Category: Video Games

Legendary Update: Volume 1

As I continue to slowly plod my way through Mega Man Legends 2, I find myself wondering more and more “Do I genuinely enjoy the first game, or is it just nostalgia?” Because MML2 really isn’t doing much for me, and I can’t pinpoint exactly why.

I touched on this before in regards to the plot, but I think the bigger world also hurts the gameplay, in a sense. In MML2, the story has you go through a handful of elemental-themed dungeons to collect the four sacred macguffins. This makes it feel a lot like Zelda, which should be a good thing, but I don’t want Mega Man Legends to be Zelda. The original game had a collection of underground tunnels and ruins that seem segregated at first, but as you collect various weapons and power-ups, you slowly discover that most of them are actually smaller sections of one gigantic interconnected maze. It was amazing! Now that I think about it, MML might have been the first 3D metroidvania. MML2 has no such reveal, as each dungeon is located on a separate island.

Plus, the conceit for exploring the ruins in MML is “maybe this one will have the legendary treasure!”, which is significantly less video game tropey, and just more fun in my opinion. I’m way more excited to keep adventuring when I don’t know what’s at the end of the next ruins. Knowing that the goal is just to check another goober off the list isn’t nearly as compelling. (Though the compulsive part of my brain begs to differ.)

At this point, I’m probably about three-fifths of the way through the game, and I’m desperately hoping that the worst is behind me. See, the second dungeon is the Water Temple equivalent, which allows you to flood or drain each level as required. Only you need each floor to be flooded at pretty much all times to get anywhere, so it’s basically 90% underwater. And Mega Man moves SO SLOW underwater. Easily half-speed, and it is so impossibly tedious. I think I spent two hours in this dungeon, and I’d bet that I could have shaved off at least half of that if I’d been able to move at a reasonable speed. Maybe it’s my fault and I missed the Gravity Suit upgrade, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think that it’s just a really poor design decision.

Now let’s talk about a greasy anime trope that made me sigh in contempt. MML has a scene where you walk in on Roll while she’s changing, which is like… ugh, really? But it’s a very quick scene and I think it’s even optional. You’ll miss it completely unless you go into the wrong door at the wrong time. MML2 has a similar scene, where you walk in on Roll in the bathtub. It’s not long either, but this one is forced. You literally cannot move the story forward without seeing it. I suppose that the bathtub scene does get replaced with a “depressed Roll” scene if you treat her like garbage, but why would you do that? Who would do that to Roll? So yeah, the bathtub thing is completely unavoidable.

MML2 doubles down on this, though. About halfway through the game, you’re pitted against Tron in a boss battle. Once you win, the robot she’ piloting explodes, and the camera switches to a blushing Mega Man. A couple of Tron’s servbot cronies then sheepishly explain to her that her clothes were burned off in the explosion, and that she is now buck naked. In what other medium besides anime do characters completely fail to notice that their clothes are no longer present? It’s ridiculous in the worst way, and it just sits on this reaction shot of Mega Man for what seems like ages as Tron admonishes him for staring and being a big ol’ pervert. Yikes.

So that’s that for this update on my Mega Man Legends 2 playthrough. It’s possible that the rest of the game could really turn it all around and amaze me, but I’m thinking that’s probably not going to happen. I think what’s going to happen is that I’m going to get to the end, finally beat it, and then never play it again. I’m having a hard time coming to grips with this concept, but I think that I might legitimately dislike Mega Man Legends 2. Is that kind of thing even possible?

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: February 2020

Turok (Switch) – A real bait-and-switch, since I grew up knowing the N64 subtitle “Dinosaur Hunter”, but really you’re mostly killing people and the occasional velociraptor. Aside from that, I really liked this game. It’s a lot like DOOM, but in 3D and has lots of platforming. The biggest failing is that the first boss (and only the first boss) is almost impossibly difficult. I burned through seven of my nine lives in that fight.

