First Person Streaming

I haven’t written in this blog for over a year. I am happy to announce that I am now streaming hard to find games with original hardware on Twitch! You can find me at twitch.tv/rune_d13. Stop on by, you might not be disappointed!

Recently I tackled my first long form playthrough on stream with Shining the Holy Ark for the Sega Saturn. It’s a Japanese RPG done through the style of Wizardry or Might and Magic. Grid based movement, predetermined characters, and a story that somehow ends up with the entire world’s fate in the balance. I love this stuff.

The graphics look just as good as any other game from 1998. The walls and buildings are made up of pixels that remind you that not everything has aged poorly from the Playstation 1 era, but the character and monster models were done in the style of Donkey Kong Country. It is clear that they were created them in another program and imported over as images for each of the frames of animation. This wasn’t a widely used technique and creates a unique visual style. The only real problem I had was that if there were too many characters on screen there could be some massive slowdown; the castle town of Enrich and magic heavy battles really dragged down the pace of the game.

Gameplay wise I am not the person to ask. I loved every second of it. Stomping around dungeons while a mini map fills in where you have been is one of my favorite RPG types. The dungeons start out simple and get more complex as you progress with my mind being blown by the South Shrine and its all the sudden doubling in size because you must walk on the ceiling. The sound effects are satisfying and the battle music never got old. You never see the main character aside from the intro because everything is seen though his eyes making this have parallels with Half-Life. There’s a lot going on here in a game that hardly anyone played due to it being released in the latter have of the Saturn’s US lifespan.

There are things hidden all over the game. Walls, jars, chests, and even some specific sections of floor contain items and pixies. The pixies are a unique feature of Shining the Holy Ark. When an enemy attacks you it may come from one of five different directions: front, top, left, right, or floor. There are five different selectable fairy types that you have a second to send out before a battle begins, if you pair the right direction they attack the enemy once and give you more gold and experience once the fight is over. It keeps you on your toes while dungeon diving. “Hey there are a lot of alcoves to the left in this hallway, better ready the left pixie.” Everything controls like it should, one grid box at a time. You can also swap out party members (except the main guy) every round of battle once you have more than four, even dead ones. This feels unbalanced in the player’s favor because that massive heal you need is always in reach. The only gripe I came up with is if you hold the “B” button and press left/right the party with strafe. It’s been over a decade since I read the manual, but that would have been really useful mapped in a more intuitive way.

Shining the Holy Ark’s story seems straightforward at first. Wandering mercenaries, a king who’s acting strange, and aliens. Yeah, aliens possess three of your characters after they fall victim to a mine accident in the beginning. Then it’s a McGuffin search until you make your way to the end. The characters are much more interesting than the story. A dragon knight, ninja fox, lady paladin round out your silent protagonist, sassy cleric, blue haired wizard, and pair of human ninjas on a quest to right the world’s wrongs. One of the pluses about playing this on stream was one of my viewers knew a lot about the lore in the Shining universe and pointed out how Holy Ark is connected to Shining Force III in ways that really need to be dug for. This kind of trivia makes any experience seem deeper and is always welcome in my book.

Shining the Holy Ark is the definition of an overlooked classic. Is it as timeless as Chrono Trigger…no, but if you dig this style of game it should be on your “I need to play that!” list.

Exploring Worlds Gets Better and Better

What a time to be into video games! Open world games were awesome, then they got stale, and I am happy to announce they are awesome again! With Horizon Zero Dawn and Zelda: Breath of the Wild being released so close together we have hit peak open world. I can honestly day that these are the two best open world games I have ever played and for entirely distinct reasons! I feel bad for those that must come up with a Game of the Year with all the good stuff that has come out this year. Oh, right.

Today we wander and fight then wander some more.

