DWGames

2018-04-11

Game Ramblings #69 – Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

Genre: ARPG
Platform: PS4
Also Available On: Windows

TL;DR

Action-focused RPG battle system that is a lot of fun, even if it’s drastically different than its predecessor
Biggest negative is the ease of the main story path through the game
Kingdom-building content is the biggest focus for the player’s power curve improvements, but is going to be love it or hate it
Lots of side content between collecting citizens and killing tainted monsters

Ni no Kuni II is a bit of a strange game. While it’s technically a sequel, it only loosely shares a setting with the original, completely scrapped the original’s battle system, and more or less scrapped the originals Pokemon-style collection. While it also brought over the visual style of the first game, this one was not done in tandem with Studio Ghibli, so it’s missing a lot of the world charm of the first one. Taken on its own though, this is a really good game. Visually this is still fantastic and is obviously helped being on a generation newer hardware. The characters and story are still light hearted and enjoyable to play. In place of the first game’s combat, we now have a very Tales of action combat system that is strengthened by the inclusion of some collectible helpers. While it doesn’t necessarily succeed across the board, the fact that I got a platinum trophy on it says a lot about how much I enjoyed my time in the game.

While not necessarily as unique as the original was at the time, this is still one of the finer examples of visuals in an RPG.

While there are a lot of differences, it’s still pretty obvious this is in the Ni no Kuni franchise and universe. Visually, this is another pretty astounding game. While not directly a Ghibli product, it’s pretty clear that the employees they brought over into Level-5 have continued their legacy in the sequel. The writing also has a lot of that Ghibli feel. Despite the serious underlying story of a child king losing his rule to a coup, the interactions between the story’s main characters are often lighthearted and often pretty funny. It’s not shy about having serious moments, but it also doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s even a few nods for fans of the original game throughout, despite the sequel taking place presumably a few hundred years in the future.

However, that’s about where the similarities end.

Higgledys may not feel that useful, but they sure are kind of adorable.

The first obvious difference is that capture and collecting of monsters that you fight in the world is gone. In its place are the capture and collection of Higgledys. These act as little helpers in battle that for the most part act autonomously. Some are attack focused, some are healing focused, etc. While they do all have special attacks that can be used to provide additional support, they generally just kind of existed in my peripheral vision in-battle. Once I had a party of four that worked for me early on, I never switched them out for a new crew, despite the fact that there were dozens to collect. They could also be upgraded for better stats, but again I never really noticed the difference in practical use.

Combat is simple, but a lot of fun in practice.

However, the higgledys not being obviously useful didn’t really matter because the combat was a lot of fun on its own. At the end of the day this is pretty close to a straight rip of the Tales of series combat. You have skills and ranged attacks that use a mana resource, two kinds of basic attacks that also recharge mana, items that can be fired off if needed, and occasional special attacks. If that rings like Tales of it’s because it is, but the pace of combat is just as fast as the source and everything feels impactful.

If there’s one real problem with the combat, it’s that the core story path really is just too easy. Most trash can be cleared with an opening skill to clear away the bulk of the pack. Enemies that get killed end up dropping frequent mana and health orbs, so I didn’t really need to use items that frequently. Even on the boss end, the core mechanics around immunity during dodging often meant that I could take literally no damage in a fight if I was being even a little cautious. This is alleviated somewhat by the ability to fight 60 “tainted” monsters, which end up being the real difficult content in the game if done at appropriate levels. However, if you’re the type of player that skips side content in favor of breezing through the story, this won’t help you at all.

I’m a fan of city builders so when I was told to start building I couldn’t stop.

Also on the side content front is the entire ability to build your own kingdom. For me, building the kingdom and dealing with activities associated with it was very likely close to 50% of the time spent in the game. The core loop for kingdom building is to recruit characters, build buildings for their specialty skills, have them work in the buildings, and then either gather resources they find or have them research upgrades. On the upgrade front this could be anything from the ability to craft and upgrade weapons and armor, to buildings that allow you to upgrade your higgledys, to buildings that provide passive effects in battle, and more. In addition, characters must be recruited via completion of side quests AND the characters you recruit also often give their own side quests, so you’ll have the option of spending a lot of time directly dealing with your own citizens.

