Mishelam
92 Reviews liked by Mishelam
Initially, I wasn't sure whether or not I'd write a review for this Kirby entry, but after replaying it, I think it deserves a review.
Believe it or not, Kirby 64 was one of the first two games that started my video game collection. Before then I mostly stuck to what was on modern platforms at the time as I was a kid with limited knowledge on anything that came before the Wii (despite owning a Ps1). However, the N64 was the first "retro" console I took a real interest in as it has Super Smash Bros, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64 (which I actually had played a few times previously), and this game. So when I had enough money to buy an N64 and some games, I went to a retro game store and got myself an N64, Smash Bros, and this game. In hindsight, I would have got Quest 64 too as it was dirt cheap, but I didn't know what it was let alone that I would actually come to like it when I finally did get it. But enough reminiscing! Now its time to get into the game itself!
If you've played any other Kirby game then you'd know what to expect with this one. You run, jump, inhale enemies, and get cool power-ups, but this time with a twist. You can mix & match two power-ups to get all sorts of different abilities. It's a really cool gimmick that as far as I know hasn't returned in any future game and that makes me sad. My personal favorite combination was the fire sword and I would love to use that in another Kirby game.
Kirby is a series that is known for being of the easier franchises that Nintendo makes, but Kirby 64 on the other hand actually does have a decent amount of challenge in it. While the game certainly isn't "the Dark Souls of 2d platformers," it still does have enough challenging moments that make it stand out from some of the other entries in the series that I've played. Skill wise, I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore gamer as I've used save states for my fair share of difficult games that I most likely would never have beaten otherwise, but in a series like Kirby, I do enjoy that the game also isn't a total cakewalk either and I respect it for that.
Another thing I'd like to mention is that the game's visuals are pretty sharp as far as N64 graphics go. I've probably said that about a handful of N64 games, but the game genuinely looks beautiful.
As far as negative things about this game, there aren't many if any that I can think of. I'd say it's a little on the short side, but then again Kirby games are usually pretty short. As far as Kirby games go, its definitely one of the better entries in the series. If Kirby's Dream Land is a sugar cookie, this game is a cake with frosting & sprinkles.
Believe it or not, Kirby 64 was one of the first two games that started my video game collection. Before then I mostly stuck to what was on modern platforms at the time as I was a kid with limited knowledge on anything that came before the Wii (despite owning a Ps1). However, the N64 was the first "retro" console I took a real interest in as it has Super Smash Bros, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64 (which I actually had played a few times previously), and this game. So when I had enough money to buy an N64 and some games, I went to a retro game store and got myself an N64, Smash Bros, and this game. In hindsight, I would have got Quest 64 too as it was dirt cheap, but I didn't know what it was let alone that I would actually come to like it when I finally did get it. But enough reminiscing! Now its time to get into the game itself!
If you've played any other Kirby game then you'd know what to expect with this one. You run, jump, inhale enemies, and get cool power-ups, but this time with a twist. You can mix & match two power-ups to get all sorts of different abilities. It's a really cool gimmick that as far as I know hasn't returned in any future game and that makes me sad. My personal favorite combination was the fire sword and I would love to use that in another Kirby game.
Kirby is a series that is known for being of the easier franchises that Nintendo makes, but Kirby 64 on the other hand actually does have a decent amount of challenge in it. While the game certainly isn't "the Dark Souls of 2d platformers," it still does have enough challenging moments that make it stand out from some of the other entries in the series that I've played. Skill wise, I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore gamer as I've used save states for my fair share of difficult games that I most likely would never have beaten otherwise, but in a series like Kirby, I do enjoy that the game also isn't a total cakewalk either and I respect it for that.
Another thing I'd like to mention is that the game's visuals are pretty sharp as far as N64 graphics go. I've probably said that about a handful of N64 games, but the game genuinely looks beautiful.
As far as negative things about this game, there aren't many if any that I can think of. I'd say it's a little on the short side, but then again Kirby games are usually pretty short. As far as Kirby games go, its definitely one of the better entries in the series. If Kirby's Dream Land is a sugar cookie, this game is a cake with frosting & sprinkles.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a fresh restart for this iconic franchise. After many years in limbo, Ubisoft has brought back the franchise, completely changing the gameplay. Lost Crown is a metroidvania, featuring an open 2D world where you need to learn new abilities to explore certain areas.
The gameplay is very well polished. The world exploration is truly engaging, and the abilities are perfect for both exploration and combat. While the combat against regular enemies is okay, the boss battles are amazing.
The boss fights are the best part of the game. They are complex and vary greatly from each other. You'll face challenging moments to defeat them, but you'll be able to succeed after some tries and learning their movements.
The story is just okay, but compared to other metroidvanias, it stands out as one of the best. The characters are really charismatic.
The graphics are good but nothing special; however, it's still one of the best-looking metroidvania games so far.
During my gameplay, I encountered some minor bugs that required restarting the game. They weren't serious but were annoying because of another downside: the load times. I played the Nintendo Switch version, which has slow loading times, especially when you die.
Despite being a small-budget game, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is the best Ubisoft game since Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. It's a wonderful surprise that I highly recommend, especially if you like metroidvania or 2D action games.
The gameplay is very well polished. The world exploration is truly engaging, and the abilities are perfect for both exploration and combat. While the combat against regular enemies is okay, the boss battles are amazing.
The boss fights are the best part of the game. They are complex and vary greatly from each other. You'll face challenging moments to defeat them, but you'll be able to succeed after some tries and learning their movements.
The story is just okay, but compared to other metroidvanias, it stands out as one of the best. The characters are really charismatic.
The graphics are good but nothing special; however, it's still one of the best-looking metroidvania games so far.
During my gameplay, I encountered some minor bugs that required restarting the game. They weren't serious but were annoying because of another downside: the load times. I played the Nintendo Switch version, which has slow loading times, especially when you die.
Despite being a small-budget game, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is the best Ubisoft game since Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. It's a wonderful surprise that I highly recommend, especially if you like metroidvania or 2D action games.
The chills when Aoko said "It's over Touko I am the Mahoutsukai no Yoru (2012)"
Kururin Paradise
2002
the fundamental genius of the kururin trilogy derives from its unique, bare bones approach to the technique of constantly altering outcomes over time. consider a racing game: part of the appeal of the genre is how the timing of every action will alter the outcome of each action that comes after it. taking a turn not only changes your speed and direction in the moment, but it will also affect the speed at which you arrive at the next turn, which will affect the requisite braking power needed for said turn, the best line to take through the curve, and potentially the performance of your vehicle assuming that you're playing with something where the powerband or other handling element of the vehicle matters. varying when and/or how you take the turn adds nuance to the way you must approach each section afterwards. it is easy to call a racing game a "puzzle" of sorts because one could effectively "solve" the right actions to do at each point in the track, but with an incredibly dense state space that inhibits reproducibility (aka requiring precision to recreate particular states that most players won't be able to perform consistently) and a model that alters behavior based on previous actions, the game can let the player get the gist on how to handle a turn while forcing them to continue paying constant attention to their car's state and reacting to handling nuances that they may not have explicitly encountered before.
the kururin series does this without the dense state space by instead keeping the character's long, stick-like ship constantly turning while punishing contact with any obstacles. the player tracks very little but the rotation of the ship and the location of various moving obstacles, yet small variations in timing will change the phase of the ship's rotation for future movement and thus force a reevaluation on how to move through future corridors. in some ways the unforgiving, ticky-tacky movement (the player has three discrete speeds to choose from) actually enhances this effect by in its own way inhibiting reproducibility; racing games require subtle input shifts to provide handling differences, but the comparative obviousness (and slow rotation speed) of kururin's gimmick more or less necessitates large, unsubtle movement inputs to actually yield new effects down the line.
however, because of the cyclical nature of the helirin's (the ship's) rotation, desired states will always reoccur provided the player has space to sit and wait, giving a start-and-stop effect to play that can become underwhelming. this kills the above effect as well, as the ability to frequently reset your state ignores the gradual changes in outcome that makes the above playstyle so compelling. the first game suffered immensely from this issue in its larger stages thanks to obstacles with their own cycles requiring a synchronization between the helirin and the obstacle that could potentially take multiple rotations to occur based on the difference in period between the two. it attempted to solve this by allowing you to change your rotation phase via springs that bounce you in the other direction, which were often stacked in such a way you could create a holding pattern for the helirin until achieving a desired phase and proceeding through the obstacle. still, this is just a spin on waiting in place. paradise smartly fixes this by finally giving the player control over their rotation speed. even with only a single speed increase to work with, the player has significantly more leverage on how to deal with moving obstacles, and the designers can in turn decrease the amount of reset points from levels, resulting in a more compact and intense scenario feel overall.
