So, in my previous entry with the list of "coolest" ways to do a New Game+ mode, top honors went to games where there's potentially major changes in the way the game goes down. The weaker versions of this are when you play the same game (usually with a few bonuses), but experience the next playthrough with a few minor differences in plot development or through a different perspective.
For example, on the "weakest" end of this dynamic, there's the Ar Tonelico series; the game is the same, the major plot points are the same, you just pick among the heroines who you bond with the most, which opens up a few new powers and allows for more character development. Done right, this is actually pretty cool-- Ar Tonelico has pretty well-crafted heroes in the Reyvateils and diving into their soulspheres, especially in the second game, gives them great depth (and a few bonus costumes and powers) that make a return visit to the game worthwhile... just maybe not immediately (the pacing of the game is too slow).
Similarly, Nier has a clever twist in the NG+ mode; first, you skip the loooong section of the game that is basically just a super-extended prologue; second (spoilers coming!) you get a few extra choices in how things progress near the end of the game, a few extra story bits that really expand Kaine's character, and most importantly, you can understand the language of your enemies. Honestly, it doesn't add that much to the game, other than trying to get you to feel more pathos for some of them, but it's interesting, especially since the Shades you fight are your original souls (it makes sense but takes more time to fully explain than I'm going to spend here).
Tales of Xillia, on the other hand, doesn't just have you get to know a character a bit better by showing more of them through additional story sections or choices; you instead play through the whole game through another character's perspective. Games that do this don't usually add that much over the previous option in practice, usually; you're so often controlling a JRPG character that's largely pre-defined and that you know well from a previous playthrough, and the main story beats tend to be identical or near-so. Atelier Escha and Logy looks like it does the same thing; your companion characters all have the same storylines, and the main course of the game is identical, so it's just a few different scenes and a few different items.
Some games, however, go above and beyond the model of NG+ being a chance for a new perspective or new plot; they have entire stories and characters running parallel to your main adventure, or have early choices that radically change the plot. MORE TO COME...(Mana Khemia 2 and Soul Nomad examples)
What other games did this right?
Monday, March 24, 2014
GAME IDEAS-- LIST: New Game+ Modes
Some game ideas are good in general, and have been well-executed in enough different ways that I both want to break down the specific iterations of the idea and to have all the different versions in one list. I was originally going to write a quick entry on Dark Souls 2's new game mode, and mention the last several games I played as well, but it got me on a roll once I realized that there's a LOT of different ways various games and series have pursued a New Game+ mode. This entry will be the rough list, in ascending order of coolness:
CATEGORIES:
Similar, but with superficial change (Mario Galaxy's Luigi mode)
Similar, but harder/modified (Dark Souls series- but see comments on DS 2)
Same 'ol, but characters is stronger (Most of the Atelier Series, Chrono Trigger)
(often done to allow for new endings or plot choices)
Same 'ol, but modifed by user (Tales of... series/Grade system)
Same 'ol, to play with new options and minor plot changes/playstyles (Infamous series, Ar Tonelico series)
Similar, but with new perspective (Tales of Xillia, Atelier Escha and Logy, Nier)
Similar, but with new mechanics or potentially major gameplay changes (Lightning Returns, Quest for Glory series)
Entirely new game story (Soul Nomad, Mana Khemia 2)
=======
Eventually I'll end up listing several iconic examples of each of the categories, probably as I work my way through entries on each category.
CATEGORIES:
Similar, but with superficial change (Mario Galaxy's Luigi mode)
Similar, but harder/modified (Dark Souls series- but see comments on DS 2)
Same 'ol, but characters is stronger (Most of the Atelier Series, Chrono Trigger)
(often done to allow for new endings or plot choices)
Same 'ol, but modifed by user (Tales of... series/Grade system)
Same 'ol, to play with new options and minor plot changes/playstyles (Infamous series, Ar Tonelico series)
Similar, but with new perspective (Tales of Xillia, Atelier Escha and Logy, Nier)
Similar, but with new mechanics or potentially major gameplay changes (Lightning Returns, Quest for Glory series)
Entirely new game story (Soul Nomad, Mana Khemia 2)
=======
Eventually I'll end up listing several iconic examples of each of the categories, probably as I work my way through entries on each category.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
GAME IDEAS- Choose your own difficulty/dynamic challenge + Bonus! "Bad" difficulty
Ok, so after the marathon of just blathering about Dark Souls 2, it's back to a entry with hopefully some substance! This one was inspired by Atelier Escha and Logy, specifically a mechanic introduced early in the game that lets you trigger a special fight while in the field.
Basically, as you collect items and fight enemies in an area, you charge up a special "search" meter. Once the meter hits a certain mark, you can do a special Search Action, pulled from three options based on the area you're in and a few other factors. All of the Search Actions are pretty useful, and it's a great addition to the series already, but one of the cooler aspects is that a recurring option is to trigger a special difficult fight. you charge the meter, pick the fight option, then choose among three difficulty options for the fight-- one that's higher than the regular enemies and with special conditions, but still easy; one that's close to the level you should be for the area; and one that's "impossible"-- as in, about ten levels higher than your current level. Winning gets you a decent enough bit of experience, but more importantly also gets you rare materials and high-level equipment. And, with the in-game item-cloning option (the homunculi) it means you can multiply that special item drop instead of hoarding it forever because it's too good to use :-p
In a game like this where boss fights are infrequent, the ability to create your own "boss fight" through normal game actions is wonderful, especially as the penalties for losing if you're in over your head are so small (lose one day of action). You basically can take a break in your current quest to do your own boss fight. And boy, are a lot of these fights clearly "boss" ones-- the enemies start and end the fight with special animations, they get two actions per round, and they can offer a serious challenge/require some careful use of your skills, items, and team abilities.
It's a pretty rare game that allows this sort of dynamic, create-your-own challenge feature, that allows for cool fights and also gives good rewards. The most high-profile game that I can think of that does this is The World Ends With You, where you could chain fights together or weaken your characters for greater rewards, making regular fights potentially difficult but rewarding. It's different than, say, the Tales series' ability to change the difficulty level whenever you want, because it allows a boss-fight level challenge AND reward relatively easily, and it's tricky to balance it amidst normal concerns with plot, gameflow, etc. I wish more games would try, though-- I think it works well with Bravely Default's "customize each part of the game" difficulty modifiers.
BONUS!
Yeah, more Dark Souls 2 talk, but this one will be brief. Old games often had you go through a long sequence to get to the boss fight/challenging part; sometimes this was because of saving limitation, sometimes because part of the challenge of the boss was managing your resources up through the portion leading to them, and usually it was just bad design. When there's a climactic challenge the player may need to attempt multiple times, it's important to keep the challenge a) easily accessible and b) overall pretty brief-- yeah sometimes the challenge is to be zen enough to keep up the same tedious pattern for 30 minutes or through 100 levels of a dungeon or whatever, but I'd do a roguelike if I wanted that, and I don't have patience for losing an hour+ of progress with nothing much to show for it (because if the fight is tedious, I'm not even getting better at the game or learning new tricks). So, long lead-in to a fight are generally bad, unskippable cutscenes before a fight are criminal, and long load times after losing are annoying.
Super Meat Boy got this pretty much right-- each level is it's own climactic challenge, but the death-to-retry is pretty much instantaneous, and few levels go on so long that you're working with tedium. The two recent Rayman games are good about this too (including the iOS running games). Dark Souls has been pretty bad about this-- it's improved slightly here in the latest game in that you can at least kill all the enemies between you and a boss door if you work at it, so future runs aren't having you dodge enemies the whole way up or fighting through a slew of enemies for 10 minutes even though you can kill them in your sleep- mostly. These last two optional fights, though, are torturous-- the Dragon fight is over a minute of straight running to get there even if you kill everything on the way (and there's a LOT of enemies), only to die on your first mistake in a fight that takes probably 10 minutes (I haven't beaten it yet so I don't have the timing down). AND the boss has the potential to do a move that is impossible for you to survive-- there's literally no room to dodge. You can "train" him to be more likely to do some moves than others, but still he might decide to off you if you're unlucky. The other optional fight's a bit better in that you're can dodge anything if you're careful, but it's still a long fight that is more endurance than finesse, and dying means a loooong walk at best and a fight through a room of spellcasters with homing missiles, a narrow bridge, and a long hall with about 8 knights who usually come at you in pairs. When one mistake can kill you, taking forever to get back to the area just to start to LEARN what to do is horrible design. I give a slight pass to the game in that these are optional bosses, and superbosses at that, but that forgives the tedious/sometimes unfair fight design, not the long death-retry cycle wound around them.
