Inside: Rogue Legacy, Reventure, Chronicles of Teddy, Path of Giants.
Category: Recommendations
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Sekiro is a game by the creators of Dark Souls. I gave it a try because Roarke said it fixed my complaints with Dark Souls. I would say it mostly does, but it also has problems of its own.
Quick Reviews 4
Some Metroidvanias and some more standard platformers. Inside: Even the Ocean, Xenodrifter, Gato Roboto, RONIN.
Fallout: New Vegas
Another oldie I’m finally getting around to.
Like all of Obsidian’s catalog, Fallout: New Vegas is a beautifully-written game that should have been a visual novel. The RPG elements, the shootouts with random suicidal raiders, and the endless trekking through acres of samey wasteland and copy/pasted buildings full of useless garbage items so thick you stop paying attention to item pickups altogether, add nothing to the experience. The Hardcore survival mechanics were an interesting idea, but are rendered meaningless by the fact the wasteland is a veritable Eden of endlessly-replenishing food, to the point you’ll probably accumulate more than you’ll ever need just by wandering around the starting areas.
But in between the chaff, the story is, as per usual with Obsidian, exceptional.
Child of Light
Child of Light is an RPG whose battle system intrigued me. It expands on Final Fantasy‘s ATB system to make it more tactical and engaging instead of just a reskinned initiative system — though, in the circular nature of things, it actually bears a lot of similarity to FF4’s original ATB system. I’ll tentatively recommend it, but only if you’re particularly interested in RPG battle systems.
Knights of the Old Republic, and Author Dialogues
Recently I decided to play Knights of the Old Republic, a wRPG set in the Star Wars universe. I initially ignored it because I’m not into Star Wars, but I decided to give it a shot to see what all the fuss is about; it’s supposedly one of the Great Story RPGs.
There are in fact two KOTOR games, and I found them a fascinating study in contrasts. The first was made by Bioware (the Dragon Age guys), and the second was made by Obsidian (the Planescape: Torment guys), making them a uniquely perfect comparison point between the two RPG giants.
The Bioware one is garbage. The Obsidian one is a fascinating deconstruction of the franchise that understands stories need to have themes and an actual point. But there’s actually a third side also worth examining here, which is audience reaction. See, after KOTOR2’s director said outright that one of the characters is his mouthpiece, a lot of players accused the game of being a one-sided author screed. This is despite the fact that, to me, he couldn’t have been more obvious telegraphing his intent to have a dialogue with the player, not a monologue. I think it’s worth analyzing what contributed to that reaction, and I think it’s related to the differences between Bioware and Obsidian.
(As games, they are both agonizingly terrible and Obsidian should just give up on trying to attach game mechanics to their stories. Seriously, how did everyone say “Combat is so tedious we need to automate it” and not realize something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. Someone please kill D&D with fire it is so bad and I hate it so much.)
Spoilers for both games if you care, but I was spoiled for KOTOR2’s major twists and it didn’t harm my enjoyment of the story. It actually even mocks the idea of revolving around a central plot twist.
Hades
Hades is a roguelike by Supergiant Games, the creators of Bastion and Pyre. It is very good and I enjoyed it immensely. You play as Zagreus, the son of Hades and Persephone, as he attempts to escape the Underworld to find his mother, who has left for the surface for unknown reasons.
Shin Megami Tensei: SNES Trilogy
Time to spice up this Christmas with some good old-fashioned blasphemy! A while back I reviewed and mostly enjoyed the Devil Survivor games, which are a spinoff of the Shin Megami Tensei series (or Resurrection of the Goddess if you’re not a weeb who thinks leaving things untranslated makes them cooler). The main series is also highly praised, so I decided to check it out, especially since as a Pokemon fan I’m interested in monster-catching games, and this one actually predates Pokemon by a significant margin! I chose to skip the NES Megami Tensei games and start with the SNES Shin Megami Tensei trilogy.
Sidenote: Every game starts with a standard “Any similarity between our characters and real people or organizations is purely coincidental” disclaimer, which, LOL. LOLOLOLOL.
Quick Reviews 5
Starting off the new year by reviewing some games from last year. Went on a bit of a puzzle kick this time.
Inside: Dandara, The Last Cube, The Swapper, Q.U.B.E., Baba Is You.
Subnautica
Subnautica is perhaps the best survival game I have played, but in the process I’ve come to believe a lot of the things I dislike about survival games are intractable problems with the genre. You play as the sole survivor of a starship that crash-landed on an alien ocean planet. You start with nothing but a crafting bench, and eventually work your way up to elaborate vehicles and bases, including, ultimately, an escape rocket. In the process you have to manage hunger, thirst, and, of course, oxygen as you must dive deeper and deeper to gather better materials.
If you enjoy survival games you’ll enjoy this, but I have a few nuances to discuss.
Disc Creatures
Disc Creatures is a fantastic mons RPG that effectively captures the feeling of old-school Pokemon while bringing plenty of new things to the table. It is also, unfortunately, a very standard jRPG that got boring for me extremely fast, but if that doesn’t bother you there’s a lot here to love.
Titan Souls
This is sort of like a bite-sized 2D version of Shadow of the Colossus. (Despite what the name may lead you to think, it doesn’t actually have much similarity to Dark Souls.) You play as a tiny human fighting massive monsters, with some environmental storytelling hinting at surrounding context.
Here’s the most notable about this game: You only have one hit, but so do the bosses. One hit to their weak point and that’s it, you’re done. This has blown my mind in regards to how I think about game design and game challenges, and I’m going to vomit those thoughts at you now.
Christmas Steam Games (2022)
Here’s the roundup for the remaining Christmas games that didn’t warrant full posts.
Inside: Snake Pass, Environmental Station Alpha, Slime Rancher, Q.U.B.E. 2, Event[0]
Quick Reviews 6
Inside: Vision Soft Rest, What Remains of Edith Finch, Dungeons of Dreadrock
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey
This is the first SMT game I’ve reviewed that was made after Devil Survivor, so we’ve finally caught up to my first exposure to the series! Let’s see if the series improves or if DeSu proved to be the high point after all, shall we?
This game was originally planned to be SMT4, but was rebranded as a spinoff due to how different it ended up compared to the mainline games. Instead of an ordinary high school student, you play as an elite soldier tasked with investigating a portal to Hell that’s appeared in Antarctica and threatens to swallow the entire planet.