indeed, as the first game devolved into gauntlets of obstacles that rewarded consistency over analysis of the interactions that arise from the rotation, paradise goes in the other direction. the clock level... oh my god, what a mind-fuck moment when I first played this game years and years ago. a clock-face maze with two giant rotating arms (one clockwise, one counter-clockwise) forms the majority of this level, bookended by two small obstacle generator sections. the clock face is deceptively open, but one quickly finds that the incursion of the arms prevents one from staying in place, and the design of the different corridors within the clock face make it necessary to switch between clockwise and counter-clockwise in order to move through it, especially if one wishes to get the key rising on the top side of the structure. later levels experiment with other gimmicks, such as ghosts that jump onto the ship and slow it down, forcing the player to move into higher speeds through tight areas and then instantly switch out as soon as the ghosts leave, and sliding walls that change the layout of the level as it progresses, disorienting the player as they progress to the exit. other levels also retain the open routing of the clock level far more than the game's on-rails predecessor, often by creating seemingly random wall structures that offer multiple different routes with escalating difficulty depending on where one finds little crevices to sneak through between surfaces. this is iterated upon with extra areas unlocked with keys on a surprising amount of levels, often with the keys themselves residing in out-of-the-way sections of other levels. all in all, it's quite the leap over the original kururin in confidence of design, even as the true final level begins to recede into the same tiring gauntlets as the original.
what will be somewhat more polarizing to a new player are the minigames. the titular hero must rescue his family members from a circus troupe (I think?), each of whom provides a minigame as prerequisite for freeing one of the prisoners. in the best cases, this involves a twist upon the core mechanics of the game, such as changing the length of the helirin over time or having it carry items that jut out from its arms. a particular lawnmower game provides a rather interesting test in how to actually cover area with the helirin as opposed just to avoiding contact. others are perfunctory (the flappy bird minigame early on) or downright unpleasant (the strict and unwieldy racing game). a particular minigame requires you to rotate the screen on its side to get a vertical view of the helirin tumbling down a rock shaft collecting some items or whatever. begs the question of why we don't have a screen rotation mode in mgba yet? perhaps there's not enough other gba games that use this gimmick; I imagine that the advent of the clamshell GBA SP basically nixed that idea for any future titles.
the kururin series does this without the dense state space by instead keeping the character's long, stick-like ship constantly turning while punishing contact with any obstacles. the player tracks very little but the rotation of the ship and the location of various moving obstacles, yet small variations in timing will change the phase of the ship's rotation for future movement and thus force a reevaluation on how to move through future corridors. in some ways the unforgiving, ticky-tacky movement (the player has three discrete speeds to choose from) actually enhances this effect by in its own way inhibiting reproducibility; racing games require subtle input shifts to provide handling differences, but the comparative obviousness (and slow rotation speed) of kururin's gimmick more or less necessitates large, unsubtle movement inputs to actually yield new effects down the line.
however, because of the cyclical nature of the helirin's (the ship's) rotation, desired states will always reoccur provided the player has space to sit and wait, giving a start-and-stop effect to play that can become underwhelming. this kills the above effect as well, as the ability to frequently reset your state ignores the gradual changes in outcome that makes the above playstyle so compelling. the first game suffered immensely from this issue in its larger stages thanks to obstacles with their own cycles requiring a synchronization between the helirin and the obstacle that could potentially take multiple rotations to occur based on the difference in period between the two. it attempted to solve this by allowing you to change your rotation phase via springs that bounce you in the other direction, which were often stacked in such a way you could create a holding pattern for the helirin until achieving a desired phase and proceeding through the obstacle. still, this is just a spin on waiting in place. paradise smartly fixes this by finally giving the player control over their rotation speed. even with only a single speed increase to work with, the player has significantly more leverage on how to deal with moving obstacles, and the designers can in turn decrease the amount of reset points from levels, resulting in a more compact and intense scenario feel overall.
indeed, as the first game devolved into gauntlets of obstacles that rewarded consistency over analysis of the interactions that arise from the rotation, paradise goes in the other direction. the clock level... oh my god, what a mind-fuck moment when I first played this game years and years ago. a clock-face maze with two giant rotating arms (one clockwise, one counter-clockwise) forms the majority of this level, bookended by two small obstacle generator sections. the clock face is deceptively open, but one quickly finds that the incursion of the arms prevents one from staying in place, and the design of the different corridors within the clock face make it necessary to switch between clockwise and counter-clockwise in order to move through it, especially if one wishes to get the key rising on the top side of the structure. later levels experiment with other gimmicks, such as ghosts that jump onto the ship and slow it down, forcing the player to move into higher speeds through tight areas and then instantly switch out as soon as the ghosts leave, and sliding walls that change the layout of the level as it progresses, disorienting the player as they progress to the exit. other levels also retain the open routing of the clock level far more than the game's on-rails predecessor, often by creating seemingly random wall structures that offer multiple different routes with escalating difficulty depending on where one finds little crevices to sneak through between surfaces. this is iterated upon with extra areas unlocked with keys on a surprising amount of levels, often with the keys themselves residing in out-of-the-way sections of other levels. all in all, it's quite the leap over the original kururin in confidence of design, even as the true final level begins to recede into the same tiring gauntlets as the original.
what will be somewhat more polarizing to a new player are the minigames. the titular hero must rescue his family members from a circus troupe (I think?), each of whom provides a minigame as prerequisite for freeing one of the prisoners. in the best cases, this involves a twist upon the core mechanics of the game, such as changing the length of the helirin over time or having it carry items that jut out from its arms. a particular lawnmower game provides a rather interesting test in how to actually cover area with the helirin as opposed just to avoiding contact. others are perfunctory (the flappy bird minigame early on) or downright unpleasant (the strict and unwieldy racing game). a particular minigame requires you to rotate the screen on its side to get a vertical view of the helirin tumbling down a rock shaft collecting some items or whatever. begs the question of why we don't have a screen rotation mode in mgba yet? perhaps there's not enough other gba games that use this gimmick; I imagine that the advent of the clamshell GBA SP basically nixed that idea for any future titles.
(Beat on 6/8/24)
I don't really know how to describe this game. Clearly Final Fantasy made some radical shifts with FF7, usually that's the entry people gravitate to as far as 'modernizing' the series yet even so I think there's a lot more in common with 7's structure to its predecessors than 8 with any game in the series up to this point and, to be frank, most staples of the RPG genre as a whole.
I didn't quite know how 8 unfolded outside of some of the opening missions and somehow assumed much of how the game was structured off that mostly; the game being based on some sort of mission/grading structure that could be repeated or reattempted multiple times. Somewhere between these missions you'd go and play Triple Triad as a break from the norm, maybe you'd get some fun rewards and after some set up you’d continue parts of the main plot.
Instead, while preparing to play this game to its fullest I saw discussion about how easy it was to actually game the system- this caught my attention, namely how SOON you can get the train rolling. I followed suit not realizing the inertia with which the game’s functionalities would stack on top of one another. So much of this game goes beyond the scope of what I come to expect of an RPG, and while there’s a lot of experimental titles in the franchise this being tied to FF of all things just perplexed me. Again, FF7 still FELT pretty kosher to the idea of an RPG structure.
-This is a game with:
-Boss Fights that give 0 exp
-Level scaled enemies and bosses from front to back
-No permanently learned magic
-No 'permanent' actions other than Attack
-A stat spread based off magic drawn from enemies
-A stat system based on Summons with unique unlockable skillsets that include
>Drawing magic from enemies
>Drawing additional Summons off enemies
>Further boosting stats off percentages
>Further boosting stats upon level up
>Unlocking which stats can be boosted in the first place
>Unlocking elemental attack and resist options
>Unlocking status attack and resist options
>Unlocking free versions of healing/reviving magic
>Upgrading basic magic into mid-level magic
>Upgrading mid level magic into high level magic
>Upgrading medicine
>Mugging enemies for unique items
>Carding enemies to end fights with 0 exp
>Turning items into end game magic
>Turning items into Ultimate Weapon materials
>Buying from stores from within your main menu
>Buying items for cheaper
>Selling items at higher values
>Turning off 50% of Encounters
>Turning off all Encounters
>Killing yourself
>Finding hidden Save and Draw Points
-A card system that rewards the player with more cards, with its own evolving ruleset that just gets worse and worse if you dont stop the spread at the root in one town
(Triple Triad Rules)
>Several questlines and opportunities to nab rare cards
>Modding these cards into items, magic and upgrade materials
>Modding purchased items into better items sold at higher prices, creating infinite gil
-A full party by the end of Disc 1
-Ultimate weapons by the end of Disc 1
-A recurring payment based off rank
Ironically the most recognizable trope FF8 takes for granted is it centralizing on a school setting- a trope so martyred in discourse but an honest rarity in the franchise for the most part.
I want to say as far as the cast and certain aesthetic go, Final Fantasy 7 will remain king in my heart- 8 would have an uphill battle from there. However for what its worth Squall at least stands pretty close to Cloud as far as protagonists go and Rinoa is a pretty great foil turned love interest. Not my favorite party but for how small the party is they're all at least solid in their own way. Laguna and his gang are also pretty rad, coming along with one of the best battle themes in the series.
I think the only thing really holding it back is I do just feel so ingrained in the ways to break it that it just feels so...unnatural. Part of this is on me but it does feel just absurd the lengths you go through to beef up your character. I guess it just feels weird not having a sorta ‘virgin’ experience with the game but with how cracked out you can make your party (and how easy it is now that 3x speed is an option…), then sure I’ll take what matters I need to drawspam Meteor and Flare in one battle.
I think one confusing element is just when exactly leveling should be prioritized. If you wanna be funny with it I pretty much went 90% of the game at an average sitting around level 17, although really at a certain point you at least wanna get to level 30 as that unlocks the last tier of magic that can be drawn. Granted, most of this doesnt matter too much its incredibly easy to grind at any point in time you have access to battling.
