#but a huge part of the reason they’re such an obstacle to ~unlocking~ the ability to produce academic content

[snarky-art]

Why did you decide to make the Winx in Sirenix full-on mermaids? Not that it's a bad one, I'm surprised they didn't do it in the show.

In truth part of it was inspired by this artwork that I’ve been obsessed with for like a decade lmao

I thought it was weird their Sirenix didn’t do something similar in terms of transformation, especially because these seem to hold more individuality than their actual Sirenix transformations imo. I found out recently it came from a book called Sirene - Le Winx nel Mondo Sottomarino di Andros.

I also liked the concept of each of the transformations on The Road to Nymphix to provide a challenge of some sort for each of the people who partake in it. Each transformation is gained by completing a trial, and then after completing that trial you are considered worthy of obtaining the transformation. However, if you do not overcome your personal challenges that come from learning to work with and master that transformation, you will not be allowed to begin the trial for the next transformation. Personal growth is key for mastery and access to the next transformation in The Elemental Line, whereas personal growth is typically needed before unlocking other transformations.

More in depth info on that for each of the transformations below the cut!

Harmonix: all elemental magic is made equal within the being.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, all magic can be traced back to the 4 elemental magic types.

For Bloom, Tecna, and Stella’s sun magic, that’s Fire.

For Musa, that’s Air.

For Aisha and Stella’s moon magic, that’s Water.

For Flora, it’s Earth.

This means each of them are going to deal with a huge increase and decrease in some of their abilities and it’s gonna feel really wonky and strange to try and conjure and control.

Sirenix: they gain a tail which makes travel different and strange for more obvious reasons, and they also have a huge boost of water magic added.

For Stella’s moon magic and Aisha, that’s going to give them a huge surge. Stella will have more trouble controlling it than Aisha, who takes it in stride.

Musa will also have an increased boost in her sound wave related spells due to how they travel through water.

Bloom’s going to have a hard time getting her elemental spells to work at all, and Tecna is going to have issues keeping their magic in control so it doesn’t accidentally hurt someone or move to a target they don’t want it to (their elemental based magic is similar to electricity). Stella’s sun magic will also be dramatically decreased in power too.

Zephyrix: feathers make maneuvering a VERY different process.

Fairy wings are typically extensions of a beings magic. They’re physical and can be touched, but they’re also much less affected by actual physical obstacles and are tuned to work just right with the being they’re attached to. The feathers are physical and are directly affected by physical things and have an insane amount of wind resistance as a result. Moving with them is going to be more difficult.

Air magic is also boosted.

For Musa, she’s gonna receive a huge amount since that’s already her base element. She’s gonna be good at getting huge amounts of power out but is going to have trouble controlling it to do specific tasks and not just using it as a general area of effect thing.

Bloom, Tecna, and Stella’s sun magic will get a boost too because of how air can increase the strength and spread of fire.

For Aisha and Stella’s moon magic, it’ll depend on environmental factors like how strong the wind is and humidity levels.

Flora is going to have a really rough time with this one due to air being the elemental opposite of earth.

Druix: when using magic for this transformation, plants manifest along the body in the spot the magic is being channeled with the plants acting as the conduit to release the magic instead of just having the body be the conduit.

This is typically a strange and stifling feeling for the individual and a very different way from how magic is used now. Magic has been more streamlined to come from the person instead of outside sources. While potions and runes can be used for things, they’re typically used for short boosts and by people who don’t have strong core magic or are typically not interested in pursuing something like Nymphix.

There’s also a huge increase in the power exuded if the being using magic is touching the natural ground of wherever they are. Flora from the ground and surrounding plants will naturally attach itself to the person summoning magic to give it a huge boost.

Flora is going to thrive with this transformation. She already works and communicates with nature constantly and loves being surrounded by it so she’s a natural.

Aisha and Stella’s moon magic will also do well meshing with this since water can be a benefit to plant life.

Bloom, Tecna, and Stella’s sun magic will not do too well with it because fire is typically harmful to plants, and Musa will surprisingly do pretty well despite this being her elemental opposite.

Air can help spread seeds and pollen, and thanks to Musa and Flora working together on a good amount of stuff together at school for projects, she feels pretty good about using it. The only reason that wasn’t the case for Flora in Zyphrix is because being rooted to the ground and having that stability is much more integral to Flora than being grounded is for Musa.

And finally, Phoenix: the head has flames channeled through it when magic is used. This can be disorienting and takes getting used to. Fear is also a large thing to overcome with it because, well, it’s fire. This fire is manifested from the magic at ones core and then transfigured into flames which ensures the fire doesn’t harm the individual. It’s still a weird sensation though and can be difficult to work through.

Bloom gets the biggest boost due to being a pure fire elemental. Tecna and Stella’s sun magic gets a large boost too though.

Stella gets pretty overstimulated though so the power boost in that area is more of a detriment to her.

Aisha hates this transformation. She doesn’t like working with fire and manifesting any of her go to spells feels impossible because of them being almost entirely water based. She gets better though as time goes on.

Flora also isnt the biggest fan of this one because of the fear factor. She’s more anxious than the other winx about causing collateral damage for stuff so she’s hesitant with fire related spells and magic. This made convergence spells with Bloom difficult during their second year too.

Musa is killing it though. As mentioned in the Zeyphrix section, wind can fan flames, and Musa is going all out. She’s mastered Zeyphrix by now so the only thing she has to work on is adjusting her fire elemental output and then she’s able to go to work. She actually does the best at controlling magic in this transformation out of the other Winx.

Bloom has always had issues with controlling and manifesting her powers due to her body not being as naturally acclimated to it due to the changes needed to blend in on Earth and her lack of experience. She’s grown a lot by now but she was just mastering handling The Dragon Flame and then to get a huge boost to her fire magic was pretty overwhelming.

#winx club #winx #asks #bloom winx #winx bloom #winx musa #musa winx #winx stella #stella winx #winx flora #aisha winx #winx aisha #tecna winx #winx tecna #road to Nymphix #lore #worldbuilding

[needletail]

Nintendogs vs Nintendogs + Cats: a review and comparison.

There’s no doubt that most people want a new Nintendogs game for the Nintendo Switch. But when I see these posts, very few of them are referencing the 3ds variant of the game, but rather the original ds version that everyone continues to know and love.

The addition of cats is Nintendogs + Cats’ most notable feature. It was, while cute and fun for a short period of time, notably worse than its predecessor. But why is that? The formula stayed roughly the same, but the charm didn’t quite hit.

Before we dive into this: these are my opinions on the games, and personal comparisons. Every person experiences things differently, and will likely have different opinions.

We can start with breaking down the original Nintendogs. The graphics have not aged well, but the charm and entertainment factor have. While replaying, I found that the general ambience and the music used endeared me further to the game, and I wanted to play more. The half hour timer on going for walks was frustrating (as was the stamina system), but it otherwise engaged me more to figure out where I wanted to go. The map feels surprisingly big with so much to do, and the side-scrolling walk screen keeps the mystery alive in what you’ll encounter. The competitions were fun and the voice recognition system may have been even better than the 3ds incarnation. The only thing that really suffered were the graphics - but this game is 15 years old and this was advanced for its time, so we can let that slide. The dogs can be a little strange to look at at times, but they’re expressive and distinct, which is what matters in a pet simulator.

The information you can take in is optional, but an exciting part of the game for those who are interested. Your dog’s profile is detailed but easy to understand, going as far as to tell you what it ate last. There’s something so charming about it being displayed as if it were a document you had in front of you - it brings another element of immersion into this sim.

[Image ID: a photograph of the informational sheet on Nintendogs. It includes the name, gender, breed, trainer, time together, coat, hunger, thirst, and things eaten. The trick list and contest results are also on this screen.] 

From cars passing by to horns in the distance and dog barks from somewhere vaguely nearby, the sound design of Nintendogs is audibly aged, but still strong. The few tracks spread in the game are iconic, and stay in my head a lot longer than I’d like to admit. 

The competitions are another huge highlight of the original nintendogs. The banter between the hosts, Ted and Archie, is something that continues to be remembered. Everyone’s seen the line “you make me feel like a man, Archie”, and the banter they keep up in each competition is less like a mindless tapping chore and just more entertainment. The settings are surprisingly realistic - less so on the obedience, but the ring set up for agility certainly is. The balance between realism and fun is another part of why Nintendogs appealed to all audiences. 

Agility is my personal favourite event, and the same goes for a lot of people I’ve met. There’s a level of interactivity here that isn’t met by the successor (something we’ll touch on later). Guiding your dog over hurdles and through tunnels, and later having to balance speed with accuracy - it’s an event that keeps you, the player, engaged. It becomes a sort of fine art once you hit the Championship level, as your dog, by that point, is likely going to be very fast and have a mind of its own, often trying to predict which obstacles it’s going to go through. 

[Image ID: an angled photograph of the starter agility training course. The dog is laying on the green, and the hurdles and tunnels are in view.] 

Disc is in both versions, and is fun in its own way. I, personally, don’t tend to use the disc competition - in the original Nintendogs, the projectiles can be a little speedier than you intend them to be, and the dogs are a little too determined to hold onto their toys. But, with a well-trained dog, this event can be as fun as anything else. In the original, you didn’t have to contend with the other dogs - something that I’ve grown to appreciate over the years. But, like with the event that removed Agility, I’ll be looking at how the changes fared later. 

Obedience is held on a stage, and is a fun event for people who take the time to train their dogs. Your dog can typically learn three or four tricks a day (depending on the dog), and between the tricks listed in the Obedience Guide Book and the unlisted tricks that your dog can learn, you can usually blow the competition out of the park. It definitely requires the most time and effort out of all of the events, and it can be frustrating if your dog suddenly stops listening - but the rewards are surprisingly good. It’s always fun to have a well-trained Nintendog, if only because showing them off when I was a child was my favourite thing to do. 

Obviously, competitions are the main money-makers in these games. Tackle a solid few of them, and you’ll find yourself able to afford another dog or two. Though your room is limited to three dogs, there’s also a Hotel to keep some other dogs in. As time progresses and you gain more of a bond with your dog(s), you’ll unlock more breeds. 

Something that went over my head when I was a child was the method to unlock Jack Russells, specifically. You need to find an incredibly rare book - something which I don’t ever recall doing, and still haven’t. I found this information via the wikia, so I’m not too sure how accurate is, but it is an interesting breed to lock behind a time and patience-based method. 

[Image ID: an angled image of a German Shepherd laying on its side. In the corner is an idea bubble.] 

Overall, Nintendogs is a solid and fun pet simulator, and it’s clear why so many people have such good memories. The dogs are filled with personality (even being expressive enough to show you when they’re angry vs happy), the competitions are engaging, and though the format will become stale after playing daily for a long time, it’s always a fun game to come back to after a period of time. 

Which is why it’s unsurprisingly that it gained a sequel.

I remember being ecstatic when Nintendogs + Cats was shown in advertisements on television. When I got the 3ds, I also got a copy of Nintendogs + Cats. The Golden Retriever version, specifically, but I do own all three. For some reason? As people got bored with it, they usually gifted me them. 

At first blush, it’s almost as charming as the original. The graphics style handles much better than the original, with slightly more realistic movements, and less cardboard-y models. I much prefer the Nintendogs + Cats models to the originals, for obvious reasons - though their movements can be a little repetitive and strange at times, and a lot less expressive than the originals. But that said, I much prefer the Kennel system of petting and exploring the dogs and their behaviours (limited as they are) before you adopt, and I enjoy sorting through colours or getting unique colours/patterns. The rare white variants used to be my obsession, as a child. 

[Image ID: a german shepherd holding a present in Nintendogs + Cats. The model is significantly better than the original Nintendogs model.] 

Immediately, though, there’s a lot less ambience in Nintendogs + Cats. I play with my volume up all the way, and it’s typically just my dogs and cat making noises. I miss the cars going by and the general background noise that the game can provide. It feels just a little too silent, and the music tracks are repetitive and unmemorable for the most part. Obviously sound design don’t make or break the game, so I won’t harp on this point for too long. 

The gameplay is...fine? I’m not a fan of petting a shadow of my dog, but I understand they did that for 3D purposes (something which most people didn’t use, to the point that the 2DS was made. I play on a 2DS). The camera control is an incredibly nice feature to have, the showering minigame is a little more thorough. They didn’t really add anything to the care features, though. If anything, they took away a lot of experiences - reading the care books and instead guiding you through the tricks one by one instead of as you want, forcing you to learn a specific set of tricks before you can move on to the next ones. The game is far more hand-holdy, which can be frustrating at multiple points. But, hey. There’s cats! Let’s talk about the cats. 

What’s their purpose? Not much. Which is fine, although they take up a slot in your three-pet designation. As cute as the cats are, they definitely got done dirty. There’s three selections to choose from (Standard, Oriental, and Long-hair), with multiple colours, but not much depth beyond that. Obviously, the cats were just a cute addition - I do like having my little cat wandering around the house with my two dogs, and I know from past experiences that once you bond with the cat, it’ll go out and get presents for you if you leave your ds on. Gaining affection with the cats is very slow-going and if you’re someone who likes your pet simulations to be more interactive, it might be wiser to stick with the dogs. I’m not complaining against the addition of cats - it just could’ve been done much smoother, with better mechanics enabled. Be it adding some breeds and a proper grooming minigame to maintain them, or the ability to train them but have them be much harder than the dogs. There were many ways to put cats into the game, and I just don’t think they hit as intended. 

So, how did they do with the competitions? Well. 

The short answer: they’re pretty bland, and a downgrade from the original.  The long answer... 

[Image ID: a white cocker spaniel chewing on a banana lure.] 

In the competitions, there’s no more Ted/Archie banter. It’s just Ted. Doing his thing. I honestly do not read the text for this game, and instead tap quickly to progress to the events. 

Replacing Agility comes Lure Coursing. I’m not sure about other countries, but that’s an incredibly niche section of dog sporting here, and it’s also notorious for being...very boring. And in the game, it lives up to that. Instead of guiding your dog through obstacles, you wind the cog of a lure and honk it to get the dog to follow it. Sometimes you honk it to get them over hurdles. I have to admit, I usually space out when I’m training my dogs with this - it’s an easy moneymaker once you’ve trained them up to Nintendogs Cup level, but it’s easily the most mind-numbing event. Anything would’ve been better. If they didn’t want to implement Agility, there are other dog sports that could’ve suited well; guiding your dog through the Flyball course and using its name to bring it back until it could do it on command (maybe even utilising a team of three, for reason as to why you can have up to three dogs), or sledding, using your dog to pull a lightweight sled (on wheels) through a course in a race against other dogs (or, again, even using your trio). There could have even been scenting sport in which you teach your dog how to scent and go off to find a mark, or herding. The point is: lure coursing is the most unengaging thing to put in a game. 

The Disc competition barely changes, so I won’t say much. I don’t particularly enjoy having the other dogs in the ring to compete with as it becomes all too easy for them to interfere heavily with your own dog, but I understand why it was implemented and know that a lot of people enjoy it. I prefer the throwing speed and the control you can have over the disc, and will admit that overall, the Disc competition is generally improved. 

But then you come to the Obedience Trial. AR Cards are mandatory. You don’t have a surface to put your AR Cards on, or lost them years ago? Then you can’t do it. I actually ordered AR Cards, having thrown out my old ones due to damages and general...lack of use. As of this post, I have been unable to play the Obedience Trial, so I can’t say much on whether the system has improved. I do know that AR Cards can work on a laptop screen or something similar, but the 3ds camera is pretty horrible and can glitch out, making it unreliable for screen-based AR cards. Unfortunately. 

[Image ID: a white cocker spaniel standing on an AR Card.]

The walking system is fine. I love being able to go to different routes (as limited as they can be - but the original was no saint to repetitiveness once you knew the whole map), and I like having to go between grass patches, with a chance for a surprise present. I think the addition of the BARC stores are a cute touch, and the Miis walking their own dogs are cute, too. The interactions between your dog and theirs is based on your dog’s personality as well as theirs, which makes sense - but there’s basically three outcomes. More than the original, but meeting with other dogs tends to be to see if you can backtrack when you’re near the end of the walk by having them invite you to the cafe or park, or to get presents from Streetpass miis. I like the cone minigame to test your control over the dog and its leash, and as a rule, I just...like it. It’s relaxing. I don’t prefer it over the original, but I don’t prefer the original over it. They both have their benefits and downfalls. The biggest upside to + Cats’ system is that you can take your dog on as many walks as you want. 

Interactivity isn’t really a thing, with + Cats. Whereas in the original you could legitimately piss off your dog and it would bark and snarl at you for a while before you regained its trust, this game doesn’t punish you for much. I poked and prodded at my dog for a while, and it didn’t really do much for me. This is a game where you sort of just have cute looking models that hold up surprisingly well for their time, and that’s it. There’s not much game to the game, as it were - and that’s from a game where the gameplay was limited as it was. 

