Game Time - October 2018

Game: Super Mario Party
Developer: Nintendo
Platform: Switch

I don't really like Mario Party and I never have. However, there's something special about getting together with friends and talking as much shit as possible. It ends up being fun for a few hours, but I never really want to go back and play more of it. I feel exactly the same about Super Mario Party.

The last few games diverged from the classic board game formula where each player rolls a die, moves some spaces, and collects coins to buy a star. They got rid of all that for everyone to move at the same time and collect star bits. Thankfully this game is a return to the classic Mario Party everyone used to love. The stages tend to be a bit smaller than in the past, but at least you get to see all of the board events in a single sitting. The mini-games are generally pretty strong. Some of them work as excellent showpieces for the HD rumble the Switch Joycons are known for.

For the most part it's another Mario Party game. The main difference is that each character can either roll a regular die, or a character specific die. These die have pros and cons, but they make choosing a specific character actually mean something outside of aesthetic pleasure. It's a cool addition that shakes things up a bit, but it's not quite enough to move the excitement needle for me. It's a solid Mario Party game, but that doesn't really mean a lot coming from me. It's fun to play with friends for a few hours, but beyond that it's not great.


Game: The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories
Developer: White Owls
Platform: Switch (and everything else)

I first became aware of Swery 65 when I stumbled upon a video series about his game Deadly Premonition. The gameplay was abysmal, but the quirky characters and story pulled me in. He followed it up with the Xbox one launch game D4 where he attempted to make an episodic adventure game using the Kinect. Sadly Microsoft cancelled it after two episodes, which left him floundering for a bit. Recently he found his footing and started his own studio called White Owls. They Kickstarted a game called the Good Life about a town where everyone turns into cats at night. While that was coming together and being funded the studio was working on their first game called The Missing.

The concept of the game is certainly strange. You play as J.J. Macfield, a girl who is on a camping trip with her friend Emily. During a stormy night Emily wanders away from camp and J.J. desperately tries to find her. Very quickly J.J. realizes that she can get hurt and regenerate her body. This is the central mechanic of the game. J.J's body will get mutilated in various ways to solve puzzles. You'll need to weigh down platforms with limbs, catch on fire, get concussions, and roll through tight corridors as just a head. If it sounds a bit disturbing it's because it really is. The whole vibe of the game is a bit creepy and it's trying to convey something through its mechanics.

My biggest issue with the game is that I couldn't stand the actual gameplay. J.J. moves too slow, and every animation goes on for way too long. The overall performance was pretty rough on Switch, and I heard from someone who played it on PS4 that it wasn't much better there. I pushed through my low level of enthusiasm, because I know that Swery can tell a great story. In the end the game definitely delivered. I think it is an important story, but I can't really say what it's about without completely spoiling it. If any of this sounded interesting to you I suggest you check it out.


Game: Forza Horizon 4
Developer: Turn 10
Platform: PC (also Xbox One)

I haven't played a racing game in a long time, so I decided to see if Forza Horizon 4 would run on my PC. It's starting to get outdated, but I didn't want to have to bust out my Xbox One. Luckily the free trial of Xbox Game Pass allowed me to test it out for free. I'm glad I did, because it worked flawlessly. Much more importantly though I ended up loving the game.

Outside of kart racing games the last racing game I played for any extensive amount of time was Burnout Paradise and that was a long time ago. Most of the games on the market now are too much of a simulation for me. Thankfully Forza Horizon bridges the gap and sits somewhere between the insane acrade nature of Burnout, but isn't quite up to the hardcore simulation level of a traditional Forza game. This time you're attending the mystical Horizon festival in the countryside of England. In this fantastical world the Horizon car festival lasts all year long. This means that over the course of the game you get to experience all four seasons. I would have expected them to be purely cosmetic, but handling and weather actually change for each.

At the end of the day Horizon is a driving game. You pick one of the 8 billion cars you may have unlocked and choose a race to enter. There are tons of event types, so if you don't like something you don't have to do it. There are so many events that sometimes it's frankly overwhelming. It plays well and looks stunning. Even though I beat the "story" I have been going back in every so often to bang out a race or two.

Game Time - July 2018

Game: Octopath Traveler

Developer: Square Enix and Acquire

Platform: Switch

I am always waiting for new JRPG releases to whisk me away to an interesting world where I lose hours of my life. Much to my dismay Octopath Traveler did not do that for me. Prior to its release I had seen a whole lot of Internet chatter about how the game feels disjointed due to the eight characters each having their own stories while never truly interacting. Once I got my hands on the final release, I felt the same. In theory a game telling eight separate stories could be awesome, but because you can't play straight through a single characters story without a ton of grinding for levels it requires you to sample many different stories, so a true flow never develops.

The battle system is quite enjoyable. It's like a mix between Shin Megami Tensei and Bravely Default. Each turn your four party members will gain a bonus point. Like Bravely Default you can use these bonus points to attack up to four times, or power up a skill four times. The SMT comes in when you attack enemy weaknesses. Certain weapon types and elemental damage will break enemies after they are attacked enough times, which makes them unable to attack while decreasing their defense. It's a fun system that requires you to figure out each enemies weakness and whether or not you want to take a fight slow, or unleash attacks in rapid succession to break enemies faster.

I really want to like Octopath Traveler, but nothing about it is particularly grabbing me. It seems as if a great deal of love and care went into the game and it's sold enough copies worldwide to back up that claim. I'm going to keep chipping away at it, but I find myself not wanting to play for more than a handful of minutes at a time. Perhaps once Dragon Quest XI hits my JRPG thirst will finally be quenched. 

