Video Games – Page 16

Tales of Endings

I finished Tales of Arise the other day. Like, really, really finished. It’s not technically 100%ed, but I got the platinum trophy and have no interest in tracking down the last couple of items and treasure boxes that I missed somewhere.

But I don’t bring this up because I want to give the game a post-mortem review. No, it’s actually because I felt something unusual once that platinum trophy popped. I felt a sudden emptiness in my chest, my victory cut with a sense of loss.

I know this feeling well, I’ve had it many times before. It’s the feeling I get when a TV series that I’ve been really into comes to an end. That feeling of loss when you know that your time with these characters and their world has come to an end. Like when you’re saying goodbye to friends. Maybe it’s a little bit weird, but I think it’s mostly a testament to how well-written characters can really worm their way into your heart.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: September 2021

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Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim (PC) – This one is in the same gameplay style as The Oath in Felghana and Ys Origin, and while I like it more than the former, I don’t think it’s quite as good as the latter. It’s a brisk, fun game, but a good quarter of its runtime is still caught up in level/money grinding. As usual, the soundtrack is pretty boss.

Deltarune: Chapter 1 (PC) – When the second chapter released this month, I opted to refresh myself on the first, since I last played it about two years ago. Three hours well spent, and I even beat the secret boss this time!

Deltarune: Chapter 2 (PC) – I had no idea how Toby Fox planned to continue this story, and what happened in Chapter 2 is nothing at all like I would have expected. But it was still excellent! And I’m happy that the secret boss in this one wasn’t quite as difficult as the last one… Looking forward to Chapters 3-7 being released over the next 999 years!

Ninji Direct

There was another Nintendo Direct yesterday. It was a big one, but it actually didn’t show too many games that really excited me. There’s a new Yoko Taro card game coming out next month. That’s… I mean, I’m not all that excited about a card game, but it’s Yoko Taro, so I must. The expansion for Monster Hunter Rise and Kirby and the Forgotten Land are things that I am naturally quite “hype” about, but they’re dated for next spring, so I don’t need to think about them for a good, long while. Triangle Strategy still has a dumb name and still looks great, but again: March 2022.

I’m still excited as heck for Metroid: Dread, but it’s out in exactly two weeks, I really don’t need a new trailer? And the Deltarune: Chapter 2 announcement would have driven me wild, if I had not just played Deltarune: Chapter 2 last weekend on my computer. It was excellent!

What really blew my socks off in this Direct was the content update for Mario Golf: Super Rush. Not because I’m excited about a content update for Mario Golf: Super Rush (I have not purchased the game). No, this announcement had my jaw on the floor because of a character design for a golfer that’s being added to the game: the humble Ninji.

New “Tales of” game, Arise!

Many, many years ago, I had a bit of a falling-out with RPGs. They just all seemed so samey and unengaging to me. Of course, nowadays I always seem to have at least one on the go at any given time, be it a new game, a classic that I’m revisiting, or something that I had overlooked along the way. I think that I’d have gone down this path one way or another, but I think a lot of the credit to getting me back on the RPG train goes to Tales of Symphonia.

Symphonia was the best of both worlds: on the RPG hand, you got a giant world to explore and plenty of dungeons to lose yourself in, all while a rich story was unfolding around you. On the… not-RPG hand, the battle system traded in menus for action, giving you the ability to move a character around a battlefield and attack enemies with combos and special moves. It actually felt a little bit like Super Smash Bros, and that was more than enough to win me over. In fact, I liked Tales of Symphonia so much that I ranked it my favourite video game of 2004. Not too shabby!

I’ve played a few other “Tales of” games since then -not all of them by any means- and they’ve run the gamut from “Maybe better than Symphonia?” to “Well that was a bust.” And of course, what I’m leading into here is that I’ve been playing the most recent game in the series, Tales of Arise. I’m only about halfway through at this point, but I’m not gonna lie: it’s looking like it might be a contender.

PZ35/21 – September check-in

“Hey Ryan,” you say to me “you didn’t do one of these Zelda write-ups for August. Did you give up on it?”

No, I did not. There just wasn’t anything to report. I had completed Phantom Hourglass in June, and did not receive my copy of Skyward Sword HD until late July. It didn’t seem like there were any updates worth writing. But there is one now!