Adding multiple accessories to your pets is a very nice addition, albeit expected. Overall, though, the gameplay has been significantly dumbed down and while I understand that kids play it, my generation played Nintendogs as small children and we got by just fine. It’s a very intuitive game, and it’s almost insulting how little Nintendogs + Cats thinks of its audience. 

Another nice addition to Nintendogs + Cats, though, is body type for your pets. There’s a few that your pet can be: underfed, skinny, optimal, plump, and overfed. I usually have optimal dogs, but apparently plump and overfed dogs run slower and as such they do poorer in competitions, which is a pretty neat feature to have in-game. 

In the short of it, Nintendogs + Cats is fine, but Nintendogs (the original) is Good. I have a lot more nostalgia for Nintendogs which may cloud my opinion, but playing it in 2020 is still fun, and I’m especially happy to play the Agility competition.

For an interactive pet simulator with fun competitions and plenty to do, Nintendogs is the way to go.  For a pretty enough game with simplistic gameplay, Nintendogs + Cats is the way to go. 

Both games have their perks, but I certainly have a clear favourite. If a Switch edition of Nintendogs ever happened, I’d much prefer the original style with some of the quality of life changes made in the successor. In the end, it’s all up to what you’re looking for in a game - but as someone who’s looking for a fun time, I’m a sucker for the originals. 

(Note: I have not played the knock-off Nintendogs for Switch, and would appreciate input on if it’s worth buying or not. Reviews are poor at best, as far as I can tell, though.) 

#nintendogs #nintendogs + cats #video games #game review #eph reviews

[the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee]

Every Single Grievance I have with Fable 3

I don’t hate Fable 3.

I swear I don’t, especially after a second playthrough that helped me get over the jarring change of mechanics from Fable 2. Heck, I don’t even think it’s a bad game. But I have a lot of problems with it.

Like, quite a few. And I did say I was never gonna stop ragging on it, so this list of grievances is the result. It’s not comprehensive, it’s going off of pure memory so YES I will get details wrong but this wasn’t made with perfect accuracy in mind.

It’s a lot of minor things and if anyone can explain why some of these things are like this, please tell me.

Enjoy my complaining.

1. Where the Fuck Am I?

Sanctuary map oh Sanctuary map, where the fuck am I???

I actually have a couple problems with the Sanctuary map, one of which being that it is a terrible map. Oh, it does decently well in places that don’t have many multi-level areas like Brightwall, but in places like Mistpeak? Where the terrain can range from very high to low? 

Navigating with the map is an absolute nightmare.

And I say this after trying to find the Mistpeak Demon Door using just the Sanctuary map. The result of that adventure was me looking up a YouTube video instead.

Nothing is where you think it is, areas are hard to pinpoint in relation to each other because you either can’t see them or there are other obstacles in the way. And the map doesn’t show you where YOU are so you have to either rely on the golden trail or do guesswork.

Not that the golden trail is reliable because the thing fizzles like a candle in the wind and it can’t lead you to locations that are not quests or fast-travel locations.

And... oh boy. Fast travel.

How the fuck does this game determine where you end up when you fast-travel to a location? Fast-travelling to Brightwall especially is a gamble, you either end up all the way outside the gates where you enter from Mistpeak Valley or you end up in the square. Why is it not always the square? Why can you end up outside the village? There’s nothing interesting there that would warrant it.

2. Dying in Slow-Motion

This isn’t about the hidden health bar. I’ll get to that later. This is about the gratuitous amount of slow-motion shots you get while fighting.

It’s... frankly a little absurd, like someone really REALLY liked that mechanic in Fable 2 and decided to crank it up to 11.

I get it, some nice slow-motion so we, the players, can appreciate the flourishes. But sometimes I don’t even hit anything so I’ve just wasted a few seconds watching my character miss, and sometimes if you’re swarmed you get a lovely slow-mo shot of your character about to get bodied.

It’s not as annoying as some other things, but I have to ask. Why??

3. Skill Tree Nuance

Fable 3 absolutely stripped any nuance of upgrading the Heroic disciplines. Fable and Fable 2 at least had you choose what ASPECT of each of the disciplines you wanted to level up, so you had to at least make a decision of what you valued most of each one. Was Accuracy more important to you because of the type of gun you were using or perhaps you liked shooting things more? Did you prefer a bigger health bar at this point in time over hitting harder? Did you want the greater power of Shock over the ability to hit more targets with Inferno? (These examples are all from Fable 2 because I’m not familiar enough with Fable to pull from that.)

In Fable 3 your hardest decision leveling up in skills is merely deciding if you like melee, shooting, or magic better. With a side of selecting what spells you want.

Nice.

And no, having the Guild Seals act as your experience and unlockables currency does not make the choice much more complex. You’re still choosing to upgrade the entire skill and not upgrade choice aspects of it.

4. Why is My Health Bar the Entire Screen

Listen. I meant it when I said I don’t hate Fable 3, and a big reason is because I can play around most of the stuff that is annoying or unfamiliar to me.

Except.

The.

Health.

Bar.

For those who don’t know, Fable 3 does not have a health bar. Or, rather, it does, but you, the player, are not privy to it. Instead, the entire screen turns gray and the edges turn red like it’s a fucking FPS shooter. Fable 3 is not an FPS shooter. Fable as a SERIES is not an FPS shooter.

It is not the type of game where you should have to guess EXACTLY how low your health is, because while the screen change gives you an approximation, it’s absolute garbage for making a quick estimate of how many hits you can take before you’re knocked out.

You also can’t even increase the health bar on the Road to Rule. At least, not as far as I’m aware because I CAN’T FUCKING SEE IT. Speaking of the Road to Rule...

5. Road to Rule is Not Terrible, But Half of it is Unnecessary

I get that the Road to Rule is supposed to be a replacement for the menu level-up systems in the other two games but the thing is, since leveling up was dumbed down the Road to Rule doesn’t have much going for it aside from being Theresa’s pocket dimension where she can talk to the Hero of Brightwall. But even then it’s unnecessary because, as seen in the last part of the game when she shows up for the last time, she can apparently stop time itself.

The thing is, half the shit in the Road Rule makes no sense to be locked behind progression. Sure, dyes maybe I can get (even though they’re superficial), but expression packs? I need to progress to even gain the ability to make friends with someone? I have to wait and shell out Guild Seals just to buy property?

Why? Because of the second half of the game? 

Wasn’t the point of that being the gold amount was set so ridiculously high you still have to put in time or job grinding so regardless you have to invest something? Being able to buy property earlier in the game isn’t going to impact it that much, which just makes it being barred in the Road to Rule very... unnecessary. Like the job level ups being in the Road to Rule instead of leveling up in the job itself and thus breaking any impression that your character was getting better at the task by doing it instead of just suddenly shooting up in skill.

6. Why is the Guild Seal so Fucking Huge and Logan’s “Enough!”

Nothing major here, just like... why is the guild seal so huge? It requires like 2 hands to pick up. Sparrow traveled with that thing for like, gods know how many years as well as the Heroes from ages past. Why is the damn thing so big, it’d be so inconvenient to carry.

Also in the cutscene where Walter confronts Logan and the Hero of Brightwall tries to stop him, there’s this moment where Walter tries to protest and Logan goes “Enough!”. But the thing is, he says it in the same tone you’d take if you were cutting someone off, and Walter stops speaking before Logan says it. It’s just a little awkward.

7. Side Cast

I really actually have only one issue with the side cast. Other than that, I think Fable 3 has a very well-developed side cast. Walter is really cool, Jasper is amusing, and Page and Ben are enjoyable and mark their personalities out starkly. I could go on, but you get the idea. I feel like I know these characters as people, much better than I do in Fable 2.

But the thing is, while that is true, some relationships are straight-up neglected. For example: any sort of dynamic between the Hero of Brightwall and Logan and the relationship between the Hero and their dog. Fable and Fable 2 at least gave their characters if not equal time, at least SOME time. The dog gets a few cute tidbits and honestly I didn’t expect a retread of the connection from Fable 2, but half the time I forget the dog is even there. The relationship between the dog and Hero does not impact anything unless you count Traitor’s Keep, but we’re not since it’s DLC. Nothing impactful is really connected to the dog.

Logan. Oh, Logan. You got did so dirty by this game. Fable 3 had the opportunity to do something with the player choosing to spare Logan, but it goes nowhere. It doesn’t offset your new money goal or increase it if you choose to execute Logan because of his soldiers leaving or staying depending on the choice, the Hero and Logan basically never talk in the second half of the game, heck, you don’t even see him again until he’s all “Imma just go” at the end. I’m not asking for a lot here, just something. I get that forcing your sibling to choose between the life of their childhood friend/lover and the lives of protesters will damage any semblance of a sibling bond they would have, but it would’ve been a wonderful opportunity to delve even deeper into why Logan made the choices he did and how they affected him. Does he feel remorse for what he did now that he’s off the throne? Would he do it all again? We’ll never know, because he vanishes off the face of Albion until the end where he says he’s leaving.

8. Some Plot Holes and Other Plot Issues

As much as I like Logan and believe he’s easily the most complex major antagonist the Fable series has had, uh... as much of the Fable community has pointed out, his secrecy makes no sense. At first I thought maybe he kept quiet because he thought no one would believe him when he said the Darkness was coming and Walter and the Hero of Brightwall only believed him because they experienced it for themselves. And that’d be a perfectly plausible explanation.

If the entirety of Aurora couldn’t back up his statement.

Seriously, it wouldn’t be just Logan’s word, he has the remnants of an entire nation to back him up. He already made a promise to Kalin and she’s been portrayed as a perfectly reasonable leader, I can’t see why she’d not help Logan convince Albion of the danger. It’d be in her best interests as well because it would increase the likelihood that Aurora would get aid from Albion.

Logan also doesn’t look great or even effective as a leader. Theresa tells you that he can’t defeat the darkness because... reasons, and I actually believe her. Because this guy has apparently been taking what was essentially the evil path to getting gold and only raised... 400,000 gold in 4 years. And you can piss that all away in one of your first choices as ruler. That’s like... really pathetic and unbelievable, because the evil choices are supposed to give more gold. That’s the whole reason why Logan decided heinous actions were okay in the first place! 400,000 gold doesn’t convince me of that!

Also, the second half of the game really suffers because of the Good/Bad duality choice system. It gives you little room for compromise. Why can’t I tell Samuel to wait one more fricken year before Brightwall Academy is reopened? Why does the orphanage have to be torn down to make room for a brothel, was there no other buildings or empty space?

See what I mean here?

9. Gamebreaking Glitch I Encountered And Am Still Salty About

Apparently, there’s a gamebreaking glitch in Fable 3 where you load the game up... and you never leave the loading screen. Yeah. That’s a thing. And I know, because I got it. The only way you can re-enter the game is by deleting your save file, because Fable 3 is so allergic to menus that you can’t even switch Heroes in the Sanctuary since that requires you to enter the game first. Yes, I am still salty about this.

10. This Is Just Here Because I Don’t Like The Number 9

Elise/Elliot don’t have a lot of emotional impact on me. You don’t really spend a lot of time with them like you do with Rose or even see them killed in front of you like with Rose OR Scarlet Robe. Like, you meet them in the garden then you get pulled away for a swordfighting tutorial lesson and then there’s a cutscene and you make a choice and they’re either dead or not. Aside from their unique presence in the kidnapped quest, they’re kinda just... there, especially if you choose to save them.

11. I Forgot This When I was Originally Writing the Post

Interacting with NPCs outside of the story-relevant ones in Fable 3 is... awkward. You are forced to interact with them one-on-one and do quests just to get them to like you. And I get the quest part, for it to force some personalized connection between the two of you, but the quests are all the same! Fetch this, deliver that, dig up this. You don’t even get to choose what expression you can do to them because the game only lets you see three options at a time.

Fable 2′s NPCs were not exactly deep and complex either, but they had personality! They had likes and dislikes and favorite places and shit. AND you could choose exactly what expression to do. Stores are not great either, the wares are so limited and unreliable its difficult to find anything specific.

Some Good Points About Fable 3 Because This was Too Much Negativity

Walter, as a final boss, is foreshadowed and built up much better than the Great Shard in Fable 2. While I do love the Perfect World section of Fable 2, it works better narratively than it does gameplay-wise. Lucien is built up to be Sparrow’s ultimate confrontation and he just... falls and dies after you suck the power out of him. Not exactly riveting.

The Hero of Brightwall follows the trend of having a semblance of personality and not being an entirely blank slate mouthpiece for the player. Fable’s Heroes have always been slightly more than just player avatars, to me at least. There are these little moments where they act like their own person. Like the Hero of Oakvale having a PTSD flashback of his village being burned down, or Hammer commenting on how quiet Sparrow is, or the Hero of Brightwall being a bit cheeky at times like giving Saker a playful punch before pulling him to his feet or saying “This is the last party I’m taking you to” (or something of the like) to Page at Reaver’s mansion. I dunno, it’s just this tiny detail I always liked about Fable.

THE FASHION IS SO MUCH BETTER IN FABLE 3. Gods I don’t know why I get so hung up on this but every dress and most of the shoes in Fable 2 look TERRIBLE. Fable 2 just doesn’t have a lot of appealing clothing options for me, thus why I dress mostly the same in a lot of my playthroughs of Fable 2. But Fable 3 has much nicer looking clothing. I only lament that I can’t snag something like Page’s masquerade dress, that thing was gorgeous.

I spent way too much time on this.

#fable 3 #fable 2 #fable #Hero of Brightwall #hero of bowerstone #sparrow #hero of oakvale #fable crit #and some fable 3 appreciation at the end #more bitching but the game deserves some love as well

[game-boy-pocket]

Breath of the wild currently sits as my favorite 3D Zelda, in order for the sequel to be my new favorite, the bare minimum it has to do is have a little more variety in Baddies, and make Ganondorf chew the scenery anytime he's on screen.

But here are the other things I would like to make it a 10/10 game for me, I don't expect all of this to happen but it would really be nice if any of them did.

- please give us the master cycle zero again, this time in the base game, with upgrades you can unlock. Mounted weapons, built-in glider, more fuel efficiency, and maybe the ability to customize the paint job with gathered materials like you could your clothes.

- more Mobility options. I hear they cut the hookshot out of botw because it remove the Obstacle of climbing. That's all well and good but I feel it would be reasonable to make it a mid-game reward. Would also be nice to have a new glider, one that we can do a nose dive to gain speed and pull up to slow down but gain altitude, sort of like Batman's cape in the Arkham games.

- more than one tile set for shrines and dungeons. I'm not sure what approach they're taking with this game, whether it be the same as breath of the wild, or something a little more traditional you Zelda, if the world is as big as it was in breath of the wild, I would imagine shrines are still going to be part of the game. Shrines would be a lot more interesting though if they didn't all look the same. I think it's unreasonable to expect every Shrine to have a unique theme, but if there was just a pool of several themes that could be used for the shrines it would make them a lot more exciting to explore.

- more background info on the yiga clan. Something tells me that we still don't fully understand their motives in allying themselves with Ganon.

- bosses that don't all look the same. Pretty self-explanatory. And more Overworld bosses while we're at it. I'd like aquamentus to come flying down from the sky, or dodongo to burrow up from the ground.

- caves. Good Lord if there was one thing missing from the exploration of the last game it was the lack of tunnels, Caverns, hidden grottos, Etc. Nearly every 3D Zelda before it was littered with this stuff.

- if they absolutely must we use the same Overworld from breath of the Wild, I want some significant changes. More settlements, repaired structures, and random events would be nice instead of encountering the same things in fixed positions. Overworld bosses, yiga Clan posing as Travellers, Travelers under attack, wandering shop keeps, they all only ever appeared in the same locations. And it would be nice to encounter something surprising once in a while. Besides skeletons anyway.

Now these are all things that I feel are reasonable to expect, I won't be to let down if I don't get them. I don't really expect them either, most of the buzz has always been about whether or not a Zelda would be playable, so I'm not sure if the developers know what fans want in the gameplay Department. I could personally take it or leave it if she was, I'd only be interested if she had significantly different abilities from link. I've always wanted to play a more Magic based character in Zelda.

Anyway here's my pipe dreams.

- completely new Overworld outside of Hyrule, where nothing is in ruin and all structures are standing, save for maybe a few patches of old lands

- crafting. Something I've been pretty indifferent to until very recently, I actually like the durability system, but I feel it would be much better if you could create and repair weapons and other items with your gathered materials

- a second continent to explore. This one is definitely asking a bit much, and it's pretty dumb, but every time I explore a huge game world that has an ocean on the border I'm always keeping my fingers crossed that there will be a ship that I can board to sail to a second continent. It doesn't even need to be as big as the first, it just has to have a few points of interest on it but make it worth the trip. There's several islands you cannot visit in breath of the wild that you see on the horizon. I would settle for even a visit to those.

- an Evergreen post game. When you defeat the final boss, and complete all the shrines, and get your tunic of the wild, the only thing left in the game to do is grab all the korok seeds, which isn't very fun, especially once you're down to that last hundred. I want there to be a reason to keep playing after the credits roll.

- a legitimate flying machine would be pretty nice. Could make for a cool hundred percent completion reward.