Game: WarioWare: Gold

Developer: Intelligent Systems

Platform: 3DS

I have always loved the WarioWare franchise. In an era where Nintendo wasn't really trying to put out a bunch of new things WarioWare was a shining beacon of hope. It was supremely weird and introduced great characters like the pizza delivery girl Mona, and the haunted girl we all love, Ashley. It's the kind of unabashed strangeness that I really love from Japanese games. The concept is that Wario needs money, so he hires his "friends" to make 3- 5 second mini-games known as microgames in order to get rich quick. With little to no instruction the player goes through tons of microgames trying not to fail. It's fast paced and manic, while still managing to be fun.

The franchise hadn't seen a new entry in many years, so when I saw that a new one was coming out I was ecstatic. WarioWare: Gold acts as a greatest hits collection for the franchise. It offers tons of new microgames and even a few new characters, but it also grabs fan favorites from the original, WarioWare Touched, and WarioWare Twisted. They are separated into categories of mash, touch, and twist. At first they're kept separate, but in later challenges you're forced to switch between all three.

It took me a total of three hours to beat the "story," however I loved every minute of it. I've been going back and playing it a bunch because there is an achievement system and I feel like I need to do them all. It's cool to see Nintendo continuing to put out new games in the WarioWare franchise. Hopefully this was a test to see if they should continue producing it for the Switch. 

Game: Dead Cells

Developer: Motion Twin

Platform: PC (Also on Xbox One, PS4, and Switch)

Buzz about Dead Cells started when it first entered early access last year. I personally try to steer clear of early access games that seem interesting, because I usually tend to play them a ton and then get bored before all the content is added. I didn't do this with Dead Cells. I bought it pretty much right away and thought it was awesome. Then, news of the full release in early August happened and I started playing it all over again! Dead Cells rules and if you'tr not playing it then you're a criminal!

I feel like the phrase "smooth controls" is overused in the video games industry, but with Dead Cells it truly applies. Moving around the character is effortless and feels amazing. You play as a weird guy who seems to be dead, but also can't really die. It's a roguelike, so you run through some randomly generated stages, but when you die you have to start back at the beginning. Like many others of its ilk you collect a permanent currency (cells), which you use to purchase upgrades to make each subsequent run easier.  I've been playing it a ton and I don't see myself slowing down any time soon. There are so many intersting places to explore and secrets to uncover. Like, why are there so many doors all over each level that you can knock on? They have to be for something!

I don't really know what to say other than you should totally play Dead Cells. It's on PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Switch. The Switch version seems to be having some issues later in the game, but they seem to be working to fix that. It seems like it's doing very well, which is cool because I can't wait to see this developer make another game. Dead Cells is the best roguelike in ages, which is saying a lot, because we're basically drowning in them at this point.  

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.

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!

Game Time - December 2016

Just when you thought 2016 was behind you, here I come with the December edition of Game Time. I honestly meant to do this a few weeks ago, (when it was still 2016) however I got caught up in some other shenanigans. I then went on a trip for five days, and got myself a sweet cold! So for the past week I've either been gone or in bed. That's not a great excuse because I should have been done sooner, but that's the one I'm going with! In 2017 I'm going to try and be more on top of my blog posts!

Normally I use December as a month to finish up smaller games I missed out on earlier in the year. I did a bit of that, but for Christmas I also have myself the gift of an MMO addiction... I decided it would be a good idea to get Final Fantasy XIV on the steam sale and try that out. Now I'm deep down the MMO hole!

The short game I finished was SUPERHOT, and boy did I enjoy the hell out of that game. It's about two hours long, but those two hours were ridiculous and awesome. At some point I also bought Gravity Rush Remastered on a PSN sale and have been chipping away at that.

Let's talk about all of these video games! It's game time!

Final Fantasy XIV

I tend to not play MMO's because I have can get addicted to things very easily. I've gone pretty deep in the past, so I tend to stay away from the genre. It also helps that I generally move from game to game very quickly. I don't generally have a lot of time to stick with one thing for the amount of time an MMO requires. However, I have a few friends who really like FFXIV, and they had been wanting me to try it out. The cost of the game and expansion were $20 during the Steam winter sale, so I took the plunge.

At first I was really not enjoying the game. The story was so slow, and boring that I almost stopped playing. The thing that kept me going was the fact that leveling up makes me feel good. After playing for around ten or so hours the "real story" starts and the story actually got interesting. I started to do cool and challenging missions, and began to have a great time. I've played for around 30 hours and am currently at level 28 on my main job.

It's me, Manny Manatron!

If FFXIV was a traditional MMO in every sense I may have dropped it already. It does have the usual combat. The main attack is an auto attack, so you click on an enemy and your character starts to go ham. The real "challenge" comes from using your skills and managing their cooldowns. I chose a Pugilist, so I use my fists to attack. I chose the class, because you have to pay attention and use the skills in a certain order to get damage buffs. That way I don't just zone out forever while I play.

Where FFXIV differs from other games in the genre is that you can have every class at once if you want to. They all start at level 1, and can go up to level 60 if you have the expansion. Currently my highest level job is a pugilist, but I have also leveled up the rogue job to level 12. This means that at any time I can change to a rogue and use a completely different set or armor, weapons, and skills. The benefit to doing this is that each job gets specific skills and perks that carry over to other classes. It's a really interesting system that reminds me a bit of Bravely Default.