Horizon Zero Dawn is an exercise in the hand-holdy game design we have been subjected to for the last couple console generations. Who knew such a tight, curated experience could be good. The map isn’t quite as big as other titles that boast millions of square miles of (mostly) empty real estate, it’s densely packed and it doesn’t take too long to travel anywhere. The environment and everything in it look amazing. Collectables are present but rather than 100 treasure chests and 1500 points of interest there are 6 figures, 30 flowers, 12 mugs, and 12 vistas. There are also maps that are easily obtainable that show you the general area of the items, this is great because it cuts out the middle man because you were going to look them up anyway. The main story stars a strong female lead that could have just as easily been male and doesn’t feel like they are pandering. It also makes sense and is better than anyone thought a game with robot dinosaurs would be and the side quests don’t feel like filler and are just as interesting. It’s like they played a recent Bethesda game and decided the main quest should be more than just a reason to put the character in game. We haven’t even gotten to the gameplay yet. It is so satisfying to blow crap up in HZD. Guerrilla nailed the third person action with emphasis on bow and arrow; they have been wasted churning out Killzone properties. Shooting a precision tip arrow into the exposed side of a Thunderjaw is as satisfying as blowing off their own disc launchers that you can pick up and pelt them with. It’s not perfect. The climbing is kind of uninspired. You are trained early on to look for certain color hand holds and rocks that Aloy effortlessly hoists herself up. This part of game design hasn’t changed, quit slowing down time when I make a long jump to make it more dramatic; she will make it because the engine let her and no one is on the edge of their seat. I would have liked to have the other weapons take more of a front seat. Other than a few cases I could rely on the three endgame bows because they covered all the ammo types I needed. Go get it! I rarely platinum a game but had a blast filling in all the blanks of Horizon Zero Dawn’s world.

Breath of the Wild. This is going to be a talked about game all year and will likely end up on almost every “Best of” list. There is good reason. Everything that makes HZD such a wonderful experience is done in the exact opposite way. BotW is equally a modern game and throwback to the original Legend of Zelda. The graphics have a more understated elegance to them somewhere between Windwaker and Skyward Sword. You get around by climbing things. <Everything>. Then you jump off a cliff and glide as far as your stamina gauge will allow. You fill in your map by climbing large towers and synchronizing with them, they only fill in your map and don’t tell you where points of interest are. You have to look for those and use a proximity locator to find them. The entire world is open to you early on. There are generous fast travel points that reduce the “GPS follow” time that plagues open world games and make getting somewhere feel like an accomplishment. Some have criticized the weapon durability system but I like that it promotes the use of varied weapons and how you approach a given situation. There are secrets to be found all over the overworld just like the original Zelda had something on almost every square of the map. Bombing, push/pull-ing, burning, and scaling everything is just as awesome as it was thirty years ago. Shrines dot the map and are small, contained puzzles for you to solve and every fourth gives you an increase to your health or stamina. The entire point of BotW is exploration and every minute of it amazing. I only have small complaints about this one. The weather can be a pain because there is nothing worse than a downpour that makes you slip while climbing or lightning that will toast you if you are equipped with metal. Generally, you solve this by waiting for the weather to change or leaving the region. You don’t need a shiny Nintendo Switch to play it, Breath of the Wild is on Wii U and is exactly the same. I you have either of these systems you are doing yourself a disservice by not playing it.

There you have it. Two games released so close to each other in the same genre doing completely different things and being excellent at the same time. The real issue here are that everything is going to be measured against these titles. Ubisoft is the self-proclaimed king of open world gaming and yet they haven’t innovated it in any way since Assassin’s Creed II (okay, I’ll give you Black Flag because sailing your pirate ship was cool). The icing on the cake is the lack of game crashing bugs! I think I got completely stuck on level geometry once in HZD and have yet to see anything game breaking in BotW. The line has been drawn and I like where it is; this should be the bench mark in quality AAA gaming releases should strive for.

Aging

My mother always hoped I would grow up. Go to college and get a good job. Maybe settle down with a nice girl and start a family. Find the true meaning of life and leave silly childish things in the past. I did all of that but I never really left anything behind. I still have my video games even though I’m to the point where finding a place to store all this crap is becoming an issue. Today we fight to stay a resident of Neverland.

We can look at aging in a few ways. First the gamer is a lot older than before. Just like those who grew up on rock n roll music the new generation has kept ties with what we liked in our childhoods. The industry has grown as a whole as well. The subject matter in many games has changed to more complex experiences than shoot all the asteroids. No, “dark and gritty” doesn’t count.

For me it all started with a Nintendo Entertainment System I got for Christmas in the late Eighties. It changed my life. A Sega Genesis came later and introduced me to RPG’s and action games like I had never seen. Finally, Sony showed up and I finally had an income of my own to waste as I pleased. The Playstation 1 and 2 eras were magical, any game that I wanted I bought (especially since YouTube hadn’t exploded the market yet; but hey, we got exposure!) and I had the time to play them. I was either a college student or low ranking Airman doing 12-hour shift work with no responsibilities. Then the hours in a day started to get shorter. More time at work, the meetings, traveling for training, and being tired for what felt like the first time. I actually got more gaming done when I was deployed to the Middle East than when I was home. The family came after all of that. There are just some things that should never be missed, the games (typically) have a pause button. World weary and battle hardened I still love to pick up my controller. I may not be able to chunk through all those meaty RPG’s like I used to but I sure can try. The moral of the story is nothing has really changed, for many the greatest pastime is playing through a predetermined experience and I don’t intend to stop.

