I've put this off long enough. It's time for me to run through every game in Halo's Master Chief Collection. BACKGROUND:
Halo has been a big name since the 2000s, so I know quite a bit of it despite never having owned an Xbox in my life. It's easily one of the most recognizable shooters ever, right up there with Call of Duty, Doom, and the like. However, that's only part of why I've always wanted to check it out. Halo is one of, if not the all-time favorite game series of one of my closest friends, and he's always gone out of his way to sell me on it. Thankfully, the Master Chief Collection is on Game Pass, which means I get to play nearly every mainline Halo game. In other words, expect more Halo-centric blog posts. PLOT: Halo is set in a futuristic sci-fi setting, with space travel, aliens, and all that good shit. In this universe, a group of aliens known as the Covenant have declared war on humanity, and the UNSC (a human military force) is taking the fight to them. The game begins on the Pillar of Autumn, a UNSC vessel traveling through space. The crew discovers a strange ring-shaped space station/planetoid, but before they can figure anything out, the Covenant pursue and initiate an attack. With the ship in critical danger, Captain Keyes orders Master Chief, a Spartan (AKA a super soldier in badass armor), woken from cryostasis. He entrusts Master Chief with the protection of Cortana (the ship's AI), who must not fall into the hands of the enemy. And before you ask, yes, it's the same name as your Windows 10 digital assistant; this is where they got the name from. Master Chief escapes the Pillar of Autumn and crash-lands on the ringworld, which the Covenant called "Halo" (there's your explanation for the game's name). With Cortana's help, Master Chief explores Halo and aids surviving UNSC Marines, fights against the Covenant, and discovers the truth behind what Halo really is. The story starts out as your usual "humans vs. aliens" plot, but the mystery of Halo (and the eventual reveal of what it's really for) more than makes up for it, I feel. Though some elements of the world-building weren't really fleshed out, I liked the universe they've set up here, and I think there'll be opportunities to answer my questions when I play the rest of the Halo games. Out of the few characters in this game, Cortana is strangely the one who stands out as the AI with a ton of personality. Everyone else is pretty cut and dry, while Master Chief is a man of few words. PRESENTATION: I'm playing the Anniversary version of Halo: Combat Evolved, which has a built-in toggle that allows you to switch between the visuals as they were on the original Xbox and a remastered version. The original visuals obviously look a bit dated, but I think there's still a certain simplistic charm to them despite the clearly less detailed textures and models. The remastered visuals, while certainly polished, feels a bit busy when it comes to its background designs. Regardless of which you choose, the cinematic cutscenes are quite exciting to watch. The game has some pretty neat designs, from the iconic Spartan armor donned by Master Chief, the striking purple vehicles of the Covenant, and cool-looking weapons like the Needler. I kinda wish the humans had cooler-looking vehicles and ships, but the ones they do have still look good. Plus, the weapon/vehicle designs of the humans and the Covenant being strikingly different made for an interesting contrast. One thing that really surprised me about this game was the music. Though you usually play through the levels with mostly ambient sounds to keep you company, the moments when the music kicks in feel incredible. Some of the tracks are these epic-sounding orchestral tracks that go all in on the violins, while others have an otherworldly vibe to them thanks to some Gregorian chant-style vocals. They did a good job of timing the music to when shit's about to go down in game, which made listening to them all the more satisfying. GAMEPLAY: Halo, as you may already know, is a first person shooter where you blast the shit out of aliens. If you've played an FPS before, you'll understand this game immediately. But what makes it different from the rest? First, the way the game handles health is a bit different compared to most shooters. You have a health bar that, unlike games like Call of Duty, doesn't regenerate; any damage you take remains until you die or find a health kit. To even the odds, though, Master Chief has shields on top of his regular health that do regenerate. It's quite important to manage your shields, because if they go down, you're down to regular health, and you will not last very long if you keep getting hit (because not only does it hurt, but shields can only regenerate after a few seconds, provided you're not currently being damaged). It's an interesting hybrid of the typical FPS regen trope and how HP usually works in most other games. Halo is also a bit different in that you can only have two weapons on you at any given time (as opposed to having access to every weapon via something like a weapon wheel). You can find weapons occasionally strewn about the level, but your main source of new weapons will be from the corpses of your foes. Depending on your ammo situation, you may find yourself scavenging for weapons just to get through, or you may find it strategically advantageous to mix and match different weapon types to deal with specific situations. Either way, you'll have to really think about what you keep in your inventory as you play. Speaking of the weapons themselves, there are a good variety to choose from. You have a bunch of straightforward ones, like the assault rifle, the rocket launcher, a sniper rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol (that somehow has a zoom function). On top of that, you have a small assortment of fun sci-fi weapons, like the plasma rifle (which doesn't need to be reloaded, but overheats if you hold fire for too long), the plasma pistol (which has a powerful charge shot), and the Needler (which shoots needles that explode if you stick enough of them on enemies). Every weapon has their own specific niche, and I found myself swapping out regularly to take advantage of their strengths, something I ended up really enjoying. There are a small variety of enemies, each having their own behavior and abilities in battle. The Grunts, for example, will eventually start fleeing in terror when you thin their numbers, Jackals roll around and brandish a shield that protects them from some damage, and the Elites also have the same shield mechanics as you, necessitating quick action on your part. Equally important as knowing what you're up against is seeing what weapons they're holding; if you're not careful, you're taking a rocket to the face. In certain sections, you'll be able to drive a number of vehicles, from the Warthog (a jeep with a gun turret), the Ghost (a speeder bike-type thing used by the Covenant), and even the Scorpion (a tank). Controlling the vehicles is a bit tough on keyboard/mouse (the control scheme I went for), but other than that, running people over and blasting them with infinite ammo weapons is highly entertaining. The game's story campaign is split into ten chapters, all of which are pretty lengthy. For the most part, it's fun to explore various locales and face off against an army of Covenant, but I feel the overall level design isn't the most polished. Some of the chapters have you aimlessly wandering around corridors that all look mostly the same, and while I rarely ever got lost for long, it was enough to have me going "OK, am I going the right way?" It also doesn't help that there doesn't appear to be a map, and that quest markers (something that is very much present in the game) are used sparingly. This is really the only thing about the game that I found somewhat frustrating. In terms of the action itself, the game does do a lot to spice up the many firefights you'll find yourself in, but it kind of falls apart in the second half where you're just thrown into very similar-looking rooms having to fend off seemingly endless hordes of tanky enemies. This didn't bother me as much, but there were points where it threatened to push me into "I'm not having fun anymore" territory. VERDICT: Though not perfect, Halo 1 was a fun FPS experience. I enjoyed its interesting universe, cool designs, awesome music, and solid shooter gameplay. I'm glad I finally got a chance to play this classic series, and I look forward to see how the later games expand on the gameplay and story. Given that this game is literally turning 20 years old this year, I think it's fair to say that this is a now a classic. As such, this is something I would call an essential game worth playing at least once, on the account that it's the beginning of a legendary franchise, as well as a big reason behind FPS games taking off on console (that genre wasn't as common outside of PC at the time). It's also quite significant in further popularizing online multiplayer for shooters (at least on the console side), carrying the momentum of such games as Doom and Quake. This game is part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which you can get on Steam here: Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Steam (steampowered.com) - end -
0 Comments
At this point, you're probably sick of me posting all these Game Pass PC blog entries pretty much every single day. I'm sorry to say that this is far from over. BACKGROUND:
I played the first Guacamelee nearly two years ago and loved it (more on that here). Getting this sequel was a no-brainer to me. Unfortunately, I can only get around to it now, but hey, better late than never. PLOT: Guacamelee 2 goes off of the first game's true ending. Juan and Lupita are now happily married, and now have two kids. The couple live happily ever after until one day, Uay Chivo (the mentor character) shows up warning him of a grave crisis. It turns out the entire multiverse (referred to as the Mexiverse in-game, because... of course) is in danger of destruction due to a villain named Salvador wreaking havoc in the Darkest Timeline (that's literally what it's called). Juan must now don the magical lucha mask once more and travel across timelines to restore the Multiverse. Compared to the first game (which had a somewhat straightforward "rescue the princess" story), Guacamelee 2 just says "fuck it" and goes all in on the absurd. They have a ton of fun with the multiverse shit, creating all sorts of silly timelines and multiple alternate versions of various characters. Other than that, I can't say that this was the most engaging narrative; while the first game's plot was basic and similarly humorous, it had a bit of heart to it, whereas this is just wacky hijinks with not much depth. I didn't find myself caring for the villain at all, for instance. I didn't really mind, but I find it imperative to point out the difference. Like its predecessor, this game goes all out with the humor. There are plenty of cheeky references to other media, puns, meta jokes, hilarious dialogue, and just straight up weird nonsense (like the Chicken Illuminati). I feel like this one leans into the humor a little too hard at times, so I can see it being a bit much for some people. Personally, I was amused by most of the game's shenanigans; there were a few jokes that got a big laugh out of me, and I got a kick out of the bilingual wordplay that was present throughout the game (something I also enjoyed from the first one). PRESENTATION: Guacamelee 2 is mostly identical to the first game when it comes to its presentation. The art style is still the same vibrant and angular aesthetic, the Mexican influence in the aesthetics is still very much present, and the music is still an enjoyable hybrid of mariachi and chiptune. There isn't a lot more I can add that I haven't already said about the first game. GAMEPLAY: As with the first game, Guacamelee 2 is a Metroidvania with beat-'em-up elements to its combat. There's actually very little that's different between the sequel and its predecessor both in terms of core gameplay and mechanics, so rather than repeat what I said in my post on the first game, I'll just briefly go over each element and point out any differences (if they exist). If you want the nitty-gritty, refer to the blog post on the first Guacamelee (which I already linked above for your convenience). Exploration is mostly the same as before, with the main difference being some of the areas you visit. The collectibles are still mostly the same (chests, health upgrades, and stamina upgrades), as well as a special collectible that unlocks the game's true ending if you get them all (something the first game also had). Your platforming abilities are pretty much 1:1 with what's in the first game, which means you have access to the exact same special moves, the double jump, the wall run, the super dash, and Dimension Swap. They all function like they do in the original with no significant alteration. The game adds more level gimmicks for you to navigate around (like a recharge orb that lets you reuse special moves in midair), as well as a brand new ability called the Eagle Hook, which allows you to launch yourself from specified grapple points. Overall, the platforming still feels smooth and flows well, and I feel like this one is a bit more technically demanding than the first game (which I liked, but depending on your skill level at platformers, you may feel differently). The biggest changes in terms of platforming is with the chicken transformation. Like before, you can transform into a chicken to squeeze through small spaces, but now, you have access to more abilities while in this form. The chicken gets some special moves of its own, like a slide and a diagonal midair dash, and these function like your regular special moves in that they break color-coded barriers, and can be used in combat. In addition, you can glide slowly as the chicken, allowing you to control your descent in certain sections. You use the chicken in platforming sections way more than before (there are even dungeons that are platforming challenges exclusively done in chicken form), which I found fun and challenging. Unfortunately, you can't lay exploding eggs anymore. The combat is also mostly unchanged, retaining the beat-'em-up style of the first. You still have your basic combos, uppercut launcher, downward strike, and you can still chain all of those along with your special moves. You also still have grabs, throws, and wrestling moves, as well as the dodge roll. Not much to say here, other than it's still fun to suplex a bitch and get massive combos. Most of the enemies are ones that were in the previous game, but there are a few that are brand new. You'll still have to deal with "unblockable" attacks and color-coded shields, so there's once again not much different mechanically when fighting these bastards. I will note that some enemies require that you use the chicken's special moves to weaken them, which I found quite amusing. Also, some enemies can only be fought in a specific dimension (i.e. you have to switch to the correct dimension with Dimension Swap to damage them), and I can't recall if this was in the first game. I'm going to point it out just in case. Like before, you can acquire gold to spend on passive upgrades. Silver is notably absent, as alternate costumes are now simply found in chests as opposed to something you purchase. Another thing that's oddly missing is the Intenso mechanic of the first game. Its absence didn't really make or break the game, but I found it strange that they removed it. VERDICT: Guacamelee 2 is one of those sequels that doesn't really expand or innovate in its style or mechanics and just gives you more of the same. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing in this case, as both this and its predecessor have solid platforming action, decent Metroidvania exploration, and fun combat. Along with that, this game retains the same great aesthetic and humor that made the original memorable. The second game does do a bunch of things differently, and while those new things don't exactly make it stand out from the first game, they do still spice up the experience somewhat. I had a great time playing through this one, despite it not being a drastic evolution of what came before. I would naturally recommend that people who've never seen this game play the first one over this, but I think you can get away with playing this first since the story is pretty standalone. In general, Guacamelee is worth checking out if you like Metroidvanias, though I will say that the story and humor isn't really for everybody. Check out the game on Steam: Guacamelee! 2 on Steam (steampowered.com) - end - I'm going back into the Devolver well today. This time, I'm taking on a modern cult classic. BACKGROUND:
In a similar vein to Psychonauts, I heard of Hotline Miami mostly because of its strong cult following online. I've seen some gameplay of it and had plans to check it out myself, but I never got around to it until now. PLOT: The game is set in 1989 Miami. You play an unnamed protagonist who receives periodic phone calls about certain "jobs" around the city. The protagonist then visits the designated locations... and proceeds to kill everyone in the area. It so happens that each of these places are areas controlled by the mob. At first, the story seems straightforward: seemingly random dude performs hits on the mob as instructed by mystery caller. However, the protagonist slowly but surely loses their grip on reality, as increasingly surreal visions and hallucinations start manifesting as they carry out their tasks. Most of the story stuff is in-game (i.e. you control your character as things are playing out), which adds a bit of immersion to the experience. While I personally found the story fascinating, I don't think it's for everyone. If you're not into more esoteric and/or trippy narratives, you'll just come out of this game confused. However, I think the gameplay would be sufficient in carrying most players through. PRESENTATION: Hotline Miami's visuals are as retro as its setting, sporting the pixel art graphics of yesteryear. Though most of the sprites of objects or characters are simple, the level elements do look rather detailed. Despite the relative simplicity of the visuals, the violence still looks gruesome, and you still get a strong sense of the neon-colored '80s vibe they were going for. The soundtrack is excellent, taking on a synth/techno vibe that definitely works well in the '80s setting. Many of the tracks accompany the game's mile-a-minute action quite well to boot. GAMEPLAY: Hotline Miami is a top-down shooter (sometimes referred to as a twin-stick shooter). The game has a top-down perspective, and the goal is to move your character around and kill the shit out of everybody else. You usually start each level unarmed, with only a non-lethal punch in your arsenal. Punching enemies knocks them out momentarily, and while they're down, you can finish them off and execute them if you're quick enough. It's absolutely brutal, but this method is slow, and you'll likely be killed by another enemy while doing this. To even the odds, you'll have to pick up a wide variety of weapons and use them to your advantage. You can either find these weapons simply lying about in the levels, or you can disarm enemies and take their shit from them. Most of the weapons are melee (but you can throw said weapons as well to stun enemies), but you'll also be able to pick up guns. The guns are a reliable way to get kills, but they come with the drawback that enemies will be alerted to your presence. Plus, each gun has limited ammo with no way to reload. When it comes to enemies, most of the variance is based on the weapons they're holding. It's important to watch out for who has guns and who doesn't, and to plan your assault accordingly. There are unique enemy types, too (each with their own quirks), but there aren't that many at all to speak of. The tough thing about enemies overall is their AI; though a lot of their behavior is consistent, their responses to your actions can vary wildly per attempt. You'll have to think on the fly most of the time once enemies start coming your way. The game is split up into 19 chapters, the last four of which are a bonus side story featuring a different playable character. Each chapter is split into multiple individual rooms (called stages), and you'll have to kill everyone in each stage in order to progress. Mistakes are fatal here, as any sort of hit kills you instantly. Thankfully, you respawn at the beginning of the furthest stage you reached, so there's room for trial and error. Speaking of trial and error, you'll be doing a lot of it, because this game is not easy. It's just you against an entire room of enemies, and the enemies won't go down without a fight. Going full Rambo is usually not recommended, as it's extremely easy to get surrounded or picked off by an enemy you can't see. Though you can certainly try to just pick up an assault rifle and clear the room that way, it's generally safer to find and kill the biggest threats, employ stealth to avoid detection, and bait enemies one by one to pick them off. In addition, relying on guns is a good way to call attention to yourself; even a couple of shots will alert many enemies, and soon, they'll be swarming to where you are. The available weapons in a room are random each time as well, adding more improvisation to one's attempts on top of the unpredictable enemy behavior. Some chapters have special objectives, like retrieving items, sneaking past guards, and even fighting bosses. However, these unique missions tend to be just one stage of an entire chapter as opposed to its own dedicated thing. At the end of every chapter, you get a score total which adds up things like various kills, kill streaks, and more. Though it's mostly just for leaderboard chasers, passing the level's score threshold unlocks new animal masks for your protagonist to wear. These aren't just cosmetic items, as every mask (apart from the default) has a unique passive buff that can give you an edge in a fight. For example, one of the masks gives you a starting weapon right at the beginning if you wear it. Score also unlocks more weapons for you to find, but since weapons are generated randomly, it may take a while for you to spot these in your playthroughs. I mentioned the four bonus chapters earlier, and they're notable because you play as another character. Said character plays differently from the protagonist, as this fella has a starting weapon right off the bat, plus three throwing knives. The caveat is he can't pick up weapons in the environment, and has to rely on what he already has to kill everyone. Other than that, the core gameplay is pretty much identical. VERDICT: Hotline Miami can be a punishing game on the account of its tough layout, unpredictable enemies, and the need to scavenge for a way to kill everyone. But that's exactly what made it satisfying to me; every frustrating failure made me rethink my approach, and it felt cathartic to get that one successful run and fight my way to victory. Combined with the surreal narrative, simple yet striking art style, and pulse-pounding music, the game was an unforgettable experience. I don't think this is a game for everyone, on the account of its ultra-violent action, its unorthodox story, and its unforgiving difficulty. If you're OK with all of that (or can at least tolerate some of it), you should check it out for sure. Here's the game on Steam: Hotline Miami on Steam (steampowered.com) - end - The Game Pass PC adventure continues, and I'm running out of things to say in the intro. BACKGROUND:
I remember seeing gameplay of Minecraft Dungeons and thinking "this looks fun," but I was never really sold on it. There's a running joke among my friends that it was essentially "Diablo for Children" and that we should play multiplayer together, but other than that, I didn't have so much as a passing interest in actually trying the game. Since it's on Game Pass, I thought it'd be fair to give the game a chance I probably otherwise wouldn't have tried. PLOT: In a surprise twist, this Minecraft game has a plot (well, an explicitly told one). The game sets up a villain called the Arch-Illager, who is amassing power to take revenge on the Villagers who treated him like shit. It falls to you, unnamed hero, to thwart his plans by journeying across the land and fighting your way to his castle. It's a pretty standard plot, but it does have a bit of humor and heart to it, and it cleverly incorporates established Minecraft lore and puts its own unique spin on certain elements. If the Minecraft IP had a stronger focus on story, this game is a good example of the kind of narrative they could build using the elements they've already established within the game's world. PRESENTATION: The game looks and sounds pretty much like Minecraft (blocky visuals, pixelated textures, more ambient music), so there isn't much to say. As far as visuals go, there are all sorts of new monster, item, and location designs that you won't see in the original Minecraft, and there are more upbeat battle themes in the game to go along with the typical ambient sounds you hear when exploring. GAMEPLAY: Minecraft Dungeons is, as the name suggests, a dungeon crawler RPG where you navigate through dungeons to kill enemies and find loot you can use to make yourself stronger/give yourself better gear. Like I said, it's basically Diablo for kids. The game is also Minecraft only in name and not in gameplay; no mining or crafting here. Apart from being a kid-friendly IP, this game is "Diablo for kids" in the sense that it's much simpler than Diablo or other similar games in the genre. Here, you don't have to worry about character classes, exclusive weapon/armor types, or any complicated minmaxing. Just equip the weapons you like, and try to pick the ones with the biggest numbers; even if you choose to read all the numbers and really plan out your builds, all the information the game gives you is straightforward and easy to digest. Plus, fighting itself is pretty simple; you have a straightforward melee attack, an easy to use ranged attack, and only three "spells" to keep track of. On the subject of combat, your character has a regular melee attack, a bow shot, a dodge roll, a reusable healing potion (with a lengthy cooldown), and three Artifact slots. On top of that, you also wear armor that determines your max HP. I'll break down some of these elements in their own paragraphs. Your melee attack is determined by the melee weapon you have equipped. These weapons come in all forms, from swords, dual daggers, glaives, and even pickaxes. Different weapon types have different properties (like attack speed, area of effect, and even unique properties), so it may behoove you to experiment a bit and see what works best for you. Having a bow equipped allows you to shoot arrows, of which you have a limited supply. You can reload by acquiring occasional drops from chests or enemies. There's also a decent amount of variety in terms of bow types, like ones focused on rapid fire, ones that shoot multiple arrows, and ones with powerful charged shots. You can even choose to equip an assortment of crossbow types if that's more your style. The bow, melee weapon, and armor can all be enchanted using Enchantment Points, which you acquire by leveling up (which, naturally, happens when you kill enough shit and gain enough XP). These enchantments add passive effects such as additional damage, added effectiveness against specific enemy types, fire damage, and more. A piece of gear can have a maximum of three enchantments, and the enchantments offered to you are completely random. I wish there were a way to reroll enchantments, but that doesn't seem to exist; you'd have to grind to get that exact same gear again and hope you get what you want, which isn't as fun. Bows, weapons, and armor also have rarity values, which determine things like stat bonuses and such. One of the rarity values is called Unique, which usually means that the particular item has a special passive on top of everything else (e.g. the Frost Fangs are like normal daggers, but they have an additional passive that inflicts slow on enemies). Again, there doesn't appear to be a way to reroll the rarity of the gear you already have, which is a bit of a shame. In addition to your normal gear, you can also equip three Artifacts, which are essentially this game's take on skills. Artifacts have a wide array of effects, from healing, giving passive buffs, casting powerful attacks, and even summoning helper to fight for you. Unlike gear, you don't have to worry about enchantments, so it's adequate to just pick the one with the biggest numbers. Some Artifacts use Soul, which is the game's equivalent of magic. Soul is acquired by killing enemies, and you'll need to kill a bunch to fill up your meter. There are plenty of items that allow for Soul-focused builds, but it's nothing complex. The game only has a little over a dozen levels, but each are procedurally generated and are pretty large, often featuring branching paths with secrets to find. Some of the required story levels have secrets that unlock completely new maps for you to explore, but there are only a handful of these to speak of. Enemies are a mix of classic Minecraft mobs and brand new mobs, but the variety overall isn't that astounding. Generally, your problem isn't so much countering them individually but managing their numbers so you don't get overwhelmed, but there are a few enemy types that can kick your ass one-on-one. Bosses (of which there are a few) are the same way, except they have more health and tougher attacks. I'm a little underwhelmed with the number of maps you can actually play through. Sure, they're procedurally generated and you can get different rewards, but the main objective for each one never changes at all, so it can still feel repetitive in a sense. There are Daily Trial maps that add modifiers, but as far as I can tell, they're set in the same locales. The way the game adds replay value is by giving you the option to scale the difficulty of maps, as well as bumping up the difficulty overall on each clear. Higher difficulties are obviously more challenging, but you'll also be able to encounter brand new items (or at least higher rarity items) to play around with. It's nice and all, but you're still playing on the same set of maps. In between missions, you have access to a couple of merchants who offer assorted wares, as well as a blacksmith that can enhance your gear while you play. You can also sell any unwanted gear any time you want, and this gives you emeralds (the game's currency). If you sell enchanted items, you get the Enchantment Points you spent back, allowing you to reinvest them in your other gear. If you're particularly starved for content, there appear to be a small assortment of DLC maps you can buy. Plus, you can play this game in multiplayer, and I'm sure this is more fun with friends (as most things are). VERDICT: Minecraft Dungeons is an enjoyable, simplified take on the dungeon crawler genre that nearly anyone can get into, but I found the sparse content and issues with the handling of loot to be a rather glaring issue. I still had a delightful time playing through the main campaign and messing around with its simpler mechanics, though I can't help but wish that there was more game other than "play it again, but harder." As much as I like to say "Minecraft Dungeons is Diablo for children" as a joke, I legitimately think this is a fantastic entry point into the dungeon crawler genre for both children and people who've never played something like Diablo. Very little about its mechanics is complicated, and combat is easy to grasp but can still offer a bit of room for experimentation. If you want to get a sense of what the genre has to offer, or want to give your nephew (or whatever) a taste of something other than Fortnite, Minecraft Dungeons is a solid gateway into the world of dungeon crawlers. On the other hand, if you're more seasoned with RPGs, you may not enjoy this as much. You can certainly grind this game out to the max if you want, as the game stacks the difficulty pretty much ad infinitum on each run-through, but I feel like it would get boring real quick playing through the same few levels over and over (even if the layouts are random). And as much as the gameplay is fun despite its simplicity, it may not end up being as deep as some players want; you can certainly do some wacky stuff in this game, but don't expect any insanely complex character builds. Plus, with no built-in reroll systems, it may be too much effort to even put together a full build. - end - I haven't been keeping score, but I did just take a look at my list and realized I've crossed off over 20 games in this Game Pass PC binge. Let's keep the momentum rolling! BACKGROUND:
