One of the best examples of the Pre-BOTW 3D Zelda ARPG
Fantastic visuals that scaled up to modern systems nicely, as long as the screen filter is turned down
Combat generally simple, but a lot of fun thanks to the Celestial Brush mechanic, turning each encounter into a small puzzle
This is going to be a relatively short one, simply because there’s been enough said about Okami since its 2006 release. As far as 3D Zelda-style games go, this is one of the best. It starts with the typical Zelda pattern of going to a dungeon, finding an upgrade, and using that upgrade to finish the dungeon. It adds much deeper combat that is more typical of JRPGs, with each encounter being its own little experience. It uses a Celestial Brush system to literally draw in the world, repairing bridges, breathing life to trees, shooting fire at enemies, and more. It then wraps all of that into one a gorgeous aesthetic reminiscent of Japanese sumi-e painting. Put all together, it’s one of the finest examples of a Zelda game prior to Breath of the Wild, even if it wasn’t actually a Zelda.
There’s no talking about Okami without going straight at the visuals. That little cutscene above is just a taste of how the game looks, but by and large it’s always that gorgeous. Enemies killed with slashes float into the sky and separate into pieces like sheets of paper. Trees explode into flower petals when brought back to life. Even the static areas of the environment take on a beautiful painted look, with large outlines and simple color shading, giving the entire game a look that is entirely its own.
Combat takes place in its own little areas, giving a very JRPG feel to an otherwise action-focused system.
However, being an ARPG combat is still the focus, and this has much more depth than your typical Zelda game. Sure, Zelda has its moments in boss fights, but your typical encounter with any enemy in the world is a few quick slashes and the player moves on. In Okami, every encounter is its own little puzzle. Some enemies may be weak to elements, so the player can drag those in from environmental source to stun enemies. Some may have to be beaten down a bit before their weak points are exposed. Some enemies can’t be hit unless time is slowed down, giving an opportunity to rush in for the kill. In general, each encounter has its own little piece to figure out in order to get through the fight in the most optimal matter. Sure, you can usually also just beat on enemies until they die, but rewards scale based on time to complete an encounter, so effective use of the tools at hand is always the smart way to go.
All of this goes through the Celestial Brush system, which uses painted symbols to activate abilities. Drawing a straight line on the screen will activate a powerful sword slash that can cleave enemies and environmental pieces in two. Drawing a line from water, fire, ice, or lightning can cause those elements to help or hurt, depending on their use. A swirling motion will activate wind, blowing away fire that may be shielding an enemy. At its core, this replaces the typical items that Zelda games use, and allows for interactions that end up feeling more meaningful in their end result due to the need to draw on the fly.
The screen filter’s default option me feeling crosseyed.
I suppose the question then becomes, is this a good port? More or less, but it has a few rough edges. The default visual filter in place definitely had its problems, with some of the visual separation of things really looking awkward. Turning that down to low solved most of the problems. Otherwise things were solid. Performance was consistent throughout the game, which was a particularly nice improvement over some of the more complex bosses on the PS2. While the controls for painting were sometimes a bit awkward, the shape recognition is forgiving enough to allow for a lot of flex room in getting your symbols close enough. If there’s anything with controls that did translate awkwardly, it’s that Start/Select from the PS2 were moved to the PS4’s touchpad, which also doubled as a secondary way to move the camera. It didn’t cause issues in general, but every time I went to pause I ended up accidentally moving the camera completely in a place that I didn’t want to.
There’s a lot of bosses to defeat, all with their own tricks and fantastic designs.
Going back to this one 10+ years later was a nice treat. Its visual style was always its selling feature, but only translated so well in 480i. Luckily, the move up to 4k only helped the visuals, and the great combat system built around the Celestial Brush has aged extremely well. If you’ve played this before, I could see an argument for not coming back again, but anyone that missed this the first go around would be well recommended in taking a whirl.
Visually spectacular JRPG filled with large monsters and even larger environments
Overly complicated level and gearing systems that could have worked much better if the UI wasn’t so frustrating
Solid battle system that has been smartly streamlined since the previous titles, but still has late-game issues with overuse of one-hit mechanics
I’m going to open with what nearly had me shelving the game, because it was the same type of weird late-game design pattern that plagued both Xenoblade and Xenoblade X. For reference, I was at 84 hours in and on the final sort of boss run before the end of the game. That late into the game is not the kind of place you want to turn the design on its head.
