Confirmed Kill: Wolfenstein: The Old Blood

Title: Wolfenstein: The Old Blood

Original Release: May 5, 2015 (Multiple)

Finished Release XBOX One Release (2015)

I bet you thought we were finished with Confirmed Kills for the year.  Well, this one is, in fact the (most likely) final entry review for the year.  I actually meant to have it up sooner, but between the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (which was awesome) and the chaos of Christmas (which was also awesome), I just didn't find the time.  I had originally planned to take the week between Christmas and New Year's off, but I wanted to make sure I got this last review out before 2018.  So here we go!

My relationship with the Wolfenstein series has been mostly uninteresting.  I'm tempted to say I'm a "distant fan" of it, like I am with Castlevania, but I'm much more familiar with that series with this one.  As a kid I loved 2001's Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and a few years ago I actually finished Wolfenstein 3D (which I always want to call the "original" even though it's not) on my smartphone, of all things.

Outside of that, though, it's always just been one of those series that I was aware of, always thought was pretty cool, but never delved much into.  The (then-)upcoming release of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, however, interested me enough that it prompted me to not only play the first game in the recently-rebooted series, but I actually bought the special edition of the new one.  And so this became the first step towards catching up.  How did it go? Well let's just see.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is actually a standalone expansion to 2014's Wolfenstein: The New Order, offering a new storyline and a whole set of new missions set in an alternate version of 1946 Germany, taking place just before the first mission in the storyline of the main game.  As usual, you play William "B.J." Blazcowicz, American soldier and professional Nazi-killer.  This time around, you're tasked with infiltrating Castle Wolfenstein itself, in the hopes of acquiring a secret folder said to contain the location of recurring villain and total monster General Deathshead (not his birth name).

Needless to say, things quickly get out of hand, in ways that I won't spoil here.  Suffice it to say that twists and turns abound, and it doesn't take long before the crazy meter is kicked up to a solid 8 out of 11, with still further to go.  I have to say, I enjoyed the story quite a bit.  If I had any complaints, it would just be that I had to remind myself why I was doing what I was doing more often than I would like.  Still, I'd play it again.

Actually, there is one lower-mid-tier complaint I'd like to quickly point out.  There's a point in the game where you can go two different ways to progress: essentially left or right down a hallway.  Unbeknownst to you, going left results in the death of one of your two allies.  Going right results in the death of the other of your two allies.  There's no indication of which path kills which character, or even that you're making a choice at all.

Now, you may say that this is a reflection of real life.  We don't know what our choices will lead to, and, especially in a deadly situation, any choice can mean life or death.  I would then, however, counteract that defense by explaining that I restarted the level because I was unhappy with the result, since I vastly preferred the character that died because I went left (or whatever) over the other character that could've died.

You can tell me that this makes me a coward or whatever you want to say, except for one thing.  This isn't Mass Effect, or Dragon Age, or Telltale's Game of Thrones.  Those are games where things that seem innocuous can lead to disastrous consequences (or at least they're presented that way.  This is Wolfenstein.  It's a narrative-driven first-person shooter about killing lots of Nazis.

I'm not trying to say that the series doesn't have things to say about the horrors of war, because it does, and some of it is really powerful.  But this comes out of absolutely nowhere.  I will say that I played The Old Blood before The New Order, and I've only played the first few hours of that game.  Maybe similar things happen therein and I just don't know about it, in which case, the fault is mine.  But I still maintain that context is key here.  This just isn't the type of game in which the player is mentally prepared for the idea that going left will result in disaster.  We're playing B.J. Blazkowicz, not Donna Noble.  So we'll just restart the level and go right.

Still, I honestly wasn't all that bothered by that whole kerfuffle, it's just something that really stuck out to me.

Speaking of B.J., though, he's just great.  For someone so focused on taking down every Nazzy he comes across, it would be easy to dehumanize him, but thankfully that's not the case.  B.J. is a person, he's introspective, he isn't happy with the way the evil in the world has caused his life to go.  This is a man who has seen too many friends die, but he keeps going forward because it's just what he does.  If he doesn't, who will?

Also, I think we can all agree that, if there's ever a Wolfenstein movie, he'll be played by John Cena.  Right?  Wouldn't that be great???

*sigh* Who am I kidding?  It'll just be Jason Statham.  Ugh.

The graphics are nice, although I don't think they're flexing very hard most of the time.  There are one or two genuinely breathtaking views here and there, mainly in a section where you're riding a cable car down the side of an Alp, fighting for your life all the way.  Most of the game, though, is restricted to metallic hallways, then narrow village streets, then castle walls, then underground tunnels.  There's very little variation within each section.  They're not bad, they're just nothing I haven't seen before in this exact series.  But again, this isn't the rule from beginning end, since some of the stuff on display here is really cool to look at, especially as the situation goes pear-shaped.  I just would've liked to see a bit more originality peppered here and there.

I hate to say it, but I don't really remember the music at all.  So I guess it wasn't offensively bad, but it definitely didn't stick with me, which probably isn't a great sign.

Gameplay-wise, it's a modern FPS, and that's exactly what it plays like.  If you've played pretty much any other FPS made within the last five years, you can pick up and play this one with minimal adjustment.  That's not to say that this is a bad thing, as the controls are more than solid.  I felt like I was in complete control about 95% of the time, and the other 5% isn't really worth talking about.

One thing I have to question is the focus on stealth in the early parts of the game.  I like stealth in video games, generally, and I'm a big fan of Metal Gear Solid.  The problem here is that the stealth is, speaking very broadly, inelegant and annoyingly linear.  In just about any given stealth section, there is exactly one way forward, and the enemies you're trying to stealth around are sometimes agonizingly slow, meaning that, if you screw up, you wind up spending minutes at a time standing still just to try and get the timing exactly right this time.  Thief 2, this is not.

Once the reins are off and the game focuses on the gunfighting, it settles into a more comfortable groove.  It's still usually (though not always) linear, but the shooting mechanics are so solid that it's honestly okay.  Put a dude in front of me and I'll shoot him, and most of the guns here are a real treat to play with.  I especially appreciate the fact that there are two different shotguns.  That's worth the price of admission right there.

Oh, and finally, there's a blue ton of secrets.  Like, seriously, I pride myself on being pretty good with exploration, and I'm just generally an observant person.  But here, I bet I barely cracked 40% of the secrets and hidden areas.  It's a grand tradition in the series, and The Old Blood more than lives up to it.  My absolute favorite secret is the nightmares.

See, in every level, you can find a bed, and have a little nap.  War is hell, though, and so B.J. naturally has nightmares every time he sleeps.  The good news is that the nightmares take the form of secret levels... completely done in the pixel-graphic style of Wolfenstein 3D.  As someone who was addicted to that game for a while in my adult life, it was a real treat to see XBOX One era B.J.'s face slowly transform into DOS era B.J., then fight droves of identical Nazis in bright blue hallways.  It's amazing.

Y'know, looking back over this review, it's slanted a bit more negative than I expected it to be.  I'll say now, don't let that dissuade you.  The Old Blood is much better than the sum of its parts, and I thoroughly enjoyed most of my time with it.  I might even go so far as to call it great, and I could see myself playing it again.

But with that, we bring to a close this list of games I finished this year.  There's still three days left before 2018, but I highly doubt I'll be finishing anything within that span of time, especially since I now have things to work through from Christmas.

Instead, I'll be taking this next few days to rest up a bit more and get back into the swing of a regular schedule.  I haven't locked down any solid plans yet for things I want to write about in 2018, but you can expect an update on New Year's Day in regards to all that.

Oh, and I'll be going to see The Last Jedi again.

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - Pure Heroine (Lorde, 2013)

Playing - The Surge (2017)

Reading - Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime (R.A. Salvatore, 1999)

Watching - Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2009)

Confirmed Kill: Super Mario Odyssey

Title: Super Mario Odyssey

Original Release: October 27, 2017 (Switch)

Finished Release: North American Switch Release (2017)

Hey, wait, this can't be right.  This game just came out!  Less than two months ago, in fact.  There's no way I beat a game within two months.  Well, if that's what you thought, you would be dead wrong (in this case), because I beat Super Mario Odyssey within a week!

Seriously, I played this game nonstop, even beyond the point where I had beaten it.  And sure, maybe that gives away what I thought about it, but we're gonna go through the review anyway.  Here we goooooo!

