cartridges of that gen and its remakes can be, was one I hadn’t planned on ever playing until the Virtual Console announcement was made. I’m currently up to three gym badges and am not far from getting the fourth. It’s been interesting to see the roots of the series: the Pokemon, items, gyms, HMs, and all the other little things one becomes accustomed to seeing in the games. Some of the things that were different were just as surprising; for instance, most of the Pokemon don’t have listed genders, nor is the indicator for whether or not you’ve already caught a certain type present. The player character’s rival is also far more obnoxious than they would be in later series entries, and there is also a greater emphasis on filling up the Pokedex. In general, it’s all still both fun and tedious in its telltale ways; twenty years on, the core of what makes Pokemon Pokemon hasn’t changed much.

Next up would be the third RPG I’m currently playing: Diablo III, via the Ultimate Evil Edition on 360. After trying out a handful of different classes, bitprophet and I settled on a wizard and a monk (respectively) and started our adventure to investigate a fallen star and the prophecy it portends. It’s the loot-heavy, lore-heavy action RPG that you’d expect, and it’s looking to be quite long, as well.

Needing a break from RPGs for a little while, I recently started delving into some shorter games in other genres. First up was Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F. This was my first time playing a Hatsune Miku Project game that’s specifically in the DIVA series, and, sadly, it was not as much fun as Project mirai DX. The difficulty is brutal, the small button icons can frequently get lost in the music video chaos on-screen, and there’s a handful of aesthetic issues that prevent me from enjoying it as much. Chief among these is the tracklist, which is on the weaker side overall, and weighs heavily on more offbeat songs toward the end. A lesser quibble I have is that the “modules” specific to each song are locked from the outset, which means Miku and company perform in their default outfits whenever a track is played for the first time. This is okay for many tracks, but does not work as well with others, especially the elaborate period piece “Senbonzakura”. After unlocking all the songs on Easy, I was ready to set Project DIVA F aside and move on to something else.

The next day, I started Kero Blaster, which is by Cave Story‘s Studio Pixel. It’s much more linear, for better or for worse, than Cave Story, and also more lighthearted, but maintains that same feel otherwise. The characters are all down to earth, moving and shooting are handled well (there’s even a bubble-based weapon that’s actually useful), and the levels are sufficiently challenging. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes old school-style “run and gun” side-scrolling games, and to fellow Cave Story fans especially. There are also two (very charming) free games, titled Pink Hour and Pink Heaven, that serve as demos of sorts for Kero Blaster, though you could also play them afterward, as I did.

Finally, there’s the two classic titles I started yesterday: Professor Layton and the Curious Village and the HD version of NiGHTS into Dreams… The former is my first Layton game, and might also be my last; it’s decent for what it is—a collection of brainteasers in a story wrapper seemingly inspired by European comics—but I’m not exactly hooked. I’m only about a couple of hours in, so maybe I’ll change my mind later on, but I kind of doubt it. Meanwhile, NiGHTS, which I ended up beating earlier today, is a slick-for-its-time 3D action experiment. Its so different from any other game that’s been made, I’m not sure if it has aged poorly or well. The camera’s a little iffy (though not as bad as in certain later Sonic Team games), the story’s more convoluted and strange than average, the routes through the levels can be tricky to navigate, and the game as a whole is short, but it’s got a certain flair which makes it impossible to dislike. Even more appealing is an unlockable bonus in the form of Christmas NiGHTS, one of the most famous and unique game demos ever made. This demo takes one of the first stages of NiGHTS and dresses it up with a Christmas theme, complete with a separate story to go along with it. Unfortunately, unlike the main game, the original Saturn version of Christmas NiGHTS is not included as a playable option.

That’s about all I’ve been up to lately, gaming-wise. With Kero Blaster and its spinoffs, I decided that it might be a good idea to dedicate my weekends to an indie/doujin game (or two) of a reasonable length, which would help me churn through more of my backlog, at the very least. At the moment, I’m considering my options for this coming weekend, and there are a lot of them. I should also get back to the RPGs in between those indies and sessions with Professor Layton. One of my major backlog goals for this year is to put a dent in the number of RPGs I have sitting around unplayed, but I was not expecting Bravely to be this long. Perhaps I’ll have it beaten by next month. Either way, I have no idea which RPG I would want to play next.