Timesplitters 2 (GC) – Co-oped the story mode, and it was a wonderful nostalgia trip. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like big studios don’t really make shooters like this any more. Specifically, ones with big maze-like levels, varied objectives, and a willingness to be unapologetically weird. And it’s the last one that matters the most to me. I’m less turned off by murdering hundreds of people when they’re over-the-top cartoons.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: February 2020

Chasing a Legend

I replay Mega Man Legends fairly often. Probably every other year, at least. I could likely even squeeze in more replays, as it’s a pretty short game. It’s an all-time favourite of mine, even as its age becomes more and more apparent with each subsequent run.

Despite this, I’ve only ever played the sequel once, and I didn’t even finish it, at that. The final boss was just too tough for me, and I guess I must have been distracted by some other shiny thing before I could work up the skill to finally conquer it. I’ve been in a very PS1 kind of headspace lately, so I decided last weekend that it’s time to right this long-standing wrong.

Mega Man Legends 2 just isn’t landing with me the same way the first game does. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the same nostalgia for it that I do for the original. I don’t know. It’s certainly a better game, in technical terms. The graphics are considerably better, the controls are less terrible, the world is bigger, the dungeons are more impressive, the voice acting is even wackier. I could go on.

What bothers me are just a few little things. Most of all, that the lock-on feature is a friggin’ idiot, quite commonly locking onto the enemy farthest from Mega Man, sometimes refusing to switch to closer threats. A lot of the time, it shows a strong preference to lock on to enemies that are around corners, which is never helpful. The solution, of course, would be to not bother using the lock-on, but it’s way too hard to aim manually at anything that isn’t stationary. So that’s a bit of a frustration.

I’m also not super crazy about the bigger scope of the story. Yes, of course it was going to build up to that, and it’s not that the plot really suffers for it. I just have a personal preference for the story of the first game, which focused on a single island and its many mysteries. In MML2, you’re hopping between all these islands, and the fate of the world is at stake, so on and so forth. That’s all fine, but Kattleox island had so much personality, whereas the smaller locales in MML2 haven’t been developed enough to have that same level of charm.

Lastly, the first dungeon boss was just insanely annoying. This stupid frog boss took me four tries to beat, mostly because the room is constantly flooded with things trying to kill you. For one, there are spike traps zipping around the perimeter of the room, and these little tadpole guys flopping about in the center, between the raised platforms that the boss jumps around on. The boss itself is constantly spewing out bubbles that track you until they hit a wall or you shoot them, and there’s a respawning dragonfly flitting around above the arena that exists solely to screw up your lock-on. You might have to see it to get a good idea of how badly this fight is stacked against you, but trust me. It’s rough.

But I’m only like a quarter of the way though as of this writing, so who knows? Maybe it’ll really start to click with me once I get a little farther in. I hope so. I feel giddy every time I play the original game, and it would be awfully nice if I found even half as much enjoyment in the sequel.

Not the JackBest

When I purchased Whipseey and the Lost Atlas a couple weeks ago, I bought JackQuest: The Tale of the Sword at the same time. They were the same price, and both on sale with the same discount applied. I probably should have clued in that they’re by the same developer/publisher.

Indeed, Blowfish Studios is not making the best name for themselves in my book. While I’m somewhat ambivalent about Whipseey (it’s too colourful to be mad at), I can say confidently that I did not especially like JackQuest.

Unlike Whipseey, JackQuest has a little meat to it. But not much, mind you. It took me about an hour and a half to finish. That includes a lot of time being stuck and going in circles because the entire game is one samey-looking dungeon with no direction and one false wall that you must find to move on. That said, JackQuest is a wee little metroidvania, and it does have power-ups, keys, switches, save points, etc, etc. All the Video Game Things you expect, as opposed to Whipseey’s very minimalist design.