Throughout the game, I had basically setup my party to where I was a DPS/off heal, one of my characters was a full time tank, and my third was rotating between pure DPS and mixed tank/heal, depending on my needs. Basically, the main character was in no way setup to actually BE a tank, but that’s what the end game expects of you.
The TL;DR without spoilers is that your entire party gets taken away, and two of the main blades that you develop through the story get taken away, leaving the main character on his own to fight a chain of 1v1 boss battles, without the two blades I’d built my gameplay style around, and needing me to scrounge together what blades I had to try and bullshit my way through the boss fights. Looking on Gamefaqs and looking at my roster I barely had what I needed leaving me with one choice; bullshit around mechanics to get through it.
I threw on two hammer tanks that have a shield move containing major block percentage and health regen, swapped between the two of them only attacking while the shield was down and the other blade was recharging, and made the fight trivial. Was it fun? No. Was it doable? Yes. That right there is the main problem. And that’s to say nothing of the final boss, which had some fairly RNG-heavy mechanics that made an otherwise easy fight into a dance of potential instant death.
So with that said, if I’d have known 20 hours ago what to prepare for to avoid having to do that, is this a good game? More or less, but it’s definitely not without its issues.
Xenoblade 2 follows the pattern from the previous titles where it looks way better than most games on the platform, even in portable mode.
Like its predecessors, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a large scale JRPG with huge environments, too many different systems that go into the character’s power, and a somewhat shoddy UI. It uses the same battle system as the others where it’s technically in real-time, but more or less plays like a turn-based RPG in practice. However, it’s streamlined a few things for better overall flow. The biggest problem that it has is that it doesn’t really attempt to fix the problems with its predecessors, instead adding more systems that didn’t feel needed.
While not everything is this large, the scale of the top enemies continues to impress.
Since it is the core of the game, the battle system is the thing that made XC2 last as long as it did, despite some of the problems I mentioned in the opening. The battle system in place is very much a JRPG-style one, but more in the vain of Final Fantasy 12. The player has real-time movement, but doesn’t attack while in active movement. Each player character (driver) is joined by a passive character (blade) and work as a pair in battle. However, it is a deep system, and I’d argue very nearly too complicated for most players. I’m bolding a few things here for reference of how many things are in place. Basic attacks happen automatically, charging up driver artes. Successful driver artes charge up blade arts. Successful blade artes can be chained to apply elemental orbs that can then be used to extend the length of a chain attack. Driver and blade artes are tied to swapping out blades, which can be done in real-time. If this all sounds complicated, it is, but it’s all very easy to activate thanks to some smart changes to the battle system.
Previous Xenoblade titles used a scrolling list to activate artes, so there was always a bit of a fight of scrolling around in menus to activate things. XC2 changes this to be much easier. Blade swapping is on the d-pad. Driver artes are on B/X/Y face buttons. Blade artes are activated with A for the player character, and LZ/RZ for party members, then use small quick time events for success chance. Chain attacks are activated with the Start button, and then use the blade artes for damage. Basically, if there’s a button around, it’s used for an attack. There’s no scrolling, no in and out of menus, no looking around to figure out what’s going on. It’s all extremely fluid, so even with the huge amount of things going on, it’s easy to do what you need to do.
This is backed by continued fantastic variety in what can be done with artes. There’s a whole mix of artes based around damage bonuses for hitting at certain angles. Heals can be either direct for healer blades, or incidental potion spawners for attackers. Tanks have a variety of threat-generation and damage mitigation for good back and forth timing play. Reaching into blades, a wide range of elemental types means that running a wide variety in your party will benefit your ability to maximize damage in any situation.
Despite everything going on, the rhythm of the fights always feels really good. Swapping between blades is fast and used often. Both driver and blade artes charge quickly and always feel impactful. Chain attacks offer a nice way to interrupt the enemy flow, and also offer the player a fun dance in trying to burst elemental orbs and extend the chain attack. Basically, the act of fighting is the best part of the game and will keep you coming back to do all the little side things that can be found.
Blades come in a large variety, though they do have some hilarious outfits.
However, when you start getting into the rest of the game systems, XC2 starts to feel like a game that has added systems just for the sake of adding them. This is best illustrated by all of the different forms of experience-based things that have to be gained to truly increase your party’s power.