Until next time…

Comfort Food and Other Consumables

RKasa

January 31, 2016

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Bravely Default, which I finally, finally started playing about a week ago, has struck me so far as being a very different sort of JRPG, but also, more obviously, very familiar. The online/StreetPass features of this 3DS exclusive reminds me quite a bit of the Pokemon series, but also of Square Enix’s earlier The World Ends with You. The latter, which is one of my favorite JRPGs of all time, has a pin-based battle system, and some of the rarer pins could only be obtained by using certain online features of the DS. As this sort of thing is not up my alley (you could say I’m a purist when it comes to single-player games), I pretty much ignored Mingle Mode and managed just fine without it. Bravely‘s online features, on the other hand, get shoved in your face pretty frequently, at least early on, mixed in as they are with the rest of the tutorials. One of the biggest online components is a town-rebuilding minigame, progress in which is marked in real time—reminiscent of certain mobile phone sims—and dependent on how many other players you have registered within the game. Also prominent is the ability to summon special attacks from another player during any battle. Anyway, all this online stuff is both understandable, given the times, and, thankfully, largely ignorable, at least so far. I’m getting by just fine on my one default worker working on the town minigame while I plug away at the rest.

This “rest” is where the familiarity comes in. The story takes place in a world where nature’s balance is maintained by four elemental crystals, which are now in trouble. If that by itself doesn’t scream Final Fantasy, there’s also the job system with its familiar classes, the items like Eye Drops and Phoenix Downs, the Akihiko Yoshida character designs, and the rousing score. There is enough different that it is not a complete clone of that older series, such as the hand-drawn look of the towns and the modest tone of the storytelling. This is particularly true when it comes to the game’s battle system, which, Final Fantasy V-style jobs aside, resembles those found in Dragon Quest and MegaTen titles more than FF’s. Its resemblance to non-FF series, though, is perhaps no less important. Bravely Default is a polished, modern take on what is essentially video game comfort food; while it’s different enough to be novel, it’s also familiar enough to be unintimidating. Despite a couple of overlong boss battles so far, I’m looking forward to seeing where this particular journey to save the crystals takes me.

For a long time, one reliable source of video game comfort food for me was the Kirby series. However, when I first started Kirby Mass Attack on the DS more than three years ago, something about the flavor of it didn’t do much for me. I reasoned that this was because I had started it not long after beating Kirby Squeak Squad, and needed a break from the series in general for awhile. After picking up Mass Attack again sometime during my recent playthrough of Soul Hackers, it became clear that it was not me, it was the game. I really wanted to like it more than I did, and although the premise with the multiple Kirbies is interesting by itself, Mass Attack falls short. I’m not really sure why this is; the levels are fairly well-designed, as are the aesthetic elements and the minigames. Maybe it’s because there isn’t as much variety in the strategic elements as in a typical Kirby platformer. Enemies can’t be chomped and then shot out, or digested, their abilities absorbed. The mini Kirbies simply multiply in number, beat on enemies, push or pull things, and do a few other actions, depending on the environment. There’s also mostly dull quicktime events and one particular annoyance that reared its head late in the game, where you’re told that backtracking for certain missed collectables would be necessary to progress; this collectable would be the type of item that’d be purely optional in just about any other Kirby. Anyway, this game was all right, and certainly has its high notes, but in general, it didn’t click with me in the same way that previous Kirbies had. I still love Kirby as a character, but maybe not so much the games anymore, and I feel like another long break is in order.

Speaking of gaming tastes changing, roguelikes is one genre which I will have to become much pickier about in the future. I started two of them, the action roguelike Legend of Dungeon and the more traditional Sword of the Stars: The Pit, back in 2014, played them on and off throughout 2015, and started 2016 with neither of them beaten. They are both more difficult than, say, Dungeons of Dredmor, especially The Pit—while I had made incremental progress in Legend of Dungeon (for various reasons), I had no such luck with the other game.

Anyway, as it happened, I had a couple of days where I’d barely gotten any sleep the night before, and was thus not in the mood to play anything too story-heavy (or do much of anything productive). One day, I spent much of my time messing around with Tropico 5 in sandbox mode, but later, I found myself trying The Pit again, for the first time in months. It was still very hard, and almost unfair; like clockwork, difficult enemies would be crammed into the first room on the next floor while my available weapon choices were still piss-poor. By this time, I had 75 hours logged on the game, and had not made it anywhere past twenty floors (out of thirty) on Normal. I started contemplating trying the game on Easy and started poking around a few places, mostly the reviews and forums on Steam, to see what others thought about The Pit‘s difficulty, especially in comparison to other roguelikes. I was relieved to find that I was not alone in thinking the game too hard, and, later on, fired up a new Engineer playthrough on Easy. I ended up beating the game on this first run, which was spread out over a few sessions within two days. It soon went in the “Beaten” folder in my Steam library, and I moved on to other things, like wrapping up Kirby Mass Attack.

