Main Post - Part 1
Main Post - Part 2
Main Post - Part 3
#1: Picross e7: 27.4 hours
Fitting, since my first game last year was Pokemon Picross. There's not a whole lot to say about Picross e7 though. Jupiter are settling into a groove and while I'm okay with that it makes all the Picross e's bleed together a bit. There
are a few notable changes in e7, most of the images are busier than usual and therefore impossible to parse before you finish them. I think this is mostly because it's getting to that point in the series where they have to start reaching for ideas. The other notable change is the addition of a third marker type which is a god send. It's a temporary marker with a lower priority than the fill and x markers so it can be directly drawn over. It's perfect for trying out patterns or counting out squares, and I've wanted something like this for ages. Overall Picross e7 is another incremental addition to the series, but as my fellow Picross addicts will attest once you're hooked it doesn't matter.
#2: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins: 3.8 hours
Much more traditional Mario game than the first Land, apart from a non-linear structure. Not sure how memorable it will be compared to the first but it's probably a better game.
#3: Mass Effect 3: 53 hours
I'm writing the bulk of this entry just before the final mission just in case the dreaded ending ruins everything. So far it's been a very good entry into the series with a few of the problems I had with 2 fixed. The weapons and powers are more customisable after the horrid streamlining, though the game is still largely a series of linear corridors in which cover based shooting takes place. Honestly a lot of my positivity is because I'm used to the idea of Mass Effect 2 style games at this point. If I had skipped 2 all of my problems with that game would survive with a vengeance here.
It was nice to see so many old characters back again, and so many arcs drawn to a close. But the simplicity of resolving conflicts without sacrifice bugged me somewhat coming from something like Deus Ex. As time passes it becomes more jarring that complex problems are solved by having enough Paragon points and select the "resolve situation" button. Speaking of I like that I was given more license to take renegade options sometimes without ruining the game.
The DLC is definitely a drawback too, with a lot of backstory locked behind it. If From Ashes and Leviathan were included in the game from the start I feel the reception would have been seen more favourably by a lot of people.
The main new mechanic, War Assets can basically be ignored, but I still really enjoyed looking for them. If you're willing to put in most of the narrative legwork yourself it can feel like you're pulling the galaxy together to fight the Reapers, just don't expect it to
mean anything yet. And this is where I leave to go play the last mission, with an overall positive outlook on the game. I'm looking forward to Andromeda now because it seems to be drifting further in the direction of Mass Effect 1's tone, I hope they can pull it off.
Okay so the ending's fine. I can see why the original version was hated so much but honestly it's fine. Great game.
#4: Spear of Destiny: 11 hours
In 2015 I played Wolfenstein 3D for the first time, and found it to be alright. The feeling of fragility can be very frustrating, and the controls aren't very good. Spear of Destiny changes nothing about the base Wolf 3D experience, but it's a competent new set of levels so if that's what you're looking for you can find it here. The Steam version also comes with two extra episodes that were developed by another developer, I played through about 10 levels of the first one and it's trash. Confusing and random levels that seem to have been made to prove that they could, I couldn't be bothered finishing them.
#5: Mighty Switch Force! Host it Down!: 1.3 hours
While I was playing the PC port this is a mobile spinoff game at heart. It takes the mechanic of using pipes to redirect streams of water from Mighty Switch Force 2 and expands it into a full game. But instead of using the series' titular switching you drag the blocks around like a tile puzzle. Put all the fires out and rescue all the girls to finish the level, just don't expect to meet the par time. It's simple, cheap and a nice distraction.
#6: Move or Die: 3.7 hours
I've always struggled with when to place local multiplayer party games on the list because opportunities to play them are few and far between. But in a few hours I think I've seen most of what this one has to offer so I'm going to talk about it now. Move or Die is a 2D platformer with a simple premise: do the best at completing the objective in each round to score points, whoever reaches a set total first wins. Most of the minigames revolve around being the last survivor under certain conditions but there's also modes that require you to do the most of something, like painting the arena or wearing a hat. The title isn't just for show though, you have a health bar that drains if you stand still or jump and recovers when you run along the ground, if you don't move, you die.
