Author: schenksmill

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Game Ramblings #54 – Golf Story

More Info from Sidebar Games

  • Genre: Golf / RPG
  • Platform: Switch

TL;DR

  • Charming RPG with gameplay reminiscent of Mario Golf on the GBC/GBA
  • Entertaining writing, good mix of quests, and a bunch of clever hints at games from the past.
  • Golf game is serviceable and fun, despite obviously not being the focus of the game.

Out of everything that surprises me about this game, it’s that I can’t figure out who the hell the development team is.  The game’s credits simply had their studio name, they have no website or Twitter beyond the game’s info, and I can’t find a damn thing on Google.  Yet despite it all, this is potentially the best of the so called Nindies to come out this year.  While the game owes a lot to Mario Golf before it, it leans heavily on the writing and questing RPG to make a game that ends up being one of the best non-combat RPGs I’ve played in a long time.

Sometimes you play golf, sometimes you have rap battles.

Given that this is RPG first, the writing was always going to be important.  While this definitely isn’t deep, and it definitely ends abruptly, the writing is lighthearted and entertaining throughout.  Each course has its overarching story that takes place through a couple main quests and a lot of optional side quests.  These run the gamut from a Caddyshack-inspired battle against (and with) moles to rap battles between an old country club and a rival invading course to a haunted course where you help create a zombie army.  While the main story line of rising into the pro tour provides the overall push to the end, the individual stories and the wide range of characters you meet throughout are easily the thing that kept me going back and digging into all the available quests.

Among others callbacks, you sometimes just end up playing Pac Man while invading a base Metal Gear style.

There’s also a very distinct sense of playing homage to games of the past.  The visuals are very clearly styled after SNES and Genesis era games, even if the quality is somewhat higher than would have been possible on those systems.  However, it’s the game references that really hit home.  The Pac Man example above is just one.  There were also side quests based on Micro Machines, NPC hints at the Mario

Tennis series, a built in recreation of NES Golf, and more.  There’s a lot of love shown in bringing in elements of the past in ways that really succeed in giving a lot of life to the RPG aspect of the game, elevating it significantly above the similar Mario Golf games in that regard.

Even playing golf itself, you get a lot of non-standard variety like this Par 1 only course.

Since this is a golf game that side also had to not suffer, and while it’s nothing deep it works pretty well.  It’s a pretty standard 3-click setup (start, set power, set aim) for shots.  It also has your standard mix of curving, spins, and wind effect on the ball flight path.  There’s a bunch of different clubs with various effects on shots as well, giving a bit of flexibility in the gear build out.  The RPG aspect also plays out here, with XP going into the golf stats.  Like Mario Golf, increasing power lowers the other stats, giving a balance between quickly increasing shot power vs. not throwing other stats out of whack.

However, there’s also a lot of depth at play here in the style of game available.  For the most part, there’s really no normal courses.  Even the first course with a standard layout has mole traps that can cause your ball to be carried all over the course.  From there you get courses with no greens, tar traps instead of sand, par 1 courses, turtles that bounce your ball down the course out of water, and more.  In general you basically have to be ready for anything and can’t settle into the typical pattern of a golf game where any course generally plays the same.  The only thing that really was consistent here is that I could aim smack at the flag and more often than not sink the shot, which admittedly is both highly satisfying and incredibly hilarious when hitting a 300 yard shot into the hole during a match play event.

If I made the rules, this would definitely be in there.

I think my big takeaway here is that Golf Story proves the value of making RPGs without combat, particularly in lieu of Nintendo abandoning the idea of the Camelot-developed mobile sports RPGs.  There’s enough golf here to still be considered a sports game, but the RPG aspects pulled in bring so much to the game that non-fans can also find a lot to enjoy here.