One game which I recently played was quite different from anything else I’d encountered before: the FMV narrative puzzle of Her Story. Its interface comes in the form of a Windows 95-era desktop computer (complete with CRT reflections, if one so desires), which contains, as its main program, a searchable database of brief video clips, all of which are pieces from a series of interrogations of a woman whose husband has been murdered. The main interactions take the form of typing in search terms, watching up to the first five clips that pop up in the results, and tagging and/or saving clips for future reference. Around the time that you, as the protagonist searching through this ancient database, feel compelled to search for a certain term, you begin to suspect that all is not what it seems. The story that follows is strange and engrossing, and, although I have the basic idea down of what happened to the victim, there’s still a few unanswered questions by the end. Aside from a certain (seemingly intentional but kind of cheesy and understandably never pointed out) alternate approach to going through the clips, I really loved this one. The pacing of both the clips themselves and the discoverability of various chunks of the story is so good that I wonder how it was pulled off.

In summary, this is where I’m at by the end of January, with six titles beaten and Bravely Default and Neko Atsume as the only games I’m currently playing. As usual, I’m already wondering about what I’m going to pick up next; a Nippon Ichi strategy RPG (speaking of comfort food…) seems very likely, but I’m not entirely sure about anything else just yet. Hopefully, I can keep up with these progress reports, and maybe write up a few reviews this year as well. Until next time, then…

Some quick site business: Comments are now disabled for all posts from now on. I very rarely got comments here anyway, and most of those that did pop up in the past were either spam, too dumb and/or trivial to approve, or had an uneasily ego-stroking quality about them. For those who left the few decent comments I got, thanks, and see you on Twitter.

Backlog Tackling, 2016 Edition

RKasa

January 14, 2016

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As with the old Gaming Roundups, which I addressed last time, another annual feature of this blog was a backlog assessment. However, unlike in previous posts, a photo of my current backlog will not accompany this year’s entry. Roughly half of my backlog nowadays is digital, so the best overview of the games I have yet to finish, or even start, is at the Backloggery. As you can see, as of this posting, there is… a good amount. Some of these are games I will never, ever go back to, usually either due to lack of interest or an annoying issue I have with the game itself (oh hi, Crayon Physics Deluxe!). However, the vast majority are games I genuinely want to play and beat.

To start off my 2016 gaming, I chose a title which is representative of my favorite type of game: quirky, mid-tier, colorful, reasonably polished, and Japanese. This game was Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure, an action RPG of sorts by Nihon Falcom, the folks behind my beloved Ys series. I had actually gotten this game for free; before Valve (understandably) banned this sort of practice, publisher Mastiff gave away Steam keys in exchange for Greenlight votes and joining the official group. Seeing as how I would’ve voted for it anyway, signing up for this promotion was a no-brainer. Gurumin, which took me roughly a week to beat, was more or less what I expected: somewhat janky in places—the pacing of the localized voiced dialogue, the slightly imperfect platforming, the graphical glitches at the edges of the screen—but otherwise a decent little story-light game with lovingly-crafted graphics. Drill-wielding heroine Parin is a likable protagonist, and the world she inhabits is rather charming. It’s the type of very good all-ages game that I don’t see too often nowadays outside of Nintendo’s titles and a few other places, and certainly very rarely on PC.

A couple of days after starting Gurumin, I fired up my first lengthy turn-based RPG for this year: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers. A 3DS port of a never-localized Sega Saturn game, this is, technically, the oldest JRPG I’ve played in some time, and it shows. Besides the usual low-budget MegaTen trappings, Soul Hackers‘ demon conversation system and certain other gameplay bits are a touch cruder than those that have come along since the late 90s. The story is very 90s as well: it takes place in a fully networked city where a Second Life-esque virtual world is being beta tested. The player character, a member of the hacker group Spookies, becomes embroiled in a conspiracy involving demons, summoners, and the city’s advanced intranet. It’s not bad, especially since there are “hacks” available that allow you to make the game less frustrating on the fly; I have the “automap” one on almost all the time. As of this writing, I’m still playing it, but given recent story developments, I hope to beat it sometime next week.

The third game I started this year, which was also the first one beaten, was Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe, a very different kind of falling block puzzle game. The basic conceit is that, instead of moving or rotating the pieces that fall, you play a little person inside of the well who uses its gun to destroy individual or adjoining blocks of a single color. A row of deadly spikes on the well’s bottom incentivizes you not to clear the board, and, in a similar bending of typical match-three mechanics, there’s no real penalty for stacking blocks too high, at least in the standard single-player mode. Throw in various obstacles, such as cannons which sometimes fall in place of blocks, a few power-ups, unlockable outfits and challenge stages (neither of which I’ve paid much attention to), and collectible gems, and that’s pretty much the game.