It looks and plays like an MMO

I guess I don't really have a lot to say about this game. I'm enjoying my time with it, but outside of my addictive personality and the job system there isn't a whole lot of unique stuff going on. I just wanted to give the game a shot, because I've been on a bit of a Final Fantasy binge lately. I'm going to keep playing it, but I don't know for how long. I want to try finishing the content in the game currently, but that's a crazy amount of time I could spend playing newer games. I just have a weird compulsion to do everything in MMO's even though most quests are absolutely worthless and don't give you good rewards.

SUPERHOT

You may be thinking the title should be Super Hot, but you're wrong. It's SUPERHOT, and boy is it something to behold. I initially saw someone try out the browser game that the SUPERHOT Team put out to show their initial idea. The game revolves around a simple concept that doesn't sound cool, but when you're experiencing it in practice it's one of the coolest things I've ever done. It's a first person shooter where time moves when you move, and moves very slowly when you stand still. This allows you to pull off amazing feats that never really get old.

Initially I thought that the browser game was a cool tech demo that wouldn't really be able to become something more. I was proven wrong on every level. The setup for the story is that you meet someone in a chatroom and they hook you up with SUPERHOT.EXE. It's a cool new game that everyone's playing. You boot it up to be greeted by white environments filled with red polygonal men who are trying to kill you. Depending on the level you may start with a gun, or nothing. If you have a gun, then you can shoot your foes until you run out of bullets. The best option when you run out of bullets is to throw your empty gun, which will cause your enemy to reel and throw their gun into the air, which you can then catch and use. That description probably doesn't sound very exciting, but imagine pulling off that string in slow motion, and feeling like a badass. Then when you've cleared the stage your character inexplicably chucks whatever they're holding and the words SUPER, then HOT, accompanied by chanting of said words will happen until you click to start the next stage. It's awesome.

Shoot your enemies.

Outside of guns you can also pick up objects in the environment to throw, or punch your enemies to death. A bullet will kill an enemy in one shot causing them to shatter. Throwing objects will cause them to drop their gun for you take take, the same goes for throwing your gun at them. There are various points where you will also get a sword, which can be thrown for one hit kills, or used to kill enemies by swinging until it breaks. In my opinion the sword, and other melee weapons like the baseball bat are the most fun to use.

When I use the words first person shooter to describe SUPERHOT I'm only using them to describe what you're doing. You're shooting people in first person. Despite that fact it actually plays more like a puzzle game due to the time mechanics. The fact that you can essentially pause time means that you can think your way out of most scenarios. If you're skillful enough you can dodge bullets, or even shoot them out of the air with your own. If you get hit and die, then you can start the level over almost instantaneously. Each level offers a completely new challenge.

Melee weapons are my favorite.

While the story is over in about two hours, it felt like no time at all because I was having so much fun. Once it's over you unlock challenges like katana only runs, and things of that sort. There is also an endless mode which you can use to test your skills. The story is interesting and will sometimes have you quitting the game to chat with the person who gave you the game, and then going back in. It takes some pretty weird turns, but it just adds to the game's extreme sense of style. Overall SUPERHOT is an experience I would recommend to anyone.

Gravity Rush Remastered

Gravity Rush is one of the Vita only games that I was interested in playing. When I got one I tried to play the game for a few hours, but had to put it down. I loved the characters and the world, but using the gyroscope to control the main character Kat's gravity power was not something I wanted to do at all. Lucky for me the game was re-released on the PS4, but I almost let that pass me by as well. The only reason I'm playing it now, so far after its release is that Gravity Rush 2 comes out in a few short weeks and it looks amazing. In order to be ready for it I decided it was time to play through the original.

Gravity rush follows the amnesiac Kat who finds herself in the unfamiliar town of Hecksville with her gravity controlling cat Dusty. The central crux of the game is using gravity powers to traverse the world and destroy floating enemies called the Nevi. I really enjoy the gameplay now that I don't have to move the Vita around like a moron. On the PS4 you can just push R1 to activate Kat's abilities and then aim a reticle with the right stick to get you where you need to go. You're traversing a lot of floating islands and going to high areas, while upside down. It's like a super intense version of Mario Galaxy. There are often times where I forget if I'm actually on the ground or not so I have to look at Kat's scarf for reference.

The gravity powers are fun to use.

Throughout the world there are crystals you can collect that are used as the currency for upgrading your abilities. These crystals can also be gained by completing challenged like racing through checkpoints, or defeating a ton of enemies. It seems like none of the upgrades  are necessary to complete the game, but they sure make things a lot more fun. You can upgrade things like your falling speed, kick attack, and gravity meter. It's always good to be able to use your powers for longer.

The thing that strikes me about Gravity Rush the most is the world and its characters. The models and the world of Hecksville look beautiful. There are a lot of bright colors. Each district of the city has its own style, so the visuals change greatly over the course of the game. As a character Kat is very charming. Despite the fact that she's lost her memory she is very witty and genuinely funny. A lot of games recently get a little too heavy on the Internet humor and memes, but Gravity Rush is able to be funny in its own right.

For a remaster of a Vita game, this looks incredible.

I am about 3/4's of the way through now and the story is really heating up. New characters have introduced themselves and I actually don't really know where the story is going to end up, but I'm happy to go along for the ride. There's something about Gravity Rush that's super endearing to me, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Yes, the world and characters are great, but there's something about the package as a whole that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside while I'm playing it. I look forward to the second game!

2017

We're a few weeks into 2017 now, and I have yet to do any serious gaming, Like I said I've been on a trip for the majority of it and now I have a stupid cold. As we speak I'm hacking up a lung and it's very unpleasant.

