Tag: action

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Game Ramblings #36.1 – Horizon: Zero Dawn – The Frozen Wilds

More Info from Guerrilla Games

Original Ramblings

  • Genre: Open World Action/Adventure
  • Platform: PS4

Horizon: Zero Dawn – The Frozen Wilds does do a lot to generally continue what was great about the first one.  The setting is still fanastic and drop dead gorgeous.  The moment to moment combat is still a lot of fun with a lot of variety in ranged weapons.  Exploration is still always worth it, with things to find all over the place.  Basically, they didn’t screw up what was good.  Luckily, they also fixed my two biggest gripes with the base game, and that’s what I’ll talk about here.

This time around you’re running around Yellowstone and the surrounding areas. It’s definitely seen better days.

The end of HZD really annoyed the hell out of me, and it was because of two reasons.  The first was the lack of progression with the main melee weapon leaving the end hours of the game focused on much stronger ranged attacks, and the second was the design of many of the boss fights being an effective circular arena fight where you could generally stay safely at range the entire time.  While neither of these problems really ended up being a killer in the game’s overall result, they were definitely annoying problems that left me scratching my head a bit.

The melee weapon itself is definitely helped this time around by having an end game upgrade path.  One of the first side quests you come upon when entering the new area of the game ends with you upgrading your spear to support the modification system that the ranged weapons all had.  While I could definitely gripe about this being hidden behind a side quest, and I could gripe about the spear still not having inherent stat upgrades, this change alone is huge in changing how late game melee combat worked for me against higher level enemies.  Now I could build the staff to my play style, whether that’s a pure damage build, one focused on debuffs, or one focused on getting some ticking damage out on enemies.  While this was simply using a system that already existed for the ranged weaponry, gaining this system for melee was a huge change for the better.

While boss fights are still in relatively obvious arenas, they are much more varied landscapes, and the bosses themselves are significantly more aggressive against the player.

The handful of bosses in the expansion are also much improved over the base game.  While they still take place in relatively obvious arenas, there’s a much better variety in how the arenas are laid out.  In the example above, the player is sort of ducking in and around little outcroppings, giving a lot of line of sight breaking when fighting the boss.  In general, that is pretty common, allowing the player to fight in a much more stealth-based way.  This is really important based on a change in overall design of the boss AI.

The original game suffered from bosses that could generally be kept at range, letting the player just kind of tick away at them with the bow with very little danger.  The bosses here feel a lot more like large versions of the world machines instead.  They move around a lot to keep the player from being grounded.  They do a lot more melee and charge attacks, keeping the player’s dodging finger ready.  Even when the bosses are doing ranged projectile attacks, the danger of being hit and knocked down is a lot higher due to the ability of the bosses to close the gap and melee the player while they are down.  Overall the fights just feel a lot more dynamic, rather than the circle strafe grinds that the original game suffered from.

Since this is Yellowstone, lava is the name of the game. It looks even better in motion than it does in screenshots.

Overall this was really just a solid expansion.  It took what was great about the original and gave you more, and fixed a few of the larger problems while it was at it.  The new content was a lot of fun, the new weapons felt impactful and slid naturally into my arsenal (super bonus mention to the energy projectile cannon you get about half way through the expansion), and the handful of new enemies fit into the existing roster really well while giving some new mechanics to watch out for.  In general, this one leaves me wanting more of the series than the original game even did, and that leaves me excited for the future of the series going forward.

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Game Ramblings #74 – Shantae: Half-Genie Hero

More Info from WayForward

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: Switch
  • Also Available On: Windows, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One

TL;DR

  • Strong continuation of the Shantae series.
  • Action/platformer gameplay is as strong as ever, and the DLC brings in interesting new gameplay styles in smaller segments.