It’s a neat combination, and although the requirements to “beat” each stage are somewhat dull (accumulate a set number of large gems over an unlimited number of games), it also makes the game a bit less daunting than certain other falling block games I could name. Even so, I don’t think it has what it takes to join the lofty ranks of recent-ish hybrid puzzlers like 10000000 or Puzzle & Dragons. There is too little variety in the blocks, for one thing—it would’ve been great to see the difficulty slowly ramped up in the form of additional block colors, instead of trickier types of cannons, etc. falling from above. The platforming end of things gets kind of samey after awhile, too. Although the game is fun in short bursts, in general, “Deluxe” seems like a bit too generous an adjective to attach to its name.

So, that’s where I stand so far in my 2016 gaming. There’s still a lot left, of course, particularly when it comes to JRPGs. My main worry in all this is that the games themselves will become chores more than diversions, but hopefully I can pace myself so that won’t be a problem. Wish me luck!

2015 Gaming Selections

RKasa

January 1, 2016

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For several years, I posted “roundups” of all of the games I played in a given year. After the 2011 edition, I lapsed on this and have not written one since. Having to remember every game I played in a 20xx and write up a little something about it got to be tedious, and didn’t play well with my inherent laziness.

All that is why, when I decided to revive this feature, it was with new restrictions. This time, I will be covering only ten games: those which left the strongest impressions on me within a given year, regardless of release date. This restriction also enables me to write a bit more about each game.

So, without further ado, here’s my ten for 2015, presented in the order in which I played them. Following each title is the developer/author, the platform I played the game on, the release year on said platform, and my obligatory summary. They are not ranked, except for my personal Game of the Year and its runner-ups, which were relatively easy choices, at least for this installment.

Mighty Gunvolt
Inti Creates | 3DS | 2014
Although I am not a big fan of anything that resembles Mega Man, this game charmed the pants off of me. Few “retro” style games that truly want to be “retro” ever come close to the faithfulness to the era that Mighty Gunvolt achieves: here, it really does feel like you’re playing an NES game. The art and music are lovingly crafted, as is the localization from the original Japanese, which sprinkles bits of “Engrish” throughout. The biggest aspect which feels “modern” is the difficulty, which isn’t as punishing as its predecessors, but that’s all for the better.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch
Young Horses | Windows | 2014
And on the opposite end of the spectrum is Octodad, which forces the player to unlearn everything they know about controlling video game characters. The player character is a giant octopus masquerading as a human surburban father, and controlling him—through a scheme where arms and legs are affiliated with analog sticks and shoulder buttons—is as difficult as you might expect, given the circumstances. Not drawing suspicion to yourself in your everyday life is the goal of the game, a lighthearted sitcom of a tale which comes complete with a catchy theme song (but no laugh track, thankfully). Although a certain part came off as slightly unfulfilling, there’s nothing else that would cause me not to recommend this.

Gone Home
The Fullbright Company | Windows | 2013
This is one of those games I put off playing for awhile due to the neverending hype and discussion surrounding it, but I finally did so this year. What it ended up being was an exploration through a massive old house that was alternately nostalgic, goofy, and suspenseful, a miniature 1990s teenage soap opera told in first-person in-between references to Bratmobile and The X-Files. That this tightly crafted, intimate little story generated as much controversy as it did is bewildering. Gone Home is—somehow, bizarrely, sadly—groundbreaking for the video game medium in its everyday mundanity and small human dramas, but it’s also good, and hopefully this sort of thing will become more commonplace in the future.

PixelJunk Eden
Q-Games | Windows | 2012
I play few platformers anymore, not so much for lack of interest (Kirby burnout notwithstanding), as that there haven’t been any really good ones in awhile. I came to PixelJunk Eden not knowing much about it, but finding within it just the refreshing sort of platformer I needed. The visual style is minimalist overall, but can get pleasantly noisy sometimes in a structured Sonic Youth sort of way, and it’s accompanied by some cool electronic music and suitable sound effects. The physics are floaty but believable; the diminutive player character moves around like it’s in water. Although the paths weren’t always clear and, thus, it became way too easy to get lost in certain late-game levels, I had a really good time with PixelJunk Eden.