There's currently about 26 modes and a new one gets added every few months or so. There's a mutator system where every few rounds one of the players can pick a new effect to be applied to the matches. But I find that people have enough trouble adjusting to the rapid fire minigames being thrown at them (especially if they don't play a lot of party platformers) so they mostly stay turned off. There's also a ton of unlockable character skins, but because they're Steam inventory items they can only be unlocked when playing online and there's nobody to play with in Australia.
I have a lot of fun playing this, it's chaotic and the movement is fast. It's definitely going to stay in my rotation of party games. Oh and one thing I forgot to mention, I first discovered this game exists because the soundtrack was composed by Jacob Lincke (Cloudbuilt), and I'll never pass up an opportunity to tell people to give him more work.
#7: Clustertruck: 4.4 hours
As a huge fan of games like Cloudbuilt and AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! I really wanted this game to impress me, and impress me it did. For those of you who haven't seen the self-explanatory trailer, Clustertruck is a first person platformer where you have to run from one end of a level to the other on the back of a convoy of trucks without touching the ground. The game starts simple, with the trucks on a flat road. But before long the road starts to curve, or shift, or rotate, and by the end of the game you're barely holding on as the trucks tumble up a hill in the depths of hell while lava slowly rises beneath you. There's a lot of variety in the game's levels, with each of the nine worlds having a theme that introduces new mechanics and it gets very challenging.
I probably would not have finished this game so quickly if it wasn't for the saving grace of the upgrade system. You get points for finishing levels and doing tricks (mostly air time and jumping onto trucks that are flying through the air) which you can spend on upgrades. You can equip one mobility upgrade (double jump, grappling hook, air dash, etc) and one utility upgrade (slow time, spawn truck, freeze trucks, etc) at a time but I found that double jump/grappling hook and slow time are the best to get through a lot of the game. At some point I might go unlock Super Truck (which does exactly what you'd expect) to see how that plays, but for now I'm content having finished all of the game's levels. Definitely recommend it.
#8: HarmoKnight: 8.3 hours
I was going to give this a much more positive post, even if it would have still had caveats. The gameplay is good on the whole and the aesthetic is cute, even if I could have done without the trite "oh no, the princess you met 30 seconds ago has been kidnapped" plot. But after the final level you know what, fuck you Game Freak.
The game is a rhythm platformer like BIT.TRIP RUNNER but not as good. The controls never feel quite right, with the timing for jumps and hits not being where you would expect. Your main attack is a swing with a big staff and the enemies basically have to be touching you when you time it correctly, which is counter-intuitive as hell. The fact that the game is in full 3D seems to make these problems worse, and especially in the later levels most of the things you need to hit or jump over spawn in two feet in front of you.
The boss fights are big quick time event affairs which would be cool if they didn't suffer from one of the game's biggest problems. Everything takes too damn long, a hard game like this requires you to be able to iterate on your failures quickly, but it takes forever to reload a level and this is especially true of the boss fights which are very cinematic. The final boss fight is four minutes long and probably half of that is cutscenes that you have to sit through again every time you fail.
The other problem is the scoring system, for most of the game it's far too lax, training you to just make it to the end of the level if you screw up a little because the game will give you a gold star anyway. But you have to perfect the bosses for the same reward.
But the real winner is the final post-game world which in Nintendo tradition is where the really difficulty lives. Unfortunately a lot of it is fake difficulty. The use of enemies and traps that you can't see until they're right in front of you increases sharply, as does the prevalence of bottomless pits. The interface starts fucking with you to, there are more dramatic camera shifts which mostly just serve to make it harder to judge when you should be trying to make important jumps, which can and will get you killed and kicked back to the start of the level.
