Game Time - November 2017

During the entire month of November I didn't really play a whole lot. I kind of just lounged around and let the Holiday season wash over me. I don't even really know what I did other than watch a whole lot of Adventure Time.

That doesn't mean I didn't play games, it just means I didn't finish any... It's game time!

Battle Chef Brigade

Years ago I saw a pre-release video of Battle Chef Brigade and it immediately caught my eye. It's an interesting mix of an action RPG and a match three puzzle game couched inside a fantasy Iron Chef. If what I just said sounds crazy, it's because it is. You play as Mina, a chef. She has run away from home to enter the tournament to become a member of the battle chef brigade. In the game world chefs are apparently super powerful and protect the land.

In order to join the brigade she must win a series of matches without losing three times. The game has you start your day by doing odd jobs for your teachers around town. This doubles as a way to get money and learn advanced game mechanics. You can do fun puzzles where you need to create specific patterns in the match three game, fight enemies, and make orders ads fast as possible in a busy restaurant. When you're all set you can find a fellow chef and challenge them to a battle. You than travel to a battleground and start the cool chef fight.

If only it was this easy to cook in real life.

Initially you're introduced to the judge for the event and they let you know what element they like the best and what the main ingredient of your dish should be. There are three elements earth, water, and fire. The more you have of the specific element the judge requests the higher you'll score. The buzzer goes off and then you need to get cooking! You have to run outside and kill monsters to collect their parts, which are made up on colored orbs. You need to drop the parts into your cooking pot and then match them. When you match three of a kind they fuse together into an upgraded flavor gem and you can repeat the process. Before the timer runs out you bring the dish to the judge and are scored accordingly. It has been a lot of fun the few matches I've played so far. It has a lot of charm, and I'm excited to see where the story and mechanics go.

Pokemon Ultra Moon

It's a well known fact that I love the Pokemon franchise. Despite that I can't bring myself to defend the newest duo of Pokemon releases. I have personally enjoyed my time with it so far, but it's hard to justify it as a purchase for people who played Sun and Moon last year. Game Freak billed this as an all new adventure with an alternate story, which is only a half truth. While there are new aspects to the story it is still largely the same as before. They made tweaks to the pacing so that things get going quicker, but a majority of the changes take place near and at the end of the game. I do think that it's a better overall package, but it just takes a while to see any of it.

The games bring back Team Rocket, but not until very late in the story.

Sadly I can't comment on any of the new story aspects other than the Ultra Recon Squad showing up every so often. When I last played the game I stopped right before getting to the wholly new story section dealing with the legendary Pokemon Necrozma. There is also additional content after the game is over where you fight against a new and improved Team Rocket which I am looking forward to.

In terms of gameplay it's pretty much identical. You fight with Pokemon in turn based battles. You capture Pokemon, level them up, and see them evolve. It's the classic gameplay that we all know and love from the franchise, but I hope that next time they can change it up even more. Sun and Moon were a nice departure from the previous games and tried a bunch of new things. Personally I hope that for future iterations they take the changes even farther. While I adore Pokemon I don't know how much longer they can get away with the current formula.

.hack//G.U. Last Recode

.hack//G.U. originally came out in 2006 for the PlayStation 2. I came into the three part franchise during its second outing in 2007. I played the second and third volumes a ton, and enjoyed them quite a bit. However, that was back then. The graphics were decent then, and the repetitive combat mechanics and melodramatic anime acting did it for me then. Now we're in 2017 and the games have been re-released in a collection on the PS4. What sets this collection apart from others of its type is that it adds a ton of cool features in addition to the improved graphics. On top of all that they created an all new volume 4, which I definitely have not played yet. It is really cool that this franchise has been revived in 2017, but I just am not having a good time playing it.

The combat is simple active combat. You run into a group of enemies and mach a button to kill them. As the games go on you receive more weapons to add variety, but in the opening hours there's little to no variety. You play as Haseo, who is a player in the MMO known as the world who is trying to find out what happened to his friend Shino. She was attacked by a mysterious character called Tri-Edge and was never seen again. Haseo learns he has special powers as all good anime protagonists do, and he goes on a journey while honing his skills.

Haseo is back and edgier than ever!

Even in 2017 the concept of playing a video game about being inside a video game is pretty novel. It still freaks me out that you can "log off" the game and retire to a PC desktop to read email and download sick wallpapers. I still like .hack, but I just don't want to play through it again. I already saw the story once, and the combat actually puts me to sleep. I played three sessions of it and almost fell asleep each time. It would be hard to recommend it to someone who has no nostalgia for it, but it's really cool for fans that Namco put this collection out.

Tis the Season

Pretty much all I've been doing since the 1st of December is playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The Switch finally has the hot JRPG action I have been craving. Sometimes I feel like if I go too long without playing one I will wither and die. So far I like it a lot, but it certainly has its fair share of problems.

The Director's Cut of Night in the Woods comes out Tuesday and I'm totally going to play through that again, because I love it so much. Other than that I don't really have a whole lot of video gaming plans. I'm just going to chill for the Christmas season and get really stressed out at work! See you next time!

Game Time - October 2017

Is it halfway through November? Yes, it is. I realize that this October edition is very late, but cut me some slack I went on vacation! I had an absolute blast getting away from home! I went to a Halloween party dressed as Steven Universe, played Super Mario Oddysey a ton, went bowling, saw New Found Glory in concert, and ended the whole stint with a 24 hour stream for Extra Life.

Leading up to Extra Life I did not get a lot of sleep, and posting the donation and stream link here on the blog slipped my mind. However, it was a success nonetheless! Once again we had a goal of $200, but we literally doubled it and ended with $400. I said it during the stream and after, but I can't express my appreciation enough. As someone who doesn't stream or make videos very often it's absolutely crazy to see so many people come out and show support by donating.

We're here to talk about the video games of October though. The Switch has finally become exactly what I wanted it to be. The amazing games are piling up, and I want to snuggle with the thing at night. However, I can't let the Switch bogart all the attention, so I'll throw a bone to Shadow of War on the PS4. We'll launch into the video game discussion with Fire Emblem Warriors, bring the hype down a bit with Shadow of War, and then let the hype build back up and explode with Super Mario Odyssey. It's game time!

Fire Emblem Warriors

Every time I choose to write about a Warriors game I don't know why. There isn't a lot to say, because they're mostly the same. You play as a character and mash the same button a whole bunch to beat down thousands of enemies. Fire Emblem Warriors is very much more of the same, but now there are Fire Emblem characters! I used to find these games a guilty pleasure, but now I have come to terms with the fact that I genuinely love them. There's something so relazing about turning my brain off and mashing the same button for hours on end. Sure it's not hard, but it sure feels good to strike down foes with little to no effort like you're some kind of all powerful warrior.

Blindly mash and get tons of kills!