You Must Build a Boat
EightyEightGames | Windows | 2015
This game, the follow-up to 10000000, almost didn’t make this list. It’s on here because I returned to the game again, months after first beating it, to go after more crew members and achievements. That’s when I fell back into its rhythms. With more tile types and general complexity than 10000000, my original feeling was that You Must Build a Boat was too overwhelming, and somewhat inelegant. Somehow, this doesn’t matter any longer. Its density and mechanics have their own kind of beauty and rhythm, and it has proven itself to be just as well-balanced and addictive. That, plus the new rooms and crew members that get added over the course of the game gives it more character than 10000000 ever had. That’s not to say that YMBAB is better than 10000000, but it is most definitely a worthy successor.

Roundabout
No Goblin | Windows | 2014
This game is unlike anything else out there. It’s got a groovy 1970s setting complete with funk music, rounded chunky fonts, trippy drug references, and suitably toned live-action FMVs. The story centers around Georgio Manos (pictured), a silent protagonist and up-and-coming revolving limousine driver. With the support of her comrades, she ferries people all over town and deals with various bits of drama. Oh yes, and as her title implies, her limo does indeed revolve around and around while she drives, which is where the challenge comes in. It’s all very silly, a little bit difficult, rather fun (and funny), and over all too quickly.

Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector
Hit-Point | iPhone | 2014
My husband and I waffled on trying this out for ages, and a patch from earlier this year which added an English-language option basically gave us little excuse. So, one day over the US Thanksgiving weekend, we each downloaded Neko Atsume from Apple’s App Store. What a great decision that was. A few times a day, after setting out food and toys, we check to see which stupidly cute, beady-eyed cats have visited us. Another aspect which has won us over: it’s free to play, with microtransactions available, but we’ve never once felt the pressure to buy any extra gold fish (the top-level in-game currency). We just take our time and enjoy these adorable digital felines at our leisure.

———

Third Place
Hatsune Miku: Project mirai DX
SEGA | 3DS | 2015
I’m afraid I might be biased when it comes to this choice: I’m a fan of Vocaloids, and Miku in particular, plus I also have a soft spot for both Nendoroid figures and tactile rhythm games. Project mirai DX features a robust selection of songs featuring music software developer Crypton’s beloved stable of Vocaloids: classics, fan favorites, and lesser-known tracks spanning a nice range of styles and BPMs, from many of the best producers in the scene. There are even a few songs with additional vocals supplied by special guest GUMI (aka Megpoid), a Vocaloid published by Internet Co. Ltd. All of the characters are represented in their chibi Nendoroid forms, thanks to a collaboration with Good Smile Company, and have a certain lively appeal to them that the blander, regularly-proportioned Project DIVA models lack.

The touchscreen-based gameplay mode is a joy to play (the button-based one isn’t too shabby either, though not as much fun), and there are several diversions—a room to decorate, character outfits, reversi and Puyo Puyo minigames, a music player, etc.—that are entertaining ways to take a break from the main rhythm section every so often. Despite the rare misstep (such as a certain pair of popular but overly repetitive songs), it’s a must-have for 3DS-owning Vocaloid fans, and probably the best rhythm game on the system overall.

Second Place
Analogue: A Hate Story
Love Conquers All Games | Windows | 2012
Stories with a strong sociological bent are still relatively hard to find in games. While my 2015 manga slate was filled with brilliantly humane works like Vinland Saga, My Love Story!!, and Assassination Classroom, there hasn’t been much like those on my gaming one. Analogue: A Hate Story is one of the rare exceptions. Like (the absolutely amazing, seriously it’s a masterpiece) Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, Analogue is a feminist examination of a specific period in Asian history. In this case, it’s an extremely repressive Korean society recreated on a long-lost starship, whose story is told through the logs maintained by, and the commentary of, a pair of AIs named *Hyun-ae and *Mute.

What follows from there is a dense, intertwined tale of family, hierarchy, social expectation, doomed romance, dashed expectations, and horrific violence, with the occasional bits of humor, which helps lighten the mood from time to time and rounds out the characters. It’s a gripping tale, one as fine as in any good comic or prose story I read this year, and I’m looking forward to playing its sequel, Hate Plus, in the year ahead. In fact, Analogue was all set to be my personal Game of the Year, but then something else came out…

First Place: Game of the Year
The Beginner’s Guide
Everything Unlimited Ltd. | Windows | 2015
I really don’t know where to start with this one without giving away what happens during a certain scene, a scene that matters so much when it comes to how this story is ultimately interpreted. When that scene happened, I understood much more, but only to a point. By the time the game ends, there’s at least two apparent large plot holes and some uncomfortable unanswered questions, which aren’t helped by the fact that the entire thing has been narrated by Davey Wreden, the creator of The Beginner’s Guide, seemingly playing himself. There’s also that cryptic dedication…

I’m going to dig further into this now, and although I won’t reference anything too specifically, there might be some parts that could be considered spoilers, so turn around if you need to.