-Portable music player, with a bunch of great remixes of past Zelda game music. It's a pretty silly idea, I know, but I'll be honest exploring to breath of the wild music put me to sleep sometimes. But if the Overworld music was more robust and had Say the original theme song playing the whole time, it could probably get on my nerves, so I think a playlist of Zelda's Greatest Hits would be a better compromise. Plus I can turn it off if I don't like it.

Any of those things would make the game a dream come true for me. However, as optimistic as I am about this game, I do have concerns. And this is what might break my enthusiasm.

- a really intrusive gimmick. I think this game is all but guaranteed to have a new gimmick, given that the trailer seems to imply this glowing arm thing attaches itself to link. Gimmicks can be bad as well as good, so we'll wait and see what happens with this.

- a linear game. I don't think this is going to happen, but my heart would be completely broken if they went back to the old style of railroading you into a very specific order of events.

- the villain is just a growling monster. I'm excited to see Ganondorf again, but I have a horrible feeling he might just stay a groaning corpse throughout the entire game. The Zelda team give me the impression that they are not very interested in the character of Gannon. Not in the way that some fans are. This will be the first cannon appearance of Ganondorf since 2006, my heart can't take it if he ends up being treated an obstacle or a natural disaster again, instead of an actual character in the game.

- Exposition out the butt. I became so incredibly disenchanted with Zelda when Skyward Sword came out. That game had just so much talking in it. I wasn't very fond of the story, but even putting the story aside, there were so many characters to lead you around by the nose. It wasn't just fi. It was everyone in the game. The kikwi, the mogma, forgettable fish things, the gorons, everyone had to bring the game to a screeching halt to tell Link what should it be immediately obvious. Or to warn him that there are bokoblins ahead that we already knew about. Again, I'm not sure this will come to pass, specifically since breath of the wild came about because people complained about this kind of thing in Skyward Sword. And thank goodness for it, albw and botw together renewed my love for Zelda after it was starting to fade.

Anyway, that's what I want out of the next Zelda. Sorry for the wall of text, just wanted to get this out of my system, cuz I don't have anybody to geek out about Zelda with.

[teaandgames]

Revisited - Sundered (2017)

I fail to see a solid reason for refusing the gift of Eldritch powers. Sure, it will shred the fine strands of your sanity and distort world and body into a hideous mirror image of your former self but you get to summon nightmare tentacles whenever you want. There is no problem on this earth that cannot be solved by the application of nightmare tentacles. Who even needs sanity when you tentacle your problems away. This was my philosophy as I repeatedly corrupted myself in Sundered.

There are multiple reasons for this actually, some of them good and some bad, but there’s no denying it made for juicier powers. As combat is a necessary half of any Metroidvania game, and Sundered certainly is one of those, it’s good to have a nice range of skills. It’s combat, however does rather fall flat, even if it nails the exploration. As a result, Sundered is an interesting game that never quite reaches its potential. Eldritch, certainly, but I can’t help feeling like this is a My First Eldritch set, rather than anything really fleshed out.

It certainly has the right Eldritch-y themes in place. Your protagonist, Eshe, begins by battling through a sandstorm towards an ancient ruin. The ground gives way beneath her and she soon finds herself corrupted and caught in the middle of an ancient war between two civilizations. All very Lovecraftian, even if there is an absence of weird underground lizard people. You also meet a glowing, talking shard companion that is undeniably evil and yet also quite cool. From there, the story takes a backseat as you explore around the world, finding skills and levelling up.

It’s got the core of a metroidvania down - that is it locks off certain areas until you’ve got the skills to progress. This is one of my favourite parts of Sundered, as it is with others of the genre, as it requires you to build up your own mental map of the place and each new skill will unlock new doors for you. Backtracking is a necessity but it becomes more exciting because of the knowledge that you’ll be seeing something new. This is helped along by Sundered’s smooth movement mechanics. Jumping feels quite precise and it has a suite of decent moves. You can wall jump off the bat, which is nice to see.

The skills you acquire are all in the aid of movement, save perhaps the giant cannon. I didn’t really use that, but I’ll get to that in a second. The movements skills include things like rolling, double jumps and grappling hooks. They naturally open the world and they’re properly tested in boss fights. Bosses are usually huge and hit hard, so it becomes more a fight of opportunity (and not running into spikes). The final boss (one of three, as there are multiple endings) puts this to the hardest test, with my clumsy jumps not yet being enough to beat them.

These skills can also be upgraded by collecting Elder shards and bringing them to shrines, which makes your glowing friend very happy. These corrupt abilities, making them stronger. The roll turns into a teleport, for instance, which can bypass obstacles. You can also burn the shards, which will get you the better ending but leave you less well equipped. As you might expect, I corrupted myself up to the nines, though I was a little annoyed that three shards were ‘secret’, kind of ensuring that most people get the middle-of-the-road ending first time out.

You also needs to level up your stats, which you do by collecting smaller shards that fall out of enemies and containers. There’s a stat web of sorts where you can upgrade damage, health, armour, etc. It does mean that you get stronger naturally by exploring but by the end, it brings in an unpleasant amount of grind, not helped by the unsatisfying combat. I wanted to save this until I’d gotten the good points out of the way because the combat really is a huge problem. Hitting enemies has little to no visual effect, you basically just wail on them until they pop.

This is bad by itself but the game has a horde function that sends massive waves of enemies at you. They all just kind of dogpile you, obscuring your character and forcing you to just mash the attack button to get out of it. You kind of need to fight them in order to level up and to be able to platform around in peace. It’s very dull and frustrating, particularly as getting lost in the pile is a highway to a cheap death. As a metroidvania leans on its combat, this is a huge problem. While the individual skills are nice, using them on enemies is not. The cannon blasts you back nicely, for example, but glides through enemies doing minimal visible damage.

It’s not helped by the fairly dismal enemy variety. In a game that takes notes from Lovecraft, there really was more scope to go crazier with your enemy designs. Instead, the first basic enemy is reskinned about three times (and is a weird slug looking thing) and half of the rest are robots. Okay, it’s a security system and one side of the old conflict were essentially human (called Valkryies). But that doesn’t excuse the fact that laser firing robots are old hat and are fundamentally uninteresting to fight.

It means that while I kind of like Sundered, I can’t really recommend it without a handful of caveats. It looks fairly nice (being hand-drawn) but doesn’t really do much with it, symptomatic of the games core problem. It feels rather underdeveloped, being a showcase for some tasty eldritch skills and exploration but lacking in all other departments. If the combat was tuned up to make our blows feel like they’re doing anything, and it toned down the hordes, it would be a lot more fun. As it is, it’s a bit of a tiring slog with some juicy corruption going on in the background. Pros -Has a nice plot in the background -Definitely takes some notes from Lovecraftian -Movement skills feel good -Exploration is done well, with a big map Cons -Combat is a chore, lacking any sort of feedback -Enemy variety is lacking -Never quite reaches its potential Sundered Developer: Thunder Lotus Games Release Date: July 28th 2017 Play it on: Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch Played on: Windows

#Sundered #Lovecraft #Eldritch #gaming #video games #Tea and video games #metroidvania #Article #review

[doktorpeace]

My “Top 5″ Games Of The Year:

Okay so before we get into the meat of this I want to clarify the way these posts will be formatted. I’m just going to be giving my general thoughts on these games, there’s not going to be a huge amount of organization but I’ll probably loosely break them down into a few different aspects. These won’t be spoiler free either, so keep that in mind while reading. Also this is a top 5 list of games I played for the first time this year, not games that necessarily came out this year. So without any more preamble this begins my Top 5 games of the year list!

#5 - Psychonauts

This is a game that already gets a lot of love. I think, like Earthbound, it’s the kind of game basically everyone knows is supposed to be good, it’s a cult classic with a way bigger following now than what it had when it first came out. It’s got a unique look and pushes against the trends of games at the time, being a very traditional 3D Platformer in terms of gameplay with a fairly cute (comparatively) art direction in a time where the video games industry was going through what I would consider its teenage years, full of edgy, pointlessly gritty games as the next big thing. Also it’s about kids with psychic powers, I swear there’s something about that concept that gets people absolutely hog wild for games. In truth I didn’t play this game out of any great personal drive to, I only did it to try and get a little closer to my friend @spitblaze who dearly loves it but it really did surprise me. Psychonauts is something special, it truly surprised me at just how fun and well aged it was, and it really genuinely deserves the praise it gets and the dedicated fans it has. It’s got a great amount of polish, charm, and a unique identity in the landscape of games even today.  Psychonauts follows a boy named Raz (short for Razputin) as he tries to become one of the titular Psychonauts by breaking into a summer camp which trains kids as PSI Cadets to hone their innate psychic powers. This setup and the opening sequence to go with it feels a lot like a Saturday morning cartoon to me and that’s just fine. I think it sets the tone for the game very well because this game excellently straddles the line between being funny and cartoony while also handling mental illness with the gravitas it deserves, which I’ll get into a little more later. For now I wanna talk about the gameplay and honestly I think Psychonaut’s level design and mechanics have aged extremely well. Double Fine studios really understood to a tee what makes a good 3D platformer. Raz controls comfortably, moving at a pace that feels snappy for the world he’s in but not so fast that it dissuades the player from exploration or opens up too much in the way of cheese strategies that disregard the level design. The game also has a nice and consistent feeling of progression which is based on how willing you are to engage with the game. The more you actually play the collectathon side of this platformer the more skills Raz gets access to, most of which are consistently useful and all of which are required for finishing the game to 100% completion. As far as I remember the player is handed all of the upgrades which are absolutely needed to finish the game but honestly it’s a much more dry experience which involves actively avoiding playing the game as intended to not get at least a bit of these optional goodies. The player starts the game solely with basic movement options, you can move around at a standard pace and you have a double jump. While the double jump physics feel a little awkward at first and take some getting used to that doesn’t feel like it’s due to a lack of polish but rather as an intentional design. Raz becomes a lot more floaty during his second jump, giving players a lot of time to line up and comfortably land their jumps over longer distances. This caught me off guard at first but over time I came to appreciate it, since the level design is actually planned around this, I only wish it didn’t break your midair momentum if you do it out of a full speed run.  Over time the player will also gain access to both a slow fall upgrade and a speed enhancement upgrade, which are mandatorily earned only about a third of the way into the game. The game from here on actively makes use of these powers with bigger environments and more vertical spaces built into the levels. These powers all coalesce into a comprehensive and fun amount of mobility for Raz and makes just moving him around fun, which is a hallmark of any good 3D platformer in my opinion. Even if you don’t enjoy it as much as me the hub area has a fast transit system so it’s not really an issue. Aside from mobility options the player will also gain access to a variety of combat enhancements both through mandatory events and through optional interactions. The player starts the game with a standard 3 hit combo, but gains access to a reliable ranged attack, a ground pound-esc move with a big shockwave hitbox, the ability to pick up and launch objects from a distance, and more. Raz’s combat moveset by the end feels varied enough to justify how much combat there is in the game, but seeing as almost all of the combat upgrades are optional most encounters are not designed with them in mind, which is a missed opportunity. The amount of combat in the game is one trend from the era I wish Psychonauts had avoided, but for the most part enemy mooks are easy enough to dispatch and take very little time, or are entirely avoidable so it’s not really an issue. In terms of all of the upgrades, mobility and combat, Psychonauts is a little slow to open up, but it’s not a super long game, so slow by its standards is still not much time at all. One thing that Psychonauts absolutely falls flat on though are its boss fights. There’s almost one per level across about a dozen levels and they’re all bad. All of them, none of them are any good. One of the last ones, with El Odio, is passable I guess, but I wish they had focused more on platforming gauntlets like they do with the boss fight against Raz’s dad than on literal actual fights. That platforming section is tense, its timer is just long enough to get you though, and it really feels like a good test of the player’s relevant capabilities WAY more than any of the boss fights do. Some of them do implement one of the psychic powers into them in a fun or unique way, like the battle with the Scoutmaster in The Milkman Conspiracy but that still doesn’t make the boss fight itself good. The level design in general masterfully takes advantage of the game’s core concept of entering people’s psyches to help them with mental illnesses and traumas they have. Every single level has a completely unique and immediately identifiable aesthetic and most of them have unique ways of engaging with the level in order to complete it. While a few of levels are simply ‘get to the end’ those are definitely in the minority. One level is a loose kind of ‘Who Dun It’, one is a puzzle where you have to get a stage play to work correctly, one is a marksmanship course, and one is a giant board game. None of these concepts distract from the core collectathon gameplay, and almost every level has a portion that is just a pure platforming obstacle course so as to not stray too far from why players are here. The game’s ability to mix themes of people’s mindsets and in some cases mental illnesses or traumas with level themeing and gameplay mechanics is, frankly, astounding, and it pulls it all off without making the mentally ill into something scary or to be feared. They’re all sympathetic, good people who have just gone through something that has shaped their lives for the negative. I cannot say enough how well this game blends its gameplay genre with its story themes to make some extremely memorable and fun levels. If you like 3D platformers you really owe it to yourself to get Psychonauts just to experience these levels, they’re that good. The game also understands good and well how to deal with collectibles. There’s enough varieties to feel meaty and they all serve a purpose so nothing feels pointless. They also run the gambit from very well hidden to literally just along the main path so some progression is natural but players who want that extra challenge can really go for it, though even at its hardest Psychonauts is not a hard game at all. The only drawback to its understanding of collectathon elements are that some of the Imagination Figments, the most basic collectible, are either VERY hard to see thanks to their coloration relative to the environment they’re in, most notably in Waterloo World, or that they travel along set paths through an area, but oftentimes those paths literally include portions of being out of bounds. This means players playing through normally literally might never see some of the figments up for collection without just standing around an area waiting to see if a figment comes out of a wall or the floor. Them moving isn’t an issue, but them clipping out of bounds is. This is an extremely minor issue overall since there is a good excess of figments compared to what the player needs to unlock and even upgrade all of the powers but it’s still worth mentioning. Graphically Psychonauts was aged even at its time of release, coming out 3 years after Wind Waker for example and after the entirety of the Jak and Daxter trilogy, but I think it hasn’t aged too much more in the 13 years since then. The character designs vary between charming and intentionally really ugly (and I’m talking like a sin against humanity how ugly they are BOBBY) but because they’re all stylized and, again, very much like a saturday morning cartoon they’ve aged reasonably well compared to games with more realistic art styles of the time. The environments and textures are all still reasonably nice to look at as well, in fact some are quite striking visually, specifically Miguel’s mind, Black Velvetopia. That stage looks amazing.  The sound design is pretty good. Sound effects are punchy and all feel unique, getting across the right kind of feeling. Not much to say on it other than that it’s good. The soundtrack also does its job quite nicely. I wouldn’t call any of it good listening music, like I don’t have it on my blog playlist or anything but they all do a good job setting their stage’s tone and not being annoying. Lastly I wanna talk about the writing, it’s something this game gets a lot of praise for and rightly so. This game is witty, it’s funny, and it’s charming. I’d say it’s got a lot of heart but that makes it sound more deep and emotional than it really is. At its core Psychonauts is a silly game about silly characters and it had me laugh a good number of times through the game; this game has a good sense of humor that has aged very well. There’s a lot of cutely tucked away dialogue too, a surprising amount in fact depending on certain interactions that aren’t always straightforward to discover and I always felt fairly rewarded with funny dialogue for poking and prodding at the characters and environmental set pieces. Raz is a charming and likable main character, he’s sarcastic like a lot of male leads are but in a way that’s very believable for his age he never felt dislikable or like an unnecessary jerk and that’s important for a character of his personality type. The game also does a good job giving its major characters just enough depth and implicit characterization to keep them interesting and feeling fairly fleshed out even with only a little dialogue. This is greatly helped by the Memories you can collect which give you slideshows of events which the shaped the characters in who they are, what caused their minds to look this way, and in some cases what caused their neurodivergence. It’s another great way the game manages to tie all of its elements back into the central theme. Really, really good writing overall, very deserving of praise imo. While the main plot isn’t very complex or really anything super special it’s still cute and worth following through. Honestly the only thing I didn’t like was Raz and Lili’s relationship. They don’t have much screen time together so it’s a bit weird, but I guess that’s also kind of true to form for childhood crushes so, whatever. In closing, I really loved Psychonauts, it’s an extremely fun game to play that has aged well in just about every way except visually. It takes extreme care in making sure the player’s experience is varied, fun, and consistently all tied together to the core theme of the game, human psychology, to give every last aspect a good through line for players to rationalize everything by. Psychonauts is a stellar example of a 3D platformer that even modern games can stand to learn from. Be it from a writing, level design, or game feel perspective, Psychonauts has almost everything down extremely well. This game really, truly deserves the longstanding praise it receives and I cannot implore you enough to give it a shot if you love this genre or just want to try something new. If you’re the kind of person who avoids things that often get praise or are ‘cult classics’ because you assume it’s just a bunch of nostalgia addled people way overhyping a childhood favorite you’re doing a disservice to yourself to avoid this game. It’s like, $3 on Steam and any computer can run it. Please, get Psychonauts and just have a good time.

