Those three games are Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3, HarmoKnight, and Bioshock Infinite. Trust me when I say I have a whole lot to say about these games, so prepare yourself for what's to come. If you only care about a certain one just do a fancy search and skip right to where you want.
We'd best get started, because there's a whole lot going on. It's game time!
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3
I am a huge fan of the Ultimate Ninja Storm series. While I did not play through the story of the first game myself I saw a lot of it played and participated in my fair share of multiplayer matches. I bought the second game and loved almost everything about it. CyberConnect2 created a beautiful looking game with tons of characters and awesome boss fights. I'd be willing to guess that a lot of the boss fights from this series were what inspired the creation of Asura's Wrath, but I don't know that for sure. I played the second game for the ludicrous amount of time it took to complete everything and nab every single trophy. I'm not even a Naruto super fan. The only way I know the story and characters is through these few games and the PS2 games.
Then they released Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations. They had a slightly larger character roster, but a significantly cut down story mode. I played some multiplayer with my friends, but didn't end up purchasing it. This franchise is known for it's insane spectacle, which Generations was lacking. I was willing to cut CyberConnect2 a break, because it could have been considered an in between game. Obviously Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 would pick up where 2 left off and be just as awesome. Right?
Wrong. I was wrong to think that. Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 is one of the few times that I've been legitimately disappointed with a game in a long time. I don't think the game is bad, I just think that it could have been a lot more. I feel more like a parent that's disappointed in their child for making poor choices.
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| Much like Sasuke CyberConnect2 made some poor choices... |
At the surface Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 is still a fairly shallow fighting game. Each game in the series has played almost exactly the same with minor tweaks. One thing this iteration gets right is that it tries to make the fights a little more balanced. Generations took a step forward in that department by making it so that you can't spam substitutions to get out of every single attack. Storm 3 takes it one step further by nerfing the insanely overpowered awakening modes. Previously when each character would lose so much health they could power up into a ridiculously strong form with borderline invincibility and no penalty at all. Now there are multiple ways to awaken. You can still do it from low enough health, but now you can get hit out of it with ultimate moves. Alternatively you can flick the right stick and awaken immediately but your chakra bar used for special jutsu moves will be shortened for the duration of the transformation. They're honestly trying in that regard.
However, the story mode is nowhere near as good as it was in the second game. The ultimate adventure mode is the main attraction of this series. Previously in the series you could roam around the ninja world in between story fights and complete side missions. That is no longer the case. There are one or two side missions you can take on before the story is over, but for the most part the exploration seems like a hold over from the previous game, just because it was there. After each story fight you'll be thrown into an open field just so you can run through it to the next battle. Yes, it opens up after you beat the game, but at that point there's no point in completing them. To make it more annoying you can get every trophy and "complete" everything without buying or experiencing any of the extras.
Storytelling as a whole seems to have taken a hit in this iteration as well. Fans of Naruto have already seen these scenes in the anime, so they're reliving them for fun. In that case you'd think that they would spice them up, or cut out the fluff. Instead I got to watch Naruto's dying mom talk to him for a half hour about eating his vegetables and brushing his teeth. Even more upsetting is the fact that the amazing boss fights with beautifully animated quick time events are so few and far between. There are one or two long battles that I thought were awesome, but then all the other battles had one or two quick time events and were over in a minute. It's not like they were lacking for cool battles to animate, because they're in the middle of a ninja world war where literally everyone is fighting all the time!
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| Awesome animated fights like this one are few and far between. |
I don't like to call developers lazy, because I don't know the full extent of everything that goes into developing video games. I do still feel like CyberConnect2 is really phoning it in for this series now. I know that they can use this engine to good effect with good storytelling, because they did it in the first two Ultimate Ninja Storms. I know they'll make another one, because the franchise is basically made of money so I hope that they can pull out the magic for me one last time.
HarmoKnight
I played the demo of Harmoknight and didn't really like it at all. I found it frustrating, because the timing seemed kind of off. Despite my initial reaction I paid $15 dollars to see what was up with the final version of Game Freak's 3DS rhythm game. Sometimes I feel like GameFreak stumbled into Pokemon's success, so now Nintendo locks them in a room and whips them until a new Pokemon game comes out. So I gave $15 of my hard earned dollars to buy a game I don't like very much.
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| Grab the notes and try not to get super frustrated like me! |
So in case you didn't know HarmoKnight is a rhythm game where you play as a doofy looking kid with a musical note staff that he swings like a baseball bat. You push the a button to swing the staff and b to jump. As you run across the stage you hit enemies, and instruments in the background. Every action produces a sound that goes along with the background music. One of the reasons I don't like the game very much is because the music doesn't sound appealing to me. There are a whole bunch of weird beeps and boops that don't sound very good musically. Also, I feel like the timing is off, but it could just be that it's is super strict and I have bad rhythm.
So far I'm on the fourth world out of what seems to be five worlds. I've gotten a few other characters that switch up the gameplay a bit, but it's still nothing special. I was hoping that GameFreak would bring their A game to the first non-pokemon game they've made in a while, but instead I got a super generic rhythm game with a lame story. It says something when I enjoy the Pokemon music bonus stages more than the original tracks written for an entirely music based game.
