Category: Switch

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Game Ramblings #160.1 – Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed

More Info from Nintendo

  • Genre: JRPG
  • Platform: Switch

Original Ramblings

This expansion is by all definitions for the fans. It’s got returning important story characters from past entries in Rex and Shulk. It’s got import returning locations like Colony 9 from the original Xenoblade Chronicles. It’s got the ancestors of some of Chronicles 3’s cast. Basically, it’s there to be a trip specifically for fans of the series, but in that way it feels like the perfect way to cap the series.

This is every bit an extension of the gameplay from XC3, with a few things that feel really tailored towards an expansion experience. The obvious thing is that you power level like crazy to the point that I finished the game around level 60 and maybe had about 20 hours of gameplay. This is all taking place within a single connected world with a single map that you can get through pretty quickly. There’s some environmental things that allow you to basically zipline through the regions, and by the end of the game you’ll have unlocked so many of them that you can get end to end through the entire world in a matter of a couple of minutes without fast travel. I’d actually like to see this explored more in a future Xeno title, as being able to get around between regions quickly without a map feels way more engaging and connected to the world than a typical fast travel system.

Besides that stuff, the big thing added was an affinity system where you earn points for doing normal things (exploring, collecting, etc) to get points to purchase upgrades. There’s been variations on this in the past, but it all feels very directly do thing -> get cool stuff that powers you up. XC3 was already a game that was light on gearing as a power curve, and this feels like it leans further into simplifying away from XC2’s mess of stats as it combines stats, ability purchasing, and ability upgrading into a single source of selection. It obviously benefits the speed of power curve for an expansion experience, but it also feels like it would benefit a larger game as a whole.

However, there’s also a bit of an ending thing that gets into the potential future of the series, and that’s where I’m going to hide behind spoiler tags.

Spoiler

The core plot of XC3 within the overarching series was that Earth had previously been split in two, becoming the worlds of XC1 and XC2. By the time of XC3, the worlds had drifted back towards each other in an attempt to recombine. The plot of XC3 then ends with the worlds re-separating. The end boss sequence and post credits scene shows this process, but it adds a few additional things that seem to imply the Chronicles series is more tied to the rest of the Xeno games than we’ve been led to believe.

One of the first things that catches your attention is a series of radio broadcasts while the cast is being led through a virtual Earth. The radio broadcasts mention a few things of note. One is humans being sent to Sagittarius, where Xenogears ends up taking place. One is Project Exodus – the process of sending humans away to other planets. This is directly the same name as a project from Xenoblade Chronicles X, as well as a similar project from Xenosaga. During these broadcasts Dmitri Yuriev is also name dropped, and he is directly one of the antagonists in the Xenosaga series.

The final set of things comes during the post credits scene. During this scene, you see the two earths recombining. However, they also are seen coming out of some sort of cloaking. I assume this was hinting at the plot of Xenosaga, where Earth is lost due to cloaking. This is then followed up by a blue object of some sort crashing towards Earth, which again to me seems to imply it’s KOS-MOS from the end of Xenosaga III falling to Earth.

All that is to say that this expansion really is for the fans. It adds more context to the Xenoblade series, but also seems to imply ties to the rest of the overarching Xeno series, even if Nintendo doesn’t own those IPs. It also puts us in a place where they’ve given a number of jumping off points for whatever comes next, whether that’s an XC4 or an entirely new branch of the Xeno games.

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If you at all enjoyed Xenoblade Chronicles 3, this expansion probably isn’t going to change that opinion. It’s still the same great core gameplay. As something that is simply more of a good thing, it’s enough to be worthwhile. As something for fans of the series, it’s even better. It clearly is there to both be a thanks to fans, as well as a nod towards what might come next and really puts an end cap on what I assume is the end of this set of Xeno titles.

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Game Ramblings #171 – The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

More Info from Nintendo

  • Genre: ARPG
  • Platform: Switch

It would be extremely easy to point at this game and just go “it’s a sequel, whatever”. It shares the characters from Breath of the Wild. It largely shares the overworld, which at a glance simply features the changes that come from progression of time. At a glance it looks to be largely the same mechanically. However, it’s just a bafflingly better game than BOTW, which was already a bafflingly good game.