Basically, as you collect items and fight enemies in an area, you charge up a special "search" meter. Once the meter hits a certain mark, you can do a special Search Action, pulled from three options based on the area you're in and a few other factors. All of the Search Actions are pretty useful, and it's a great addition to the series already, but one of the cooler aspects is that a recurring option is to trigger a special difficult fight. you charge the meter, pick the fight option, then choose among three difficulty options for the fight-- one that's higher than the regular enemies and with special conditions, but still easy; one that's close to the level you should be for the area; and one that's "impossible"-- as in, about ten levels higher than your current level. Winning gets you a decent enough bit of experience, but more importantly also gets you rare materials and high-level equipment. And, with the in-game item-cloning option (the homunculi) it means you can multiply that special item drop instead of hoarding it forever because it's too good to use :-p
In a game like this where boss fights are infrequent, the ability to create your own "boss fight" through normal game actions is wonderful, especially as the penalties for losing if you're in over your head are so small (lose one day of action). You basically can take a break in your current quest to do your own boss fight. And boy, are a lot of these fights clearly "boss" ones-- the enemies start and end the fight with special animations, they get two actions per round, and they can offer a serious challenge/require some careful use of your skills, items, and team abilities.
It's a pretty rare game that allows this sort of dynamic, create-your-own challenge feature, that allows for cool fights and also gives good rewards. The most high-profile game that I can think of that does this is The World Ends With You, where you could chain fights together or weaken your characters for greater rewards, making regular fights potentially difficult but rewarding. It's different than, say, the Tales series' ability to change the difficulty level whenever you want, because it allows a boss-fight level challenge AND reward relatively easily, and it's tricky to balance it amidst normal concerns with plot, gameflow, etc. I wish more games would try, though-- I think it works well with Bravely Default's "customize each part of the game" difficulty modifiers.
BONUS!
Yeah, more Dark Souls 2 talk, but this one will be brief. Old games often had you go through a long sequence to get to the boss fight/challenging part; sometimes this was because of saving limitation, sometimes because part of the challenge of the boss was managing your resources up through the portion leading to them, and usually it was just bad design. When there's a climactic challenge the player may need to attempt multiple times, it's important to keep the challenge a) easily accessible and b) overall pretty brief-- yeah sometimes the challenge is to be zen enough to keep up the same tedious pattern for 30 minutes or through 100 levels of a dungeon or whatever, but I'd do a roguelike if I wanted that, and I don't have patience for losing an hour+ of progress with nothing much to show for it (because if the fight is tedious, I'm not even getting better at the game or learning new tricks). So, long lead-in to a fight are generally bad, unskippable cutscenes before a fight are criminal, and long load times after losing are annoying.
Super Meat Boy got this pretty much right-- each level is it's own climactic challenge, but the death-to-retry is pretty much instantaneous, and few levels go on so long that you're working with tedium. The two recent Rayman games are good about this too (including the iOS running games). Dark Souls has been pretty bad about this-- it's improved slightly here in the latest game in that you can at least kill all the enemies between you and a boss door if you work at it, so future runs aren't having you dodge enemies the whole way up or fighting through a slew of enemies for 10 minutes even though you can kill them in your sleep- mostly. These last two optional fights, though, are torturous-- the Dragon fight is over a minute of straight running to get there even if you kill everything on the way (and there's a LOT of enemies), only to die on your first mistake in a fight that takes probably 10 minutes (I haven't beaten it yet so I don't have the timing down). AND the boss has the potential to do a move that is impossible for you to survive-- there's literally no room to dodge. You can "train" him to be more likely to do some moves than others, but still he might decide to off you if you're unlucky. The other optional fight's a bit better in that you're can dodge anything if you're careful, but it's still a long fight that is more endurance than finesse, and dying means a loooong walk at best and a fight through a room of spellcasters with homing missiles, a narrow bridge, and a long hall with about 8 knights who usually come at you in pairs. When one mistake can kill you, taking forever to get back to the area just to start to LEARN what to do is horrible design. I give a slight pass to the game in that these are optional bosses, and superbosses at that, but that forgives the tedious/sometimes unfair fight design, not the long death-retry cycle wound around them.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
BLAH BLAH BLOGGING: Dark Souls 2 Plot (major, major spoilers)
I finally beat the last boss of Dark Souls2, and saw the ending cutscene. There's no multiple endings in this one, and the scene lasts all of about one minute (you walk to a throne and sit on it. Enjoy!). There was a tiny bit more plot that came out when you go back into the dreams of the giants, and I pulled a few more pieces of lore out when I realized that the Boss Souls not only had descriptions, but each item you could craft from them talked about the boss's histories, too (easily viewable in the blacksmiths' menus). The lore still has huge gaps, allowing you to fill in some yourself, and make your own story-- the one I like best so far is from GameFAQs user "applesforapples," originally posted here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/693331-dark-souls-ii/68813195
and cut-and-pasted here (hi if you find this! Hope you don't mind me linking to you:
and cut-and-pasted here (hi if you find this! Hope you don't mind me linking to you:
Monday, March 17, 2014
BLAH BLAH BLOG- Weekend binge on Dark Souls 2 (Major Spoilers) (poor writing alert!)
I try to hold to some standard of writing for most blog entries, but I allow myself to throw that out the window for blah blah blog entries. Mostly I just blather about things without worrying too much about it. Reader, be warned! Also, spoilers for the plot and some areas of Dark Souls 2
I dabbled a bit in the Atelier game last week (it's really good, and I'm excited to get back to it), but my weekend was pretty much consumed by Dark Souls 2. I'm finally nearing the endgame-- about five more areas, only three regular bosses left I think-- and the game really is just stellar. I can't believe how engrossing the game is, despite the challenge (or maybe because of it?), and I will say that it's one of the very few games where after putting it away for the night, I have not just a sense of pleasure, but a sense of accomplishment. Major spoilers ahead, read at your own risk!
Despite how excellent the game is, there are a couple of small missteps or regressions from the previous games. While the lore for the series continues strong-- each item description helps paint a vivid, "living" world (well, un-living I suppose, given that everything is about ancient history)-- compared to the previous game, things don't hang together quite as gracefully. For example, the questline in the first game had you moving towards concrete goals that made sense; you were trying to get to Anor Londo to escape your curse (though the player might not have realized that at first), which meant ringing the two bells to open the path. Once there, you get the Lordvessal, and are told to acquire Great Souls to offer to open the way to the Cinder Lord. The souls were held by factions who were figures in the history of the land, and the locations they were in were tied to their actions since the War of the Dragons (the witch's soul ended up in the hellish demon-world they accidentally created, the dragon betrayer's soul was under his fortress where he engaged in magical experiments, the undead lord was in the great catacombs). Everything fit together, and while the player may not have understood why everything was happening at the moment, it all made sense in the gameworld. Each location in the game flowed to the next, with only one odd jump (you fly from Sen's Fortress to Anor Londo).
Dark Souls 2, for all its strengths, lacks that cohesion, partly because it's a bigger world overall, and partly because it's incredibly difficult to come up with another clever reason for everything. There's a chance they might tie it all together in the end, but at the moment, it seemed like there were just four powerful souls "just because," with only one mention that the king previously had used/killed four souls to become king. You get the souls because a special NPC tells you to, you take them to the castle because she says to, you hunt down the king because the queen there tells you to, and after you find him the first NPC says you will become the next king. Your motivation is to escape the curse, but I'm nearly at the end of the game and it's completely unclear how any of this works, other than as a random "prove your worth" mcguffin (literally, there's a door that doesn't open until you have four souls, or is it lit four special bonfires? Oh, and there's apparently five of them actually, and double oh, some players hit a glitch where they seem to be stuck because they went there too soon with too few souls and the other door won't ever open). The first game, you were sort of reassembling the great soul that kicked off the whole shebang, this one you're just proving you're a bad enough dude to get an audience with the king.