#Dok's GotY 2018 #Psychonauts

[beardycarrot]

This post is way too long so ignore it and just keep scrolling

Alright. Having played both Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces, I can now say, based on my own experiences... that Sonic Forces is a smoldering garbage heap.

First off, let me get this out of the way: the character creation system is... okay. In the screenshot above, you can see My Original Character,  Blonic  Eiko the Cat. You have several different anthropomorphic animal species to choose from, each of which has their own species-specific ability. Birds can double-jump, cats hold on to a few rings even after taking heavy damage, that kind of thing. There’s a selection of three head types for each species, about a dozen eyes, and can set two skin/fur/scale/feather colors. Not bad.

For the game’s main selling point, though, it feels a little weak... especially in comparison to the last game I played, South Park: The Fractured But Whole. In addition to your character’s physical appearance, which meshes perfectly with the South Park style, you can set your character’s gender (male/female/non-binary/multi-gender), whether they’re cis or trans, both their race and ethnicity, their sexual preferences, religion, all sorts of stuff that are pointless in the context of the game but let you make your character whatever you want them to be. I’m not saying that all games should have this, but I did just play that game, so I can’t help but compare Sonic Forces to it since the character creator is meant to be one of the game’s big gimmick.

Anyway. In addition to your character’s body, you also get to dress them up with outfits you unlock as you play. I guess this is a cool concept, with you getting between three and twelve costume pieces every level depending on how well you do and whether anything you did in a level completed a special objective... but it’s annoying constantly being pelted with costumes you’ll never wear. I was a mixture of fortunate and unfortunate in the fact that clothes I like (a tactical outfit in black and olive green) were unlocked within the first couple levels, so I could wear an outfit I like throughout the game... but it also meant that I never had any reason to change out for new gear or experiment with costumes that would only be less appealing to me.

There’s also the jarring fact that with clothing on, your character looks completely out of place. Most of the other characters in the game wear nothing but white gloves and sneakers, and seeing you alongside them just makes them look naked. I’ve spent way too long talking about customization. Moving on...

...You can also customize your avatar’s weapon, which I guess is the power of the Wisp aliens from Sonic Colors stored in a gun? There are probably advantages to all of them, but you spend less than half of the game playing as your avatar, every enemy in the game dies in one hit, and the fire weapon I started with can clear a screen of enemies in literally two seconds... so I never really bothered with them. You also occasionally find Wisps locked in capsules, but the game never actually gives you a real tutorial for them. It’s possible that it was explained in a hint marker, but it’s possible to take a route through a level or jump at just the wrong moment that you miss the marker and can’t go back to see what it said. I eventually figured it out in level twenty-five, which is right at the end of the game... and that level also happens to be a great example of why I don’t like this game.

I know that as a still frame this is kinda incomprehensible, but what you’re looking at is a little vertical shaft kind of thing. There have been shafts like this elsewhere in the game, but they’ve always been things you either just dropped down through or rode an elevator in or had platforms to jump on. Here?

This game apparently has a wall-jumping mechanic, which only appears here, in the twenty-fifth of thirty levels. I’m completely fine with video games using mechanics sparingly or even basing levels around a gimmick that never appears again... but this is the only time in the game that this happens, and the mechanic isn’t even implemented very well. If you’re too close to the wall it will sometimes fail to activate, if you press the jump button again too soon you won’t cling to the wall, and sometimes your series of jumps will have you end up jumping over the wall to the left instead of going right... which is an issue considering that for the second half of the level, you have to do this while trying to outrun a giant instant death laser. Assuming you can even get to that point.

I can’t tell you how long I was stuck here. To the left is a checkpoint, and all you can do is collect what looks like an electric Wisp in a capsule, then... wait to the blue death laser to kill you and put you back at the check point. The dark red boxes are breakable, and you’re clearly meant to either get down through this shaft to continue... but there’s no obvious way to do this. I thought that you were supposed to use the electric Wisp somehow, but I guess you can only do that if you have the right Wisp weapon equipped, as the game only seems to care when I collect capsules with fire Wisps in them.

I was eventually forced to watch a video of someone playing this level, and they just kind of... broke through all the boxes at once. After further research, I discovered that if you press the Crouch button (which I’ve never pressed up to this point and forgot existed) while in the air, you’ll do a stomp move that the game never bothered to teach me.

Once you’re past that, the next section is incredibly difficult... I figured out how to use the encapsulated fire Wisps (it’s the “Wisp Special” button that I’d previously been unable to figure out the function of) to skip over the obstacles, but if you don’t time/aim it properly, you’re back down in the area where you have to deal with the wall jumps that occasionally send you careening backwards.

I know that I’m just complaining about one difficult end-game level, but the entire game is like this. It’s all either gameplay mechanics the game doesn’t explain properly that are prone to failing, or levels that are way too short and simplistic. I haven’t even touched on the jumping mechanics... Want to know how many times I died replaying that level to get those screenshots?

A couple of those are from the laser section, but it’s mostly falling into bottomless pits because you’re pretty strongly locked into your jump trajectory when playing as Your Own Character, and the platform placement in that level sucks. It’s not as big of a deal when playing as Sonic; I think Classic Sonic has free control in the air, and you only play as him in two or three levels, while Modern Sonic’s levels are so completely filled with enemies and jump pads that you can just spam the jump button to string homing attacks through anything that isn’t a speed section. Places where the gameplay becomes frustrating aren’t as common as in other games I’ve played recently (L.A. Noire comes to mind), but that’s because the majority of the levels are ridiculously simplistic and easy, and when you reach the end without anything really happening you’re just like...

Which brings me, finally, to the worst part of the game: the story. This is among the worst video game writing I have ever seen... and as someone who does a lot of art for indie, amateur, and fan games, I’ve seen a lot of scripts from “idea guys” who’ve never taken any kind of literature or creative writing classes.

The basic premise of the story sounds interesting, and seems like a huge departure from the normal Sonic formula: Dr. Eggman and his new associate Infinite use the powers of all the major antagonists from past games to kill Sonic and take over the world. The remaining characters of the Sonic universe form a resistance movement (the forces in Sonic Forces) to fight back, and half a year later Your Own Character joins up after their home city is destroyed.

Damn, man! That’s pretty dark! Unfortunately, it completely fails to deliver. Unsurprisingly, Sonic isn’t dead... but he HAS been held prisoner and tortured for the last six months. Despite that, he’s in high spirits and joking with his captors... yeah I dunno, just bad writing ...and manages to escape when the resistance attacks the base and temporarily disables the power grid. Why Sonic was in a Laser Prison and wearing Laser Handcuffs that require uninterrupted power to operate is just more bad writing, as is the fact that he was being held on a space station and you’re never shown how the resistance got up there.

More importantly, it’s never explained how the resistance discovered that Sonic was still alive. There are other captives in the same area, so THEY would know he’s alive, but there’s never any indication that one of them managed to escape. Speaking of which, they’re all still imprisoned after Sonic breaks free, and I think the space station ends up destroyed... so those guys are probably all dead. That reminds me of another point: most of the levels just end at a random arbitrary point. You ostensibly have a goal that you’re trying to reach, but the goal markers are always, like, in the middle of a hallway, which looks no different from anywhere else, and there’s no cutscene showing what happens what the characters do after reaching their goal... the level just kinda ends.

Most of the game’s dialogue and exposition is in the form of radio conversations that occur on the map screen, which I can’t help but admit makes sense: media too often forces characters to be in the same place for scenes to occur, when logically they would’ve just spoken on the phone. The issue I have with this is that it really does make up the bulk of the game’s dialogue, and none of the conversations are ever that interesting. Honestly, more than anything it reminds me of the kind of story you’d see in a free-to-play mobile game... except there isn’t really any kind of story being told, just information being relayed. There isn’t any kind of character development, since the game expects you to already know who everyone is and what their paper-thin personalities are.

After Eggman spends six months taking over Literally The Entire World, and the resistance apparently does very little to stop this, Your Own Character joins up and things start happening instantly. They rescue Sonic, then Classic Sonic appears out of nowhere to save Tails from Chaos, the creature from Sonic Adventure. I guess they included him (Classic Sonic, that is; after this cutscene, Chaos is never seen again) to trick people into thinking that this game would be similar to the much more popular Sonic Generations. I think the plot of that game involved time travel, accounting for the two Sonics, but here they’ve retconned him as “the Sonic from another universe”.

Speaking of time travel and alternate dimensions, Silver and Blaze are in this game... I’m no big Sonic fan (in fact, Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces, both of which I played this week, were the first Sonic games I’ve ever beaten), but them being part of the resistance is kinda inexplicable. To my knowledge, Blaze is from an alternate dimension, but in Sonic ‘06 was somehow Silver’s partner or something in the post-apocalyptic future. In the end, I think Sonic saving the day included the elimination of the timeline in which Silver existed... so I’m not really sure what’s up with Silver and Blaze being in this game. Are they now retconned to just being normal people who live in the same place as everyone else?

I’m also really confused on how this game fits in with the rest of the series. Infinite’s power is to create autonomous physical virtual reality projections, and he uses it to create his own versions of the Chaos, Zavok, Metal Sonic, and Shadow... so in addition to being in continuity with Sonic Generations and Sonic Colors (the game the Wisps are from), you also have to include the Sonic Adventure games and Sonic Lost World. Again, I’m no expert on Sonic, but... I’m pretty sure at least a few of these games feature planets populated with humans, and not the hordes of bipedal animals that make up the only characters in this game. Is there just no official continuity at this point?

As an aside... every character you see in scenes like this are made with the character creator, but for some reason they’ve limited themselves to a very small number of models instead of just using a bunch of different random colors and other features. See that bluish-purple dog at the front? If you look closely, you can see five or six identical dogs in the background, all doing the same animation where they raise their guns up in the air.

I’ve gotten REALLY off-topic, which is basically a war crime with how long this post is already. Anyway, as I was saying before I derailed myself, once Your Own Character joins the resistance things happen super fast. Sonic is alive, Classic Sonic appears out of nowhere and punches the Chaos clone (which is subsequently never seen again, despite Infinite being able to create an infinite number of them), and Eggman for whatever reason reveals that his ultimate plan will be complete in just three days. I’m not really clear on what this plan is, but it involves a virtual reality projection of the sun... I don’t know, Majora’s Mask-ing the planet and killing everyone, maybe? Again, bad writing.

Sonic faces off against Infinite and, despite the player winning the boss fight, gets his $#!+ kicked in... and that’s when Infinite says, and this is an actual, verbatim quote, “You’re not even worth the effort to finish off”. I think I might actively hate the writers of this game. I feel like I should probably also mention that the boss fight takes place on the back of a giant snake that’s just kinda floating there, suspended in mid-air, above a forest that is also a casino?

It’s at this point that Infinite drops a prototype version of the Phantom Ruby, which is what gives him his powers. How did he fail to notice that he’d dropped something the size of a softball? How was he even carrying it? WHY was he carrying it, when the finished perfected ruby was already embedded in his chest and he’d been using it for over six months? If you expect these questions to have answers, well, that bold text in the last paragraph must’ve caught your eye and you’re just now at this point starting to read the post. Hello, welcome! The writing in this game is absolutely abysmal!

Your Own Character picks up the prototype ruby and holds onto it for the next three days... well, except for when they drop it while Infinite is looking right at them after a boss fight, and he doesn’t notice ...and at the end of the game, uses it to somehow get rid of the virtual reality sun. How do they know that the ruby is and how to use it? No idea. How do they get rid of the sun? Happens off-screen. Then, further confusing matters vis-a-vis whether the prototype ruby is invisible to bad guys, Eggman acts as if he saw it... despite it breaking and disappearing before he arrives. Weird.

Alright, backtracking a bit, I need to touch on the stupidest plot point in the game: the Phantom Zone. Well, I think it’s called Null Space or something, Eggman calls it “a little something the Phantom Ruby cooked up”, whatever that means... but it’s basically the Phantom Zone. A pocket dimension that supposedly contains literally nothing. Eggman opens up a portal into it, Your Own Character tries to save Sonic from it, and they’re both pulled in... man, that’s a scary concept, isn’t it? Being trapped in an empty void?

If a regular prison held Sonic for six months, and he only got out with help from the outside, then I can’t even imagine how long this will-- haha just kidding it’s twenty seconds this game was written by chimps.

Apparently “completely empty” means “filled with blocks you can run on”, and Sonic manages to get out... by double-boosting. There are a handful of levels where you play as both Sonic and Your Own Character at the same time (the “you’re next to me and I’m next to you” in the Hoobastank song you hear in that video), allowing you to use the Wisp weapons while also using Sonic’s super speed. You’ll also be prompted to “double boost” at set points, which consists of the characters jumping in the air, fist-bumping, and then... holding hands and somehow running even faster, I guess? I’m not at all clear on how this works, or how it broke them out of Null Space.

I’d be totally okay (bored, but okay) with the prototype ruby being responsible for them escaping, but that’s not how it’s presented: they’re meant to have escaped through the power of friendship and running really, really fast. I mean, I can come up with a reason it works, gimme a minute... uh... virtual reality... pocket dimension... gotta go fast.... gotta go faster faster faster faster faster... aha! Maybe it’s an empty, infinite void because it’s being created as you move through it, but the double boost allows them to move faster than it can be created, allowing them to break free? Yeah, that’s dumb but plausible in-universe. Too bad the writers made literally no attempt to explain it.

After that, it’s time for the big showdown with Infinite, the game’s hot new antagonist. Who is he, why does he hate Sonic, why is he working with Eggman? What kind of awesome boss battle will you have against him? Not explained, not explained, not explained, and it’s just a slight variation of the boss fight you have with Metal Sonic earlier in the game. You DO get an explanation of who he is if you play Episode Shadow, free DLC consisting of three levels that you played in the base game that serves as a kind of prequel. All of your juicy Infinite-related questions are answered: he’s a nameless mercenary who went all emo because Sonic beat him up. Oh. Well. That’s... lame.

This post is already over three thousand words, so I’ll wrap it up. After your boring rehashed boss battle with Infinite, he just kinda... runs away, never to be seen again, and you have to contend with Eggman and his giant robots. It’s not very interesting. Once the day is saved, you get this completely inane exchange between the characters, which in most games would be the worst bit of writing... here, it might be in the top five. Knuckles says that the fight is over, everyone can go home, there’s no longer a need for the resistance... but then Amy (or someone) says, “no, we’re just getting started!”, and Knuckles nods in agreement as if she didn’t just directly contradict him. As if two characters doing this isn’t bad enough, Tails then does the exact same thing all by himself, saying something like, “we won, the resistance is done, now we have to come together to save the world!” I think he also says something about just one person not being able to change the world, which I’m pretty sure runs contrary to a “one person CAN make a difference!” message the game had been going for earlier.

And... that’s about it. I have nothing more to say. This game is bad, anyone who defends it is lying to themselves, and it’s entirely possible that I’ve spent more time writing this unfocused rambling post than I did actually playing the game. I’m not a Sonic hater; the playground politics surrounding video games in the early nineties didn’t exist where I grew up, so to me Sonic has always just kinda been that series with the interesting music that I had no particular interest in playing. As I mentioned, I played through Sonic Mania at the same time as I was playing Forces, and loved it. It’s a bit on the hard side for someone who’s never played a Sonic game, but aside from a few annoying bits in Hydrocity and Oil Ocean, it’s a blast all the way through. That’s a great game... and Sonic Forces, in my opinion, is decidedly not.

Back in 2017 I made a post about the Metascore for Sonic Forces, and received backlash for it. I decided to wait until as many critics as possible had reviewed the game, and... never really felt like doing the update, so didn’t get around to it until now. So, how much of a difference does a year make in the review score?

Oh wow, it’s like I knew what I was talking about or something. Well, kinda. At the time I said that Sonic Forces didn’t seem like a bad game, based on what I’d seen of it. Having played the game for myself... I think my opinion is known.

#sonic forces #long post #very long post #extremely long post

[delicatefesttyphoon]

Cities: Skylines - After Dark

PC, Reviews Charles October 20, 2015 Add-on, after dark, cities:skylines, city management, Colossal Order, Paradox Interactive A fter Dark is the first expansion to Cities:Skylines. While it introduces the much awaited Day and Night cycle, it also brings with it new city planning options and buildings. In the case of the After Dark expansion for the surprise hit city simulator Cities: Skylines, Developer Colossal Order already gave away the game-changing day/night cycle in a free patch, which.

The newest DLC, Industries, just released for Colossal Order's genre gold standard Cities: Skylines, and to celebrate, the game and all of its DLC except for the new one just went on sale on Steam through Thursday, November 1.

And while you may be tempted to just buy the complete game-and-DLC bundle (a more than $150 value for about 56 bucks), and you'd get a fantastic experience out of so doing, maybe you don't quite want to go whole hog right out of the box.

Maybe, instead, you're looking to keep your purchases down to the cost of a fast-food meal, but you really want to make the money count. For that, here's your guide to every Skylines DLC, from “not worth it at any price” to “buy it even if it isn't on sale, it's that good.”