What's cool about FE Warriors is that it actually incorporates a handful of gameplay elements from the franchise it's drawing from. In case you're unaware Fire Emblem is a turn based tactical strategy game. In FE Warriors you control not one, but four characters. You can freely switch between them, but it's more efficient to open your map and give the units you're not controlling orders. This way you can focus on going ham while your AI companions defend or take over what they need to. It also makes use of the classic FE weapon triangle, which is another reason for controlling multiple characters per mission. Yes, you can beat enemies who you're weak against , but it takes forever. So if you bring the right characters into battle you can cover all the weapon types and never really run into trouble.

It's odd to see elements from the Fire Emblem franchise blend so well into a Dynasty Warriors game, but I guess it makes sense. Near invincible soldiers are the bread and butter of a Warriors game.

Shadow of War

I loved Shadow of Mordor and its nemesis system. Fighting orcs and having the game create dynamic rivalries was fascinating, and I couldn't get enough of it. Now that the sequel Shadow of War is here I'm not quite as excited as I thought I would be. Once again you take control of Talion, who is being inhabited by the spirit of the elf who forged the one ring. I am well aware of his name, but don't have the patience to try and spell it. In classic video game fashion you lose all the cool powers you amassed over the previous game and need to earn them back. I didn't even play the game long enough to earn them all again, because I just didn't want to keep going.

The fact that I didn't get way into this game continues to baffle me. The game is much larger and added a whole slew of new mechanics and content. A lot of the changes are interesting, but for some reason I just can't get into it. Part of the reason is that encounters with orcs in the original game felt special, and now in Shadow of War you can't turn a corner without running into a new orc to face off against. It happens so often that the encounters lose their luster and that's just a huge bummer. What's even more of a bummer is that all of the story missions are an unending slog. I still feel like the Lord of the Rings license isn't even needed for this game, but it's still here. You get to hang out with Gollum and Shelob, which is kind of cool I guess. The part where it turns sour is that all the missions are super generic and not fun. Have you ever wanted to follow Gollum around for way too long? If so, then this is the game for you! It's just a huge drag, because the draw of the game is the nemesis system and it isn't well implemented into the story at all. It's way more fun to run around the world like a moron and see what trouble you can get into.

The nemesis system makes its triumphant return.

This is one of the few games that I want to try and get back to, but right now I just want some time away from it. After playing a handful of hours I had to put it down, which made me pretty sad. Shadow of Mordor was one of my favorite games the year it came out, but this one just isn't doing it for me at all.

Super Mario Odyssey

I'm kind of distracted right now, because I have the TV near me playing Super Mario Odyssey speedruns. I have been enjoying watching Trihex blow through the entire game, but a few moments ago he brought up a valid point. He's doing the any % run, which means he's just trying to beat the game as fast as possible, but he doesn't want to be. He wants to move up to other categories that have him playing the game for longer periods of time, because he likes it that much. He wants there to be more Mario in his life, and I totally get where he is coming from.

This image makes me so happy.

Odyssey feels like the culmination of what Nintendo has been working towards with Mario for years. It has so much content that it's bananas, and a lot of it is catered specifically to long time Mario Fans. I won't spoil any of what that stuff entails, because witnessing it for yourself is magical. I won't lie, it was magical for me. Part of why I enjoyed Odyssey so much is that it made me feel like a kid again. It's a feel good game, and I felt good while playing it. What makes it special is that it feels both old and new, but in a proper blend. Mario 64 had you collecting stars, while Odyssey has you collecting moons. You still need to complete objectives to get them, but there are way more objectives now. You'll get them for beating a boss, but you might also get one for kicking a can the right way. There are over 800 moons to collect, which is mind blowing. It might seem a bit like overkill to have so many, but I personally think they're fun to collect. They give you a reason to explore, and you definitely don't need to get them all.

What really sets Odyssey apart from its predecessors is the fact that Mario can possess enemies with his hat. It's been possessed by a being called Cappy, which allows him to literally become his enemies. Yes Mario has his platforming skills, but now you can literally become a freaking Goomba. When you throw your hat and enter an enemy they wear Mario's hat and grow a freaking mustache. Possessing enemies allows for all kinds of new experiences that add a lot of fun to the game. That's what Odyssey is to me. It's a fun video game. A lot of modern games are cool and have a lot going on, but aren't necessarily fun. Mario Odyssey is exactly that for me. It's an amazingly crafted game with a lot of love, but above all it's just freaking fun to play.

The Wind Down

2017 has been a hell of a year for video games, and it's finally starting to wind down. There are very few games left that I want to play this year, and that is kind of relieving. I still have a ton of stuff I want to try and finish, but know I won't. I've finished a lot of games this year, but I have also found myself putting a lot of them down. I no longer have the patience to play things I don't particularly enjoy. In the past I'd power through games I didn't like just to say I did, but I think those days are behind me and that is probably for the best.

I'm trying to play through the re-release of the .Hack//G.U. trilogy right now, but I'm having a bit of trouble getting into it. The Steven Universe game is the only thing I'm actively playing right now, and I am enjoying it quite a bit. I would have finished it already if I wasn't trying to stream the whole thing. The new Pokemon games come out in about a week as well, and I'm kind of exited to play those.

It's hard to continue to be excited after beating Odyssey. As I said this year has been bananas, and I might have gotten my fill of what it has to offer, but I must continue on! See you guys in a few short weeks.

Game Time - September 2017

I've been waiting for the month of October all year. Tomorrow one of my best friends is getting married. Then at the end of the month I'm going on a week long vacation leading up to my 24 hour Extra Life stream. I have an action packed few weeks ahead of me, but before I can fully dive in I have to tell you about the games I played in September!

The month started strong with Monster Hunter Stories. I am still playing it every so often, but have not yet completed it. I never would have guessed that a Monster Hunter JRPG targeted at children would appeal to me so much.

Then a few weeks later Capcom dropped Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite. The presentation of the game and marketing leading up to its release made it seem like it was going to be a garbage fire. Unsurprisingly people are trashing it to the ends of the earth and back. The kicker is that it's actually super fun to play! I really like it.

The last game I played was Cuphead. The hotly anticipated indie release has finally come out, and it's everything I was hoping it would be. The 1930's cartoon aesthetic needs to be seen to be believed. In motion it looks stunning. On top of that the frantic boss fights are very fun and challenging.

We have a lot to talk about. It's game time!

Monster Hunter Stories

The fact that I love Monster Hunter is no secret. I feel deep into its trap a few years ago and haven't looked back. It's been a while since a Monster Hunter game has been released in the West, and for some reason Capcom decided to keep XX as a Japan only game. While Monster Hunter World will release in late January the only thing to tide me over until then was Monster Hunter Stories.

The Monsters you know and love are here, but they're small and cute now!