In two weeks I will start my 2017 gaming binge by diving into Gravity Rush 2, and Yakuza Zero. I am super excited for all the games coming out this year. The Nintendo Switch is going to be detailed tomorrow night, and I'm getting super hype about it. I set my money aside as soon as the NX was announced, and the rumors are that it'll be cheaper than the $500 I put aside for it. If that's true it means I'll be able to get more games at launch than I anticipated!

Man, this year is going to rule and I seriously cannot wait!

Game Time - August 2016

I went quite a bit without playing video games this month, because I went on a week long vacation. Somehow, despite all the relaxation I managed to play a whole lot more in August than I thought I did.

Originally I expected to be playing a whole ton of No Man's Sky. However it didn't turn out to be as captivating as I wanted it to be. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a really cool game, but the "gameplay" aspect of it leaves a lot to be desired. That's why I ended up playing a whole ton of Starbound, which finally exited early access with its official 1.0 release.

Before I get into all the space video game talk let me regale you with tales of how I got homebrew to work on my 3DS and imported the newest Taiko Drum Master! It's game time!

Taiko no Tatsujin: Dondon! Mystery Adventure

Nintendo has been region locking their consoles forever, which is a total bummer. It's especially odd since both Sony and Microsoft have given up on the practice. There are a ton of games, especially on Nintendo platforms that don't make it outside of Japan. I've known of ways to make the 3DS region free for a long time, but the easiest and most common method required a cartridge that costs a ton. Somehow on the newest version of the 3DS firmware an exploit was discovered in the web browser that would let you run unsigned code by visiting a certain website. It's incredibly easy to do. I don't want to get into the specifics here. If you're interested look up 3DS browserhax and menuhax.

Now that my 3DS can play games from any region I made the choice to import a game that I've been wanting for a long time. Long time readers may remember that the last game I imported was Taiko Dum Master V Version for the Vita. The series releases on one console at a time, and for the most recent release it happened to be the 3DS's turn. V version introduced RPG battles to the classic rhythm game formula, but this new game takes it a step further. Instead of just battling Myustery Adventure adds a whole RPG adventure. You still battle enemies, but you also get to walk around an overworld and interact with various characters.

Explore the world as a friendly talking drum!

The core gameplay is the same as it has always been.  Red notes indicate head hits and blue notes indicate rim hits. If you're large they require you to hit two buttons of each type. It's easy to learn, but crazy hard to master. It still has the ridiculous Oni difficulty, which I don't know how anyone can realistically do.

Since the whole thing is in Japanese I don't really know what's going on in the story. This means that I get the most satisfaction from just playing the rhythm portion of the game. In the story mode you get into random battles as you walk around. This is fun until you realize that you're going to be hearing the same song over and over in each battle. Eventually the songs change as you advance, but the battles happen with such frequency that you'll grow to get annoyed by the songs rather quickly. Outside of that the battles are interesting. You collect monsters to fight alongside you and they all have their own unique skills. Luckily the google translate app works with pictures now, so I can loosely know what each creature does.

Recruit all kinds of monsters to do your bidding in battle!

So far I like the game quite  a bit, but I always like the core gameplay of Taiko Drum Master. It's cool that they're trying to add in more replayability as they continue on with the series, but I don't how valuable it is in the end. Yes, you're doing "different" things in the game, but in reality you're still just playing a Japanese rhythm game. That's totally fine by me.

No Man's Sky

When I first heard about No Man's Sky I became very excited. The thought of exploring a procedurally generated galaxy with all kinds of interesting planets. Then I realized that the team making the game was the same team that had made Joe Danger. For those who are unfamiliar Joe Danger is a sidescrolling motorbike game where you try to do tricks. It controls well and is a lot of fun. As you may have surmised it is vastly different from No Man's Sky in almost every single way. It was because of this that I tempered my expectations. Hello Games had made games before, but nothing on the scale of No Man's Sky.

Apparently most people who bought No Man's Sky didn't adjust their expectations as I did. The backlash I've seen for this game is bonkers. I'd like to say that it's totally undeserved, but it isn't. While I don't think No Man's Sky is a great game I do think that it's a technical feat. While they delivered a sprawling galaxy for players to explore it isn't necessarily "fun" like I wanted it to be. Yes there are technically a Quintilian planets, but when there's nothing to do on them other than mine for resources so you can get to other planets it doesn't make for a very compelling loop.

Who likes to mine resources?

See, that's what happens in  the game. You're stranded on a planet and you need to find the resources to fix your downed ship. You can go off on your own, or follow the path of Atlas and be guided to where you need to go. Once you get the resources you can move off the planet and go to another one. Then you, just kind of do the same thing over and over until you get to the center of the universe. You collect resources so that you can upgrade your equipment and collect more resources. There's a little more to do than that, but I'm largely being serious when I say all you do is collect resources.

This wouldn't be so detrimental to the experience if you started off with an appreciable amount of inventory space. Instead you'll be full up within minutes of starting the game. Inventory management isn't fun! Items don't even stack. If you get some carbon, you'll be able to carry a stack of it, but if an NPC gives you a magic ball you can only keep one per inventory slot. You can upgrade your personal inventory and get larger ships with more space, but you still need to be constantly looking in your inventory because there are other systems that require you to do so. You have life support systems that need to be replenished with resources, and your ship's fuel needs to be refilled as well. It's all a bit tedious.

You're going to be refilling your ship's fuel a lot.

When you're not foraging for resources you may come across one of a handful of events. There are settlements you can come across that will either have a person inside, a "puzzle" to solve, or a weird plant infection. I'm not exaggerating these are the three events you can have happen when you come across a settlement. Talking to NPCs is interesting, because at first you don't understand their language. As you explore plenets there are obelisks to find that will teach you a single word of the local alien language when you approach them. So far this has been my favorite part of the game.