The games industry is an interesting beast when you look at it as a whole. The first commercially sold game was Computer Space in 1971. There are a ton of people that have been alive longer than gaming has been a thing, let alone a billion-dollar industry. Compare that to movies, music, or literature just to see how infantile it really is. Now there are separate groups that argue over whether the games media is ruining the hobby and others that defend it as a legitimate art form; often times trying to follow the conversation over the screaming is like trying to figure out what is actually going on inside the Capital Beltway. With updates about what is happening in gaming coming out every minute it is too easy to gloss over something that may interest you; years ago a magazine would come out and you would have all month to pour over every detail so you could discuss it at recess. Keeping up with all things gaming feels more like work than anything else, find a gaming site you like and follow them. The stakes these companies put into their products today is staggering, hundreds of millions of dollars with hundreds of people in the credits have replaced the shoestring budgets and small teams of the past. It’s no wonder we are constantly assaulted with commercials to preorder a game with season pass DLC and there is no way to tell if will be any good. We still play. The core of the industry is still the same, the gamers elect who wins and who loses. Your dollars are your votes and they decide what stays and what goes. Just like anything else, if it turns a profit there will be more. This is a business.

Gaming is a fun hobby. There is still some of the “that’s for kids” stigma surrounding it but don’t let that stop you from doing something you like, no matter how old you are. I’ll still be here. Writing articles about games that no one asked for. 

Not Just Game of the Year

We’re at the time of year where all the publications pick their favorite games of the year. Humans must rank and list everything…and I am no different. This may have been a horrible year in the eyes of many but it has been an amazing year for games. We fight this year because we want to!

Titanfall 2

We have been spoiled, great software has come out of almost every corner this year. No matter who you are there was something for you to sink your teeth into. The AAA space had amazing shooters in Overwatch, Doom, and Titanfall 2. Adventures were available in Uncharted 4, Dishonored 2, and Abzu. All of your Harvest Moon farming fantasies came true in Stardew Valley. And the most surprising arrivals this year were games a decade in the making in Final Fantasy XV and The Last Guardian that hit with the success that Duke Nukem Forever could never fathom. With so many amazing titles this year I have decided to declare an entire genre as the winner this year not just a single game.

Japanese Role Playing Games (jRPGs) were the show stopping genre this year. JRPGs have been in one hell of a slump, especially in the home console space. The PS3 and Xbox 360 generation’s best games in the genre were moved to the handhelds with a few standouts here and there like Ni No Kuni or Resonance of Fate. I place a lot of blame on the sub-par Final Fantasy XII trilogy for kind of killing the progress of the genre; so much so that it has had to move backwards to get the fans back on board.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is probably the best commercial flop of the year. I understand it is a niche product for a dead system but it proves that there are some great titles for the Wii U. I know nothing about Idol Culture in Japan and have not seriously sat down to enjoy an anime since the mid 00’s but I loved this game. It was billed as a Shin Megami Tensei crossed with Fire Emblem, we didn’t quite get that but what we did get was a great jRPG that would serve as a wonderful gateway into the Shin Megami Tensei which is even more important with Persona 5 on the horizon. Final Fantasy XV finally came out this year. Even though I was lukewarm on the demo, I am happy to report that I really like it. Road trips are a blast if you are with the right people, and I think Prince Noctis has a solid group of bros to hang out with. FFXV is nowhere near perfect (how many times did you jump instead of executing the displayed X button prompt?) but fans of the genre collectively let out a sigh of relief when it was finally available.

7th Dragon III Code VFD

The handheld space was bursting at the seams with jRPG titles. The 3DS had Bravely Second, 7th Dragon III Code VFD, Shin Megami Tensei 4: Apocalypse, Dragon Quest VII, and the massive hit that was Pokemon Sun/Moon. The Vita even had some solid offerings in Shiren the Wanderer, World of Final Fantasy, and Trails of Cold Steel II. I’m not a Pokemon guy, that’s my younger brother and I trust his opinion that Sun/Moon is the best the series has been in a while. The DS family of handhelds has always been a powerhouse when it comes to jRPGs and this year was no different. 7th Dragon III Code VFD may be in the running for worst written title this year but it proved to be a really good take on the Wizardry -like but from an isometric perspective; if you missed it you need to grab it. The Trails of Cold Steel series has been fantastic. Part one was released just three days before Christmas last year and should be lumped with Part two for a complete experience; it gets extremely wordy and probably won’t be cup of tea but the way they built an early 1900’s European style world is something that should be experienced. Dragon Quest VII is a great remake, it has been streamlined down to only about 100(!) hours of gameplay; a lot of people missed DQVII on its first release but now it is front and center for all DQ fans to enjoy.