I normally never download demos of games, but I had to know what this one was about. What's crazy is that the demo is just the first five or six hours of the game. You can do almost everything available to you, and the progress even carries over to the main game. By the time the demo concluded I was hungry for more, and ended up getting the game when I otherwise wouldn't have.

I think the most surprising thing about it is that it is essentially a Pokemon game. You collect and battle with cute versions of all your favorite monsters from the series. It starts off very simply. Battles consist of choosing one of three types of attacks, either Technique, speed, or power. Each beats another, so you're playing roshambo. If you lose a trade the enemy still takes damage, but not as much as they would have. Each monster has its own tendencies, so just like Monster Hunter you need to learn each enemies habits to beat them effectively. As the game goes on the patterns get more diverse and you can mix things up by using skills of your own. It has a ton of charm, and while it's not the most complex game out there it manages to capture the charm of Monster Hunter in its own way.

Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite

In my eyes Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite will be the new Street Fighter V. Everyone on the Internet will mercilessly dunk on it without having actually played the game. Alternatively it could be used as a case study in how to absolutely fail to market something effectively. From the start Capcom has mismanaged this games public perception. The models don't look great, but initially they looked even worse. Chun-Li's face looked so bad it quickly became a meme. It is also now coming out that the team was given a very small budget and an incredibly short time to develop the game (to the surprise of no one). When you add in the fact that the roster is largely old characters composed of re-used assets it's hard to see the game in a positive light.

Despite all of that, I decided to try it out anyways. My brother is an absolute Marvel vs. Capcom fanatic. Marvel 3 was the first fighting game he got truly good at, and I loved watching him play. Hell, I just love watching Marvel in general. So I am happy to report that this game has excellent gameplay. The fighting is good in this fighting game. I can's stress this enough. Yes, you only use two characters now instead of three, but the fact that you can tag your partner in at any time and continue your combos allows for so much creativity. The control has changed up a little from 3. You now have a light punch, heavy punch, light kick, and a heavy kick. Crouching heavy punch is a universal launcher, so doing sick aerial combos is still very easy to do. It's fast paced, and very fluid. It feels good!

Still screens look so bad, but it plays just fine.

Do I think this game deserves a lot of crap for the way it was marketed? Yes. However, when you actually play the game its easy to see that it's a good fighting game. I don't think it's wrong to like a fighting game because the actual game is great, but the content surrounding it is not. So far it has absolutely tanked in sales, but I am personally hoping for it to have a long tail. Like Street Fighter V they are going to be selling DLC characters. Capcom has a plan for this game, so thankfully I think we'll have many years of Marvel tournaments to look forward to.

Cuphead

Cuphead began development in 2010 and it is finally seeing the light of day. The 1930's cartoon inspired game was first shown in an indie game montage during a Microsoft E3 press conference. Details started to trickle out and it was revealed to be a sidescrolling boss rush game. Even back then it was said to be fiendishly difficult despite its playful cartoon look. At first there were only bosses, but the game was put back in the oven to add some platforming levels. I can safely say that the platforming levels are my least favorite part of the game, but the bosses are awesome.

Cuphead is a relatively simple shoot-em-up. You run from side to side and shoot magic bullets from your finger. The challenge comes from the fact that you need to keep shooting while simultaneously dodging everything that gets thrown at you. You begin each encounter with three health, and after three hits you're finished. In order to defeat your enemies you'll need to learn the patterns for each phase of the fight. Damaging enemies enough will get them to change up their strategy. It's cool, because you never know exactly how long a fight will go, but if you fail a progress bar of sorts will let you know how close you were to victory. To ease the burden of the game you can purchase different types of shots and charms to help in specific scenarios. The shots have varying damage and range, while charms will give you specific power-ups. While it's certainly possible to beat the game with the default shot and no charms it's not necessarily going to be easy.

If I didn't know better I would think this is a still from a 1930's cartoon.

The game is definitely about the gameplay, but it does have a story. It's actually surprisingly dark. Cuphead and Mugman sneak out of their home and visit a casino. They get on a hot streak in craps and think they're unbeatable. Turns out the Devil owns the casino and he challenges them to a bet. If they win, they get tons of cash, but if they lose he gets their souls. They obviously lose, but plea for their souls. The devil agrees to release their souls if the duo can collect other souls he is owed. So each boss you defeat is someone who owes their soul to the devil. Both this concept and the difficulty are in direct opposition to the beautiful and fun art style, which might be why everything works so well. This game controls like a dream and looks like you're literally playing a cartoon. Cuphead rules!

OCTOBER!

As I stated at the beginning of this fabulous edition of Game Time, October is upon us. I am unrealistically excited for Fire Emblem Warriors. I've been craving some mindless Dynasty Warrior action and now I can get it! However, the true best Switch game is also releasing. Super Mario Odyssey will be out right before the end of the month. I can't even begin to describe how ready I am to play a brand new 3D Mario product. It's been a long time since Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Odyssey looks like it's going to be a worthy successor.

What's even better is that both of those Switch games are going to be out in time for me to play them on a five hour plane ride. It will be my first plane ride with a Switch, and it should be a great time.

Podcast Episode 29 - Kingdom Hearts

After 15 years I return to Kingdom Hearts to see if I still like it as much as I used to. As much as I like to dunk on the series now, I still love it.

Game Time - August 2017

Despite the fact that games were coming out, I took the time to finish my playthrough of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix. I did almost everything there was to do, and it took about 50 hours. Sometime in the near future I will be recording the August podcast about the experience. Let's just say that the game aged a lot better than I would have thought.

Outside of HD re-releases of PS2 games I played a ton of new stuff too. Sonic Mania, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and Mario + Rabbids are all excellent games in their own ways. I didn't expect to like any of them as much as I did. Let me tell you why. It's game time!

Sonic Mania

It's crazy to think that Sega was once going head to head with Nintendo in the console market. The lovable plumber Mario was going up against the speedy blue hedgehog Sonic. Back then, Sonic was considered by many to be a great game. In fact, many people still hold the Sonic games on the Sega Genesis in high regard. It is the popular belief that Sonic lost its way when the series transitioned to 3D. I personally don't agree with that because Sonic Adventure 2 is my favorite Sonic game. However, even I can agree that the series took a turn for the terrible during the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era. Sonic has been in a rut for years and Sega has largely been at a loss as to how to turn the franchise around. After years of failing to capture the Sonic nostalgia people crave Sonic Mania came along and changed everything.

Gotta go fast!

As someone who didn't own a Sega Genesis I don't have a huge amount of nostalgia for Sonic 1-3 like a lot of people do. Even without that I think Sonic Mania is brilliant on many levels. For starters it feels exactly like the Sega Genesis games of old. On top of that it combines classic stages with new and interesting mechanics. It's baffling that in 2017 I'm excited to play and talk about a Sonic game. Fans of the franchise have been burned so many times, but are finally being rewarded. Sega did the right thing by hiring the creators of Sonic fan games to make an official game. The movement and speed are top notch, and the music is superb. I can't praise it enough.