The Shantae series has been one that’s always focused more on the action side of platformers, and this one is no different.  While it has little bits that read of Metroidvanias, its focus is still tightly constructed levels, use of different powers to traverse obstacles, and really big three cycle boss fights to cap a level.  Its all here like past games, but the quality is better than ever.  The introduction of DLC campaigns for other characters only enhances the total package, giving new gameplay styles within the framework of the Shantae universe to enjoy.

Powerups are definitely out in force in this game, once again tied to Shantae’s ability to use genie dances.

While the last game got rid of dances for story reasons, the core of the Shantae games has always been the use of power ups to get through levels.  The core platforming elements have always been there, but powerups are the driving force behind getting through the world.  In Half-Genie Hero, we’re back to using the genie belly dancing to activate these power ups.  These can range from the bat power above to fly over gaps to an elephant that can charge through walls to a spider that can walk on ceilings.  As you gain these powers, new areas in old levels become traverseable, and you go back through levels multiple times to both find story items, as well as find additional power ups.

If this is reading a lot like a Metroidvania, it’s because it definitely is to some extent.  Previous games in the series have definitely been fully open Metroidvanias, but Pirate’s Curse and this one both followed a more linear single-level experience, with the ability to go back to levels through a world map for quicker access.  What this really gains for the game over a typical Metroidvania experience is really speed of access.  You can hop into any unlocked level at any time, get to the power up or item you need, then immediately hop back into the world map to go to the next place.  There’s no slog of going back and forth through the same areas repeatedly to get to a specific area of the world.  It also means that the first-time entry into a level is really tailored to the story.  You get cutscenes about what’s going on, mini boss fights as a way to slow progress, and ultimately a big story boss at the end of each level.

The bosses are all universally a lot of fun, and generally speaking also huge.

The boss fights are also where some of the more interesting gameplay mechanics end up happening.  While there’s definitely simple bosses (it wouldn’t be Shantae without an appearance by the Squid Baron), you get a lot more experimental stuff going on in these fights.  The one above takes place in a circular arena that the player will wrap around, lobbing cannonballs back at the boss.  Another one of the bosses involves fighting against a giant mermaid, using hooks to make your way towards the boss’ face to land hits, a lot like old Donkey Kong Country gameplay.  By and large it is these segments that show some of the best growth in the core gameplay of the series.

The DLCs really start to change the gameplay in interesting ways, even if the level themes are shared.

The biggest change with Half-Genie Hero though has to be the inclusion of support for DLC campaigns, which are all now included in the ultimate edition release of the game.  These are fun mini-campaigns using other characters from the series.  One has you running around doing the Risky Boots story in a very tight platforming-focused campaign.  One has you playing as the three friends Sky, Bolo, and Rottytops using their unique abilities to get through heavy puzzle-focused levels.  There are even a few mini aracde campaigns with things like a gun-based police campaign or a stealth-based ninja campaign.

The end result of all this DLC is that you have a really solid main campaign that is really less than half of the experience at this point.  While you then go through and play through the same core level themes, the experience is always completely unique in each of the DLC packs, so you’re always learning fun new ways to replay the same content.  From a sheer value standpoint, the ultimate edition released recently with all DLC really can’t be beat.

There’s a lot to enjoy in this release, particularly if you wanted more variety than previous games.

The previous Shantae games were always really high quality examples of action platformer gameplay, and this one is no different.  The biggest difference here is that they simply went with the motto of “more”.   There’s more powers to use, more gameplay variety due to DLC, and more total overall time to spend in the game.  Despite all of the variety, the core gameplay hasn’t suffered at all.  This is still a really mechanically tight game, and one that fans of the genre really shouldn’t miss.

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Game Ramblings #72 – Owlboy

More Info from D-Pad Studio

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

TL;DR

  • High points are non-gameplay.  Story, visuals, audio are all top notch.
  • Mechanically does enough to get the job done, but is pretty standard.  Bosses are pretty simple, not too many upgrades, not much reason to back track.