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Game Ramblings #53 – Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana

More Info from Falcom

  • Genre: Action RPG
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Vita, Steam (Windows)

TL;DR

  • Great continuation of the Ys series, and one of the best RPGs of the year
  • Fantastically fun action combat
  • Serviceable story, but island systems that come out of it are great motivators for forward progress

The Ys series has routinely been a lot of fun, even if the actual releases have been extremely sporadic.  In the past decade we’ve only seen Ys 7 and Memories of Celceta, and internationally speaking the release of Origin.  However, the gameplay has continued to improve in quality, getting us to the point we’re at now.  While this is still definitely a game that feels like it was made for the Vita, it moves up to the console quite well, keeping fast paced combat, a great soundtrack to back it, and some really good systems involving the growth and maintenance of a town.  As usual, we’re left with Adol Christin being left in a bad situation, but this one works out as well as any game in the series before it.

Despite targeting the Vita, the visual style holds up well when scaled up to the big screen.

Going into an Ys game, the combat is obviously going to be the core focus.  The last few releases in particular have really strengthened their action RPG core, and VIII is no different.  The basic combat system is a main melee button, four mappable skills on a regenerating resource, a dodge, and a jump.  However, this simplicity hides a lot of depth.  One of the biggest pieces of the core combat is the timing of dodges.  When executed close to the point of taking damage, the game slows down the enemy combat, giving the player a period of time where they can lay into the enemy they’re facing with little risk of damage.  On the other hand, if they time this with their skill activation button, they gain a damage blocking shield and increased critical damage for a short period.  In addition, there’s a small weapon weakness system in place, giving the player an incentive to swap between characters to maximize damage, which can be done at any time with the press of a button.

Overall the system works really well to keep up the pace.  When taking on trash enemies, I often found myself dancing around spamming abilities to hit packs at a time.  When I moved up to larger enemies, it became a bit more of a tense chess match, where I’d lay off watching for reads on the enemy attack, then dodge and lay into the enemy while I had my small advantage window.  This was particularly evident during boss fights, where damage tended to be pretty fair, but could very quickly stack up into trouble if I started getting sloppy with my dodges.  There is a small wrinkle here where flashback sequences involving the title character Dana leave her to fight on her own.  However, as the flashbacks progress, she gains the ability to change forms, giving her the effective weapon triangle in the past without having to worry about the lack of party members.

Some bosses are impressive, others are just a good way to let dinosaur fans get a laugh.

On the story front, things aren’t as great, but they’re serviceable.  In general the story is pretty by the book.  Adol and the ship he’s on run aground, get stranded on an island, and adventuring hijinks ensue.  The cast all have their own motivations to getting off the island, but generally speaking they aren’t explored too much.  The story around the title character Dana, and why Adol was having dreams about her goes a bit further, but mostly only to provide a bit of reason to move forward.  However, because the story is so focused on survival and getting off the island, it forces the use of one of my favorite parts of the game, Castaway Island.

While you’re busy exploring the island of Seiren, you’re looking for a couple things; people and resources.  Finding the members of the ship you were on allows the village to grow.  Each person has their own little role to play.  Some people join your party as combat members while others open up shops for gear and potions.  Because the island is deserted there’s also no money system, so everything is received through a bartering system.  This heavy use of resources found in the environment enforces a really strong need to explore every little corner of the world, finding points in the environment where resources can be gathered, or that specific monster you need to kill to get one last piece of hide to upgrade your armor.  This system works fantastically well in practice, and provides a much more interactive system of gearing than your typical pattern of new town; new gear that so many RPGs fall into.

Side activities like fishing provide a nice distraction, as well as further resources to put back into the village.

In any normal year Ys 8 would have been the type of game that would push to the top of my list of favorite games, and as it stands it’s easily one of the better RPGs I’ve played this year.  The combat is fantastic, the story does well enough and pushes some great side systems, and the soundtrack really drives the game when it’s needed.  While this definitely won’t appeal to the Final Fantasy audience, anyone who’s a fan of the Tales game is going to find a lot to like here.

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Game Ramblings #52 – Metroid: Samus Returns

More Info from Nintendo

  • Genre: Action/Adventure, Metroidvania
  • Platform: 3DS
  • Originally Released on: Game Boy

TL;DR

  • Fantastic re-imagining of Game Boy’s Metroid II: Return of Samus
  • Additions to game break some of the expectations of the genre, but allow for a much higher challenge level of the base game
  • Core loop of 40 effective mini boss fights keeps action high, but doesn’t get stale due to increasing power level of the Metroids
  • Random note since it gave it to me, but my clear time was 8:38:13, which seems a bit on the low side of average to my surprise.

