Outside of all the anime I experienced I also played Uncharted 4. I liked it quite a bit.
I have nothing else to add. It's game time!
Gundam Breaker 3
Within the past few years I have started importing a lot more games from outside the U.S. It has become increasingly easy to get import games at reasonable prices. A trend I find to be increasingly odd is that games are being released in English for territories in Asia. It was done with Phantasy Star Online 2, and has been done with a few Gundam games now. Due to licensing issues, Gundam Breaker games have not been released in the U.S. When I was told the game was completely in English I jumped right on it!
So Gundam Breaker is a series where you build Gundam models called Gunpla and have them fight other Gundam models. It's really cool. Gunpla models are very popular, and there are models of every single Gundam and mobile suit you can think of. This game has an insane amount of parts to choose from so that you can make your own custom Gundam. I love the concept of giant robots fighting, but have never really been able to get way into any of the anime series. I get it. They're all about war, but they don't have to be so incredibly self serious all the time. When I'm watching anime I'm not looking for political arguments and land disputes. I want to see giant robots destroy things with a gigantic laser sword. Gundam Breaker 3 delivers on that.
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| Someone built this awesome Gundam. |
The gameplay equates to Dynasty Warriors with slightly more nuance. You have regular attacks on square, and heavy attacks on triangle. Changing up the timing and holding directions when you attack changes up the combos drastically. It helps that there are a ton of weapon types that all play vastly different from one another. It's nothing special, but it's pretty fun.
There are an insane amount of Gundam models in the game, which means that there are hundreds of parts you accrue over the course of playing. You can mix and match any part to customize your ultimate fighting robot. It's also possible to color what you've made and apply decals. What makes the game a bit tedious is how poor the inventory screens are. You have so many duplicates of parts, but can't sell them more than one at a time. There have been sessions where I've spent over an hour just selling duplicates. That's insane. Luckily I think the core game is fun enough that I am still enjoying myself.
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| You have to blow up all the robots in this game. |
Once you complete the story the only thing left to do is grind missions for parts you need in order to make yourself stronger. There are going to be DLC missions at some point, so I might hop back in then and see what they're all about. I don't really have a lot to say about this game. If you like building custom robots, then you're probably going to be way into this.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
The year that Uncharted 3 came out it made my top ten list, which is posted on this very blog. In the little blurb I wrote about it I said that I wanted more Uncharted, but in the time following something happened to change my mind. Uncharted is fun, but the third game wrapped everything up in a way that made me think we wouldn't see any more from Drake and his cohorts. Then Naughty Dog released The Last of Us and I finally realized that I didn't need another Uncharted. So when they announced that Uncharted 4 was in the works I was extremely skeptical. The franchise pushed the boundaries of what was possible on the PS3 hardware and proved that Naughty Dog was an incredible developer. Now that I've played and completed Uncharted 4 I'm glad that they let Drake out for one more romp.
I recorded a podcast about my overall impressions on Uncharted 4, so I'll try my best to keep my thoughts here concise. When Uncharted 2 came out it blew my mind. The graphical fidelity and the quality of the motion capture performances were nothing short of amazing. At the time I don't remember anything quite like it. Then Uncharted 3 came out and it was more of the same. I was fully expecting Uncharted 4 to tow the line as well, but after playing it I believe that it made a significant jump in quality. Many people, myself included, have been disappointed with the performance of games on the current generation of consoles. Uncharted 4 throws all the preconceived notions about the PS4's capabilities out the window and turns all the available knobs to 11. The game looks nothing short of breathtaking. The vistas and action set pieces are a complete joy to experience, and look straight out of a blockbuster movie. There were points where I actually thought that Nate and Elena were real people. Their faces show emotion in a way that's amazing. The dead eyes and cold stare of most video game characters are not present in Uncharted 4.
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| The faces are very lifelike. |
As for gameplay everything is fairly similar to what it has been in the past. It's a third person shooter, that makes you question if Drake is really a normal person or if he's a professional killer. For a guy who likes to hunt treasure he sure knows how to handle any kind of gun he comes across. Then there's the whole issue of him murdering hundreds of people in cold blood, but I think it's a little too late in the life of the franchise to really change how the core gameplay causes narrative dissonance. That's not to say that Uncharted 4 has nothing new in the way of gameplay. Yes, you'll still be climbing around cliff faces a fair amount, but now you also have a sweet grappling hook!
Prior to this entry the franchise had been standard adventure fare. Drake would find out about some treasure and go after it. Rarely was there any kind of "real" character development. We learned about the personality of Drake and all of his compatriots, but never anything about who they really were and where they came from. Uncharted 4 actually had a narrative that I was personally invested in outside of having a fun romp in foreign locales. Nate and Elena's relationship is very well realized, and so is his relationship with his long lost brother.