Planets will also be inhabited by flora and fauna too. You can scan them and then upload the discoveries to the server for a reward. Each discovery grants some currency you can use to buy more resources. If you want you can name each discovery, but I found myself uploading them with their default names most of the time.

No planet I visited looked as cool as this.

No Man's Sky is really cool. The procedurally generated animals, plants, and landscapes are fun to see. However, that doesn't mean that you'll want to be doing it for long periods of time. This is why people are unhappy with the game. There isn't a lot to do other than explore. The lead on the game Sean Murray gave plenty of interviews prior to the games release and talked about tons of features they were planning. Not all of those features are in the final game, or have not yet been implemented, so now people are accusing Hello Games of false advertising. While I'd normally say this is ludicrous I do think that the marketing campaign behind this game could have been handled better For a very long time most people had absolutely no idea what the game even was. All they heard was that it had almost unlimited content through procedural generation and their minds filled in the rest. No one told them they were wrong, and instead the hype around the game grew to epic proportions. Like I've said a few times, the game is cool. I honestly think that with a few content patches this game could get a lot better, but right now it's just not doing it for me.

Starbound

Years ago I started to play Terraria with my brother and a few friends. I liked it better than Minecraft because it had a clear progression and minute to minute goals. I'm not the kind of person who can just build and have fun for hours at a time. I need clear and directed goals, which Terraria has. One night my brother showed us that a "space Terraria" was in development, which happened to be Starbound. It purported to be a Terraria-like game, but it took place in space with procedurally generated planets. At that time the game was in pre-production, but it eventually came out in early access and has now been fully released.

I played Starbound when it first came out in early access and enjoyed it to a certain extent. I began to tire of seeing the same prison colony on almost every planet and decided to give the game a rest. However, it did what an early access game is supposed to do. It showed me what the base gameplay would be like, so I knew what to expect when the game was completed. Now that the game is released officially I do like it a whole lot more.

Building is always more fun with friends.

To start I don't think that Starbound should be compared directly to No Man's Sky despite the fact that they are both procedurally generated space games. Starbound is meant to be a building game like Terraria and Minecraft. Hell, it looks exactly like Terraria because the lead artist is the same on both games. The comparison I will make though is that Starbound has a whole lot more going on with its planets than No  Man's Sky does. To be fair it is a lot harder to make 3D content than it is to make a ton of 2D sprites.

Starbound is almost literally Terraria in space. I know I've said that a few times, but it's 100% accurate. While in Terraria you have a single world, Starbound gives you an insane amount of planets to travel to. You can build on a planet, but you also have your own ship that you can place objects on. Since you'll be traveling across the galaxy it's best to store all of your resources and crafting tables on the thing you'll have with you everywhere. Starbound has an actual story progression to it, which I find to be refreshing. In Terraria all you did was beat bosses in order to unlock the next tier of ore and armor, but here you're on a quest to save the universe from a great threat.

This is Earth before it gets totally wiped out.

In order to save the universe you'll be visiting various planets and scanning objects that pertain to each of the game's races. Once you've done enough you'll be able to enter a mission, fight a boss, and then move on to the next mission. You don't have to though. If you're one of those people who's all about building and crafting sweet items you can do that as well. The story isn't a requirement and you can access everything without interacting with it.

When I find something cool on a planet in Starbound I get genuinely excited. Eventually I started to see some repeating areas, but then there are still new items to discover in chests as well. I feel bad comparing No Man's Sky to a much smaller 2D game, but it doesn't stop me from wanting to like exploring in No Man's Sky. In Starbound there is sweet loot to find, but in No Man's Sky all you can really find are new resources to mine and that's lame!

It's Time For More Cold Steel

God Eater 2 Rage Burst came out a few days ago and I've been playing a ton of that. Ir's the only Monster Hunter-like game that I still enjoy for some reason. Perhaps it's because the extreme anime edge the game has. It also helps that the combat is less nuanced than Monster Hunter, so I can mash like an idiot if I really need to. I've already played it for like 20 hours, so expect more on this anime hunting game in the next edition of game time.

You can also expect me to regale you with tales of Ace Attorney 6 and the 10 billion hour long RPG, Trails of Cold Steel 2. I played through the first game a few months ago with a friend and had a great time with it. It has one of the craziest ending twists that I've ever seen in a video game. I did the bare minimum and it still took me around 60 hours to get through, so I expect the second game to be similar in length. I don't know if I'll have enough time to beat it, but I will definitely be pumped to talk about it regardless.

It's been nice ranting at you all, but it's 4 AM now and I really need to get to sleep. See you next time!

Game Time - June 2016

This month I didn't play very many games. I was traveling around, going to concerts, getting sick, and building a hot new PC.

That's right, I built a PC and it works very well. I'm typing this up on it as we speak. Potentially I will now be able to play all the shiny new PC games that are released over the next few years. I'll tell you all about my build experience and what I got.

I did play a few games as well. I was trying to save money this month, so I ended up selling my tablet and used that money to buy the PS4 remaster of Odin Sphere. I also played Mighty No. 9. I backed the Kickstarter years ago and now it's finally out. Whether or not that's a good thing I don't really know yet.

It was an exciting month, so let's get right into it. It's game time!