Okay? Good.

What The Beginner’s Guide is ultimately about (or at least it seems so to me) is audiences, the great bugbear of creators everywhere, and how uncontrollable they are. It left much the same impression on me as The Wind Rises, Hayao Miyazaki’s final film, which dealt with a similar theme on multiple levels. In that film, which is based on true events, an inventor does amazing, innovative work but finds that his lofty ideals don’t line up with reality. Such is the situation in The Beginner’s Guide, where Davey takes us through a tour of the works of “Coda”, a friend who has dabbled in game development before suddenly stopping. Who Coda is and what their works really mean is beside the point. It is Davey and his presentation of Coda’s games which really matters here.

The result is a fascinating, but somewhat worrying, journey through all sorts of unfinished first-person games. There are a lot of dialogues that go nowhere, enclosed spaces, and strange surprises. Davey is not wrong to have interpretations of these creations. The wrongness that is present becomes evident later on, and, in the end, I don’t blame Coda for their actions, though perhaps they were somewhat naive in how they handled their games. It’s an interesting and ultimately heart-wrenching story about creation, interpretation, modification, and everything in between. I wonder if anyone who isn’t a creative type of some sort would get it. I wonder, like many others, if this is based on something which really happened. I do not wonder if this sort of thing continues to happen in the real world, because I know it does. It sucks, but it still happens. It happens to a lot of us, and though it might take awhile, things will be okay again.

Revenge of What You Hated About Old Games

RKasa

May 27, 2015

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Since my last post, I played through two more games to completion. The first one that I finished was Gone Home, which is one of those kinds of games where its best to go in as cold as possible, so I won’t discuss it here other than to say that despite some problems I had getting certain graphics settings (which I know my computer can handle) to run smoothly, it was worth playing. However, I have a lot of opinions about the second game, which I beat yesterday afternoon. Said game is Shantae: Risky’s Revenge – Director’s Cut.

Risky’s Revenge is a Metroidvania platformer, and also a sequel—the original Shantae was a late-in-its-lifecycle Game Boy Color title that is especially prized by collectors. I have never played the latter, and have only been aware of it by reputation and the apparently offbeat, in a good way, title character. A friend gifted me a Steam copy of Risky’s Revenge after seeing it on my wishlist, so I dove into the game expecting a polished platformer with a fun heroine.

Shantae jumps around in the Magical Hall of Boobs. — BOOBS EVERYWHERE.

As it turned out, Risky’s Revenge is polished in the most obvious ways, while remaining dull to a fault in a more subtle, yet pervasive, fashion. The animation shows the most spit and shine, as it’s extremely fluid and lively, though there are other high points as well, such as the fitting music and smooth controls. The colors pop brightly on the screen, helping to make most of the game’s areas reasonably easy to get around in, and the cutscene graphics are clear and sharp. If nothing else, and despite the startling male-gazey fanservice that regularly crops up, this game is a pleasure to look at and listen to.

Some other parts could’ve done with the same amount of care put into them, though. For starters, there’s Shantae herself. This half-genie, half-human guardian is the grouchiest protagonist I’ve ever encountered in a platformer, especially one so visually appealing. While her pixelated sprite defaults to a bouncy, smiling expression, her three cutscene portraits are neutral, skeptical, and outright surly, and her dialogue often reinforces these visuals. With her personality represented as such, I wondered what her friends thought of her, and didn’t think much of her disagreements with the town’s mayor. Her grouchiness wouldn’t have been a problem if there was something deeper behind it, but there didn’t appear to be anything. In short, at least in this game, she’s not a very good main character, and certainly not one that I’m itching to go adventuring with again.

Shantae absolutely hates fetch quests. Just can't stand them! — Our heroine, ladies and gentlemen.

On a similar note, the game’s writing leaves much to be desired. The story begins when Shantae goes to see her uncle, who is showing off an artifact which the pirate Risky Boots comes along and steals. This artifact has a dangerous secret, which, as it turns out, Shantae would’ve been better off knowing about in the first place, but her uncle refuses to tell her what it is, even after it’s been stolen and she has decided to do something about it. The dialogue is straightforward, though the flow is somewhat off; it feels as if the script was localized from Japanese with cartridge limits taken into account, particularly given how sparingly certain types of punctuation, such as commas, are used. The pacing of the dialogue is most maddening when it comes to progressing through the game. There was one hint given to me by a certain character which led me on a wild goose chase since I hadn’t yet unlocked the ability I needed to follow said advice. Once I had figured this out, an obscure alternate usage of a certain ability—one which had not been needed before and would not be required again—stymied me for a bit longer. Communication missteps like these are a major pet peeve of mine; they often leave me feeling as sour as Shantae herself.