Length of certain cutscenes can feel a bit absurd, mostly in just how drawn out certain directions are. Some moments just linger on the same shot as a character walks slowly across to the party on the other side of the screen. It's a weird in-between, too grounded for earlier, classic FFs jumping freely between facades in a space but too soon from FFX setting the standard for high budget, voice acted, cinematic experiences. From FF7's success we at least get several, several impressive CG cutscenes. FF7 certainly proved the franchise can work in a 3D environment (bar confusing area layouts)- but FF8 was Squaresoft at its most showoff and it's pretty wonderful to see when large scale gatherings and battles bloom out of set piecey segments. Also a damn good reminder I should finally check out Parasite Eve.
I think this will be a FF that'll grow on me- I was already enjoying it quite well aside from some perplexing setups, and I feel more attached to other aspects of other games in the series but on a mechanical standpoint this was such a blast to dismantle. Even the story elements, while I feel somewhat lukewarm on a ‘scenario’ level, have some pretty stand out moments across each disc and I have a fondness for how delightfully deep they go into Squall’s standoffish nature and his relation to Rinoa. On to IX, eventually.
I don't really know how to describe this game. Clearly Final Fantasy made some radical shifts with FF7, usually that's the entry people gravitate to as far as 'modernizing' the series yet even so I think there's a lot more in common with 7's structure to its predecessors than 8 with any game in the series up to this point and, to be frank, most staples of the RPG genre as a whole.
I didn't quite know how 8 unfolded outside of some of the opening missions and somehow assumed much of how the game was structured off that mostly; the game being based on some sort of mission/grading structure that could be repeated or reattempted multiple times. Somewhere between these missions you'd go and play Triple Triad as a break from the norm, maybe you'd get some fun rewards and after some set up you’d continue parts of the main plot.
Instead, while preparing to play this game to its fullest I saw discussion about how easy it was to actually game the system- this caught my attention, namely how SOON you can get the train rolling. I followed suit not realizing the inertia with which the game’s functionalities would stack on top of one another. So much of this game goes beyond the scope of what I come to expect of an RPG, and while there’s a lot of experimental titles in the franchise this being tied to FF of all things just perplexed me. Again, FF7 still FELT pretty kosher to the idea of an RPG structure.
-This is a game with:
-Boss Fights that give 0 exp
-Level scaled enemies and bosses from front to back
-No permanently learned magic
-No 'permanent' actions other than Attack
-A stat spread based off magic drawn from enemies
-A stat system based on Summons with unique unlockable skillsets that include
>Drawing magic from enemies
>Drawing additional Summons off enemies
>Further boosting stats off percentages
>Further boosting stats upon level up
>Unlocking which stats can be boosted in the first place
>Unlocking elemental attack and resist options
>Unlocking status attack and resist options
>Unlocking free versions of healing/reviving magic
>Upgrading basic magic into mid-level magic
>Upgrading mid level magic into high level magic
>Upgrading medicine
>Mugging enemies for unique items
>Carding enemies to end fights with 0 exp
>Turning items into end game magic
>Turning items into Ultimate Weapon materials
>Buying from stores from within your main menu
>Buying items for cheaper
>Selling items at higher values
>Turning off 50% of Encounters
>Turning off all Encounters
>Killing yourself
>Finding hidden Save and Draw Points
-A card system that rewards the player with more cards, with its own evolving ruleset that just gets worse and worse if you dont stop the spread at the root in one town
(Triple Triad Rules)
>Several questlines and opportunities to nab rare cards
>Modding these cards into items, magic and upgrade materials
>Modding purchased items into better items sold at higher prices, creating infinite gil
-A full party by the end of Disc 1
-Ultimate weapons by the end of Disc 1
-A recurring payment based off rank
Ironically the most recognizable trope FF8 takes for granted is it centralizing on a school setting- a trope so martyred in discourse but an honest rarity in the franchise for the most part.
I want to say as far as the cast and certain aesthetic go, Final Fantasy 7 will remain king in my heart- 8 would have an uphill battle from there. However for what its worth Squall at least stands pretty close to Cloud as far as protagonists go and Rinoa is a pretty great foil turned love interest. Not my favorite party but for how small the party is they're all at least solid in their own way. Laguna and his gang are also pretty rad, coming along with one of the best battle themes in the series.
I think the only thing really holding it back is I do just feel so ingrained in the ways to break it that it just feels so...unnatural. Part of this is on me but it does feel just absurd the lengths you go through to beef up your character. I guess it just feels weird not having a sorta ‘virgin’ experience with the game but with how cracked out you can make your party (and how easy it is now that 3x speed is an option…), then sure I’ll take what matters I need to drawspam Meteor and Flare in one battle.
I think one confusing element is just when exactly leveling should be prioritized. If you wanna be funny with it I pretty much went 90% of the game at an average sitting around level 17, although really at a certain point you at least wanna get to level 30 as that unlocks the last tier of magic that can be drawn. Granted, most of this doesnt matter too much its incredibly easy to grind at any point in time you have access to battling.
Length of certain cutscenes can feel a bit absurd, mostly in just how drawn out certain directions are. Some moments just linger on the same shot as a character walks slowly across to the party on the other side of the screen. It's a weird in-between, too grounded for earlier, classic FFs jumping freely between facades in a space but too soon from FFX setting the standard for high budget, voice acted, cinematic experiences. From FF7's success we at least get several, several impressive CG cutscenes. FF7 certainly proved the franchise can work in a 3D environment (bar confusing area layouts)- but FF8 was Squaresoft at its most showoff and it's pretty wonderful to see when large scale gatherings and battles bloom out of set piecey segments. Also a damn good reminder I should finally check out Parasite Eve.
I think this will be a FF that'll grow on me- I was already enjoying it quite well aside from some perplexing setups, and I feel more attached to other aspects of other games in the series but on a mechanical standpoint this was such a blast to dismantle. Even the story elements, while I feel somewhat lukewarm on a ‘scenario’ level, have some pretty stand out moments across each disc and I have a fondness for how delightfully deep they go into Squall’s standoffish nature and his relation to Rinoa. On to IX, eventually.
Finished a while back, forgot to log. Played on the Advance Collection.
Immediately, Harmony of Dissonance feels a lot more floaty- very weird feeling coming off of CotM but I prefer the trade off of not needing to double tap to dash. I missed the backdash so much- and hey, you even get a front dash in this one! It does get a bit repetitive just dashing through the castle, mashing the L/R buttons but it's been a while since i've felt good moving through the castle from the get- usually it takes a while before you get to that point.
It's also great seeing the melodrama return- one thing greatly missing from CotM. I neglected to talk about it because I figured it wasn't really worth noting but CotM feels incredibly stilted dialogue wise, something I figured was just because it was just trying to be a CV on the GBA. Comparatively, Iga's flavor comes out on a ton of fronts throughout this title. Plot wise it's fairly vanilla throughout, but Juste and Maxim have that right amount of melodrama even for as little screen time as you get for the two. I appreciate details like both characters realizing there's alternate dimension-personae encounters pretty early on rather than dragging that out.
I also really appreciate how many set-piece rooms are littered throughout this castle, a lot of rooms where there's just one element they throw in just to make the castle feel a bit more interactable. For example the room with a pendulum and a giant knight, baiting the knight under the pendulum and knocking him into a wall opens up a new section with some nice trinkets. It's a lot of fun to enter and explore the new areas of the castles, with a lot of goodies sprinkled throughout to keep interest up.
The main point of contention here is the castle itself, being an already extraordinary labyrinth compared to most other maps in the series, with a lot of dead ends and tangled sections to explore at first, then mitosis'd into a Castle 'B' that you've been entering in and out of for a good chunk of the first half. Here's where exploring gets bipolar, needing to remind yourself of whether you've explored certain segments as thoroughly on one side as the other and juggling between which castle has the next plot/item beat before reaching the climax in the center of the castle. Although I do appreciate the lack of rooms hidden behind destructible walls for this game distinctly.
This game also has a lot more bosses than CotM and while the quality of the 'fights' feels a bit better on average, the quality of the 'boss' aspect varies greatly. Most of them have some pretty distinct phases and well telegraphed attacks, making for a much smoother time handling boss fights compared to some of the more repetitive fights in COTM. However, certain other fights are just 'here's a larger version of an enemy', there's not as much of a distinct scale as some of the standout fights in COTM like Adramelech or the Zombie Dragons.
Overall, I didn't find myself feeling as fatigued going through this compared to previous Castlevanias. No need to grind for cards, perfectly manageable difficulty curve, lot of items to actually use, and while the story isn't all too complicated the writing feels more in line to what I come to expect from the series. A pretty good translation of the Igavania style to GBA.
Immediately, Harmony of Dissonance feels a lot more floaty- very weird feeling coming off of CotM but I prefer the trade off of not needing to double tap to dash. I missed the backdash so much- and hey, you even get a front dash in this one! It does get a bit repetitive just dashing through the castle, mashing the L/R buttons but it's been a while since i've felt good moving through the castle from the get- usually it takes a while before you get to that point.
It's also great seeing the melodrama return- one thing greatly missing from CotM. I neglected to talk about it because I figured it wasn't really worth noting but CotM feels incredibly stilted dialogue wise, something I figured was just because it was just trying to be a CV on the GBA. Comparatively, Iga's flavor comes out on a ton of fronts throughout this title. Plot wise it's fairly vanilla throughout, but Juste and Maxim have that right amount of melodrama even for as little screen time as you get for the two. I appreciate details like both characters realizing there's alternate dimension-personae encounters pretty early on rather than dragging that out.