This is another section where if you don’t like side content, you’re going to simply miss out on a lot what is there. On the other hand, if you want the difficulty of the game to be higher, not upgrading your kingdom is a good way to miss out on a significant portion of your party’s power curve via all the available upgrades. However, if the completionist bug hits you, this is where you will be spending a lot of time.

Realistically I enjoyed the hell out of this game and want to recommend it to everyone, but I suspect it’s more niche than my brain is telling me it is. While the action combat system is probably more approachable than the first game’s system, you won’t really see it at its best unless you want to go searching for the actual difficult side monsters. While I enjoyed the kingdom building and side quest process of searching for new citizens, I can see where people would think it’s slow and grindy. While the story is entertaining for me, it definitely tends to lean into some pretty predictable results. If that all still sounds fine to you though, go give this one a try; you certainly won’t find me telling you not to.

2018-03-23

Game Ramblings #68 – Kirby Star Allies

More Info from Nintendo

Genre: Platformer
Platform: Switch

TL;DR

Really low difficulty continues to be the weak point of the series
Solid amount of content, lots of hidden secrets, really good end boss sequence
AI characters are surprisingly competent as co-op replacement; combinations of powers are a compelling addition to the Kirby formula

It’s been kind of the standard fare for the Kirby series over the last 10 years or so that the games end up being really solid, have one neat twist to their mechanics to stay fresh, but end up being really too easy. Planet Robobot gained a mech suit to do occasional wrecking of things. Triple Deluxe brought in a lot of use of multiple planes of depth. Epic Yarn had the obvious visual style and strong environmental manipulation. By and large they have all been really good games that leaned on just being purely fun, rather than difficult. Star Allies doesn’t change that at all, this time playing into a multiple character theme where you can recruit enemies to help you out, as well as combine their powers to solve puzzles. It’s definitely an easy game, but it didn’t end up hampering the experience in a negative way.

This game is flat out gorgeous right form the start.

I know this is a weird place to start rambles, but holy hell this game is beautiful to a point that really caught me off guard. While the Kirby series has always held its own pretty well, and in some cases had some unique visual treatments, I was not expecting this one to impress me so much. That screenshot above is the spawning spot for the first level in the game, and it continues to impress throughout. There’s a large variety in visual themes from deserts to forests to fields and later on right into space. Each level is distinct from the other, so as a player I never grew bored of the areas I was going through. For a game built around keeping relatively similar gameplay throughout, this was a huge help to not feeling burned out on the experience.

Combos are the new thing in the game, and they end up working out really well.

But enough about that, let’s talk about what this game brought to the series; combination powers and multi-character gameplay, and how they feed into each other.

This game is 100% a four-character experience, and it doesn’t matter if that’s AI or players controlling it. Anyone can drop in and take over a party member, but the AI are competent on their own to help you out. However, the great part of the whole system is that everyone but player 1 is controlling an enemy archetype. Combined with Kirby’s continued ability to copy powers, this gives the party access to 4 core powers at once. This is backed by the fact that AI attack when needed and use their powers to clear puzzles, allowing the player to focus on simply exploring and finding secrets in most cases, rather than finessing the AI into precise spots.

The good thing that comes out of this system is that you can also combine powers. The screenshot above is one of them (rock power +ice power), and this combination mechanic is used in a ton of ways. Weapon-based powers can all gain elements to do new things. The ninja power can gain wind to throw air columns. Swords can gain fire to burn everything it touches. The rock gaining ice allows it to slide along killing enemies. However, this is also backed by some clever environmental mechanics. The ice power can freeze waterfalls. The bug power allows you to throw characters through breakable walls.

