Re: Games Beaten 2017
Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 8:03 am
I've been playing some games lately, so I may as well attempt to write about them.
Yakuza 0
Its worth mentioning that prior to this, I've had little experience with the Yakuza series. For anyone else in a similar situation, this is certainly a great game to jump in on, as I never felt out of the loop, even when realizing that fan service may be occurring.
This was an absolutely fantastic game, one of the best I've played this gen, and honestly one of the best I've played period. Gripping story that, despite having a wide reach and Yakuza politics, manages to create memorable characters left and right. Plot was varied and unpredictable, but stayed consistent throughout. The side quests are some of the best I have ever seen. They are brief, but always different and so over the top that even days after finishing, several of them still stand out in memory. The combat, slew of mini games, and city exploration are all nice and well done, but its the story, writing, and VA that really made this game stand apart for me.
Valkyrie Drive Bhikkhuni
Basically a Senran Kagura game without the Senran Kagura characters. And, like those games, the combat system is deep enough to allow some cool shit, but the game never demands, or even really politely asks you to do said cool shit. There are like 6 enemy types throughout the game that get color upgrades every now and then. Other than the rare times you fight an actual boss, of which there are 4, you spend each mission killing said 6 enemies, snagging collectibles, and fighting another girl from your school at the end.
As bad as that may sound, its honestly fun enough initially. Outside of the actual gameplay, you still get to do all the usual TnA stuff the series is famous for, and I guess mindlessly hacking away at stuff while bewb bounces everywhere is fine. The game certainly overstays its welcome though, as I finished the game with around 25 hours on the clock. Remember, 6 enemies and 4 bosses, in a 25 hour game. The story introduces itself right away, and refuses any forward momentum until about mission 16 (Out of 20).
If you want to dress up teet girls in undergarments (Of which there are like 200, pretty sure all the dev time went into pantsu research), and dress that up in some 3D action game for your Vita (Or, if you like Senran already), this is probably worth checking out. Its not as good as the better Senran games, and somehow manages less character development even with a smaller cast, but all the toppings are still there. If you want to actually play an action game though, this will not satisfy.
Super Mario Bros: Lost Levels
After recently purchasing an SNES and a handful of games I've played a thousand times, I realized that, despite owning All Stars for most of my life, I had never played through Lost Levels (Or SMB2, depending on how savvy you want to be). I expected a kinda bad mario clone, since I know it re-used a lot of assets, and my early attempts at the game left me feeling like it was just a bad mario that tried to be hard.
Sitting down with it now, I realize I was completely wrong. This game is superb, not only in its design, but in its ability to completely deconstruct everything the player would have come to expect from a sequel. From poison mushrooms (Which are by far the most common powerup, regular powerups are rare as all hell), to false warp zones, to hidden blocks played precisely to cause a pit fall, the jumps that require bouncing on enemies to pass, to dickish maze areas inside AND outside of castles, to placing Bowser in a non-castle level... it just does so much that feels so wrong. It even ends wrong, as after viewing the "ending" in 8-4, the game just keeps going to World 9... and then Worlds A-D! Thats 20 levels beyond the end of a game that only contained 32 levels!
Now, despite this game being way more ridiculous than I expected, this still sounds fairly on par of what I'd heard about the game over the years. However, as sadistic as the game appears, its design is just fantastic. You'll die a few times in a level, sure, but once you have your footing, you can fly through these stages, and it feels great! The game feels like it is designed to be played at full momentum, and rarely will you have to stop to wait for a platform or enemy to line up properly, and once you know where to jump and how to line things up, you'll feel like the most badass Mario player around.
I was pleasantly surprised by this game, and I can't imagine picking this up in 86 and taking it home. It is such an odd approach to a sequel, and it shows a tier of Nintendo design that I feel they rarely reach outside of levels they hide at the end of their newer games. Playing this made me really wish Nintendo would be dicks in their games more often.
Yakuza 0
Its worth mentioning that prior to this, I've had little experience with the Yakuza series. For anyone else in a similar situation, this is certainly a great game to jump in on, as I never felt out of the loop, even when realizing that fan service may be occurring.
This was an absolutely fantastic game, one of the best I've played this gen, and honestly one of the best I've played period. Gripping story that, despite having a wide reach and Yakuza politics, manages to create memorable characters left and right. Plot was varied and unpredictable, but stayed consistent throughout. The side quests are some of the best I have ever seen. They are brief, but always different and so over the top that even days after finishing, several of them still stand out in memory. The combat, slew of mini games, and city exploration are all nice and well done, but its the story, writing, and VA that really made this game stand apart for me.
Valkyrie Drive Bhikkhuni
Basically a Senran Kagura game without the Senran Kagura characters. And, like those games, the combat system is deep enough to allow some cool shit, but the game never demands, or even really politely asks you to do said cool shit. There are like 6 enemy types throughout the game that get color upgrades every now and then. Other than the rare times you fight an actual boss, of which there are 4, you spend each mission killing said 6 enemies, snagging collectibles, and fighting another girl from your school at the end.
As bad as that may sound, its honestly fun enough initially. Outside of the actual gameplay, you still get to do all the usual TnA stuff the series is famous for, and I guess mindlessly hacking away at stuff while bewb bounces everywhere is fine. The game certainly overstays its welcome though, as I finished the game with around 25 hours on the clock. Remember, 6 enemies and 4 bosses, in a 25 hour game. The story introduces itself right away, and refuses any forward momentum until about mission 16 (Out of 20).
If you want to dress up teet girls in undergarments (Of which there are like 200, pretty sure all the dev time went into pantsu research), and dress that up in some 3D action game for your Vita (Or, if you like Senran already), this is probably worth checking out. Its not as good as the better Senran games, and somehow manages less character development even with a smaller cast, but all the toppings are still there. If you want to actually play an action game though, this will not satisfy.
Super Mario Bros: Lost Levels
After recently purchasing an SNES and a handful of games I've played a thousand times, I realized that, despite owning All Stars for most of my life, I had never played through Lost Levels (Or SMB2, depending on how savvy you want to be). I expected a kinda bad mario clone, since I know it re-used a lot of assets, and my early attempts at the game left me feeling like it was just a bad mario that tried to be hard.
Sitting down with it now, I realize I was completely wrong. This game is superb, not only in its design, but in its ability to completely deconstruct everything the player would have come to expect from a sequel. From poison mushrooms (Which are by far the most common powerup, regular powerups are rare as all hell), to false warp zones, to hidden blocks played precisely to cause a pit fall, the jumps that require bouncing on enemies to pass, to dickish maze areas inside AND outside of castles, to placing Bowser in a non-castle level... it just does so much that feels so wrong. It even ends wrong, as after viewing the "ending" in 8-4, the game just keeps going to World 9... and then Worlds A-D! Thats 20 levels beyond the end of a game that only contained 32 levels!
Now, despite this game being way more ridiculous than I expected, this still sounds fairly on par of what I'd heard about the game over the years. However, as sadistic as the game appears, its design is just fantastic. You'll die a few times in a level, sure, but once you have your footing, you can fly through these stages, and it feels great! The game feels like it is designed to be played at full momentum, and rarely will you have to stop to wait for a platform or enemy to line up properly, and once you know where to jump and how to line things up, you'll feel like the most badass Mario player around.
I was pleasantly surprised by this game, and I can't imagine picking this up in 86 and taking it home. It is such an odd approach to a sequel, and it shows a tier of Nintendo design that I feel they rarely reach outside of levels they hide at the end of their newer games. Playing this made me really wish Nintendo would be dicks in their games more often.