I'm a casual fan of Castlevania, and a big fan of the Metroidvania genre in general, so the Kickstarter for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was one I was aware of (but didn't really follow). At the time, it was planned for release on the Wii U, so I waited for that, but it never came to pass because the Switch was revealed during the game's development. As such, I found myself waiting for the Switch version instead. Before Ritual of the Night came out, the companion game Curse of the Moon (which was one of the stretch goals of the Kickstarter campaign) came out. I got that game and really enjoyed it (more on that here), and that made me more excited to check out this game. Though I'm about a year late, I'm getting around to it now thanks to Game Pass PC. PLOT: Ritual of the Night is set in 18th century England. The Industrial Revolution is in full swing, and the Alchemy Guild's members are upset that people are turning to machines over their craft. In what is probably up there as one of the most extreme responses to being ignored, the guild begins messing with the occult and starts summoning demons in a roundabout attempt to scare people into relying on alchemy. It ends as well as you expect, as the country is absolutely devastated by the onslaught of demons. The game begins in earnest a decade after this disaster. We follow a woman named Miriam, who is accompanied by former Alchemy Guild member Johannes on a journey to Arvantville. They came here to investigate an ominous castle full of demons, and hopefully find a way to stop further disaster. Along the way, they'll encounter other curious characters, like Zangetsu (the enigmatic swordsman), Dominique (the helpful exorcist), and Alfred (also from the Alchemy Guild). They'll also come face to face with Miriam's old friend Gebel, who is responsible for the castle's existence and is planning a terrifying attack. Miriam is unique in that she's a Shardbinder. That means she is the result of the alchemists' experiments to fuse demonic crystals to human bodies (resulting in the notable stained glass patterns on her skin). Because of this, Miriam is able to use the powers of demons (by absorbing their crystal shards) to her advantage, and she will need all the help she can get if she hopes to stop Gebel. Gebel is a Shardbinder himself, however, so Miriam has an uphill battle ahead of her. I was concerned that they'd make this game's story a little too close to Castlevania (which is usually some variation of "find the dumbass vampire in this whack-ass castle and kill their ass"), but I have to say that this is pretty different. I like the concept of the demon apocalypse actually being caused by humans, and I found the whole idea of the Shardbinders interesting. Of course, the "hero explores monster-infested castle and kills chief asshole in castle" is similar, but they do subvert expectations a little bit at the end. Overall, I liked the story (largely because of the world-building), but I wouldn't say that it's perfect by any stretch. There are a few contrivances here and there, and there are certain things that could have used clarification. A lot of my qualms revolve around the game's big twist, so I can't really elaborate without spoiling anything. One thing I can elaborate on is that some of the relationships between characters could have used fleshing out. Interestingly, the game has three endings, but two of those endings actually result in a game over. I would have liked these bad endings more if they actually took the time to explore the consequences of your actions; instead, all you get are a few lines of cryptic dialogue from the characters before you're hit with the game over. PRESENTATION: Though Ritual of the Night's gameplay has a 2D perspective, everything from characters and background elements are full 3D models, coming together as what's referred to as a 2.5D perspective/style. The models look great and the level designs are memorable, though I found some of the animations to be a bit off (the human characters tend to have weirdly slow and awkward movement, for example). The designs in this game are rather inspired. Miriam herself has a really cool design (the stained glass thing is such a neat idea), and there's a lot of variety in the demon designs (a few of them are incredibly weird in a good way, and some of the bosses look absolutely wild). Having played Curse of the Moon first, it's pretty awesome to see characters, enemies, and locations fully realized in 3D. The music feels like classic Castlevania soundtracks, with symphonic tunes that complement the gothic vibe of the game. The first area of the castle alone has amazing music. This game has full voice acting, and it's pretty decent, although the lip syncing with the models isn't that great. GAMEPLAY: I've said "Castlevania" three times already, so you can probably guess that Ritual of the Night plays like a Castlevania game. Though that is correct in itself, it would be more accurate to say that it plays like the Metroidvania-style Castlevania games (e.g. Symphony of the Night and nearly every other game after that). That means you've got one huge-ass map to explore, abilities to find, collectibles to collect, and loads of backtracking. Ritual of the Night also retains the RPG elements of Symphony of the Night-style games, which means you earn XP when killing enemies, you have various stats to keep track of, the ability to change your equipped weapon and armor, access to consumable items, and you even earn money that you can spend at the shop. In terms of weapons, you have a good number of options, from different swords, clubs, lances, axes, and even guns. They all do different types of damage, which means certain weapons may be more or less effective on certain enemies. Some are even imbued with special properties like elemental damage. The guns are unique in that you can use various ammo types to change things like damage output or add status effects. Enemies come in all shapes and sizes, and while you can apply the same "hit it until it dies" strategy to most of them, there's actually some benefit to mixing and matching your loadouts to deal with different enemies. Some enemy types are weak to specific weapons or types of elemental damage, for example. Either way, killing enemies not only gives you XP, but they can sometimes drop various items that can help you on your journey. The most unique drop you can get from enemies are Shards. Along with weapons and armor, you can equip various Shards to give Miriam access to all sorts of abilities. There are different types of Shards, but they can be narrowed down to spell-type Shards (which you cast manually and expend MP on use), Shards that give you passive buffs, Shards that summon familiars, and Shards that grant you special abilities. Some of these Shards actually serve as your traversal upgrades; for example, double jump is something you acquire by absorbing the Shard of a boss. I very much like the idea of Shards, as it reminds me of how you take the ability of the boss after defeating one in a Mega Man game, and I like how some of them end up being the answer to certain puzzles. My only issue is that Shards are still technically a random drop for majority of the enemies, so you have to grind if you want a particular one. You can also make Shards stronger by acquiring duplicates, but again, that's more grinding. I personally didn't have any issues getting the Shards I wanted in my playthrough, but I could see this potentially becoming a source of frustration for other players. In addition to Shards, enemies can drop materials. These are used in the game's alchemy mechanic, which allows you to put various raw materials together to create consumables, weapons, armor, and more. You can even enhance your Shards through this mechanic. It's a simple crafting mechanic that really comes in handy, but since a lot of the materials are random enemy drops, there's still unfortunately an element of grinding to it. The game's map is pretty expansive, and there are a good amount of areas that are hiding secrets like chests, health upgrades, and even optional bosses. You can also find journals that either expand on the game's lore or teach you special techniques (like a unique command input for specific weapons that gives you a special attack, something I thought was really neat). Backtracking is made relatively easy thanks to a number of fast travel points, though you'll still be doing a lot of walking around for certain areas. Overall, I had a fun time scouring every corner, but I do have one specific issue with how the game handles a specific aspect of exploration. It's a typical Metroidvania trope to have areas that are blocked off until you get an ability that lets you pass through. Ritual of the Night does that well for the most part, but the problem is how it gives you some of those abilities. One of the items that lets you get past a specific area is in a random chest in a far corner somewhere (which you may or may not think to check), another Shard ability you need to progress through an entire section of the map is obtained from a regular enemy (as opposed to a boss, which you are guaranteed to fight at one point or another), and it's entirely possible to not get another key item if you're not particularly chatty with NPCs. It's extra weird as well because some of the mandatory bosses you fight in this game don't actually give you progression items; why not just put them there? Having played my fair share of these games (and having sat through more obtuse puzzles than what I encountered here), I didn't really get stuck for very long, but I can easily see this frustrating other people who maybe aren't as explorative as I am. Games like this have a tendency to make you sweep every last nook and cranny for a solution (because surely the answer must be around here somewhere), and as much as I enjoy doing that, one can absolutely take that idea a bit too far (which I feel this game did). I suppose it's more in line with how the older Metroidvanias used to be, but I think it's a design aspect that hasn't aged well. Another thing that could end up confusing other players is the multiple endings. As I mentioned, two of those endings result in game overs, and the solution to opening the way for the true ending isn't immediately obvious (but is hinted at). This is definitely another case of "keep exploring and you'll find the answer", but I found this instance less egregious (mostly because the reveal was a genuinely badass moment). Once you've beaten the game, you can either take a crack at another playthrough on another difficulty, or even play through the entire thing as Zangetsu instead of Miriam (who plays quite differently). In addition, there are extra modes like Boss Rush, Speedrun Mode, Boss Revenge (a mode that lets you face off against Zangetsu/Miriam as one of a small selection of the bosses you fought in the main game), and Randomizer Mode (which allows you to randomize certain aspects of gameplay). You can actually customize Miriam's look via an NPC and change things like her hair and skin color. I thought this was fun, but I found it odd that the clothing you equip is inconsistent in terms of whether Miriam's model would be updated or not. I observed that most outfits don't change her default, but some do. I'm not outright criticizing this (outfit swaps aren't as easy to program as it looks), but I did just find it strange. I think I've covered everything (or mostly everything), but I do want to mention something about Miriam's movement. She has the ability to backstep (which does what you think it does), but I found it to be rather finicky to use. Not only does it have terrible range (which means you can't dodge too many attacks), it sometimes just doesn't register my input. Kind of a shame because it's a useful and stylish mechanic. VERDICT: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night manages to be a great spiritual successor to Metroidvania-style Castlevania games with its tried-and-true gameplay, but it manages to carve out its own identity with its unique setting and the novel Shard mechanic. Although I do have my qualms with how the game handles progression items, and how it has some grindy aspects to it (remember: I'm not one to grind in any game), I still really enjoyed playing through the whole thing. I highly recommend this for any Castlevania fans who are itching for a new game in the same style; after all, Koji Igarashi (mastermind behind a lot of fan-favorite Castlevania titles) was the lead developer for this title. I think this is also a good entry point for players who aren't familiar with this style of game (as there is no burden to catch yourself up with decades of Castlevania lore), but I must warn you that this game a) can be grindy, and b) can have some particularly frustrating roadblocks to progression. Here's the game on Steam: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on Steam (steampowered.com) - end - I've played a good dozen games in this Game Pass PC binge. Let's keep the train rolling while I still have time to play. BACKGROUND:
I played River City Ransom for the original NES through the Switch Online emulator, and it ended up being one of my favorite classic beat-'em-ups. River City Girls naturally caught my attention both as a new entry of the franchise, the fact that it's developed by WayForward, and its eye-catching presentation. PLOT: Kyoko and Misako are two seemingly unassuming high school girls. During a stint in detention, they learn that their respective boyfriends Riki and Kunio (the protagonists of the original River City Ransom) have been kidnapped. The duo break out of school in search of their loves, scouring the entire city beating the absolute shit out of everybody in their way. The plot is as ridiculous as it sounds, and it's complemented by all the over-the-top characters with bombastic personalities. The dialogue between characters is delightfully silly, and the game's sense of humor is highly entertaining. There were a good amount of lines that got a good laugh out of me. Nothing about the story is particularly deep, so it's more for people who are just looking for a fun, silly time and not so much folks who want complex narratives. PRESENTATION: The game has a strong anime/manga art style, with beautifully drawn character art, super expressive facial expressions, flashy anime cutscenes, flashbacks presented like a manga (but with added visual flair), and vibrant UI elements. There's even a straight up opening cinematic that feels 100% like an anime title sequence. The gameplay itself takes on a 16-bit aesthetic, but the anime vibe is still very much evident in the sprites. The characters are super expressive despite the seeming limitations in the graphics, and the animations are incredibly fluid. The level designs all look great, and capture the vibes of various elements of a typical city really well. The soundtrack is phenomenal, with all the tracks having a super catchy synthpop vibe. A number of tracks have full vocals, and while they have a relatively more chill vibe compared to the regular tracks, they still fit the game's action well. Though the music is fantastic overall, my absolute favorite still seems to be the theme song that accompanies the opening cinematic. It's just a goddamn bop. Outside of the music, aspects of audio like sound effects and voice acting are also well done. The former embraces the retro aesthetic of the game and go all in on the chiptune. The latter is excellent as well, with a strong cast bringing life to pretty much every character (even the regular enemies with no actual speaking lines). My personal favorite voice is the one for the cyborg enemies, because they do the fucking ridiculous Arnold Schwarzenegger "impersonation" everyone does. It made me laugh every time I heard it. GAMEPLAY: Much like River City Ransom before it, River City Girls is a side-scrolling beat-'em-up. It plays pretty much like any other beat-'em-up; move through the areas, beat the shit out of everybody, move to the next area, repeat. What sets River City Girls apart from other beat-'em-ups is that it has basic RPG elements. Defeating enemies drops money that you can spend on consumable items, equippable items, and the dojo (where you can learn new moves). You also get XP, and when you level up, your stats increase. You could certainly grind through the game if you want, but there's little reason to; completing quests rewards you with a decent amount of money and XP that you can get by simply dealing with the required fights. The equippable items have pretty negligible buffs for the most part, and you'll probably find more use in the consumables. Annoyingly, the game doesn't tell you what items do until you buy them, and I see absolutely no reason to obfuscate such information. River City Girls is also different in terms of its level structure. Whereas most other beat-'em-ups have you constantly moving forward in a linear fashion, this game lets you move across areas and explore each section freely (as you do in River City Ransom). There's not a lot to explore, and backtracking can feel a bit cumbersome (because enemies respawn), but this is an element I really enjoyed when I played River City Ransom; I like the idea of exploring the city to find answers. Other people may feel differently about this element. In terms of moveset, you have pretty standard stuff, like a quick combo, a bunch of heavy attacks, grab moves (that you can only unfortunately use on stunned enemies), dash moves, and jump-in moves. Kyoko and Misako have unique movesets, but the difference is mostly in terms of animation. You can also block incoming attacks, and if you time it right, you can perform a parry. In practice, blocking is kind of pointless; I found it effective to just beat the shit out of enemies instead of baiting a parry, and it's straight up worthless against certain attacks. There are only a small variety of enemies, but they have a good amount of depth in terms of their movesets. There are six bosses total, each with fun set pieces and attacks that are a bit of a pain to deal with. A few of them can be a pain to deal with because of quick movement, super fast wakeups, and/or