I Built a Real PC

I've been saying for years that I was going to build a PC, but a few things were holding me back. The first, and most important was the money aspect. While you can build a relatively affordable desktop that's got a lot of power now $1,000 is still a lot of money. I set out with the goal of building everything I wanted on a budget of under $1,000. I ended up doing just that. All of my parts and the operating system cost me around $930. So far I've been very pleased with the results. I don't want to just sit here and list the parts, but the important pieces are that I got a 3.3 Ghz quad core I5, a GTX 970, and 8GB of ram. It's a solid build.

So, I've been putting money aside for this PC for a long time. The other reason I didn't end up building it until now is that I was scared to build it. That sounds dumb, but I've never built a PC before. Normally I'd be totally up for a learning experience, but if I somehow blew up a $350 video card I'd be totally screwed. Despite that crippling fear I decided to buckle down and build the thing anyways. I ordered the parts and they arrived within three days, which is insane. With all my parts gathered I watched no less than six build tutorials to make sure I didn't screw anything up.

In the end it wasn't really that bad. You just need to make sure you're not statically charged. You can get anti-static bracelets for super cheap. Overall it's just knowing where to plug everything into. It's kind of like super complicated Legos that you can totally destroy if you're not careful. I had a laptop handy so I could look stuff up any time I had a question or didn't really understand what I was doing.

After being stressed for like an hour I now have a fully functional desktop that can totally play video games. Well, I guess it didn't all go so well. One of the USB ports doesn't work. I am going to look into that at some point. Still, it's the first gaming ready PC I've had since around 2008! That's eight whole years without a proper PC. So obviously I'll be able to play all the hot new games, but it will also help out immensely with streaming. My streams will be able to look a bit better, and I can actually have chat open on the PC and not have it run my CPU off the charts. Praise be!

Now to close it out I've got some hot pictures. Note: I didn't really do any cable management.

Front view.

Side view, with my reflection in the glass.

Mighty No. 9

When the kickstarter for Mighty No. 9 showed up in 2013 I was excited. I was so young and naive then. Only now in 2016, has this game finally been delivered. It was delayed multiple times due to quality concerns. At first the delays were frustrating, but they eventually became comical. To make matters even worse every trailer put out for the game somehow made it look worse. Everything culminated in the trailer Deep Silver put out for the game a few months ago. There was an over the top announcer that would make anyone cringe, but on top of that the game looked bad.

Before I go any deeper into this I want to say that the game isn't awful. It's been getting railed on in reviews, and the beatings it has been taking are well deserved. Even I joined in to beat on it a little bit as I streamed my entire playthrough. I don't think it's a good game, but I can see what it was going for. It's disappointing that it turned out the way it did, but sometimes things go wrong in development. You'd think that a spiritual successor to Mega Man made by series creator Keiji Inafune himself would be a slam dunk, but it isn't. 

"Hey, it's me. Not Mega Man!"

That's what Mighty No. 9 is. It's an unabashed Mega Man wannabe. You play as Beck, who is Mighty No. 9. Instead of fighting robot masters you fight the other mighty numbers, who are robots. They used to be good, but have been infected by some kind of virus. It's your job as Beck to purify them. In doing so he gains their power, just like in Mega Man! Normally I wouldn't make this big a deal out of it, but the similarities are endless. Here, I'll list a few.

Mega Man - Rock and Roll
Mega Man - Dr Light and Dr, Wily

Mighty No. 9. - Beck and Call
Mega Man. - Dr. White and Dr. Blackwell

I mean seriously, he might has well have just named them the exact same thing. I'm not going to get into the fact that the DLC character Ray looks exactly like Zero to the point where it might as well be copyright infringement. The point is that Mighty No. 9 is like Mega Man. There is one major differentiating factor though. Beck has a dash ability, which is the core of the gameplay. If you shoot enemies enough they will glow and Beck can dash through them to absorb them. Doing this will proper timing will net you a high score, and give you a bit of a power boost. You want to do this to every enemy and not get hit so that you can "combo". The higher your combo the more points you get, and the longer you keep your power-ups. It sounds cool, and sometimes can even look cool in practice. It falls short when you mess up. The fast paced action immediately stops and you're slowed down to a glacial pace. I bet speed runs will be really fun to watch though.

To make matters even worse I don't think that the level design is very good at all. I often found myself dying because I had to make blind jumps, or enemies started shooting me before I could even see them. Mega Man had instant deaths as well, but at least I felt like I could have prevented them. The difficulty in Mighty No. 9 is all over the place. Sometimes I'd struggle to complete the level only to annihilate the boss on the first or second try. The best part is that if you die, then you get to hear all of the cringe worthy dialogue again! Boy is all of the dialogue terrible!

This is a game that came out in 2016! Look at these graphics!

What's even more baffling is that the game looks like a 360 launch title. It's running on Unreal Engine 3, which is one of the most highly optimized video game engines at this point, yet somehow it still manages to run like garbage. This game should run at 60 frames per second at all times, but it doesn't! It sometimes slows down to 40 or below for seemingly no reason. However, what I think Mighty No. 9's biggest crime is that it isn't really trying to be its own thing. It's one thing to pay homage to Mega Man, it's a completely different thing to try and BE Mega Man. Mighty No. 9 has a solid foundation, but its execution falls short on almost every level. If they do end up making a sequel I hope they try to make it its own thing other than a soulless Mega Man clones. I also hope it looks and runs a whole lot better...

Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir

Odin Sphere originally came out on the PS2 in 2007. Back then I really wanted to try it out, but never got around to it. A few years ago they re-released it as a PS2 classic on PS3. I picked it up, but couldn't get into it. While the game looked beautiful and handles like a dream the frame rate just couldn't keep itself together. In many fights the game would slow to a crawl, and I just couldn't take it. That's why I was super excited to see that Atlus decided to remaster the game completely and bring it out again as Odin Sphere Liefthrasir. Thanks to this new release I was able to experience the game without and hitching whatsoever, and the combat was even made to be a little bit more user friendly.

