Happy New Year!
My winter vacations are almost over and it has been very productive couple of weeks, as far as gaming is concerned at least. Spent the days with family and personal stuff, but was free most of the nights so played for at least a few hours each night.
Finished Assassin’s Creed: Rogue Remastered.
Ubisoft games are known for their bloat, but I mostly stuck to the main story and had lots of fun playing the game. Only did side stuff near me, didn’t go out of my way to do anything, except maybe a handful of exception.
I liked this about the game, that it dosen’t force you to do any of the side stuff. You do need to do some naval battles to upgrade your ship but other than that all side activities are optional. Maybe this has been true for previous games too, but me wanting to clear all the icons on map is what made AC: Black Flag start feeling as a chore and why I ended up dropping it. Not being forced to do everything made me enjoy the game more.
Gameplay and visuals felt pretty good. Game didn’t feel dated, but since I mostly play 5-6 years old games I am not sure I am a good judge of that.
I am done with the naval part in these games though. Hope the next games in the series have significantly less of them.
Played and finished Beyond: Two Souls. Got this a long time ago as PS+ monthly game, finally got around to playing it.
Comparing it to the previous game by Quantic Dreams, Heavy Rain, the gameplay and the narrative was much better. And for a game that was originally released in 2013 (with the PS4 version releasing in 2015) the game holds up very well. The controls are very simple, you move around from left stick, interact with the world using right stick (intearctable objects have white circle above them, you just move the right stick in that direction) and all other actions are done by pressing or holding the button they are showing on screen.
Each level ends with showing the choices you made and what percentage of the people in the world who made the same choices. Game also has multiple endings but I just played it once, will probably see the other endings on YouTube.
For those who like adventure / narrative games, and haven’t played Beyond: Two Souls, I’ll highly recommend the game to them.
Played (and dropped) Returnal.
Gameplay wise this is probably the best game I have played lately. The movement, the controls they are all super smooth. Narrative is also pretty interesting, but I didn’t reach far enough to see how it unfolds.
Took me a few tries but I reached the first boss, then died, and since it’s a roguelike (or is it roguelite?) started from the beginning again. And that is the only issue I have with the game, the roguelike nature of it. Every time you die you have to start from the beginning, and you have to explore the whole map before fighting the boss, so that you can get some powerups and better weapons, you can’t just directly run to the boss. After dying to the boss 2-3 times, I just gave up and dropped the game.
Finished Mutant Mudds Deluxe . I was already about 80% of the way through, so went back and finished the last few levels, which were the toughest ones yet.
As for the secret levels, or the other game in the collection Mutant Mudds Super Challenge, they were too difficult for me. Played them a bit and decided they aren’t for me. Great games if you like difficult platformers.
Looking for some some short game, I started (and finished) Blue Rider. It’s a top-down shmup where you can move in all directions, and no auto-moving screen. Which actually makes the game much easier, since you can get back to safety when there are too many bullets flying around. Not possible in boss fights, but there is still enough area to keep moving. I think the game is closer to twin stick shooters than usual shmups.
Game has 9 levels, and if you die you can start from any of the levels that you have reached. The most trouble I had with the level was the second last one, when you pass through any place it gets covered with lava, so you can’t escape backwards and have to keep moving. Other than that the game wasn’t too difficult.
What about all of you? What have you been playing and/or plan to play?
Alright, here we go, let’s start the year off with the big one. I’ve beaten Metroid Prime 4 with 100% items and 99% Scans (because one boss has a scannable projectile, which is just great) and I have to say that it is my least favorite Metroid game (barring the NES and GB titles on account of their age). I’ll say this first: The visuals and atmosphere are brilliant. The boss fights are very good. Now onto everything else:
spoiler
When I started playing I asked when the game opens up and unfortunately, the correct answer is never. I’ve never seen areas in a Metroid game feel more like ‘levels’ than here. But oh, if it was only that! Nothing crushed my soul more than finding an area map and finding a linear string of rooms that you would expect to find in Final Fantasy 13. If there’s ever an offshoot, it’s usually one room. TWO if you’re lucky! And when you’re done, you’re done. If you’re ever forced to come back for a new ability, it’s in a room near the beginning. You never unlock a whole new sub-area.