I also really appreciate how many set-piece rooms are littered throughout this castle, a lot of rooms where there's just one element they throw in just to make the castle feel a bit more interactable. For example the room with a pendulum and a giant knight, baiting the knight under the pendulum and knocking him into a wall opens up a new section with some nice trinkets. It's a lot of fun to enter and explore the new areas of the castles, with a lot of goodies sprinkled throughout to keep interest up.
The main point of contention here is the castle itself, being an already extraordinary labyrinth compared to most other maps in the series, with a lot of dead ends and tangled sections to explore at first, then mitosis'd into a Castle 'B' that you've been entering in and out of for a good chunk of the first half. Here's where exploring gets bipolar, needing to remind yourself of whether you've explored certain segments as thoroughly on one side as the other and juggling between which castle has the next plot/item beat before reaching the climax in the center of the castle. Although I do appreciate the lack of rooms hidden behind destructible walls for this game distinctly.
This game also has a lot more bosses than CotM and while the quality of the 'fights' feels a bit better on average, the quality of the 'boss' aspect varies greatly. Most of them have some pretty distinct phases and well telegraphed attacks, making for a much smoother time handling boss fights compared to some of the more repetitive fights in COTM. However, certain other fights are just 'here's a larger version of an enemy', there's not as much of a distinct scale as some of the standout fights in COTM like Adramelech or the Zombie Dragons.
Overall, I didn't find myself feeling as fatigued going through this compared to previous Castlevanias. No need to grind for cards, perfectly manageable difficulty curve, lot of items to actually use, and while the story isn't all too complicated the writing feels more in line to what I come to expect from the series. A pretty good translation of the Igavania style to GBA.
this game gives me ptsd flashbacks to that time i dropped my phenex gundam kit and it just shattered
This game's entirely unrealistic. The Zeta would explode like a plastic hand grenade in your hand if you thought about it wrong
Darksiders
2010
Back in the day when Darksiders initially came out, I was a big action game fan (still am). I loved my DMCs and God of Wars, and so with the combat that Darksiders did have, my expectation was a cool action game but based on the Abrahamic religions as it's backdrop. Instead I got a semi decent action game, but filled with puzzles, dungeons and exploration. I wasn't a big fan of Zelda back then and I thought the puzzles/exploration were boring. I just wanted to fight stuff. So by time I got to the final dungeon, I was overwhelmed and just quit the game.
Fast forward to today, Zelda is one of my favourite franchises of all time. I love the classic Zelda formula of dungeons, exploration and puzzles. So I thought back about how Darksiders was basically a Zelda game with an Abrahamic lore, and wanted to give it another chance with my new Zelda-liking mindset.
Darksiders is a great Zelda clone. It is pretty much an Arbramic Ocarina of Time where it follows the same formula. You explore an overworld, solve puzzles dungeons to get new items that help you defeat bosses and gain access to new areas in the overworld. The more you explore, the more upgrades you will find that will make you stronger etc etc. It's not so different from Ocarina Of Time, you even get a horse.
The one thing that does really separate Darksiders from a Zelda game, besides the setting, is the combat. Zelda combat is usually nothing to write home about, and serviceable. Darksiders takes note of the action games from those days, like DMC and God of War and kind of melds it's combo focused action with Zelda's -targeting system. It works, and quite fun to play, but it's not as mechanically deep DMC or God of War. It feels more like an enhanced OoT combat system, although there isn't much enemy variety so towards the end of the game it starts to feel quite repetrtive
I love the post apocalyptic modern setting, which definitely helps separate itself from the fantasy medieval setting of Zelda to offer it's own unique experience. The lore is quite good, especially if you are familiar with any of the Abrahamic religions, it takes concepts and events and twists it to it's own dark universe. You can tell they really want to set up a larger universe with multiple games, just from this first game which was ambitious of the team and (almost) delivered.
It's not a masterpiece like Ocarina of Time, but it does what it sets out to do very well. Nothing here is ground breaking or innovative. It's just a great all around Zelda clone, which I'm glad I revisited to give a second chance.
Fast forward to today, Zelda is one of my favourite franchises of all time. I love the classic Zelda formula of dungeons, exploration and puzzles. So I thought back about how Darksiders was basically a Zelda game with an Abrahamic lore, and wanted to give it another chance with my new Zelda-liking mindset.
Darksiders is a great Zelda clone. It is pretty much an Arbramic Ocarina of Time where it follows the same formula. You explore an overworld, solve puzzles dungeons to get new items that help you defeat bosses and gain access to new areas in the overworld. The more you explore, the more upgrades you will find that will make you stronger etc etc. It's not so different from Ocarina Of Time, you even get a horse.
The one thing that does really separate Darksiders from a Zelda game, besides the setting, is the combat. Zelda combat is usually nothing to write home about, and serviceable. Darksiders takes note of the action games from those days, like DMC and God of War and kind of melds it's combo focused action with Zelda's -targeting system. It works, and quite fun to play, but it's not as mechanically deep DMC or God of War. It feels more like an enhanced OoT combat system, although there isn't much enemy variety so towards the end of the game it starts to feel quite repetrtive
I love the post apocalyptic modern setting, which definitely helps separate itself from the fantasy medieval setting of Zelda to offer it's own unique experience. The lore is quite good, especially if you are familiar with any of the Abrahamic religions, it takes concepts and events and twists it to it's own dark universe. You can tell they really want to set up a larger universe with multiple games, just from this first game which was ambitious of the team and (almost) delivered.
It's not a masterpiece like Ocarina of Time, but it does what it sets out to do very well. Nothing here is ground breaking or innovative. It's just a great all around Zelda clone, which I'm glad I revisited to give a second chance.
only took two and a half years, but through my innovative technique of playing a handful of missions every four months I have finally taken down this beast. absurd how structurally lazy this game is: 89 single-player missions, all back-to-back with no side quests or key quest system or any sort of progression/organization beyond "play a mission and then unlock the next one." it should be obvious that most of these missions bear more than a small resemblance to one another due to the comparative dearth of maps and enemy types, so throwing the player into this many mandatory missions just exacerbates the repetition. sure, this is a game oriented around an endless grind for weapon and armor drops, but evidently the game's bounty of missions vastly exceed the bounds of the game's weapon pools given that identical pools appear in many of the missions on a given difficulty and rarely give new items. the weapon level drop curve is such that even running the first couple of missions on inferno, the highest difficulty, primarily gave me weapons I already had from midgame on normal, three difficulties below it. this would be more bearable if at least the weapon pools between all four classes were shared... but they aren't, so good luck if you played through the campaign with one class and would like to switch on the next difficulty up, because you won't have shit to work with. the developers recognized these unforced errors because edf5 rectified a fair number of them (primarily shared weapon pools and an upgrade system when you pick up a dupe), but it stings a bit that this entry completely fumbles these elements here.
I'm dedicated to fencer (the armored suit class) through and through, and in this particular entry fencer gets an essential (if perhaps not intended) dash cancel that lifts the weight of the rest of the game on its back. by firing the otherwise mediocre javelin catapult directly after executing a side dash, the ending lag of the dash will get overwritten with extremely fast javelin recovery frames, enabling quick dash spam across the battlefield. a couple weapon types possess the side dash as an auxillary ability, with perhaps no one more busted than the blasthole spear lineage, which provide rapid-fire, high-DPS shots at close range. the synergy is quickly clear: hit-and-run tactics with the spears and the dash cancel can easily depose even spongier enemies as long as one manages their cooldowns. of course, if this was the whole gameplan, the game would stale over such a long campaign, but luckily the fencer uniquely possesses switchable item sets. I kept a mid-range cannon and long-range mortars on deck in the other set for most of the ride as heavy artillery to deal the majority of my long-range damage, and since these remove the incredible mobility of the javelin/spear combo, you have a comfortable role trade-off to deal with in each fight. switching sets can't be done willy-nilly, and outside of wakeup animations most recovery lag will keep you from swapping, preserving the commitment of the most truly heinous fencer weaponry. the sluggish movement of the fencer normally would not necessarily be fun to use, as it would submerge the game into wading through enemies and tanking shot after shot, but this particular dash-cancel wrinkle helps sell a hot-and-cold playstyle that one rarely finds in a third-person shooter.
scenario-wise, probably one of the best examples I can think of where simply mass-spawning identical enemies makes for very solid encounters. although my brain would like to call it a TPS musou, it really hews closer to a wave shooter or arena shooter due to the centralization of the battle around the player character. you may enter with allies to assist you, but they rarely last past the first wave, and thus the game devolves into controlling the mass of enemies following you and you alone around the map. at its worst, it's a lot of kiting, either soothed by the need to stop to unleash your best weapons or agitated by the need to build up a healthy distance from the enemies before you unleash your best weapons, depending on how you look at it. only the cheap fodder succumb to pure tracking tactics, however, and with enough alternate opponents that lockdown certain parts of the map, roam, or patrol, you can find yourself properly flanked in a way the fodder can't do alone. of these the most fundamental are the hectors: large bipedal robots with an assortment of heavy weaponry and shields. getting in one's sights can subject the player to anything from full-map range plasma shots to short-range sheets of sparks, the latter of which portends poorly for any fencer player clamped to the ground by it. the variety of these and the use of different AI routines for each make hectors an essential flavor for any environment, especially maps with lots of enemy spawn points. other large enemies are equally fascinating (the segmented quadruped deroys and their long-range leg melee are rather fierce), yet the bosses tend to make clear how much of the game relies on hundreds of adds running around the screen at once due to their gigantic hurtboxes and rudimentary behavior. perhaps this is why the final boss opts for a much smarter strategy of smothering the earth with artificial ceiling of weaponry, with the top hurtbox only accessible when openings in the ceiling plates have been cracked open.