The end result of all of this is that the game’s difficulty can be low without negatively impacting the game. The challenge becomes the puzzle solving involved in using your party to find secrets in the environment, whether it be switches to open secret levels or puzzle pieces to collect for pictures. It’s by far the most puzzle solving I’ve done in a Kirby game, and it makes for a really satisfying loop in trying to find all the little secrets in each level.

Classic bosses return, but that shouldn’t be a surprise at this point.

In no surprise though, this game also doesn’t steer away from some classic expectations of the series. Standard bosses return, like the Whispy Woods tree or Kracko. You still romp through Dream Land for a while. The majority of the enemies that are there are still powers from past games. However, it never feels dull. It reuses what is expected of the series in new ways, either through new mechanics added to the bosses, or clever new uses for the absorbed powers. It gives the right blend of nostalgia and new, which has been a hallmark of the series for a long time.

Admittedly though, I did mostly play this game as a sort of no-thought gap game. I knew there were games coming out soon that I wanted to play (looking at you Ni no Kuni 2), so I didn’t want to play something long. This was a quick hitter, easily finishable in 6-8 hours. It’s also not difficult, so the level of frustration is low. However, it’s just flat out fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, once again brings some new mechanics into the series, but still plays enough of the old beats to be familiar. While it’s hardly going to be a game of the year candidate, it’s pretty easy to recommend taking a look at this one at the very least.

Also, as mentioned in the Kirby: Planet Robobot ramblings, Nintendo has once again put in an updated little adorable Kirby icon for their website. Nice touch.

2018-03-16

Game Ramblings #67 – Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology

More Info from Atlus

Genre: JRPG
Platform: 3DS
Original Released on: DS

TL;DR

Still one of the more interesting JRPG battle systems I’ve ever seen with a heavy emphasis on moving and grouping enemies for AoE attacks.
Good selection of new content for returning players that is well integrated into the mainline story for new players.
Doesn’t do anything to inherently fix the grind of the original game, but a new Friendly difficulty opens up some interesting potential for JRPGs to pull from.

Admittedly this is a game I shelved the first time around. It’s not that it was bad; in fact its battle system alone makes this game at least worth checking out. However, in the base difficulty this game is EXTREMELY grindy. Fights are mechanically interesting, but can be slow. Damage is large, so healing is often necessary. Healing burns mana, so items are necessary. Items cost money, so money is necessary. Running out of money necessitates more fighting, so you’re stuck in a loop. Generally speaking, it wasn’t even the bosses that were an inherent problem. It was usually just getting to the point where taking out trash in a new chapter felt reasonable without being a huge risk.

So, does the remake solve that? Nope. Does it do anything to really change the game mechanically? Nope. What it does so is add a new Friendly difficulty that is entirely too easy, but brings in some really interesting mechanics to eliminate the need to grind, and is something I hope to see more games explore in the future.

Combat is the core of any JRPG and this one is no different, cleverly mixing traditional turn-based mechanics with some tactical positioning systems.

Since this is a JRPG, I feel like I should start off with combat as it was and still is one of the strong points of this game. Radiant Historia pretty cleverly mixes pretty standard JRPG mechanics with a very tactics-styled positioning system into a quick hitting system where the focus becomes trying to maximize stacking of enemies to allow for multiple hits in one attack.

While the core system has your standards (basic attacks, magic attacks, heals, buffs/debuffs, etc), the real core of the system is in repositioning attacks. Pretty early on all the party characters gain attacks that can move enemies around the board. Enemies that are repositioned into each other are then treated as single units for purposes of attack location, allowing for stacked enemies to all be damaged at one time. This then combines with turn order manipulation, either via speed stat, skills to delay turns, etc to chain friendly attacks, and the real focus comes down to basically trying to stack all enemies at once into a single spot and unleashing hell.