Special note: I'm not including minor packs that don't make major gameplay changes. Stuff like Content Creator packs and radio stations add nice flavor to the game, but to be bluntly honest, they're really not worth spending your own money on, not when so much of that stuff is available in the Steam Workshop for free. Never send a paid content-only DLC to do a mod's job, I say.

Must-have Cities: Skylines DLCs

After Dark

After Dark isn't a mandatory because of the day/night cycle (which came with the free patch that accompanied the expansion anyway). Nor is it a mandatory because of the leisure and tourist buildings (which you may end up not using at all).

No, what makes After Dark a must-have is the overhaul of city services that it brings.

The Bus Terminal is absolutely essential to creating a large, integrated public transportation system that can serve a large city. Much like in any other city in the real world, the ability for bus lines to seamlessly converge on a central point is what makes it actually useful to the citizenry.

After Dark also introduced cargo hubs, which provide massive boosts to the city's industrial economy, especially with the Industries DLC. Even if you're not a huge fan of those yellow blocks on the map where the dirty jobs of the city get done, having them be profitable means they're not just eating space to keep demand for labor up.

It also comes with the International Airport, and if you've had a city big enough to where air capacity has become a concern, you'll know exactly what a gem this building is in the lategame.

Throw in taxi service on the roads to relieve congestion, and you see why After Dark was a complete and essential expansion that offered something for everyone. This is generally $7.49 on sale and $14.99 at full price and is the first DLC on this list well worth shelling out the complete cost of admission for.

Get it if:

You want your roads to be more efficient and you want a way to generate additional revenue streams to provide variety to your city's economy through leisure and tourism.

Miss it if:

For some bizarre reason (seriously, this DLC is absolutely essential), trying to run bigger cities with inefficient road networks somehow appeals more than having major gameplay improvements.

Industries

As the game's promotional materials put it, “mind your business” with Industries, a DLC that manages to layer a resource- and production-management RTS on top of a city builder without losing the plot in either case.

This is the DLC that actually makes the natural resources on the map useful. It cannot be overstated just how much this utterly revolutionizes gameplay.

Cities Skylines After Dark Steam

Especially when combined with the menu setting that gives unlimited oil and ore resources rather than ones that deplete in about 10 minutes of gameplay, this is the DLC that turns industrial zones from earlygame stopgaps into true profit drivers of their own.

Even better, Colossal Order made the creation of these new-style industrial zones super easy for anyone who's played the base game, and double-especially for anyone who's played Parklife. They repurposed the existing system for drawing districts to let you build out the industrial zone exactly where and in what size you want it.

The system is not without its weaknesses, but they're awfully minor.

For one thing, there is still that great big “but what about your playstyle” question that looms over every single DLC, even the mandatories; if you're just not into having manufacturing cities and you're going to devote that real estate to building powerhouse office zones, there is nothing in Industries that demands you not do that, and there are still only so many citizens to go around in the labor pool.

For another, maybe you don't have $14.99 to burn, and this one's still brand-new so it's not getting its first sale until probably Christmas at the earliest.

But if the money won't break you, and you have any interest at all in stirring a little tycoon game peanut butter into your chocolate city builder, this is absolutely essential. Check out our review here.

Get it if:

You have any real interest in making your industrial zones into something special in terms of their value to your city's economy.

Miss it if:

Your playstyle just really, really doesn't swing toward industrial zones.

Mass Transit

Here we have the DLC that makes large cities possible and expands in every way upon the vanilla game's available tools to get cars off the road and, with another nod toward the developers' body of work, really gets your cities in motion.

From the fantastical (blimps!) to the more familiar (ferries, cable cars, and the monorail that put North Haverbrook on the map), and featuring intermodal transit hubs that let you build things like Boston's multi-transit South Station, this is the DLC that turns public transportation from a curiosity that lacks a bit in depth to a fully integrated system that gives your cities the ability to handle even Tokyo-sized traffic volumes.

There are even ropeways that can go up the sides of mountains and unlock the possibilities of spaces that used to be obstacles to development.

And it's on sale for $6.49, but the regular price of $12.99 is a bargain.

This does for Skylines what the Rush Hour pack did for SimCity 4 way back in the day. It takes a good-but-not-great part of the base game and just elevates it to levels that will make you seriously wonder how on earth you ever got along without it.

Cities: Skylines - After Dark

When combined with Industries and After Dark, this is the essential Cities: Skylines starter kit. The 30 bucks or so it will set you back to buy the rest of the major DLC is entirely optional, but if you haven't already looked at your wallet to see if you've got another 30 for Mass Transit, you should.

If you're still on the fence, read our review for more info on this one.

Get it if:

You have any sense in your head at all and want your public transportation to work the best that it can.

Miss it if:

You don't have the money. That's the only plausible reason.

Depends on your Playstyle

Parklife

I have mixed feelings about Parklife that showed themselves in my review of the DLC when it came out.

Specifically, building a great zoo or nature preserve or city park or Nuka-World is a great way to add a lot of visual flavor to your cities. Also, when it's done right, the park districts are a great revenue stream for the city, pulling a profit that you can then put into improving the rest of your civic infrastructure and whatnot to power a more prosperous city.

That's the real strength of Parklife: the game-within-a-game of creating the perfect park while simultaneously balancing all the other spinning plates that come with a well-balanced city.

The biggest weakness is that the park mechanics don't contribute enough to the city in terms of land value per unit cost to justify their existence unless you're building them as a profit driver. The already-existing parks-and-recreation system in the base game is better for your citizens on the whole if your sole goal is to grow your tax base, and as such there's an opportunity cost that comes in the box and wipes out a lot of the benefit.

Everything else in the DLC is in service of the parks system; there's nothing here for base game players to have any fun with the way, for example, Snowfall gave that neat-o tram system (even if it was the only thing in the DLC and largely rendered obsolete by Mass Transit—more on that later). The sightseeing buses and new reward buildings all tie back into the park system.

The DLC will run you $14.99, or $10.04 during the 33 percent off sale, and the only real way to recommend it is if you're the type of person for whom beautification and screenshot value is where you get the joy from your particular playstyle.

Get it if:

You want to create a unique look for your cities, or you enjoy having a more hands-on role in the creation of your leisure areas.

Miss it if:

You're more efficiency-oriented or don't want to add complexity to one of your city's systems without a meaningful tangible reward.

Green Cities

This one falls short of mandatory status thanks largely to the fact that it's not strictly necessary to use green building options in order to have a perfectly functional and relatively clean city. By the time you're in office-zone territory, that problem usually takes care of itself, or at worst cordons itself into “the bad part of town”.

But all the same, if you're playing the kind of playstyle where you want to create beautiful, ultra-modern, clean cities of the future, this scratches that itch in ideal fashion. For a utopian player, new building specializations, electric cars, green parks, and ability to apply eco-friendly policies to districts means there's a ton of great stuff here to be explored.

When you've got those geothermal power plants firing and the yoga gardens built, you can then gear your city toward getting the Ultimate Recycling Plant, one of the game's “monument” super-buildings, and that's the other strength of this DLC, the fact that the reward at the end is extremely useful.

The downside, as with most Skylines DLC, is that if your playstyle doesn't lean toward what the DLC is trying to offer, it's just a bunch of stuff you'll never use but that you paid $6.49 for on sale or $12.99 for at full price.

But this is where you're really starting to get into the “most playstyles can find a way to use this stuff” territory that makes DLC, especially on sale, a must-have.

Get it if:

Reducing pollution while still running an economically viable city appeals to you.

Miss it if:

You're less concerned with “green” city design and your playstyle doesn't super-prioritize reducing pollution beyond the simple maintenance levels you can achieve with basegame tools.

Don't Bother

Snowfall

Snowfall makes everything look pretty, and there is plenty to be said in favor of the challenge that adapting your city to wintry conditions offers.

Orwell: keeping an eye on you download. The problem is that this DLC is extremely poorly executed.

For one thing, the snowfall is an all-or-nothing affair. Either brace yourself and prepare for the frozen tundra of an icy waste like the northernmost parts of Colossal Order's home nation of Finland, or else use a map that isn't Snowfall-enabled and get absolutely no value out of the DLC at all.

Sure, existing maps get rain and fog, and the Streetcar system is a nice addition to the multitude of transit options we've come to expect from a studio that made its name on the old Cities In Motion series, but you'd really need money to be burning a hole in your pocket before you dropped even the $6.49 sale price on it.

Plus, as several Steam reviewers have pointed out, the complete lack of contrast inherent in having a city covered in snow takes away a lot of the visual appeal that the game's landscapes usually have. Snow is beautiful, as anyone who loves living in cold climates knows, but it's not visually interesting the way nature tends to be during the rest of the year. You'll grow tired of it quickly.

Get it if:

You really love winter wonderlands and you have money to burn.

Miss it if:

You'd rather just go out for a burger and fries; you're not missing anything by not having this DLC installed.

Natural Disasters

Northgard - svardilfari clan of the horse whisperer. Remember how in SimCity 4 (and its earlier brothers), half the fun of building a city was unleashing the wrath of Judgment Day upon it like some kind of cruel cross between the God of the Old Testament and Kefka from Final Fantasy VI?

This is the experience Natural Disasters is out to create, and if that's what floats your boat, then you'll get everything you ever wanted here.

The problem is twofold and why this DLC is just way too hard for me to recommend even for people who have a fetish for breaking stuff in a city-building game.

One, that's way too much of a one-note song even for $7.49, much less the $14.99 regular ask.

And two, as anyone who's played SimCity knows, breaking stuff is cathartic and all, but what do we all do when we get it out of our system?

We reload the save and play with the hope that the game won't break our stuff on its own volition, that's what.

And this DLC, even though it adds lovely early-warning systems and all kinds of major mechanical anti-frustration features for dealing with a disaster, is still going to throw a disaster at you unless you toggle the option off in the menu, at which point you just spent $7.49 for “I wanted to destroy something beautiful mode.”

Get it if:

You really love to destroy stuff and triggering disasters never got old for you in the old SimCity games.

Miss it if:

You'd rather build cities than destroy them.

Hopefully my experiences with Cities: Skylines and its DLCs and expansions will help you decide which you'd like to throw money at.

[asiplaythem]

Devil May Cry: Series Retrospective- "DmC: Devil May Cry"

At long last, I sat down and played DmC: Devil May Cry. Well and truly, the dust has settled, the dead horse has been beaten into compost, and the reactionary rages and defenses have died down. And, for myself, I think my fanboy passion for the series has subsided.

A weak Special Edition, a pachinko machine and a bad MvC model later, I hold out no honest hope for the Devil May Cry franchise now. We’ll always have the Temen-ni-Gru Dante...but we’re not getting back together, lets face it.

So now, when I look at Ninja Theory’s protagonist, who I will still refer to as Donte, the fresh insult that he used to be is now replaced with a genuine, tryhard, grittiness that just seems cute in an “ah, bless” kind of way. He’s no longer the sour white whale that ate my favourite character and franchise, he’s just a little fish who flops around in a harmlessly funny way.

....before the massive flaws of the game come forth.

This review is based on the PS3 launch version and does its best to criticize it on its own merits/failings, not merely on fan insult or in comparison to the previous games. But it is after all called “Devil may Cry”, so its existence as part of a wider franchise isn’t ignored either.

Also, fair warning, this is going to be long as hell. Which is suitable, because it feels like hell sometimes...

Technical Qualities

The engine/optimization is dogshit.

Ninja Theory infamously rejected Capcom’s offer to translate their wunderengine, MT Framework, into English so that they could use it. Instead the team built DmC: Devil May Cry using Unreal Engine 3, which was already starting to look dated by 2010 when the game was announced. For perspective, Unreal Engine 4 was revealed to the public before DmC even came out. The likely reason Ninja Theory chose to stick with Unreal was because of a  developer kit popular with young game creators. Unreal 3 was a ubiquitous engine in the last gen of consoles, being the backbone of games like Bioshock: Infinite and the Batman: Arkham series. But you’ll be hard pressed to find any games using it that were as fast paced as the Devil May Cry series.

Off the top of my head, games that use Unreal 3 usually have collision and texture pop-in problems. This is less of an issue in first person or isometric games when player movement and camera angles/viewable space are restrained, but it’s disastrous for something like DmC with its wide angle camera, large open areas, dense enemy count and fast player movement.

On the very first mission, in no more than 2 minutes of having control, Donte got stuck in a wall as I tried to go through the level like a normal player. This was followed by hideous amount of texture pop-in, audio glitches that muted parts of the soundscape, a couple of attacks that didn’t connect with enemies when they should have, and loading times out the arse.

A nasty little secret I only found out from replaying it first hand was that many of the mini-cutscenes (like when Donte looks at the Hunter demon hop around buildings, or does a backflip as he collects his guns) are secretly loading screens, unskippable until the loading operation is completed. All of which are frustrating to have to sit through in such a fast paced game. The way they make such a deal out of the same, generic enemy spawning in by giving it a dramatic close-up every time feels patronizing on repeat fights. “OOOH look! It’s a flying thing again!”. Yeah, no game, these things are easy to kill and I know you’re covering up something with this. Nice try.

Without seeing the development build firsthand, I can’t say for certain why it ran so badly. The release of the Definitive Edition for PS4/XBONE implies that it was a hardware limitation...but....like....that’s what optimization is for; making games run well on older hardware. More on this later, but design choices in level layouts, for instance, can remedy this. You can, for instance, segment levels in a way that stops you from seeing large areas at a single moment, reducing how much the consoles needs to render and thus cutting down load times.

Instead, what we largely got were huge foggy rooms and camera lens flares there to hide unloaded textures. The problem then is that it just, in my opinion at least, doesn’t look very good. Think of how Silent Hill 2 and 3 manage to still look so good due to how they segment rooms with doors you can’t see beyond. Or how the use of fog doesn’t cover up anything that you’re supposed to be looking at. And how they manage to have shorter loading times for it, a whole generation of consoles in the past.

Another trick is to “hard bake” lighting effects into the level’s textures themselves, rather than relying on extra shader operations. It’s more taxing on hardware to emulate, say, the actual light physics of a red spotlight instead of just making the textures of the walls and floor red, using trickery to make it seem like there’s a functioning red light there. Open world games generally don’t have this option, but with Devil May Cry, which is a linear series with rarely changing environments, you can use trickery like this effectively. Instead, DmC has more shaders -many of which look terrible in cutscenes- than it can handle.

Ninja Theory did a bad job of optimizing their game for their primary hardware. Even with the update there were visual problems, audio glitches and collision bugs throughout the entire game. It’s far from unplayable, but it’s ropey for a AAA game.

Level Design

Before I get into the artistic choices, I want to take a moment to look at the more technical, grounded aspects of how Ninja Theory designed levels.

Most of the previous Devil May Cry games are economic with their level design, reusing areas multiple times over with remixed enemy layouts and the occasional change in lighting, music and even textures. This cuts down on development time, saves disc space, and allows the designers to really put care into each individual location. Resident Evil, the Souls games, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution are other good examples.

DmC had potential for this with its “living city” concept. The best use of this concept is with Mission 2: Home Truths, where Donte visits his and Vurgil’s gigantic childhood home. As you backtrack into familiar hallways and foyers, the corruption of Mundus’ influence causes walls to crack open, pathways to change shape and different enemies to spawn. It’s a great (re)use of assets that trip up your expectations as a player the first time around. It also uses some Metroidvania style locked doors and obstacles which you need certain abilities/weapons to traverse. The unfortunate limitation of that is that you can literally fly through some levels and skip entire sections of the game upon a replay; Mission 3 requires you to unlock the Air Dash move in order to clear a gap that appears early on, but you’ll already have it on a replay, turning a 20~ minute level into a 3~ minute one.

Sequence breaking like this doesn’t happen in any huge way though, due to how each level is an entirely separate area of its own. Likewise, most of these ability/weapon barriers lead to optional bonus areas that are slightly off the beaten path.

Linear level design isn’t inherently bad, but in this case I think it was a huge missed opportunity. Not only is there a parallel real world vs Limbo premise that has Donte shift from a greyscale, mundane city into a colourful, chaotic image of itself, that Limbo dimension has the ability to change in real time. If the level designers allowed players to shift from dimension to dimension in-game, a la Soul Reaver, or if they had just played up the “living city” concept in a more interactive way, the city would have been much more interesting and, ironically, feel much more alive than it does. Instead we got a linear, albeit pretty, collection of corridors with very little off the beaten path. DmC incentivizes exploration by hiding collectables, but “exploration” ultimately means turning left where you should turn right to find a Lost Soul behind a bin.

One place where they ALMOST got it right is the first Slurm Virility factory level. After a cutscene showing a mixing room, Donte and Kat break from the tour, slowly jog down some empty, boring hallways in to an equally empty and boring warehouse. Dante can’t attack or jump in this section, and there is absolutely nothing to interact with. It’s an unfortunately uninteresting forced walking section, only one small step above being an unskippable cutscene. Kat then sprays her squirrel jizz magic circle on the ground, Donte enters the Limbo version of the level, the room expands and the crates become platforms, and the level really begins from there. For reasons I never understood, Donte then has to take a huge route up sets of boxes and across dozens of different rooms to circle back on the way he came in. On the way back, he backtracks down the Limbo version of the boring hallways of before, except now they’re slightly less boring, with a few enemies to fight and moving walls and floors. Then you get to the mixing room (which is only shown in a cutscene) for a brawl, before moving on.