There was a period before Sonic Mania released where I began to question whether the old Sonic games were ever really good, or if they were just the best that Sega had to offer in the early to mid 90's. Sonic Mania quickly put my suspicions to rest, and actually reinforced how good the games were back then. The stages are huge and filled with a multitude of paths that most other platformers just don't have. It's nice to see a Sonic game both capitalize on nostalgia while trying to keep things fresh. If it was just a trip down nostalgia lane I wouldn't be nearly as impressed.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

Naughty Dog as a developer continues to baffle me. I thought that I was done with the Uncharted franchise after the 3rd game. It seemed played out, and had a decent enough ending. Then 4 came out and blew me away. The game ended in such a conclusive way that I thought we'd never see anything from the Uncharted franchise ever again. Hell, they even announced they were making The Last of Us 2. Yet, here I am about to tell you about the Lost Legacy. It's my understanding that it started off as a shorter downloadable experience, but the team had so much fun working on it that it morphed into a full game similar in length to the original Uncharted.

The Lost Legacy follows Chole, the smooth talking Australian thief from Uncharted 2. I always found her to be one of the more interesting characters that didn't get a whole lot of screen time. She's in India trying to find the Tusk of Ganesh. As with all Uncharted games she has a sidekick, and it just so happens to be Nadine Ross one of the main antagonists of Uncharted 4. At first they're at each other's throats, but as time goes on they get to know each other. It's an interesting dynamic that makes for a lot of interesting banter between the two.

Chole and Nadine murder just as well as Nathan Drake.

At its core it's just another Uncharted game, which I thought I'd be sick of at this point. However, I enjoyed it from start to finish. Sure the climbing and shooting can get a little tired, but the character interactions and set-pieces are always top notch. If anything the Lost Legacy proves that Uncharted can be about things other than Nathan Drake. If they decided to continue the series and follow different characters 8 to 10 hour adventures I'd definitely be along for the ride.

Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle

I want to start off by saying that I've never liked the Rabbids. When they first appeared under the guise of a Rayman title on the Wii I immediately disliked them. Weird, dumb, screaming rabbits just aren't for me. To be fair, they weren't supposed to be. They're geared towards kids. So when Ubisoft announced that they were actually making the long rumored Rabbids + Mario crossover for the Switch I was blown away. I was even more shocked that the game looked good, and I can confirm now that it is actually good. It's really good...

Mario now was a gun. That will never not be weird.

Normally Nintendo doesn't let anyone touch their intellectual property with a ten foot pole, so it's crazy to see what Ubisoft got away with. Mario and pals were given guns and turned loose into a strategy RPG similar to XCOM. It's not nearly as difficult, but it has similar mechanics and ideas. Everyone moves along a grid. can hide behind cover, and shoot. At first it all seems a little too basic, but once abilities and upgrades are introduced it can get pretty tough. The main thing separating it from XCOM is how the movement mechanics work. Mario and friends can dash through enemies to do damage, and jump off of their friends to trigger special effects and move further.

I've been having a lot of fun with the game so far, and it's even making me like Rabbids a little more. While I still think that they're not funny, I no longer get upset when they're on screen. In fact I think Rabbid Luigi is the best character in the game. His dash attacks do a ton of damage and steal health from enemies! Rabbids crossing over with Mario is not something I ever would have imagined, but somehow it works. Hopefully the general positive reception of the game makes Nintendo consider other collaborations and genres to enter the portly plumber into.

The Season is Upon Us

In years past the release of Madden in late August would signal a deluge of Fall video game releases. While that is still the case, game releases never really "dry up" anymore. However, I would say that the Fall is still prime time for Blockbuster releases specifically. For me personally September is a bit odd, because there are games coming out at the beginning and the end of the month. Nothing is really happening in Between.

The more obscure Monster Hunter Stories is going to be delivered tomorrow. Why Capcom decided to make a cute Monster Hunter RPG is beyond me, but I enjoyed the demo so I'll give it a shot. Then I pretty much have no interest in anything until Danganronpa V3 drops on the 26th, and then Cuphead a few days later on the 29th. There may be some other indie releases I pick up, but nothing comes to mind currently.

I'm kind of glad that I'll have a large gap between releases, because I'm a bit behind at the moment. Next time I write one of these I'll hopefully have played a whole lot of video games.

Podcast Episode 28 - Pyre

In this episode I talk about Supergiant Games' newest release. Pyre is an interesting blend of a visual novel and a fantasy sports game. At first it sounds weird, but it comes together into a very unique gaming experience.

Game Time - July 2017

This past weekend I went on a trip for a close friend's bachelor party. We went white water rafting, which is a bit out of my element. Despite that, I had an absolute blast. However, I did end up getting quite a spectacular sunburn. Even my knees are burnt... I am here now fighting through the discomfort to tell you all about what I played in July!

I am here now to fight through the mild discomfort and let you know what I've been doing. It's game time!

Spaltoon 2

When Splatoon 2 was first unveiled I was both excited and disappointed. I enjoyed the original quite a bit, but 2 just looked to be more of the same. Sometimes this works out for games, but the reason I liked Splatoon so much was because it was a rare new IP from Nintendo. Even more rare was the fact that it reached ridiculous levels of popularity on a struggling console (The Wii-U).

Now that Sapltoon 2 is out I can say that my initial disappointment has faded. I can't lie, it is certainly more Splatoon. Thankfully there are enough new guns, maps, and modes to keep me interested. The core gameplay is still the same as the original. You are squid kid and you need to shoot your ink all over the stage. The team with the most ink in the stage at the end wins. It's a simple concept, but it works surprisingly well. Some old stages return, but there are a fair amount of new ones as well. The same goes for weapons. The new weapon I enjoy the most consists of two pistols, called the splat dualies. They let you move quickly, and roll out of the way of enemy attacks.

Everybody gets merced by the Splat Dualies.

As for modes, the single player is a bit more involved this time around. It's still a bit weird though, because there are a ton of mechanics introduced in it that are never seen anywhere else. The new mode I enjoy the most though is the co-op hoard mode called Salmon Run. You team up with three other players to shoot down a bunch of Salmon and collect their golden eggs. It starts off relatively easy, but as you rank up it gets incredibly difficult. The bummer is that for some ungodly reason it's not available all the time. I just don't think any game modes should be locked behind a timer. Despite odd design choices like that, Splatoon continues to be a shining example of how stylish and interesting Nintendo can be.

