Category: Adventure

Posted on

Game Ramblings #153 – Eastward

More Info from Pixpil

  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Platform: Switch
  • Also Available On: Steam

Unless something drastic happens, this is likely my last completed game of 2021, and it really wasn’t a bad one to end the year on. I’d seen this one described as a Zelda-like, which is really what caught my attention. That’s not necessarily a bad description, but it’s definitely an oversimplification. There’s a much greater emphasis on narrative moments and linearity than the 2D Zelda games, and frankly the combat is a lot different. However, it does share the DNA. While it doesn’t necessarily reach those lofty heights, it’s still a title worth checking out.

Once you get into combat in Eastward, it’s pretty obvious that this isn’t really a Zelda-like. It’s simultaneously simpler in some ways, but more complex in other ways, and that really breaks down into the interaction between the two characters. John is basically your primary attacker – he’s got a pan for melee and a handful of guns with slightly different characteristics, as well as a handful of bomb types for AoE purposes. Sam is not a damage dealer at all, apart from one specific enemy type, but importantly can shoot out a magic attack that causes time to freeze for the enemy that got hit. That ability is where she becomes special.

A lot of the core enemy combatants are frankly annoying to try to hit. They move fast or jump around a lot or do dash attacks through the player. They basically exist to be annoying and deal as much damage as possible while staying at range. The rhythm of the combat then becomes a pattern of switching to Sam, freezing enemies, then whittling them down with John. That can be freezing to hit at range with a disc gun or to hit in melee with a pan, but the end result is the same. Sam is an incredibly effective crowd controller, John is an incredibly effective damage dealer, but their abilities work in tandem to maximize effectiveness. Large count encounters can still be somewhat chaotic in a less fun way, but this is outweighed by the fact that the combat really hits its mark well during boss fights.

The other interesting mechanic that comes out of two PCs with different abilities is separation for puzzle solving purposes. Sam is short and can fit through tubes, as well as activate magic switches. John is strong and can pull large crates and blow up walls with bombs. Separating the two during puzzles often means chucking things across impassable barriers to help the other person move forward just a bit more until they can eventually reunite.

This is put to the test very well near the end of the game. At that point, there’s a string of puzzles that are all time limited. These were by far the most fun puzzles to complete because of the added level of stress. You’re really pushed to be accurate and fast, while also minimizing the use of resources so you can crank through a puzzle before time runs out. You may need to drop a bomb, charge an attack, and launch it across a gap to hit a switch, but if you’re not accurate it’s going to send you back to the start. You may need to separate the two characters, but if you hit switches in an inefficient manner, it may mean you’re wasting precious seconds waiting for a platform to move back through the world to you, causing you to miss out on time. It really ended up proving out the systems in a surprising way to me, largely because I typically despise time limited segments that remove my ability to plan out my actions more carefully.

Ultimately it’s the progression that really separated this one entirely from Zelda. It’s not that it’s entirely linear, but it’s not far off. The game takes place across a number of smaller hub worlds, typically with a couple of specific types of shops (upgrades, food stuff, general goods) and you’ll spend a couple of hours in the general vicinity, but this isn’t the open world of something like Link to the Past. This becomes especially true in the last few hours where the game is totally linear. Once you leave an area, it’s also not somewhere you can return to. If you miss something, you’re not getting it later on. This wasn’t a particular issue for me as one of the first upgrades you can buy is a hidden item sensor and everything is generally near the golden path, but it’s worth noting.

It’s also worth noting that this game had some weird stability issues on Switch. Throughout my play, this crashed probably about a half dozen times in about 20 hours. Particularly annoying were crashes that happened at the end of boss fights on a few occasions. This was also combined with some odd framerate issues when the enemy count got high. Having done some work on Switch titles, I get that the hardware is limited, but this wasn’t the type of game that I would have expected these kinds of problems to crop up in.