Nintendo is having one hell of a year.  Breath of the Wild and the Switch in general have been a runaway success.  Mario + Rabbids showed they could give control of their games to someone else and still maintain the high quality Nintendo feel.  Now with Metroid: Samus Returns, they’ve shown there is both life remaining in the 3DS, as well as some new ground that can be explored in one of their storied IPs.  This re-imagining of Metroid II is another fine example of what can happen when this series is given to outside developers, much like Retro and the Prime series, and also shows that 2D Metroid games don’t have to stick to their conventions and still be fantastic on their own.

Since some fans of the Metroid series are going to find these controversial, let’s start with some of the little changes and additions that this remake brings.  Fights against Metroids start and end with checkpoints, allowing you to not have to trek all over the place to guarantee save locations.  Along with some more generally helpful abilities, you have a rechargeable map scanner that also acts as a way to show blocks that can be broken.  In addition to the usual save points and ammo/energy recharge stations, there are also now teleport stations as a means of fast travel.  All of these things in general break some of the mold of exploring every little bit of land in Metroid games, and also break some of the re-traversal expectations of the series.  However, the actual end result is that the developers have been able to drastically increase the difficulty across the board, much to the game’s advantage.

Traversal in most Metroid experiences has usually brought relatively little danger outside of boss fights.  Enemies would do damage if you got hit, but more often than not the health drops they left behind would more than suffice to heal you back up.  This one definitely doesn’t follow that pattern.  It’s not unusual for a melee hit from a normal enemy to do half an energy tank or more of damage, and that’s just on normal difficulty.  Once you get to the Metroids and eventually bosses, multiple energy tank loss from one hit is expected.  The short version here is that even by end game, I could expect to maybe take 4-5 hits in a boss fight before I was dead, so being able to respawn in a checkpoint next to the boss room was particularly appreciated while I was learning fights.

This is particularly important, because the combat system in place definitely had some things that have to be learned for Metroid veterans.  On the smaller side of things, Samus can now root herself in place and aim 360 degrees with the analog stick.  While this does offer up significantly better precision for attacks, it also leaves her extremely vulnerable to quick attacks.  This is balanced by the new melee counter attacks.  If an enemy flashes, Samus can activate a melee swing to counter an enemy, leaving them open for high impact damage.  For boss fights in particular, this activates a little mini-cutscene where you can unload missiles without repercussions, which ends up being the biggest damage dealer against Metroids.

In general, these changes were a much larger positive than I was expecting.  The 360 aim opened up a lot of possibilities for much more dynamic boss fights, where they would hover around the room in spots where I had to play a balance of moving to avoid projectiles vs. stopping in place to get off a few precision shots for damage.  Once the enemy then came in range, the timing skill behind watching for opportunities for melee counters gave the game a feel more typical of heavy melee action games, which Metroid typically has not been.  Given that the developer MercurySteam was also behind the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow games, this perhaps isn’t that surprising, but it was very welcoming.

I think the best way to wrap this up is that I’m pleasantly surprised.  The studio behind this has released some great games, but it’s been a while since a 2D Metroid came out (seriously, Zero Mission was in 2004) and I was surprised they were being given so much of a chance to take liberties with the core gameplay.  By and large they’ve also worked really well.  The studio has been on record saying that they had originally pitched a remake demo of Metroid Fusion and been turned down, which led to this project.  It’s clear they had a lot of passion for the franchise anyway and it’s evident in the quality of the game they’ve released.  It’s also worth noting that a post-credits scene shows the rise of the X parasite from Fusion, which makes sense given it also takes place on the planet SR388 of this game.  Whether or not that’s just there as a tongue in cheek reference to their original hopes or the sign of something else, I can only hope that this and the upcoming Metroid Prime 4 are the beginning of more for this franchise.  It’s been on the side lines for way too long.