So look, I'm not gonna treat you like you're stupid.  You know what's up with the ol' Mario games, so I'm just gonna go ahead and confirm some of your assumptions.  Yes, Bowser  has kidnapped Peach.  Yes, Mario has to rescue her.  And yes, he has to do so by traveling from world to world, running, jumping, and collecting stuff.  Sure, that surface-level formula hasn't changed all that much here, but if you look a bit closer, you'll see some interesting differences.

First of all, you aren't technically traveling to different "worlds" in Odyssey.  Instead, as the name implies, you're off on a globetrotting adventure, going out beyond the boundaries of the Mushroom Kingdom and seeing what other kinds of kingdom the world has to offer.  Your method of transportation is a hat-shaped flying ship, which I'll get to in a minute.

Let me first say that hats are very important this time around.  It's interesting that, considering how iconic Mario's cap has always been, it rarely plays an important role in the series.  In Odyssey, however, it's almost the star of the show.  See, after initially losing a fight to Bowser in the opening cutscene, Mario finds himself in the Cap Kingdom, home to a whole race of people who are... hat spirits?

Anyway, it's here that Mario meets Cappy, a local resident.  Cappy's sister, Tiara, has also been kidnapped by Bowser, to serve as the tiara (obvs) in Princess Peach's wedding ensemble.  Oh, did I not mention that Bowser and Peach are getting married?  She's not into it.

Anyway anyway, Mario and Cappy team up to take down Bowser.  Cappy takes the form of Mario's famous cap, which mean that Mario now has a magical talking hat.  And so, the two of them take off on a trek to see the world and take down Bowser once and for now!

Sure, the story is standard Mario fare, but it's what we expect, y'know?  You're never gonna see Mario get drugged and have his kidneys stolen by organ thieves, and so he has to fight against hordes of black market goons in an effort to get them back, only to eventually have a brutal hand-to-hand fight with a mob boss, in which he dramatically takes off his shirt to reveal an epic full-back Yoshi tattoo.  That's never gonna happen.  I'd totally play that though.

All joking aside, for what it is, the story is pretty great.  It's pretty simple, as usual, but it's all just so darn charming that it's really difficult to want anything more than what you get.  Not impossible, mind you, but I'll talk about that later.

First let's talk about how great the game looks, and it looks great.  Things are bright and colorful in just the right way.  All the worlds are unique, and I don't just mean unique from each other, I mean genuinely unique.  Sure, you have the standard go-to world types: your ice world, your desert world, your lava world, but they almost always have an interesting feature that sets them apart from what you've seen before.

The "forest" place, for example, is actually what appears to be an ancient survey outpost, operated by a host of robot dudes.  The desert world features a pyramid, of course, but surprise!  It's a Mesoamerican-styled pyramid, not an Egyptian one.  In fact, the whole place is clearly Aztec/Mayan themed (it's kind of a mishmash of the two.)  The ice place is more or less what you expect, but it's one of the smaller kingdoms, so you're not there for very long.  But the most unique location has to be what serves the role as the "lava" world.  I'm not going to say any more about it, because it's so quirky and strange that you just have to see it for yourself.

Also, Odyssey plays home to the coolest version of Bowser's Castle.  There, I said it.

So it looks good, but how's the musi-You know how the music is.  This is Mario, the music is fantastic!  Sure, it also goes for atmospheric from time to time, which you know I'm not a huge fan of, but most of the songs are super catchy, and there's multiple versions of each song to boot.  My absolute favorite is the previously mentioned "forest world," the Wooded Kingdom.  Not to mention the game's one vocal song, "Jump Up, Super Star!" which is fantastic.  It's also the star (heh) of a really great sequence in the game, which I won't say more about.

The gameplay, as with everything else, is exactly what you would expect from this series at its finest.  Mario moves and feels exactly how you would expect him to.  When you've played 3D Mario games for as long as I have (every single one, thank you very much), you develop a feel for how Mario is "supposed" to move, and here it's pretty much spot-on.  If there's any real difference it's only that he appears to have slimmed down a bit and become a bit quicker, which is absolutely not a problem.

The major new gameplay addition is, obviously, the use of Mario's hat.  You can fling Cappy out to attack enemies or hit objects in the world, but you can also bounce off of him to increase your jump distance, spin him around you in a circle to attack everything around you, or capture certain enemies.  What's capturing do?  Oh, it makes Mario into that enemy.

So moving on-What?  You want to know what that means?  Okay, if you think it's important.

So yeah, Mario can take possession of certain enemies and objects (quite a few of them, too), which allows him to do unique actions based on the type of enemy he's possessing.  Possessing Goombas will allow you to stack on top of other Goombas, Bullet Bills let you fly around the stage for a bit, and Lava Bubbles let you swim through lava.  It's a really cool system, and it just adds that many new things around which the developers were able to build challenges and objectives.  I admit I wasn't sold on it to begin with, but I'm happy to say that the system proved itself to me.

And the final big addition to the game is outfits.  All through the game, you can acquire new hats and outfits for Mario.  You can change into any of these hats and/or outfits at any time from your ship, and you can mix and match them to your heart's content.  The idea of being able to dress up Mario is cool in its own right (though I'll always prefer him in his standard gear), but the best thing about the system is just how many references to Mario history are contained within.  Like, sure, you can unlock Mario's construction worker outfit from Super Mario Maker, that makes perfect sense.  But you can also acquire his painter's hat and apron from Mario Paint!  Sure, the system is pretty similar to the equipment system in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (without stats), but I think I prefer it here.

There are things I'm unhappy about, but, as I mentioned before, it mostly comes down to little things that just aren't here.  First the big one: where the hell is Luigi?  Seriously, it's 2017, we should be past this now, but Greenbro is absolutely nowhere to be seen.  I'm not saying that he has to be playable (though that would be nice), but he doesn't even make an appearance, outside of being able to unlock his outfit.  Just a few years ago we had the big "Year of Luigi," but he's already been forgotten again.

Speaking of missing characters, this is the second Mario game released this year alone (the other being Mario+Rabbids) in which we have major, overt Donkey Kong references, without him actually appearing directly.  And unlike Luigi, he doesn't even get to be a costume!  But Diddy Kong does, which is weird.

And for my last somewhat petty complaint, let me first say that I love the idea of Mario visiting other kingdoms.  It's a really cool way to open up the world and show what things are like beyond the border of the Mushroom Kingdom.  I also liked it the first time it was done, back in 2003, which brings me to my point.  This a game about visiting other kingdoms.  Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga was a game that took place in a different kingdom.  That game got an enhanced remake for 3DS just earlier this year, and yet the Beanbean Kingdom is nowhere to be found here.  This is such a massive missed opportunity that I'm genuinely amazed by it.

But at the end of the day, those are all minor complaints (okay, not the Luigi one), but are there any real problems?  Well, not really.  I guess if I absolutely had to complain about something, maybe the game is just a bit too easy?  Outside of a few endgame areas, I never really felt like I was pushing the limits of my abilities, but I also just played Bloodborne earlier this year and I'm playing Hollow Knight now.  I never expected the majority of Mario Odyssey to be at that level of difficulty.  Super Mario Bros. 3, on the other hand...  That's not to suggest that the game is a cakewalk, but it definitely won't make you tear your hair out.  Wait, that's a negative?

My only other real complaint would be the length of the game's main storyline.  I pushed through the game's story in about ten hours or so, which was admittedly disappointing.  But the good news is that even once you finish the game, the game isn't over.  There are so many things to do and secrets to find in this game that it's absolutely astounding.  I played for hours after the ending, and I bet I still haven't accomplished much more than a third of what the game has to offer me.

So yeah, Super Mario Odyssey is great.  I was extremely hyped up by the time I played it, and it did not disappoint.  It is kind of a shame that the story was as short as it was, but I'm nowhere near done with everything there is to do.  That, combined with the fact that it's a great game to just pick up and play, means I'll probably be coming back for a long, long time.

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire Original Soundtrack (1996)

Playing - Divinity: Original Sin II (2017)

Reading - Hyperion (Dan Simmons, 1989)

Watching - Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Confirmed Kill: I Expect You To Die

Title: I Expect You To Die

Original Release: April 25, 2017 (Multiple)

Finished Release: Oculus Rift Release (2017)

Hey, it's finally another game that was released this year!

Now, I've never been the world's biggest James Bond fan.  I've seen a swathe of the movies, and I'll occasionally decide to sit down and watch a few of the ones I haven't seen.  But it's never become one of "my things."  Hell, my favorite Bond movie is Thunderball, what does that say about me?