So at the end of the day, this may not be a game that will totally blow your socks off but it’s still something worth playing. It’s got a charming story backing generally fun combat and generally fun puzzle solving. It takes the general Zelda formula and changes enough about it to make this game feel unique without being unfamiliar. It makes a two-character core loop work well without feeling like a neverending escort quest. In general it just proved that it was worth the time.

Posted on

Game Ramblings #146 – Spiritfarer

More Info from Thunder Lotus Games

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Windows, macOS, Linux, Switch, Xbox One, Stadia

I put platformer there, but this game is really a lot more than that. It’s sort of a platformer. It’s sort of a management sim. It’s sort of an adventure game. It’s sort of a visual novel. It takes a lot of pieces to scratch a lot of itches all at once. But beyond that it’s just a spectacularly beautiful game, both visually and narratively. It’s one of the few games in recent memory I’d recommend just for experiencing the story itself.

Everyone will probably be initially caught by the visuals of this game, and that’s a pretty obvious positive. This is the same team that did Jotun and Sundered, and it shows. Visually speaking, the game is astoundingly beautiful. However, it’s not the only thing that really hits well on the presentation side. The game’s soundtrack and overall audio are all really good as well. It’s nothing in your face loud, but it really fits the game well. There’s a lot of subtle sort of ambient music in the background – enough to fit the theme of the areas you’re in or the events that are being started, and it all leads you to pretty easily know what’s going on at all times.

The gameplay side is probably the weaker section, but it’s still solid. Ultimately I think the weakness comes from it trying to blend too many genres at once. You’ve got a bit of a management sim at play here. You’ll be constantly growing vegetables and tending your fields and manufacturing linens and ore and metal plates and etc etc etc. You’re also putting all these resources into building the boat and upgrading buildings on it, both for you and the spirits on the boat. There’s a bit of an adventure RPG here. You’ll be going through lists of collection quests to help move your spirits to the afterlife. There’s a bit of a platformer here. Each individual island you sale to has its own platforming challenges, and you’ll pick up some powerups along the way (ex: double jump, ziplines, etc) to help you through those.

In being so many genres, none of them can truly stand out. The collection aspect is a bit of a grind, and you’re constantly spending time while you’re sailing growing or manufacturing or fishing to get resources and money. The quests are repetitive and mostly involve sailing back and forth to new locations. The platforming is fine, but the individual islands are so small that it never truly becomes a large scale platformer. Ultimately it’s a bunch of systems that are in place to support the narrative, and not necessarily systems that feel like they were fully fleshed out into a good set of gameplay mechanics.

I’m putting this next section in spoilers because I specifically want to talk about the story and don’t want to ruin it for those that still want to play the game for themselves.

Spoiler

However, the story made this worth the effort for me. The game is ostensibly the story of a person ferrying the souls of the dead on their final trip to the afterlife, however it becomes much more than that. As you meet and transport individual souls, you start to recognize the signs that the souls you’re transporting know the main character Stella. You start to recognize that who you’re transporting are souls of people that you know that are already dead. It then dawns on you that the reason you are transporting them is because Stella herself is dying, and you’re revisiting her life. The details surrounding Stella being a nurse for terminally ill patients slowly trickles to the front in a wonderful way.

Turning the idea of a life flashing before one’s eyes at their end of their life into something like this was an absolute triumph. You live Stella’s life through the eyes of those she helped at the end of their own life. The impact of helping these spirits and then bringing them to their final trip to the afterlife is emotionally affecting in a way that very few games manage. For some characters you end up incredibly sad that their life potentially ended on a bad note. For some, you’re glad to be rid of an asshole that did nothing but bring negativity to those around them. For some, you’re given the pain of seeing a good friend leave. Each spirit’s end is unique to a point where I was constantly fighting the pain of seeing them leave from the wish to help them get there. The culmination of all of this – seeing the story of Stella herself and how the various spirits intersected with her in life – was a great way to bring everything full circle, and ended the game’s narrative in a perfect fashion for me. All the questions were answered and I was left in a place where, despite knowing that Stella’s life was ending, I was happy for her having lived such a life of great purpose, and one that she clearly believed in.