There’s core XP from kills that goes into the character levels like most JRPGs. However, there’s also rested XP earned by completing quests and other side items that can only be earned by resting at an inn.
Killing enemies also earns SP, which is a currency for drivers to apply to passive skills, such as core stat boosts, ability to use certain abilities at the start of battle, etc.
Killing enemies ALSO earns WP, which is a currency earned per-blade to increase the level of the driver artes tied to individual blade types.
Every single blade has a unique affinity chart that has to be leveled up. This can be done in any number of ways, whether it be kills on specific enemies, collecting things in the environment, completing blade-unique side quests, and more. However, you have to go into the affinity chart of the blade to activate things they earn; it isn’t automatically activated when earning is complete.
Trust can be earned by completing quests and battling with blades. For most blades, trust is used to unlock new tiers in their affinity charts.
Some blades have multiple forms, which each need to be leveled separately.
For those who don’t care about spoilers, there is a unique leveling scheme:
Spoiler
One driver can also be a blade, but can only level one of those forms at a time.
[collapse]
One of the main characters also uses an artificial Blade, which as all the normal leveling systems, but also has a unique minigame that has to be completed in order to earn a unique currency that goes into core upgrades specific to these blade forms.
Part way through the game, the player inherits a mercenary guild, opening an option to send out unused blades on missions to earn XP, rewards, and affinity chart leveling. It basically becomes mandatory for leveling more than just your core set of blades.
If all of this doesn’t make your head spin, then you’re probably as much of a JRPG fan as I am. However, the problem is that these systems are all in separate menus found in separate places, and often interrupted by multi-second loads. At best it can be described as clunky, and really adds a lot of unnecessary hassle to a bunch of systems that probably could have been largely combined into passive earning through battle.
It’s a good thing the banter is fun, because some comedy breaks are needed after dealing with endless menus.
That said, the story kept me coming back, even when I wanted to shelve the game near the end. Although playing the first title isn’t necessary, the end of XC2 does tie the two games together nicely. The game’s overarching story is also fairly cliche as far as JRPGs go (boy finds girl, wants to help her achieve her goal, drama, betrayal, etc), but the interplay between characters is generally entertaining enough to rise above it. This is further extended in the return of the Heart-to-Heart segments, where specific drivers and blades act out little skits to the side of the story. It’s a lot like the Tales of series in that regard, but it’s always a nice little break from the rest of the game.
In general, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a tough game for me to place. I enjoyed the hell out of a lot of it, but the last 10 hours of the game were frustrating as hell for no good reason. I enjoyed the depth of the systems in place, but they make it hard for me to recommend to anyone but core JRPG fans, and the menu systems backing them were clunky as hell. If there’s any single thing I can point at that anyone would enjoy, it’d be the soundtrack. It’s phenomenal. If nothing else, this is another point that Nintendo had one hell of a 2017, giving us one of the best JRPGs of the year, warts and all.
Also Available On: Windows, macOS, Xbox One, Vita, Switch, iOS, Android
TL;DR
Decent take on a mashup of ideas from Zelda entries A Link to the Past and Wind Waker
Much improved experience playing the console version
Biggest weakness is in simplicity of the puzzles, though a end/post-game island shows promise in a sequel
The biggest surprise to me in playing this is how much the actual flow of the game had improved over the original iOS release. I’d played it a few years back using one of those clamshell controllers for my phone, and while the game showed a lot of promise, it was extraordinarily easy to kind of lose track of what you were actually supposed to be doing. Patches since that initial release, as well as the release on other platforms have brought a much better game, complete with additional cutscenes, voice acting, and some new items to help things out. While it’s still a bit weak in the puzzle solving department, this ended up being a pretty solid take on the classic top-down style Zelda game.
While the camera is spun 45 degrees, there’s no mistaking the viewpoint straight out of the top-down Zelda games.
Let’s get this out of the way; yes this is a direct take on the Zelda series. You go around to a series of dungeons, use a sword and shield as primary weapons, a handful of items as secondary helpers (including bombs, a bow, and a few helper magic spells), puzzle solve your way to a master key, fight a boss, and repeat. It takes place in a world where you have to sail around to small islands after a large apocalyptic event killed nearly everyone (hello Wind Waker!), where you ultimately set forth the events that should help rejuvenate the world. It’s a direct take, but it does a solid job of taking it on.