Still, I've always appreciated the whole aesthetic of the series, and I'm of the opinion that the new movies, while mostly good, are just missing something that made the old movies so endearing.  All this is basically background to say that I was pretty excited at the prospect of playing a secret agent trying to escape a deadly situation.

I Expect You To Die is a first-person VR game in which you take on the role of a nameless agent of a secret organization.  You have an office, from which you receive your missions.  When you accept these missions, you're put into a deadly situation, and your task is to make it out alive, with nothing more than the use of your hands, your telekinesis(I'll explain later), and the items immediately around you.

So basically, it's an escape the room puzzle game.  But make no mistake, the whole approach of casting you as a Bond-type secret agent trying to escape a death trap really adds a whole other layer of charm.

For the record, I have thus far only completed the four original missions that came packaged with the game.  That is to say, I have not yet taken the time to finish the more recent First Class update content.  Still, I did finish the game as it existed when I bought it.

So there's not really much of a story to talk about, outside of the individual missions.  Really, even the mission briefings are actually just backdrops for the deadly traps you invariably find yourself stuck in.

The only real "character" outside of yourself is your boss at the agency, who only ever speaks to you via voice-over.  He does a pretty good job, though, especially considering the fact that he has to carry you through pretty much the whole game.  He's likable, and gets a fair amount of funny lines.

The graphics are fine, nothing too special.  There are a few assets that get reused more often than I would like, but it never became a major problem.  I did especially like the faux-60s aesthetic they went with for everything, it adds a lot to the James Bond feeling.

Outside of the character I mentioned above, there are a few one-shot characters here and there, usually with no more than three or four lines.  The voice acting is fine, considering the fact that the budget for the game was on the lower end, presumably.  What few sound effects there are are fine as well, but honestly you're usually listening to white noise or, occasionally, dead silence.  Still, when the music does kick in during moments of tension, it's all pretty good.  I especially loved the opening title song, which sounds like it came right out of a classic Bond movie.

The term "gameplay" is a bit of a misnomer, but it sounds a lot better than "grabbing and poking things."  I don't mean that as an insult, either.  I was promised a game in which I would be a secret agent who escapes from death traps, and that's exactly what I got.  I haven't tried the game without the Oculus Touch controllers (I'm actually unable to get a clear answer on whether or not it's even possible), but I genuinely feel like that would take away 90% of the fun.

And it definitely is fun, if this is your kind of thing.  I've always liked escape room games, but being able to actually interact with the environment directly just adds a whole new layer to things.  The game invites you to experiment with the objects you find lying around, because usually you can find something fun.  For example, I found a hat in my office and, on a whim, decided to put it on.  It worked.

The downside to the VR experience is usually that you're restricted to an operating radius of just a few feet.  This can sometimes make certain games feel too enclosed.  While that problem isn't alleviated completely here, the developers came up with an interesting way of getting around it.  See, not only are you a secret agent, you're a secret agent with mind powers.  And what I mean by that is that you can move objects with your mind.  So sure, that screwdriver you need may be on the other side of a large room, and you can't move over there.  But that's okay, just use your telekinesis to move it to you.  Like I said, it doesn't completely erase the problem, but it's an interesting idea that I think allowed them to make much more dynamic puzzles than they would have been able to otherwise.

The one major downside to the game is, unfortunately, its price.  I've noticed that VR games have a tendency to be a fair bit more expensive than I feel they probably should be, and this one is no exception.  I don't like to do direct comparisons, since it's usually not fair to one of the games being compared.  But on the other hand, it's also difficult to ignore the fact that this game normally runs for $25 USD, and even with the new First Class content, I can't see you getting more than five hours out of it.  Compare that to something like Hollow Knight, which goes for about $15 USD, and I'm rapidly approaching the 50 hour mark on that one.  Again, it's not really a fair comparison, for a lot of reasons, but it's definitely something worth thinking about.

Still, there's no doubt that I Expect You To Die does what it does very well.  And it's a VR game that actually makes perfect sense as a VR game.  With a few more hours of content it would be a definite recommendation, but if you can get it at a good sale price, then you should definitely snatch it up.

And if you do play it, just remember this: bears like hats.

Until next time!

Current interests:
Listening - Various
Playing - Avernum (2000)
Reading - Hyperion (Dan Simmons, 1989)
Watching - Christmas stuff

Confirmed Kill: Lucky's Tale

Title: Lucky's Tale

Original Release: March 28, 2016 (Oculus)

Finished Release: Original Oculus Release (2016)

I'm a gamer.  I play games.  If you were to boil down all of the time spent in my life, and discarded sleeping, eating, hygiene, and general boredom, gaming would easily be the thing I've done most.  Well, maybe reading, but probably gaming.  I'm adventurous in my gaming, I've played every genre you can imagine, and I've discovered games that I love in most of them.  But if I really sat and thought about it, I'm pretty sure one genre would rise above all others for me: the 3D platformer.

It may be difficult for those of you born on this side of the year 2000 to believe, but there was a time when the 3D platformer dominated every other genre on the market, at least as far as consoles were concerned.  I can remember a stretch of about ten years of consistently great games in the genre.  The decline had been going for a while, but I peg the year 2005 as when people completely gave up on them.

Now, that's not to say that good games haven't come out since then, because of course they have, plenty of my favorites.  But I've always seen the death of a genre with such a high amount of potential to be a real shame.  But apparently, that wasn't the end of it.

Something has been happening within the last few years.  The 3D platformer has been slowly making a comeback.  Sure, most of these offerings are from indie studios, but that's not altogether that surprising, and it should not be viewed as a bad thing.  But interestingly enough, the one that has stuck out to me appeared in the most unlikely place of all: Virtual Reality.

Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to come into possession of an Oculus Rift, along with a host of free games for it.  One of those was Lucky's Tale.  It was an odd little offering, considering that it was a third-person game on a VR system, but I was a little more than mildly interested, mainly because it's, guess what, a 3D platformer.  What did I think of it?  Well, let's find out.

If it wasn't obvious from the title, in this game we play as Lucky, a super cute little fox who wears a blue cape.  One day, Lucky was just hanging out with his friend Piggy, who is also apparently his piggy bank.  Suddenly, from out of nowhere... okay, I can't remember the name of the villain.  I can't find his name anywhere online, and I really don't want to have to fire up the Oculus and strap in just to see that.  I'm very sorry.

So anyway, the villain is a big tentacle beast, and he kidnaps Piggy, and Lucky's off to get back his friend.

Okay, so it's not the most original, or unique, or engaging story of all time, but it's charming and sets the stage for our purposes: platforming.

It's important to note that that charm pretty much permeates the entire experience.  Lucky himself is adorable, with a bunch of cute little things he'll do depending on what's going on around him.  When you move the camera (your head) in close, for example, he'll wave and give you a cute little "Hi there!"  His design is simplistic, but he has the potential to be an ongoing character, with a whole series of games built around him.

The whimsy doesn't stop with the protagonist, however.  Even the enemies are so cute that you hate attacking them.  They charge right at you, though, so the game doesn't leave you much choice.  The stages, too, are mostly fun to look at, if not the most detailed.  The color palette is absolutely fantastic for what the game is going for.  Everything is bright and colorful, even in the darkest areas of the game (in a good way), and it really adds to the lighthearted nature of the game.

The music is fun, if mostly forgettable.  There were one or two standouts, though, and I found myself humming those after I would turn the game off.

Now, you may be wondering what a 3D platformer could possibly be like in VR.  Well, it's... interesting.  You control Lucky with your gamepad of choice, as he runs and jumps about the stage.  Lucky's controls, by the way, are pretty spot-on.  If I had anything negative to say about them, it would be that Lucky is just slightly heavier than you would expect him to be.  But the game is built around that (again, very very slight) heaviness, so it's not really a problem  There were times when I would swear I landed on a platform only to slip right off, but this wasn't common enough to be an issue.

As for the VR itself, you are essentially the camera.  Your view of the world moves along a track as Lucky moves, but at any time you can look left, right, behind, above, beneath, really any way you can move your head, you can move the camera.  You can even lean into the scene to get a closer look at things.  This might initially seem like a pointless feature, but it's actually used pretty well.  A fair amount of the game's secrets are hidden out of sight, meaning you need to be looking everywhere if you're going for completion.  I can't recall a time that it was necessary for progression, but it's an interesting idea that was implemented pretty well.