Similarly, compared to the first game, the areas are a bit haphazardly strung together. The levels themselves are great, a decent amount of variety (only "decent" because there's a few too many crumbling fortress areas, though at least each has a theme), with nicely paced secrets and challenges. But, most of individual areas just don't fit together-- why does the "tower of flame" (which has no fire and isn't a tower as far as I can tell) lead to a pirate grotto? Why do you go through the poison fort to get to the Iron Keep? There's some good bits still-- the wharf area ships you to the huge prison area, because that was the path of the cast-off criminals; the poison fort comes after a mining area full of poison gas pumped around by windmills, and is all related to the area boss's desire for eternal beauty through poison alchemy. But in the previous game, from the first real area onward I can trace a path from memory because everything fits sensibly; you go down the gutter from the city to get to the muck swamp, and there you go down further to either the roots of the world or the lost demon ruins, etc.
The series also has generally had at least one area in each game that really screwed the player unfairly or unnecessarily frustratingly. Demon's Souls had the swamp level, Dark Soul had Blight Town (and possibly New Londo/the swamp), Dark Souls 2 has one in Amana's Shrine. It's a gorgeous, tension-filled level, reminiscent of Ash Lake from the last game in terms of pure spectacle. It also has just one too many tricky elements at once-- not only are there hard-to-see cliffs everywhere (you can do alright if you try to stay in the highest area), there's also near-invisible enemies everywhere, and most egregiously enemies that fire constant, hard-to-dodge homing magic attacks from very far away (outside of draw distance in one case!), and you can't dodge willy-nilly because 1) there's those hidden enemies everywhere 2) there's obstacles in your way you can't see 3) you can't see those cliff edges without light, but your torch goes out quickly if you dodge 4) there's up to three homing missiles fired at you at once, from multiple directions. You won't even have a decent shield to block magic with by this point-- the game helpfully gives you one in the next area, though right after it would have been most useful. The solution is to snipe the magic users from far, far away, which means you need to be able to use a decent bow, and you need to have found a pretty well-hidden item to snipe with (if you even realize using it with a bow lets you snipe). Remove even one of those elements and it would have been a challenging, but fair level you didn't have to "cheese" through.
Partly because everything else about the game was done so right, these annoyances stick out more than they would for other games. And, I still hope the plot will come together at the end-- I've read enough online now to see that you eventually go back in time or something and can get the souls the King had (to weaken him in the present). Maybe during all that, it will make sense, especially since the game has alluded to this war with the giants....
I dabbled a bit in the Atelier game last week (it's really good, and I'm excited to get back to it), but my weekend was pretty much consumed by Dark Souls 2. I'm finally nearing the endgame-- about five more areas, only three regular bosses left I think-- and the game really is just stellar. I can't believe how engrossing the game is, despite the challenge (or maybe because of it?), and I will say that it's one of the very few games where after putting it away for the night, I have not just a sense of pleasure, but a sense of accomplishment. Major spoilers ahead, read at your own risk!
Despite how excellent the game is, there are a couple of small missteps or regressions from the previous games. While the lore for the series continues strong-- each item description helps paint a vivid, "living" world (well, un-living I suppose, given that everything is about ancient history)-- compared to the previous game, things don't hang together quite as gracefully. For example, the questline in the first game had you moving towards concrete goals that made sense; you were trying to get to Anor Londo to escape your curse (though the player might not have realized that at first), which meant ringing the two bells to open the path. Once there, you get the Lordvessal, and are told to acquire Great Souls to offer to open the way to the Cinder Lord. The souls were held by factions who were figures in the history of the land, and the locations they were in were tied to their actions since the War of the Dragons (the witch's soul ended up in the hellish demon-world they accidentally created, the dragon betrayer's soul was under his fortress where he engaged in magical experiments, the undead lord was in the great catacombs). Everything fit together, and while the player may not have understood why everything was happening at the moment, it all made sense in the gameworld. Each location in the game flowed to the next, with only one odd jump (you fly from Sen's Fortress to Anor Londo).
Dark Souls 2, for all its strengths, lacks that cohesion, partly because it's a bigger world overall, and partly because it's incredibly difficult to come up with another clever reason for everything. There's a chance they might tie it all together in the end, but at the moment, it seemed like there were just four powerful souls "just because," with only one mention that the king previously had used/killed four souls to become king. You get the souls because a special NPC tells you to, you take them to the castle because she says to, you hunt down the king because the queen there tells you to, and after you find him the first NPC says you will become the next king. Your motivation is to escape the curse, but I'm nearly at the end of the game and it's completely unclear how any of this works, other than as a random "prove your worth" mcguffin (literally, there's a door that doesn't open until you have four souls, or is it lit four special bonfires? Oh, and there's apparently five of them actually, and double oh, some players hit a glitch where they seem to be stuck because they went there too soon with too few souls and the other door won't ever open). The first game, you were sort of reassembling the great soul that kicked off the whole shebang, this one you're just proving you're a bad enough dude to get an audience with the king.
Similarly, compared to the first game, the areas are a bit haphazardly strung together. The levels themselves are great, a decent amount of variety (only "decent" because there's a few too many crumbling fortress areas, though at least each has a theme), with nicely paced secrets and challenges. But, most of individual areas just don't fit together-- why does the "tower of flame" (which has no fire and isn't a tower as far as I can tell) lead to a pirate grotto? Why do you go through the poison fort to get to the Iron Keep? There's some good bits still-- the wharf area ships you to the huge prison area, because that was the path of the cast-off criminals; the poison fort comes after a mining area full of poison gas pumped around by windmills, and is all related to the area boss's desire for eternal beauty through poison alchemy. But in the previous game, from the first real area onward I can trace a path from memory because everything fits sensibly; you go down the gutter from the city to get to the muck swamp, and there you go down further to either the roots of the world or the lost demon ruins, etc.
The series also has generally had at least one area in each game that really screwed the player unfairly or unnecessarily frustratingly. Demon's Souls had the swamp level, Dark Soul had Blight Town (and possibly New Londo/the swamp), Dark Souls 2 has one in Amana's Shrine. It's a gorgeous, tension-filled level, reminiscent of Ash Lake from the last game in terms of pure spectacle. It also has just one too many tricky elements at once-- not only are there hard-to-see cliffs everywhere (you can do alright if you try to stay in the highest area), there's also near-invisible enemies everywhere, and most egregiously enemies that fire constant, hard-to-dodge homing magic attacks from very far away (outside of draw distance in one case!), and you can't dodge willy-nilly because 1) there's those hidden enemies everywhere 2) there's obstacles in your way you can't see 3) you can't see those cliff edges without light, but your torch goes out quickly if you dodge 4) there's up to three homing missiles fired at you at once, from multiple directions. You won't even have a decent shield to block magic with by this point-- the game helpfully gives you one in the next area, though right after it would have been most useful. The solution is to snipe the magic users from far, far away, which means you need to be able to use a decent bow, and you need to have found a pretty well-hidden item to snipe with (if you even realize using it with a bow lets you snipe). Remove even one of those elements and it would have been a challenging, but fair level you didn't have to "cheese" through.
Partly because everything else about the game was done so right, these annoyances stick out more than they would for other games. And, I still hope the plot will come together at the end-- I've read enough online now to see that you eventually go back in time or something and can get the souls the King had (to weaken him in the present). Maybe during all that, it will make sense, especially since the game has alluded to this war with the giants....
Thursday, March 13, 2014
BLAH BLAH BLOGGING: Playing Dark Souls 2
A "blah blah" entry just means I don't have any pretense of presenting something intellectual or useful, and am just going to talk about playing a game. And right now, that's Dark Souls 2, which so far has held up quite well. I've gotten the first special soul, and am through 9 locations of about 30. I've been playing it semi-blind, only looking up walkthroughs for a suggestion of how to go through the areas (I needed this because I hit a tough boss and wasn't sure if I was supposed to be able to beat him yet, or if I was expected to go back later-- the answer was I was supposed to fight him later, but there's a trick to beating him that makes it moot), and to see what I missed in the area. Unlike the first game, I feel like I'm doing well getting through the regular stage areas and finding things, and only hitting brick walls when it comes to bosses-- even playing pretty aggressively (two-handed Fire sword).
Like the previous game, the "easy" way to get through the game isn't a min-max strategy where you're awesome at one thing and incompetent at the rest, but rather you buff every skill enough to be versatile enough to adapt to challenges. I've got a few wasted points in DEX right now, but I've mostly made sure to have enough strength to have a high-poise shield, enough weight capacity for heavy armor, enough intelligence to cast a high-powered ranged attack, and enough stamina and health to allow for a slip-up here and there without dying in one hit (usually). I've also been more aggressive with leveling, willing to go back to level up often, use all my random found soul items right away to gain levels, etc. So far, there's been lots of challenges, but the game feels more... if not easy, then "comfortable" than the previous two. And that's despite having two boss fights early one where you're fighting multiple enemies at once. A good shield is way easier, and safer, to use than trying to dodge your way through boss fights, at least for the last three I've fought.