I didn’t even bother backtracking for items until I had all of my abilities because I’d just have to go through the linearity again. There’s no “Oh, I’ll take a little detour on my way to Area X to pick up items along the way!” because none of the areas are connected in any way! Prime 3 was similar, but it still had good level design and essentially replaced the classic elevators with fast travel. What did Prime 4 replace it with? SLOW TRAVEL! Cue the rant about the motorcycle and the desert…
What on earth were they thinking? I truly wonder if they created the desert first and added the motocycle to make it less painful, or if they added the desert as an excuse for the motorcycle. It’s so bland that if it didn’t exist at all, it wouldn’t feel like anything is missing. I don’t even know what else to say, there’s nothing interesting to talk about. I can’t even rant about the green crystals as a collectable resource, it’s plain stupid.
The whole ‘Psychic’ aspect of your abilities felt a bit forced to me. The Psycho Beam is fun and the ability to throw your Morph Bombs is neat, albeit not used very creatively, but they didn’t have to make EVERYTHING psychic. The Psychic Boots give you a double jump… and you can stand on purple Psycho platforms! …what? And the Psycho Power Bombs which are just Power Bombs that do nothing Psycho-related as far as I can tell.
The story is kinda weird, too. You start out in the prologue, Sylux is there and Metroid are fusing to things and suddenly it’s all about Green Energy, Green Energy, Green Energy. All the bosses still have Metroids fused to them but apparently, nobody cares at all! Nor does anyone acknowledge Sylux as a character until the very end of the game.
Now, for the other characters in the game: I kinda like them. They get annoying when they’re with you and comment on everything you do (the first guy in particular) but I have no problem with them existing in the game. What I hate is Samus’ general apathy towards them. No matter what happens, she just stares at them. I know developers are deathly afraid of making her talk at this point, but a word of affirmation every now and then would work wonders. I didn’t believe for a second that Samus cares at all about any of them false-sacrificing themselves in the Mines. Or for real at the end. If that even is the real ending, I feel like I got the bad ending for pushing the button, but I genuinely don’t care.
At the end of the day remains the question: So it’s a bad Metroid, but is it a bad game? I have no idea. Without the Metroid, it’s not a game I would be interested in playing in the first place, so I have no scope of reference.
I’ll be back in Xenoblade X for now. I’ve played it for the first time in 2 weeks and got my level 60 Skells made. Next stop, proper weapons!
i haven’t updated on this one regularly, but I’ve been playing more Wild Arms 2 on and off this whole time. It does some good things gameplay-wise, but I’m not really feeling the story anymore. The localisation doesn’t help, there are quite a few very awkwardly phrased lines.
Congratulations on finishing Metroid Prime 4! I haven’t played the game yet so not going to read the spoiler but sad to see it getting rated as bad Metroid.
Are you going to continue Wild Arms 2?
spoiler
I think most of the issues with the game are probably consequence of its long and convoluted development.
Driving the bike was fun, they did a good job with the controllers. But they didn’t use it in any interesting way! Even the enemies in the desert are not interesting at all. I wouldn’t mind if they kept the bike for future games, but using it in a more creative, fun way. The desert seems to be a clash between making it more “Breath of the Wild-y” and a Metroid game. They sort of acknowledged it was messy.
I thought the same with the characters. They’re just badly written, particularly the first guy “Jar Jar Binks”. But like you, I don’t think it’s bad that they’re in the game. And yeah, when Samus doesn’t even acknowledge or gesture back when people talk to her, it just feels awkward. They really got burnt with Other M I guess 😅