Pyre

Pyre is Supergiant's third release. They started off with the action game Bastion, and then moved onto the strategy game Transistor. As crazy as it is, Pyre is another genre. It mixes visual novel and weird fantasy basketball. Very rarely do studios change up the games they make after each iteration, which is one of the things I love about Supergiant. There are things that you can always count on though, like beautiful art, and a well developed world.

The game takes place in a purgatory-esque place known as the Downside. People who have wronged or broken the law in the civilization called the commonwealth are banished and forced to live out their remaining days in the downside. That is, until you as a reader arrive. You as the player were cast down, because you learned how to read. The ability to read is forbidden, and you were found out. A group of weary travelers finds you broken in the downside and takes you in. Upon finding out about your ability to read they ask you to read a tome for them, which starts you on your path to freedom.

The rites start off easy, but get much more challenging.

You participate in a series of trials called the rites, which is the main focus of the game. In each rite you control three characters, but only one can move at a time. You start near your "pyre" which is a large flame that acts as your goal. At the beginning a large celestial orb drops in the center, and the goal is to run it into the enemies pyre. When you have the orb all you can do is jump, but without it you have an aura that if it hits enemies will remove them from play for a few seconds. There are a myriad of rules, but after a few games it;s easy to figure out what's going on.

The reason you're doing the trials is to earn freedom. After prevailing enough times you'll be given the option to send one of your party members back to the Commonwealth. The choices drove me nuts. On the one hand I really liked some of the characters, but on the other you're sending them away so you can't use or interact with them anymore. On the other hand you can fail the rites as well, but the game continues on anyways. It's an interesting experience that requires a lot of reading to get through, but in my opinion it was well worth it!

Kingdom Hearts Final Mix

I've been wanting to replay the original Kingdom Hearts for a long time, but I'm only getting around to it now. I don't have a lot to play right now, and the reveal that Toy Story 3 will be in Kingdom Hearts 3 got me really fired up about the series in general. I think once I finish it I'll record a podcast for next month with my thoughts on it as a whole after a full replay. In my mind Kingdom Hearts is still my favorite of all the games in the franchise. Back when the original came out it was such an interesting idea to marry Final Fantasy and Disney together in a brand new universe. At that time it was a simple story of light vs. darkness that got a whole lot more convoluted as the series wore on.

The reason I wanted to replay it was to see if my memories of the game were accurate. I personally always liked the original game more than Kingdom Hearts 2. Whenever I say that to anyone they scoff and don't understand my reasoning. As I stated above the idea of the original game is very innocent, but it's more than that. I think the gameplay is more fun. Playing this HD version now I still believe that. Kingdom Hearts 2 did add a lot to the combat, but it also dumbed it down at the same time with reaction commands. As much as I liked hitting triangle to see Sora bust out some cool moves it made every fight way easier. Sure the combat in the original is a lot of mashing the attack button, but the more abilities you get the deeper the combat becomes.

The original is simple, but in a good way.

This trip down memory lane has been fun for me so far, but a few things make me want to scream. For starters the camera is not great. Even with the added ability in the HD version to manually control the camera it still gets stuck a whole lot. It often feels like the real fight is with the camera as opposed to the enemies. I get that though, the game is old. The thing I can't excuse is how terrible Donald and Goofy's AI is during fights. Yes, you can change their tendencies, but it doesn't help. I have Donald set to use offensive magic as little as possible. Somehow he still enters every fight and then blows all of his MP spamming gravity. For a while in the beginning the two of them would enter every battle and then immediately die. It was baffling. Now that I've leveled up a bunch it isn't that bad, but man is it every frustrating.

I have not finished yet, but I stand by my words. I think Kingdom Hearts is better than Kingdom Hearts 2.

Waiting for the end

Normally there are a few things throughout August that I want to play, but somehow this year all three of the games I want in August come out right at the end. The new Uncharted DLC comes out the 22nd, but both Mario X Rabbids Kingdom Battle and Yakuza Kiwami come out on the 29th. So I don't really know how next month's edition will work out. I guess I could go really hard on these new games for a few days, but I might just wait to talk about them until the following month. I have no idea, but I look forward to seeing you next time.

Game Time - June 2017

June seemed like it went on forever. Somehow I managed to play the three games I'm going to talk about and about 60 hours of Final Fantasy XIV. The new expansion dropped, so I decided to get back in on the MMO action. I'm having more fun than the last time I played, but we're not here to talk about that.

2017 is shaping up to be a big year for fighting games tons of stuff is coming out and I'm playing all of it. I bit the bullet and got ARMS on the Switch. I had to know what it was all about, and I'm glad I did. The concept is really cool, even if I don't like playing it very much. On the other hand I also got Tekken 7 and it rules. I don't think Tekken can be bad.

After all the fighting games I needed a change of pace and picked up Hollow Knight. I enjoyed the journey even though it was filled with sadness and despair.

It was an interesting month, so let's start talking about it. It's game time!

ARMS

I did and still really want to like ARMS. Every time Nintendo creates a new IP I feel obligated to try it out. While I do find the character designs to be charming, I don't particularly enjoy the combat. It's not necessarily bad, it just doesn't really do it for me. The concept of ARMS is pretty simple. One day people woke up and had stretchy arms. They thought it would be a good idea to fight with their new arms, so they made a tournament. So yeah, you might with your arms in ARMS...

The character designs in ARMS are really cool. 

When the game was revealed there was a large emphasis on motion controls, which is the way I personally prefer to play the game. To play you hold a joycon in each fist in a punching grip. To punch you thrust out the respective arm, or both of them to grab your opponent. Movement is controller entirely by tilting in the desired direction. Jumping and dashing are performed with the bumpers, which can feel a bit awkward when you're tilting to move. The motion controls don't always work as intended, but they work just well enough. Traditional controls can be used as well, but I didn't find them to be particularly great.

By nature ARMS isn't as crazy as most other fighting games. Due to the fact that you're slowly stretching out your limbs to hit opponents there aren't really any combos to be seen. This means that the game is almost all about movement. Patience pays off, and I am certainly not a patient person. What bums me out is that there isn't a lot of content in ARMS. Really the only thing I can do is fight the AI, or get absolutely decimated by people online. Nintendo came up with a bunch of really cool characters, but they have almost no story or development behind them. Thankfully Nintendo is taking the Splatoon approach and will be updating the game for free over the course of its lifespan. It' s an interesting game, I just don't know if it's worth it in its current state.

Hollow Knight

When I first saw a screenshot of Hollow Knight I didn't find it interesting. However, after seeing it in motion I suddenly understood what it was all about. It has a stop-motion quality to it that I now can't get enough of. I wanted to wait and get it for the Switch, but the development of that version seems like it will be a little while longer.