The whole "finite respawns" is less of an issue so far than I thought it would be-- there's been a couple of boss runs where I was glad I didn't have to rekill certain enemies to make it to a fight, but usually in a boss run I'm literally running past everything to get there anyway, so it's a bit moot. I'm also slightly cautious about "wasting" respawns, since souls are (more) finite in this game if there really is a limit on respawns. Also, it looks like several items are New Game+ only (there's some wiggle room there with certain techniques), and I could see myself replaying this one a bit after the first go-through... depending on how hard it gets.
Oh, and there's lots of secrets-- some are basic tricky secret doors, others are major boss-changers (there's at least one boss I accidentally fought in "hard mode," fortunately it was still one of the easier fight bosses for me, but still...). There's also been at least one item I missed because you have to do something tricky and get the item the first try, without dying... oh well.
The big question is-- will I be playing more of this tonight, or will Atelier Escha and Logy be too tempting? Both are very much the sort I get in to pretty deep-- as in, hard to get to bed before midnight because of a "just one more thing" element. I'll prolly keep with Dark Souls until I get frustrated with whatever its version of Blighttown or New Londro will be.
Like the previous game, the "easy" way to get through the game isn't a min-max strategy where you're awesome at one thing and incompetent at the rest, but rather you buff every skill enough to be versatile enough to adapt to challenges. I've got a few wasted points in DEX right now, but I've mostly made sure to have enough strength to have a high-poise shield, enough weight capacity for heavy armor, enough intelligence to cast a high-powered ranged attack, and enough stamina and health to allow for a slip-up here and there without dying in one hit (usually). I've also been more aggressive with leveling, willing to go back to level up often, use all my random found soul items right away to gain levels, etc. So far, there's been lots of challenges, but the game feels more... if not easy, then "comfortable" than the previous two. And that's despite having two boss fights early one where you're fighting multiple enemies at once. A good shield is way easier, and safer, to use than trying to dodge your way through boss fights, at least for the last three I've fought.
The whole "finite respawns" is less of an issue so far than I thought it would be-- there's been a couple of boss runs where I was glad I didn't have to rekill certain enemies to make it to a fight, but usually in a boss run I'm literally running past everything to get there anyway, so it's a bit moot. I'm also slightly cautious about "wasting" respawns, since souls are (more) finite in this game if there really is a limit on respawns. Also, it looks like several items are New Game+ only (there's some wiggle room there with certain techniques), and I could see myself replaying this one a bit after the first go-through... depending on how hard it gets.
Oh, and there's lots of secrets-- some are basic tricky secret doors, others are major boss-changers (there's at least one boss I accidentally fought in "hard mode," fortunately it was still one of the easier fight bosses for me, but still...). There's also been at least one item I missed because you have to do something tricky and get the item the first try, without dying... oh well.
The big question is-- will I be playing more of this tonight, or will Atelier Escha and Logy be too tempting? Both are very much the sort I get in to pretty deep-- as in, hard to get to bed before midnight because of a "just one more thing" element. I'll prolly keep with Dark Souls until I get frustrated with whatever its version of Blighttown or New Londro will be.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
WHAT I'M PLAYING THIS WEEK: Dark Souls 2 and Atelier Escha and Logy
Each week I'll try to post the new games (or old ones!) I'm going to be playing, along with some reasons why I'm excited to be playing them. There's two great games coming out this week that I'll be diving into: Dark Souls 2 and Atelier Escha and Logy. Except in the increasingly-rare case that a game is an original IP, I'll often refer to improvements or changes from past games under the assumption that the reader is familiar with them.
Dark Souls 2- After the huge leap forward of Dark Souls over Demon's Souls, I was unsure that the third game in this trilogy would be able to keep things up. Reviews so far suggest that it's just as good, with only tiny missteps or regressions. The map overall isn't as intricately wound together as in Dark Souls, but the world is larger overall and you get to teleport among bonfires immediately. The barrier to entry (as in, dying over and over immediately and not making any progress) is lower for this one, so more people who quickly gave up on the prequels without getting to the good bits will hopefully be able to become engrossed in this one. Finally, I like the idea of having many of the grunts respawn only a limited number of times-- it wears down the roguelike elements a little bit more (in a way I prefer), and (minor spoiler) it's something later on that you can tweak, apparently. Related and also a minor spoiler, there's a way to reallocate your level bonuses somewhere in the game. This will also be the first of the games I'll be mostly online to play, so I'm looking forward to the community aspects, and willing to go offline if the PvP elements annoy me too much. (EDIT- forgot I need XBox Live account to get online-- oh well, so much for that).
Atelier Escha and Logy- We're now on the fifth PS3 Atelier game, and this is the second one since the shift in developers. Reviews have been great, basically saying it takes what worked best from Meruru and dropped what didn't work from Ayesha. Plus, there's new conveniences-- once a party member joins, they are always part of the party (even if not in the active party), so you don't have to juggle allies to access the friendship events. The alchemy system is streamlined a bit, but not oversimplified-- we'll see how this works in practice. Battle items are made, then re-stocked automatically when you return to base, which eliminates one of the things that kept me from using them as much as I should have in previous games (scarcity and having to use your limited time allotment to replace them). Finally, there's a cute cowboy ally (and a cute scholar of some sort too), which never hurts!
Hopefully next week I'll have interesting things to say on these-- as always, what cool things did the reviewers leave out and "what the games got right."
Dark Souls 2- After the huge leap forward of Dark Souls over Demon's Souls, I was unsure that the third game in this trilogy would be able to keep things up. Reviews so far suggest that it's just as good, with only tiny missteps or regressions. The map overall isn't as intricately wound together as in Dark Souls, but the world is larger overall and you get to teleport among bonfires immediately. The barrier to entry (as in, dying over and over immediately and not making any progress) is lower for this one, so more people who quickly gave up on the prequels without getting to the good bits will hopefully be able to become engrossed in this one. Finally, I like the idea of having many of the grunts respawn only a limited number of times-- it wears down the roguelike elements a little bit more (in a way I prefer), and (minor spoiler) it's something later on that you can tweak, apparently. Related and also a minor spoiler, there's a way to reallocate your level bonuses somewhere in the game. This will also be the first of the games I'll be mostly online to play, so I'm looking forward to the community aspects, and willing to go offline if the PvP elements annoy me too much. (EDIT- forgot I need XBox Live account to get online-- oh well, so much for that).
Atelier Escha and Logy- We're now on the fifth PS3 Atelier game, and this is the second one since the shift in developers. Reviews have been great, basically saying it takes what worked best from Meruru and dropped what didn't work from Ayesha. Plus, there's new conveniences-- once a party member joins, they are always part of the party (even if not in the active party), so you don't have to juggle allies to access the friendship events. The alchemy system is streamlined a bit, but not oversimplified-- we'll see how this works in practice. Battle items are made, then re-stocked automatically when you return to base, which eliminates one of the things that kept me from using them as much as I should have in previous games (scarcity and having to use your limited time allotment to replace them). Finally, there's a cute cowboy ally (and a cute scholar of some sort too), which never hurts!
Hopefully next week I'll have interesting things to say on these-- as always, what cool things did the reviewers leave out and "what the games got right."
Saturday, March 8, 2014
VIDEO GAME HISTORY: What games are the precursors to the "endless runner" genre?
One thing I enjoy about the various chronological system playthroughs (CRPG Addict, Chrontendo, etc.) is that they provide a bit of a history of video game ideas, letting you see the discovery and evolution of some tropes and gameplay styles that are still around today. While mainstream console and PC gaming has fewer "oh, what a cool new idea" innovations (Katamari Damacy is the last US release to my memory which really did something very "new"), the flash game, iOS, and other assorted mobile game markets have really taken off in terms of innovations, if not always "fun" ones. One of the early big hits in terms of genre-defining mobile game experiences is the "endless runner" genre (and the related finite-runner ones). Canabalt is a great example of a "pure" endless runner, Temple Run is a good example of a slightly more complex one that also made it big.