I'm dedicated to fencer (the armored suit class) through and through, and in this particular entry fencer gets an essential (if perhaps not intended) dash cancel that lifts the weight of the rest of the game on its back. by firing the otherwise mediocre javelin catapult directly after executing a side dash, the ending lag of the dash will get overwritten with extremely fast javelin recovery frames, enabling quick dash spam across the battlefield. a couple weapon types possess the side dash as an auxillary ability, with perhaps no one more busted than the blasthole spear lineage, which provide rapid-fire, high-DPS shots at close range. the synergy is quickly clear: hit-and-run tactics with the spears and the dash cancel can easily depose even spongier enemies as long as one manages their cooldowns. of course, if this was the whole gameplan, the game would stale over such a long campaign, but luckily the fencer uniquely possesses switchable item sets. I kept a mid-range cannon and long-range mortars on deck in the other set for most of the ride as heavy artillery to deal the majority of my long-range damage, and since these remove the incredible mobility of the javelin/spear combo, you have a comfortable role trade-off to deal with in each fight. switching sets can't be done willy-nilly, and outside of wakeup animations most recovery lag will keep you from swapping, preserving the commitment of the most truly heinous fencer weaponry. the sluggish movement of the fencer normally would not necessarily be fun to use, as it would submerge the game into wading through enemies and tanking shot after shot, but this particular dash-cancel wrinkle helps sell a hot-and-cold playstyle that one rarely finds in a third-person shooter.
scenario-wise, probably one of the best examples I can think of where simply mass-spawning identical enemies makes for very solid encounters. although my brain would like to call it a TPS musou, it really hews closer to a wave shooter or arena shooter due to the centralization of the battle around the player character. you may enter with allies to assist you, but they rarely last past the first wave, and thus the game devolves into controlling the mass of enemies following you and you alone around the map. at its worst, it's a lot of kiting, either soothed by the need to stop to unleash your best weapons or agitated by the need to build up a healthy distance from the enemies before you unleash your best weapons, depending on how you look at it. only the cheap fodder succumb to pure tracking tactics, however, and with enough alternate opponents that lockdown certain parts of the map, roam, or patrol, you can find yourself properly flanked in a way the fodder can't do alone. of these the most fundamental are the hectors: large bipedal robots with an assortment of heavy weaponry and shields. getting in one's sights can subject the player to anything from full-map range plasma shots to short-range sheets of sparks, the latter of which portends poorly for any fencer player clamped to the ground by it. the variety of these and the use of different AI routines for each make hectors an essential flavor for any environment, especially maps with lots of enemy spawn points. other large enemies are equally fascinating (the segmented quadruped deroys and their long-range leg melee are rather fierce), yet the bosses tend to make clear how much of the game relies on hundreds of adds running around the screen at once due to their gigantic hurtboxes and rudimentary behavior. perhaps this is why the final boss opts for a much smarter strategy of smothering the earth with artificial ceiling of weaponry, with the top hurtbox only accessible when openings in the ceiling plates have been cracked open.
Unicorn Overlord
2024
Unicorn Overlord
Finished 5/4/24
As a fan of the tactics genre I sometimes have to face an unfortunate truth. I'm not really that smart. Denoting the tactics genre as something of an 'intelligent' genre isn't super productive or entirely all that honest but I think most people like to equate it as requiring a bit more patience and caution to every detail. The game of chess throughout history used as a paradigm of teaching tactical strategy, morality, higher thinking and the likes- unfortunately, in our middle school's gifted enrichment class I had the proud honor of being the 2nd worst chess player in our class ranking. I don't know, something about my planning functions just don't activate in the middle of a TRPG, sometimes becoming an issue in these tactical games. FFT, Capsule Monster Coliseum, Tactics Ogre- at least Fire Emblem's archetypal builds and borderline gambling chances have carved a niche in my brain as to how I proceed through those battlefields. It's a weird conflict of interest for me but one I enjoy wracking my brain with as the systems often take creative liberties to allow several different variables in handling their given puzzles. Leave it to Vanillaware to both alleviate on and twist the knife on this predicament.
Unicorn Overlord is a magnificent addition to the genre's canon, and would make a pretty good entry into the genre as of late, as Fire Emblem I feel has cornered itself in weird conflicting philosophies, in my opinion and other tactics franchises are mostly juggling through remakes at the moment. Ironic to recommend it as such given how much this game borrows from the canon wholesale, the gameplay is very much Ogre Battle 64, the world map and many plot beats reek of 16-bit Fire Emblem yet the later addition of Feather classes and Bestrals feel more akin to the Tellius titles. This is fairly typical for Vanillaware: Dragon's Crown, 13 Sentinels, Odin Sphere usually display their inspiration on their sleeve, although this still feels a bit more ‘prime’ for expansion but I'll elaborate later.
Props to Vanillaware having some of my favorite 'feel' in games. It's incredibly easy and satisfying going through VW interfaces. Something like 13 Sentinels being 90% narrative doesn't give you much to navigate, game-wise but even in a title such as that- it just feels smooth going through menus to find what you want. It should be a given that Vanillaware's attention to its art, its interfacing and music is top notch, just some of the best in the industry.
The world map is incredibly fun to explore, with the first nation providing a ton of features to interact with. Treasure maps, unmarked houses that give hidden items, different types of quests abound and town restorations to boost your renown, there’s a lot to clear out throughout Fevrith. I do wish later areas had more unique things to distinguish them, Drakengard gets a distinct coliseum but past that the latter nations feel a bit rinse and repeat. It's still fun to run around the new areas and there's some neat distinctions in later areas, Bastorias has a lot more harbors, Albion has goats? There's at least enough throughout the continent to explore and go back to once you acquire new units that can interact with certain markers, which freshens things up a little.
/////INTERMISSION///////
Selvie is best wife.
/////END INTERMISSION//////
I was worried the introduction of so many characters at once would have been an issue, and while it does front load you with several, several characters on the front end it more or less resembles a larger Fire Emblem title at around 70 characters (Radiant Dawn, Fates: Revelation and New Mystery range around 70-high 80s). It's still quite a lot, and not every character is an immediate winner but they've got some fun interactions and the amount of units you can use in battle allows for better expression of their character. This opposes certain titles like New Mystery of the Emblem, a game with several, several units at your disposal but only about 10 slots by the end game, 6 of which are pretty locked in, either for Marth/Kris or good ending requirements. Here, UO gives plenty of opportunity for you to build out self-sufficient teams as you unlock and expand your unit sizes and test them out in the main, side and liberation quests.
If Fire Emblem is a JRPG given a tactical playing field, Unicorn Overlord is a tactics programming game (apologies though, I have no experience with actual programming video games). Quite often I run into a situation where I throw a unit out into the battlefield, meet some friction and only halfway through a battle remember the spaghettified loadout I hadn't changed back from a previous battle. While the game has so many options and ways to customize your moveset, it only makes it easier to be bogged down by the potential of every variable rather than a clear solution. I do wish I utilized the loadouts more often, just to preserve a 'main' loadout and shift to certain other builds depending on the situation- didn't because I just, well, forgot…The game isn’t all that hard, not when you really get down into the meat of it all, but I admittedly felt pretty stupid at a lot of points trying to organize certain skills together only for the main issue to be something like character placement in a unit. Thankfully Vanillaware's ethos of providing a lot of items and secondary abilities somewhat mitigates sticky situations- it just kinda feels sillier when resorting to certain items for beating hordes of units when the outlook of a fight doesn't look favorable. The perfect result forecast is a godsend of a feature though, giving no hang ups as to how a battle might go but letting you know completely if you’ll get a good outcome in a fight. The only issue being its not precise in letting you know what damage or healing goes where, the results mostly act as a total ‘healing’ or damage so it pays to pay attention because too often i saw i was getting healed, went into battle only for a unit to take 16 damage and die but someone else to be healed 32 HP for a result of 16 healing, very perplexing.
At the very least this differs from my frustrations with FE: Engage, where I would often struggle with an in-game currency as to whether certain builds would be a waste of both time and experience. Here, it was more so just a confusion on smart, optimal, loadouts for certain units I probably didn't need battling certain other enemies in the first place. It admittedly took me a while to remember how exactly best to counter Wyvern Riders...
I do give props for the game utilizing various cliques/design elements from Fire Emblem's classes, although some of the same pitfalls apply as well. Bulkier, defensive units like Hoplites don't feel nearly as useful as Cavalier or Flying units- hell Cavelier units are certainly the best of the bunch here. Most every class is pretty alright though, I was able to make one of my units using Bruno despite seeing a lot of pushback on Gladiators, which might speak to how malleable and gameable the systems are here.