While I am mildly annoyed at JackQuest’s whole “here’s a maze, figure it out” design, it’s not technically a flaw. You can roughly navigate by landmarks, and while it takes about half the game to earn it, there is a rudimentary map available. It’s old-school design. I played games like this for years and didn’t knock them because they lacked features that would lead me directly to each point of interest. In a game that was more fun, I might even appreciate the invitation to draw up my own map.

The real problem with JackQuest is that the controls are loosey-goosey, and the physics don’t feel like they make sense. Jack has a really weird gravity to his jumps, and wall-jumping in particular feels imprecise and more difficult than it should be. I think if the developer has spent just a little more time tightening up how Jack moves, it could have increased my enjoyment of this game by a significant margin. Alas.

So what else is left to say? I don’t know… To be honest, JackQuest is largely unmemorable. I’ve forgotten most of the fine details already, and have been left with little more than a foggy memory of being unimpressed. I think the boss fights were alright? There are about four bosses, and they do present a halfway decent challenge. Or at least the spider boss did, as I remember needing to retry it a few times before I defeated it. The rest are part of that foggy blur.

Of course, I would not recommend JackQuest. I spent four dollars on it, so sure, I got my money’s worth in gameplay. But it wasn’t an enjoyable experience. Just a middling plod through tropes, with nothing really special or unique to share. It isn’t a bad game, but with so many similar options available there’s really no reason to bother with JackQuest. Just pony up a few more dollars for Hollow Knight instead. It costs only slightly more and is a vastly better video game.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: January 2020

Remember back in the day when I used to write a little blurb for each of these? I don’t think it’s going to be a regular thing again, but… Man, I played a large variety of video games in January. Considering that AGDQ sapped up a lot of my free time and school is eating away the rest of it… You start to realize that most of these games are either very short, or carried over from last month.

~ Game Over ~

Mega Man X (SNES) – The opening video game of the year, as per usual. Short writeup here.

Mega Man Legends (PS1) – I really do adore this game. Sadly, every time I go back to replay it, the… unfortunate control scheme gets harder and harder to re-acclimatize to. And the stupid racing game is impossible but I want the Shining Laser. Wah wah wah gamer tears.

Army Men Air Attack (PS1) – I kind of wish I’d played this back when it was new, as I think I would have really enjoyed it then. Looking at it now, it’s an amusing little curio almost certainly lost to time. What I found most odd about it is that there’s a massive difficulty spike right in the middle of the game. If you can tough it through missions six to nine, it’s smooth sailing to the end. Also the co-pilot voice clips are super repetitive and annoying.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: January 2020

Top 10 Video Games of 2019

Here’s a fun piece of trivia for you: I played 99 different video games throughout 2019. If you averaged it out, that would mean I spent 3.69 days playing each one. That’s obviously inaccurate and meaningless, but it was a way to introduce the real topic: The Top 10 Video Games of 2019.

Like last year, I’m using more traditional criteria again: for a game to be given nominee status, I have to have beaten it, and it must have been released in the calendar year 2019. The fact that I have to have beaten a game to count it is harsher than most critics, but really, if I couldn’t be bothered to finish a game, would I have counted it anyway?

After whittling down the list of 99, I came out with a rather surprising 26 nominees. That’s actually a lot more than I expected. Mostly because I felt like I left a lot of big 2019 games unfinished. That said, TOP TEN, GO!

~ Honorable Mention ~
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne

Here’s the thing: as much as I enjoyed Iceborne, I don’t think it qualifies. It’s a 2019 release, and I beat it, but… it’s just a DLC expansion. I know that I make the rules, but I don’t know if I can allow this. I can certainly allow it an honorable mention, though!

All that aside, I think that Iceborne is really great. It adds a ton of value to Monster Hunter World, though it also has a price tag to match. There’s a whole new campaign, with tons of new monsters, and just as many new features. I already wrote a whole article about this one, so you can go and check it out. Iceborne is a little more difficult than I would like in my old age (it is called Master Rank, after all), but it was a lot of fun to dive back into MHW for a while.