Playing the latest Donkey Kong Country, I wondered if the series was the original precursor to the endless runner, with it's minecart levels. I suppose Battletoads or some other fixed-speed racers qualify a bit, but to me DKC is the first one that has that pure, one-button gameplay feel that Canabalt especially provides. So, it's an open question: which games helped define the endless runner genre, either as the earliest example of them or as the ones who did it good enough? I'm sure there's an old arcade game or PC game that beats either of the two games I've mentioned. I'll add more as I get suggestions.
Battletoad's horrible racer level
Donkey Kong Country series' mine cart levels
Playing the latest Donkey Kong Country, I wondered if the series was the original precursor to the endless runner, with it's minecart levels. I suppose Battletoads or some other fixed-speed racers qualify a bit, but to me DKC is the first one that has that pure, one-button gameplay feel that Canabalt especially provides. So, it's an open question: which games helped define the endless runner genre, either as the earliest example of them or as the ones who did it good enough? I'm sure there's an old arcade game or PC game that beats either of the two games I've mentioned. I'll add more as I get suggestions.
Battletoad's horrible racer level
Donkey Kong Country series' mine cart levels
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
GAME IDEAS-- ECONOMICS: Fantasy Economics, or "I don't care if you're saving my village, you gotta pay for potions like everybody else"
At the CRPG Addict's blog, one of the qualities on which he rates the games he plays (against an imaginary "ideal" CRPG-- Baldur's Gate would be pretty close to it, for reference) is the game's economy: are there lots of things to buy, is there just enough money where you have to pick and choose among good things to buy, at the endgame are you just drowning in gold with nothing to do with it or is there still good things to buy, etc. Few games, especially JRPGs, get this right, with most of the games I've played lately ending up definitely on the side of "you can buy everything worthwhile as soon as you hit the place that sells it." Bravely Default is pretty good about making you choose what to buy (so far), and the Etrian Odyssey games also have an economy where you won't be able to get everything you want right away. The Etrian Odyssey games also share the Monster Hunter/MH-like games' associating stock with bringing parts from the monsters you kill and stuff you scavenge, which is a pretty sound system.
For most games, however, there's a certain absurdity to the proceedings beyond the failures or successes of the in-world markets-- part of it is the fact that new towns just happen to have the best weapons so far, and part of it is that you're often dealing with entire kingdoms who you save but who only provide modest monetary compensation and whatever few goodies you loot from the treasury. It's an old joke/tvtrope, but there's definitely something funky when the king of I-own-it-allistan asks you to save the world and sets you off with a few coins and an iron sword. And why does a small hamlet in the middle of nowhere have better weapons that a great military kingdom?
My radical idea would be to fix this by having everything be free, at least once you're recognized as the grand hero or whatever. Limit consumables by limiting how many of the weak ones you can carry, make them heal a set percent, and have more powerful ones require rare(ish) materials to make. Lock high armor and weapon tiers as things you find realistically (kill a great big baddie with an awesome sword and armor, actually get those goodies) or have to get materials for craftsman to make them ("I can make you a great amulet that drains your enemy's life if you get me a vampire's fang). "Realism" could still be sacrificed for balance and fun, but at least it wouldn't be glaringly obvious that the world makes no sense.
Meanwhile, here are some games that either had "just right" economics or did cool things with the game's economies. I'll eventually update this list as new games come out and do things right, or I remember old ones that had really innovative ideas. I'll mostly focus on RPGs, but any genre is fair game. Comments with suggestions or reactions are welcome!
"JUST RIGHT" Economies:
Secret of Mana- SNES
Bravely Default- 3DS
Monster Hunter and mimics, to varying degrees
Etrian Odyssey and mimics, to varying degrees
INNOVATIONS
Shadow Madness, PS1- halfway through the game, when you go to the "other world," they don't take your money anymore, you have an entirely new economy.
Chrono Trigger-- small thing, but trading rocks, vines, etc. for items in the caveman era
Fallout series-- old cash is a souvinier, soda caps are money.
For most games, however, there's a certain absurdity to the proceedings beyond the failures or successes of the in-world markets-- part of it is the fact that new towns just happen to have the best weapons so far, and part of it is that you're often dealing with entire kingdoms who you save but who only provide modest monetary compensation and whatever few goodies you loot from the treasury. It's an old joke/tvtrope, but there's definitely something funky when the king of I-own-it-allistan asks you to save the world and sets you off with a few coins and an iron sword. And why does a small hamlet in the middle of nowhere have better weapons that a great military kingdom?
My radical idea would be to fix this by having everything be free, at least once you're recognized as the grand hero or whatever. Limit consumables by limiting how many of the weak ones you can carry, make them heal a set percent, and have more powerful ones require rare(ish) materials to make. Lock high armor and weapon tiers as things you find realistically (kill a great big baddie with an awesome sword and armor, actually get those goodies) or have to get materials for craftsman to make them ("I can make you a great amulet that drains your enemy's life if you get me a vampire's fang). "Realism" could still be sacrificed for balance and fun, but at least it wouldn't be glaringly obvious that the world makes no sense.
Meanwhile, here are some games that either had "just right" economics or did cool things with the game's economies. I'll eventually update this list as new games come out and do things right, or I remember old ones that had really innovative ideas. I'll mostly focus on RPGs, but any genre is fair game. Comments with suggestions or reactions are welcome!
"JUST RIGHT" Economies:
Secret of Mana- SNES
Bravely Default- 3DS
Monster Hunter and mimics, to varying degrees
Etrian Odyssey and mimics, to varying degrees
INNOVATIONS
Shadow Madness, PS1- halfway through the game, when you go to the "other world," they don't take your money anymore, you have an entirely new economy.
Chrono Trigger-- small thing, but trading rocks, vines, etc. for items in the caveman era
Fallout series-- old cash is a souvinier, soda caps are money.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
SURPRISINGLY GOOD: Bug Heroes 2; One-Way Heroics
Again, this blog isn't supposed to be reviews per se, but sometimes I come across a game that, while not having any particular qualities that deserves a post of "things done right," I still want to give a shot-out to just for capturing my attention or just being enjoyable. Bug Heroes 2 on iOS definitely falls into that category for me, though I'm still pretty early in it. It's a mashup of MOBA, tower-defense, first-person shooter, and arena two-stick game that has a massive cast of characters and no real plot or level structure to speak of. You start with two (random?) bug heroes, and unlock others randomly for free after achieving certain milestones, or by paying in a premium currency that you get a decent amount of after each mission. I think part of what works so well is that each character (so far; I've only got 4) plays so distinctly, yet is quite effective-- the bee general summons increasingly-powerful friendly creeps, the ladybug fencer is a tank with great armor-piercing and burst-damage skills, and the earthworm demolitionist just blows everything to bits. For only a dollar, it's a great bargain, and most characters average a dollar per unlock if you were to but the premium currency (I look at doing that as a way to "tip" the developers for a great game sometimes).
Another cheap-but-good game I got into recently is One-Way Heroics, just released on Steam but probably out for a while on Desura or other PC sites. It's basically a roguelike with less punishment and a nice persistent power-up system; even when you die, you get some goodies to help another push. The concept is pretty cool too-- you have to keep moving right, dealing with enemies and RPG towns, trying to get strong enough to defeat the Dark Overlord when he finally arrives. It's very similar to the mall level of "The Guided Fate Paradox" on PS3, only you die immediately if you get caught up in encroaching darkness. The best thing is probably that there's a definite "easy" mode, then the normal mode (and I bet a hidden hard mode), so you can play the game to just have fun as much as to challenge yourself. Very well put-together, and under five bucks to boot.
EDIT:
I played more of Bug Heroes, and while I'm still enjoying things, the difficulty curve feels way off, and not in a "pay real money to win" sense. I have a decent selection of heroes, but several of the stages-- and you can only ever pick from three at a time, and must beat one for a new one to emerge-- seem ridiculously impossible. Lose a stage enough times and the difficulty (and rewards) drop, so you get through it eventually, but it's not much fun to play a "this feels impossible" stage four times to get to one that's challenging, but fair (or often a complete pushover). Hopefully this will get addressed a bit in a patch eventually. I still like the game, but it's flaws are pretty bad.
Another cheap-but-good game I got into recently is One-Way Heroics, just released on Steam but probably out for a while on Desura or other PC sites. It's basically a roguelike with less punishment and a nice persistent power-up system; even when you die, you get some goodies to help another push. The concept is pretty cool too-- you have to keep moving right, dealing with enemies and RPG towns, trying to get strong enough to defeat the Dark Overlord when he finally arrives. It's very similar to the mall level of "The Guided Fate Paradox" on PS3, only you die immediately if you get caught up in encroaching darkness. The best thing is probably that there's a definite "easy" mode, then the normal mode (and I bet a hidden hard mode), so you can play the game to just have fun as much as to challenge yourself. Very well put-together, and under five bucks to boot.
