My investigations into the mons scene continue, this time with Digimon. This is the most Pokemon-like Digimon game I’ve seen: You can raise any digimon you see and the pet sim elements have been removed to focus purely on battling. This makes it very easy to compare with Pokemon, which is useful because it does a number of things differently.
Category: Video Games
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is an auteur project by the creator of Symphony of the Night after he left Konami. Like many SotN fans, I was excited for it.
This is porn. Having played Order of Ecclesia, I was prepared for some skeeviness when I heard there was a female PC, but I was unprepared for just how far Igarashi was willing to go now that he had access to full 3D. I returned it the day after I bought it, because I simply couldn’t stomach it.
Quick Reviews 3
Inside: Rogue Legacy, Reventure, Chronicles of Teddy, Path of Giants.
Slay the Spire
Slay the Spire is a deckbuilder roguelike I decided to check out after hearing a lot of buzz about it. It’s a very beautiful game that is rendered unplayable by its overwhelming randomness.
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.
Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling
Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling is a love letter to the Paper Mario series, which I previously reviewed and greatly enjoyed. It has the same papercraft art style and gameplay centered around action commands, but offers several new ideas of its own, such as a setting full of adorable bug people and non-silent protagonists.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t live up to the hype. On its own merits, it’s… okay? But it does not live up to its inspiration. I liked some of the gameplay changes but disliked others, and the writing is a mess.
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.
Othercide
You may or may not remember that way back we reviewed a game called The Void, which would have been a very fascinating and atmospheric work of art if it wasn’t also blatant porn with a focus on watching women suffer. Othercide is very similar, minus the part where the non-porn bits are good.
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.
Quantum Conundrum
This is a Portal clone, but, unlike Gravitas, not a good one. It’s a physics puzzler where you must navigate a mad scientist’s lab while a sardonic narrator comments on your every action, all clear elements of Portal. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to understand what made those elements so effective in Portal, and completely fumbles the execution.
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.