Posts

Posted on

Game Ramblings #62 – Xenoblade Chronicles 2

More Info from Nintendo

  • Genre: JRPG
  • Platform: Switch

TL;DR

  • 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.

Posted on

Game Ramblings #61 – Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas

More Info from Cornfox & Bros.

  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Platform: PS4 (previously on iOS)
  • 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.

Posted on

Game Ramblings #60 – Agents of Mayhem

More Info from Volition

  • Genre: Open-world Action
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Xbox One, Windows

TL;DR

  • Great mix of characters with different capabilities, ranging from melee to various ranges of projectile-based weaponry.  Hot swapping of characters leads to good real-time tactical changes.
  • Story is a silly, but fun take on the 80s action cartoon.  Unfortunately ends abruptly in a cliffhanger.
  • Environment severely lacking in variety, particularly with enemy lairs.

In a lot of ways this feels like a natural (if not subdued) extension of where the Saints Row series had been moving in IV and Gat Out of Hell.  You play a series of more or less super powered humans, some of which have unnatural abilities, and some of which are simply taking advantage of unrealistic technology.  The action itself is still all there, with a large variety of weapons to take advantage of.   The open world is there, filled with missions, small side tasks, and a bunch of things to collect.  The over the top plot is there, where you’re trying to stop an evil doctor from recreating the world.  However, despite the core of the game being really solid, it never quite reaches the heights of the Saints Row games.  I couldn’t quite place my finger on what happened – perhaps being their first game designed for the PS4/Xbone generation, perhaps they just ran out of time to release – but the experience never really coalesced into a strong whole.

One of the first signs of restricted content is this hallway. You see this theme about every 10 minutes for every enemy lair.

In general, there’s just a lot of signs that something caused a severe cut or restriction in content in the game.

One of the core pieces of the game’s progress loop is that missions will invariably send you to invade and disrupt LEGION lairs, the hiding places for the game’s primary antagonist group.  However, apart from a few that were carefully constructed for particular story reasons, the rest all follow the same visual theme.  I couldn’t tell you how many times you enter the same hallway, go through the same half dozen rooms and connecting pieces, find treasure chests in the exact same room 100 different times, fight the same half dozen trash enemies in each one.  It just feels like they got the gameplay loop in place, then ran out of time before fleshing out the rest of the system.

This also to some extent extends to the story.  I’d estimate roughly the first 75% of the game follows a pattern of recruit new story-relevant agent through a few missions -> find and capture/kill an enemy lieutenant through a few missions.  There are also some side agents to recruit, and each one has a dedicated secondary mission, but those agents fill more of a gameplay gap than a story one. However, the last three lieutenants simply go back to back to back in a set of missions that starts fantastically, but starts to feel like it falls off.  By the time you get to the ultimate baddy, the game drops you into a fantastically cool new environment filled with very little to do but kill some trash enemies, then a boss fight that abruptly ends mid-fight and throws you into a cliffhanger story cutscene.  It was another case where it just felt like they had the core in place, then ran out of time and had to patch everything together to get the game out the door.

The boss fights are some of the best parts of the game, including this one against a giant ass robot.

Luckily the gameplay does to some extent redeem the game.  While the combat isn’t in practice that much different than Saints Row, the practice of swapping entire characters instead of swapping weapon inventory feels really powerful.  Each character is basically the combination of a personality, a weapon, and two special abilities, and running out into the city becomes a practice of finding the right mix of these to flesh out your party enough to be successful.  You’ve got your general gun-based characters running from short-range shotguns to pistols to SMGs to assault rifles.  There’s also some a really satisfying to use archer hijacking the name Rama, a melee-based assassin that is a ton of fun, and a ice-powered Russian that can freeze and shatter enemies.  Probably my favorite character ended up being a female engineer that could lay down turrets while she went through firing a plasma stream weapon, giving me a lot of flexibility in attacking enemies from two directions.

The flexibility here is really important in keeping the combat fresh.  Despite fighting the same enemies repeatedly, I could switch out to different characters based on the tactical advantages of the environment.  If I’m climbing a tower, I could switch to a long-range gun or archer to pick off enemies one by one from far away.  If I’m in close quarters, a shotgun could wreak havoc to enemies.  If I needed to sneak around and distract enemies while hacking consoles, the turret engineer was a great call.  By being able to form my team in this way, I could fit the team to multiple styles, while still being able to play how I wanted at any one time.  Without fail, the characters also felt fun to use, so it was never a chore to go around sending baddies to their doom.

This all takes place in a relatively compact, but extremely full version of Seoul.  Beside the actual missions to do, there’s a ton of side content.  On the simple end, this is simple vehicle races, patrol take outs, and hostage rescues.  The complexity moves up a bit in taking out a variety of large weaponry, from ice cannons to gravity portals.  Ultimately, you can also invade and take over a handful of enemy strong holds.  The city is also scattered with treasure chests filled with money, resources, and cosmetics, as well as a ton of crystals that can be used to buy further upgrades for the agents.  Basically, you’ll never be out of things to do as there’s always something around the next corner to keep you happily distracted.

While some of the outfits are probably legally questionable, you can always be ready to cruise the city in style.

Ultimately, the downfall of this game isn’t the quality of the gameplay, it’s that it feels incomplete.  What is there is a lot of fun and basically plays out like a videogame version of every stupid 80s action cartoon that I used to watch as a kid.  As a natural extension of the Saints Row universe, it also feels entirely in place to the style and attitude of those games.  I can only speculate as to what happened to get the game shipped in this state, but hopefully it doesn’t prevent from further use of the IP.  Given a second chance, I suspect we’d be looking at a game that a lot of people would remember for quite a while.