EDIT:
I played more of Bug Heroes, and while I'm still enjoying things, the difficulty curve feels way off, and not in a "pay real money to win" sense. I have a decent selection of heroes, but several of the stages-- and you can only ever pick from three at a time, and must beat one for a new one to emerge-- seem ridiculously impossible. Lose a stage enough times and the difficulty (and rewards) drop, so you get through it eventually, but it's not much fun to play a "this feels impossible" stage four times to get to one that's challenging, but fair (or often a complete pushover). Hopefully this will get addressed a bit in a patch eventually. I still like the game, but it's flaws are pretty bad.
Bravely Default is the whatever game you want it to be
There's a subset of gamers who enjoy setting arbitrary challenges for themselves to make some games more like a puzzle-- how, through meta-gaming, can you beat a specific RPG without ever gaining a level, for example. Most of these playthroughs rely on toughing out the early game before getting to whatever exploitable resource makes the rest of the game a breeze; they're often tests of patience as much as ingenuity. They also tend to require making sure you run from every fight you can, and keeping most of the party dead at the end of mandatory fights so they don't get XP (until you can get an "XP Sponge" character that goes in, survives the fight, and is never used). I don't think it would have ever occurred to me to try something like this, much less have the patience to go through with it, and overall it's a pretty rarified gaming style.
Bravely Default, however, offers several in-game options for players who want to try this sort of thing. Programming-wise, it's easy enough-- just set a few toggles to zero, and put in an interface for the player to manipulate it, so it's not difficult to implement. But, it takes a company that's actually paying attention to its players to even think that someone might want the option to stop all XP (or gold, or whatever) gains from fights, to give themselves a special challenge, and especially to allow it to all be custom-manipulated instead of wrapped into a "hard, easy, normal" setup.
Similarly, though to me a more obvious design choice, in Bravely Default, you can raise or lower random enemy encounters, doubling them, quartering them, even eliminating them entirely, any time. There's often in-game items with these effects, but most games with them give them to you late in the game, and then you're trading an item slot for it. I appreciate that the game isn't patronizing about it-- it basically says, "You want this? Ok, here you go," rather than being more of "you must endure the game the way we made it originally until we decide to allow you a small amount of manipulation, whether you are enjoying this part or not!" I wish they'd gone a little further with the ability to increase XP, AP, and GP gains, but since those abilities are tied to classes I understand why they didn't (still, it's a bit paternalistic).
On a side note, one reviewer (I don't care enough to hunt the review down, other than vaguely remembering it as a review on an RPG-dedicated site) complained about the main story of the game, saying it was uninspired and required too much back-and-forth for little reason among towns (absolutely true). But, he then seemed miffed that the side quests were where all the interesting stuff was-- story-wise, character-wise, and especially gameplay-wise. So, he was essentially docking the game for not forcing him to play through the side areas. Even more ridiculous, though, was that he complained also that the game was grind-y in parts; well yes, if you skip all the sidequests and optional content and try to zoom straight through the main quest line, you would be underpowered. Hey, instead of grinding pointlessly, why not do some of those well-written, rewarding side events that flesh out the main story and give context to everything? It was a baffling review, especially for being on an RPG specialty site, and was one of the very, very few negative reviews the game got.
Bravely Default, however, offers several in-game options for players who want to try this sort of thing. Programming-wise, it's easy enough-- just set a few toggles to zero, and put in an interface for the player to manipulate it, so it's not difficult to implement. But, it takes a company that's actually paying attention to its players to even think that someone might want the option to stop all XP (or gold, or whatever) gains from fights, to give themselves a special challenge, and especially to allow it to all be custom-manipulated instead of wrapped into a "hard, easy, normal" setup.
Similarly, though to me a more obvious design choice, in Bravely Default, you can raise or lower random enemy encounters, doubling them, quartering them, even eliminating them entirely, any time. There's often in-game items with these effects, but most games with them give them to you late in the game, and then you're trading an item slot for it. I appreciate that the game isn't patronizing about it-- it basically says, "You want this? Ok, here you go," rather than being more of "you must endure the game the way we made it originally until we decide to allow you a small amount of manipulation, whether you are enjoying this part or not!" I wish they'd gone a little further with the ability to increase XP, AP, and GP gains, but since those abilities are tied to classes I understand why they didn't (still, it's a bit paternalistic).
On a side note, one reviewer (I don't care enough to hunt the review down, other than vaguely remembering it as a review on an RPG-dedicated site) complained about the main story of the game, saying it was uninspired and required too much back-and-forth for little reason among towns (absolutely true). But, he then seemed miffed that the side quests were where all the interesting stuff was-- story-wise, character-wise, and especially gameplay-wise. So, he was essentially docking the game for not forcing him to play through the side areas. Even more ridiculous, though, was that he complained also that the game was grind-y in parts; well yes, if you skip all the sidequests and optional content and try to zoom straight through the main quest line, you would be underpowered. Hey, instead of grinding pointlessly, why not do some of those well-written, rewarding side events that flesh out the main story and give context to everything? It was a baffling review, especially for being on an RPG specialty site, and was one of the very, very few negative reviews the game got.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
What Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns does right
Given the reviews, and my overall "just alright" feelings about the previous two games in the FFXIII trilogy, I didn't expect to get all that into Lightning Returns. Based on the reviews, I almost skipped it, but the lure of playing dress-up with 50+ unique "garbs" won me over. Once I actually got into it, I was surprised by how engrossing the game really became. Most of the reviews spend a lot of time bashing the things the game gets wrong-- and I'll mention a few of those things myself here-- but I wanted to put out there some things the game got "right."
1) Genocide.
No, really-- almost every enemy in the game exists in limited numbers (about 900 enemies total not counting a few infinitely-generating ones that exist to allow for fights on the final days), and if you kill all of them, that enemy is gone from that playthrough of the game for good. It's quite satisfying to finish one off, it's part of a major sidequest with a great reward, you get awesome items for each species you kill, and the "Last One" of each species is a mini boss fight that often requires clever strategy. Every enemy you fight moves you closer to the goal (yes, there's a secret dungeon that makes hunting the enemies beforehand moot, but still...) and even annoying enemies (self-healing Dryads who summon more) are more bearable knowing that you can wipe them off the face of the (game) planet.
It's not completely original-- NetHack has the Scoll of Genocide, many games have non-respawning fixed-encounters, but not a lot of triple-A titles do it, and few have as many intrinsic and extrinsic rewards attached.
2) The Story.
Ok, hear me out-- the Final Fantasy series gets some rightfully deserved flak for screwing up stories, and most video games as a whole muck this up. The level of hate this game gets for its plot by reviewers is a bit undeserved, and probably comes from being weighted down with dangling plots from the previous games and really, excruciatingly dull characters. Even if you know the backstory, there's a lot of "what the hell?" bits in the beginning that make no sense- at first. But, things come together in a coherent theme as you move through the game, plot holes turn out to have a point to them, and there's even a nice bit of pathos (again, among mostly horrible characters-- Fang is awesome as always, and Lumina, a new character for this game, is delightfully sorta-evil).
Part of the problems is that you have to, well, think about the game world to understand what's up. It's a world where no one has aged for 500 years-- and, more devastatingly, no one has been able to really change or grow. Very few characters managed anything close to develop meaningfully across the centuries, children stay children forever, no new births occur and every death (due to illness or accident) brings the world closer to annihilation. On top of that, an unknowable force seems to be hellbent on killing that last survivors. Lightning is dropped into this world to try and bring hope to the hearts of some of the citizens before God just kills everyone and wipes the slate clean; Lightning herself has also been stripped of emotions (inconsistently, unfortunately), and is only helping to revive her dead sister who she was responsible for sending to her death by failing hard in her previous role. (Pretty big spoiler here-- even her old friend, Hope, has been killed by God and hollowed out to be used as a vessel for His will/spy). Yes, it's very, very bleak.