Developer Vanillaware is known for making beautiful hand drawn games. Odin Sphere is probably their most well known work to date and for good reason. The art is incredible. It looks like a story book that has come to life. It helps that Odin Sphere is just that, a fairy tale. The plot relies heavily on Norse mythology.

No game about Norse mythology is complete without Odin.

Initially I thought I was going to have a lot to say about Odin Sphere, but now that I'm here I'm kind of drawing a blank. It's an action RPG that takes place on a 2D plane. You use your weapon and skills in order to hit enemies. Skills and hits chain together for more damage, and everything flows together very nicely. You play through the game as five different characters and the events of their stories all overlap. At first it's novel, but by the third person I was already tired of retreading the same story over and over. The voice acting is all excellent, and the visuals never stopped being a pleasure to look at.

It's a well put together package, but I don't think that the combat ever really evolves enough to hold itself up for the 30-40 hours it takes to complete the game. Each character controls differently and learns quite a few skills. However, I ended up finding a few skills that worked well for me in order to shred through enemies as quickly as possible.

The visuals in Odin Sphere are quite spectacular.

I had a lot of fun playing through Odin  Sphere, but I definitely think it went on for a bit too long.

Monster Hunter Returns....

Normally the summer is a bit barren when it comes to video game releases. July doesn't have a whole lot to offer in terms of things I want to purchase except for Monster Hunter Generations...

Now that Monster Hunter seems to have gained a bit more popularity in the West I feel like we'll end up getting every new release that Japan gets, which may be devastating for my social life.

Next month you can expect me to talk about Monster Hunter, and maybe Overwatch? I don't know. We'll see when we get there.

Game Time - April 2016

I played two "hard" games this month, so to balance them out I played a whole lot of an easy mobile game as well. It's crazy to think that this will be two months in a row I'm writing about a mobile game.

Normally I talk a lot of mess about at least one of the games I play each month, but this month I don't really have a lot of negative things to say. I truly enjoyed the three games I'm going to tell you about.

Hopefully this is a trend that continues!

Hyper Light Drifter

I've been following the Development of Hyper Light Drifter for a very long time. Needless to say I was very excited to finally be able to play it. Prior to its release I didn't really consume a lot of coverage about the game. I watched a combat video, and a few of the trailers, and just from that I knew I wanted to play the game as soon as possible.

It's weird, because the developer of the game describes it as a combination of Diablo and Zelda. I definitely agree with the Zelda, but not at all the Diablo. For starters it's not an RPG, and the weapons you get don't really have stats. You don't even really level up. I would however call it a faster paced Zelda. The crux of the game is that you are a dude with a sword. You can slash your sword, shoot a gun, and dash. The dash is super quick and allows for you to dodge incoming enemy attacks.

Think of it as a much faster Zelda.

At first I thought the combat was super hard, but eventually I got used to the pace of the game and started to do a lot better. You need to be careful, because enemies can shred your health when they get in a few hits. It's important to learn how to use the dodge early on, or you're going to have a lot of problems. Each enemy has a set attack pattern that they will repeat. Once you learn what it is you can dash appropriately to get around them and get in a few slashes. It's very important not to get greedy, because like I said the damage enemies dish out is severe.

Browsing gaming sites I've seen all kinds of opinions about this game. Some people think it's too hard, and others think that it focuses more on style than substance. Like I said, I don't think the game is super hard once you get used to the mechanics. It gives you all the tools you need to do well. Dashing and slashing are great, and the addition of your gun makes things a bit easier. The style versus substance argument is also one that I do not necessarily agree with. Yes, Hyper Light Drifter is a beautiful game with some amazing pixel art. While the combat isn't ridiculously complex, it is varied. There are quite a few enemy types in the game and they all move and hit differently. The game is rather short, but that doesn't mean it isn't a substantive game. It's filled to the brim with secrets and challenging combat.

The game is absolutely beautiful at times.

If there is one thing I could criticize Hyper Light Drifter for it would be the way it tells its story. To be honest I don't know what's actually happening in the story. There is no dialogue, only cutscenes. I believe that the main character has a disease that he is trying to cure by finding vials of antibodies around the world. I have no way of actually knowing this though. To make things more confusing at the beginning of the game there is text telling you how to dash, shoot, and slash. However, after that there is nothing. You have to figure out where to go and what to collect on your own. It's both frustrating and cool at the same time. Looking at the crazy map and figuring out where you need to go is fun at first, but if you miss something then it's super annoying to find. I'm of two minds on this. At first it's rough to figure anything out, but by looking at the environment you can form ideas about what's going on and what you need to do.

Hyper Light Drifter is a cool game. Dashing around and cutting down foes with a laser sword feels satisfying. It's only around eight hours long, but there are a ton of secrets to find. If you are a Zelda fan, then I recommend checking the game out. Right now it's only out on PC, but it should be coming to the PS4 at some point.

Dark Souls 3

You may have already seen it, but I recorded a podcast about Dark Souls 3 and my thoughts on the Souls series in general, which you can find here. I talked a lot about the game in general, but here I'll be talking about the Dark Souls 3 specific changes and how I felt about them. I want to preface this by saying that I enjoyed Dark Souls 3 a great deal and I can't wait for the DLC. It feels like a fitting conclusion to a series that has reached a ridiculous level of popularity. At this point in time most people have played Dark Souls, so I'm going to assume you have a base level of knowledge. If not, then you might want to skip this section.