As an example, in the screenshot above, I could use Fire Storm to move the whole back line forward, then use line attacks to kill all 4 enemies at once. Alternatively, I could push the front guy back and do the same against the full back line. Other bonuses come into play (front line takes more damage but also does more damage) to allow for more nuanced strategies over the course of a full fight, but the core is in smart positioning for maximizing damage output.

All of these things elevate what would be a typically standard battle system into something truly special, and even in the grindy areas of the game allow for a lot of fun, particularly with the on-the-go nature of the DS family, allowing for a few interesting battles in a few minutes if that’s all the time the player has.

The core of the game is about free wheeling through time, with events in one timeline causing ripple effects on the other.

On the story side, this game is entirely about manipulation of time. The game takes place in a split timeline where you have unlimited attempts to set things right, so dying is really not a huge deterrent. However, each timeline has its own problems to solve, and problems that can unblock progress in the other timeline. In addition, there are distinct losing points (red nodes in the above) where the story progress effectively ends, forcing a restart at the nearest chapter.

Overall this works as a good way for the player to have freedom in their choices. Hit a block in the story and can’t figure it out? Find a spot where a new side path can be completed elsewhere in the timeline, and you might be able to unblock things. Difficulty spike means you need to level up a bit? Jump back to an earlier point in the timeline where battle grinding is more practical. The freedom of choice to jump around like that is a thing that a lot of JRPGs don’t really give, and its an effective tool here when combined with the story background of jumping through time.

The Dunamis runs the set of side histories, adding new potential futures for the characters, as well as some additional back story to the world.

This is all maintained really well in the remake, and is padded by some additional new content both in the main timeline and in a new set of side stories labeled as possible histories. For returning players, this is the bulk of the content that they’ll be coming back for. While these aren’t story bits tied to the main line, they’re an interesting look at what could have been within the overall structure of the world. In addition, the woman running the Dunamis also provides a path to learning more about the history of the world the game takes place in, opening a path for some more interesting lore. However, this alone wouldn’t have been enough for me to come back for more grinding. The addition of Friendly mode was the real thing that brought me back.

The entire idea behind Friendly mode is that it provides a path for the player to skip unimportant battles. In the base game, if the player hits a unit on the field, they gain a preemptive strike to allow them to attack first in battle. While this was helpful, it didn’t eliminate the need to spend resources while grinding. Friendly mode takes this one gigantic step further. In this mode, if the user strikes an enemy in the field, they automatically win the battle, gain XP, and gain all relevant resources that would have normally dropped. The end result of this is that the only combat the player ever takes place in will be for boss battles and story-relevant battles, leaving the rest of the game to exist as a way to enjoy the story and figure out the time-based puzzles.

I’ve seen this mode described as the visual-novel version, and I think that’s about as close to accurate as I could come up with. The game becomes significantly shorter in this mode, and the story comes at a much more rapid pace, so I found myself being significantly more involved in enjoying the story as it came at me, rather than having huge grinding delays between story segments. It then felt even more important to be in battle, as it always felt like it served the story at that particular time, rather than being a consequence of needing to level up the party.

End of the day, I think this is something that more JRPGs should explore as a core feature going forward. The reduction in grind meant the game flowed much quicker and I never lost the story. If I WANTED to battle, I could also simply run into an enemy on the field and start battle, but it was a conscious choice. The one real downfall of Friendly mode is that it was also combined with an extremely lowered difficulty. Ideally, the Friendly mechanics would be combined with boss battles that are tied to the selected difficulty, leaving the challenge there where the player wants with the streamlined battle selection. However, for a returning player simply wanting to see the story, I think the lowered difficulty ended up being pretty ideal for me in most areas.

I guess this is a pretty easy one for me. This was a great game when it originally came out, and it’s a great game now. The problems that existed are still there, so if you’re a new player be ready for some grinding. If you’re a returning player, this is a <20 hour run with the addition of Friendly mode, allowing for the focus to be on enjoying the narrative. However, I think there’s enough there for anyone to enjoy to generally recommend it, assuming of course you haven’t sold off your 3DS.