Add this one to the list of Metroidvania games that I’m always a sucker for, and it was definitely solid enough to be worth playing through.  This was definitely an indie darling as it was in development, and it properly earned a lot of accolades, particularly for its visuals.  However, in being a game that did its non-gameplay elements so well, it’s a bit unfortunate in that the gameplay itself is pretty much hitting the minimum standard, and not really doing much to separate itself from the pack.

Right from the start this game has fantastic pixel art, and it compares well against the best of the Metroidvanias of recent years.

It’s pretty easy to see from the start where Owlboy earned its biggest hype from.  This game is drop dead gorgeous.  It’s easy for pixel art games to become difficult to play at times from overly busy visuals, but this one escapes all of those traps.  The backgrounds are high detail, but use muted color palettes to separate themselves from the foreground.  Characters are all fairly low-resolution, but have unique looks of their own so you can immediately tell who is who.  Even more important, the character animation is phenomenal.  There’s enough frames of animation for everything to look really fluid, whether in normal traversal or in combat situations.  Even little details like character facial reactions during cutscenes lend a lot of life to scenes where 2D games typically have to depend more on text.

This high attention to non-gameplay detail also extends to the story and music.  From a non-spoiler perspective, the story focuses on the growth of the main character in trying to learn to be an owl, and how the world around him has gotten to the state it’s in.  The characters he meets with throughout, and those that end up travelling with him are all well written, each with their own motivations as to why they’re joining the party.  As for the soundtrack, it’s a well orchestrated set of pieces, ranging from lighter pieces in town to high action pieces in battle.  Overall, I recommend giving it a listen.

Bosses are the high point of combat, even if they tend to be pretty simple.

The gameplay on the other hand is a lower point in the game.  It’s not that it’s bad – in fact, it hits pretty much all the expected notes for a game of this style.  It just doesn’t really do anything to stand out.

Out of all of this, bosses really are the high point.  They’re pretty standard sort of 2 – 3 phase fights, with damage being the phase trigger across the board.  For the most part, the bosses also introduce new mechanics as they phase transition.  However, the bosses themselves are still fairly simple.  Typically speaking, you get a new upgrade, and face a boss weak to that upgrade.  In the one above, you’d basically just been using a spin move to knock armor off enemies a bunch, then immediately get this boss.  Spin hit the armor off the turtle, shoot it a bunch, repeat.  This was pretty much the same thing across all bosses, and it basically meant that they were never really much of a danger.  You knew going in what you were going to be expected to use, you’d have been given an entire level before hand to learn the ability, and you just have to use it to finish.

But again, it’s not necessarily a bad thing that it went that way.  Upgrades are basically in two forms; characters that you can carry with you, and health upgrades earned by collecting coins.  The characters were a unique way to handle the typical weapon upgrade.  You only earn three – a standard gunner, a shotgunner, and a spider web launcher – but their integration into the story and gameplay as a whole was a unique way to give a voice to the upgrades, rather than them just being a pickup in the world.  It also gave much greater weight to them coming and going from the party based on the story, and ultimately made the story a lot more impactful.  Losing a party member due to something occurring in the world wasn’t just part of the story, it also meant that your combat strategy was about to drastically change for a while.

However, it also meant that you never really had a reason to back track.  While getting 100% of coins to get all optional upgrades is a back track path, the core upgrades were guaranteed along the main path, and I never needed to do the full collecting since I was rarely in danger of being low on health.  The end result of all this is that I treated the game less like a Metroidvania, and more like a typical linear action/adventure game, which probably got me through it quicker than was really intended.

Sometimes you just end up riding a boss upside down through a cave. It happens.Realistically, the game is pretty typical of a lot of top tier independent titles.  The things where it stands out are pretty high end, and the rest of the game kind of sits in decent but average shape.  It’s obvious that visuals and tech around it were going to be the focus of this game, and they really nailed it.  In nailing those things, gameplay looks to be the thing that suffered a bit from lack of development focus, but overall it worked out well.  Would I consider this in the upper echelon of Metroidvanias?  Not really, but I still have a pretty easy time recommending at least a play through.