Hollow Knight is a metroidvania style game where you play as a little bug dude with a nail. Your goal is to explore the ruins of a forgotten underground kingdom. Gameplay is relatively simple at first blush. You jump around and swing your nail at enemies. As you beat bosses more and more abilities are added to your arsenal until you are an unstoppable bug killing machine. The basics of combat are simple, but precise timing is often required of you. If you get injured in combat you can focus the stolen souls of your enemies to slowly regain health. This means that even though combat can be tough, it's not impossible to recover from most situations.

It's like you're playing a sad painting!

The atmosphere in Hollow Knight is universally bleak. You're exploring a defunct kingdom filled with sadness and death. Everything is drab and dismal, but in a way that I really appreciated. The color palette, music, and art all fuse together to make something that's appropriately depressing, but also interesting to explore. I really enjoyed my time with the game, even if it felt a little too difficult in spots. I also could have done without the Dark Souls-like mechanic where you have to run back to your body upon death. However, things like the simple yet-rewarding combat kept me interest throughout. I may even give the game a second go when it finally does release on the Switch.

Tekken 7

I really like Tekken as a franchise and Tekken 7 is no exception. The combat I've come to know and love is back again. Characters still have a billion moves each, there's a bunch of juggle combos, and the walls are super deadly. It's Tekken, but this time there's a cinematic story mode.

Everyone's favorite Tekken character the volcano returns!

When I first completed the story I left off with positive thoughts, but after some time to reflect I don't think it was that great. Yes, it has all the elements you'd want in a Tekken "story" like people being thrown into volcanoes and turning into devils, but it just didn't go as far as it could have. For starters a ton of new characters are introduced in this game and only three of them are even IN the story. What's up with Lucky Chole, and Shaheen? Who knows, because they're certainly not in the story. What really drives me up a wall is the narrator. He's a reporter who is trying to tie together all the random CG scenes as you play through them. His voice actor sounds like a robot. Every line is delivered as flat as possible. So you're getting all hyped up as you see people get punched through walls, but then you transition into a man talking super slowly with no emotion. It's a jarring transition that never works.

However, I will say that Tekken 7 still rules. Fighting in Tekken always makes me feel good. It's cool because beginners can play and have fun, but the level of depth in Tekken is nuts. I'll never be truly good at Tekken, but I'll at least have fun messing around with each character. The new additions to the cast are all fairly unique, which is always nice to see. I'm always down to play more Tekken.

Splatoon?

The summer lull is finally upon us. The only full retail product I will be purchasing is Splatoon 2 on the Switch. I'm eager to play new stuff on it, so that's cool. I'm just worried it won't be different enough from the original to justify its existence.

Supergiant Games new release Pyre is coming out as well and I'm pretty excited about that. It's like some weird NBA Jam and RPG hybrid. At this point I will play whatever the studio puts out.

Other than that I'm going to keep picking away at FFXIV. I completed the base game and am now moving into the first expansion. It's a lot more fun when its not just a series of bad fetch quests. We'll see how long my enthusiasm for it keeps up.

That's all I've got for now. I'll see you all next time!

Podcast Episode 27 - E3 2017

Everyone's favorite video game expo has come and gone once again. Tune in to the podcast so you can hear all about what made me get excited and or very upset!

Game Time - May 2017

I played three very different games in May. I started off with the rhythm game Deemo, then moved onto everyone's favorite existentialist robot game Nier: Automata and finished with the super hero fighting game Injustice 2. 2017 is a weird year.

Deemo: The Last Recital

I love rhythm games and that's exactly what Deemo is. Somehow I found myself reading a list of what a totally random website considered the best Rhythm games of all time. To my surprise a phone game made the list, so I had to check it out. After a bit of research I found out it was coming out on the Vita as well. I played both versions, but actually prefer the phone version quite a bit.

Deemo is a touch screen only game, which is why phones have an advantage over the Vita. A line sits at the bottom of the screen as piano keys fly towards it. When the keys meet the line you need to touch them. On higher difficulties tons of notes are flying at you at a time, so the better touch functionality of my cell phone makes me prefer it. The Vita is fine, but it's a bit too big to reach all the parts of the screen at the same time. It's also not as responsive as I'd like it to be. The touch screen isn't the only difference between the two versions though.

You need to hit the notes when they reach the line on the bottom.

The plot of Deemo is that a little girl wakes up and finds herself trapped in an underground area with a weird emotionless demon guy. The demon guy, Deemo is pretty good at the piano. When he plays a tree grows, so the goal is to make the tree grow so that the little girl can escape. It's weird because the songs aren't scored. The way to make the tree grow is complete a song for the first time on a difficulty, or full combo songs. As you progress the phone game has odd scenes with still images, while the Vita version has beautiful animated cutscenes. The Vita version costs $15, while the phone version is initially free, but then two dollars if you want to remove ads, and then another $10 for a while new scenario that the Vita version doesn't have. It's a cool game that I don't think many people are aware of.

Nier: Automata

Sometimes I feel like I'm one of the only people on the planet who played the original Nier. The fact that it got a sequel continues to baffle me. At first I was apprehensive, because while the original Nier was pretty rough it still holds a special place in my heart. It was kind of broken, and the combat was really rough, but it had memorable characters and tried to switch through so many genres I really liked it. It felt ambitious, which I really admired. Luckily Automata is just as ambitious, and just as weird. Yes, Automata plays a whole lot better, but it's still not anything stellar.

You need to kill all the machines!

So what is Nier: Automata you ask? Well it's a game about Robots who are fighting machines created by aliens on earth. Aliens drove humans to the moon, but the humans created an army of androids called YORHA to take back earth. Initially you play as 2B, who is a female combat unit. You have a sick sword and you kill a lot of robots in stylish, but mashy combat. It's not anything special, but it's engaging enough to keep you invested.

The real draw to Automata is the story. The game's director Yoko Taro is very weird, and that's reflected in the game. If you're interested in stories that are very into existentialism and asking whether or not machines can learn, then this game is going to be your jam.

Injustice 2

I have a weird relationship with games made by NetherRealm Studios. As a kid I was never super in love with Mortal Kombat, but I would play it from time to time. I got back into their games around Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe on the PS3. That's what I consider to be the new era of their games. Solid fighting games with a ton of solid single player content. When it comes to cinematic fighting game stories they have yet to be outdone. The problem is that I rarely have a lot of fun fighting. That's a bummer when the fighting is basically the entire game...

Get ready to beat up all kinds of DC characters for the second time!

The quality of Injustice 2 is ridiculous. The character models look great, especially when compared to the original game. It has a crazy amount of fan service for DC fans. If you're down for some super heroes beating the hell out of each other, then you'll probably enjoy Injustice. The story takes about four hours and lets you get a good sense of the mechanics and a handful of the characters. Outside of the story mode is where the game's true hook comes in. This time around you can open loot boxes to get sweet loot. The loot can then be equipped to your characters to give them different looks and abilities. It's an interesting concept that's turned off in competitive play, but it keeps me coming back to the game when I otherwise wouldn't.