Okay, so I didn't really like Bloodborne very much. I think it was a great game, but it just wasn't for me. While it was similar to Dark Souls in many ways it forced you to play as a light character and dodge all the time. In Dark Souls I like to play as a walking tank man with a great sword. Tank through most fights and obliterate the enemy with a ton of damage. You couldn't make a build like that in Bloodborne, which is why it was less appealing to me. Much to my dismay Dark Souls 3 took some of the things I didn't like about Bloodborne and it really bummed me out. For starters armor doesn't really matter in Dark Souls 3. Yes, some has better defense than others, but not enough for it to really matter, The extra weight makes you fat roll, so you have less invincibility frames when rolling. In the previous games in the series that didn't matter to me. I could still roll well enough and if I got hit I could tank through it. Dark Souls 3 makes armor more cosmetic, because you can't upgrade it at all. This meant that I had to drastically change my play style to beat some of the games bosses.

Even this guys armor is straight out of Bloodborne!

I tried to be my tanky build for as long as I could. When I reached a certain boss I could no longer continue to play the way I used to. The boss was too fast, and I would get obliterated again and again. I took off most of my heavy armor and switched to a lighter sword and beat the boss without getting hit. That sucks. I shouldn't have to change my play style. The issue is that many of the enemies in Dark Souls 3 are faster than they were in the previous games. The changes to armor make it a lot rougher for a build like mine. However, I still managed to make it through the game easy enough.

Other than that I liked Dark Souls 3 a lot. I felt that the bosses were more unique than they were in 2, and the areas were a lot more open as well. Dark Souls 2 felt too contained to me, so it felt good when 3 opened everything up a lot more. It's still very linear, but the areas are wide enough to feel like the game isn't just leading you down a singular path. I actually feel like the linearity of the game fits with this being the final game in the trilogy. You're being pushed towards a conclusion.

So much fan service! *Squeeee*

Dark Souls 3 would be a good place for people to enter into the franchise, while at the same time it is filled to the brim with things that only people who have played since the beginning will understand. In my opinion this iteration teaches the player what they need to do better than any of the others. It's entirely possible that I only feel this way because I've played all the other games in the series though. I am sure about all the fan service though. There were multiple times where I entered a new area, or got a new set of armor that had me squealing in delight.

It's the same type of game that we've all come to love over the past few years. It's hard, and can get very frustrating. If you didn't like any Souls games prior to this, then Dark Souls 3 won't change your mind. It's a fitting conclusion to what is in my opinion a brilliant series. I just can't decide whether or not I think it;s better than two. I might have to wait until after the DLC comes out before I can find the answer. Regardless, the original will always be my favorite.

Kingdom Hearts Unchained

I am normally not a fan of mobile games, which makes it odd that I'm talking about another mobile game this month. I fully expected Unchained to be a shallow cash grab, but instead ended up finding something that I enjoy quite a bit. Yes, it is still trying to get you to pay cash, but I think that it's really bad at doing that. Like most mobile games that have come after Puzzles and Dragons, Unchained uses a stamina system to gate how long you can play. The issue is that everything in the game costed half stamina for the duration of April. This meant that I could play a ton of the game at a time and level up rapidly, which refills the stamina bar.

The game plays a bit like Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories. However, instead of cards you put medals into five slots on your Keyblade. When in a battle with heartless your medals will appear in order. You can do one of three things to attack. If you tap an enemy you will focus all of the damage on the enemy you tapped. If you swipe across the screen the damage will be split across all the enemies. Finally you can swipe on your current medal in order to do its special attack. Each medal has a different special with a cost between one and three. As you defeat heartless you regain some of your special meter. It's a simple system, but it works. There are also some interesting wrinkles to the regular mobile game formula like leveling up stamina, and health through cosmetic items.

I really like the title screen for some reason.

It's only been a month, and I've become one of the top 2,000 players in the game. The fact that everything was half stamina allowed me to fully level up most of my medals, which normally wouldn't be able to happen. Now that we're in May and everything is back to its original stamina cost I'm going to have to slow down a lot, which is a bummer.

Normally I'd play a mobile game until I hit a wall with leveling up, but there's something that keeps me going in Unchained. When I started the game I created a Party, which is essentially a guild. Including me we have about six active members. Each week the game ranks parties based on how much experience all of the party members have gotten. We managed to make it into the top 500 parties, which is insane. All of the people around us had the maximum of 30 members. That's insane! For some reason I like the feeling of seeing our party succeed with so few members. It keeps me coming back to the game on a daily basis.

The gameplay is simple, but I enjoy it.

It helps that the game has been out in Japan for a long time now, so they can add in "new" content to the version I'm playing at a quicker rate. This means that something new is happening on a weekly basis as opposed to a monthly basis. I don't like waiting, which is why I've stopped playing a ton of other mobile games. Also, I have yet to hit a bullshit paywall. I was able to get high strength medals and get to a high level without paying anything. I'm probably going to keep playing this game for the foreseeable future.

War Isn't About Being a Hero

For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to import Gundam Breaker 3 from Asia. It's a Gundam game where you build custom gundams and then battle other gundams. It seems really cool, and I can't wait to play it. Since I ordered a physical copy from PlayAsia I have no idea when I'll actually get it. It could come any time between this Friday and three weeks from now.

Other than that I will be getting Uncharted 4. I'm looking forward to seeing how Naughty Dog wraps up the series. Then at the end of the month I'll be getting the One Piece fighting game Burning Blood. It looks terrible, but I love One Piece too much not to get it.

Those will be the three games I chat with you about next month, so look forward to that!