~ 10 ~
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

You know it’s a weird year when a Zelda game shows up on the bottom of my top ten list. There’s a reason for that, though. This Link’s Awakening is more or less a carbon copy of the Game Boy original. Yes, it looks and sounds different, but it’s almost exactly the same otherwise. And that’s fine, because the original is my personal favourite Zelda of all time, but I still would have liked to see a little more new/changed content.

Let’s put that behind us and talk about why I like this game. Link’s Awakening is my favourite Zelda for a reason: It’s got one of my favourite worlds ever. For my money, Koholint has more personality per square inch than any other Zelda. No part of the island seems sparse or boring, everything has a place and a purpose. The dungeons are probably my favourite set in the series as well; they’re all complex but very rarely tedious. Plus, it’s just completely weird, and I love that. Oh, and I guess the remade graphics and music are pretty astounding, too.

~ 9 ~
Pokémon Shield

True story: Pokémon Shield was under contention to get on this list for a long time. It was actually going to be number ten, and might have been ousted by Iceborne if I hadn’t relegated that to an honorable mention. But then I remembered that Max Raid Battles exist and suddenly it became a lot easier to place those last few titles.

Pokémon Shield (and Sword) are… They’re very standard Pokémon games. While they’re the first HD games in the series, they still feel a lot like handheld games. There’s the Wild Area, which is completely open and cool (and super laggy when you’re online), but the rest of the game is very constrained and limited. However, the new Pokémon introduced for generation VIII are generally really great, and the previously mentioned Max Raid Battles are super fun. Pokémon’s campaigns are usually very easy, and I’m not hardcore enough to stand a chance in mulitplayer battles, but Max Raid Battles split the difference by letting you and three other trainers (CPU or human) fight it out against a single super-powered Pokémon. It’s literally the only time in any Pokémon game that I go into a battle not knowing whether I will win or lose and I am so thankful for that. Sadly, I’m sure it’s a one-time feature and will go away next generation, so I’m going to really enjoy it while I can!

~ 8 ~
Yoshi’s Crafted World

There has been some contention online regarding where Yoshi’s Crafted World places in the ranks of Yoshi games. Lots of people seem to think it’s better than Yoshi’s Woolly World. I think those people are absolutely nuts because everything about Woolly World is excellent. But Crafted World is still a very good Yoshi adventure.

In a very general sense, Yoshi’s Crafted World is exactly what you’d expect from Yoshi: walk around, eat up enemies, chuck eggs at things, and find secrets. Only this game has a really creative and well-executed theme of being made entirely of crafts. Everything looks like it was assembled out of household objects and stationery. Not only is the aesthetic unique and enjoyable, but it also allowed for the designers to come up with all sorts of fun new stage gimmicks. Even the boss battles are all designed around what kind of material each boss is made out of. There are a few things that hold this game back from excellence (bad soundtrack, tedious collectibles), but I genuinely enjoyed the time I spent with it.

~ 7 ~
Dragon Quest Builders 2

When I played the first Dragon Quest Builders, I didn’t really feel it right away, and let it sit for like two years before picking it up again and beating it. When I played Dragon Quest Builders 2, I basically did nothing else with my free time between the start and end of it.

DQB2 is an incredible game. If you need a quick primer, it’s a Dragon Quest game that plays sort of like Minecraft instead of your typical JRPG. The first game is great as well, but DQB2 improves on it in basically every way and stands as a shining beacon of pure delight. What I really appreciated about it is that it does something that few games do: it makes NPCs feel important. For one, DQB2 gives you an AI partner who will help you collect materials and slay monsters. More importantly, building up the towns on the game’s islands will increase their populations. The people who move in will then have needs and wants of their own, but many of them will also contribute to the town by cooking, crafting, or fighting off invading monsters. Each town also has a major construction project central to the plot, and ultimately all the townspeople will rally together to help build it under your guidance. It’s really satisfying and provides a unique sense of community that you don’t typically get from single-player games. Oh and also it’s just really fun to be able to explore a Dragon Quest world in a more adventurey style. More, please.

