I'll bookend the post with Nintendo, with some sweet Witcher talk in the middle. Let's get right into it. It's game time!
Puzzles & Dragons Super Mario Bros. Edition
Man, I'm terrible at puzzles and Dragons. I can match three all day, but when I actually need to combo multiple matches together I'm toast. The point I'm at in this game sucks, because I actually have to do that! See, I'm fighting Thwomps, and if I don't kill them in four turns I due instantly! It sucks extra, because I only get three continues! I've died on this stage at least ten times, and can't seem to do anything about it. Despite that, I still think the game is pretty fun. It's essentially the exact same game as Puzzles & Dragons, but you have Mario characters instead.
For those who don't know Puzzles & Dragons is an insanely popular free to play mobile game in Japan. It makes a staggering amount of money every day. It's available in most other languages as well. I played it for a but, but had to stop, because the monsters I had weren't good enough and I didn't really feel like dropping any money into it. The goal is to match three, except the things you're matching are elements. You create a team of five characters and a helper in order to tackle a level. Each character will have an element associated with them, so when you match that element they will attack. Each character has an attack, health, and recovery stat. As you play and defeat enemies your characters will level up and get stronger.
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| Man, I don't have any Yoshis yet.... |
In normal Puzzles & Dragons feeding unneeded characters to the ones you use is one of the best ways to get experience, and it often needed to help them evolve into stronger forms. The Mario edition differs from that, because feeding your characters doesn't get them a whole lot of experience. They also will evolve by being fed items you can find as drops during the stages. All around it's a much more kid friendly version of Puzzles & Dragons, because up until the point I'm at is a very easy game. It helps that since it's a full retail game there are no bullshit mechanics keeping you from getting stronger either. Normal Puzzles & Dragons has a stamina mechanic, so you can only play so much in any given session.
This cartridge also has Puzzles & Dragons Z in it as well. I haven't played it yet, but I look forward to it. It's basically a Puzzles & Dragons RPG, so it has the same monsters as the mobile game, but without all the stupid free to play elements. I decided to play the Mario edition first, because it's supposed to be easier. Right now I'm not buying into that though, because I want to take my 3DS and smash it into a billion pieces. I should probably get better at the game!
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
For the first hour or so I really didn't like The Witcher 3. The movement felt awkward, and I didn't understand the combat. After an hour or so, something clicked in my brain and now I am absolutely in love with the game and its world! Everything is so dark and miserable, it's great! Seriously though, since the world is so dark and disturbing it makes everything a lot more interesting.
In case the name wasn't a big enough clue, you play as a Witcher. There are a few Witcher's in the game, but you specifically play as Geralt of Rivia. I had not played the previous two games in the franchise so it took me a bit to get up to speed on exactly who Geralt is and what's so special about him. Witcher's are highly trained humans who undergo a ritual to become infertile mutants. The trade-off is that they have heightened strength and reflexes. The entire goal of a Witcher is to kill monsters for money. Their emotions are extremely nullified, so they rarely show any kind of emotion, which helps with the whole heartless mercenary thing. Turns out most people don't like Witchers, and see them as money grubbing mutants. However, people will still contract them, because there are beasts that need to be taken care of.
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| Geralt is the definition of badass. |
In this game though, the monster killing is only a secondary distraction. The main quest involves Geralt looking for his adopted daughter Ciri, who is being chased down by the Wild Hunt. I'm still not quite sure what the Hunt is yet. They seem like a crazy group of skeleton men who can fly and make everything around them turn into ice and die. They're pretty scary, so I can see why Geralt wants to save Ciri from them.
This is the first entry in the series that is truly open world, and for the first time in a long time I'm enjoying it. The world is insanely large and there are icons everywhere on the map. There is literally something to do around every corner and it's almost all worthwhile. You don't necessarily get good items from everything, but there will at least be some kind of story. The thing this game has that most other games don't is good writing. Almost every single quest I've come across has intrigued me. Everything has a purpose, or at least it seems to have a purpose.
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| The map in this game is huge. |
Traversing the world takes a while to get used to. Geralt has an odd momentum to his movement, so he takes a while to get going and to stop. It's something I've seen a lot of people complaining about, but after the first hour of the game I have absolutely no issue with it now. It helps that there isn't any kind of precise platforming. You just have to get from place to place, Combat is relatively easy to control as well, but it can get pretty complicated if you want it to. Once you get close enough to an enemy you're essentially locked into combat and will begin to strafe around. Square will unleash a quick attack, and triangle will do a strong attack. Geralt also has magic known as signs available to him. I only use about two of them, but they all have uses. He can create a shield. shoot fire, and control minds. I'm playing on the medium difficulty, so I can get by with just kind of hammering on the quick attack button and blocking occasionally. On higher difficulties that's completely different though.