One of the big positive changes is that due to the inclusion of analog movement, you aren’t restricted to swings from a specific direction like the typical 2D Zelda games. This allows for a lot better fine-tuned control over attacking enemy weak points. The sword swings also have a small combo chain, rather than a single fixed swing and stab, giving a lot more potential in fighting in a more nuanced way. This is backed by some nice changes to secondary weapons. The bow and arrow is pretty solid on its own, with a bit of shot magnetizing to make things a bit more feasible at range. However, the inclusion of being able to shoot through flames to make fire arrows is a nice touch. On the bomb front, they basically work like Zelda items in the environment, but when thrown at enemies they explode on contact, giving a lot more direct way to use them offensively, and not depending on timing as much.
There’s a boss in every dungeon, each with its own set of mechanics to deal with.
However, that mechanic change can be exploited, particularly on bosses. The bosses in the game all have their own mechanics to learn. The one above for example has tentacles that have to be killed out before the weak point is exposed. In another, the player has to use a reflective shield to deflect a laser into the boss’ weak points. However, by the time I got into about the middle of the game, bombs were my weapon of choice at a boss. They have AoE damage to hit multiple targets, which is nice for taking out spawned adds. They also do significant damage on their own at range, so I didn’t generally have to get into a dangerous spot to throw them. Overall it made the difficulty of the bosses go way down, where I’d have preferred to see a little more use of clever mechanics to make specific items the preference, similar to Zelda series bosses.
There were other areas where I also saw this sort of not quite to Zelda level experience. The dungeons have the typical puzzle solving, but by and large they consisted of simple box maneuvering or one-time use of items (shoot a target, drop a box on a switch, etc), rather than more involved experiences. In general it made the actual puzzle solving pretty simple, which was a bit of a disappointment.
The Island of Whispers is the best puzzle-solving in the game, involving the collection of 10 cursed skulls.
The Island of Whispers is the one exception to the easy puzzles in place. This island came out in the 2.0 release of the phone SKU, and has been in the subsequent PC and console releases, and involves the collection of 10 cursed skulls across an entire island. Due to this, the entire island becomes the puzzle area, instead of a cramped dungeon. Some skulls are simply there to find if you’re paying attention. However, some require specific use of certain items, or chained use of multiple items. Some require manipulation of the environment in order to gain access to new areas. Basically, this one island shows a lot of potential for the sequel’s ability to grow in interesting directions, as well as the potential of the growth of team in tackling the ARPG genre.
So is this going to stand up against the Zelda series? No, not really. While it is solid, there are some core things that bring it down a few notches. However, I would say it’s worth the $15 asking price to play it. It’s an entertaining experience with at the very least solid mechanics, has about 10 hours of content to run through, and at least brings this style of game to some platforms that are often missing out on Zelda. While it’s not quite up to the level of the upper echelon, continued improvement by the team could bring us something really interesting when Oceanhorn 2 comes out some time here in the future.
So I also want to have a bit of an aside here on a particular fish (and ignore my PS4 typing skills), because I’m a sucker for fishing in videogames. The fishing system in place here is one that is inherently RNG-focused, with an emphasis on player endurance to catch the fish. The fish will somewhat randomly move left or right, with the player pulling against it. After a period of pulling in the correct direction, the fish strength meter will go down. If you pull in the wrong direction, or the fish is dancing back and forth, the meter goes up. In general, this means that the way to catch a fish is to ride out the points where you can’t make gains (and usually have losses), while holding out for the moments of rest where you can chip away at the fish.
Generally speaking this is a fun way to make use of an inherently RNG-based system. Skill can’t entirely stop the fish from fighting back, but it can stop things from running away from the player entirely. However, this all falls apart when the fish adds in an offensive mechanic that kills the player. Now instead of enduring for the big moments of gains, you’re rolling the dice that those moments of big gains will actually happen in time for the fish to get caught. It’s a weird change in mechanic that eliminates the skill factor and turns the entire system into an RNG mechanic. This is made worse by the fact that missing the fish LITERALLY MEANS YOU DIE, so you have to backtrack to the last checkpoint, heal up, do whatever is involved with that to get back to whole, and try again. It was a weird change that I only happened upon because I enjoy fishing.