The problem I tend to have with this studio's games is that I like them until I play against another human. I'm not the best fighting game player, but these games frustrate me like no other. I don't really know why, but I just can't grasp a lot of the systems in play. So I dominate the AI, but as soon as I play a real person I got stomped into the ground. This time around there's enough single player content that I don't feel like I need to try and take my skills online. This game is actually packed to the brim with content, and I'd actually recommend it to people who aren't looking to enter the competitive scene.

E3!

As with every year I am looking forward to E3. This year is going to be very interesting, because Nintendo has to prove that the Switch has a lot of stuff coming in the future, and Microsoft needs to sell the world on the Scorpio. Maybe Nintendo will announce their plans for the Virtual console on Switch. There are a lot of things I want to happen, but I'll just have to wait and see. I'll be back next month to tell you all about my favorite parts of the Electronic Entertainment Expo!

Game Time - April 2017

For the first few months of the year I tried to focus on playing one game at a time. Everything was going well, but then 2017 showed me that it had no intention of slowing down. Tons of good games are coming out at a rapid pace and now I have buried myself alive in video games. Right now I have started six different games, and finished none of them. Now I don't really know what to do. A few of them I'm not particularly fond of, but I find myself not wanting to really drop anything. It's quite the dilemma.

Today I am here to tell you about two of those six games, and one of the rare few games I have actually finished this year. Surprisingly it was a 96 hour journey that I managed to finish...

Other than spending a ludicrous amount of time on Persona I played a little bit of Flinthook and Yooka-Laylee as well. 

Flinthook

I feel like I've been seeing GIFs of Flinthook forever, but it only just came out a few weeks ago. It's a rogue-like in which you play as a little pirate man with a grappling hook. You run around pirate ships in space and shoot a ton of enemies. It's a very familiar game, except that you can use a sweet grappling hook. This is the "hook" of the game. The ships are split up into rooms, and each room is filled up with a bunch of grappling points. It's hard to describe, but the grappling hook is just straight up fun to use. It feels good to hook onto things. Everything is so fluid, and just feels right. I often find myself getting into a flow of grappling around and shooting.

Grappling hooks have never felt this good!

Like most modern rogue-likes you gain things that carry over after each run. In this you level up and get booster packs. Instead of cards they net you a bunch of powerups that you can equip to help you out. It works very well to keep you going. The powerups help, but so far I haven't found anything that negates the fact that you need to be good at the game. Like most games of this style it is quite difficult, but that's what makes them appealing to most people.

Yooka-Laylee

As a kid I was a big fan of Banjo-Kazooie. It's one of the few demos I remember playing as a kid at Target and being absolutely blown away. I managed to play through most of it again within recent years with the release of the Rare Replay Collection on the Xbox One. It's a whimsical platformer where you control the animal duo of Banjo the Bear and Kazooie the Bird. They worked in tandem to do cool moves and collect a whole lot of stuff. In recent years games like Banjo-Kazooie have become known as collect-athon games. It's an apt title, because you're really just collecting a whole bunch of stuff. In the years following the games release many other people partook in the genre, but it eventually faded out. However, now here we are many years later with a new one called Yooka-Laylee.

It sure looks a lot like Banjo-Kazooie...

If you're thinking that Yooka-Laylee looks and sounds similar to Banjo-Kazooie, you're absolutely right. Some of the original developers who worked at Rare on the original Banjo got together to make their own studio called Playtonic games. Their goal was to make a new collect-athon game in the vein of Banjo. They took to Kickstarter and the game was funded. It's out now and they certainly delivered on their promise of a Banjo-like game, but I'm personally not feeling it. It's one thing to pay homage to something you love, but it's another thing entirely to try and literally be what you love. Yooka-Laylee is trying to be Banjo-Kazooie in almost every way, but the downside is that it's not as good.

I don't want to say that our new Chameleon and Bat combo aren't fun to play as, but they're just not as fun as the Bear and Bird duo of yesteryear. It's a bummer, because I often find myself frustrated in this new game. The camera isn't great, the controls aren't tight enough, and the level design is so open that I often get lost. It's a game trying to be Banjo-Kazooie, but I feel like it doesn't have the same charm. I played Banjo within the past year and it still made me feel good. This game does not. It certainly delivered on its premise of being a new game in the collect-athon pantheon, but it's just not doing it for me at all.

Persona 5

Turn based RPGs are my jam, and it's not so often that they come around anymore. It's even more rare that they have a huge budget to work with, but that's what we got with Persona 5. Originally the game was slated for a Winter 2014 release in Japan, but a shift to the PS4 caused quite a few delays. Normally excessive delays cause me to worry, but with Persona I knew that I would be happy with the final product regardless of how long it took. This was one of the rare cases where I saw the original trailer and instantly knew that I was getting exactly what I wanted. I waited patiently until April 4th, and then pretty much just played the game for 96 hours. Sure, that was over the course of three weeks, but I did little else with my time. My takeaway from my time with Persona 5 is that I absolutely love it.

This game has a ridiculous amount of style.

The Persona series started as a spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei series. It focused on high school kids who were given the ability to summon their true selves from within, otherwise known as Personas. With that power they took on evil demons and saved the world. It was a traditional turn based RPG, but in the third game it morphed into something a little more. It was still a turn based game, but it added in social elements as well. This formula carried over to Persona 4 and 5 as well. Now you go into dungeons and fight monsters, but afterwards you can hang out with your friends and get to know them on a much deeper level. On the surface it sounds simple, but the game revolves around you doing a multitude of different tasks while on a time constraint. There's only so much you can do in a day, so you have to choose how you spend your time very wisely. It's stressful at first, but very rewarding in the end.

Persona 5 focuses once again on a group of high school students, but this time they're a group of thieves. They call themselves the Phantom Thieves, and their goal is to steal the twisted desires of adults and make them atone for their crimes. They do this by using a special phone app to enter a person's mind, where they will steal their most prized treasure. It's definitely a weird concept, but one that the Persona team pulls off with a ridiculous amount of style. Persona is known for its stylish nature, but Persona 5 takes that style to a whole new level. If you're interested in hearing a bit more about my time with Persona, then you'll want to check out this month's podcast, which you can find here.

2B or not 2B

Instead of digging into my stupidly large backlog I decided to start Nier: Automata. So now I am playing through that and having a blast. Having played the original Nier I kind of knew what to expect, but man is Automata a weird game. The director Yoko Taro somehow manages to out crazy himself with this one. Also you have to play through it like five times to see the whole story, which is extra insane.

Lucky for me the only new game I'll be getting in May is Injustice 2, so maybe I can catch up on my backlog. So next month I'll definitely talk about Nier, and Injustice 2. See you then!