This comes to a head in Clocktower Trial, where the tempo changes a split second before a key jump over a bottomless 1/3rd of the way through the level, sending you to your death unexpectedly. But the Final Trial is the real fuck you to the players, if you manage to survive the gauntlet (which I managed for the first time after about 20-30 tries) the song ends and a featureless piece of flat ground appears to carry you out, as in all the levels. And then a pillar of fire erupts from the ground while your guard is down and if you had one heart left you die. The most unfortunate thing about this is that a lot of the pattern in Final Trial is really fun when you get it down, and the synchronisation with the background music is the best in the game. But its let down by the parts that feel unfair and like a big fuck you to the player.
Don't get me wrong, the game is fun and I eventually got through it all. But jeez that last part is frustrating as hell for bad reasons.
PS If this reads weird at any point it's because I rage quit, wrote the review and then put another half an hour into the Final Trial and managed to beat it.
#9: Nano Assault EX: 2.8 hours
It's hard for me to describe Nano Assault without defaulting to comparisons of other games. Where do I even start? You play as a shrunken down space ship flying around cells trying to eliminate a virus in one of two ways. In most levels you are twin "stick" (8 directions for me since I don't have a second circle pad) shooting your way over the surface of a cell, which is a 3D object you can move around completely. Some regions spawn enemies, kill all the enemies that spawn to wear down the region's reserve and win the level. Then sometimes the game decides that it wants to be a rail shooter for a level, and it does a good job of that too. The game's boss fights span both kinds of level and some add their own twists to the gameplay style they utilise.
It's also worth mention that this game looks really nice (for 3DS anyway). Because most of the levels take place on relatively smooth and large 3D objects the levels really pop with the 3D turned on. And the textures, backgrounds and enemy designs all do a good job of selling the idea that the environment is biological and microscopic. It's pretty short but I didn't touch the score attack, boss rush, and endless modes so there's more time to be had if you're into that sort of thing.
My main criticism is definitely the difficulty. You accumulate more starting lives as the game goes on (I had 7 or 8 by the end), and dying recharges you special weapon meter. This means that most levels can be brute forced pretty easily which makes a lot of levels that should feel tense just... not. But it's still an enjoyable game and I'd definitely recommend it.
#10: Tales of Monkey Island: 14.9 hours
Maybe a little easier but yep that's a Monkey Island game, and an old style Telltale game. Got more interesting by episode 3 where the plot started gearing up, otherwise I dunno point and clicks don't really grab me that much.
#11: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars: 18.7 hours
I've had this game sitting on my Wii since it came out but I never got around to it. On top of that I played up until the final dungeon on an emulator as a kid but never finished it. I've finally got this notch on my belt now, and while it's a good game I feel like its time has mostly past.
The plot is interesting but could probably stand to be fleshed out just a little bit more, and the characterisation is strong. The battle system is also good (especially for the time) but the abilities you have to use within it are lackluster. Most fights are a simple Attack/Heal loop with little extra strategy (though getting the tempo of that loop right
is engaging) and bosses are immune to the few status effects you have access to. Timed hits are a great idea but they can't carry the combat by themselves after decades of progress.
One thing I did really like though was the dungeon design, and how often platforming is incorporated into it. It doesn't always work, (that damn frog coin that exists in some sort of 4th dimension next to a beanstalk comes to mind) but it gives the game a pretty unique flavour. It's also pretty short (especially for the 90s) so the pacing is pretty solid, though the climax doesn't quite feel earned.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Mario RPG and I looked forward to coming home and playing it more. But it's definitely a product of its time and its let down by the shallow pool of abilities available to the party.
#12: The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons: 17.9 hours
I am really loving the 2D Zelda games lately. Oracle of Seasons is very obviously using a lot of Link's Awakening assets but it also feels enough like its own thing because of the addition of new mechanics. You can collect rings to give yourself passive bonuses but that feature seems a little undercooked. There's also a seed mechanic where you can collect 5 different kinds of seed that function as your lantern, teleport, and dash among other things. There's also three animal buddies, but I don't like the way this mechanic is used. Each animal buddy is found in an area near one or two puzzles they can be used to solve, and you gain the ability to summon one of them to use wherever on the overworld. But because it can be any of them they're not used for puzzles anywhere else in the game and I basically never called on mine again. As I understand it all three reappear in Ages so maybe it would have been nice to focus on one in each game and have them be useful throughout.