Sequin Land, the world in which this tale takes place, is just the right size for the game’s scope, though it can be a pain to get around in. The map is crude and difficult to parse at first, and some of the most useful bits of information—such as the locations of previously encountered, unopened treasure chests—are missing altogether. Yes, I realize this was originally a downloadable DSi game, but even by those standards, the map could’ve been much more useful than it was. Getting around this world is done by activating warp statues, which are separate from, and often in different locations than, save points. The main hub is a seaside town (which, inconveniently, does not have a warp point of its own) filled with NPCs; a few of them tell you bits of gameplay info, while the others are there for local flavor and nothing else. The platforming itself is fine, though old fashioned in certain respects; the common technique where one can “fall through” platforms can barely ever be used here. On a similar note, the utilization of items is similarly simplistic; although this is not a problem when it comes to most items, having to de-equip one of the game’s optional-but-useful weapons in the menu, equip one of two different types of potion, go back to the game to use the potion, return to the menu to de-equip it, and re-equip the weapon just to heal up and get right back into battle is more than a little clunky.

I have no problem with games that are true to their roots, and Risky’s Revenge, with its spritework and Game Boy-esque aspect ratio is certainly one such title. However, video games have come a long way over the decades, and the lessons learned by dozens of studios over those years need to be taken into account, not ignored. There are ways to do “fake retrogames” right, such as the cannily-designed likes of Cthulhu Saves the World and Mighty Gunvolt, and then there are those games which choose, however consciously, to keep the warts of the past intact. Shantae: Risky’s Revenge is one such example of the latter, an exercise in selective memory that could’ve really done with a bit more self-awareness and empathy towards the expectations of the present.

A Pile of Braincrumbs Before I Go

RKasa

June 24, 2014

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Leaving on a trip tomorrow, and it’s going to be one of those rare times where I unplug for awhile. That said, I made sure that whatever I started playing in the past few weeks were things that I could beat before leaving. In the end, I played through four games and read a Let’s Play of Dare to Dream, an early effort by one Clifford Blezinski (thankfully, he’s improved since then).

That aside, here’s what I thought of those four games I played:

Time Limit Within 7 Days – Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked

Even though my main gaming goal for the year is to beat as much of my MegaTen backlog as possible, I haven’t made much progress with that. After Persona 4, I didn’t play another SMT-related game until this one, which is a 3DS port-with-extras of the original Devil Survivor on DS. It’s also a strategy RPG, which is unusual for this franchise, but as I love the genre, I wasn’t going to complain.

It was the SRPG elements, and the battle system in general, which proved to be the most fun part of the game. Characters move around on a grid and can attack and use special actions, but the twist here is that each of your party members can have a team of up to two demons tagging along with them, and initiating battle leads to a first-person turn-based affair that’s more typical of MegaTen. This mixing of traditional and strategy JRPG gameplay works really well, and is further augmented by robust customization options and demon recruitment and creation systems.

Despite this, the game is grindy on the normal difficulty, which wouldn’t be as bad if there were more than one or two “free battle” areas to level up in at a time. As for the story, it’s pretty good, though hardly original—much like The World Ends with You, the game takes place in Tokyo over a period of seven days, which is the time limit the main characters’ have in order to sort things out (it’s worth noting here that among Overclocked‘s new features are some unlockable “eighth day” scenarios, though I didn’t get one with the ending I chose). In other aspects, the plot is your standard boilerplate MegaTen, with a silent protagonist, characters with varied personal agendas, and multiple endings. Most of the time, it’s well-paced for a portable game, though the density of plot threads means that it can be easy to forget your place at times, which can lead to unintended (by you) consenquences.

The game is fully voiced (though the results are hit or miss), the music and graphics are decent… for the most part (I want to know what the hell is up with that strap on Haru’s dress), and the localized script is up to Atlus USA’s usual high standards. Strangely, there isn’t much use of 3D aside from the opening movie and demon fusing animations, but other than that, it looks great on my XL. As a MegaTen game, it’s a reasonably solid entry overall.