[collapse]

It’s pretty rare that I recommend playing a game just because of story, but this is definitely one of those. The gameplay itself is fine, the presentation aspects are wonderful, but the story itself is why I kept playing. It’s definitely not a feel-good narrative, but the emotional impact of it is at a level that is rarely seen in videogames, and within recent memory can’t be duplicated for me. It ends up being an incredibly unique look at death and how it affects those around it that I cannot recommend it enough. If the gameplay doesn’t really feel like your thing, at least do yourself a favor and watch a narrative pass on Youtube, but I think it’d be a disservice to not experience it yourself.

Posted on

Game Ramblings #143 – Watch Dogs: Legion

More Info from Ubisoft

  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Platform: PS5
  • Also Available On: PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series, PC, Stadia

I really enjoyed Watch Dogs 2. Ya, it’s clearly an Ubisoft open world game with all the things that come with that. Ya, it’s clearly got some elements of Grand Theft Auto. However, where it stood out was in its use of stealth and hacking to make direct combat largely a choice, and not a necessity. Legion continues that path, and improves in it in a number of ways. While some of their story and metagame choices didn’t hit as well as me, the stealth aspects alone ended up being enough for me to recommend this one.

We’re starting here because the stealth spider is where I spent probably 75% of my game time. I’m not kidding. As a gadget, it does damn near everything the player can do in terms of the core loop in Watch Dogs. It can take out guards, it can hack things, it can open doors, it can pick up items. What it also does is give a much smaller visual footprint, allowing for an even better ability to hide. It transforms the series from something where a stealth focus feels like a fun but lucky situation into a place where stealth is absolutely a primary way to play the game.

However, this thing isn’t just useful for stealth on its own. Outside of combat and need to get in tight spaces? Use the spider. Stuck in cover trying not to get shot? Toss the spider thing out to flank your enemies and start taking them out one by one to open things up a bit for you. Need some sight lines but don’t have a camera to hack? Toss the spider out to a spot with a better vantage point. It’s such a versatile tool that in a lot of cases it would feel incredibly overpowered. However, in game like Watch Dogs? It just makes sense thematically with all the hacking and hi-tech involved, and makes sense within the gameplay where stealth as a full-time option is already encouraged.

If there’s anything I really had a big issue with, it’s around the story. It’s not that I found it bad – generally speaking I found the overall story to be fairly interesting – it just felt unfocused.

One of the big marketing features around the game was that you can recruit anyone and play as anyone. That’s pretty close to true. If you see someone that you find interesting in the world, you can start a recruitment mission for them. Finish up the mission, and they’re added to your team roster. You can hot swap to them at any time and go right away. If you die in a mission, the person that died can either be perma-dead or on a bit of a timeout, depending on the difficulty you choose. This part is all pretty interesting. You can build out your roster focusing on the skill set you want – whether it’s hacking, weapons, stealth, team buffs, etc. In that regard, I think the system succeeded.

However, on the story front it felt less successful. Since anyone can be thrown into the story at any time, it felt like the story happened around the team members. If they die, it’s not generally a big deal. They’re replaceable. They each have some voice acting, but most of the story is presented by fixed members, whether it be your AI assistant, the DedSec London leader, or the antagonists. From a story perspective, it doesn’t really matter who you’re playing as so in that regard the stakes for individual team members feel pretty low. Within the overall narrative, you have an interesting tech-focused story, but it feels like something that happens regardless of who you’re playing as. It was kind of a weird thing that I never really could reconcile in my head, and it resulted in the gameplay being the thing that drove me forward, and not so much caring about where the story was going to end up.

Luckily, this is a game I would recommend on the basis of its gameplay alone. The core game is fun enough. Combat works pretty well, driving works pretty well, the upgrade systems work pretty well, there’s enough fun side content to do between story missions. However, the star of the show is the stealth aspects for me. Those alone make this game one that will bring me back when the DLC expansion comes out, and it’s enough to have me looking forward to the future of this series.