the ability to block even your quickest moves. Blocking is easily the most annoying thing any enemy can do, because there's no way to punish them for doing so (plus, they can act out of block faster than you can react). Occasionally, beating the shit out of an enemy causes them to beg for mercy. While you can be a cruel bastard and continue the ass-whooping, you can choose to recruit them instead. Doing so gives you a sort of assist you can call in at anytime (after a cooldown). Each regular enemy has a unique assist attack, so it's worthwhile to try and recruit different enemies to see what they can do. You can only have one assist at a time, and your assist can take damage (if they take enough, you lose the assist). I didn't find myself using it all that much, but I thought it was neat. Dying is a little more lenient here than in other beat-'em-ups, as the only penalty is throwing you back in the last room you were in and taking a fraction of your money. This makes the game a bit more casual friendly, but it's still not a pushover when it comes to the actual difficulty of fights. The game is incredibly stingy with healing item drops (forcing you to grind for cash to buy healing items), so if you get your ass kicked, you're stuck with low health until you manage to find a shop or, more likely, die. You can also pick up various weapons to bludgeon enemies with (alternatively, you can chuck them at enemies. Some have unique properties (like the boomerang, which functions as you'd expect when thrown), while others (like the fish) are just hilarious. There are a few optional things you can do like side quests (of which there are a handful), breakable statues (which serve as the game's collectible), and a bunch of fun secrets. Despite the game's relatively small size, there's a good amount of stuff to find and do. Beating the game unlocks New Game Plus and a pair of new playable characters, so there's a bit of replay value as well. VERDICT: River City Girls is a fun beat-'em-up that takes all the elements of the original River City Ransom and gives it an eye-popping coat of paint. Though there's nothing really groundbreaking about the gameplay itself, and there are a few qualms I had with some of the choices they made, I still enjoyed beating the shit out of people, and I still liked the RPG elements they brought back. What elevates the experience for me is the vibrant art style and amazing soundtrack, and the humor and voice acting really amused me. If you're looking for a silly time with a relatively simple beat-'em-up with an anime flair, this is worth checking out. And like every beat-'em-up, I highly recommend playing through the game with a second player. Check out the game on Steam: River City Girls on Steam (steampowered.com) - end - Some new games were added to Game Pass this month, and I have the opportunity to check one of those games out today. BACKGROUND:
Being both a DC fan and a Mortal Kombat fan, I have always kept tabs on the Injustice series. I was able to play the first game briefly, and watched a lot of competitive Injustice 2 matches. In addition, I have read a fair bit of the Injustice comics. Needless to say, I'm thrilled to have a chance to play this one for myself. PLOT: In case you're not familiar with the plot of the first Injustice game, here's an oversimplified summary: Joker breaks Superman mentally, Superman fucking snaps, Superman establishes a dictatorship called the Regime, Batman sets up the Insurgency to fight back, heroes and villains take sides, everyone fights. It's a pretty interesting alternate universe story and one should check it out. This game is set after the events of the first game, with most of the Regime either exiled, imprisoned, or in hiding. The Insurgency is working their way towards rebuilding all the damage that was caused by Superman, but the public is understandably wary of anything superhero. Everything kicks off when Batman investigates a brand new supervillain team called The Society (great name); their plans are unclear at first, but it turns out they're in cahoots with the one and only Brainiac, who intends to destroy Earth and add it to his collection of knowledge. Shit hits the fan when Brainiac initiates the assault on the planet, and the remaining Regime members capitalize on the chaos to break Superman out of prison. After lots of punching, the two warring factions call a truce in order to deal with the much larger threat, making things feel like the ol' Justice League days for a brief period. Unfortunately, like most truces, the alliance is temporary, and everyone goes back to hating each other. I thought the story was fine overall. It's a little simpler than the plot of the first game (which threw in multiverse shit), and while it's not at all new (Brainiac's invasion of Earth is a story I've seen in multiple forms), the added wrinkle of the heroes being divided made the dynamic interesting. I also liked some of the spins they did on certain elements from the comics, like the change in the handling of Supergirl's origin story in this universe. Of course, the plot has its fair share of contrivances, like characters just randomly showing up in various places (Doctor Fate and Atrocitus are the biggest offenders here), seemingly important details left unaddressed (like how The Society came about, and why the fuck they would even collude with Brainiac), and a few weird character interactions. Though the most you need out of the first game is to know who was on which side, some of the characters featured in this game will require a bit of reading if you want to know what they're about. Characters like Firestorm or Swamp Thing aren't as well known compared to Batman and Superman, and one may find their presence baffling. Other than that, I don't think there's much of a need for prerequisite knowledge to enjoy the story. The game has two endings decided by one pivotal choice in the final stretch of the game. The difference is pretty straightforward, but I won't give it away. PRESENTATION: Injustice 2 goes all out when it comes to presentation. The visuals have an impressive amount of polish, with plenty of standout elements like facial animations and realistic textures. To put it another way, this game has graphics that gave my PC trouble running it. It's in the game's story mode where Injustice 2 goes above and beyond. The cutscenes are incredibly well-made, with movie-level cinematography, seamless transitions into gameplay, high-caliber voice acting, and an epic soundtrack that feels like a score for an action movie. It was a delight to watch the cutscenes play out. When it comes to character design, Injustice 2 is unique, as this game introduces customizable gear for everybody. There are a good amount of options to choose from, and while I haven't seen everything, the stuff I've encountered all look great. I'll elaborate on the gear system later on. Other aspects like character dialogue during fights, intros, and victory screens are equally fantastic. The latter two are well done and perfectly convey what each character is about (while making them look awesome in the process), while the banter between opponents is absolutely fantastic. There are plenty of hilarious and clever interactions to the point that I'd run out of room talking about them all. There are only a handful of stages, but they all look great, and the choices they went with in terms of what DC locations to represent were decent. ROSTER: I thought the roster this time around was great. You had your obvious picks (the big Justice League members), a bunch of popular villains (though some heroes are left without their respective archnemesis), and some really cool obscure picks. The personal highlights for me are Doctor Fate (probably my all-time favorite DC sorcerer next to Zatanna), Black Canary (I love the Birds of Prey), and Atrocitus (I love the Red Lantern Corps). I also enjoyed the game's take on Scarecrow, and liked the inclusion of other less prominent characters like Swamp Thing and Gorilla Grodd. Some of the characters have alternate skins that represent completely different characters. For example, Flash has an alt that lets you play as Reverse Flash, and that comes with unique dialogue against opponents. I thought this was a cool way to get more characters into the fray without actually making a brand new character. Though the version of the game I played doesn't have the DLC, I think they're still worth mentioning. There were some really cool picks, like Black Manta, Darkseid, and the Atom, a double dose of Mortal Kombat guest characters (Raiden, plus the most badass-looking Sub-Zero design ever), and a pair of absolutely mind-blowing crossover characters (Hellboy and the goddamn Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). GAMEPLAY: Injustice 2 is a 2D fighting game where you beat the shit out of your favorite DC characters. It's fundamentally similar to most other fighting games; hit opponent a lot, don't get hit as much. Mechanically, Injustice 2 is like Mortal Kombat, which makes sense given it's the same developers who made this game. The combo strings are dial-in, command inputs are as simple as they are in MK, but there are slight difference with regards to blocking (here, you hold back like in most other fighting games, whereas MK has a dedicated block button) and the button layout (MK has light/heavy punch and kick, while Injustice has light/medium/heavy attack and special). The game is also unique in that every character has a built-in launcher move and a "wall bounce" move, both of which you can combo out of. Along with that, you have your usual special cancels, so there's some room to chain together a neat combo (though certainly not to the extent of a game like Marvel vs. Capcom). I mentioned a special button when talking about the available inputs in the game. Every character has a special Character Power connected to this button, and it is activated by pressing special. This ability has its own dedicated meter on the screen, which indicates when it's available for use and displays its cooldown. Each character's power is different; they range from a stance change (Blue Beetle), passive buffs (Wonder Woman), special moves whose properties can be altered (Green Arrow), or just straightforward special moves (Supergirl). In addition, the game also has a meter, which is split into four bars. You can meter burn certain moves to add additional effects to them, like extra hits, re-stands, and launchers. You also spend meter for defensive options, like getup rolls or air escapes. If all four bars are full, you can unleash a devastating super move, but in my experience, it's generally more valuable to spend meter on things that aren't the super move. The game also has something called Clash, where both fighters play a bit of rock-paper-scissors and spend x amount of meter to turn the tide of battle in their favor. When a Clash occurs, both fighters input the amount of meter they want to spend, and whoever spends more wins the Clash. If the defender (i.e. the one who initiates the Clash) wins, they get some health back, whereas the attacker tacks on more damage if they succeed. It's a pretty neat mechanic that adds an interesting wrinkle meter management; do you blow all your meter in the Clash to get the immediate benefit, or do you take the loss and save that meter for your combos? Each stage contains interactable elements that you can use to your advantage, like shit you can throw at your opponent, walls you can jump against, and even stage elements where you slam the opponent in and combo them out of. There are also stage transitions where hitting strong moves against a cornered opponent triggers a flashy cutscene where they get blasted into a different part of the stage. It's rather situational and can be a waste of time for some, but damn does it look cool. You have your standard fighting game modes, like the Story Mode, Arcade Mode, a decent tutorial, Practice, various online modes, and local Versus. The most unique mode is Multiverse Mode, which is a rotation of AI matches with special conditions that changes daily and gives out unique rewards. My only experience with a similar mode is MK11's Towers of Time, and from what I can tell, it's serviceable single player content that looks like it'll get tedious or grindy over time. GEAR: This gets its own section because it's the biggest addition to this game. Like I said, every character has customizable gear you can swap out at your leisure. Everyone has five specific gear pieces you can swap out, as well as options to change the color palette of all the items, and even alternate skins. Gear isn't just for show, as many items provide stat boosts and passive buffs when equipped. How much benefit they give is dependent on the gear's rarity. This stuff is great in single player, but apparently there's an option to enable this in online matches, which doesn't seem like the best idea outside of casual matches. There's thankfully a competitive toggle so you don't have to deal with cheese builds. This all sounds neat, but how do you get gear? Well, you're not gonna like the answer: loot boxes. Yes, this game has them. Goddamn it. You want to get that sweet-looking gear you saw online? Spend the in-game currency and roll the dice. Not fun. What really ticks me off about the loot boxes is the fact that alternate character abilities can only be acquired there. These abilities change up the gameplay of many characters, yet you have to pray to the RNG gods to unlock them. I'm not OK with that. Thank goodness MK11 doesn't have that shit and just gives you full access to all the custom abilities at the start. There are also a handful other currencies to keep track of outside of the normal coins, and they're mostly used for modifying gear. And since this game isn't annoying enough, there's also a premium currency you can buy, which you can then use to straight up purchase certain items with real money. It doesn't seem like anything is particularly pay-to-win, but it's microtransactions, and those don't sit well with me in general. VERDICT: Injustice 2 is an enjoyable fighting game in my view. The gameplay was easy for me to grasp and felt decent, the story, while not perfect, was entertaining, the presentation was topnotch (as expected from NRS), and the gear options opened the floodgates for a customized experience. However, the loot box/microtransaction shit made everything about the gear less fun. Other than that, I had a fun time playing as some of my favorite DC characters. Definitely recommended for fellow DC fans who also like fighting games, but buyer beware of the loot box shit. Play Injustice 2 on Steam: Injustice™ 2 on Steam (steampowered.com) - end - After five long years, I finally got to play this game. Let's talk about it. BACKGROUND:
I first heard of Indivisible back in 2015, through a YouTube video showing off its demo. I remember being intrigued by the gameplay, then trying the demo myself shortly after, which led me to really fall in love with the concept. At the time, the game was at the tail end of its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, and despite not being able to contribute myself, I followed that campaign and even helped spread the word on it. The game did eventually get funded, and was in development for a very long time, releasing some time last year. It's kind of an understatement to say that I have waited quite a while to finally get a chance to play this game; even after its initial release (which came three or four years after the end of its crowdfunding campaign), I waited even longer for the Switch release (which came much later). Unfortunately, I couldn't buy it for Switch (because 2020 was bullshit in that regard too), but as luck would have it, it's on Game Pass PC right now. Yay! PLOT: Indivisible follows the story of Ajna, a teenage girl from Ashwat Village. She lived a relatively peaceful life training as a fighter under her father Indr, until her village is burned down by Lord Ravannavar's forces. Seeking revenge, she begins her journey, meeting all sorts of people along the way and discovering who she is (both in the figurative sense and the truth behind her parentage and the origin of her powers). Overall, I'd say the story is pretty basic. It's pretty much your classic hero's journey (protagonist living humble life thrust into conflict after a personal tragedy, discovers they have latent power that they'll now have to master to save everyone). The actual world-building is a bit inconsistent; there's a lot of exposition that adequately explains most of what's going on, but there are more than a few story threads that the game simply glosses over that could have helped make sense of certain things. It's also paced weirdly; there are moments when you're thrust into a big story event out of nowhere and moments when you're just left to meander around the world. Where I think this game succeeds is in its characters. Ajna herself is an interesting protagonist: she's an impulsive teenager with a one-track mind, and the story actually has her make plenty of big mistakes because of her emotional immaturity. Though she certainly grows as a person by the end of her journey, I really liked the approach of having her royally screw up and watch her go from not really caring to trying to make amends with all she hurt. Perhaps I just find it personally relatable, but the fact that Ajna is written like a human being instead of some incorruptible force of good made her journey worth seeing through despite the somewhat standard main story. Though I wouldn't say she's written perfectly (she's definitely a tad obnoxious, which I suppose is par for the course for most teenagers), I at least found the overall theme of growth a good one. Ajna meets a few dozen other characters throughout the story, and while their respective screen times and characterizations may vary, I think most of them are pretty interesting. All the party members get their own personal side quest where you learn more about them, an approach that I liked a lot, but I feel like they could have done more for some of the other characters. Some of them don't really have the most comprehensive backstories, others have interesting backstories that aren't elaborated on, and there is very little interaction between the other characters without Ajna being present. I would say the only thing that actually irked me about the story is how some of the characters interact with Ajna herself. There were some instances where party members will argue with Ajna (and be in the right), but they just acquiesce and go "OK let's do what you want". It really took me out of it at certain points. I will say that the banter between characters is at least somewhat amusing, however. PRESENTATION: Indivisible has a beautiful-looking hand-drawn art style, having a slight anime feel to it. The game leans into the anime a bit harder during pivotal cutscenes, as well as in the opening cinematic. There's a solid amount of polish to everything, with mostly fluid animations and lively backgrounds. The game takes heavy inspiration in real-life cultures for its environment and character design. There are locations that are reminiscent of Aztec cities, Moroccan coastal areas, and more; while I wouldn't go as far to say that they're mind-blowingly iconic, I did enjoy their aesthetics for the most part. Once again, the best part of this game in this department is its characters. All the character designs are wonderfully diverse, and like the locations, they take all manner of inspiration from different cultures. Though some designs are more memorable than others, I think they did a solid job overall representing various cultures without it feeling like diversity for diversity's sake. Even the throwaway NPCs look great, to the point that I'd mistake them for people you could recruit. I could also say something similar about the monsters, which all look pretty interesting for the most part. The music is pretty solid, but I can't really say that any one track stood out to me. The voice acting is also well done, but I found it quite jarring that despite all of the characters being voiced, not all of them get time to speak. I found this most unnerving in the personal side quests, the one part of the game where you expect everyone involved to be voiced. None of the side quests featured voiced dialogue, which really took me out of what would otherwise have been a fun story experience. GAMEPLAY: Indivisible's gameplay is split into two parts: exploration and combat. Let's break it down like that. The game's exploration is structured like a 2D platformer, specifically that of a Metroidvania. You'll be running and jumping around decently large areas to get where you need to go, occasionally encountering strict platforming sections that require a modicum of skill to get through. Eventually, you'll run into areas that require specific abilities to access, and you can backtrack to those areas once you've unlocked said abilities. Most of the abilities are straightforward and nothing new in terms of platforming mechanics, but there are a handful that I'd say are pretty interesting. I like Metroidvanias a lot, but this game's take on it leaves a lot to be desired. For one, the controls don't feel as good as they should, especially in terms of the abilities. Some of the abilities are mapped to the same button (with the only difference being the direction you input in conjunction), and there were many instances where I executed the wrong move. In addition, the way you acquire said abilities isn't satisfying at all; whereas games like Metroid or Hollow Knight have you work your way to acquire the ability, Indivisible just hands them to you whenever it feels like it. Lastly, some of the abilities are just straight up inconsistent in terms of behavior; I can't tell you how many times I've had to redo a platforming section because the goddamn axe won't stick to the fucking wall. All these problems made otherwise interesting platforming sections annoying to deal with. The exploration aspect itself also doesn't feel as polished as I would have liked. Although the game's various locations are all interconnected in one fashion or another, it doesn't feel that way in practice; it makes exploring the areas feel incredibly disjointed. Plus, the few fast travel points there are (and I mean few) are in such inconvenient spots that backtracking feels like such a chore. And to make matters worse, the map is a pain in the ass to use; not only is it wildly inconsistent in terms of what it actually shows, but the markers for key locations are bugged as hell, either appearing in places where nothing exists or not appearing where there is 100% a quest. That made finding the side quests (which, by the way, the game doesn't track, not even in a separate menu or anything) infuriating. Now, we get to the fun part: the combat. This is the aspect of the game that hooked me at the very beginning. In this respect, Indivisible is an action RPG, where everything is on a sort of active timer Final Fantasy-style. You still have to wait your "turn" in the sense that you have to wait for your party members' actions to be available (and the enemies do the same), but there's still a sense of real-time action as you can choose to spend those actions when you want. You'll see enemies walking about in the world as you explore, and going up to them triggers an encounter. In combat, you control a party of four, who are each mapped to one of your face buttons (for the sake of discussion, let's go with the Xbox/Nintendo notation of ABXY moving forward). Once a character's action is available, you can press the button they are mapped to in order to attack. You can do this in any order you want depending on how many actions you have available (e.g. you can choose to have everyone attack once, or just mash A and have one character attack). Every character has three inputs: a neutral input (which is just pressing the button), an up input (up + button), and a down input. The attack that comes out is unique to each character, so you'll have to learn what each move does on your own. Thankfully, there are only three inputs to keep track of, but I wish there were a comprehensive move list you can view (the character info that's available in the game doesn't actually tell you all that much). Of course, this is a double-edged sword; with only three moves per character, it's rather difficult to mix things up or make things interesting for yourself. While most of the characters have pretty straightforward movesets, a few have interesting properties. Some have multi-hits, others have large AoE attacks, a few have stance change abilities that switch up their moves, some set traps in the field, and there's even one that has a bit of a rhythm game mechanic to their moveset. One character in particular has a move that heals the entire party. There's definitely a generous offering of mechanics when it comes to individual characters. Once you start attacking, the RPG element morphs quickly into a fighting game. When you attack, you're pretty much stringing together all the actions of your entire party to beat the shit out of an enemy. The result is usually a combo straight out of Marvel vs. Capcom, and it gets pretty entertaining when you start learning which characters have launchers and which characters have good juggle moves. I really got a kick out of dishing out punishment in this game, and I did my best to mix and match my party and string together all sorts of combos. When you're not attacking, the enemy has an opportunity to strike. Normally, they will target one of your party members, and you have to block by holding the button they're mapped to if you want to reduce damage. You can even flawless block if you time it right, but from what I experienced, this mechanic can be a bit finicky. Some enemies have AoE attacks, and there's a button that allows you the entire party to block. The game also has something called an Iddhi Meter. This is filled up whenever you successfully attack or block, and drains when you hold block (which discourages simply holding block when you're on cooldown). If you have enough meter, you can choose to spend it by holding a shoulder button + a face button; doing so will execute that character's super move. The super move can even vary depending on how much meter you have. As much as I found amusement in the battle system, I don't think it's actually all that interesting now that I've played around 20 hours of this game. Sure, there's the joy I usually find when I lab out combos in actual fighting games, but that joy eventually dissipated when I found that the combo works on pretty much everything. Once I found a party setup that I was comfortable with, I had no incentive to change. I just went through the motions of encountering enemies, hitting my combo, blocking, and repeating the cycle. Of course, it doesn't help that everyone's movesets are dreadfully shallow, so there's much less room for variety. I realized this when I streamed a bit of my gameplay to some friends; one of them expressed that they found the combat "tedious" because I kept doing the same thing over and over. This realization on the game's combat also set in on three other occasions. One was when I was going over the Xbox Live achievements and found that the only one I was missing after finishing the game was the one for spending the Iddhi Meter 108 times. I had only used it only around 20 times in my entire playthrough, and most of those was for the full party revive (that I rarely ever needed). Doing one combo over and over was so effective that I didn't even bother to use meter. The second time I made the realization over the combat was after my friend told me about not being that enthused by the battles. I started switching up more shortly after, and while I found that same brief amusement that I did when I first started figuring out combos and learning character gimmicks, it fizzled out like before after a short while. I really like a lot of the characters in the roster, but the game makes the lot of them pointless once you've found the lineup that works for you. It also makes finding the game's optional characters a chore; what's the point of expanding your party if you only need four? Then again, I suppose this is par for the course with a lot of RPGs; most people don't really feel the need to switch out their party when they find what works for them, so perhaps this isn't that big of a bane. The only instance where the game encourages you to swap your party is during the personal side quests. Like I said, each character outside of Ajna has one, which you can trigger via dialogue after you get far enough along in the story. Though the story specifics are different, they're all exactly the same: go back to location A, activate dialogue, go to location B, fight one mini-boss, go back to location A. That's it. Combined with the cumbersome exploration issues I mentioned before, the lack of quest tracking (which meant I constantly forgot which of the side quests I'd activated), and the conspicuous lack of voice acting, the side quests feel much less exciting than they should, which is an absolute shame given how I like a lot of these characters. Lastly, I found myself actively avoiding fights when I got to the late game. I generally do that anyway in RPGs since I don't like grinding, but not when I find the battle system engaging. The fact that I even got to the point of avoiding encounters says enough, I think. And for the record, there is zero reason to grind out encounters; you do get XP, but from what I can tell, I genuinely think it doesn't mean anything. It would have been really cool if you unlocked new moves when you level up, but you don't. To add to the last point, the enemies, while diverse in design, don't have much to offer gameplay-wise. Sure, some of them have unique properties like armor (which can be broken by nearly every character anyway), absorbing magic damage, status effects, and AoE attacks, but it really doesn't mean anything. I just hit my one combo over and over and they die eventually. And sure, I can swap out characters to hard counter certain enemies, but I found that brute-forcing it works just as effectively. They also have a lot of health, which made things even more of a chore. The bosses aren't that more interesting, except for the final boss, which is interesting in a bad way because it pulls the rug from under you and forces you into a trial-and-error time loop that seems engineered to piss you off. There aren't really any other things I can add. The only thing that comes to mind is the Ringsel, the game's one optional collectible. They're hidden throughout the world Metroidvania-style, and you can cash them in for either attack upgrades (which increases the maximum number of actions your characters have in battle) or defense upgrades (which grants healing when you flawless block). I thought this was a cool idea, but there are literally a hundred of these goddamn things, and you can only upgrade both attack and defense a couple of times each. It's kind of overkill to have that many and only get five or so upgrades in total. Oh, this game also has a co-op mode and a New Game Plus. I don't know what either of those entail, but hey, there they are. VERDICT: I really wanted to love Indivisible, especially with how long I've waited to play this game, and how it combines a genre I love with an unorthodox action RPG battle system. But there are just too many elements that don't quite come together, like the combat that showed promise but eventually got stale, platforming that didn't feel smooth, exploration that felt tedious, and various other bugs and weird choices (like on-and-off voice acting and certain story/character elements). That said, I still found plenty to enjoy about this game, like its amazing art, inspired cast of characters, and the initial thrill of figuring out combat. I still think this game is decent for what it is, and I still like it, but it pains me to say that it's just not as amazing as I'd hoped, and that "I like the game" is as far as I can go. I don't know what to say in terms of recommendations. I think its gameplay is different enough from most other things to merit checking out, and its art is definitely beautiful, but as I said, a lot of those elements don't quite work as well as they should. You may find the platforming frustrating (especially if you've played more polished titles like Celeste), the exploration tedious, or the combat repetitive; hell, you might hate everything about this game. The story isn't exactly Oscar-level screenwriting, either, and as much as I like most of the characters, that's not necessarily an assessment that any other person would agree with me on. Thankfully, I don't need to trouble myself with settling on a final recommendation. This game has a free demo (the very same I played five years ago) you can check out for yourself. If you like what you played there, maybe you should get the game. All I'll say is that the platforming gets much tougher than what the demo puts you through (so if you already find it a pain to control, you might want to skip out), and whatever you figure out in terms of combat is as deep as it gets (and if you don't wanna do that shit over and over, you might get bored over time, but do note that you can switch characters in the main game). Also, consider the price before you buy; if you're dead set, it might behoove you to wait for a sale. Also, I ought to address the elephant in the room: Lab Zero doesn't exist anymore. That is because one of its executives was found to be a horrendous piece of shit who sexually harassed and bullied his employees (revealed through a string of damning allegations), and this caused the studio to dissolve (as everyone else chose to resign). This led to all planned post-launch updates, including a bunch of stretch goals promised during the crowdfunding phase, to be completely thrown out, so don't hold your breath on more DLC or bug fixes. If this is a deal-breaker for you, I get it, but it should be noted that the guilty party isn't single-handedly responsible for this game; there are a lot of well-meaning devs who put a lot of heart and soul into making Indivisible. Anyway, here's the Steam page. The demo is also accessible there if you wish to try it: Indivisible on Steam (steampowered.com) - end - More Game Pass games! Today, I explore a modern classic. BACKGROUND:
I've since played a lot of rogue-likes since I first got into the genre with Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, but one of the few titles I've yet to play is FTL. Since the game wasn't on console, I always put off checking it out, but I rectify that today. PLOT: You're in command of a spaceship capable of faster-than-light travel. Your mission: get to the Galactic Federation headquarters to deliver information that will ensure a victory against the Rebellion. It's basic sci-fi space opera stuff, but the story is mostly just there to contextualize what you're doing in-game. FTL does a bit of world-building with its scenarios, but it's not really enough to establish a proper narrative. Most of the time, you fill in the gaps with your imagination, which is fun in itself (for me, anyway). PRESENTATION: The game has a retro aesthetic to it, with sprite-based pixel art and chiptune-esque music. The visuals are significantly detailed, however, and the music both has more ambient tracks (that give me serious Metroid vibes) and more upbeat battle themes. Other than that, there's not much to say. GAMEPLAY: FTL's gameplay is equal parts spaceship management simulator and rogue-like. The objective is to jump from sector to sector (which all contain waypoints that are completely randomized each time) while making sure your ship has all the resources it needs to survive any encounter and get to the end. Your ship has several rooms pertaining to a specific system (shields, weapons, engines, etc.), as well as a reactor that supplies power to everything. You'll spend most of the game managing your reactor, rerouting power to different systems depending on the situation. You can also have your crew move to each of the various rooms, which either give buffs to the given system or activate certain functions (e.g. having a pilot on navigation allows you to jump to the next waypoint). Every time you jump to a new waypoint, there's a chance of an event occurring. These can range from benign (nothing happens), good (you find resources or a shop), or bad (you get attacked by enemy ships). Some events present you with a choice (e.g. ignore or help a ship in distress), and those choices can either be beneficial or absolutely terrible for you. Others present you with a completely separate variable on top of an event (for example, being near a star means you get bombarded by solar flares every few seconds). There's no way to really predict what you get in these events, so you're pretty much at the mercy of random chance throughout most of the game. In terms of resources, you have fuel (which allows you to keep traveling through space), scrap (the currency used for both store transactions and ship upgrades), missiles (ammo for certain weapon types), and drone parts. Depending on your luck, you'll periodically get a bunch of these through events, or have the misfortune of having to spend a lot of these just to survive. Though it is possible to explore as many waypoints as you can in a given sector, it's not recommended. You're constantly being pursued by rebel fighters as you travel through space, and if you hang around long enough, you'll be dragged to a fight you probably can't win. Plus, every jump to a waypoint costs one fuel, and if you run out, it's game over. It's usually best to just plan out a critical path. Once you encounter a fight, the game turns into this real-time battle simulator where actions occur automatically based on a timer. Both you and the enemy will use your respective weapons to target one another, and if one of you loses all hull integrity, your ship explodes. There's a fair amount of strategy to combat, as you can target an enemy ship's specific system in an effort to disable it and gain an advantage (for instance, targeting enemy shields makes them more vulnerable). If you take some hits, you can send your crew to rooms in order to repair damaged systems (which won't be able to perform their designated function if left unattended), put out fires, and even fight intruders who attempt to board the ship. There are a myriad of ways you can die in a battle, and since this is a rogue-like, death means you have to start a completely new run. But if you get lucky and build yourself up enough, you can deal a similar manner of death to all who oppose you. The key word there, of course, is "lucky"; though you can do a lot of planning and survive most things with a good strategy, but RNG is a fickle thing, and your fortune (or misfortune) can easily change with a flick of a switch. Unlike more recent rogue-likes, skill or tactics isn't usually enough to see you through, and I see that being incredibly frustrating for some players. But if you excel in strategizing on the fly, you may find enjoyment in the game's random nature. You start out with only one ship unlocked, but as you play, you'll be able to unlock ships with different layouts, systems, and even crew members (all of which favor certain strategies or play styles). You can actually recruit crew members of various alien races, and each race has specific strengths and weaknesses (the Engi are particularly good at repairing, for example). There's also a sort of growth mechanic to your crew depending on what kinds of tasks you assign them to during the course of a run. In addition to selecting your ship, you can set your difficulty at the start of every run. Each setting influences enemy difficulty, the amount of currency you earn in events, and the score you earn (which doesn't really mean anything). This is a minor thing, but you can also rename your ship and crew members if you want. It doesn't do anything, but it's a neat little customization option that lets you have some fun with your runs. VERDICT: FTL is an engaging strategy rogue-like, mixing in real-time resource management with all the randomness that comes with the rogue-like genre. Though it can be rather unforgiving most of the time, I am glad to have finally played this game, and I enjoyed it enough to actually consider purchasing it for myself. If you're a fan of strategy and/or are a fan of rogue-likes, this game is definitely worth checking out. On the flip side, if you're not used to the merciless permadeath rules that apply to most rogue-likes, you may not enjoy this game as much. Here's FTL on Steam: FTL: Faster Than Light on Steam (steampowered.com) It's also on iOS, but only for iPad: FTL: Faster Than Light on the App Store (apple.com) - end - During this Game Pass PC journey, I want to make sure that I play a good variety of genres. With that in mind, the latest game I finished is a beat-'em-up. BACKGROUND:
Streets of Rage is one of the most popular games in the beat-'em-up genre, so I've heard about it a lot. Despite this, I've never played a single Streets of Rage game before. Time to change that. This was another game I streamed on Discord. People hopped in when I was already more than halfway through, so I didn't really get a sense of what the others felt about it. PLOT: This game is apparently set ten years after Streets of Rage 3. A new crime syndicate has taken over Wood Oak City, and it's up to heroes both new and old to take them down. The returning protagonists Axel and Blaze are back, and joining them are Cherry and Floyd. Much like other titles in the genre, the plot is straightforward: shit is bad, let's punch our way to a solution. You don't really spend a lot of time getting to know the characters, either (the game relies a bit on prerequisite knowledge of the previous games). That said, I found it a serviceable story, which got delightfully over-the-top at times. PRESENTATION: Streets of Rage 4 has this striking comic book-esque visual style that I absolutely adore. The sprites are wonderfully drawn and animated, the backgrounds are incredibly detailed, and the cutscenes, despite not having full animations, have a cinematic flair to them. The music strikes a balance between retro and modern, with tracks that encompass different genres of sound (including, but not limited to: rock, hip hop, and techno) and at the same time have a hint of the chiptune sounds of old. The sound design in general also does something similar, as some sound effects sound super retro, but others sound incredibly polished. There's unfortunately only limited voice acting, but the few voice lines there are sound good. Some of the game's unlockables and alternate options are a true homage to the previous Streets of Rage titles, with options to switch to the classic soundtrack, as well as the ability to play as the classic pixel art sprite versions of the returning characters. I love shit like that. GAMEPLAY: As mentioned before, Streets of Rage 4 is a side-scrolling beat-'em-up. Beat the absolute piss out of numerous waves of enemies, proceed to the next screen, rinse and repeat. It's a formula that's been around since the arcade era, and it's still fun. You can choose between one of the four characters I named above (plus you can unlock others eventually). Though they all have different movesets, they have access to pretty much the same things: a basic attack that leads into an auto combo on hit, a charge attack, a Blitz Move, and a bunch of throws (which can be performed by going up to an opponent and grabbing them). In addition, you have a number of Special moves, which cost a bit of health to perform. You can restore that lost health by kicking enemy ass. Plus, each character has what's called a Star Move, which is essentially a super move that wrecks the shit out of enemies. You only get a finite number of uses, however; the number of stars next to your health bar indicates how many uses you have at your disposal. Throughout the levels, you'll occasionally encounter shit on the ground you can pick up. You'll spot money, which adds score (getting enough score gives you 1-Ups), food that restores your health, stars that give you extra Star Move uses, and various weapons you can use to lay the smackdown on the jabronis coming your way. Most of the weapons are pretty straightforward; pressing attack with a bat equipped swings it, and you have the option to throw it as a projectile. There are a good variety of enemies, and like the games of old, they have palette swap versions that have different attacks. These enemies are not tough to deal with on their own, but when there are a million of them on you at once, it becomes important to figure out which ones to take out first. Some of them have tricky moves, like armor moves, nasty wakeup attacks, and even command grabs of their own. It's usually easy to see their patterns coming, but that's a tall order when you're fighting a whole crowd in one go. The bosses are plenty tough, as they move around a ton and have attacks that either hurt or are hard to deal with for one reason or another. Patience is the key in winning this fights; taking the time to learn the attack patterns really helps, and doing what I did (jumping willy-nilly into armor moves or AoE attacks) is a surefire way to get a game over. Speaking of game overs, this game is as old school as it gets. You start out each stage with two lives, and one is used up when your HP reaches zero. As long as you have lives, you'll be dropped back in where you just were, arcade-style. If you run out, it's game over, which means you have to play the entire level from the beginning. If you're not used to arcade-style games or didn't grow up playing quarter-munching arcade games, you may end up finding this frustrating. As someone who tortures themselves constantly with hard games, I only found this mildly annoying. You can offset the difficulty with assists, which you can toggle on and off during retries. These give you extra lives and stars, though the tradeoff is a score penalty (which will affect your ability to acquire additional 1-Ups). Also, there are multiple difficulty options for playing through the story; if you just want to play through the game and see everything, don't pick anything above Hard. Trust me on that one. Once you beat the campaign, you unlock a Stage Select (self-explanatory), Arcade Mode (play through the entire game, but if you run out of lives, you have to start over from Chapter 1), and Boss Rush (again, self-explanatory). If, unlike me, you have friends, you can opt to play the game's various modes in two player co-op (which is, in my opinion, the definitive way to play any beat-'em-up) or check out the Battle Mode, which is just the game's PvP mode. The game also has some online functionality, and I assume it's for online co-op and online PvP. VERDICT: Streets of Rage 4 takes the essence of the arcade-style classic and breathes new life into it; the core gameplay is still reminiscent of the beat-'em-ups of old, but the amazing art style and great music give it a modern feel. Though a short game (titles in this genre usually are), I enjoyed beating the shit out of people (in the game, to be clear), and I highly recommend it to people looking for a good, ol'-fashioned beat-'em-up (especially if you have a second player to pass a controller to). However, this game does take "old school" a little too far with its less forgiving lives/continues system, and I see this being a bit of a barrier for more casual players (though, as I said before, there are ways to offset this). And again, it's a short game, so take that into consideration when looking at the asking price. Streets of Rage 4 is on Steam, right here: Streets of Rage 4 on Steam (steampowered.com) - end - More Devolver-published games? You bet. BACKGROUND:
I watched a bit of this game on a stream and thought it looked cool. That's it. No other reason. I tend to be easily impressed, it seems. I also streamed most of my playthrough of this game on Discord. The consensus seemed to be that this game was cool as shit. PLOT: You're known only as Subject Zero, and you're a contract killer carrying out assassinations. What makes you effective at your job is that you have the remarkable ability to slow down time and pretty much predict the future. Off the bat, the game starts out intriguing; your missions are being given to you by your psychiatrist, who doses you with a mysterious drug at the end of every session, and you see truly bizarre nightmares every night. As you play, more of the story is revealed, and it goes in a direction I truly didn't expect. You learn more about the origin of your time-bending abilities, the truth behind who you really are, and the actual reasons behind the targets being assigned to you. In addition, the game gets even more trippy as the story progresses, as Zero's mind unravels and the hallucinations get even more intense. I thought the story was cool, though I could see this being too much for other people to follow. My only real issue with the story is that it feels like it doesn't end on a definitive note. They're clearly setting up for a sequel or post-launch story content at the end, but there isn't really any resolution for what actually happens during the course of the game. PRESENTATION: The game's visuals have that retro feel, taking on a somewhat 16-bit pixel art style (albeit more polished than games from that era). Everything is decently detailed and boasts a diverse color palette, but the sprites still have the simplistic charm of old pixel art style games. The gore is also surprisingly graphic despite the visual style being relatively more limited. The music falls mostly into the techno/synth genre, and all the tracks complement the game's stylish action. Despite the lack of any proper voice acting, the game conveys the text-based dialogue in the visuals quite well, with well-animated speech bubbles (which incorporate everything from color to convey tone and moving letters to provide emphasis) and dynamic animation for the sprites. GAMEPLAY: Katana Zero is an action platformer where combat is the main focus. The objective is clear every room of enemies to proceed to the next. As Zero, you're able to run, jump, wall jump, dodge roll, and (in certain levels) sneak to position yourself next to enemies in order to slash the shit out of them with your sword. The sword doesn't really have any special abilities, but in midair, you can perform a sort of dash-slash in pretty much any direction, and you can also deflect bullets back at gun-wielding enemies with good timing. These don't seem like a lot, but they're more than enough to deliver a thrilling and stylish action experience. You don't get any additional abilities, either; what you have in the beginning is what you'll have at the end, so it's all about getting better at managing with what you have at your disposal. Zero's most valuable skill is the ability to slow down time for a limited time. This comes in handy in many situations, allowing you to