The reason this didn’t work as well as it could have are twofold. 1: You only see the real world version of a tiny portion of the level, and 2: said portion is boring as fuck and you don’t interact with it in any meaningful way. But hey, at least the idea was there.

Moments where the living city concept is pushed to the side for more one-off but more effectively done ideas can be found in the upside-down prison, the short prelude to the Bob Barbas fight and Lilith’s rave.

The upside-down prison starts off fairly strong, tapping into one of those childhood ideas we all idly wondered about; what if gravity suddenly shifted? The level starts off strong and has moments throughout that give a trippy sense of vertigo. Mostly this is with car and train bridges, but unfortunately loses the point as it progresses. Because the prison isn’t just upside-down, but is also in Limbo, gravity is already unreliable and the bottomless pit below the floor already looks like the sky. Similarly with the lead up to the boss fight with Poison that has you run “down” a vertical pipe, it all looks floaty and weird by default, making further attempts to be floaty and weird just seem...normal. Likewise, the prison is mostly comprised of bland, urban and industrial textures, completely interchangeable with any old warehouse. You quickly forget that you’re upside-down at all.

The setting also well outstays it’s welcome, taking up 4 entire levels to itself with not enough ideas to justify it. There’s even one moment where, after meeting Fineas, you’re told you need to follow a flock of harpies to find their lair....even though their lair is a completely linear set of halls...That says it all really; there was a fun idea in here, but it was executed without the same creativity.

Following that is the tragically short Bob Barbas prelude. THIS is one of the single most interesting concepts in level design I have ever seen. Seriously. I cannot think of any other game that took news graphics and idents and turned them into platforming sections. Even moments during the fight where Donte is dropped into news chopper footage manage to do something brilliantly original, stylish and funny. But as quickly as it came, it’s gone before you know it. It’s a fucking crime that the previous 4 levels didn’t use the same concept to break up the monotony of their urban corridors. They could have had Donte teleport around chunks of the level using the various TV screens with Bob Barbas propaganda on them, hopping across idents until he got to the other side. Shame.

Next up, almost in a moment of clarity from the designers when they realized that could do digital environments and cheesy tv show graphics in their game more than once, we have Lilith’s nightclub. Again, much more interesting than the living city stuff, albeit a bit harsh on the eyes with its lighting effects. There’s not much to say about it beyond “it looks cool”, but it’s worth mentioning that it feels much more focused and fully utilized than the upside-down prison. All in all. the level design in DmC is at odds with itself, marked by its lost potential. The concepts are interesting, but the execution is almost always lackluster, favouring hand-holdy linear hallways with “cinematic” qualities over more interactive, open spaces with a sense of place. For a game that, pre-release, seemed to want to show us a more fleshed out world than previous games, it winds up as little more than a flat backdrop.

But oh well, DMC is all about the action happening center stage, right?

Combat

Combat in DmC is a mix bag.

The number of different attacks available and Donte’s versatility at chaining moves across 5 different weapons is pretty great. I’m a fan of how you can swap special pause combos across your alternate weapons; two quick hits with Rebellion, a pause, then a final triple smash with Arbiter takes a little extra skill to pull off but rewards you with a faster combo than if you just used Arbiter alone. Likewise, little tweaks like how fast Drive can charge now and how it does actual damage unlike Quick Drive in DMC4, or how you can hold Million Stab for longer, are all mostly fun changes. I tend to have a lot of fun with Osiris and find it to be the most versatile weapon for pulling off different combos. Its ability to charge up the more hits it delivers is a good incentive to hook in as many enemies as possible too, even if it means its uncharged state doesn’t do enough damage. Aquila is a fun supplementary weapon, mostly good for distracting one enemy with the circle attack and pulling the rest into range for Osiris. Eryx, however, is rubbish. Its incredibly short range, long charge times and weak damage output really throw it onto the trash pile when Arbiter is right beside it. Also, personal taste, but it just looks stupid. It’s like a slimy set of Hulk Hands. And they don’t even yell “HULK SMASH” when you attack. Previous DMC gauntlets all include a gap-closing dive attack to put you in enemy range, but the Demon Grapple doesn’t work the large enemies you’ll want to use it against. More on that in a bit.

Guns are mostly pointless. Donte can move laterally so much easier than before that long range combat is redundant. Charge shots with Ebony & Ivory are like Eryx in that they take too long to charge and don’t do enough damage to be worth the wait. Also, because you need to be in a neutral, non-demon non-angel, state to fire them, charging them up while you wail on someone only works if you limit yourself to Rebellion. Switching to Demon or Angel weapons resets the charge and limits you to a grapple move.

Which leads to another problem; 4 of your 5 weapons disable the use of guns. I mean, you’re not missing out on much by the end anyway because the guns are boring and ineffectual to use against all but one enemy (the Harpy), but it feels like a mistake. They literally give you guns in cutscenes as an afterthought. Like when Vurgil goes “oh yeah, have this, it’ll kill the next few enemies really quickly then sit in your back pocket for all eternity thereafter”. Donte never feels like he’s earning these guns like he earns the melee weapons, and they never seem to be worth a damn in gameplay.

The grapples are more useful but, again, having two different types feels redundant in combat. Large enemies can’t be pulled towards you, so why not do what DMC4 did and have one grapple that does both jobs; pull small enemies towards you, pull yourself towards larger enemies? The end result in either scenario is to get in melee range, so it shouldn’t make that much of a difference. Considering Aquila has a special attack to pull enemies in, why not offload those moves to the other weapons too? If you want to keep both pull-in and pull-towards moves in combat, why not give, say, Eryx a special pull-in attack so you can swap back to guns easier?

In short; while the combat is versatile and very satisfying to pull off combos with, large parts of it feel badly thought out. The moves and weapons that end up being useless most of the time have enemies spawn after you unlock them, just as an excuse to show how they work.

The infamous “demon attacks for red enemies, angel attacks for blue enemies” gimmick actually wasn’t as bad as I expected. Until I had to fight a Blood Rage and a Ghost Rage at the same fucking time. I don’t think I need to get into it due to how many other people have complained, but it was just fucking infuriating to say the least.

Okay, so.....Devil May Cry 3 did it better. Most people don’t seem to know this, but DMC3 gave you damage bonuses if you used the right weapon against the right enemies, signified by a subtle particle effect. Nowhere in the enemy or weapon descriptions does it explain this, but if you use your head (or just experiment) you can generally figure it out. Beowulf is a light weapon, Doppelganger is a shadow monster, using light on it does extra elemental damage signified by a flash effect with each hit. Cerberus is an ice weapon, Abysses are liquidy enemies, so using ice on it freezes them, signified by an icicle effect. etc But most importantly; it never STOPS you from using the “wrong” weapon against enemies. I don’t think I need to go into how annoying it is when your combat flow is interrupted by your angel weapon PINGing off a red enemy, but god damn it.

Credit where credit is due; Ninja Theory did emphasize the right part of DMC’s combat when they opted to focus on combos over balance. Both 3 and 4 had broken combos and attacks that skilled players could easily pull off, but they would make combat boring and the games all emphasized an honour system to prevent abuse. If you were good enough to use Pandora to break enemy shields in 4, you were good enough to not abuse it.

Then again, a games combat is only as good as its enemies.

Enemies/Bosses

So it’s a real shame then that enemies and bosses don’t push you hard enough.

The AI is atrocious. NO hack n’ slash should have two hardcore enemies accidentally kill each other without you noticing. The mixing room in the Slurm levels pits you against two Tyrants/the big fat dudes who charge at you. There’s an easy-to-avoid pitfall in the middle of this room. Once, on hard mode no less, they spawned in as usual and one accidentally nudged the other into the pit, insta-killing him while I literally stood still and watched...

Most regular man-sized enemies (Stygians, Death Knights, and their variations) have a common problem of just not attacking first, opting to side step around you forever until you run at them. Luckily there usually is one aggressive enemy mixed in there, like the flying guys with guns or the screamy-chainsaw men, so you’ll be forced to dodge into their range, but it’s embarrassing when they’re isolated. You’re left standing there, charging a finishing attack with Eryx like you have your dick in your hand, and these things are just strafing around you, doing nothing. So you miss with Eryx, step forward, and anti-climatically twat them about with Rebellion just to get it over with.

At first I thought this combat shyness was a design choice, but then it happened with the final boss, revealing it to be a pathfinding bug. But more on that later...

So yes, the red/blue enemy gimmick is bullshit and breaks the flow of a room-sweeping combo you have going, but it actually works really well with the Witch enemy who hangs back, projecting shields onto other enemies while she snipes at you from a distance. She’s annoying to hunt down when you’re dealing with 10 other enemies, so you have to prioritize whether you want to plough through them first or clumsily chase her down first. It’s a nice dynamic to fights, adding that extra layer of strategy to mix things up in a less punishing way.

The main difference with the Witch and the other colour coded enemies is that the Witch gives you options. Blood/Ghost Rages do not, and make fights involving them feel like complete chores. You’ll find the one tactic that works, then rely on it every time.

No, the most egregious enemies were the bosses.

All of them, every single one, was terrible. Not including the Dream Runner mini-bosses, there was a total of 6, less than any of the other DMCs, which makes how sloppily designed they were all the more horrendous. Every single boss is formulaic, partitioned out into “segments” cut up by mini cutscenes that have Donte do something sassy when he works them down enough. But each of those segments tend to have Donte repeat the same, boring, tired tactic until the fight is over. Bob Barbas is the worst example; jump over his beams, use that one Eryx attack to slam into the nonsensical floor buttons, wail on him for a third of his health bar, kill 10 minor enemies in his news world, repeat two more times.

No matter what difficulty you’re on, these bosses never manage to be a challenge due to how placid they are. They will always accommodate their little “formula” you need to solve to beat them.

It’s baffling, because the previously mentioned Dream Runner mini-bosses are great. They’re aggressive, reactive, open to almost any combo you can outwit them with, and don’t force you to repeat the same set of steps in every encounter.

Vurgil on the other hand....

So, here we are, the grand finale. The ultimate evil has revealed itself, and it’s your own brother! You’re clearly a badass because you just took down Satan himself along with his army, so surely the only thing left that could challenge you is your more experienced twin.

Well, he would, if his AI didn’t start the show by consistently suffering from that same pathfinding bug that makes minor enemies interminably strafe around you. So far so good for my first playthrough. So I attack him, maybe hit him 5 times before a min-cutscene rears its head because I’ve suddenly made it into the next stage. Same thing happens once or twice. Then, somehow, Vurgil’s model freezes in the air during one of his attacks. He hangs there indefinitely until I attack him again. Then, at the end of the fight where he’s summoned a clone (because he can do that apparently, not that he’s ever so much as referenced the fact) so his real self can take a knee and heal, I’m supposed to use Devil Trigger to move him out of the way and finish the job (though, I don’t understand why the real Vurgil isn’t also thrown into the air). I do so, but the clone lingers on the ground for a moment, trying to attack me before just zipping into the sky; another bug. I attack the real Vurgil, but nothing happens at first. I keep wailing on him, hoping that one of my attacks will eventually collide and then, -Scene Missing-, the final cutscene of the battle plays.

Do I need to say any more? Do you see what a fucking mess the boss fights are? The final battle for humanity, the emotional crux of the story, the update to the final unsurpassed boss fight of DMC3, reduced to a buggy, embarrassing slap fight that gave me four glitches on my first playthrough.

The whole thing bungled the climax of its story. But, then again, was the story really that sacred to begin with....

Concept and Story

I promise I will not use the word “edgy” here.

Satire and social commentary, no matter how cartoonish, is a weird fit in a Devil May Cry game. DMC2 had an evil businessman too, and 4 ended with you punching the Pope in the face, but neither seemed to say anything substantial against capitalism or religion. They existed in a much more fantastical place, where any sort of commentary was aimed at a more philosophical target. “What makes us human? What makes us into demons? What is hell like? Is family more important than what you feel is right?” The previous games are all centered around a much more personal, individualistic identity crisis, and not any sort of populist, society-wide problems.

DmC brings up surveillance states, the most recent economic crisis and late-capitalism, soft drink addiction/declining nutrition, news manipulation, the prison industrial complex, conspiracy culture, populous revolt, some scant mentions of mental institutions, hacktivism, and the Occupy Movement. These topics, all of which are pretty damn serious and warrant long discussions, are simply decoration for a story about fantasy demons secretly running the world They Live style. Hell, it basically IS They Live, only the aliens are demons and the tools of control are more contemporary. (somehow there’s nothing about the internet in there though...)

All in all, its treatment of modern issues is childishly simple at best and cynical at worst. Sure, the game presents itself as defying capitalism and social engineering via advertising, but it then goes on to launch an ad and hype campaign bigger than any of the previous games, spanning across billboards, phone apps, social media promotion, the usual games media rounds and expensive pre-rendered television commercials. Hell, they even had an ad for their ad! All of this amid a gigantic fan backlash and in-fighting with games journalists on whether people were mad about Donte’s hair colour of if they were just outrightly entitled.

The fact that lead designer and writer Tameem Antoniades responded to this backlash and feedback by tweeking Donte’s design and adding in a random moment were a wig literally drops out of the sky onto Donte’s head for a jab at this “controversy” says something about the intent he had with his story; There is no real political statement behind DmC, it simply pulls from what was in the news at the time, and uses it as fodder for an otherwise archetypal plot.

The problem is that it tries to do this while also talking about hellish demons, heavenly angels and earthly humans. Well, mostly demons, because the angels are absent from the plot and Donte doesn’t seem to have any sort of Angel Trigger, and the only named human character is Kat, who doesn’t have much ploy within the story; she’s there to be rescued, and provide minimal help with a pat on the back from Donte. So demons rule the world, the angels are absent, and the people who suffer are us lowly humans. But it’s a half-demon, half-angel who “saves” us all/reduces the city to rubble, while all us humans can do is post about it on Twitter. Doesn’t sound very empowering to me.

The main villain should say it all. He’s some sort of businessman/oligarch/banker/economist/military commander/mayor/Satan, but he makes the undeniable point that he gave human civilization it’s structure. He has a wife he at least somewhat cares about, and a child he has high hopes for. He (and his wife) shows more emotion than any of our protagonists, and they have more at stake than anyone else, with a genuine vision for the future no less. So, when he very reasonably asks Donte what his goal is, all Donte can say is “freedom” and “revenge”, then continue to childishly taunt him when pressed further. I could go on about how unhealthy the obsession with the post-apocalypse our generation has is, but suffice to say; Donte is not someone to look up to.

Donte himself, and by extent his story, has no real ideological motivation behind him despite being dressed up as an anarchist. His motivations and arch as a character are no less two dimensional than the original Dante, but now manage to be over-stated and hamfisted, with an added veneer of “politics”. Vurgil points how much he’s supposedly changed right before the final boss fight, but how he changes doesn’t include a strong statement of intent. What does Donte want? Fucked if I know! Fucked if he knows.

All of this says nothing about how...well....plain bad the writing is. The dialogue is famously cringeworthy and the plot has more holes than a sponge.

If Mundus was hunting Donte to kill him this whole time, why can’t he find him despite having multiple cameras aimed directly at this house? Why didn’t he just kill him when Donte was in the orphanage run by “demon scum”? Where was Vurgil this whole time? Why does Kat need to hit the Hunter with a molotov? Actually, what the fuck is she doing in the real world while this is happening? Are people just ignoring this pixie girl throwing bottles around a pier? What’s that weird dimension Donte goes into to unlock new powers? If it’s his own head, why are Mundus’ demons in it? And why would it change his weapons? Why doesn’t he have an Angel Trigger? If Vurgil can do all that cool shit he does in his boss fight at the end, including opening a fucking portal to another dimension, why does he need to rely on Kat to hop dimensions earlier on? Or rely on anyone for that matter? Why does he have white hair when he’s born, but Donte has black hair until the end? If Mundus is immortal, why does he need an heir? Why does time randomly slow down after Vurgil shoots Lilith? How did Kat know the layout of so many floors in Mundus’ tower? Surely he didn’t give her a tour of the whole building, right? Did Donte and Vurgil fuck the entire planet by releasing demons into earth and destroying world economics and governments? Or are there pre-existing governments anyway?

Seriously, I could go on forever.

Beyond basic plot, logic and diegetic continuity (the rules of DmC’s world, and how it suspends your disbelief), you get into more subjective questions like “is Donte a likable character?”

I, perhaps surprisingly, think he is. He’s such a tryhard asshole for the majority of his game, never stopping to think about what he’s doing or to engage with the They Live world he lives in that he is, honestly, a bit adorable. He’s not someone I’d ever have the patience to hang out with in real life, but he is at least consistent. He’s a total lughead and he almost blows up the planet, but it makes sense that a nihilistic, “act first, think later” bro would do that.