~ 6 ~
Luigi’s Mansion 3

At their core, the Luigi’s Mansion games are very simple. Go here, suck up ghosts, go to next place, suck up ghosts, repeat until win. But what really makes them shine are all the little details in between those basic steps. And Luigi’s Mansion 3 absolutley nails those moments.

The first thing you’ll see when booting up Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a surprisingly long cutscene of Lugi, Polterpup, and all the rest going to a grand fancy hotel. Please note that the visuals are incredible; it is significantly better looking than any video game in the Mario franchise has a right to be. It’s also important to note that the characters are absolutely bursting with personality, everyone has these fun little character quirks and they’re all so entertainingly cartoony. There is a constant stream of gags that are consistently funny. All of these things persist for the duration of the game, and make it probably the single most charming video game I’ve played all year. That’s not to discount the gameplay by any means. While the ghost-to-ghost suck-’em-up business is repetitive and does get a little tiresome after a while, the boss ghosts were refreshingly unique, and I was constantly engaged by all the little environmental puzzles scattered throughout. Spoiler: the real reward for finding all the collectibles is the sense of satisfaction you get for figuring out how to collect them all.

~ 5 ~
Blaster Master Zero 2

Blaster Master Zero was one of my favourite early Switch games, a classic 80’s title that was thoroughly refined to make it more dynamic and playable. So when I heard that IntiCreates was making a sequel, I almost literally jumped out of my chair in joy.

You have to wonder, what could they do to make Blaster Master Zero better? Well, this sequel is really more of an “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” kind of thing. The game is generally the same as before: a side-scrolling exploration platformer with top-down shooter levels mixed in for flavour. The one major refinement is the world map: now you don’t have to truck through every single area when you need to backtrack; you just choose a planet from a menu and you’re off! And that’s the other thing that really stood out to me: around each world are tiny little plantetoids that each host their own challenge stage. They’re all quite short, but tend to be tougher than anything on the main path, and it’s a lot of fun to figure out and conquer them all. Otherwise, BMZ2 is basically more of the same, and in that case, that’s a very good thing. Except for the waifu robot and plant woman with literal giant melons. Could’ve done without those.

~ 4 ~
Tetris 99

Everything on the list up until this point has been pretty well on-brand for me. They’ve literally all been sequels (and a remake) in long-running franchises that I’ve been crazy about forever. So here’s something a little different. A little.

Sure, you could call Tetris 99 a sequel. But that’s not the point. The point is that someone (Nintendo) finally made a Tetris game that has truly made me excited about Tetris. And how did they do it? By turning it into a battle royale game, where 99 players square off to see who will be the last one standing. It’s unexpectedly brilliant, and while I don’t put aside nearly enough time for it, I always have an absolute blast when I do sit down with it for a while. It’s got that insidious “just one more round” thing going on, where I always want to play another match because maybe this will be the time where I finally win. Did I mention it’s free to play? Sure, you can pay some money for a couple extra modes, but all the important content is free (though you do need a Switch Online subscription), so there’s really no reason not to play. All that is to say, while Tetris 99 is the game I’ve spent the least time with on this list, it’s made an absolutely huge impression on me and I’ll definitely keep going back to it until the servers die.

~ 3 ~
Fitness Boxing

If Tetris 99 is the game I spent the least time with, maybe I ought to talk a little about the game I spent the most time with in 2019. Well… is it really even a game? Certainly it has some game-like elements, but really it’s more of an exercise app. And yet here is, at Number 3.