So yeah, Lucky's Tale is a pretty fun little game.  Is it worth buying an Oculus Rift for it?  Well, no.  It's far too short to justify such a large purpose just for that reason.  However, if you already have an Oculus Rift, you probably already have Lucky's Tale, and if you haven't checked it out, you really should.

And now the big question: are Lucky and his contemporaries the first of a whole new wave of 3D platformers?  A renaissance, if you will?  Well, we can certainly hope.  I know I will be.

Until next time!

Current interests:
Listening - Christmas stuff
Playing - Hollow Knight (2017)
Reading - Hyperion (Dan Simmons, 1989)
Watching - Christmas stuff

Confirmed Kill: Final Fantasy VIII

Title: Final Fantasy VIII

Original Release: February 11, 1999 (PS1)

Finished Release: North American PS1 Release (1999)

Hey look everybody, the Final Fantasy series is back for one more round this year!  This is actually, of all the FF games I've finished, the one I have the earliest association with.  I came into the series with VII, then continued with VIII and so on, and only went back and discovered the others a bit later.  Not all that much later, but it's worth mentioning.

Now, some of you may not know this, but VIII is something of a black sheep in the series, for reasons we'll probably get into.  I will say right away that I was very surprised when I learned that fact.  Even though I had never finished it (because, again, I never finished anything), I had always had fond memories of this game, and always had plans to sit down and play through it.

So, was I disappointed?  Let's find out.

We begin with that favorite staple of late '90s video games, FMV!  Unfortunately, it's not live action FMV, just CG.  Two slightly fem dudes with jackets and silly swords are locked in an epic duel.  These characters, we'll learn soon enough, are Squall (in black) and Seifer (in white), and they don't like each other all that much.

The fight, like any good fight scene, goes back and forth, with each combatant trading control of the fight back and forth.  We even see magic being cast, not to mention moves that will turn out to be Limit Breaks in the game proper.  Anyway, the duel ends with the guys giving each other a spiffy scar right between the eyes, completing their respective "anime boys" ensemble.

I poke fun, but this cutscene is actually pretty sweet, and it's considerably less ridiculous than a lot of things we've seen from this same series, not to mention other things that were going on at the time.  I'll also just go ahead and say that Squall might be my favorite main character in the whole franchise, so that might tell you what to expect as we go along.

Anyway, once the cutscene is over, we learn a bit more about our characters.  It turns out Squall and Seifer are both students at Balamb Garden, a fancy futuristic-ish boarding school that apparently trains kickass mercenaries, known as SEED.  As it happens, we meet our characters on the eve of their final exam, but Squall has a few things he has to get done first in order to be eligible.  I guess he doesn't have enough credits to take his exam yet?

I'm not going to go over any more plot details, since it rapidly spins out of control, but of course Squall completes his exam.  He makes some friends, gets his first real mission, and before long he's caught up in a war against an evil sorceress with designs on destroying everything but herself.  He also keeps having dreams about some dude named Laguna, and apparently the dreams are connected to the major conflict of the game.  Huh.

So, I'm not really into comparing one Final Fantasy game to another one.  I view them all as being pretty much separate.  But I will give one little piece of advice to any aspiring game designers out there.  If you own a game series, and the latest game in the series puts itself (and you) on the map with a larger audience than you've ever had before, the next game in the series is going to be a very delicate thing.  And the opening of the game is a major part of that.

Final Fantasy VII begins with your character, a former member of an elite PMC currently hired by a group of revolutionaries, jumping off a train, fighting slews of city guards, and blowing up what is essentially a nuclear reactor.  You then head off to blow up another one!

Final Fantasy VIII begins with your character, a student, losing a duel, moping about it in class, being talked at by a bunch of people he doesn't really like, reading through seemingly-endless tutorials, and doing schoolwork.  Yes, that schoolwork does involve fighting giant flaming monsters, but your character is pretty bored all the same.  You then head off to take a test.  Which, admittedly, leads to tons of explosions in its own right.

Jokes aside, you can see the disparity between those two openings.  FF7 hits the ground running and doesn't let up for hours, whereas its little brother is a bit more of a slow burn.  Now, neither of these approaches is bad, depending on the kind of story you want to tell.  And it's not like you can really judge a game, especially an RPG, by its opening anyway.  Hell, Persona 5, which is fantastic (you can read about that right over here), begins with two hours of dialogue about laws, and probation, and school.  Still, I can't help but feel like FF8 could have used a bit more of an early-game hook, especially when you consider the precedent the previous game set.

Thankfully, that doesn't keep up for long, as once Squall's exam is past, it quickly becomes obvious that something sinister is afoot.  If anything, the mundanity of the early hours just serves to highlight how insane things eventually become.

So I know that the story is one of the aspects that the game's detractors love to lobby shots at.  Some people like to say that it's confusing and impossible to understand.  Well, confusing it definitely is, but that's mainly because the ideas the story is playing with are so huge.  We're talking about things that, in everyday life, already become incomprehensible when you think about them for too long.  As for impossible to understand, I honestly don't think so.  Big, yes, but the story's ideas are internally consistent.  The English translation could be a bit tighter, sure, but it's drastically better than its predecessor.  As it is, I can look back on the story after playing through it once, and keep most of the details straight.  That's more than I can say for some things, and I like to consider myself a pretty clever so-and-so.

The characters are, by and large, pretty great, though I definitely have my favorites.  As far as the franchise goes, Squall is probably the main character I relate to the most.  By that same token, Rinoa is the main love interest I would most like to have a nice dinner with.  It's difficult to go into detail about each character without going into too much detail, but the cast is definitely memorable.  I found myself missing all of them when I was finished.

As far as graphics go, FF8 does a bit better job of harnessing what the power of the PS1 was capable of.  This time around, Squaresoft were able to eschew the blocky character models on display in FF7, instead going for more realistically-proportioned ones.  No, they still don't hold up, especially when stretched out on a modern HDTV, but they're a marked improvement, and not displeasing to look at.

The music is pretty great, with lots of rockin' tunes that get stuck in your head.  This is also, to my knowledge, where the series' streak began of having a vocal song in each of the next several games.  The song featured here, Eyes On Me, isn't my favorite of that group, but it's nice to listen to all the same, and perfectly accompanies a few key scenes.

From what I can tell, the gameplay seems to be the biggest sticking point with people who dislike Final Fantasy VIII, and I guess I can understand why.  Maybe.  Actually, I guess it isn't even really the "gameplay" technically, since the fights are still as fun and satisfying as ever.  It's more the game's mechanics that people seem to have a problem with.  It's difficult to explain, but I'll do my best.

Basically, levels aren't really a big deal in FF8.  Instead, it's more based around what's known as the "Junction" system.  Throughout the game you'll collect different monsters, known as Guardian Forces (GFs), which you can attach, or "junction" to any character you want.  These GFs take the role of the series' summon monsters, being large, awesome creatures you can bring into a fight for one big attack.  Each GF junctioned to any given character will also give that character certain abilities that they can then use in battle, such as using magic.

Magic is important to this system, and it's handled differently from the normal approach the series takes.  Rather than certain characters having certain spells (or learning them through some other system), magic is acquired through the "Draw" system, and it works thusly.  You go into a fight with an enemy, you use Draw on that enemy, and they'll have certain spells you can draw from them.  If successful, you'll get a few uses of that magic added to your pool.  This essentially turns each spell into its own resource, rather than spells using MP as a separate resource.

You can hold up to 99 of each spell, and those spells can also be junctioned to specific character stats (based on which GFs the character has junctioned), with each stat reacting better to certain spells.  The Cure spells, for example, have a high effect on the character's HP.

So to sum up, a character junctions a GF, draws a bunch of magic from enemies (and certain points on the map), then junctions that magic to the stats the GF opens up for them, thus increasing that stat, sometimes tremendously.  Profit.

Whew!  Hopefully I explained that all well enough.  It is definitely confusing at first, and it takes some serious getting used to.  But keep in mind that that doesn't make it bad.  In fact, I wound up really enjoying the whole Junction system.  I'd get frustrated, sure, when the story would force me to switch party members and I'd have to go redo all of my junction stuff again, but this doesn't happen often enough to be a deal breaker.  And yes, due to the system, levels aren't all that important, making random battles often pointless.