The game really wants you to prepare before you fight its bigger monsters. Like I said, I don't really have to, but I can see why you would want to. There's a whole alchemy system you can brew potions with that I've barely touched. You can make everything from healing potions to oils you can coat your blades with so that you can hurt ghosts better. Every monster will be weak to a specific sign and have some super specific way to defeat it easier. I've had myself some ten to fifteen minute battles, because I didn't properly prepare. That meant that I was doing way less damage than I could have been.
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| There are all kinds of horrifying monsters in The Witcher 3. |
The Witcher 3 is a huge game, and I'm completely engrossed in its world. I can't reiterate enough just how terrible dark it is. One of the monsters in it is literally a miscarried baby. What's interesting is that it's just about Geralt and how he interacts with the world. There isn't necessarily a world ending event that's going to be taking place. Sure, you're trying to save Ciri but she can take care of herself. It's totally believable that Geralt could do all kinds of side stuff while looking for Ciri. I've been playing for like forty hours and I feel like I'm not close to finished. I seriously can't recommend this game enough!!
Splatoon
In my heart I will always love Nintendo, but for the past few years I've been questioning everything they do. They rarely ever take risk and if they do, then they do it halfheartedly. That all changed when they released Splatoon though. Nintendo launched a new franchise on their home console, and to top if off it's a fun online multiplayer shooter! Never in my entire life did I think that I would type a sentence like that. Never!
When I first saw Splatoon a few years ago I thought that it looked stupid. I'll be honest, I bought it thinking that I would hate it. I personally don't really like shooters, but I bought it to support any new IP Nintendo is willing to make. They hadn't made a new franchise on consoles since Pikmin for gods sake! Much to my surprise I started to play Splatoon and couldn't put it down for hours. A friend and I switched off every match and had an absolute blast.
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| Splatoon just looks like a fun time! |
In Splatoon you play as an Inkling, which is a humanoid squid teenager. You get to deck them out in fresh clothing and shoot ink. At the beginning of a match you are randomly put with three other people on a team of four. The goal is to paint the stage your color. At the end of the match whichever team has more of their color on the map wins. It's so simple, but everything about it is satisfying. Nintendo must have focus tested the living hell out of this game. The movement, gun-play, stages, and match time all feel near perfect. Each match is only a few minutes long, so it never wears out its welcome. All the guns feel good, and the physics on the ink are great. You can turn your Inkling into their squid form and swim through your own ink at a decent clip, which just feels right.
As you level up by completing matches you can buy more clothing, and new guns. Clothing has abilities that will help you out a little bit, but nothing overpowered. Nintendo seems to be very keen on the idea that everyone is on the same level. They only have five maps in the game right now, because they claim the game is more fun when everyone knows what's going on. Whether or not that's true remains to be seen. The weapons are going to be changing your experience the most. There are tons of guns that shoot ink at a decent clip, and then there are paint rollers that cover a large area quickly, but you don't have any range.
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| The paint roller is a very powerful weapon. |
This past Monday on June 1st Nintendo unlocked the ranked mode, which is different from the regular battle mode. It has you trying to control specific points on the map. My only issue with it is that I don't have fun while playing it. If you lose, then you get absolutely no reward. It isn't helped by the fact that it has a really severe rubberbanding technique. It's way more about getting kills once you've taken over the point, which goes against everything I think is fun about the game. The good thing is that you can just play regular battle if you want, but it has me worried about future mode that the game will introduce. It's cool that the two modes are so vastly different in what you need to do to succeed.
Splatoon has style. It reminds me a lot of Jet Set Radio, which is always welcome. I've been trying to play it once a day, which is normally something I don't really do. I am still having trouble comprehending the fact that Nintendo took a risk on this franchise. I really wish that other companies would follow suit, because this console generation needs something other than sequels to already established franchises.
All Aboard the E3 Hype Train!
Can you hear that sound in the distance? That's right, it's the E3 hype train! In just about two weeks E3 2015 will be upon us and I couldn't possibly be more excited. There have been very few leaks so far, so either this year is going to be super lame, or there are going to be a ton of surprises. I'm really hoping we get a ton of surprises, Keep your eyes on the blog, because I'll probably be posting some stuff during E3.
Other than that I'll be ready with another edition at the end of June!
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