There’s no doubt that this is the real wildcard entry on this list. It is in fact an exercise program of sorts, and more often than not I dreaded having to boot it up. But hear me out, there’s one thing about it that really makes it stand out from the rest: it worked for me. Fitness Boxing has been out for over a year now, and I am still using it regularly. Less now than I did through most of 2019 because reasons, but it still gets loaded up once or twice a week. Maybe it has more to do with my mindset for exercise being better than ever before, but I’m giving the software at least partial credit here. I still hate exercising, but I’ve found that (shadow)boxing is really my thing. It’s the exercise I hate least, and I find it engaging enough to keep me coming back consistently. I may not always be having fun while using the software, but Fitness Boxing has definitely helped me become happier on the whole by playing a huge role in improving my physical fitness level. Though it could really use a DLC pack to help freshen it up a bit.

~ 2 ~
Shovel Knight: King of Cards

Looking back, I am completely puzzled by the fact that I didn’t include Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment on my Top 7 list for 2017. It is, to this day, my favourite chapter in the Shovel Knight Treasure Trove. Perhaps I should have made that a Top 8 list?

So that was a weird tangent. I’m talking about the Shovel Knight campaign that came out in 2019, here. King of Cards! It’s really good! In fact, it’s excellent! While it doesn’t quite satisfy the same way that Specter of Torment did, it’s definitely my second-favourite, which I suppose makes it perfect to be slotted in at spot #2 on this list. To justify this placement: let’s talk gameplay. King of Cards is a 2D platformer like all the other Shovel Knights, but he’s got a unique tackle-and-bounce move that makes it feel appreciably different. It’s a bit hard to wrap your head around a first, but once you get going, it’s makes for silky-smooth gameplay that I’m sure would be an amazing speedrun to watch (spoiler: it is). Couple that with dozens of micro-stages, each with their own gimmick to test King Knight’s abilities, and you’ve got an absolute master class in game design. To top it all off, this is by a wide margin the most entertaining story in the Shovel Knight oeuvre. It’s legitimately funny, and I couldn’t help being totally charmed by King Knight, despite the fact that he is an insufferable dick.

~ 1 ~
Resident Evil 2 (2019)

And so, on this list that is almost entirely made up of sequels and remakes… Of course we have a remake of a sequel at the tip-top.

I know that you’re not going to believe it, but the honest truth is that I just don’t get especially excited about very many video game releases any more. But RE2 Remake was an exception. A huge exception. I was so very eager to get my hands on this game, and I was so very relieved when it turned out to be pretty much all I could have wanted. This is more a re-imagining than a straight-up remake, changing a few story beats here and there, messing with the locations of items and the way you progress. The gameplay also changed dramatically, going from static camera angles to the over-the-shoulder view that RE4 pioneered. Despite that, it doesn’t feel like it’s morphed into an action game, as the zombies are still generally slow and most players are going to find that ammo isn’t quite plentiful enough. I like just about every change made to this game, which is an amazing feat since the original RE2 is my sentimental favourite in the series. Capcom did a fantastic job reconstructing a classic video game, and I really hope that the magic works just as well when the RE3 remake releases this spring.

Ryan’s Big Weekend Adventure!

You know what I didn’t do over last weekend? Study enough.

“Well duh” you all say.

What I did do, however, was all sorts of other things. I want to write about them briefly.

Saturday I got a haircut. There’s a story there, but it’s probably fairly embarrassing for a party who is not me, which makes me feel like I ought not to tell it. So I won’t. Sorry for the tease.

After breakfast I did some coursework for a while. Good old responsible me. I took a break after a couple hours to go visit with my grandparents. They gave me several tins of baking and couple jars of soup. Nice! There’s another mildly embarrassing story here that I don’t think I’m entitled to tell to the internet at large. Aren’t you upset that I’ve gotten so considerate in my old age?

I went back home to do some more book learning, which lasted about an hour. All in all, I made it through about a quarter of the homework questions assigned in a cumulative three hours. That’s not great. I hate school and cannot wait for it to be done forever.

Over the course of the weekend, I “snuck in” just enough video games time to finish playing the Squaresoft PS1 classic, Threads of Fate. You’ve probably never heard of this game, because Squaresoft put out like a billion RPGs on the PS1, so a few of them had to fall through the cracks.