Podcast Episode 26 - Persona 5

After taking a month off from Podcasting I have returned to bring you this episode about Persona 5. This is a game I've been looking forward to for years, and I have quite a bit to say about it!

Game Time - March 2017

Here we are on the precipice of April, and 2017 is already shaping up to be an incredible year for video games. However, I feel that while March had some incredible highs for me, there were also a few lows. To start, the Nintendo Switch came out alongside Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I love Zelda with very few caveats. Nintendo took a rick and tried something new. The payoff was a video game that's completely on another level. I recorded a podcast with my thoughts on the game, but it's always good to document them in text form as well.

Then there was Horizon: Zero Dawn. It released on the last day of February, so I only played it for a few days before moving over all of my time to Zelda. What's a bummer is that I don't know if I'll ever go back to it. Personally it didn't really grab me, which seems to go against the grain.

Finally, we have Mass Effect: Andromeda. This game causes me to get upset just thinking about it. It has so many issues, but somehow I can't seem to pull myself away from it. Perhaps my love for the original trilogy is clouding my judgement?

There's a lot to talk about, so let's get right into it. It's game time.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Nintendo is a company that is famous for rehashing a lot of its ideas. While that has brought them a lot of success in the past I feel that myself and many others have been craving something new. I got my first taste of new Nintendo goodness with Splatoon and now they have followed it up with Breath of the Wild. Initially I was skeptical that Nintendo would be able to pull off a compelling open world, but somehow they nailed it.

See that mountain? YOU CAN TOTALLY GO THERE!

I feel like I say this all the time, but Ocarina of Time is the game I can point to as the one that got me to continue playing video games. The sense of adventure I felt while traversing that world is something that has stuck with me. Now they have replicated that with Breath of the Wild. You can go literally anywhere in the game with some effort. If you can see a place, then you can definitely go there. Link can climb up almost any surface, and stamina is essentially his only limitation. The world is vast, and filled with areas that are exciting to explore. While there certainly is a lot of empty space, there are also many hidden villages and treasures to be found.

In terms of combat and plot, Breath of the Wild isn't spectacular. At first the weapon durability annoyed me, but in the end I grew fond of it. Since every weapon is breakable it encourages you to use a ton of different kinds. It's functional, but exploring the world was the main draw for me. If you want to hear me babble on for close to an hour about the game and all of its systems I recorded a podcast, which you can listen to here.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Have you every felt left out, because you don't love something that everyone else loves? That's how I feel with Horizon. Initially I was super excited to see Guerilla games making something new. The reviews hit a bit early for the game as well, and they were all glowing. I still hear people talking about Horizon with a reverence that I don't know if I'll ever be able to understand. I would have chalked it up to being tired of open world games, but then Zelda came out and I absolutely loved that. I feel like I'm missing out on something and its very frustrating.

Horizon centers on a girl named Aloy who is born as an outcast. At a young age she finds a device called a focus, which is essentially a Bluetooth earpiece that shoots AR things around that explain the world to her. The world of Horizon takes place after the apocalypse where machines have taken over and humans have gone back to a much more tribal state. Things like the focus that Aloy found are considered forbidden relics from the metal age of humans past. The people of the world seem to believe that humans in the past ruined the world. I find all of this to be interesting, but in what I played it never really took off.

I hope you like shooting robots with a bow.

The gameplay takes place in third person and focuses around a bow. You can get different kinds of arrows, which will affect the machines in different ways. You gain other tools as well, but the bow seems to be the number one way to take down your foes. The combat seems to be the thing that most people praise above all else, but I personally find it to be tedious. Where I am right now the bow does too little damage, so I find myself running up to enemies and using a melee attack until they die. Eventually I'll get back to this game, because I honestly feel like there has to be something I'm missing. Hopefully the plot picks up in a way that I can get behind.

Mass Effect: Andromeda

I love the original Mass Effect trilogy. I'd be willing to go so far as to say that Mass Effect 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. As a huge fan of Star Wars it was awesome to see Bioware essentially create a new Star Wars RPG without the Star Wars license. I immediately found myself enamored with the universe and its characters. Yes, the ending of Mass Effect 3 is awful, but it was not enough to taint the journey I had along the way.

Now we come to the 4th entry in the franchise, Mass Effect: Andromeda. If you've never played the original trilogy then the conceit of Andromeda might not make sense to you. Without spoiling the whole plot, let's just say that things in the Milky Way went sideways, and a few of the races decided to try and settle a new galaxy, Andromeda. A little bit of me feels for Andromeda while it's being railed on by almost everyone. When you're making the 4th thing in a franchise beloved by many, it's automatically going to be hard for it to succeed. Even if the work stands on its own it will always be held up against the original trilogy. Despite that, Andromeda feels like a straight to DVD sequel that no one really wanted.

All the familiar elements are here, but it just doesn't feel right.

If Andromeda felt new, I would feel a little more hesitant to criticize it. The main issue I have is that every character and many of the locales are trying to be things from the original trilogy. For example, the Citadel was a space station in the Milky Way where many alien races gathered. It was a central hub where you got to experience all kinds of interesting scenarios. In Andromeda it's the Nexus, which is almost the EXACT same thing as the Citadel! The characters are the same, they each fit into an archetype of characters from games past. So far I've had fun talking to them, but no one seems particularly interesting. Hell, even the plot is about finding ancient alien tech again.

The one praise I'll give the game is that the combat is fun. It's essentially the same third person shooting of the original trilogy, but it adds a lot of mobility through the jet pack. You can jump and dash, which adds an additional layer to combat scenarios. It's fine, but that might be the only place that the game is "fine." I feel bad saying this, but Andromeda is the buggiest AAA game I've ever played. Yes, some of the animations are bad. I don't think that's a bug though. I've had issues ranging from not being able to talk to someone because their prompt won't show up to not being able to interact with literally anything in the game. It's crazy. Most of it is the kind of stuff that would never get through QA. I had the game literally become unplayable, how is that okay? Even with the bugs aside, the underlying game seems uninspired. I'm going to see it through to the end, but that's really only because of my love for the franchise.

IT'S HAPPENING!

My level of excitement if through the roof today! Persona 5 comes out in four days! I have been waiting for this game for years. Usually games I wait this long for don't live up to my expectations, but I knew from the very first trailer that Persona 5 was going to offer everything I wanted from it. I have been craving a JRPG with a compelling plot for a while now and now it's finally here.

There's a slight chance that I'll talk about something other than Persona 5 next month, but like I said it's a very slim chance. The estimated time to beat is currently hovering around 150 hours so I don't know that I'll have much time to do anything else. Find out what happens next month!

Podcast Episode 25 - Breath of the Wild

Who's ready to get wild? I have once again recorded a podcast. This time it is about the brand new Zelda game Breath of the Wild. Enjoy it!