Developer: Mobius Digital
Platform: Xbox One
There's something about space exploration that draws me in, but I need some type of objective. The entire reason No Man's Sky didn't hit for me is because there was no real goal, and since everything was randomly generated the chances of happening upon a cool sight was very low. Outer Wilds is almost exactly what I had hoped No Man's Sky would be. Outer Wilds is a space adventure contained in a single hand crafted solar system. You play as the newest spacefarer from a species that recently started a space program.
At first there is no real goal other than to go to space, but it quickly becomes apparent that much more is going on. Your first space outing might be uneventful with nothing happening at all, or you could happen upon ancient writings speaking of a long lost race. Regardless of how it goes you'll either be killed by your own naivety on a new world, or twenty two minutes will pass and a comet will plunge into the sun ending all life. The good news is that your character can never truly die. In the beginning they communed with a statue that in essence saves your memories. Every time you die you start right back at the point before blasting off to space, but you remember everything that happened.
This time loop allows you to gather information and explore areas, but the twenty two minute clock is always ticking down. Objectives are never made explicitly clear, but you will gather rumors to investigate and things you learn about each one will be logged on the ship. Outer Wilds gave me a sense of mystery that most modern games just don't have anymore. Most games are developed with the idea that the player needs to see everything they can, so games end up being a guided tour filled with hand holding. Outer Wilds isn't afraid to leave things unexplained, which certainly won't be for everyone.
Game: Cadence of Hyrule
Developer: Brace Yourself Games
Platform: Switch
It's a well known fact that I like rhythm games, so it was a no brainer for me to pick up Cadence of Hyrule. Nintendo has been loosening their grip on their IP over the past few years and with the success of Mario and Rabbids hopefully the trend continues. This time the developers of Crypt of the Necrodancer got to take a shot at making a rhythm based Zelda game, and the result is quite entertaining.
I desperately wanted to like Crypt of the Necrodancer, but my lack of patience never let me get very far. Thankfully Cadence of Hyrule plays very similarly to Necrodancer, but is much more forgiving. Like classic Zelda games of yore the map is broken up into a grid and you travel across different screens. Each screen is filled with enemies, which you need to move to the beat to vanquish. When everything is clear you are free to move around as quickly as you want in that block. The cool thing is that enemies are repeated frequently, so you can easily learn their pattern. Unlike Necrodancer, Cadence of Hyrule isn't a rogue-lite. When you die you won't lose all of your progress, just a few items that are easily obtained again within seconds of re-spawning.
What makes Cadence so special is that it flawlessly blends the rhythmic gameplay of Necrodancer with the classic enemies, world, and music of the Zelda franchise. The level of quality seen here is that of a main line Zelda game, which is excellent to see.
Game: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Developer: ArtPlay
Platform: PS4
Most people consider Castlevania: Symphony of the Night to be one of the greatest video games of all time. When the mastermind behind the Castlevania games everyone holds so dear, Koji Igarashi left Konami he started a Kickstarter for a spiritual successor. In 2015 the campaign earned over 5 million dollars, and now over halfway through 2019 we finally received the finished product. For the past few years the quality of the game was a bit concerning. Trade show demos and backer previews suggested that the game was sluggish and looked awful graphically. Luckily the team at ArtPlay took the criticisms to heart and delayed the game a few times to make sure they got it right. What we ended up getting in the end is a high quality Symphony of the Night-like game.
Thankfully Bloodstained doesn't ape Symphony of the Night whole cloth and introduces some elements from the later games like Aria of Sorrow that Igarashi worked on. It's still the same old castle exploration with RPG elements you know and love, but now there is crafting and enemy power collection as well. It's chock full of content, and overall feels very good to play. There are over 100 spells to collect that are all upgradable, and there are over a dozen weapon types that all feel vastly different.
Despite all the praise I'm giving the game it is certainly not without issues. Patches have caused game breaking bugs and caused horrendous slowdown. It's odd because neither of those things existed in the base game. The team seems like they are working on fixes as well as a bunch of DLC, but it does take a bit of the wind out of the games sales for me. While it may not be the exact same Symphony of the Night experience everyone was longing for it definitely manages to capture a similar feeling and even expand on the formula in some ways. I'm looking forward to seeing the game improve with fixes and content over time and what the inevitable sequel will have to offer.
No comments:
Post a Comment