Trails of Cold Steel II

2016 was a great year for video games and Cubs fans. We are all tired of the political machine and the fallout that came after the two least popular presidential candidates in history but our favorite form of escapism came through. It would have been easy to name Dark Souls III game of the year, but the truth is it wasn’t. I was drawn into Bloodborne a lot more than the latest Souls offering. If you wanted to lose yourself in another world and live another character’s story jRPGs had you covered. Pick and choose your favorites, these are long games that are meant to simmer for as long as you want them too. Whether you just want to blaze through the story, max out your characters’ levels, or follow strategies to break the game on a mathematical plain, jRPGs will be there for you no matter where you decide to play.

Faeries Have Episodes Too

There is a turned based RPG with Japanese RPG style battles that gives you the freedom of flight. You fight fantastic creatures while helping the residents of one of the worlds you visit. Your character is customizable and after creation your selection of skills further personalize your avatar. You are also a fairy…errrr, faery. Today we perpetually flap our wings while we fight.

Before we get into Faery: Legends of Avalon I would like to look at the developer. Spiders is a French game company made up of people that worked on Silverfall. Silverfall was isometric hack and slash RPG that came out in 2007. I have not played it. Spiders seems to be sort of an anomaly in the game industry today by being a “mid-tier” company that has been around for almost a decade that hasn’t had a major hit. They develop and release games exclusively through Focus Home Interactive on their own “Silk” engine. Their website says they offer consulting services and will license out their proprietary engine, even though the only Silk games that have been released are from Spiders themselves. Let’s see what these little warriors can do.

You create your silent protagonist with a bevy of appearance options. After awakening a couple of friendly sprites teach you have to get around the world of Faery. You have full unrestricted movement in the small levels that make up the game world. There are a total of 4 worlds in this episode. The first is the hub world of Avalon that is defined by the mirrors you use to travel between settings. The world tree of Yggdrasil is next, it consists almost entirely of the tree; it makes for an interesting vertical level. The Flying Dutchman is a ship of legend that carries souls to the other side and is the most boring, drab place you end up. The City of Mirages is the highlight of the game, it is a desert city riding on the back of a scarab. The ending alludes to a sequel that never came. It is too bad, I would have liked to see where the adventure would have gone.

Faery is a product of the Silk engine and looks good for a downloadable only title from 2010. The music is extremely whimsical and fits each one of the settings well. The levels are small but have a numerous characters to talk to and receive quests from, often side objectives reward you with equipment that augment your different abilities. I stuck with the iron set and moved to the superior iron set when it was available to boost my main's physical attacks while using the status effects to restrict enemy actions. The battles are triggered when you get too close to an enemy on the map like Chrono Trigger and play out in typical turn based JRPG fashion. The overall structure of the game is solid. Also the game’s concept art is metal as f***!

Remember When...

Every now and then a game is released to so much acclaim, critical or otherwise, that it never fades from discussion. Most of the time titles appear and leave without imprinting much of a legacy on the masses. Dark Souls is something we will be hearing about for the rest of forever, there is even an offshoot genre referred to as “Souls-likes” because people just can’t get enough. For the record, I am one of those people. Do you remember the high profile, first party developed release Primal for the Playstation 2? You might, you are reading a horrible gaming blog that feeds off of your nostalgia but most will not even bat an eyelash at a forgotten game from well over a decade ago. Today we try to remember the fight.

Remember Me was an Xbox 360/Playstation 3/PC release from Capcom. That name still holds weight, like it or not you are still interested in an Intellectual Property from Capcom is announced or released. I played Remember Me over two years ago as of this writing. Let’s see what I actually remember about Remember Me.

The main draw for this title have to be the main character and the setting. It is always nice to see a lead female character as a main feature of a new IP, I like Nilin (remembered her name because it was nothing I had heard before) a lot. She is an attractive, intelligent character who isn’t completely over sexualized. I get it sex sells, but I believe someone who looks and dresses like Nilin would live in Neo Paris. Yeah, New Paris….I’m pretty sure the Eiffel Tower is here so that would make it regular Paris. Paris is well realized, the slummy parts appear like they should and the high class areas look pristine. The soundtrack was the kind of futuristic techno we tend to add to anything that takes place after now and fit well.

