Developer: P-Studio
Platform: PS4
A few years ago a Persona 4 spinoff titled Persona 4: Dancing All Night came out exclusively for the Vita. It was a rhythm game featuring the characters of Persona 4 who would dance in the background of every song. It was an interesting concept that has now been copied almost exactly into dancing games for Persona 3 and Persona 5. The gameplay of these three games is exactly the same. Stars fly from the center of the screen and you need to push the corresponding button when the star overlaps it. It starts off simple, but obviously ramps up on higher difficulties.
The key difference between these two new games and the previous title is that they drop the visual novel-esque story mode and replace it with smaller bite size visual novel scenes. Now you don't need to sit through hours and hours of middling dialogue if you don't want to. It's entirely possible to stick to the actual rhythm gameplay, which I greatly appreciate.
Sadly there isn't a lot to these games. They each have around 30 songs in them from their respective games. I got the platinum trophy in Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight the first night I got the game in under 12 hours. I'm still working my way through Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, but the music and remixes are less appealing to me, and I need to complete the exact same challenges. While the games are fun enough on their own I don't know that they should have been split into two full priced games.
Game: Detroit: Become Human
Developer: Quantic Dream
Platform: PS4
David Cage games usually aren't my jam. I tried Indigo Prophecy and didn't really like it. In college I played through Heavy Rain, which I thought was okay aside from the totally unearned plot twist that came at the end. Something about the writing in these games never sat right with me and that feeling transitions over to the newest Quantic Dream game as well.
If you've seen a science fiction movie in the last few decades then you're familiar with the concept of androids developing emotions. Too many works to count have tackled this subject, but it's presented in Detroit as if it is some new and amazing. I'd give it a pass if it had any new ideas or amazing presentation, but it doesn't have either of those things. It's a story about racism, except it forgets that real racism exists.
At no point did I genuinely care for any of the characters in this game aside from a dog named Sumo. For the first two thirds of the game it feels like a random series of events revolving around the three playable characters rather than a cohesive story. Like previous Quantic Dream games Detroit is mostly a game about walking around and doing various quick time events for mundane actions. Previously I've been able to poke fun at the story of these games, but this time it was less comical. While it looked nice I don't know that it presented its ideas in the best way possible.
Game: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Developer: Bandai Namco/Sora Ltd.
Platform: Switch
Smash Bros. has been a part of my life since its inception. I have vivid memories of playing the original for the first time at a friends birthday party. It has always been a fun game to mess around with, but over the course of the past few years I had the fun of Super Smash Bros. sucked right out of me. A few of my friends got hyper competitive in it and somehow that drained all the fun out of the series for me. Instead of trying to improve for fun, I was trying to improve so I wouldn't be judged harshly for my lackluster play. That's no way to play a game that's supposed to act as a love letter to everything Nintendo.
I told myself that I would reclaim the fun of Smash Bros. with Ultimate and so far I have been very successful. I've played the game for over 80 hours now and have been having a blast. I was able to unlock all 73 characters during the first two days of its release. Since then I have played hundreds of matches and completed the single player mode.
This truly is the ultimate Smash Bros. game. It has an almost comical amount of content and caters to the casual player and people who want to play competitively. While it is largely the same as Smash 4 it brings meaningful mechanical changes to the gameplay. I won't get into all of them here, but I will say that the action has been sped up quite a bit, which is always a plus for me. It's more Smash Bros. and that's something I'm always down for.
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