BUT.  It's still a fun system once you get used to it, if only for how absolutely broken you can make the characters.  I also like to give each character GF junctions that I think fit them, like Shiva being junctioned to Squall because of his icy nature, or Ifrit being junctioned to Zell because of his fiery temperament, or Quezacotl (sic) being junctioned to Rinoa because I ran out of good reasons.  It's like the game is built around a puzzle, and solving that puzzle gets you stronger characters

But even beyond that, it's unique, and unlike anything I've seen before.  With a few tweaks it could've really been something worth keeping around.

And so that's Final Fantasy VIII.  In the end I wound up enjoying myself immensely, even more than I thought I would.  If you hate the game and you're angry I don't, I'm sorry I guess?  On the other hand, if you've only ever heard bad things about it, give it a shot with an open mind.  It's definitely a thinker, but if that's something you're up for, I don't think you'll be disappointed with this one.

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - Christmas stuff (Various)

Playing - Azure Striker Gunvolt (2014)

Reading - Hyperion (Dan Simmons, 1989)

Watching - Christmas stuff (Various)

Confirmed Kill: Persona 5

Title: Persona 5

Original Release: September 15, 2016 (PS3, PS4)

Finished Release: North American PS4 Release (2017)

Hey, it's actually a game from this year!  It's the first one I've talked about, unless you count Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove.  Ironically, P5 was technically released in 2016, but only in Japan.  But enough with the semantics.

So I've been shamefully unexposed to the Persona series, not to mention the wider Shin Megami Tensei series that it spun off from.  Some of this can be attributed to my age and the relatively limited release of many of the games in the franchise, but I'm not going to allow myself to escape at least a bit of the blame.  I was aware of Persona 3 back in the day.  I even considered getting it, but I just couldn't pull the trigger (hehehe).

Not too long after (at least in North America), Persona 4 was released, and this time I was quicker on the draw.  I can't really explain exactly why P4 was a must-buy when I was undecided on P3, but there you have it.  Maybe it was the colors, maybe it came out at a good time.  Who can say?

Anyway, I fell in love with it.  I never finished it, but I plan to rectify that soon enough.  More importantly, it was a genuinely great game, one of the greatest JRPGs of its day.  Even moreso, it introduced me to the Shin Megami Tensei series at large, a pedigree that stretches back to the Super Famicom (and even farther, technically).  I've since played tons of SMT (or MegaTen, if you will) games, and I buy them whenever they come out.  Hell, I'll grab things that are only tangentially related, like Catherine, or the severely overlooked Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.  And yet, I've never actually finished a Shin Megami Tensei game.  But this year, I finished Persona 5.

Too bad the Persona series dropped the "Shin Megami Tensei" part of the title.

"So, Jordan," I force you to ask, "what exactly is Persona 5.  Also you're very handsome."

Well, I'll tell you, and thanks for your very genuine compliment.

We begin the game as a male Japanese high school student, the name of whom we're prompted to create.  I went with Akira Kurusu (or Kurusu Akira, if you're traditional), since that's the closest thing to an official name I could find for him.

Akira has been having a rough time lately.  See, one evening Akira was just walking home, minding his own hipster business, when he came upon a troubling situation.  He discovered a drunk man in a nice suit, attempting to force himself on a young woman.  Akira can't abide by this, and so he attempts to help the woman.

Unfortunately, in the fracas that follows, the man in the suit is accidentally injured, just in time for the police to discover the scene.  Things quickly go south, as the suited man turns things around, accusing Akira of attacking him.  Charges are summarily pressed, and before you know it, Akira is on probation.  His parents are unhappy with this situation, and so they send him to live with a friend of a friend for a year, in Yongenjaya, Tokyo.

The trouble doesn't stop there, however.  Akira's new landlord isn't exactly welcoming, and his room is the dusty attic of a cafe.  And then, while walking to school on his first day, he encounters several characters that will soon become important, and winds up in a medieval castle.  The castle is filled with monsters called Shadows.  It seems like the end of the line for Akira (and the blond punk he met on the way to school) when, in a moment of desperation, he awakens a power within himself: Persona.

Okay, so a very long story begins with a very long intro section, but this is nothing new to the Persona series.  What follows is a winding thriller, full of intrigue and plot twists galore.

The story is pretty interesting, as always for this series.  A few of the plot twists felt a bit too contrived, and one was so blindingly obvious that I thought it must be a red herring.  Even with that though, it's definitely an engaging tale, and I was never bored with the story itself.  I couldn't wait to see what happened next.  But I'm honestly not sure if that would still be true with a different cast of characters.

The characters in Persona 5 are great.  The player character doesn't really have a personality outside of the choices you make for him, but that's okay, it's meant to be that way.  As you progress through the game, however, your group of friends grows as more and more characters awaken their own personas and join you in your quest for justice.  And they're all pretty much fantastic.

Okay, so in every group of main characters, you're going to have favorites and non-favorites.  That's to be expected.  And yes, most of the main characters fall into very clear character roles.  But when you take the group as a group, they're all just so great together.  You grow to care about all of them, and it's genuinely touching to see how much they care about each other.  Some characters admittedly don't get as much focus as they probably should, and so they sort of fall to the back, but I still can't imagine the game without even them.

And it's not just the main characters that are great, since a large majority of the side characters are as well.  You'll be meeting plenty of friends over the 90+ hours (much more if you do everything) of the story.  Spending time with these characters is usually pretty great, especially as you learn a little bit more about what makes them tick.  Hell, one of them was actually planned to be a party member, and she totally should have been.  I'd bet money she will be if they ever do a Persona 4: Golden-style updated release.

The villains are a bit of a mixed bag, unfortunately.  I can't say too much about them without giving things away, but I'll do what I can.  Some of them are genuinely interesting, even intimidating characters, especially the more primary ones.  The lower-tier arc villains, however, tend to feel a bit samey.  They're all pretty much scum in one way or another, all that really changes is what their particular crime is.  Don't get me wrong, a couple of them are awesome, but that's mainly because they change the formula that the others prescribe to so heavily.

Now, if you've never played a Persona game before, you might be wondering why the side characters are so important.  Well, that's because the Persona series is a unique beast.  Or, at least, it was, when P3 was new.  Certain other games have emulated a few of its more unique aspects here and there, but that's okay, that's how it works.  And Persona, for my money, still does it the best.

Persona 5 is a dungeon-crawling, turn-based JRPG, focused on fighting and befriending monsters to become more powerful.   Persona 5 is a dating/friendship sim, focused on spending time with characters in an effort to become closer with them, eventually dating one or more of the characters.

Both of those statements are true.

The story moves forward on a day-by-day system.  Each day, as long as nothing important is happening, you're essentially given free rein to do whatever you want with your time.  You can choose to hang out with a friend (assuming they're available), you can go to the batting cages, you can fish, you can work a part-time job, you can play video games... or you and your party can go fight Shadows.

The main focus, of course, is on the dating sim and RPG aspects.  There's not as many side activities as you would find in, say, the Yakuza series, but that's okay.  See, the relationship mechanics and the combat are two halves of the whole that becomes Persona 5, and they blend together fantastically.

There's not really much "gameplay" to speak of on the relationship side of things.  You pick who you want to spend time with, you read or watch a cutscene between you and the character, sometimes you give them a gift, you decide what to say at certain points, and your relationship with them increases (or doesn't).

And, as I mentioned before, you can even date certain characters!  If you get your relationship with the character high enough, you can choose to become the boyfriend of any (or all) of the girls in your main party, as well as several of the side characters.  And the most impressive part is how great most of them are.  Had it not been for the existence of Futaba (who is sublime and perfect), I would have had a genuinely difficult time picking who to date.  Or hey, if you don't want to, you don't have to date anyone.  That's totally cool too.

The JRPG side of things, on the other hand, is almost all gameplay.  Every dungeon has s story, of course, and they're usually pretty entertaining.  But these sections are mainly focused around the combat, and the combat is superb.  See, I love me a good turn-based battle system.  I always have.  As great as games like Final Fantasy XV and Xenoblade Chronicles are (and they are), I will almost always prefer that my JRPGs have a turn-based system.  Persona 5 does, and it's honestly one of the best systems I've ever played.

P5 uses what has become the Persona series' standard combat system.  Your party of four stands opposite a host of enemies, and you each take turns taking actions over the course of a round.  Every character and most enemies have a certain weakness to a particular element or attack type.  By exploiting those weakness, your characters become able to take extra actions.  As the story (and your relationships) progresses, your characters will learn more combat techniques, such as giving their extra turn to another character.  Most of it isn't really new to the series, but it's been refined to the point of near-perfection.  It's smooth, stylish, and satisfying.