Threads of Fate is an alright game. It’s a dual-protagonist game, and the plot isn’t the most creative, but it’s fun. One character has you working towards world domination, while the other is searching for a way to revive his friend. The characters are mostly archetypes, but they have big personalities and a really good script, so I ended up liking most of them quite a lot. Also the soundtrack is darn good, and the graphics are top-tier for a 3D game on the original Playstation.

However! The gameplay is… questionable. The controls, physics, and hit detection are all just a little bit off. This makes any precision-platforming sections much harder (and frustrating) than they ought to be. Combat is mostly a non-issue, but several bosses are stupidly hard until you figure out the right rhythm to beating them. Overall, it’s not a game that needs a remaster so much as a tune-up.

I also frittered away a whole three hours on Pokémon GO on Sunday, as it was January’s Community Day. Got a whole stable full of shiny Piplups, and that’s really about all. While I was out, I also got to try all of the fancy new “dream donuts” that Tim Horton’s is currently selling. I’ll type up a full thing about them (probably), but the TLDR is that they were not so good that I was able to justify having eaten three donuts in a single sitting. Oink oink.

After all that, I ended Sunday evening the same way I always do: playing an hour of Rocksmith, then watching TV while I do my laundry. This week was devoted catching up on some AGDQ runs, while at the same time trying to fill out a little bit of my Pokédex in Pokémon Shield. I’m at 387 of 400. Almost there!

And that was my weekend. If you think I sound like an incredibly boring individual… you’re right! And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Insufficient Whippage

I’m not the kind of person who will base a game’s value on how long it takes to beat it. That’s a silly way to measure it. I used to think that way, though, back when everyone else did, and sometimes that mindset does manage to creep back in.

Enter Whipseey and the Lost Atlas. This is a cute little game that I’ve had on my eShop wishlist since whenever it was released. At a measley $8, it’s actually a wonder why I didn’t just purchase it right away. After all, it’s a platformer that looks strikingly like a Kirby game, so you would think that I’d be the target demo here.

But no, I waited until it was half-price, and despite my greatest efforts, I can’t help but feel like I overpaid. Whipseey is exactly what it appears to be: a straightforward little platformer where your key verbs are “jump” and “whip.” This is fine. The controls are fairly solid, and I really do appreciate the simple, colourful graphics. That’s where my praise ends.

Whipseey doesn’t really seek to excel or innovate in any way. And I can relate to that; you could say the same thing about me. But the problem is that it doesn’t make for the most fun game. Once you’ve jumped over a hole, whipped an enemy, and then whip-grappled over a hole, you’ve seen pretty much everything the game has to offer. There are no power-ups, no gimmick stages, no new abilities. Whipseey almost never even uses its mechanics to do interesting things. There are exactly two screens where you need to bounce off a monster to clear a gap, and one screen where you need to use more than a single grapple point. I guess the TLDR of it is that Whipseey has a lot of untapped potential, and that makes it more disappointing than outright bad. Which adjective is worse is subjective.

The other thing about Whipseey is that it is short. Like, 30 minutes long at the absolute maximum. It’s five stages long, and each stage is comprised of about a dozen rooms and a boss. When I got to the end, I quite literally did a double-take and exclaimed “What? That’s it!?” I can’t in good conscience fault Whipseey for being so short, as Kirby’s Dream Land is roughly the same length, and I quite enjoy that game. The problem lies in the fact that it’s somehow even shallower than Kirby’s Dream Land, a game in which you can literally just fly over pretty much everything.

Did I at least enjoy my brief time playing Whipseey? It’s actually hard to say. I’ve been mulling it over for a while, and on one hand, there’s barely anything there. The level design is mostly the same throughout each world, really only beginning to get creative in world 5. On the other hand, it’s colourful and responsive and seems to be very competently built. So I guess that my opinion is thus: it is an objectively fine game, but subjectively it feels very much lacking.