This feels like an odd inverse to Vanillaware's previous opus, 13 Sentinels, a title I honor in its densely layered, memetic entanglement of a narrative, but somewhat spartan in its tactical, wave management mode (fantastic music at least). Unicorn Overlord, despite its immense equipment-moveset-placement management and its abundance of items for tactical deployment has a fairly milquetoast narrative. It works, although I wouldn't say it strikes me as hard as some of my more favorite Fire Emblem titles or most of what I've played of FF Tactics. It's a bit hard to place as the game's heavy reliance on other games in the genre made it harder to really place my head separate from the parallels. Additionally, while I enjoy the methodical pace of going country by country to liberate Fevrith, many of the quests and fights began feeling pretty cut and dry rather than having a living, dynamic narrative that felt impacted by the progress of your crusade. You make a good chunk of progress through the mainland of Cornia, approximately freeing a quarter of the continent yet even with this massive chunk it feels a bit silly that there's still 4 major countries propping up these major occupants in the other nations. I guess there's mind-control-curse type shenanigans to fall back on for why you still need to go to each of the nations but it's funny when looking at the big picture. There’s a big lore drop around the last single digit percent of the game, and granted it's a neat explanation as to why the events have unfolded, it just feels too little for too late.
The main thing I want to impart is that this game is quite excellent on most fronts- it's perhaps a nation and a half too long though. The novels of the world, all the classes, the battling, the equipment swapping gets to be pretty redundant once you hit Bastorias. By then, a lot of the classes introduced start to feel like repeats of prior classes, a reskin of thieves, two reskins of archers, a hoplite reskin, etc. Looking closer these do have their distinct differences of course, some of which have better synergy than their compatriot but it feels harder at first glance to determine how to fit in these newer classes and playstyles, often I figure it best to just lump all of one region's new characters into their own unit and call it a day.
It is a shame, I doubt this'll see a sequel or follow up of any sort given that usually Vanillaware deals in one and done titles. While I don't necessarily want something on the same length, I think there's a lot that could be done to iron out some of the kinks of the unit/inventory management while expanding upon the way this interacts in the narrative. Nothing feels quite as good as changing that one variable in a loadout and making a battle go from a close shave to a complete trample, although by the third act much of the time it feels more like you’re plodding through useless trinkets for the specific battle while on the grand scheme of the game the fighting has stalled in narrative momentum.
I mentioned earlier VW's penchant to have games wear a patchwork sweater of references, and while UO isn't innocent of this I feel as though it not as ‘contained’ as something like a 13 Sentinels- a narrative that feels more open and closed by that game’s finale. I could earnestly see something at least in the same universe or style to Unicorn Overlord, although i don't know if they’d need to go through the same hoops as each FE continuity needing a ‘Fire Emblem’. Perhaps it's just that I felt left wanting a bit more on the narrative end, but I could go for another tactics title from Vanillaware, it checks a lot of things I’ve been wanting from Fire Emblem for a while.
Unicorn Overlord is a massive ordeal in tactical thinking, allowing for the customization of several cogs to trample armies, somewhat undermined by the ease of having so many options that forego needing to engage with the usual risks in the genre and running low on steam by the last continent.
Finished 5/4/24
As a fan of the tactics genre I sometimes have to face an unfortunate truth. I'm not really that smart. Denoting the tactics genre as something of an 'intelligent' genre isn't super productive or entirely all that honest but I think most people like to equate it as requiring a bit more patience and caution to every detail. The game of chess throughout history used as a paradigm of teaching tactical strategy, morality, higher thinking and the likes- unfortunately, in our middle school's gifted enrichment class I had the proud honor of being the 2nd worst chess player in our class ranking. I don't know, something about my planning functions just don't activate in the middle of a TRPG, sometimes becoming an issue in these tactical games. FFT, Capsule Monster Coliseum, Tactics Ogre- at least Fire Emblem's archetypal builds and borderline gambling chances have carved a niche in my brain as to how I proceed through those battlefields. It's a weird conflict of interest for me but one I enjoy wracking my brain with as the systems often take creative liberties to allow several different variables in handling their given puzzles. Leave it to Vanillaware to both alleviate on and twist the knife on this predicament.
Unicorn Overlord is a magnificent addition to the genre's canon, and would make a pretty good entry into the genre as of late, as Fire Emblem I feel has cornered itself in weird conflicting philosophies, in my opinion and other tactics franchises are mostly juggling through remakes at the moment. Ironic to recommend it as such given how much this game borrows from the canon wholesale, the gameplay is very much Ogre Battle 64, the world map and many plot beats reek of 16-bit Fire Emblem yet the later addition of Feather classes and Bestrals feel more akin to the Tellius titles. This is fairly typical for Vanillaware: Dragon's Crown, 13 Sentinels, Odin Sphere usually display their inspiration on their sleeve, although this still feels a bit more ‘prime’ for expansion but I'll elaborate later.
Props to Vanillaware having some of my favorite 'feel' in games. It's incredibly easy and satisfying going through VW interfaces. Something like 13 Sentinels being 90% narrative doesn't give you much to navigate, game-wise but even in a title such as that- it just feels smooth going through menus to find what you want. It should be a given that Vanillaware's attention to its art, its interfacing and music is top notch, just some of the best in the industry.
The world map is incredibly fun to explore, with the first nation providing a ton of features to interact with. Treasure maps, unmarked houses that give hidden items, different types of quests abound and town restorations to boost your renown, there’s a lot to clear out throughout Fevrith. I do wish later areas had more unique things to distinguish them, Drakengard gets a distinct coliseum but past that the latter nations feel a bit rinse and repeat. It's still fun to run around the new areas and there's some neat distinctions in later areas, Bastorias has a lot more harbors, Albion has goats? There's at least enough throughout the continent to explore and go back to once you acquire new units that can interact with certain markers, which freshens things up a little.
/////INTERMISSION///////
Selvie is best wife.
/////END INTERMISSION//////
I was worried the introduction of so many characters at once would have been an issue, and while it does front load you with several, several characters on the front end it more or less resembles a larger Fire Emblem title at around 70 characters (Radiant Dawn, Fates: Revelation and New Mystery range around 70-high 80s). It's still quite a lot, and not every character is an immediate winner but they've got some fun interactions and the amount of units you can use in battle allows for better expression of their character. This opposes certain titles like New Mystery of the Emblem, a game with several, several units at your disposal but only about 10 slots by the end game, 6 of which are pretty locked in, either for Marth/Kris or good ending requirements. Here, UO gives plenty of opportunity for you to build out self-sufficient teams as you unlock and expand your unit sizes and test them out in the main, side and liberation quests.
If Fire Emblem is a JRPG given a tactical playing field, Unicorn Overlord is a tactics programming game (apologies though, I have no experience with actual programming video games). Quite often I run into a situation where I throw a unit out into the battlefield, meet some friction and only halfway through a battle remember the spaghettified loadout I hadn't changed back from a previous battle. While the game has so many options and ways to customize your moveset, it only makes it easier to be bogged down by the potential of every variable rather than a clear solution. I do wish I utilized the loadouts more often, just to preserve a 'main' loadout and shift to certain other builds depending on the situation- didn't because I just, well, forgot…The game isn’t all that hard, not when you really get down into the meat of it all, but I admittedly felt pretty stupid at a lot of points trying to organize certain skills together only for the main issue to be something like character placement in a unit. Thankfully Vanillaware's ethos of providing a lot of items and secondary abilities somewhat mitigates sticky situations- it just kinda feels sillier when resorting to certain items for beating hordes of units when the outlook of a fight doesn't look favorable. The perfect result forecast is a godsend of a feature though, giving no hang ups as to how a battle might go but letting you know completely if you’ll get a good outcome in a fight. The only issue being its not precise in letting you know what damage or healing goes where, the results mostly act as a total ‘healing’ or damage so it pays to pay attention because too often i saw i was getting healed, went into battle only for a unit to take 16 damage and die but someone else to be healed 32 HP for a result of 16 healing, very perplexing.
At the very least this differs from my frustrations with FE: Engage, where I would often struggle with an in-game currency as to whether certain builds would be a waste of both time and experience. Here, it was more so just a confusion on smart, optimal, loadouts for certain units I probably didn't need battling certain other enemies in the first place. It admittedly took me a while to remember how exactly best to counter Wyvern Riders...
I do give props for the game utilizing various cliques/design elements from Fire Emblem's classes, although some of the same pitfalls apply as well. Bulkier, defensive units like Hoplites don't feel nearly as useful as Cavalier or Flying units- hell Cavelier units are certainly the best of the bunch here. Most every class is pretty alright though, I was able to make one of my units using Bruno despite seeing a lot of pushback on Gladiators, which might speak to how malleable and gameable the systems are here.
This feels like an odd inverse to Vanillaware's previous opus, 13 Sentinels, a title I honor in its densely layered, memetic entanglement of a narrative, but somewhat spartan in its tactical, wave management mode (fantastic music at least). Unicorn Overlord, despite its immense equipment-moveset-placement management and its abundance of items for tactical deployment has a fairly milquetoast narrative. It works, although I wouldn't say it strikes me as hard as some of my more favorite Fire Emblem titles or most of what I've played of FF Tactics. It's a bit hard to place as the game's heavy reliance on other games in the genre made it harder to really place my head separate from the parallels. Additionally, while I enjoy the methodical pace of going country by country to liberate Fevrith, many of the quests and fights began feeling pretty cut and dry rather than having a living, dynamic narrative that felt impacted by the progress of your crusade. You make a good chunk of progress through the mainland of Cornia, approximately freeing a quarter of the continent yet even with this massive chunk it feels a bit silly that there's still 4 major countries propping up these major occupants in the other nations. I guess there's mind-control-curse type shenanigans to fall back on for why you still need to go to each of the nations but it's funny when looking at the big picture. There’s a big lore drop around the last single digit percent of the game, and granted it's a neat explanation as to why the events have unfolded, it just feels too little for too late.