Speaking of satisfying, I actually had a pretty deep concern about P5 that was thankfully unnecessary.  See, Persona 4's soundtrack was awesome.  It was funky and catchy, and just really pleasing to the ear.  It was so great that P4 got a spin-off rhythm game all about the music.  That says a lot.  But that also made the idea that Persona 5 would have a completely new soundtrack terrifying.  I didn't know how it would ever top P4, to the point that it seemed silly to try.

But the creators did the intelligent (and I suppose obvious) approach to the music: making it completely different.  Where P4's soundtrack was funky, P5 leans more towards jazzy.  It's smooth and cool.  Half of it is stuff that you could have on in the background while enjoying a rainy day nap, while the other half gets you out of your seat and moving around.  It's some of the best music I've heard in a video game in a long time, and one of the few modern game soundtracks that I'll listen to in my free time.

As for the dialogue, I made what some people may consider the unwise decision of playing with the English voices, rather than the Japanese ones.  But honestly, the English voice work is pretty fantastic.  Every character sounded exactly how I would've expected them to sound, and the principle cast all manage to bring across emotional moments very well.

Now, while the voices may be good, that doesn't mean they don't get annoying, and I'm referring to one very specific thing when I say that.  See, a couple of the characters take it in turns to act as, more or less, cheerleaders during battle.  They'll react to things that happen during battle with brief bits of dialogue, commenting on how things are going.  The problem is that they only have one or two selections of dialogue for any given situation, and they aren't shy about berating you for things you have no control over, such as when your character misses with an attack.  It can be very frustrating to be in the middle of a difficult fight, only to have the game treat you like you don't know that "you gotta aim!"

To be fair, though, it's not really any better when you're doing well, since they still only have one or two reactions to any particular thing.  There are two characters that act in this capacity, Morgana and Futaba.  Morgana is easily the worse of the two, but even Futaba can be grating (hey, I never said she was perfect.)

And let it not be forgotten that the game is fantastic to look at.  Character and enemy designs are on point, and the color palette is a real treat.  There's a lot of contrasting of bright colors (mainly red) and thick swathes of black.  Even the menus are stylish.

Yes, Persona 5 is an outstanding game.  There are problems, sure, but they're all honestly pretty minor compared to all of the greatness packed into it.  This was a game I was really looking forward to, and it lived up to all of my expectations.  With its combination of stylish combat and compelling character relationships, it feels like playing through a really great anime series, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - Persona 5 Original Soundtrack (2016)

Playing - Azure Striker Gunvolt (2014)

Reading - Hyperion (Dan Simmons, 1989)

Watching - Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return (2017)

Confirmed Kill: Dark Souls II

Title: Dark Souls II

Original Release: March 11, 2014 (Multiple)

Finished Release: Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (PS4, 2015)

*Very mild spoiler warning*

Okay, so it's not overly difficult to see what led (immediately) to this one.  I had conquered every challenge Bloodborne had put before me, but I'm not really a "play again right away" sort of guy, so I opted not to pursue New Game+ for the time being.  But that left me in a quandary, since I was still dying (heh) to play more, but Nioh wasn't quite what I was looking for.  And so, with nowhere else to turn, I decided to finally try Dark Souls.  But which one?

Well, it might make most sense to start with the the first one (or Demon's Souls), but I thought that may be too extreme a shift from Bloodborne.  Dark Souls III was (and still is) the most recent, and apparently took a lot of its cues from Bloodborne.  But, after some research, I found that most people suggested that the story in III, such as it is, is fairly connected to the original Dark Souls, and best served as a follow-up to the latter.

And so we come to Dark Souls II.  It's (relatively) disconnected from the other two games in the series, it's Bloodborne's direct predecessor, and it had been on the receiving end of an updated PS4 release.  All of these things appealed to me for various reasons, not the least of which being that I got to use the Dualshock 4 rather than the inferior Dualshock 3.

Taking all those things into account, I decided that was the way to go.  How did it turn out?  Well, let's just see.

We open with a fantastic cutscene, full of dark fantasy goodness, and ending with our faceless character doing a belly flop into a portal in a lake (bear with me).  We come to... somewhere else.  It's a grassy area with little imps that just watch you as you explore your new surroundings.  It's a fairly straightforward path that eventually leads to a small house, wherein we meet three elderly women known as the Firekeepers.  It's here where we create our character and choose our starting stats, and it's also where we get some unusually direct exposition.

My character is a knight by the name of Aldyn (more on him later), and it turns out that he's been stricken with a serious case of the zombies.  That is to say, he's slowly becoming one.  He's traveled to this place, the fallen kingdom of Drangleic, in search of a cure.  The Firekeepers mock him for a bit, then offer him what aid they can before sending him on his way.

Before long, and after killing some monsters, Aldyn comes upon the settlement of Majula, and it's here where his journey truly begins.  Majula serves as the equivalent of the Hunter's Dream in Bloodborne, a base of operations where you're (mostly) safe, and you can purchase and upgrade your armor and weapons.  It's also the home of this game's equivalent of Bloodborne's Plain Doll, the Emerald Herald.  She's the most important person in Majula, since you can turn in your collected souls to her to level up, and she can also upgrade how many healing flasks you can carry.

We'll be returning to Majula constantly throughout the game, but for now we begin our adventure in earnest, as Aldyn sets out to uncover the secrets of Drangleic, and hopefully cure his undeath, preferably by bringing actual death to lots and lots of enemies.

So let me say this right away: Dark Souls II is a flawed game.  Depending on what you're willing to forgive, you could even call it a severely flawed game.  I'll get into the various reasons why in just a minute, but I wanted to make that statement before making this one: Dark Souls II is my favorite Dark Souls game.

Now, to be fair, I have not yet finished either Dark Souls I or III.  I started both but unfortunately (but not unexpectedly) experienced series fatigue.  I'll come back to both in the near future, but for now Dark Souls II has, overall, been my best experience in the trilogy.

Dark Souls II is the only game in the series (including Demon's Souls and Bloodborne) to not be directed by series creator Hidetaka Miyazaki, and it's easy to see so.  Maybe it's just power of suggestion, but there's a definite feeling of "That's just how things are done" as the reason behind a lot of the design choices.  At the same time, paradoxically, so many decisions were made that seem to show a complete lack of understanding as to just what makes these games so enjoyable.  Let's look at some details.

The story, for example, is just as mysterious as ever, but it almost feels mysterious for the sake of being mysterious.  Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed it immensely.  There are some seriously great ideas on display here, and some of the characters featured are among the most interesting the entire "Soulsborne" franchise has to offer.  I loved Bloodborne's Plain Doll, but the Emerald Herald is far and away my favorite "helper lady" character.

Majula too is, in my mind, the best hub area in the whole franchise.  This was the first game in the series to feature the ability to teleport between bonfires, thus making it easier (and more common) for you to come home.

And you'll be coming home frequently since, as mentioned before, most of the game's merchants reside in Majula, as does the Emerald Herald.  I know some people dislike being required to go to a specific location to level up, but I honestly prefer it.  The Emerald Herald is your ally all along the way, always there to remind you what you're fighting for, and so the act of increasing your character's level feels that much more special.

Add to that the fact that more characters come to Majula over the course of the game, and by the end it feels like a community of people you've come to know and, at the very least, feel attachment to.  Sure, most of them are fairly cynical, and some are mildly psychotic, but it still feels like a home.

A large swathe of the bosses are also fairly interesting, with a small handful of them being downright awesome.  I won't go into too much detail, but my absolute favorite boss was Fume Knight, from the Crown of the Old Iron King DLC.  I had heard horror stories about this guy, and he definitely lived up to them.  But, like any good boss, I learned his methods and adapted, and I overcame him.  It actually led to developing a new fighting style for Aldyn that's more focused on dueling, which in turn just added another facet to the story I was already creating for the character in my head.

There's also an absolutely fantastic bait-and-switch moment with a late-game boss that I did not see coming.

But the fact remains that the story is not without flaws.  As I mentioned before, it's a typically mysterious Souls story, but the hand responsible for weaving this tale is far less deft in its motions.  It's as if the writers didn't even know the answers to the questions, and it happens more often than I can really forgive.  Also, from what I've heard, a lot of it is more or less retreaded from the original Dark Souls.  Still, credit where credit's due, since it can't be easy to be handed something so unique and to be told, basically "Just do it like that."