But, it all makes sense and ties into the theme of hope being eternal (major spoilers now). Lightning isn't actually soulless and unemotional-- she just cut out those parts from herself in a misguided attempt to do her job properly, which makes sense for the character and is a believable motivation. Lumina is torn between wanting to return to the old ways and not being destroyed or left alone. The chaos destroying everything is actually the souls of all the dead who haven't been able to be reborn-- pushed along by the countless souls of the Seeress, Yeul, the series' mot tragic character. Yeul is a single soul who is doomed to die young and be reborn over and over- creating countless frustrated, angry half-souls who are torn between despairing and wanting it all to end and hoping that things could be better. Everything ties into the struggle between despair/annihilation, calcification, and hope. It's not the best-told story, but it's a good one, and within the logic of the game-world it's all consistent (enough) and fits together.
Still, that's three paragraphs to cover the fact that, like 99% of games, it's not well-written, or well-executed, and is better in theory than practice. But, it's a big leg-up on most games, so bashing it in comparison to other stuff just isn't fair.
3) Sense of Urgency/Nonlinearity/Point to All Those Sidequests.
Too many games do a whole "this is awful, the world's about to end any moment now, oh but go and gather 50 shiny distractor plates for a secret weapon, no rush!" thing that while great for completionists, leaves the player feeling like there's no weight to the impending doom. Lightning Returns makes deciding what to do among all these things an actual choice, with potential consequences for screwing around, yet also making half the point of the game doing those dinky sidequests (to save souls). As a pretty big spoiler-- the game allows for 13 regular days if you complete the main quests, and there's plenty of time to do EVERYTHING in the game and then some with only a modicum of time management (judicious use of a time-stopping ability allows for about 4/5ths of the games main and sidequests to be completed in the first four days, and that's without a walkthrough or any help, and with most of the holdup being waiting for time-sensitive events to be trigger-able). But, the player feels like they are making big decisions, and that everything matters, and that they need to hurry, hurry, hurry but not skip anything. It's great for pulling you into the game, awful if you want to play in short bursts (unless those bursts are to genocide monsters while using chronostasis to freeze time...)
4) New Game+/Full Economy
I used to love a New Game+, and while I have too many other things I'd rather do than immediately replay a game I just beat, Lighting Returns has a great NG+ system. First, you keep nearly all your items, gold, equipment, and abilities, so you can zip through the easy stuff. Second, there's a new game mode that pumps up the monsters and gives you new rare garbs and items, if you want a bit of a challenge that also gets you better gear and abilities. Third, in the new game, you can modify shields and swords to make them stronger, and you can also improve accessories by picking them up again. Fourth, repeating missions still gives you stat boosts-- reduced quite a bit for most of them, but still worth doing. It's a great playground for really exploring the game mechanics and making a powerful setup, and money is always short enough that there's something around the corner you want to be making money for (instead of you having oodles of cash with nothing to spend it on at the end/new game mode of most games like this). I do criticize the game for not moving most of this into the main game line, but on balance it makes sense-- there's just enough resources in a single playthrough to get most of the good stuff in the game and make the final boss easy but not a one-hit kill, and playing on hard more after all those restrictions offers a great way to amp your character's power to make that playthrough and the secret, extra-final boss killable but challenging.
5) Nostalgia/Music
Boo for no Tonberries, meh for new Moogle design, Yay for Cactuars. Also, I adore the small music callbacks-- the Battle on the Great Bridge one-man-band in Yusnaan is amazing, and the cheer from the crowd when you win an arena battle is a sweet treat. Tangentially, this game has some amazing music overall.
There's other small bits of game design that I liked but don't think were so well-made as to be true highlights, but there's also a few things that annoyed me a bit:
1) Completing the secret dungeon gave you a garb that was rather mediocre-- the cash from the kill was more exciting to receive, as was the accessory drop from the secret boss there. But, it was also part of the quest that led to a great weapon, so I guess it balances out...
2) Waiting until the first genocide or day 6 to be able to do any customization, much less new game+ for weapon/armor buffing, was a bit annoying.
3) "Easy" difficulty should have been labeled as "Normal," with "Normal" being "Hard" and the "secret" Hard mode becoming "Extreme" or something. More people would probably have liked the game if they have played on Easy first.
So, the question no one is dying to have answered: would I recommend the game? Honestly, there's a few people I would say would probably be able to enjoy the game, and again I played a ton of it, enjoyed it, and suspect I will come back to it some day to play Hard mode if I ever caught up on my backlog of games to play, but I'd say it's not a game for most people. Though, given it's part of a trilogy, I don't think the designers were hoping to bring in a lot of new players with this one. I just want to give props to the game for doing some things exceptionally well, beyond just being well-polished (example: polish = having a bestiary and datalog, exceptional would = them being worth reading).
1) Genocide.
No, really-- almost every enemy in the game exists in limited numbers (about 900 enemies total not counting a few infinitely-generating ones that exist to allow for fights on the final days), and if you kill all of them, that enemy is gone from that playthrough of the game for good. It's quite satisfying to finish one off, it's part of a major sidequest with a great reward, you get awesome items for each species you kill, and the "Last One" of each species is a mini boss fight that often requires clever strategy. Every enemy you fight moves you closer to the goal (yes, there's a secret dungeon that makes hunting the enemies beforehand moot, but still...) and even annoying enemies (self-healing Dryads who summon more) are more bearable knowing that you can wipe them off the face of the (game) planet.
It's not completely original-- NetHack has the Scoll of Genocide, many games have non-respawning fixed-encounters, but not a lot of triple-A titles do it, and few have as many intrinsic and extrinsic rewards attached.
2) The Story.
Ok, hear me out-- the Final Fantasy series gets some rightfully deserved flak for screwing up stories, and most video games as a whole muck this up. The level of hate this game gets for its plot by reviewers is a bit undeserved, and probably comes from being weighted down with dangling plots from the previous games and really, excruciatingly dull characters. Even if you know the backstory, there's a lot of "what the hell?" bits in the beginning that make no sense- at first. But, things come together in a coherent theme as you move through the game, plot holes turn out to have a point to them, and there's even a nice bit of pathos (again, among mostly horrible characters-- Fang is awesome as always, and Lumina, a new character for this game, is delightfully sorta-evil).
Part of the problems is that you have to, well, think about the game world to understand what's up. It's a world where no one has aged for 500 years-- and, more devastatingly, no one has been able to really change or grow. Very few characters managed anything close to develop meaningfully across the centuries, children stay children forever, no new births occur and every death (due to illness or accident) brings the world closer to annihilation. On top of that, an unknowable force seems to be hellbent on killing that last survivors. Lightning is dropped into this world to try and bring hope to the hearts of some of the citizens before God just kills everyone and wipes the slate clean; Lightning herself has also been stripped of emotions (inconsistently, unfortunately), and is only helping to revive her dead sister who she was responsible for sending to her death by failing hard in her previous role. (Pretty big spoiler here-- even her old friend, Hope, has been killed by God and hollowed out to be used as a vessel for His will/spy). Yes, it's very, very bleak.
But, it all makes sense and ties into the theme of hope being eternal (major spoilers now). Lightning isn't actually soulless and unemotional-- she just cut out those parts from herself in a misguided attempt to do her job properly, which makes sense for the character and is a believable motivation. Lumina is torn between wanting to return to the old ways and not being destroyed or left alone. The chaos destroying everything is actually the souls of all the dead who haven't been able to be reborn-- pushed along by the countless souls of the Seeress, Yeul, the series' mot tragic character. Yeul is a single soul who is doomed to die young and be reborn over and over- creating countless frustrated, angry half-souls who are torn between despairing and wanting it all to end and hoping that things could be better. Everything ties into the struggle between despair/annihilation, calcification, and hope. It's not the best-told story, but it's a good one, and within the logic of the game-world it's all consistent (enough) and fits together.
Still, that's three paragraphs to cover the fact that, like 99% of games, it's not well-written, or well-executed, and is better in theory than practice. But, it's a big leg-up on most games, so bashing it in comparison to other stuff just isn't fair.
3) Sense of Urgency/Nonlinearity/Point to All Those Sidequests.