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| There is still a whole lot of gun play in Uncharted 4. |
It's not an overly long game, but it does overstay its welcome in the final few chapters. I clocked in around thirteen hours of play time, which I did in two sittings. The game was great and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. However, I think that this has to be the end of the franchise. It ties up in such a way that I will actually get upset if they decide to make an Uncharted 5. I get the feeling that Naughty Dog wants to move on though, and I hope that they do.
One Piece: Burning Blood
Burning Blood came out on the last day of May. Normally I wouldn't have enough time to play a game and spit a bunch of game about it, but I beat the story mode in three hours the same day I got it... For some reason it only covers the Paramount War arc from multiple perspectives. There aren't a whole lot of fights to do, and the only reason it even took me three hours was because some of the enemies can kill you in a few hits. Even with that artificial padding, the mode was still ludicrously short. Since it's a fighting game I was excited to jump online and mess around, but was quickly disappointed with how shallow the game truly is.
Burning Blood is an anime fighting game. Obviously. One Piece is my favorite anime, so obviously I was very excited to play this game. It has a wide variety of characters, and their animations are all really fun to see in action. Normally I go into anime games expecting them to be shallow and filled with fan service for fans of the series. It's what I've become accustomed to. What changed this about Burning Blood was the fact that I kept seeing people talk about how much hidden depth the game has. In order to find it I went into training mode when I had finished the story mode. I messed around for about an hour and still couldn't figure out where the "depth" was.
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| If you want to see your favorite One Piece moves, then this is for you! |
The majority of the combat amounts to mashing square. If you push square rapidly you'll do a combo and then a finisher to blow the enemy away. What bugs me most about this is that you can't even time your button presses. You literally have to mash as fast as possible or the character will give up mid combo. This means that you can't push square for a few hits and then use a different move in most scenarios. You can however throw a guard break into the regular square combo to break an opponents guard. This will crumple them so you can continue to combo. If you hold L1 and push one of three buttons the character in play can use one of their three special moves. Generally you just mash square and then follow up with one of these moves, or just do it raw. Since it's a 3D game you can also sidestep your opponents attacks, which is why some of moves attack in an arc in front of you.
There are a few other character specific things, like Logia guarding. In the anime characters eat devil fruits which give them various powers. People with Logia powers can turn their bodies whole bodies into an element, like fire or ice. If you hold R1 with those characters they can't be hit by anything but a guard break. This makes these characters very powerful in comparison to others, which can get kind of annoying. Reading this is probably sounds like there is a lot going on, but I assure you that in practice it is exceedingly simple. Most characters have one or two combo stings that allow for very little variation. Since it's a tag team game you bring three characters into battle, and can switch between them. This adds a a few more hits to combos if you switch to someone else mid-combo. However, the game has an infuriating mechanic that makes characters you're hitting flash white and fall out of your hits.
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| Kizaru will probably fall out of this combo and punish Marco. |
Normally this kind of mechanic is used to prevent infinites. For those uninitiated in fighting game mechanics infinites are combos you can get your opponent into that don't end until they're dead. Systems to prevent them are put into place for the good of the game, but in this scenario it makes no sense. It's horribly inconsistent and ruins every combo that could potentially be cool in any way. When you smash square the combos in this game end on their own, so switching to someone should allow you co continue mashing square until the new character is done with their combo. In most cases they hit twice and the enemy drops out and they can immediately start a combo on you while you're still trying to do yours. WHAT!? It makes even less sense, because it costs three bars of your meter in order to use! You can't do it over and over. In most matches you'd be able to do it once! It makes no sense and takes all the fun out of trying to find new and interesting combos, because if you do find something it will assuredly not work.
If you're a fan of One Piece and you're looking to play as some of your favorite characters and mash the living hell out of some buttons, then this game is for you. However, if you're looking for even a bit of nuance or longevity, then you're going to want to skip out on this game. Sadly I'm stuck somewhere in the middle of those two camps. I love One Piece and think that this game is fun on a basic level, but as soon as I try to improve my gameplay I get frustrated to no end. I apologize if this was a bit technical and a slog to read, but I needed to get my frustrations out. It's a solid game that has mechanics holding it back from being something a lot better.
JUUUUUUUNE!
It's June, which means that my birthday is happening near the end of the month. It also means that Guilty Gear Revelator, and Star Ocean 5 will be coming out. I'm not super excited for Guilty Gear, but I've been craving the JRPG action of Star Ocean for a long time.
I was also very much looking forward to playing No Man's Sky as well. However, it has now been delayed until August. I can't really get upset about delays anymore, because I want games to come out as good as they possibly can. I am disappointed, but it's probably for the better.
There's also a very good chance that I will be building a real PC soon, so I may be able to write more about PC games in the future. If anything it will vastly improve the quality of my streams. Nothing is set in stone yet, but I'm 90% sure that I will be making a hot new PC.
I have a lot on my plate for June, so I hope it turns out well! See you next month.
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