A lot of the items are returning but get upgraded or used in cool new ways, and the handful of new items are unique and interesting. Dungeons are good but they tend to be the best part of a 2D Zelda so I'm not surprised. The Rod of Seasons and the core seasons changing mechanic is one of my favourite Zelda gimmicks so far, even if it just changes a few things, I really like the dimension puzzle solving with such a known quantity adds to overworld traversal.
I usually take a break before getting into the next game in a series to prevent fatigue and so they don't blur together as much, but I'm definitely itching to get into Oracle of Ages now.
#13: Link's Crossbow Training: 1.5 hours
Yes the game is actually that short, and I got platinum medals in every level. Getting high scores requires calm because the score multiplier increases by 1 per hit with no maximum, so a good run involves just racking up as high a combo as possible. The aim feels a little forgiving at times if you're firing into the distance but overall the difficulty is nice if a tad on the easy side.
There's 9 stages but they all consist of 3 unrelated parts, and there's a good amount of variety in the levels. Some are rail shooting, some involve shooting a 360 arc of oncoming enemies in third person and some are free roaming and require you to hunt down enemies. There's also a few boss fights which switch it up even more. So the game's lacking a little in content and all the assets are from Twilight Princess but the variety makes up for it and I got the game for free off of someone that paid $2.50 for it so I can't complain.
#14: de Blob: 14.3 hours
After being MIA for 3 weeks I return having finally played de Blob, a game that was not at all what I was expecting it to be. A bunch of grayscale jerks from space having stolen all the colour from your city and you have to 3D platform your way across 10 levels, leaving a trail of colour in your wake, to save it.
Each level is broken up into a fews sections that are gated (literally) based on your score. You score points by painting objects in the world and killing enemies. Taking on challenges is another good way to both score points and give yourself some direction. They're broken up into four types, race, combat, painting, and landmarks. The paint challenges require you to paint a set of buildings in set colours, and the landmark challenges require you to gather up a certain amount of a given colour and dump it into a building to transform it from a drab base for The Man back into a party pad for the residents of the city.
Paint is acquired from paint bots scattered around the level and comes in the RBY primary colours (red, blue, yellow). If Blob is already coloured then absorbing paint of a different colour will cause him to turn into the RBY secondary colours (orange, green, purple). If you're a secondary colour and you pick up one of the constituent primary colours you turn that colour, and if you pick up the third primary colour you turn brown. Interestingly, the game treats brown the same as any other colour, but I always felt punished for it. The system obviously isn't very deep, but it's just complex enough to give the level designers something to work with. There are parts of the game where you have to be very careful to dodge paint bots to maintain the right colour on the way to an objective and that was pretty cool.
I have two major sticking points with de Blob: the controls and the size of the levels. Two of the most important actions, jump and homing attack, are bound to a flick of the Wii Remote. While this
can work even if it's suboptimal here it just doesn't, the game feels unresponsive and sluggish a lot of the time and in a few levels that can and will get you killed. The main impediment to me finishing this game in a timely manner though was the levels. They're not really that big, but if you want to paint a bunch of things and do all the challenges, or rack up enough points to get a gold medal each level takes about 50 minutes. A lot of nights I just didn't feel like committing a block of time that big to play a level and so it took a lot longer than it should have.
I mentioned at the beginning that the game wasn't what I expected. That's mostly because in a post-Splatoon world the theme of platforming and painting makes my mind immediately go to a frenetic and visually engaging game. de Blob is not that game, but it is worth checking out.
. Loved these games last gen and this game in particular was my favorite game from last gen - the only one that I played through twice during that generation. I still love this game. The pacing of the game was close to perfection, never a dull moment. I have never been the biggest fan of the Killer Croc sequence, but no game is perfect.
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