Too many games do a whole "this is awful, the world's about to end any moment now, oh but go and gather 50 shiny distractor plates for a secret weapon, no rush!" thing that while great for completionists, leaves the player feeling like there's no weight to the impending doom. Lightning Returns makes deciding what to do among all these things an actual choice, with potential consequences for screwing around, yet also making half the point of the game doing those dinky sidequests (to save souls). As a pretty big spoiler-- the game allows for 13 regular days if you complete the main quests, and there's plenty of time to do EVERYTHING in the game and then some with only a modicum of time management (judicious use of a time-stopping ability allows for about 4/5ths of the games main and sidequests to be completed in the first four days, and that's without a walkthrough or any help, and with most of the holdup being waiting for time-sensitive events to be trigger-able). But, the player feels like they are making big decisions, and that everything matters, and that they need to hurry, hurry, hurry but not skip anything. It's great for pulling you into the game, awful if you want to play in short bursts (unless those bursts are to genocide monsters while using chronostasis to freeze time...)
4) New Game+/Full Economy
I used to love a New Game+, and while I have too many other things I'd rather do than immediately replay a game I just beat, Lighting Returns has a great NG+ system. First, you keep nearly all your items, gold, equipment, and abilities, so you can zip through the easy stuff. Second, there's a new game mode that pumps up the monsters and gives you new rare garbs and items, if you want a bit of a challenge that also gets you better gear and abilities. Third, in the new game, you can modify shields and swords to make them stronger, and you can also improve accessories by picking them up again. Fourth, repeating missions still gives you stat boosts-- reduced quite a bit for most of them, but still worth doing. It's a great playground for really exploring the game mechanics and making a powerful setup, and money is always short enough that there's something around the corner you want to be making money for (instead of you having oodles of cash with nothing to spend it on at the end/new game mode of most games like this). I do criticize the game for not moving most of this into the main game line, but on balance it makes sense-- there's just enough resources in a single playthrough to get most of the good stuff in the game and make the final boss easy but not a one-hit kill, and playing on hard more after all those restrictions offers a great way to amp your character's power to make that playthrough and the secret, extra-final boss killable but challenging.
5) Nostalgia/Music
Boo for no Tonberries, meh for new Moogle design, Yay for Cactuars. Also, I adore the small music callbacks-- the Battle on the Great Bridge one-man-band in Yusnaan is amazing, and the cheer from the crowd when you win an arena battle is a sweet treat. Tangentially, this game has some amazing music overall.
There's other small bits of game design that I liked but don't think were so well-made as to be true highlights, but there's also a few things that annoyed me a bit:
1) Completing the secret dungeon gave you a garb that was rather mediocre-- the cash from the kill was more exciting to receive, as was the accessory drop from the secret boss there. But, it was also part of the quest that led to a great weapon, so I guess it balances out...
2) Waiting until the first genocide or day 6 to be able to do any customization, much less new game+ for weapon/armor buffing, was a bit annoying.
3) "Easy" difficulty should have been labeled as "Normal," with "Normal" being "Hard" and the "secret" Hard mode becoming "Extreme" or something. More people would probably have liked the game if they have played on Easy first.
So, the question no one is dying to have answered: would I recommend the game? Honestly, there's a few people I would say would probably be able to enjoy the game, and again I played a ton of it, enjoyed it, and suspect I will come back to it some day to play Hard mode if I ever caught up on my backlog of games to play, but I'd say it's not a game for most people. Though, given it's part of a trilogy, I don't think the designers were hoping to bring in a lot of new players with this one. I just want to give props to the game for doing some things exceptionally well, beyond just being well-polished (example: polish = having a bestiary and datalog, exceptional would = them being worth reading).
Sorry, Mark Walton-- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze's levels are awesome
So, Gamespot's Mark Walton panned the latest Donkey Kong Country game (Tropical Freeze) as unexiting, not having new designs or challenges, and just feeling "a little off." He does make some true points in the full article-- yes, it's not as good as Rayman Legends, the boss fights go on for a while with no checkpoints, and there are some levels where there is a "stop and start" aspect to the stage-- and seems to be wanting to play a good Sonic game rather than a DKC game (he praises the speed of the minecart levels, for example). What distressed me, though, was that the main reason he seemed indifferent to the game was that he felt the levels were uninspired and poorly designed. I'm only halfway through the game now, and already I'd say at least half the levels have a clever gameplay-related design element, and 90% of them have a great visual twist to them. Despite my "I'll spoil whatever, whenever" policy, I won't go through and name all the bits here, but I will take one level as an example of how expertly the level designers mixed aesthetics and gameplay designs to make a stellar level.
The level I'm talking about is a minecart level (which yes, Walton says are among the high points of the game, of which there's at least one in each island so far by the way), which is a bit of a love-it-or-hate-it part of the games. First, it's great that the designers decided to include them; they're a wonderful throwback to the older games in the series, I find them fun, and the proliferation of endless runner games that owe a LOT of inspiration to these levels (more on that in another post, possibly) suggests that they're a winning gameplay mechanic in the right dose. But, given that they've been in four major 2D platformers, the idea could be stale by now, so how did they spice it up?
First, the setting is somewhat interesting-- it's a sawmill, thematically appropriate to the island's concept, though not very original on its own. Midway through, it switches you from the minecart to a log flume, which makes perfect sense giving the setting, and which also allows for a small but fun change in mechanics (your flume sinks in the water after jumping). The you're back on the regular minetrack and the stage starts falling down around you, then a giant blade is chasing you-- again, not exceptionally original but solid additions-- before the track starts to fall apart and in another gameplay twist you end up jumping to land on track coming from behind you as you move forward. And all this is mixed in with other solid elements, including the usual collection aspects (those puzzle pieces are fiendishly well hidden) and two secret level exits. It's a particular high point in the game, but it exemplifies the care, thought, and intelligence put into all these levels.
I don't really care that Walton didn't much like the game, or that he gave the game a low score because of feeling like something was just missing or that the game wasn't exciting even. But, the bullet point at the end of his review-- "dull, derivative level design"-- is asinine. The "derived" level aspects are polished and still creative, and the innovative stuff is just flat-out awesome. Again, the game is no Rayman Legends or Mario Galaxy, but it's damn well put together, and if your opinion is that it wasn't fun, fine, but own it as "I just didn't like it" instead of coming up with flimsy justifications for a low score.
The level I'm talking about is a minecart level (which yes, Walton says are among the high points of the game, of which there's at least one in each island so far by the way), which is a bit of a love-it-or-hate-it part of the games. First, it's great that the designers decided to include them; they're a wonderful throwback to the older games in the series, I find them fun, and the proliferation of endless runner games that owe a LOT of inspiration to these levels (more on that in another post, possibly) suggests that they're a winning gameplay mechanic in the right dose. But, given that they've been in four major 2D platformers, the idea could be stale by now, so how did they spice it up?
First, the setting is somewhat interesting-- it's a sawmill, thematically appropriate to the island's concept, though not very original on its own. Midway through, it switches you from the minecart to a log flume, which makes perfect sense giving the setting, and which also allows for a small but fun change in mechanics (your flume sinks in the water after jumping). The you're back on the regular minetrack and the stage starts falling down around you, then a giant blade is chasing you-- again, not exceptionally original but solid additions-- before the track starts to fall apart and in another gameplay twist you end up jumping to land on track coming from behind you as you move forward. And all this is mixed in with other solid elements, including the usual collection aspects (those puzzle pieces are fiendishly well hidden) and two secret level exits. It's a particular high point in the game, but it exemplifies the care, thought, and intelligence put into all these levels.
I don't really care that Walton didn't much like the game, or that he gave the game a low score because of feeling like something was just missing or that the game wasn't exciting even. But, the bullet point at the end of his review-- "dull, derivative level design"-- is asinine. The "derived" level aspects are polished and still creative, and the innovative stuff is just flat-out awesome. Again, the game is no Rayman Legends or Mario Galaxy, but it's damn well put together, and if your opinion is that it wasn't fun, fine, but own it as "I just didn't like it" instead of coming up with flimsy justifications for a low score.
WHAT THIS BLOG IS
This blog is about geeky stuff-- board games and video games-- that covers what some games do right (or wrong) without always worrying about trying to "review" the product as a whole and without necessarily falling into a full-on critique or deconstruction of games. The blog especially aims to hit some points about games that, for whatever reasons, reviewers of most sites don't mention in their rush to get to the all-powerful numerical score. Occasionally, I may use this space to rebut a specific review or recurring point among reviewers that annoys me. I plan on having a TON of gameplay spoilers in the discussions, so those sensitive to such things should just move on, but I'll try to mark off if I'm going to go into huge, mega-spoilers about the plot of a particular game. Ideally, this blog will end up as a collection of tons of just great video game ideas, usually from current-at-the time games, but also from historical perspectives of single older games or across a genre/system.
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