Something that gets less of a pass from me is the game's selection of locations.  I hate to say this, but most of them are awful.  I didn't really get to mention it in my Bloodborne review, but my most hated area in that game is a place called the Forbidden Woods.  I won't go into it right now, but there's a stretch in Dark Souls II of about five to seven (depending on how you view them) areas that essentially feels like if you took Forbidden Woods and stretched it out over that many areas.  I was frustrated and miserable for hours on end.

It doesn't help that the areas weren't at all nice to look at.  Some places, like Heide's Tower of Flame, are unique and dynamic, clearly springing from an interesting idea.  But most of the locations in the first two-thirds of the game rely on some variation of green, brown, and later black.  It doesn't look gritty or muted in an appealing way, it just looks muddy and washed out.  And the absolute worst thing about these sections is how cliche a lot of them are.  Oh, here's a swamp full of undead.  Oh, here's a crypt.  Oh, here's a forest, I totally didn't just deal with one of those earlier in this exact game.

Thankfully, the areas that don't subscribe to the "rule of boring" are mostly fantastic.  There's a sweet castle in the rain, a town overrun by spiders (which is a pain in the ass, but at least it's unique), all sorts of stuff.  There's a later area called the Shrine of Amana that everyone hates, but I actually found pretty enjoyable.  It required a weird mix of patience and quick reactions.  And a crossbow.

There's also the areas in the three DLC expansions, Crown of the Sunken King, Crown of the Old Iron King, and Crown of the Ivory King.  While the Old Iron King stuff is a bit too similar to an area in the main game, it's also the location of Fume Knight, so it gets a pass.  The other two sets of DLC, however, feature some pretty great areas.

Sunken King takes you to (what else?) a sunken city with a sort of Mesoamerican feeling, full of ziggurats and stone buildings.  The later areas here aren't quite as interesting, but it makes one hell of a first impression.  It's just unfortunate that the gameplay here features so many of the problems the game is plagued with.  But more on that in a bit.

Finally we have the Ivory King DLC, featuring the frozen kingdom of Eleum Loyce.  From a pure visual standpoint, this is the absolute best area in the game, at least for me.  Never have I seen the idea of a kingdom covered in snow and ice executed so well.  There's this strange sense of quiet and peace, but it masks a brutal deadliness that will sneak up on you if you aren't wary.  I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that it's beautiful.  I have a painting of this place as the background on my phone.

But enough good stuff, let's complain some more.  What in the hell were the developers thinking with the enemy placement in this game?  I really can't figure it out.  See, it's one thing to have an enemy sneak attack you, or force you into a fight in a disadvantageous location.  Those come with the territory, and they're part of the challenge.  But this game has some sort of strange fascination with throwing multiple enemies at you at once.  And I don't just mean two soldiers or anything like that, no.  I genuinely had situations where I would be fighting four or five enemies at once.  And some of these enemies are a challenge on their own, nevermind being backed up by three other dudes, possibly ones just as tough as they are.  Some of these situations can be mitigated with patience and careful enemy pulls, but sometimes it's just downright unavoidable.

In a game like Bloodborne this wouldn't be such a problem, because that game is built for it.  The fastest Dark Souls character is still nothing compared to the speed and agility of a Bloodborne character.  Bloodborne is all about dodging and being in control of the pace of the fight, and even then it was relatively rare to fight large groups of enemies, usually just in optional areas or shortcuts.

Dark Souls just isn't built for that kind of fighting.  Your typical sword-and-shield character is built around waiting for an opportunity to attack, but it becomes increasingly difficult to do that when you're surrounded by enemies.  You can only block from the front, and when one enemy isn't attacking, another one is.  And this problem isn't limited to regular enemies, either, since there are several boss fights where you're actually fighting two (or more) bosses at once.

Oh, and sometimes people throw bombs at you while all this is going on.

And now I have to talk about what is the biggest problem with Dark Souls II.  Remember how I complained in the Bloodborne review about the hitboxes of the attacks from some of the Chalice bosses?  Well take that and expand it a hundredfold here.  I swear to Bob, some of the hitboxes are absolutely ridiculous.  And look, I'm not the type of guy to make excuses, I'm prepared to own up when I make a mistake.  I wish I had a way of recording this stuff, but perhaps I can make do with an explanation.

See, there's a follow-up boss to Fume Knight, a guy by the name of Sir Alonne.  He himself is pretty damn cool, he's a silent samurai and his boss fight is, again, like a duel, it's pretty great.  But at least a couple of his attacks are absolutely borked, and none is so bad as his flashiest one.  Basically, he charges forward and impales the player (poor Aldyn) on the point of his sword.  It does pretty good damage, then he flings you away for more damage, and he'll quickly follow up on it.

For the most part I was able to get by against Sir Alonne using Aldyn's new, more samurai-like fighting style, which was actually partially inspired by the trouble I had with Sir Alonne's mooks, the Alonne Knights. Basically it focused on staying out of the way, but staying close, pressing the attack whenever possible.  But whenever he would whip out that impaling attack, I would have to drop everything and run as far away from him as I absolutely could.  Why?  Because the point of contact for what should be the thrusting tip of a katana was actually a 180 degree radius in front of Sir Alonne.

I kid you not, I'm being dead serious here.  I genuinely had this experience.  Sir Alonne goes to stab Aldyn, Aldyn dodges deftly to Alonne's left, coming to rest near Alonne's left shoulder.  Aldyn takes damage from the tip of Alonne's sword after it's already gone past, then teleports over to his own left, somehow now impaled on the sword.  I know it must sound like I'm making this up, but I give you my oath as a former Cub Scout.  This happened.  I still beat him though.

So yes, Dark Souls II is a very flawed experience.  It gives the player a distinct feeling that it wasn't crafted so much as thrown together.  What's good here is great, it's just unfortunate that it's weighed down by so many problems  But I still had a great time with it, and I may very well play it again.

And besides, I was able to continue the new tradition from Bloodborne and add my player character to my stable of original fictional characters.  His name is Sir Derek Aldyn Gerhard.  He can heal people, his sword is coated in lightning, and he's Léon Reneaux's BFF.  Oh, and he learns to fight like a samurai.  You're welcome.

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - Various

Playing - Final Fantasy IX (2000)

Reading - Rhett & Link's Book of Mythicality (2017)

Watching - Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return (2017)

Confirmed Kill: Bloodborne (Also It's My Birthday!)

Hello, everyone, and happy birthday to me!

Now, in celebration of the 28th anniversary of the day of my birth, you might suspect I would be taking the day off.  Y'know, like I do most days?  But you would, in fact, be dead wrong!  Instead, I'm taking the opportunity to review what would have to be my favorite of all the games I've finished so far this year.  And I'm going so far as to fully indulge my tendency to digress.  So, without further ado, let's ado it.

Title: Bloodborne

Original Release: March 24, 2015 (PS4)

Finished Release: North American PS4 Release (2015)

*There will be mild spoilers for Bloodborne in this review.  I apologize profusely.*

Okay.  So I've mentioned before how I have a history of becoming frustrated with difficult games.  Before this year, the most difficult section I can ever remember overcoming in an action game was the Hades stage in the original God of War, which, according to internet myth, wasn't even playtested.

Over the years after that I dabbled here and there in the "hardcore" games.  You know the ones, the ones that are so difficult that they become infamous for it?  I tried them, if the story interested me, or the main character, or whatever.  I rarely stuck with them.  I gave up on Ninja Gaiden Black (XBOX).  I couldn't finish Devil May Cry 3 until they released an easier version of it.  I loved Viewtiful Joe, and I just kept throwing myself at it until it looked at me, tears in its eyes, and whispered, "Just stay down.  Please."  I stayed down.

Years would pass.  I had begun to ignore anything that became (in)famous for its difficulty (although, for the record, I beat Infamous).  That rule would briefly be broken for Bloodborne's oldest brother, Demon's Souls.  I was interested in what I saw, gave it a try, and gave up almost immediately.  And so I gave up completely on ever being the type of gamer that plays "hardcore" games.  I originally overlooked Bloodborne because it came during this time.

2017 has been, for me, a great confluence of sorts.  The original Mega Man aside, I had been slowly but surely taking down some fairly difficult classic and retro games.  And then, earlier this year, I broke down and decided to try Nioh.  I didn't come anywhere close to finishing it, but I did better than I expected.  I probably could have continued, I just got distracted by something else.  Little did I realize what all this was building up to.