react to otherwise quick attacks or to plan things out on the fly. It also makes the action look extra cool. If you get hit once by an enemy or a hazard, you die immediately and reset from the beginning of the level. This makes the game rather tough since you have to get a clean run in every time, but the reset only applies to one room; once you get past that room, your next reset will be at the beginning of the next room. Once you succeed, the game plays out a replay of your successful run, which adds to the satisfaction of a job well done. Many levels have hazards, like laser traps (which you can roll through) or crushers, as well as more benign mechanics like conveyor belts. Some of these things can be manipulated with switches, and you can even use the traps to kill enemies if you time things right. In addition, many levels have items in the environment that you can throw at enemies to kill them. Some of those items have special properties, like a Molotov cocktail that sets off explosive barrels nearby, a smokescreen that makes you invisible to enemies briefly, and even a sticky bomb that you can detonate remotely. Using these things to your advantage often leads to super flashy and sometimes hilarious kills, so I always went out of my way to incorporate them in my strategies. There also appears to be a timer at the top of the screen indicating that you must clear a level within the given time. However, I never really ran into a situation when I was low on time. I imagine this timer being a source of stress for other players. Outside of combat, the cutscenes have you participate in the dialogue by having you select something to say from a handful of options. Dialogue selection runs on a timer, and if you select quick enough, you can interrupt people, leading to fun interactions. Some of the dialogue options have a significant impact, with a few in particular influencing things like a specific NPC interaction in the endgame, and one that decides one of the game's two endings. Though the game's level structure is mostly linear, there are a few secrets you can find that unlock alternate weapons for Zero. Other than that, there's little incentive to replay and explore levels (apart from selecting different dialogue options). Beating the game once unlocks Hard Mode (which does what you expect) and a Speedrun Mode, which has toggles for certain game elements that allow speedrunners to focus purely on getting the fastest time. VERDICT: Katana Zero blew me away with its exciting combat that balances quick reflexes, good planning, and the ability to adapt on the fly, but it also impressed me with an unexpectedly complex and bizarre story. The game is rather short, clocking in at only around 4 hours, but I enjoyed that brief time nonetheless. I recommend this for people who want to sink their teeth into a stylish, fast-paced, and fairly challenging action platformer. Here's the game on Steam: Katana ZERO on Steam (steampowered.com) Listen to the soundtrack on Spotify: Katana Zero (Original Soundtrack) - Compilation by Various Artists | Spotify - end - It's not just new games that I'm checking out on Game Pass PC; I'm making sure to cross off older games, too. BACKGROUND:
As I discussed in my blog entry on Grim Fandango Remastered, I missed the boat on PC point-and-click adventure games. I'm playing this game specifically to play catch-up. PLOT: Purple Tentacle, one of Dr. Fred Edison's creations, is exposed to polluted sludge water, and becomes vastly more intelligent as a result. Unfortunately, one of the other side effects is that he develops a thirst for world domination. Green Tentacle, his brother, contacts Bernard Bernoulli to help with the situation. Bernard obliges, and is joined by his friends Hoagie and Laverne. They arrive at Dr. Fred's lab, and Dr. Fred proposes that the trio travel back in time to yesterday in order to prevent Purple Tentacle from ever becoming evil. Of course, it all goes horribly wrong, and each of the three end up stranded at a different point in time. Now, they must figure out a way to get back on top of stopping Purple Tentacle's conquest. I loved how absolutely ridiculous the story is. It's pretty much something out of a cartoon. The humor is excellent throughout the game (though there are definitely a few jokes that are a touch too dark), all the characters have over-the-top personalities, and the use of time travel leads to some hilarious hijinks. As it turns out, this game is actually a sequel to a much older game called Maniac Mansion. More on that later. PRESENTATION: Speaking of cartoons, Day of the Tentacle also looks and sounds the part. The animation and art style both look great, the music is cheery and upbeat, there are a ton of wacky sound effects, and the voice acting is topnotch. You can skip cutscenes in this game, but I found myself playing all of them out because they were a delight to watch. From what I've read, the devs took a lot of inspiration from classic Looney Tunes in terms of both the humor and the art style, and it was pretty evident when I played. The over-the-top expressions and absurd slapstick of the game are certainly reminiscent of cartoons of that era, and even some of the humor reminds me of classic Looney Tunes shit. There's even a direct reference to the Pepe Le Pew cartoon in one of the puzzles. GAMEPLAY: Day of the Tentacle is a point-and-click adventure. The idea is to move from room to room, collecting items, and interacting with objects using said items, and performing a combination of these tasks in order to solve puzzles and progress the game. All of this is done with a simple click of the mouse; no fancy keyboard inputs, no need for a controller. Yep, this is how games used to be at one point. This game controls like most other games in the genre; you have a set number of actions for each object (ranging from "pick up" to "use" to "inspect" or even "push"), you manage an inventory of items that you can use on other objects, talk to NPCs in order to figure out vital information, and attempt to solve the game's many puzzles by doing all of these. The UI for all this is thankfully simple and easy to understand. And just like any point-and-click adventure, the puzzles range from "wow, that's neat and clever" to "how in the goddamn fuck was I supposed to know that?" Some puzzles can really throw you for a loop, so if you don't have the patience for dawdling everywhere trying literally every option you can, or have a particular distaste for trial and error in general, you'll find this game (and this genre in general) rather frustrating. This game doesn't appear to have any scenarios where you're unable to progress, or instances where you can die and lose progress, so that at least mitigates the sometimes obtuse nature of the puzzles. What's unique about Day of the Tentacle is how it employs time travel into its core gameplay. Since the three main characters are all stuck in different time periods, they all have their own shit to figure out, and you can switch between them freely. It gets even more fun after a certain point, because actions one character does in the past affects the future, and you can pass around items you acquired from one time period to another to solve puzzles. I really liked this concept; the time travel shit led to some really fun puzzles, and the idea of passing items around to be used in different ways was really neat. I mentioned Maniac Mansion before, and that's because it's playable in this game in its entirety. Since it's technically a full game, I will dedicate a game session entirely for it, and will write a separate blog entry on it. VERDICT: Day of the Tentacle was a blast to play through, thanks largely to its whack-ass story, weird characters, and gameplay that, while still obtuse, is a little less harsh to less experienced players. I enjoyed the time travel aspect of the game, laughed at a lot of the jokes, and was impressed by some of the creative solutions to puzzles. Not only do I argue that this is one of those "essential" must-play games that I always yammer on about, but it's also a solid entry point for people who are new to or haven't played a point-and-click adventure game. Go check this out on Steam: Day of the Tentacle Remastered on Steam (steampowered.com) - end - I may seem well-versed in games, but truthfully, I have barely scratched the surface of everything there is to play. Take the following game for example: it's a beloved franchise that's been around for nearly 15 years, but I've only gotten a chance to play it today. BACKGROUND:
As I established in the intro, Gears of War is a franchise that's been around for quite a while. If I remember right, it's five games deep, with Gears 5 having released only a couple of years back. But despite this, I have never played it. That's because it's an Xbox exclusive, and I've never owned an Xbox console in my life. However, with Game Pass PC, I can play Gears of War. The version I'm playing is the Ultimate Edition, which means it's a remaster of the original Gears of War for the Xbox 360. I thought that this would be the most appropriate starting point for myself considering I don't know shit about the franchise. PLOT: Gears of War is set on a planet called Sera. During a day known as Emergence Day, a bunch of subterranean aliens called the Locust invaded the surface, causing mass destruction and killing a lot of people. The COG (which is a sort of military power) has taken over the war effort, and one of their most pivotal actions saw them bombard the human cities in an attempt to quell the Locust offense (they did this after they evacuated everybody, so don't be alarmed). The game's events take place 14 years after Emergence Day. Our protagonist Marcus Fenix has been reinstated into the military after spending time in prison (for deserting, or something to that effect), and joins Delta Squad. Their mission is to map out the Hollow, the subterranean network where the Locust live, and deploy what's called the Lightmass Bomb to blow them the fuck up. Of course, the mission is far from a breeze, as they encounter all manner of resistance, including one General RAAM, one of the Locust head honchos. The main plot itself is pretty standard stuff; "ragtag team is humanity's last hope against alien invasion" isn't exactly groundbreaking these days. There are plenty of story elements that I was interested to learn about (like the circumstances behind Fenix's imprisonment, the "Pendulum Wars" they kept mentioning, the seeming disdain people have for COG), but the game doesn't take any time to build the world and flesh any of these things out. Seems like I'd have to play the sequels or explore other media to learn about all that, which is a bit of a shame. The characters don't get to be much of characters, either; you get tidbits of backstory, but you don't really see any of those come into play, nor do they go through any serious character growth. While I was amused by their personalities, I unfortunately didn't feel too invested in any of them. Perhaps that will change if I explore the sequels. The villains aren't that much better; you spend most of the game fighting nameless fodder, and the one dude with a name (General RAAM) gets zero character other than "oh shit, this bitch is big, mean, and ugly." Doesn't help that at the end, they clearly appear to be setting up a sequel by throwing in the classic "here's the actual person pulling the strings" shit. PRESENTATION: From what I've read, the original Gears of War was a graphical triumph during the Xbox 360/PS3/Wii era of consoles. The remaster certainly captures the impressive visual fidelity and realistic feel, but the overall style and the locations you explore didn't really do anything for me. In terms of character designs, the Locust look pretty freaky, though I can't really say that I find their designs particularly iconic. On the other hand, the COG soldiers (called Gears, because of course) sport armor that have since become quite recognizable; even I recognized the armor despite not being familiar at all with the series. The sound design is just as polished as the visuals, and the music sounds like something out of an action movie. Voice acting is solid as well; Marcus Fenix himself is voiced by the one and only John DiMaggio, one of the most prolific voice actors out there. GAMEPLAY: Gears of War is a cover-based third person shooter. What that means is that there's a heavy emphasis on using your environment as cover from enemy fire. Taking cover is just as essential in this game as running or aiming; pressing the button for it near walls or barriers causes Fenix to hide behind them, and you can peek out of cover to fire, or remain in cover to regenerate health. The cover button also has additional context-sensitive actions, like a dodge roll, vaulting over low obstacles, and shifting across walls. I enjoyed fighting my way across an area while maintaining cover, but this many actions being tied to a single button caused a fair share of awkward accidents. Positioning yourself so you can aim while in cover is also a bit cumbersome. You have a small assortment of weapons at your disposal, most of which are acquired from the corpses of your enemies. A lot of them are pretty straightforward, but a few others are more interesting, like the Lancer Assault Rifle (which has a chainsaw at the end, giving you a unique melee attack when you have it equipped), the Torque Bow (a fun charge weapon that shoots out an explosive arrow), and the Hammer of Dawn (which is a targeting gun that causes a beam from the sky to bombard the target). You also have frag grenades, which is self-explanatory. The game has a mechanic known as Active Reload. When you reload, you can press the reload button again, and if you time it right, you get an Active Reload, which makes your reload faster. Get the timing perfect, and you get a brief damage boost for your weapon. I liked this mechanic a lot; reloading is usually when you're most vulnerable, and having a way to mitigate that is neat. Plus, I like that there's an incentive to get really good at it, because the damage boost from a Perfect Active Reload does make a difference. In terms of enemies, most of them are typical soldier-types, and you only really have to pay attention to the weapons they have on them. There are only a few enemy types that have unique behaviors or require a specific strategy to beat; most of the time, the challenge is managing the number of enemies so you don't get overwhelmed. There are a few sections that require a bit of puzzle-solving to get through, like a level where you have to kite a lumbering Berserker to bash through doors, or lighting a path so you don't get devoured by the Kryll (which kill anything that steps into darkness). None of these are particularly hard (though a few do take a few tries to figure out), but I thought they were fun. The campaign is linear for the most part, with very little room for exploration and barely any backtracking. On occasion, you get to choose between one of two paths, which leads to slightly different interactions or fights. For the most part, however, you're just moving forward. If you look around, you can find COG tags (the game's only collectible), which unlock comics you can read in-game. If you're interested in the story, these are worth finding, though I wish the stories those comics told were actually part of the game as well. You can also choose to play the campaign in two-player co-op mode, and from what I can tell playing alone, some sections work really well with a second player. If you prefer to fly solo, the AI will control your partner, but in my experience, their presence doesn't make much of a difference outside of the specified co-op segments of the game. Strangely enough, the game has this sort of tactics menu where you can give your squad orders, but again, it doesn't make a difference if they shoot the enemies or not. There are also a bunch of multiplayer modes (all of which seem to be your typical multiplayer shooter modes, plus some unique modes), but I didn't check if people were still playing them. I wasn't really interested in playing this game's online, but if I had to guess, Gears fans are probably too busy playing on Gears 5 right now. I would also assume that trying to get the online-based achievements for this game is probably a pain in the ass. VERDICT: Gears of War is a mighty fine game in its own right; it's got impressive visuals and solid cover-based shooter gameplay. However, I wasn't that invested in the story and the characters, and I encountered some minor issues with the controls that made its otherwise decent gunplay a little annoying to deal with. Overall, I found it to be an OK experience: pretty fun, but not spectacular in any way (at least not in my view). Despite my lukewarm feelings towards this first game, I do intend to explore the rest of the franchise down the line; it's my hope that the sequels have more of what I'm looking for in terms of story, and perhaps improved gameplay. At this point, I would consider this game what I call an "essential"; it's one of the defining titles of the 360 era, was a big step in terms of excellent graphics, and spawned a successful franchise that's still popular today. It should be played at least once, if only to appreciate that it's become a remarkable point in the history of games. Outside of that, my standard recommendation is that people who like sci-fi shooters may get a kick out of this, and people who don't like gore and prefer more story might not enjoy this as much. - end - I just noticed that a lot of the games I've played so far on Game Pass PC are published by Devolver Digital. Well, time to keep the trend going. BACKGROUND:
This is another one of those games I saw a lot of trailers for. I really liked the concept, and wanted to get it for Switch, but since it's on Game Pass, I decided to play it then and there. I streamed my full playthrough of this game to some friends on Discord. They seemed into it, or at least intrigued by the gameplay. PLOT: You play as this grotesque-looking red blob of tentacles, eyes, and teeth, which breaks out of a research facility. This ugly motherfucker fights its way through the facility, killing everyone in its path. As you go along, you discover the backstory of this creature, as well as the circumstances behind its awakening. It's pretty standard sci-fi stuff: humans find weird thing and take it with them, weird thing is actually bad, humans die horribly. Carrion sold itself as a "reverse horror" game where you, the player, are the monster, and they execute the idea really well. People run and scream at the sight of you, and there are plenty of instances where you bust through doors Kool-Aid Man-style and make everyone in the room shit their pants. Having just played a few survival horror games where I had to run away from monsters to progress, it certainly feels cathartic to be the one wrecking shit and causing fear. PRESENTATION: Carrion goes for the sprite-based pixel art style of old, but it is significantly more polished than any 8-bit or 16-bit games. The animations are incredibly fluid and there's an impressive amount of detail. The former point is quite evident in the monster itself; that freak has a lot of moving parts and seeing it animate so fluidly adds to its terrifying presence. The facility itself doesn't have a ton of variety in terms of locations, and more than a few areas bleed together in terms of aesthetic, but there are some interesting places to explore. It would have been cool to explore a more diverse environment, but that's more a personal want than a straight criticism. In terms of eerie atmosphere, however, the aesthetic of the facility succeeds. The music leans into the horror aspect of the game and takes on a more ambient, haunting tone. There are a few more intense tracks that play during fight sequences. Oh, and it should probably go without saying, but this game gets pretty bloody. If the monster's freakish design didn't already tip you off, this might not be a fun time for the squeamish. GAMEPLAY: Carrion is structured like a Metroidvania. As the disgusting blob thing, you will explore the interconnected research facility in order to find a way out, murdering anyone in your path along the way. There will be a bunch of backtracking, acquiring upgrades to unlock new areas, and even some secrets to find. The map itself isn't that large compared to other Metroidvanias, however. Movement is simultaneously easy and awkward as the creature. You pretty much have full range of motion (meaning you can scale walls and ceilings with ease) and can squeeze through almost every gap, but there are some instances where you don't exactly go in the direction you want. Other than that, it's pretty satisfying to be able to move around freely while all the stupid humans have little room to run. At the start, your only ability is to grab things and move them around. You're able to aim your grabbing tentacle 360 degrees, allowing you to yank things from any angle at a reasonable range. It's a bit awkward to control (at least on a controller), but it's fun (especially since you can flail the tentacle about like a maniac while holding something). Its primary use is to grab unsuspecting humans to eat them (which restores health if you do so), rip open certain barriers, and interact with switches. Yes, this monster somehow has the capability to solve basic puzzles. Though the map is structured like a Metroidvania, and is fully connected with a number of branching paths, the game takes you through the areas in a mostly linear fashion. For every area, the objective is the same: find all the save areas of a given section; doing so will unlock the door to leave that section and allow you to move on. My only real gripe with how level design is handled is the noticeable lack of a map; I only really got lost once, but being unable to figure out where you are in relation to everything else was a bit frustrating. I suppose you can rationalize it by saying "how would this abomination even hold a map," but come on, this is a video game. Lack of map aside, exploration feels nice, especially when you start finding jars of biomass. These jars give the creature a brand new ability which can be used to open up obstacles. These range from a web shot (which can pull faraway switches), invisibility (which allows the creature to bypass motion sensors), a rushing tackle (which breaks apart certain barriers), the ability to become worms underwater (which allows you to go through tiny gaps underwater), and even the ability to possess a human (allowing you to interact with switches from a distance). All these abilities are pretty fun, and the best part is most of them have applications in combat. The way they handle abilities in this game is super interesting, as the abilities you have access to at a given time depends on the current size of the monster. For example, only the smallest size monster has access to invisibility, while the biggest size has access to damage resistance. There are numerous ways to manipulate the monster's size, and many of the puzzles involve doing exactly that to get through specific obstacles. I found this to be a really novel approach. On the subject of combat, you'll encounter all manner of security personnel in the facility, from dudes with pistols, armed soldiers with shields and flamethrowers, attack drones, and even mechs. Although you're a menacing presence amongst the humans, you are not invincible, and if you aren't careful, a group of armed humans will put you down easily. As such, going in guns blazing doesn't work out often, and instead, being methodical in your murders will be more beneficial. Plus, taking a certain amount of damage reduces your size, which may be terrible if you need certain abilities to progress (though this can be remedied by snacking on people to regain health or by restoring oneself on save points). The only optional collectibles in the game are the nine special containment units located in hidden spots throughout the facility. When collected, they give you special buffs, like fire resistance or increased max energy for certain abilities. Every entrance to a section of the facility also tracks what percentage of things you've completed, so it's easy to figure out which areas still have collectibles to get. You can also encounter playable flashback sequences where you control a human and explore the areas before the events of the game. There's nothing really special about these sections gameplay-wise, but it's cool that you get to play out the backstory of the monster. VERDICT: Carrion executes its reverse horror gimmick quite well by allowing you to let loose as a terrifying blob monster and giving you all sorts of abilities to murder people with. Along with that, it delivers a solid Metroidvania experience, with a good amount to explore, a few secrets to find, and some neat puzzles to solve in order to progress. I'd say that the only things that really go against it are the conspicuous lack of a map and the dreadfully short campaign. Other than that, I enjoyed this game, and I recommend it to anybody who wants a quick Metroidvania experience, or is curious about the novelty of being the monster. Check out the game on Steam: CARRION on Steam (steampowered.com) - end - Once again, Game Pass PC has allowed me to play one of my most anticipated games of 2020. I'm quite excited to talk about this one. BACKGROUND:
I played the Switch version of Ori and the Blind Forest last year (more on that here) and absolutely loved it. It's probably no surprise that I was fucking hyped for the sequel. My plan was to get it on the Switch, but since I can play it for free right now, I might as well take advantage. PLOT: The game is set well after the events of the first game, and sees Ori, Naru, Gumo, and Ku be a happy family together. Most of the early cutscenes focus on Ku growing up and her journey to learn to fly (which she can't quite do due to a damaged wing). Through the help of her family, Ku eventually does achieve flight, and she and Ori fly out of Nibel and into another forest called Niwen. Disaster strikes, however, as a storm hits and separares the two, and the game begins in earnest as Ori journeys to reunite with Ku. Along the way, Ori discovers that Niwen is being overrun by Decay, and is under threat of being destroyed (much like Nibel was in the previous game). Much like the first game, Will of the Wisps starts out with a happy, wholesome vibe and then does the emotional equivalent of kicking you in the dick by having something incredibly sad happen. There's also an antagonist with a tragic backstory (incredibly similar to how Kuro was in Blind Forest). Despite some clear similarities, this game does enough to stand out on its own: for one, the "collect the magic shit to save the forest" mission is actually in line with Ori's personal goals (in the first game, that responsibility was more or less just thrust upon Ori), and for another, the ending is incredibly bittersweet (a contrast to the first game's straightforward happy ending). And despite the similarities on how both games present their antagonists, the way the antagonist of Will of the Wisps handles the endgame events is pretty much opposite to how Kuro responded to the events at the end of Blind Forest. Naturally, I can't go into too much detail, as a lot of things are spoiler-heavy, but I can say that this game has significantly more NPCs to talk to who all have brief backstories. It's another big difference from the first game, which didn't have too many other folks to interact with. PRESENTATION: I don't know how they were able to surpass Blind Forest visually, but they did. This game somehow looks more beautiful and breathtaking than the previous, with the environments taking on a whole new dimension (literally). From what I've read, they went from 2D art to full 3D models for this game, and goddamn does everything look amazing. Big moments in the story get extra love, with all sorts of impressive set pieces throughout the game. Though Niwen is a forest like Nibel from the last game, its world still features wildly unique locations, like a bug-infested cavern, windswept deserts, and what I can only describe as a coral reef, but on land. Niwen isn't as desolate as Nibel was, so you do get to enjoy some gorgeous scenery, but there are still ugly-ass monsters roaming about that you have to watch out for. And just like before, the fully orchestrated soundtrack is fucking incredible. You have music for those big emotional moments, thrilling tracks for gameplay sequences, and serene ambient sounds for when you're just traversing through the levels. The soundtrack definitely goes hand in hand with the graphics to deliver a feast for the senses. GAMEPLAY: Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a Metroidvania like its predecessor, so you'll be doing plenty of exploring, backtracking, and finding collectibles. The map feels larger than the last game, and there's a bit more freedom in terms of tackling quests (though most of that freedom only comes at the latter portion of the game). Though the core gameplay is largely the same as before, there are some notable changes. The most significant change is in the combat. Unlike the first game, where combat wasn't really the main hook, you do a lot more fighting in this game. Enemies are now put in places where you pretty much have no choice but to fight them, there are rooms where you can't progress until you've killed everything, and there are straight up boss fights now (and they're no pushover either). Along with that, Ori's offensive capabilities have been changed completely; they now have access to a quick melee strike (which is much easier to use than the projectile thing from Blind Forest). The way abilities work has been changed as well. You can now map abilities to three buttons, allowing you to mix and match loadouts depending on the situation. For example, you can equip a projectile move and a heavy melee strike along with the basic attack. In short, there's a bit more depth and player choice to how you want to approach combat. Abilities themselves come in an assortment of varieties; some of them expend Energy, which can be replenished and upgraded like your health. You still have your platforming-based abilities; some of them are back from the first game (double jump, dash, the Bash that lets you bounce off of projectiles), while others are brand new (like the swim dash and burrow). You get to use these skills in plenty of technically demanding sections, and like before, a few of them have applications in combat, too. Speaking of platforming, I feel like it's a bit tougher than the last game. There are noticeably more sections that demanded some precision, and there were areas that had you solve a puzzle while dealing with a tricky platforming section. Plus, the epic chase sequences are back, and they're tougher than ever (especially since they happen around the time of a boss fight). Notably missing from your arsenal of abilities is the Soul Link mechanic, which allowed you to save pretty much anywhere in Blind Forest. It's now been replaced with a somewhat lenient autosave. There are still save points throughout the map in case that's a concern. I found this omission odd (given it was one of the defining mechanics of the first game), but it being missing here doesn't really take away from the game. The skill tree from before has been replaced with Spirit Shards, which works a lot like Hollow Knight's Charm system. You can equip a minimum of three shards at a time, and these shards grant all sorts of helpful buffs (or not-so-helpful debuffs that make things more challenging). The only caveat is that you have to find most of these yourself, but many of them are worth the trouble. You can also find additional Spirit Shard slots elsewhere, and that will allow you to equip more buffs. Since the skill tree is gone, the main use of the Spirit Points now is as money in transactions with NPCs. You can buy stuff like maps, Spirit Shards, new abilities, as well as upgrades for certain items. There isn't really a whole lot to buy, but many of the items do cost a good amount of money. Thankfully, there are more reliable ways to earn points other than just killing enemies. Of course, no Metroidvania is complete without a fuckton of collectibles. Most of these are useful, like new abilities, health and energy upgrades, and Spirit Shards, so they're generally worth going out of the way for. You can also find challenge rooms that either test your combat or your platforming skill, and those give out Spirit Points if you complete them. Also new to this game are sidequests. Since there are plenty of NPCs to talk to here, it makes sense that some of them need help with things. The game keeps track of all of these quests on your map, so don't worry about losing track of anything. Though most of these sidequests are purely just for story, some of them do have useful rewards (mostly in the form of Spirit Points). There's also a town-building aspect to the game where you can spend Gorlek Ores and mysterious seeds (both of which are collectibles strewn about the world) to beautify a certain area. Doing so gives you some neat rewards, but it's mostly for the good feeling of making the place look nice. VERDICT: Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a good example of a sequel: it takes everything that made the first game special and introduces new elements and changes to deliver an improved experience. The platforming is as smooth as ever, the combat is leagues better than before, the sights and sounds are still phenomenal, and the story tugs at the heartstrings like nobody's business. I had an amazing time playing through this game, and if you loved the first one like I did, you're bound to enjoy this one as well. Here's the game on Steam: Ori and the Will of the Wisps on Steam (steampowered.com) Listen to the OST on Spotify: Ori and the Will of the Wisps (Original Soundtrack Recording) - Album by Gareth Coker | Spotify - end - |
Categories
All
Archives
June 2024
Derryck
|