And I think that sums up his story too; dumber than it thinks, but entertaining all the same. It’s a different kind of dumb than the original games, a kind of dumb that stares at the camera wall-eyed instead of with a sideways wink.

Conclusion

As of writing, I consider Devil May Cry to be dead as a series. With no solid news from Capcom on further projects for 7 years now, DmC: Devil may Cry is the swansong of the entire franchise. Well, beyond shitty cameo costumes in Dead Rising 4, or pachinko machines or whatever.

Likewise, more recent hack n slash series like Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising and Nier: Automata have risen to challenge Devil May Cry for its crown, and without something better than Ninja Theory’s efforts to stop them, they’ll probably get it.

DmC is not a complete trainwreck. It’s enjoyable, worth the second hand price and 10+ hours of your time. It’s entertaining in a similar way a bad film is; so long as you don’t expect too much from it, you’ll have a laugh. Let go of your bitterness with Ninja Theory and Tameem and you’ll poke fun at it in a less mean-spirited way then your fan rage wants you to. DMC deserved to end on a better note than this, but.....honestly....fuck it. Capcom probably couldn’t make anything much better themselves these days anyway.

Treat DmC like a pug; malformed and lumpy, probably should have been neutered a generation ago, but funny to look at and play with, even though it’s covered in its own slobber.

#dmc #devil may cry #ninja theory #dante

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Usually do not Skip Occurring Adventure

In this recreation, you'll want to target the adventure portion because it issues a lot in development. You'll be able to attempt sending all the additional characters on their own journey, and they'll go for quite a while and come with further loot. This can be an efficient way to receive a free good deal, and you'll look at it one of many quick options to progress. Sending any from the users with the core is a far better choice, and you will look at it really an even better selection for absolutely sure.

If every one of the figures are usually not offered inside the core, Then you really received’t be able to use them. You will need to pick out every other character in this kind of conditions, so it is best to stay selective even though selecting the heroes for your journey trip. It is often hard to progress devoid of obtaining each of the critical figures. By following this suggestion, you'll be able to generate excess loot and keep away from likelihood of getting into any type of issue.

Mastering Beat Method For Better gameplay

Combat method performs among the list of significant areas During this recreation towards the progression part. It helps make you a sophisticated gamer, and you'll get paid additional through the similar. The exclusive fight fight procedure is helpful and simple to understand. That’s why you are able to consider it. You should start with the basic attacks and take over the opponent. That’s why it is a fairly easy and remarkably reputable option.

In the initially test, make sure that you go sluggish and discover the basic principles of it. You can find out how to battle and the way to carry on convalescing With all the time. In the event the opponent is trying to hit, then you can swipe to move, and You then can easily hit back again. It truly is an efficient and many dependable selection to contemplate above the opposite ones.

The amazing way to overcome the struggle

The many battles in the sport happen while in the sky, so in that circumstance, they will certainly need some talent to defeat. At the start of the fight, transfer a bit before the enemy, this will help you to realize that the place they are going to more, then begin with the modest attacks like foe’s range assault. Should you have saved a few of Ki electrical power, which will surely assist to activate art cards to defeat the enemy with complete electricity.

Issues In accordance with Tale chapters

The mission that Dragon Ball Legends will give can be a Tale-based mostly mission, so You will need to cross all 7 worries to find the complete reward. With each and every obstacle, you'll get many of the rewards like Chrono crystals. At the conclusion of all 7 challenges, you will have 21 Chrono crystals. Additionally, you will supply 10 scarce medals, which will let you to unlock rare resources. With PvP matches, you can obtain additional medals, which can help you to unlock distinct techniques and powers.

Knowledge about the figures

Every single character has its own specialty in accordance with the power they may have, so They are really divided into 4 classes, which are protection, ranged melee, and help. And the opposite thing that you've to notice ahead of taking part in will be the component, class type, and rarity level. This can assist you to defect the enemies with whole energy. You can certainly know the most beneficial people that may be beneficial by playing it a lot more.

Get the job done of things?

Whenever you occur this far in the sport, you’re Nearly prepared to struggle your first struggle and defeat the enemies. Every character has its special aspect, which may be observed by the color code. The leading coloration that is definitely applied is yellow, blue, purple, environmentally friendly, and purple. Each and every has a special kind of defending electrical power and system. You should have a very good combination of colours although going right into a battle, make sure which colour is displaying of their profile so that you can go with a strong opponent.

People

Goku

A ranged sort character with wonderful skills in this recreation is Goku. It's the pre-super Saiyan Goku talents from your Saiyan Saga. The primary capabilities of such characters are Mundane which will acquire over the opponent, and it will make you among the Highly developed gamer. The special abilities of your character are Strike, Blast, Pose I, and Kamehameha.

Gohan

One of many one of a kind and Sophisticated character Within this sport in Gohan with excellent abilities. He could be the son of primary Goku, and there are many of The nice abilities of the exact same. This character can combat till previous; even he starts to cry. The braveness to confront is the most crucial skill that can press you way in advance from the opponent. They're several of the excellent rewards to unlock this character.

Saibaman

In the event you want any supportive character from the group or inside the core for the starter stage, then you can contemplate going Together with the Saibaman. This character is in the Saiyan Saga also. This character has the identical ability because the Raditz, which boosts the general abilities, and it could make you end up picking this character around one other ones.

Krillin

A defense type character is often essential for the core group, and you will be expecting these substantial abilities within the Krillin. It is the reduced tier hero, and the leading ability of the character is the result of coaching as well as Z potential. You'll be able to hope the lessen problems, along with the best part is, his arts largely Have a very strike, Destructo-Disc, Blast, and Unlock Ki. This is a sort of lifetime.

Raditz

A melee style character with superb abilities to consider around the opponent is a killer from Raditz. It's the strongest character through the Saiyan Saga. Even though this character is in the bottom tier of the sport, the key means is usually a ruthless invader. Even this character posses Z capacity I. The one of a kind abilities of the character are abut-Tremendous warrior assaults.

Piccolo (Defence Style)

In case you evaluate all the defense type figures, You'll be able to discover a number of fantastic such things as they're able to buy you enough time. Nicely, the identical goes for Piccolo. The key capabilities of Piccolo are Demon Willpower as well as the Z capability I. This character can go over and consider a lot of damage. Because of this exceptional potential, this character is considered as the top a single. It truly is the first character in our record simply because you can unlock it quite easily and choose over the opponent.

Paikuhan (Melee Kind)

Melee Kind characters are some of the Highly developed a person, and they may have good talents. While enjoying this activity, yow will discover Paikuhan. This nose missing character stand-in from the initial Film, and right here, he received some of the good moves in the game. The main potential of the character is obtaining time and also the Z skill. The talents of Paikuhan doesn’t finish listed here. The option to get over an opponent by blasts supply you with the maximum power, and you can win effortlessly.

Goku (Defence Type)

Each of the characters which have high-end defense are constantly superior to pick out. Goku, The true secret attraction of this video game, has the defense type of mother nature. There are two appearances of precisely the same character With this checklist. The final hope and also the Z potential I are two major character sticks of exactly the same character. A chance to take down an opponent in a handful of seconds assures the very best character. As There are 2 different tiers so that you can conveniently locate two various benefits

Tremendous Saiyan Goku (Ranged Variety)

Ranged kind figures are most effective for that offensive mother nature since they can do the series damage over the opponent. The blonde Variation of Goku is obtainable now, and it is named Tremendous Saiyan Goku. The great means of the character is Blast. “My Switch and Z potential I” are some of the best techniques which can help you go ahead and take lead and come to be the very best gamer in a number of minutes. This version is Tremendous tough to attain, but for those who focus on experience and spend more often than not upgrading, Then you definately can easily unlock all these capabilities effortlessly.

Mastering Battle

By wining in many of the stages, you could’t connect with your self because the master of the video game. You must find out the strategy to grasp overcome. With the help of all figures of the activity, you'll want to learn the new attacks but applying all of them properly is vital. Get started by mastering the overcome which can be finished by generating a good technique. You'll want to start off by selecting the correct character of have to have and then upgrading them to stay away from most of the issues. Then again, it will allow you to need to test to invest your methods wisely on characters to stop problems.

Receiving best Using the controls

Just a simple point that you ought to test will be to grasp your controls in-recreation. This will allow you to to find the victory in less time. Get started with the basic assaults, but just after a little time, attempt for getting their detailed. Don't just this will let you to become rapid. Nonetheless, it will definitely be valuable in hard stages. Should you be a little bit closer for the enemy, try to generate a punch. Make certain that the actions are going to be swift in the event you are going to swipe as many as sprint mainly because which will depart esteemed assaults.

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PSVR This Week

I'm Brian and that's Ted's and every week on psvr this week we take a look at the new VR games that are coming to the PlayStation Store this week we gather up all the trailers we can find all the descriptions we can play your eyes and condense them down to this short video for you sometimes we look at the late games updates DLC or new game announcements so without further ado here's psvr this week [Applause] developer beat games dropped three free new songs and the beat saber on Thursday from Japanese EDM artists camellia camellia according to beat games is extremely well known amongst the rhythm game community and beat saber players and everyone agrees these songs are by far the hardest beat saber tracks yet in stark contrast to the relatively easy imagine dragons pack that launched recently but that's not all in addition the patch also brought with it some new one Sabre maps for existing songs [Music] I'm a professional don't pay Batman for a joke off I'm gonna tee man over bottom ball getting closer and closer saw Thursday was also a big day for fans of PSV our exclusive blood and truth the DLC is finally here and features a ton of new content from my most anticipated edition new game+ which will allow you to keep all your guns modifications and collectibles from your first playthrough to a new harder difficulty leaderboards and new challenge stages what truth is already one of our favorites but this update gives us plenty of reasons to go back play again we need to push back hard or we're finished [Music] the PlayStation store is having a huge summer sale and they're including a ton of PlayStation VR games the sale runs until August 20th and although not every game is on sale in every region there's a ton of crossover on this list these 14 games might not be the best games for PlayStation VR but they're definitely ones I think you shouldn't miss at their current prices [Music] it's no secret that we didn't love Arizona sunshine at lunch and that $40 price tag doesn't really help anything but after a bunch of patches updates new four-player horde modes dlc incoming and tons of zombies to take down it's tough to argue with its sale price of $14 it's rare that we get triple a flat-screen games ported over to PlayStation VR Borderlands is proof as to why it should be done more often the developers have already patched in aim support and are promising all the DLC from Borderlands 2 proper to drop sometime this summer so consider grabbing it now while it's cheap [Music] Farpoint was the first game to show us just how amazing the aim controller could be in VR but a fun single-player campaign wasn't enough for developer impulse gear they also gave us free two-player co-op missions and the 1v1 mode unlike any I've ever seen before if you have an aim controller power point should be in your library [Music] when I live streams here they lie a few weeks back it was just for fun but as I was playing I couldn't stop admiring the amazingly detailed scenery and couldn't stop gawking at all the perverted denizens of this disturbing City it's a walking simulator at heart but it's well-designed scary and beautiful everything runs downhill here it's tough to argue with severing limbs and blasting away zombies in VR and killing floor incursion does it the style stunning graphics insane bosses and a two-player co-op campaign is just a beginning with this excellent story driven action game bollocks now things are getting serious this virus is mucking up everything [Music] koan is somewhat of a rarity on playstation vr while it's true that the graphics are some of the blur iasts ever seen in the headset it's also a fully fleshed out fully realized adventure in a small mysterious snowy town it takes a while for things to heat up but once they do it's hard to stop playing [Music] paranormal activity is one of my favorite horror franchises and the VR game doesn't disappoint the controls are somewhat of a hurdle to overcome and the game isn't terribly long but there's a lot to do and see in this house and if it doesn't scare you you're probably not human [Applause] it's seldom that games were really looking forward to actually meet nevermind exceed our expectations but that's exactly what the persistence did last year as a rogue light sci-fi action game the persistence lets you play the way you want upgrade your weapons shields and abilities every time you die which you will a lot [Music] whereas originally debuted on the Dreamcast in ps2 back in November of 2001 but even then it was obvious that this rail shooter' music rhythm game was destined for something more in the first time you see resident Ben in a VR headset you'll know that this is how res was always supposed to be played [Music] as possibly one of the best-looking crow enhanced psvr games robinson the journey lanes you stranded an alone on a planet overrun with dinosaurs but don't mistake this for an action or survival game robinson is a massive puzzle solving exploration collectathon filled with stunning visuals and a white but effective narrative Robinson almost never goes on sale so grab it while you can [Music] the people come to the static institute of retention of volunteers every time there's a huge PSN sale static always seems to be there ridiculously discounted and we're always there right alongside telling you to pick it up so if you haven't yet I'm not sure what else to say static is such a unique puzzle game probably my favorite on the platform where your hands are trapped inside a box and every box has different controls to unlock it just buy it a release party I think you'll enjoy it [Music] outside a beat saver thumper might be the best rhythm game on PlayStation VR the concept is crazy as are the sights and sounds your chrome beetle flying down a track through hell at top speed while growing to maneuver the twists turns and obstacles with the appropriate button presence will have you scared to blink they ask you a question why does your God swim in such filth when people ask me what my favorite psvr game is I always tell them Resident Evil 7 but the Exorcist holds a special place in my heart because it's one of the few games that was so scary I often had trouble pushing forward with demonic themes and evil lurking around every corner this one shook my Catholic school operating to its core there's nothing better than horror movies roller coasters and light gun shooters except for maybe when miraculously developer supermassive games was able to combine all those things into one amazing psvr exclusive until dawn Russia blood was panned by mainstream media at lunch for being a cheap cash in on the untilled on franchise but as usual the critics were dead wrong big screen VR is already popular another VR headsets but the developers confirmed this week that the app is finally coming the PlayStation VR in either late 2019 or early 2020 big screen allows you to hang out with your real friends in virtual reality and watch movies together in a virtual theater it also features cross-platform play public and private rooms and variety of environments [Music] million sky big VR update could drop any day now the official word is summer 2019 but that window only gives us a few more weeks to work with so we want to be prepared starting tomorrow Monday the 29th I'll be streaming the non VR version of no man's sky daily to prepare for the inevitable VR patch so come along for the ride as I take on my first non VR game in quite a while help me figure out what I'm supposed to be doing and eventually I'll be sending out multiplayer invites to some of oil game cats to drop into the stream and be part of my adventure [Music] thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode of psvr this week we'll be back next week to tell you about all the VR games coming to the PlayStation Store but keep in mind that no one outside of Sony really knows what games are coming win but we'll do our best to keep you up-to-date each and every week on psvr this week

https://youtu.be/qh9aphw4djE

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SUPER DRAGON BALL HEROES WORLD MISSION is a Deceptively Deep Card Game in Desperate Need of an Audience

I was eight years old when I learned about tactical card games. Through one way or another, my brother and all his friends became enamored with a brand new smash hit game called Yu-Gi-Oh! Because I was eight, I also wanted to be a part of it, and soon began collecting my own Yu-Gi-Oh! cards as well. A wave of parental concern over the inclusion of magic in the series soon nipped my dreams of becoming a Yu-Gi-Oh! master in the bud, however, and I went back to just collecting good old American baseball cards instead. As I grew older and my interests grew nerdier, I found myself interested by card games once again. However, I struggled to find the game that was right for me. The biggest obstacle was finding anyone who actually played card games. The next issue was financial. I became more reluctant to spend money on random card packs when I could just be buying video games instead. The only video game-based card games that were big, though, didn’t have any characters I was invested in. I’d all but given up hope on ever finding the card game that was right for me.

    Enter SUPER DRAGON BALL HEROES WORLD MISSION! Developed by Dimps Corporation and SAFARI GAMES and published by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment, WORLD MISSION is a tactical card game based on the Japanese arcade hit Super Dragon Ball Heroes. WORLD MISSION marks the first release of one of the biggest digital card games in the world to the Western market. Having quite recently fallen in love with the Dragon Ball franchise, I jumped at the opportunity to take this game for a spin and see if it can fill that void my confiscated cards left behind.

  At first I found myself rather underwhelmed by SUPER DRAGON BALL HEROES WORLD MISSION’s systems. For starters, you’re not quite building a deck the way most competitive card games would have you. Most competitive card games require you to amass a thick deck filled with cards of various types and purposes for you to shuffle and cycle through at random. In SBDH, however, you’re only allowed to bring a total of seven cards into a match, all of which attack the enemy. There are no pure spell or support cards, and there’s no need to draw cards in battle either. You choose your lineup of attackers and fight with them alone, no tricks or traps required. In this way, it’s very true to the spirit of combat in Dragon Ball.

    It felt simple, and that carried into my first bouts of combat. The playing field of SDBH is divided into an attack zone and a support zone. Each card in your deck has a stamina bar; playing a card in the attack zone uses stamina while retreating to the support zone recovers stamina. How far into the attack zone a card is placed determines how much stamina is used. If a card runs out of stamina, it becomes susceptible to being stunned when attacked. A stunned card cannot attack in turn. Each card also has an associated power level, which is affected by both where it’s placed in the attack zone and how much stamina it has left. The player with the highest total power level attacks first in the round. Both players face off in QTE battles. If the attacker wins, they do more damage and have a chance to do a super attack. If they lose, they do minimal damage to their opponent.