See, I had finished Symphony of the Night, and I was still reading about Ravenloft.  I had watched the first season of Netflix's Castlevania animated series.  But I still wanted more Gothic horror.  I wanted a newer game that had that sort of feeling.  I remembered Bloodborne, but I was hesitant.  Could I really do it?  Was it really even worth trying?  At the time it was $20 at the EB Games my wife used to be the assistant manager for.  Twenty bucks isn't all that bad, I told myself, if I don't stick with it I didn't waste that much money.  So I went for it.  I wish I had paid more.

It happened slowly.  I died against the first enemy, but that's okay because you're supposed to.  I got a real weapon and carefully began to make my way through Central Yharnam, the game's first stage.  I did pretty well.  I died here and there, but I always managed to recover.  I beat the first boss (Cleric Beast) first try.  I began leveling up.  I worked through the next section, which was more challenging, but I pressed on.  Then I came to the second boss, Father Gascoigne.

I died.  I died, and died, and died, and died, and died.  Six or seven times I died, at least.  This is it, I thought, the end of my Bloodborne experience.  This will be the thing that stops me.  Too bad.  But that didn't happen.  I went to have some dinner, and then, miraculously, I came back.  I tried again.  Maybe I died again, I can't remember.  But I kept trying.  And finally, I beat him.  I had gotten better, and I beat him, killed him, took him down.  I learned later that there's a trick to beating him, but I didn't use that trick.  I didn't grind up levels, I didn't cheese the fight.  I got better.

After that, I was hooked.  I had finally felt the feeling everyone talked about.  All it took was falling in love with the game's setting and atmosphere so much that it overcame any sense of frustration.  From there, I continued.  I would meet a challenge, I would overcome it, sometimes immediately, sometimes after a while.  But I overcame everything.  I bought the DLC expansion, The Old Hunters, which was even more difficult, and I overcame it.  Eventually I would go on to get the Platinum trophy for Bloodborne, meaning I had completed every achievement in the game.  I also completed every achievement in The Old Hunters.  It wasn't my first Platinum (that was Game of Thrones, which you get just for finishing the game), but it was the first Platinum I had to put effort into.  I worked for it, and I earned it.  I did everything there was to do.  And then, a couple months later, I started playing it again.  I'm now on the cusp of beating it again, and writing about it is really making me want to play it.

So enough rambling, let's talk about the game itself.  First of all, what's it about?  Okay, so your character is a nameless (well, you choose a name) hunter from a foreign land.  You've come to the city of Yharnam in search of something called "Paleblood," but it isn't going to be so easy.  See, it's the night of the Hunt in Yharnam, and the streets are full of ravenous beasts out for blood.  If you want to accomplish anything, you're going to have to fight for it, and kill for it.  Assuming you don't get killed yourself.

There's not much more that I can say about the narrative without giving away more than I would like.  The story is told in the style of the Souls series.  That is to say, very little of the story is handed to you directly.  Cutscenes and dialog exist, but they're all presented as if you live inside this world, and there's almost zero exposition.  Instead, your understanding of the story comes from what you're able to glean from item descriptions, visual cues in the world, and sometimes even dialog non-sequiturs.  And all of it is interesting, inventive, and intriguing.  It throws things at you that you don't expect, and I want so badly to tell you about all of it, but I'm holding myself back.  Suffice it to say, the world is bleak, the only way you'll make it out is by being the better killer, and what begins as Stoker may end as Lovecraft.

Some things I will definitely talk about are the visuals and atmosphere, because holy man.  This game is dripping with atmosphere.  Seriously, it's viscous.  I wanted Gothic, and that's exactly what I got, and then some.  The visuals, while not the most dynamic in the world, are gorgeous and understated... until things go absolutely bat guano, and the chains come off, sometimes literally.  Everything is dark, lit only by dim streetlamps and flickering firelight.  Anything could be hiding behind that corner, or in that shadow.  And something probably is.

Bloodborne's setting has quickly become one of my favorites.  And the attention to detail sometimes is just jaw-dropping.   Yharnam is, to me, as real as Paris.  That is to say, I've explored it thoroughly in a video game, but I assume it actually exists somewhere in the world.  Also like Paris, it seems like a place that would be amazing to visit for real, but would probably wind up being a horrifying experience.

As far as the music goes, the guys at From Software pulled an ingenious move.  See, Bloodborne is a game about atmosphere, and nothing, nothing is more atmospheric than silence.  Most of the time, when you're just making your way through Yharnam, walking around, exploring, there's no music.  You're left completely alone with your anxiety, nothing distracting you from the tension that you, yourself, are creating in your own mind.  This is ultimately perfect, since you come to know that music is a really bad sign.  Music means something is trying to kill you.  It's unfortunate that, when the music actually hits, it's not really my kind of music.  It's all good for what it is, it just didn't really stick with me personally.  But maybe that's just because of the death that follows in its wake.

Sound effects, too, are there when they need to be, and most of the little incidental sounds just serve to heighten the tension.  You'll be walking through a dark, cramped alleyway: step, step, step, step, step, there's a rattling or a rustling nearby.  What is that?  Stabbed in the face.  Stabbing things yourself is satisfying, gunshots reverberate perfectly.

Speaking of stabbing and gunshots, how does the game play?  Very well.  The combat is rhythmic and fast-paced.  Every action you take in battle has a consequence.  Attack at the wrong time, or allow your combo to go on too long, and you open yourself up for reprisal.  And the enemies will take advantage of that opening.  It's not so bad that one mistake will cost you your life (usually), but too many bad moves will add up quickly, and you're on the floor before you know it.

At the same time, though, you're almost always left with the sense that you can do better.  Say you're facing a particularly tough boss.  Yeah, you'll most likely die the first time, but you'll learn from it.  And each time you'll learn a little bit more, and a little bit more, until, before you know it you've got the rhythm down and it's just a matter of executing it perfectly.  And hey, after a while you'll start to know the game so well that certain challenges won't be a problem, even the first time.  You'll get a feel for how things are done, and that will inform how you approach later challenges.

Now, that's not to say that the game is perfect, or that it's never cheap, because that certainly isn't the case.  Most of the time the game is fair, and any failure is on your part, or because you just haven't learned enough yet.  Certain parts of the game bend that rule.  Chalice Dungeons take it out into the street and shoot it in the face.

Chalice Dungeons are areas you can explore separate from the normal game progression.  They sound pretty cool because they're randomly generated, but they're a bit of a disappointment.  There's four different "styles" of dungeon, and they're all unique, I guess, but that uniqueness only really amounts to a palette swap and a change of enemies.  And some of the bosses are absolutely ridiculous, to the point of throwing everything the game has taught you out the window and being completely unfair.  Some can attack through solid pillars, some attack hitboxes stretch a ways beyond the visible point of contact, and some cause the camera to just give up and commit seppuku out of shame.

That said, though, the majority of the game is razor sharp.  Combat against certain enemies, and especially certain bosses, feels like a dance of death, wherein the only way to win is to be the better dancer.  After hours upon hours of play, I became so attuned to the control scheme that it was as if the controller was an extension of my will.  There was no conscious thought-action sequence, rather I would think a thing and it would happen.  I've played games that I've come to know really well, but I can't remember a single other time that I became the game, and it me.

I don't mean to harp on and on about how great this game is, but it honestly is that great.  It may not be for everyone, but it was exactly what I needed it to be at the time I played it.  It became my life for weeks, to the point that I had to force myself to play another game I was working on at the time, another game I was loving, all because Bloodborne was so engaging.  And on top of all that, my Bloodborne player character has taken on a life of his own and become one of my own original fictional characters, Léon Reneaux.  If I ever get around to publishing any of my fiction, you will be meeting him.

Yes, Bloodborne is a difficult game, especially if you've never played a game like it before.  It will push you to your limits as a gamer and force you to stand up to its level.  At the beginning of this year I assumed I must be entering the stage in my life where my skills would start to decline.  Thanks to Bloodborne, I no longer feel that way.  I'm a better gamer now, the best I've ever been, and I've proven it in other games since, which I'll talk about soon.  Bloodborne is the best kind of teacher: one that leaves you better than it found you, when it has nothing more to teach you.

Until next time!

Current interests:
Listening - What We Saw From the Cheap Seats (Regina Spektor, 2012)
Playing - Azure Striker Gunvolt (2014)
Reading - Paperbacks From Hell (Grady Hendrix, 2017)
Watching - Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return (2017)