This is a third person action game. The main focus is on melee combat where you can customize your attacks based on where they are in a combo. The first press of the attack button may be a low damage, quick opener to get chain started so you could land those slower attacks that do the bulk of your damage. Some of your combo elements will even regenerate bits of your health on contact and more powerful attacks can be added further down the chain; risk/reward is a huge player here. The Dynasty Warriors franchise is screaming for new mechanics at this point and would benefit from customizable combos. If Koei Tecmo have already implemented something like this, let me know. I do remember some enemies having entirely too much health and making some encounters endurance tests. Most importantly I remember liking the game enough to finish it.

Nilin has amnesia. With the title it has to be an amnesia story. People are able to upload their memories into the cloud so that they can never lose them. I could have uploaded a long play of my experience with Remember Me with every detail, but I don’t think that would be worth my time even now. I sadly can’t remember all of the story beats (except for the “big reveal”) but the bar set is pretty cool and the last areas have a cool cyberpunk aesthetic.

So how did I do? Two years ago, Remember Me was good. Looking at contemporary reviews, it scored straight up average with scores somewhere between 6 and 8 out of 10. Not good enough to shine and not bad enough to instill rage in the YouTube community. 

Blog Posts Alight and the Timeliness Before

Dragon Quest VII finally is getting a Western release on the 3DS! This is great news and means if you have $40 you should jump on that as fast as you can. After smashing my head on Dragon Warrior VII a couple of times on the Playstation release and falling off every time because I have no attention span (see blog update frequency) I have decided to do something related to it to acknowledge DQVII’s release. We will mash Square over and over and call it fighting.

Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree’s Woe and the Blight Below is one long winded and dumb title. I like it. Actually a bunch of the DQ releases have weird subtitles like “Hand of the Heavenly Bride”, “Sentinel of the Starry Skies”, and VII is “Fragments of the Forgotten Past.” Seeing as I have done some write ups on my experiences with Dragon Warrior, Dragon Warrior II, and Rocket Slime it makes sense to talk about the last DQ title I have played. It just happens to be a genre cross over with Koei-Tecmo’s Dynasty Warriors.

First off, I love Akira Toriyama’s monster designs. The character designs are colorful, full of personality, and instantly recognizable as Toriyama’s; it just isn’t my favorite style for human characters. Seeing the monsters roaming around in HD in their cartoony glory is truly one of the best aspects of the game. Kudos to them for not trying to update them into either a more realistic, gritty, or extreme style. I like that the monsters will all pummel you while smiling. Maybe they enjoy your pain. The flipside is that you collect medals throughout your battles that represent different enemies that you can summon to your aid. Some of them hang around and fight in the immediate area you summoned them in or may use a skill and disappear. The visuals are on par with other anime styled games on the PS4, I haven’t experienced any crazy glitches or crashes. As a software application it runs.

There is a story here as well as original characters that take the center stage. Just like any other mash up game, different dimensions are colliding and your favorite DQ player characters are fighting together! The power of friendship….blah….blah….

The localization of the DQ games have been a love it or hate it affair. We have accents. All of the accents. They give the characters more defining characteristics. Some of them are expected like the British accents, the Irish accents, and some are less expected in the form of Alena and Kiryl sounding Russian and Valesco does his impression of Antonio Banderas (okay, with that pencil mustache there could be no other accent).

Walk up to monster, press Square a bunch of times, move on to next monster. If you haven’t played Dynasty Warriors it is a straight up button masher. Maybe you’ll press Triangle to change up your combos at some point, use your super when your gauge is full, and each character has unique skills they can use by holding R1 and pressing a face button. The way your characters are developed is probably the main reason the title was changed from “warriors” to “heroes”. There is a traditional JRPG shop set up for purchasing and equipping items in your hub as well as an alchemy pot to create different items and accessories. When you kill enemies you gain money and experience points and level in the traditional RPG sense. What I find really strange is that there isn’t a huge KO counter on the screen keeping track of the havoc you have caused or multiplayer, even Hyrule Warriors had them.

When you first lay your eyes on Dragon Quest Heroes you know whether you will like it or not. It really depends on how long it has been since you played a horde based beat-em up, if it has been a while pick it up. It would really help if you have preexisting Dragon Quest knowledge as a lot of its really hinges on characters and monsters you may be nostalgic for.

There is a sequel already? Oh boy.