  Taken at face value, it seems like a rather straightforward -- and somewhat boring -- combat system that values raw attack power above all else. After a few hours with the game, though, I began to understand the complexities and possible builds within its systems. Each card in SDBH has its own set of abilities. These can range from active abilities that trigger massive attacks after certain rounds, to passive abilities that increase total power level for every card in the attack zone, to fusions, formations, and transformations that change or amplify the abilities of each card involved.

  These abilities compliment the different classes of cards available. Hero types are balanced cards that focus on defense, Elite types drain the enemy’s stamina and can regenerate their own, while Berserker types deal high damage at a high cost of defense. It takes some time and experimentation to recognize the usefulness of different cards and abilities, but once you do it opens up a wealth of options for you to take into battle. For instance, you could assemble a deck focused on counters that nullify enemy attacks, stamina-based attacks that wear them down across rounds, or high-risk, high-reward decks with the power to KO enemies in round one and the defensive capabilities of a wet piece of paper.

  (For those curious, I run a deck comprised of two Hero types, two Elite types, and three Berserker types. I rest my Berserkers in round one to build their stamina, then unleash a total assault in round two. I find a lot of success with that build right now, but the biggest obstacle I face is enemies increasing the speed of my QTEs. Losing QTE battles mean my strong attacks are less effective and my defenses get torn to shreds. It gets the job done quickly, but it’s not very adaptable.)

  At the start of the game you’re given a beginner’s deck of low-level cards to play with. To earn new cards, players must unlock the gacha shop and spend tickets to roll for new cards. I can already hear you groaning, but don’t fret! There isn’t a single option in the game to spend real money on virtual currency. BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment has thankfully chosen to relegate add-on purchases for SDBH to music pack selections from the anime only (the fact they’re an outlier in that regard makes my stomach turn). At the time of this review there are a total of 1,177 cards in the game, and the tickets needed to unlock them can only be earned by engaging with game’s different modes. And Kami knows there’s no shortage of modes here to engage with.

    When first starting the game you’ll be required to go through the prologue chapter of its story mode. You take on the role of a kid who just moved to a city where Super Dragon Ball Heroes is the biggest thing around. You’re given your first deck and enter a beginner’s tournament that teaches you the basics of the game. Your talents are soon recognized by a master player called the Great Saiyaman 3. Suddenly, Cooler himself begins attacking the city outside. The Great Saiyaman 3 informs you that the game is beginning to invade the real world, and recruits you to travel into the world of the game to defeat the crisis. Once you’ve finished the prologue, you can begin rolling for new cards and changing up your deck. The rest of the games modes will open up to you as well.

  In addition to the story mode, the game features an arcade mode, a tournament mode, card creation, mission creation, and online network battles. The arcade mode is a series of simple battles themed around the different sagas that have run throughout the Super Dragon Ball Heroes arcade game. The tournament mode has you compete against AI-controlled players in a series of increasingly difficult tournaments. Card creation allows players to use items earned in game or bought from an in-game store to create their own custom cards for use in offline play. Mission mode allows players to create their own battle scenarios and upload them to the internet for other players to try. Online network allows players to compete in casual and ranked matches with scheduled events that add the option for battles with special rules in play.

  Progress in each of these modes levels up your player avatar. In the story mode, you’re able to choose whether you want your avatar to appear in game as a Saiyan boy, Saiyan girl, Red Ribbon android, Namekian, Friezan (???), or Kai. Once you’ve chosen a race, you can insert your own avatar into your deck and take it into battle.

    Playing these modes also nets you rewards such as zeni, custom card components, and gacha tickets, so it doesn’t matter much which modes you play. I found the card and mission creation modes to be more robust than expected, though I rarely touched them. The mission mode in particular impressed me, allowing you to customize not only the music, setting, and opponents, but also more granular details like enemy placement per round, QTE speeds, and additional goals were bonus points when cleared in battle.

  The arcade and tournament modes are fine, but they’re both essentially just escalating series of battles. It’s for that reason I stuck mostly to the story mode. The story mode not only offers the escalating battles of the other modes but also a healthy dose of fanservice (not that kind, the other kind). As a huge Dragon Ball fan, it was very charming and relatable to play through a story all about a bunch of kids who are huge Dragon Ball fans getting to meet their Dragon Ball heroes. It also allows for fun shenanigans like getting to play through small side missions where the failed fusions of Trunks and Goten, Goku and Vegeta, and Goku and Mr. Satan argue over which one is the best.

  Be warned, though, it’s a rather long and pretty repetitive story mode. Having spent 15 hours with the game, I’d say 12 of those have been in the story mode. I’ve yet to make it more than a few chapters in, and I’ve no inclination how long it ultimately will be. The fights can get pretty repetitive too. Individual chapters mostly seem to consist of you fighting the same set of enemies over and over again with them powering up more for each battle (which, let’s be honest, is pretty faithful to the spirit of the Dragon Ball series.)

    The presentation does leave a bit to be desired, though. The character models are pretty blocky and lifeless having pretty much just one facial expression despite the situation. The cutscenes in turn look like a bunch of action figures being mashed together. This unfortunately carries over into the battles. The animations look a bit better in battle, but the models look even blockier and the textures even more lower resolution. It honestly makes the game look like an HD port of a Vita game -- maybe even a PSP game. What little voiced lines the game has also sound like extremely low-quality rips of lines from the anime.

  While I’m on the subject of voice lines, there’s something I’d like to address. The game just received its first patch and free update adding new content such as music, missions, and stages. It also added a bunch of new cards, most of which are themed around the recent Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie. Obviously, free content updates are great. However, one of these newly added cards is Bulma in her snowsuit from the film. For those who don’t know, Aya Hisakawa voiced Bulma in the movie following the untimely death of Hiromi Tsuru in 2017. Coinciding with the addition of this new Bulma card featuring Aya Hisakawa’s performance, all lines recorded by Hiromi Tsuru have been patched out and re-dubbed by Aya Hisakawa.

  My assumption is this was done for consistency’s sake, but nevertheless I can’t help but be angered by it. It would be one thing if this choice had been made midway through development, but to release the game with her in it and retroactively erase her performance is egregious. I have nothing but respect for Aya Hisakawa’s performance in the role, but to patch out the legacy of the woman who had been there from the VERY beginning more than thirty years ago is little more than a slap in the face. Her fans and the memory of her massive contributions to the franchise deserve better.

    With all that said, there’s one last thing I need to address. My gripes with the presentation and repetitive nature of the game itself have done little to hamper my enjoyment of this game. The truth is, I have had a lot of fun playing SUPER DRAGON BALL HEROES WORLD MISSION. In fact, I’ve had more fun than I’ve ever had playing a card game. As soon as I finish formatting this review, I’m going to hop back in and play some more. Last time I played, I drew some pretty high-level cards, and I’ve just been thinking and thinking about what I need to do to fit them into my deck. This game is way better than any of my initial impressions led me to believe.  

  Which is why it pains me to say that the game has one giant, glaring flaw that threatens to bring the whole thing crashing down. There just simply aren’t enough people playing it. To be clear, I’ve been playing the Steam version of the game, so I can’t speak to whether or not there’s an active player base on Switch. On Steam, though, it’s all but barren. No matter what time of day I’ve hopped into online battles, I’ve been lucky to find more than one person to fight against. I’ve sat and watched myself get matched with someone, only for them to exit the lobby, get matched with me again, exit again, get matched, exit, match, exit, match, exit, and finally give up when it becomes clear to them I’m the only person playing at that time. It’s even worse in the special event battle lobbies, which I’ve never managed to match with anyone.

  I have had a blast playing around with this game, and the most fun I’ve had is in the few online matches I found. Even when I get my butt handed to me, I feel like I learn a lot more about strategizing and optimizing my deck than when I play against AI. The less active players there are, the less unique play-styles I’m able to expose myself to and learn from. It also means there’s less of a community online outside the game. Searching for tier lists and tips almost exclusively lead you to communities based around the arcade game. While this has helped me identify some of my more high-level cards, there are aspects of WORLD MISSION that go unexplored, such as the overall viability of the player character card.

Super Dragon Ball Heroes may be one of the biggest digital card games out there, but its digital nature has left it tragically inaccessible to those of us in the West. Without the active and expansive arcade scene of Japan, there’s simply been no way to engage with that community as more than a bystander. SUPER DRAGON BALL HEROES WORLD MISSION marks the very first time this series has been accessible to players outside of a Japanese arcade, and it’s REALLY FUN. There’s certainly no shortage of Dragon Ball or competitive card game fans out here, yet so far the game seems to be struggling to find an audience. I really hope that can change. I’ve had a blast playing this game, and I want to keep enjoying it for some time to come.

REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Deep, rewarding combat system + Plethora of collectable cards + Plenty of deep cuts and fanservice for Dragon Ball fans to appreciate + Cards can only be earned through in-game rewards, no external purchases required + Interesting custom card and mission creation tools + Plenty of alternative modes to explore + SSJ3 Nappa grows a beard +/- Online battles are its best feature, but finding other players is extremely difficult - Could use an automatic deck-builder for less-experienced players - Story mode can be bit of a grind - Disappointingly low-quality audio and visuals - Questionable patch removed a deceased voice actress's lines

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Danni Wilmoth is a Features and Social Videos writer for Crunchyroll and also co-hosts the video game podcast Indiecent. You can find more words from her on Twitter @NanamisEgg.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

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Shadow’s Dungeon Reviews: The Legend of Zelda: Level 7

Welcome back to the Legend of Zelda Dungeon Reviews! Really sorry for the wait. I’ve been having computer problems that has destroyed my awesome first draft, and I’ve had school get in the way as well. Those aren’t really good excuses IMO though, sorry again! This time it’s:

Level 7: Demon

Hit the jump for the review by me, ShadowSect!

Here’s how I review dungeons again:

Dungeon Design (15 Points): Is the dungeon linear or complex? If linear, was it meant to be linear?  If complex, does it have unfair frustration? Does the gamer have much of a choice? Is there reasoning to what you have to do?

Visuals (15 Points): Does the dungeon look the part? Is the music good? Is the dungeon believable? If not, does it impact the dungeon? Does the overall mood of the dungeon bring chills up your spine?

Gameplay (15 Points): Is there a lot to do? Does the dungeon take full use of the item you’re given? If there is no item, is there a major hook that grabs you in this dungeon? Is the playstyle repetitive and does it get in the way of your playing?

Enemies (15 Points): Is there a variety of enemies in this dungeon? Does that variety fit the dungeon theme? Do the enemies bring a challenge and are entertaining? Is the miniboss or boss good, or does it fall flat? Would you battle the enemies again?

Puzzles (15 Points): Do the puzzles challenge your brain and treat you like you’re a functioning human? Are the puzzle rewards worth it? Is there unfair consequences to getting something wrong? Do the puzzles fit with the theme? Do the puzzles involve the dungeon item?

Challenge (10 Points): Is the dungeon too hard or too easy? Is it so linear that there’s no way to get lost? Is it very possible to die in this dungeon? If it is too easy, is it a fault of the game or the dungeon? Does the challenge work with how far you are in the game?

Fun Factor (15 Points): What did the dungeon make me feel like when I was in it and when I left it? Do I want to do it again? Was it entertaining and did I ever get bored? Was it too short or too long? Is there anything to enjoy in this dungeon that doesn’t end up as repetitive?

Now, the review awaits!

Level 7 here we come. This dungeon is far from a rant, and I personally love the dungeon (others might disagree) because it’s an easy addition to what previously was a FRICKIN HARD dungeon, so I feel this is comfort. Disclaimer: Just remember my dungeon reviews on the NES game will be forgiving since it was on the dang NES and for that time, this was revolutionary, and you can’t blame it for its visuals or repetition most of the time.

Note: Just reminding you guys that the Originality category is gone, and the points were added to the Enemies category.

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Dungeon Design (15): This dungeon is HUGE. It’s a lot longer, and there’s a lot of complexity to how you explore throughout this dungeon. To people who haven’t played, I advise you make sure you’ve killed ALL the enemies and THEN start pushing blocks, although I feel that the room with the wallmasters was a bit of a design flaw. I mean, there’s no signal when you’ve killed them all! The old man is back with another huge upgrade to your bombs, and I have no issues with it. And another secret rupee room (YAY). 12 points.

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Visuals (15): More green. Seriously. The music is still the same, and now it’s FINALLY frickin repetitive. The look isn’t good anymore either, so the visuals are slowly yet surely going down the drain. At least the enemy sprites haven’t aged at all. 9 points.

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Gameplay (15): Oh yeah there’s a lot to do here. The major hook are the Goriyas, the reoccurring enemies, which make this dungeon feel like an obstacle course, dodging boomerangs and keese and ropes and wallmasters. This fits the part, and there’s nothing really confusing about this dungeon, except for ONE DANG THING. THE FREAKIN HUNGRY GORIYA. Do you have any idea how confusing that is to so many people? I mean seriously. And if you didn’t bring the bait and finally realize that the guy is hungry, you need to backtrack out of the dungeon to the overworld to get it, which is a bit tedious. However, for the rest of the dungeon, the playstyle is unique and fun. Especially since you now get the Red Candle upgrade, a much needed upgrade that makes it slightly spammable and a great asset to your kit and to this dungeon with dark rooms, especially since it’s not just a one time use anymore, which was a huge pain. 11 points.

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Enemies (15): No new enemies, but reoccurring enemies that make this dungeon kind of a redo, which is both a gift and a curse. It’s a gift with the Goriyas, the Keese, and the Ropes that makes this feel like an obstacle course. It’s a HUGE curse for the Stalfos and the Moldorm that end up being really, really easy. Come on Nintendo! I get this is supposed to be a cooldown dungeon, but that’s a bit too much cooldown. There is a LOT of minibosses though. Dodongos and digdoggers OH MY. The dodongos are optional, but can punish you if you decide to fight them and lo and behold I’M OUT OF BOMBS… until you get the old man. So those end up being a pushover, but the digdoggers are not so, my friend. There are 3, with the first 2 being optional, but the 3rdone is no pushover my friend if you get to that point. A worthy challenge that requires the flute if you didn’t get it (although if you didn’t get it he’s a bit harder), but he splits into 3 parts this time, and they run around the room as if there is meth in music. He does end up being a slight pushover, but I have no problem with slight in a cooldown dungeon. The boss though. EASY. I really don’t understand why Nintendo did it though… He was so boring. Even for a cooldown dungeon. So no, the enemies aren’t perfect here, but they’re not bad and certainly not mediocre. 12 points.

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Puzzles (15): Do the block puzzles and the secret rooms count? Not really. By now there REALLY should’ve been a puzzle that involved the dungeon item, but the candle is never used for that sort of purpose other than to light up dark rooms. How boring. Although finding this dungeon was a puzzle indeed (unless you found the old man that told you where). And it’s the NES… 9 points.

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Challenge (10): Too easy? To a point, but it’s not that much of a problem for a cooldown dungeon. It’s not easy to get lost, and being a minimalist it’s easy to get to the exit (maybe too easy). The challenge, however, is still here, with dodging the fearful Goriyas and the Wallmaster room (god the wallmaster room). I still feel that this should’ve been harder for a cooldown dungeon, but it is fine as it is. 8 points.

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Fun Factor (15): This dungeon was fun, don’t worry, and I found joy in the easy things. Do I want to do it again? Probably, although there’s no hook in this dungeon other than DODGE THIS (I really hope you guys watch TeamFourStar). It was entertaining while it lasted, and it wasn’t too long and it wasn’t too short. Even though this was probably the longest dungeon so far, nothing gets too repetitive to a fault, except maybe for the music. 13 points.

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Overall, 74 points. Fun. There is joy in this dungeon, that much is certain, although there really should’ve been puzzles at this point. I mean, seriously Nintendo. Why do all the puzzles have to be on the overworld map? Oh well, we’ll win someday. Also, the visuals don’t work anymore. So… yeah. Well, I do have to remember it was on the NES, right? Yep. On the NES… Come back next time for Level 8: Lion, where the Darknuts make an unfortunate return, the Candle we got is rendered useless, and we get the ability to unlock ANYTHING.

(end)

I had this all ready earlier with awesome edits, but it crashed :( I forgot what those edits were too… Except for the picture. That was a great idea given by my twin brother. THANKS!

Oh well. There wasn’t much swearing to remove, and there wasn’t too much “criticalness” to remove either that wasn’t unnecessary. Or, at least in my HUMBLE opinion. XD

Anyway, what do you think? Was I spot on with the Demon, or was I dancing too much with the demon in the pale moonlight? WOOT BATMAN REFERENCE. Anyway, if I missed anything, did something wrong, or you have cool things to say about this dungeon, let us know in the comments!

(In the background) Lousy computer…