A Little Story in a Cave – Ikachan

By the time I beat Devil Survivor Overclocked, there wasn’t enough time to start something similarly lengthy, so everything I’ve played since then has been much shorter. First up was Ikachan, a 3DS port of a pre-Cave Story PC game by Studio Pixel. It takes place in an underwater cavern, and the main character is a squid. As in Cave Story, there are snaking passages, cute little regular enemies, deadly red spikes to avoid, strange beings to talk to (barnacle/anemone people, in this case), useful items to collect, and an atmosphere that ably blends the unusual with the mundane.

The story, however, is much simpler, and so is the game itself. There is only one area—the gigantic cave where the tale takes place—and very few boss battles. For Cave Story fans, Ikachan is notable for being the game that Ironhead, a large fish with an, er, iron head, came from. Ikachan is also easier; none of the enemies are as taxing as, say, Monster X in Cave Story. It’s cute, very short, and worth a look if you have a spare hour or two. The original PC game is freeware (note: some spoilers in link), though the 3DS version adds some new features, including a subtle layered 3D effect.

Blame Canada – Deadlight

I don’t normally play zombie games, but I do play platformers, and picked up Deadlight in a Steam sale awhile back. Unfortunately, my old Mac Pro couldn’t handle it, and so it was one of those games I shuttled off into my “Save for new compy” folder. As I now have said new compy, I’ve started digging into that folder. Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing was the acid test, and not long after playing through that, I found myself moving on to games like this one.

Deadlight takes place in early July 1986, in Seattle, in which it seems like pretty much the whole world has been overrun by zombies—sorry, “Shadows”—and what few humans are left in this one particular city try their best to survive. The main character is a scruffy middle-aged Canadian man (we know for sure he is Canadian because the game likes to remind us of this every so often, mostly through his diary entries and some comments on the items he finds during his travels) who is searching for his wife and daughter. He gets separated from his friends early on and is forced to make his way to a designated safe point on his own. This he does by running, jumping, climbing, walking, etc. all over the Seattle metro area in a linear fashion, occasionally solving puzzles and finding hidden areas. On a superficial level, at least, it’s pretty similar to Mark of the Ninja, but with much less stealth and a lot more ~~zombies~~ Shadows.

The game is thick with zombie genre cliches and sports at least a couple of frustrating sections in the third act, plus pausing is sometimes buggy, but otherwise it is generally well made (as unbelievable as some of it seems at times) and appropriately gritty and moody. It’s the sort of game that isn’t going to change the world, but does provide some fairly decent entertainment for a little while.

A Hungrier, Toothier Kirby – The Maw

I beat Deadlight quicker than I thought I would, and still needed something to play! To satiate this hunger, I turned to The Maw, which is, like Deadlight, a PC port of an XBLA game. This time, however, you play a small blue alien who befriends a small purple alien shortly before the ship on which you are both imprisoned crash-lands. The blue alien finds a handy laser lasso gauntlet thing, and accompanies the purple alien, a walking eyeball and mouth called Maw, on a journey to do… something. Though there are parts where they have to outwit their former captors, it’s never made very clear what the protagonists’ specific goal is.

The Maw is a neat little piece of platforming goodness—the kind of lower-budgeted, but still polished, work you’d commonly see released on disk form throughout the PS2 era. The lasso gauntlet is the main character’s means of interacting with Maw and the various creatures and objects within the world they’ve crashed onto. Maw itself grows as it eats and, much like a certain famous pink puffball, can gain different appearances and abilities if it consumes certain creatures; for example, a large horned beetle enables Maw to do a ramming move, which can destroy boulders and surpass certain obstacles. There are only a handful of these moves, but the small number of them makes sense given the game’s brief length.

Unlike many other, older platformers, the challenge is dialed down a bit. There are no lives, and respawning takes you back pretty much to exactly the same spot you were at when you died (for example, structures that you had destroyed before will remain destroyed). This being the case, it makes me wonder why it’s been made possible to die to begin with. Although it lessens some frustration, it’s still a very odd design choice.

The version of The Maw that I played included all of the DLC levels, which were omitted scenes interspersed throughout the campaign. While this is a nifty use of DLC, for the most part, they stuck out like a sore thumb in that they tended to be longer and more intricate than the “regular” stages.

Aside from some camera issues when Maw gets to be on the big side, a soundtrack that’s sometimes too repetitive, and the aforementioned issues regarding the difficulty and DLC, there’s really nothing bad I can say about this game. It’s just long enough that it doesn’t wear out its welcome, it controls well, it’s stable, and it’s enjoyable. For a lot of games, I couldn’t ask for much more than that.