The main thing I want to impart is that this game is quite excellent on most fronts- it's perhaps a nation and a half too long though. The novels of the world, all the classes, the battling, the equipment swapping gets to be pretty redundant once you hit Bastorias. By then, a lot of the classes introduced start to feel like repeats of prior classes, a reskin of thieves, two reskins of archers, a hoplite reskin, etc. Looking closer these do have their distinct differences of course, some of which have better synergy than their compatriot but it feels harder at first glance to determine how to fit in these newer classes and playstyles, often I figure it best to just lump all of one region's new characters into their own unit and call it a day.
It is a shame, I doubt this'll see a sequel or follow up of any sort given that usually Vanillaware deals in one and done titles. While I don't necessarily want something on the same length, I think there's a lot that could be done to iron out some of the kinks of the unit/inventory management while expanding upon the way this interacts in the narrative. Nothing feels quite as good as changing that one variable in a loadout and making a battle go from a close shave to a complete trample, although by the third act much of the time it feels more like you’re plodding through useless trinkets for the specific battle while on the grand scheme of the game the fighting has stalled in narrative momentum.
I mentioned earlier VW's penchant to have games wear a patchwork sweater of references, and while UO isn't innocent of this I feel as though it not as ‘contained’ as something like a 13 Sentinels- a narrative that feels more open and closed by that game’s finale. I could earnestly see something at least in the same universe or style to Unicorn Overlord, although i don't know if they’d need to go through the same hoops as each FE continuity needing a ‘Fire Emblem’. Perhaps it's just that I felt left wanting a bit more on the narrative end, but I could go for another tactics title from Vanillaware, it checks a lot of things I’ve been wanting from Fire Emblem for a while.
Unicorn Overlord is a massive ordeal in tactical thinking, allowing for the customization of several cogs to trample armies, somewhat undermined by the ease of having so many options that forego needing to engage with the usual risks in the genre and running low on steam by the last continent.
Mega Man Zero 3
2004
When I picked up the X games, met Zero, and eventually played as him, I thought "man, he's cool af". Then, I picked up the Zero games and thought "yep, he is still cool af". But it is only when I played this game that I truly realized: he's simply #Him.
It was one thing for the story and stages to be the best these games had to offer so far, but it even went the extra step of basically making the combat 2D Devil May Cry. It is entirely possible to play this game however you want, either casually or testing your skills with all the crazy stuff you can do with the combo system.
I guess some of the bosses weren't that interesting to tackle, but otherwise, this is a truly phenomenal game.
It was one thing for the story and stages to be the best these games had to offer so far, but it even went the extra step of basically making the combat 2D Devil May Cry. It is entirely possible to play this game however you want, either casually or testing your skills with all the crazy stuff you can do with the combo system.
I guess some of the bosses weren't that interesting to tackle, but otherwise, this is a truly phenomenal game.
Finished on April 27th, 2024
Played this on the Steam Deck through the Advance Collection but- I like this box art more.
Overall this is a fine enough start to the GBA games- it being on a smaller handheld and not having Igarashi on board would make this game attempting to hold up to SotN's quality a monumental effort. But, for it being a release title for the handheld I can imagine most fans were probably sated by it.
In 2024 however a lot of issues feel that much more glaring as CotM's main gameplay feature: the DDS cards kinda throw a wrench into my expectations for the experience- namely its fusing with the RPG mechanics of the usual igavania. It feels as though you're expected to grind- grind on monsters that hold the cards that you dont yet have. Partially to make sure you're up to snuff for the next section of the castle and partially because a new card opens up a slew of new combinations with each card you obtain...but how good some of these new powers are varies wildly. It gets even more peculiar nearing the end of the game when some cards get hidden away in prior boss rooms and the battle arena- the completionist in me wanted to nab every card but I was not willing to sit through the tedium of
->summoning thunderbird on Lilith twice
->Leave room and repeat
->wait a minute or three so your MP refills
->repeat for 10 or so levels
Like i COULD but then you'd just be entering the battle arena several, several times to get the cards anyway- I just wanted to get a move on.
The DDS cards are neat and all but too many of them feel too samey for me to really want to commit to them. Some of them unlock new weapon types to dish out, some of them give elemental attributes to your whip, some allow you to summon- its pretty great at first but mostly I just stuck to a handful of these combos. It also feels weird considering how these feel as though they're trying to replace other mechanics? Like item drops? I swear I barely had any potions or heart items drop throughout, so mostly I stuck to the healing combo i mentioned earlier which is suitable but it just felt- odd, idk. No shops, no currency just the one card combo you could potentially miss out on.
Some of the bosses are pretty tedious (Death, buddy, what happened to you?) and the castle isnt all too interesting visually. It does become a bit more fun to explore as you hit the end of the game and get the Roc's feather, allowing a long, vertical jump up to cut through towering sections of the map and even playing a fun role in the final boss.
Its fine for the first handheld (not?)-Igavania title, although much of this traversing of Dracula's castle feels bogged down one half being a more rudimentary progression of unlocking your movement abilities and the other half being this momentum breaking grind for your combative flairs in the DDS system.
Played this on the Steam Deck through the Advance Collection but- I like this box art more.
Overall this is a fine enough start to the GBA games- it being on a smaller handheld and not having Igarashi on board would make this game attempting to hold up to SotN's quality a monumental effort. But, for it being a release title for the handheld I can imagine most fans were probably sated by it.
In 2024 however a lot of issues feel that much more glaring as CotM's main gameplay feature: the DDS cards kinda throw a wrench into my expectations for the experience- namely its fusing with the RPG mechanics of the usual igavania. It feels as though you're expected to grind- grind on monsters that hold the cards that you dont yet have. Partially to make sure you're up to snuff for the next section of the castle and partially because a new card opens up a slew of new combinations with each card you obtain...but how good some of these new powers are varies wildly. It gets even more peculiar nearing the end of the game when some cards get hidden away in prior boss rooms and the battle arena- the completionist in me wanted to nab every card but I was not willing to sit through the tedium of
->summoning thunderbird on Lilith twice
->Leave room and repeat
->wait a minute or three so your MP refills
->repeat for 10 or so levels
Like i COULD but then you'd just be entering the battle arena several, several times to get the cards anyway- I just wanted to get a move on.
The DDS cards are neat and all but too many of them feel too samey for me to really want to commit to them. Some of them unlock new weapon types to dish out, some of them give elemental attributes to your whip, some allow you to summon- its pretty great at first but mostly I just stuck to a handful of these combos. It also feels weird considering how these feel as though they're trying to replace other mechanics? Like item drops? I swear I barely had any potions or heart items drop throughout, so mostly I stuck to the healing combo i mentioned earlier which is suitable but it just felt- odd, idk. No shops, no currency just the one card combo you could potentially miss out on.
Some of the bosses are pretty tedious (Death, buddy, what happened to you?) and the castle isnt all too interesting visually. It does become a bit more fun to explore as you hit the end of the game and get the Roc's feather, allowing a long, vertical jump up to cut through towering sections of the map and even playing a fun role in the final boss.
Its fine for the first handheld (not?)-Igavania title, although much of this traversing of Dracula's castle feels bogged down one half being a more rudimentary progression of unlocking your movement abilities and the other half being this momentum breaking grind for your combative flairs in the DDS system.
Ristar
1995
started to see the vision once I realized the grab (your only verb outside of jumping) gives you i-frames when you bounce off of whatever you're grabbing... pretty cool wrinkle on an otherwise plain set of mechanics. a lot of the game is carried by the dense mix of geometric terrain and organic outgrowths a la sonic; it's no surprise that much of this team got rolled into sonic team for NiGHTS into dreams the year after. said team really demonstrates their technical aptitude as well, with some stunning overlapping parallax on stages such as planet automaton and swirling line scrolling in the background of the itamor lunch fight. ristar emotes fluidly, with his walking scowl morphing into a grin and twirl upon defeating hard enemies. occasionally he'll even show a penchant for childlike play, such as in this snowball fight setpiece.
a first impression yields something a little dry on the gameplay front, with single-hit enemies and slow movement compounding into something more leisurely than interesting. thankfully around the halfway point the design veers into level-unique puzzles and setpieces. the one that stuck out to me the most was a series of areas in planet 4 involving babysitting this radio(?) item across various hazards in order to give to various birds who want them blocking your way. presages a klonoa style of puzzles built from manipulating objects in the environment rather than working with pre-defined aspects of the player's toolkit. near the end the game veers into some execution challenges as well, with mixed results. ristar's grab actually has a lot more going on to meets the eye: not only does he have the aforementioned i-frames, but he also gains a bit of height off his bounce, and he can hold onto some interactables indefinitely, swinging back and forth using his arms as a tether. the former gets used for a couple climbing challenges jumping between walls and swinging poles, which makes for some pleasant execution trials in the midst of the level-specific stuff. the latter never gets expanded on quite as much, probably because ristar maintains no momentum from his swinging when he releases due to bouncing back off of the fulcrum he's attached to, so actually manipulating the technique to achieve certain bounce angles is a bit unintuitive.