Skyward Sword HD is done, and… I don’t really remember how I felt about it in the end last time, but I had a pretty good time with this replay! While I believe that the motion controls are perfectly acceptable in the original version, I took advantage of the new “standard” controls that were implemented for the HD version, and they also work very well! I never thought it could be possible, given how deeply integrated the motion controls are into Skyward Sword, but Nintendo pulled it off!

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: August 2021

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Mr. Driller: Drill Land (Switch) – I honestly can’t believe that Namco decided not to localize this back in 2002. It’s easily the most robust Mr. Driller game I’ve ever played, and the five different game modes add a good amount of variety. Though, I’m still pretty bad at Mr. Driller, so I was only barely able to pass level 2 of each mode :I

The Medium (PC) – Very good spookventure. Clearly influenced by the Silent Hill series, but removes combat altogether to make the gameplay experience a little simpler. The story is a bit opaque, but is definitely more and more interesting as you put the pieces together. Which, I think, is a hallmark of good storytelling.

Stela (Switch) – A “walk forward and solve simple platforming puzzles” game much like LIMBO or Little Nightmares. Only I got no joy out of this one. Mostly because it was completely disjointed, due to every area being totally different from the last. If Stela is telling a story, it’s an impenetrable, convoluted mess. That, and it just never really made an impression otherwise.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2

When I played the original Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, I had an absolute blast with it. As a game that called back to Castlevania III, but without the excruciating difficulty, it was something I was really able to sink my teeth into. A retro-styled game executed perfectly.

Then the sequel came along. CotM2 would obviously be similar to the first game, except probably bigger and flashier, if Inti Creates’ history was anything to go by. And that is not an inaccurate assessment! However, this sequel also ramped the difficulty way, way up.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: July 2021

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Doki Doki Literature Club Plus (Switch) – It loses a little bit of its punch once you know all the twists, but still a “good” time. The additional content was worth the purchase, and the way that it was made to work on console wasn’t nearly as janky as I’d worried it would be, and actually added a lot to the experience.

Robo Recall (Oculus) – Finished this one off at long last. That final stage has been outstanding for months now, but I finally did it. It’s a super fun game, though I don’t know that I’ll go back to complete the extra objectives.

Shutter (PC) – Boop.

Ys: Memories of Celceta (PS4) – One of four versions of Ys IV, and the most modern. While all the Ys games are fast-paced action RPGs, this one might be the ideal fast-paced action RPG. It’s an absolute joy to play, as movement and combat feel great, and there are so many completion percentage trackers. Not to mention that the main gameplay conceit is exploration, which I think is my absolute favourite thing about video games.

More words about Ys

My “theme” for 2021 was playing through all the main games in the Legend of Zelda series. But somewhere along the line I also got completely hooked on the Ys series, and am now through five of the ten games in that franchise.

Most recently was Ys: Memories of Celceta, which, to put it in simpler terms, is a remake of the fourth Ys game. But then I was looking into the original, and… it’s not quite that simple. Apparently, there were two similar but distinct games bearing the mantle of “Ys IV”, one for PC Engine and one for Super Famicom. There was even a third version in the works for the Mega Drive, but that one got canned. And then a PS2 “remake” happened that deviated quite a bit from both of the previous versions. And now we have Memories of Celceta, which goes even farther out from the source material and probably is more of an original game that was inspired by the previous games, rather than an actual remake. Also it’s the canonical version of Ys IV, since it was the only one fully developed by Falcom.

See? It’s a bit messy!

But I have good news for you: Hardcore Gaming 101 has an unbelievably thorough write-up on everything related to Ys IV. It’s a very interesting story, and quite honestly, the whole history of Ys is pretty well worth looking into, if just for the sake of seeing how many console ports each title got and how different they all ended up being.

I don’t know if I’ve ever plugged HG101 before, but it’s an amazing website, and you owe it to yourself to check it out if you have even the slightest interest in video game history and/or localization.

WALL-E in Horror Land

It had been over a month since I last played and/or recorded an indie horror game. So that’s what I did last weekend.

Shutter is a tiny, little, bite-sized horror game where you drive a tiny, little, bite-sized drone through a haunted house. It’s not very long and could use a little polish here and there, but it wasn’t bad. If absolutely nothing else, it very literally offered a new perspective on the haunted house genre. My only real gripe is that it’s not always clear what you’re supposed to do next, and even that’s not so bad because there really isn’t a lot of real estate to explore or actions you can take.

So there’s a single paragraph that pretty well sums up the 56 minutes of words that come out of my mouth in that video up there. You don’t need to watch it now. Good for you! Bad for my YouTube analytics!