One of the things that struck me was that it felt weird that they threw out the runes from the original game. That felt like such a core part of the gameplay of the original that removing them just felt wrong. When you get the new ultra hand and fuse abilities early on, they kind of feel like a weird replacement. But then you fuse a bomb flower to an arrow and you suddenly don’t miss the bomb rune so much. You start to realize that the utility of ultra hand replaces the use of the magnesis rune. You start attaching rockets to your shields and suddenly using stasis launches just feels like a slow part of the past. Then you’re busy building something stupid like the vehicle I made up there and by that point you’ve completely missed that the system has so well clicked in your head that you don’t miss the systems of the original game.

The thing that is so wild as a developer about the set of abilities in the game is how often I would try something and be surprised that it just worked. There’s obvious things like attaching an arrow and bomb together would do something cool because Zelda games have had that in the past. But attaching an eyeball to an arrow? Well of course it’s now a homing arrow because it can see. Attaching meat to an arrow? Now you’ve got something to lure enemies. Attach a rocket to your shield? Now you can fly. Attach a wheel to a rope? Now you can open gates. Attach a control stick to some fans? You’ve got a flying motorcycle. Those are nothing next to some of the crazy things the community has been up to.

It’s one of those things that I can understand conceptually how they pulled it off. Ultimately it’s more of an issue of scale of problem solving than anything else. However, I’ve never been in the position where I could simply make anything work simply because that’s the core idea of the game. Everything within these systems is so well polished because they’ve spent the last six years just perfecting every interaction that you can have. These interactions are also completely not accidental either, because most of them are covered in some place in some shrine in some corner of the world where it was clear that something was made simply because some developer along the way said “I want to make a puzzle, I want this mechanic, let’s get it working” and it became another potential tool in the chest for the team and ultimately for players.

All this is to say nothing about the fact that the game isn’t just a slightly modified overworld. Yes that’s there, and yes there’s a lot of differences that players of BOTW will appreciate. However, there’s an entire set of new sky islands to explore and puzzle through that offer unique challenges in terms of trying not to fall off of them. The introduction of the ascend ability that allows you to pass through things above you greatly enhances traversal in all situations. You then start going into the depths and quickly realize that there’s an entire second overworld as big as Hyrule to explore and find cool stuff in. The depths’ core change is that it’s completely dark until you light it up, and that change alone transforms the game into the strangest combination of survival horror and ARPG that drastically changed the pace of how I was playing the game. That alone is enough of a reason to warrant this being considered a full new experience instead of simply a retread.

All that said I do have some gripes about combat, which felt like the weakest part of the game to me. There was something about the timing of dodges/parries that just felt off to me and I could never really quite place my finger on what it was. So much of the combat once you get past the intro red enemies is about dodging or parrying to lay in maximum damage and it always felt like I was just a bit early or just a bit late. I would make adjustments and end up on the other side of that, never really getting to the point where I was really ever comfortable engaging in combat in the overworld where multiple enemies were around. I felt like I was often just taking a ton of what should have been avoidable damage, but just never could quite make it work.

The frustrating part is I never had this problem against bosses. I beat all the temple bosses first try and had similar results against Ganon, despite the fight feeling like a callback to Wind Waker in being so heavily based around specifically dodging to lay in damage. The fact that bosses tended to be fine while overworld combat was problematic for me made me think that I was battling some sort of input latency or frame pacing issue since overworld framerate tends to be less consistent than the tailored boss areas. In those situations combat just felt nice. Timing things felt fair and appropriate without being too easy. It was rewarding to nail your dodges and get a flurry rush while laying in huge damage. I guess ultimately my problem with combat was that things like late-game Bokoblins felt like more of a threat than Ganondorf which is something I can’t really reconcile in my head.

My combat issues didn’t really negatively impact my feelings on the game though. This is absolutely a game worth playing and if for some reason you still don’t own a Switch, this is game worth getting a Switch to play. It’s so fundamentally good across nearly the entire experience and just constantly throws things at you that will surprise you. It takes what was originally a top game of all time framework and enhances it in ways that sets a new standard for what open world ARPGs should be striving for.

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Game Ramblings #170 – Islets

More Info from Armor Games Studios

  • Genre: Metroidvania
  • Platform: Switch
  • Also Available On: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S

There’s a lot of solid Metroidvanias out there, but there’s very few that I think get into the same neighborhood as a 2D Metroid title. The difference between ones that are simply alright and ones that really make that reach are never in the core mechanics, but in the little details. Islets is one that gets the little things right, and because of that it’s a fantastic title.