Bioshock Infinite
I'm going to admit here that I never finished the original Bioshock. I bought it on clearance for the PS3 years after it's initial release. I played through about half of it and lost interest, because I had already been told about the plot twist multiple times. I enjoyed everything that I experienced, but for some reason I couldn't get absorbed by the world of rapture. For that very reason I've been super excited about Bioshock Infinite. These types of games are much better to experience during their initial Zeitgeist, so unlike the initial Bioshock I got to do that this time.
Unlike the previous two games I talked about this month, my excitement in Infinite was not even remotely misplaced. I don't like playing first person shooters at all, but I thought that Bioshock Infinite was incredible. Ken Levine and the writers at Irrational did not disappoint. It takes place in the sky city of Columbia where the citizens worship the founding father's of America like gods. You play as the unsavory character Booker Dewitt. He got himself into a bit of debt, but was given a way out. "Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt." is a quote that you'll be hearing quite a bit throughout the game. Booker was given a picture of Elizabeth and tasked with finding her and then bringing her back to New York. He's told to keep a low profile, but like any good story that doesn't happen and he's forced to mow down countless foes to reach his goal. It is a first person shooter after all!
As you may have guessed Elizabeth is special to say the least. She has the power to open what amount to portals to other dimensions called tears. It's not immediately evident why she can do this, but it scares everyone who knows about the ability. For that reason she's been locked away in a tower her whole life where she's protected by the very creepy Songbird. Due to Elizabeth's power and the fact that she's never been out of her tower she is a very interesting character. As she witnesses things for the first time and tries to reconcile the things she's doing you'll get to know her very well. This also makes for an interesting dynamic between her and Booker. Just running around they talk quite a bit, so you'll want to search every nook and cranny to watch their relationship develop as much as possible.
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| Elizabeth is an excellent character who you'll get to know quite well. |
One thing that's great about Infinite's plot is that it plays off of your expectations. It assumes that you're trying to figure out it's plot the entire way through, so it tries to mess with your head as much as possible. Every time I thought I knew what what going on the game threw something new at me to blow my mind wide open. When the huge plot reveal finally happened I couldn't even comprehend what was happening. For that very reason Bioshock Infinite is worth playing. I can't tell yet if it's a classic that will be talked about for years to come, but it certainly is something special. At the very least it shows that good storytelling in video games is possible. It also shows that a game's setting is just as important as every other facet of the game.
My trip through Columbia was amazing. Much like Rapture in the original Bioshock, Columbia is very much alive. It's a world that's been lived in. It's unique and it adds to the story in a way that you don't really get very often. It's just an interesting world and it works in conjunction with what's happening in the story. It's filled with beautiful vistas and horrible racism. It always keeps you guessing, while still wanting to see what's waiting around every corner. I feel like a game hasn't done atmosphere quite as well as Bioshock Infinite since Arkham Asylum. If Columbia hadn't been as fully realized and interesting as it was the game would have been nowhere near as engrossing.
Despite everything good I've said about Infinite it's still a first person shooter. While the story is great, the gameplay isn't really anything special. Sure you can fly around on the sky rails at super speeds, but outside of that you just shoot hundreds of people with guns and powers. Like the previous Bioshock titles you gain special powers. In Columbia they're known as vigors. They're all pretty cool, but they're just a way to make killing everyone a little less tedious. The way I played the game was to shock enemies with my crazy lightning hands to stun them and then pump them full of lead until they died. That's my main issue with a lot of shooters is that the combat scenarios just aren't very interesting. In this game you enter a room, or closed off area to fight enemies. Once they're all gone you either move on to another combat scenario, or you go on to the next story sequence. In a game like this where the story is so compelling it's hard to see that type of combat as anything but a chore. It's just something you need to put up with in order to get to the next thing you actually care about. I hope that some game in the future can fix this problem, or just at least reinvigorate first person shooters.
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| Bioshock Infinite has a lot more dumping on fools that I wanted. |
The gameplay itself is actually fine. In fact it's worlds better than the original Bioshock in terms of gameplay mechanics. It's competent, but you'll probably get sick of it midway through the game. Even though I'd say the gameplay is middling at best this is still an incredible game. It's definitely something that video game fans should play. Even if you're like me and don't like FPS's Infinite is still worth checking out. Sometimes video games are called out as being a bad medium for telling stories and Infinite proves that that's not true. Maybe it just takes five years and someone like Ken Levine and the writers at Irrational to make a great video game story. This is a story that everyone is going to be talking about. In fact, everyone already is talking about it. Get out there and play it before you end up seeing spoilers.
But wait...It's not over yet!
I knew that I was going to have a hard time juggling Bioshock Infinite, Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. They did all come out within the span of three days after all. What I didn't know was that I was going to become addicted to Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, so I would play very little of my two new 3DS titles.
Due to my new found addiction I'm going to save Luigi's Mansion and Pokemon for next month. I didn't play enough of either to form any solid opinions about them. I did however play over 100 hours of Monster Hunter... I am going to write up something about Monster Hunter, because it really did take me by surprise. I can't promise that it will be any time soon, because I've been pretty busy lately. Which is also the reason that I still don't have the Game Time ID about Fire Emblem Awakening up. Maybe I should just stop saying I'm going to do ID's and just put them up when I actually have the time.
See you next month.
-Manny
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