While I’m obviously dancing around having to say “I didn’t like it” as much as I can, it’s not hard to say that I absolutely wouldn’t recommend it. Unless you’re buying it as Baby’s First Video Game. And I’m not being dismissive or elitist when I say that. I genuinely think this game would be best suited for a kid who’s new to video games. Anyone else will likely just be bored.

And it just really bothers me that Whipseey is spelled with two E’s. Weird.

How Else Would I Start The Year?

It’s the beginning of a new year, and three days from the start of Awesome Games Done Quick 2020. So I’ve got new year traditions and video game speedruns on my mind, which can only mean one thing:

It’s time to play Mega Man X.

I’m sure I mention it every year, but I like for MMX to be the first game I play through every year. I also really want to get myself to a point where I can finish it in under an hour. That said, I haven’t played it in exactly one year, so… I was a little rusty when I did my annual run yesterday.

Before we get into it, I should also note that I play what I like to call the 99% run. Which is to pick up all the upgrades in the game except for the hadouken, because it’s a pain and very slow to get. I don’t dare run any% because I need all those hearts and armor parts. I’m very bad at the final boss fights.

I reset not one minute into my run because I got a little too excited and tried to get a quick kill on the first bee blader, but apparently my mashing technique is much too slow, and I just died. Whoops. Maybe I ought to just try to play quickly instead of very fast.

Things actually got worse on the second attempt. I died to both chill Penguin and Launch Octopus because I was being stupid. I also feel down a hole in Chill Penguin’s stage, but that one was at least partly because of the Switch Pro controller’s mushy d-pad. I was trying to jump over the hole with the ride ride armor, but the game instead had me jump out of the ride armor, which threw me off and I ended up in the hole. It was dumb. Real dumb.

The other really big oops was when I frigged up getting the arm parts in Flame Mammoth’s stage. I thought, oh no big deal I’ll just get them from Zero later. But then I was in Boomer Kuwanger’s stage and I couldn’t charge Shotgun Ice to get to the heart tank, forcing me to replay nearly the whole stage. That was a pretty massive time loss.

I actually got through the Sigma stages pretty cleanly. Bosspider was nicer than ever, and didn’t even throw any babies at me. Then I got killed bu D-Rex because I always get killed by D-Rex. Don’t know why, but I just can’t manage that fight.

By the time I got to the final showdown, I only had 1.5 of four sub tanks full, and decided that I was already over my hour, so I spent three minutes grinding caterpillars for health drops. Then I had the best Velguarder fight of my life, a sloppy Sigma fight, and a halfway decent fight against Wolf Sigma. I only ended up needing two sub tanks, so that’s something to consider for my next run.

My final time came in at 1:07:14. Not a horrible time by any means, but I know I can do better. Four deaths is a lot, and I should have been able to avoid all of them. We’ll see what 2021 brings!

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: December 2019

~ Game Over ~

Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon (PS4) – So, it’s really weird that the final boss battle (and then the real final boss) had absolutely no fnafare at all. You just walk in the door and then the fight begins. No cutscene, no dialogue, nothing. Very jarring considering how much “story” the rest of the game had. Also, now that the trilogy is over, I think I’m happily done with all things Spyro for the rest of my life. 85% of my enjoyment with these games was watching the scoreboards fill up with 100%s.

Trover Saves the Universe (Switch) – I think I would have liked this more if I had played it in VR, because then it would look really good next to all the shallow mini-games. Like when you find that exceedingly rare mobile game that’s legitimately good. But compared to the other games on my Switch? It’s merely fine. But it’s a great barometer for measuring how long you can stand an unfiltered Justin Roiland. I can go for a little over an hour and a half.

Shovel Knight: King of Cards (Switch) – What an excellent way to close out the Shovel Knight series. King Knight takes a little while to get used to, but once you figure out how he works, it’s so much fun. Couple that with some of the best and most varied stage design in the series, and you’ve got an absolute treasure. It’s just too bad that the Joustus card game is no fun at all.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: December 2019