The core of a Metroidvania isn’t really that difficult to envision. You’ve basically got a game that encourages you to re-explore areas as you gain new abilities, have some fun combat segments, and really push some fun boss fights. Where games in the genre typically stumble for me is that they’ll focus on one of those sections and ignore the rest. Maybe their boss fights are fun, but it’s a slog traversing the environment. Maybe there’s too many enemies in the overworld, so it feels like you’re constantly slowed down. Islets is a game that manages to strike a balance that worked for me in how it handles all its details. There’s a few key points I wanted to focus on and they all tie into how well the game really gets some small things right that end up benefiting the whole.

The first one is that upgrades almost universally enhance traversal as a priority rather than combat. That may sound like the game is focusing on traversal over combat, but it’s not. A double jump opens up a bunch of opportunities for traversal, allowing you to clear larger gaps or taller walls. It also allows you to simply avoid easier enemies. However, what it also does is opens up a new dodge opportunity that is heavily used for boss fights. The same could be said for things like wall run or a ground pound. It obviously opens up opportunities that make traversal faster and more fun while opening up new paths. However, it also opens up new avoidance and offensive capabilities, which enhance the combat. Rather than focusing purely on weapon upgrades, they’re adding capabilities for your total toolset, which enhances the entire game, making the entire experience better for it.

That’s not to say that all upgrades are purely tied to traversal. In fact, there’s a lot of upgrades that are purely combat focused but are more power curve enhancements instead of toolset enhancements. They may be increased HP, more arrows to fire, passive reflect damage when the player takes damage, etc. What they all generally have in common though is that they are enhancing rather than changing your move set. This leads to a situation where reinforcement of new mechanics happens all the time through traversal-focused ones, rather than getting a combat upgrade that you don’t use for a while and forget about. It’s a nice way to maintain a power curve without it being overcomplicated.

They also aren’t shy about giving you temporary mechanics purely themed around the environment. One rainy section of the game gives you an umbrella that opens up gliding mechanic, paving the way for a temporary set of puzzles only in that section. One area has a bunch of moving platforms that have you dodging through spiky obstacles that only exist in that one area, which gives the traversal in the section a deliberately slower and more strategic pace. A section around the midpoint of the game has teleportation volumes, seemingly just for the sake of making a cool section of the game. These types of small-section one off mechanics really break up the monotony of traversal by making the player change how they’re going about things just enough without breaking the core of what’s there.

It also helps that there are entire sections of the game that take place in a twin-stick style shoot em up. These come up as you travel between the game’s core island sections and effectively end up acting as a nice breather. Mechanically each one has a bit of typical 2D projectile avoidance and usually some core mechanic you have to deal with (ex: a boss focused on boomerangs, or a boss focused on grappling themselves across the arena). They aren’t necessarily difficult and they aren’t overly common, but they’re there just enough to be a change of pace battle before you get going back into platforming.

Difficulty is another one of those areas where I think they really played a nice balance. This game wasn’t one where I was immune from death, and I think for the most part I died to most of the bosses at least a couple times while I was learning mechanics. However, there were a couple things that really worked out well for me in that regard.

One of the keys was that death never felt like progress loss. It was simply a return back to the last save point. This is completely opposite of a game like Hollow Knight, where I felt like death runs were such a negative deterrence that I never wanted to take risks. Here, I didn’t mind it. Save points felt like they were spread out enough to encourage the challenge, but not too far as to be a slog. It was helped by the fact that any sub-boss fights never came back once completed, so if you got through a couple of them then died, you didn’t have to redo them. The frequency of combat along traversal was also low enough that it didn’t feel like I was constantly in combat, but instead being in combat in a way that made sense based on the particular room I happened to be in.

It was also incredibly helpful that every major boss fight had a save point immediately before the boss. This let the boss be challenging on its own, rather than being a challenge because of what you had to do to approach it. Each boss definitely had its set of mechanics that had to be learned, so being in a place where I could learn the mechanics and immediately be back in a fight if I died was an incredibly good way to quickly positively reinforce the learning, rather than having to spend a bunch of time between attempts doing a run back after death.

Ultimately this is just a very well made Metroidvania. It seems to understand what the genre should be for a lot of people. It plays a good balance between encouraging exploration and traversal, while still having a core combat base. It has enough difficulty to be challenging, but isn’t overbearing in negatively impacting the player. And frankly, it’s just fun to look at. This is an entry in the genre that is simply worth playing.