bosses are neat across the board; while somewhat cycle-based, the designers trickle a couple small points for attacking them before they're obviously wide-open. some of these (I'm thinking of specifically the bird boss on planet 4 and its array of non-linear projectiles) encourage the i-frame abuse in interesting ways. by the end of the game, however, it seems like they expect you to exploit it pretty openly to get anywhere, and by that point the bosses end up becoming grab spam. definitely makes the fights fly by quicker, but I find myself preferring the more cautious approach I took during the earlier bosses, although I would imagine upon a replay some of the same techniques apply.
a first impression yields something a little dry on the gameplay front, with single-hit enemies and slow movement compounding into something more leisurely than interesting. thankfully around the halfway point the design veers into level-unique puzzles and setpieces. the one that stuck out to me the most was a series of areas in planet 4 involving babysitting this radio(?) item across various hazards in order to give to various birds who want them blocking your way. presages a klonoa style of puzzles built from manipulating objects in the environment rather than working with pre-defined aspects of the player's toolkit. near the end the game veers into some execution challenges as well, with mixed results. ristar's grab actually has a lot more going on to meets the eye: not only does he have the aforementioned i-frames, but he also gains a bit of height off his bounce, and he can hold onto some interactables indefinitely, swinging back and forth using his arms as a tether. the former gets used for a couple climbing challenges jumping between walls and swinging poles, which makes for some pleasant execution trials in the midst of the level-specific stuff. the latter never gets expanded on quite as much, probably because ristar maintains no momentum from his swinging when he releases due to bouncing back off of the fulcrum he's attached to, so actually manipulating the technique to achieve certain bounce angles is a bit unintuitive.
bosses are neat across the board; while somewhat cycle-based, the designers trickle a couple small points for attacking them before they're obviously wide-open. some of these (I'm thinking of specifically the bird boss on planet 4 and its array of non-linear projectiles) encourage the i-frame abuse in interesting ways. by the end of the game, however, it seems like they expect you to exploit it pretty openly to get anywhere, and by that point the bosses end up becoming grab spam. definitely makes the fights fly by quicker, but I find myself preferring the more cautious approach I took during the earlier bosses, although I would imagine upon a replay some of the same techniques apply.
Gauntlet Legends
1998
podcast fodder. it occurred to me over the course of playing that for four-player couch co-op like this, the mindlessness is a boon. you're supposed to be catching up with your friends and fucking around, not actually invested in the game.
it pulls surprisingly heavily from the original gauntlet with little variation: destroy generators that endlessly spawn, open chests and gates with keys, use potions as AoEs, destroy walls, open other walls. the only other mechanical changes is some light meter management, where you can activate one of three different special abilities depending on the level of the gauge or siphon some off to use a dash-twirl kinda action. other than weaving those in, you'll just be mashing the shoot/attack button, and with the advent of a 3D world and shifting perspective for the game, they've slathered auto-aim all over your toolkit, so there's almost no engagement other than being there to press the button... and if you're close enough to an enemy you'll auto-attack anyway, so who cares.
the main intrigue instead is the variety of environments and stages, each with their own hazards and puzzles to solve. you might rend an arena asunder by pressing a switch, skewing the two halves apart and exposing new corridors in the process. there's moments where you'll rearrange a set of catwalks by pressing a series of switches (although you never have access to more than one at once) to raise and lower them to match your character's height. in some (many) instances, you must painstakingly root out a breakable wall and enter it to press a switch and open a different wall somewhere else. indeed, most of the game consists of finding switches to press to access a new area; it is not uncommon for there to be chains of three to seven switches that lead to each other in the span of a single room. is what the switches activate occasionally cool, giving you a new path through the often intricate area designs? sure. but expect the whole game to follow virtually the exact same loop throughout: mash attack, press switch.
there's occasional gesturing to more of diablo-like system, the style which would quickly eat this series' lunch by the sixth gen, though it often doesn't land given the game's arcade-focused nature. other than adding a leveling and stats system to the original gauntlet experience, there's also this odd loot/power-up component, some of which is random but others of which are actually specific, often obscure unlockables within particular levels. of course, seeing as there's no permanence regarding items beyond keys/potions, these end up being temporary powerups; the thrill of grinding out skorne 1 so that you can get a piece of his armor set feels quaint when faced with the reality that said item will disappear 90 seconds into the next stage you play. as an aside: per the original game you're intended to replenish your health or revive yourself with extra credits, but seeing as this console version does not have that system, dying will kick you back out to the hub with whatever health you had going in. that might seem fine, but if you actually want to replenish to full health, expect to spend a lot of time grinding the first level for the 400-500 in health pickups that are guaranteed. for my final boss run, where I needed my level 60 max of 7000 health after spending most of the game maintaining about 2000, this was quite a chore.
this sega dreamcast version seems like a hodge-podge of each of the other versions of this game. compared to the playstation and n64 versions, which have a different set of levels and a proper inventory system, the dreamcast version serves as a more direct port of the original's levels and item system. oddly enough, it does have the additional endgame levels and skorne refight from the original home ports. it also carries in certain mechanical changes from the game's incremental sequel dark legacy, such as all of the new character classes and a functionally useless block ability; what the fuck is the point of a block in a mostly ranged game where having attack advantage is always a priority to avoid getting flanked and overwhelmed? probably the most bizarre aspect of the dreamcast version is that it runs like dogshit even with only a single player, and it retains the somewhat hideous look of the original game. not sure why the dc wasn't able to handle a relatively low-poly game built for a 3DFX banshee gpu, but I'm going to assume fault on the part of the developers.
still, a podcast game with some cool level visuals has its own appeal. was unfortunately left curious about dark legacy and the later gameplay revisions in seven sorrows. an arcade-style dungeon crawler does appeal to me in a base way, and I appreciate that this was an early attempt at creating an arcade game with a proper progression system (including rudimentary usernames and passwords!). should probably bring some friends along for the ride if I ever get a wild hair to try again.
it pulls surprisingly heavily from the original gauntlet with little variation: destroy generators that endlessly spawn, open chests and gates with keys, use potions as AoEs, destroy walls, open other walls. the only other mechanical changes is some light meter management, where you can activate one of three different special abilities depending on the level of the gauge or siphon some off to use a dash-twirl kinda action. other than weaving those in, you'll just be mashing the shoot/attack button, and with the advent of a 3D world and shifting perspective for the game, they've slathered auto-aim all over your toolkit, so there's almost no engagement other than being there to press the button... and if you're close enough to an enemy you'll auto-attack anyway, so who cares.
the main intrigue instead is the variety of environments and stages, each with their own hazards and puzzles to solve. you might rend an arena asunder by pressing a switch, skewing the two halves apart and exposing new corridors in the process. there's moments where you'll rearrange a set of catwalks by pressing a series of switches (although you never have access to more than one at once) to raise and lower them to match your character's height. in some (many) instances, you must painstakingly root out a breakable wall and enter it to press a switch and open a different wall somewhere else. indeed, most of the game consists of finding switches to press to access a new area; it is not uncommon for there to be chains of three to seven switches that lead to each other in the span of a single room. is what the switches activate occasionally cool, giving you a new path through the often intricate area designs? sure. but expect the whole game to follow virtually the exact same loop throughout: mash attack, press switch.
there's occasional gesturing to more of diablo-like system, the style which would quickly eat this series' lunch by the sixth gen, though it often doesn't land given the game's arcade-focused nature. other than adding a leveling and stats system to the original gauntlet experience, there's also this odd loot/power-up component, some of which is random but others of which are actually specific, often obscure unlockables within particular levels. of course, seeing as there's no permanence regarding items beyond keys/potions, these end up being temporary powerups; the thrill of grinding out skorne 1 so that you can get a piece of his armor set feels quaint when faced with the reality that said item will disappear 90 seconds into the next stage you play. as an aside: per the original game you're intended to replenish your health or revive yourself with extra credits, but seeing as this console version does not have that system, dying will kick you back out to the hub with whatever health you had going in. that might seem fine, but if you actually want to replenish to full health, expect to spend a lot of time grinding the first level for the 400-500 in health pickups that are guaranteed. for my final boss run, where I needed my level 60 max of 7000 health after spending most of the game maintaining about 2000, this was quite a chore.
this sega dreamcast version seems like a hodge-podge of each of the other versions of this game. compared to the playstation and n64 versions, which have a different set of levels and a proper inventory system, the dreamcast version serves as a more direct port of the original's levels and item system. oddly enough, it does have the additional endgame levels and skorne refight from the original home ports. it also carries in certain mechanical changes from the game's incremental sequel dark legacy, such as all of the new character classes and a functionally useless block ability; what the fuck is the point of a block in a mostly ranged game where having attack advantage is always a priority to avoid getting flanked and overwhelmed? probably the most bizarre aspect of the dreamcast version is that it runs like dogshit even with only a single player, and it retains the somewhat hideous look of the original game. not sure why the dc wasn't able to handle a relatively low-poly game built for a 3DFX banshee gpu, but I'm going to assume fault on the part of the developers.
still, a podcast game with some cool level visuals has its own appeal. was unfortunately left curious about dark legacy and the later gameplay revisions in seven sorrows. an arcade-style dungeon crawler does appeal to me in a base way, and I appreciate that this was an early attempt at creating an arcade game with a proper progression system (including rudimentary usernames and passwords!). should probably bring some friends along for the ride if I ever get a wild hair to try again.