I fear that Suda 51 may be transitioning from gaming's Stanley Kubrick to its M. Night Shyamalan.
For years, Suda 51 has written and directed some of the most bizarre but satisfying games on the market. Each game is clearly marked with his characteristic strangeness, but buried beneath their eclectic appearance has usually been an intriguing story worth exploring.
His previous Xbox offering, Black Knight Sword, broke that trend by having (what I found to be) a nearly unintelligible plot. It was like he was trying too hard to be weird for weird's sake, drifting uncomfortably towards Shyamalan's legacy of focusing more on the gimmick than overall quality.
Killer is Dead has similar flaws. Set in a futuristic world of cybernetic enhancements and moon colonies, Killer is Dead follows the exploits of Mondo, a government-contracted assassin. While the premise is promising, it turns out to be a series of mostly disjointed episodes and random events.
There is an overarching storyline, but it's also uncomfortably random. The characters aren't interesting, their conflicts have no depth, and the whole thing seems like a flimsy excuse for an orgy of violence and pointless sexualization. While the twelve-year-old in me was pretty excited by that prospect, the plot as a whole is awfully disappointing because none of the gratuitous content served any discernible purpose. Unless you're looking for titillation, there's not much worth seeing in this story.
In fact, Killer is Dead was the first of Suda 51's games that took effort for me to complete. About halfway through the 9-hour storyline, I was bored with it, wishing the various cutscenes would end so I could get back to gameplay.
But while it's the best part of the game by far, the gameplay is only mildly entertaining at best. Essentially a third-person action game, Killer is Dead doesn't do much beyond the simplest of mechanics. You'll run through the 12 main episodes and handful of side missions slaughtering everything in your path.
In general, the combat reduces to a balance between dodging, blocking, and slashing furiously with your sword. There are a few upgradable skills, though almost all of them just change the flow of that basic three-point strategy without adding new options (by, for example, increasing your attack speed if you maintain a hit streak).
You also have access to four secondary weapons, which adds a little bit of diversity. Three of the four are guns of various types (the fourth being a giant drill), but aside from very specific circumstances, I only found the default rapid-fire ranged weapon effective - proper use of the others tended just to make me more vulnerable to counterattacks, so they seemed like bad tactical options.
Speaking of counterattacks, your most powerful enemy is often the camera. As is usually the case with this sort of game, you'll regularly fight off a number of enemies or fast bosses. Intelligent camera angles and the ability to make quick, precise adjustments are therefore very important, but I found myself frustrated by the camera pretty often. Enemies would get behind me or the screen would be covered with unnecessary flourishes obscuring my view, making some fights seem difficult for the wrong reasons. It was definitely a pain.
And that's basically the whole game. Run through several stages and complete a bunch of fights using the same strategies so you can progress the nonsensical plot. It's far from compelling...
To be fair, I am oversimplfying a bit. The initial stages of the game are pretty fun; it's only tiring when the repetitive nature of the gameplay becomes apparent somewhere around halfway through. There are also a number of unlockable challenges and advanced difficulty modes, each of which can be quite challenging at times, even with the relatively simple combat system. There are redeeming qualities, but they're really nothing special - it's just a moderately fun 4-6 hours before the tedium sets in.
Oh, it's also worth noting that Killer is Dead is the first game I've ever played that effectively implemented a second-person camera during one of the boss fights, where you see the game from your enemy's perspective while still controlling the protagonist. It's another gimmick, but it's still kinda cool to see.
In the end, I can't really recommend Killer is Dead to anyone but the most hardcore fans of Suda 51 or third-person hack-and-slash gameplay, and even those people may be disappointed. It's not worthless by any stretch, but it doesn't come anywhere near the legacy Suda 51 seemed to be building a few years ago.
And that's probably the worst part.
My Rating: 3/10 - bad.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Game Review - Super Time Force (XBLA, 2014)
Occasionally a game comes along that executes a concept so well that you're genuinely sad when it's over. Super Time Force is one of those games.
Channeling some of the best in gaming from the 80's, the highly-pixelated Super Time Force is a side-scrolling action game at heart. You'll fight through several stages in 7 distinct worlds, each with its own diverse set of characteristic enemies. The game starts with three playable characters with different weapons and unique abilities. Over the course of the campaign, you can unlock a dozen more, providing no shortage of skills at your disposal.
Even just those details, combined with a fluid control scheme and somewhat complex level design, make for a solidly entertaining game.
Of course, that's just the foundation for the game's real draw. What sets Super Time Force apart is, unsurprisingly, its use of time as a gameplay mechanic.
At any point during a stage, you have the option of taking a "time out." During a time out, you can rewind to an earlier point in the level to redo some sequence and change your active character, letting you switch to someone better suited for a particular challenge.
The coolest part, though, is that anytime you rewind the level, your previous actions are not reset. Your precise motions will still be carried out, allowing you to focus on other enemies or objectives or even to save a character from an untimely death (giving you a powerup in the process). As a result, in many stages you may have 8 or more shadows running around with you, firing their weapons, destroying enemies and other obstacles, each representing an earlier sequence of your own gameplay.
It's an awesome idea, and it's awesomely implemented. Many of the stages are designed in such a way that you cannot possibly beat them within the given time limit without setting up multiple characters to work together. Bosses are a great example - your damage output with one character is simply not enough to defeat the bosses; you must make good use of the time out feature to survive those fights.
It all amounts to a side-scroller with a strategic twist. Deciding how to set up your future actions sometimes requires thinking three or four sequences ahead. You can only use at most 40 time outs in a single level though, so you can't quite brute force your way through everything.
To be honest, I don't think my description quite does it justice. It's a really cool concept, and it's tons of fun.
Super Time Force also has a good balance of difficulty. Some of the stages are a little challenging to complete in the first place (though I never actually failed at any of them; 40 time outs is a lot), but earning all the medals in each stage, which requires reaching the end quickly enough, can be really tough. Nabbing all the collectibles isn't bad, but you really have to optimize your run to meet those timing challenges.
There's also a "Super Hardcore" mode available after beating the game, which makes the game quite a bit more difficult, and leaderboards for competing for the best overall medal counts and times.
Basically, there's a high skill ceiling and a competitive component for players interested in that sort of thing.
To top it all off, this phenomenal gameplay is embedded in a clever little story. It follows the titular group's mission to defend the world from the robot invasion of 1987 and other awesome things, like saving the dinosaurs from extinction and navigating the Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic world of the 1990s.
While the storyline and writing are pretty silly, it never substitutes randomness for lightheartedness, which is one of my biggest pet peeves with this sort of plot. It's full of pop culture references and amusing dialogue, making for an all-around entertaining game.
The presentation is fantastic, too. The pixelated graphics and chiptune-esque audio do a great job of dredging up nostalgia, but it's still fresh and detailed enough not to actually look dated. It may rub some people the wrong way, but I'd say it's a pretty good stylistic choice.
My only real complaint is that it's just much too short. I completed the storyline in under 6 hours, which included replaying a few levels to try to get more medals. Grabbing the rest of the game's achievements (which don't require earning the time challenge medals, so they're not too difficult) took another hour or so, leaving me desperately craving more levels to explore and bosses to fell.
Due to its length, Super Time Force may be a bit pricy for the amount of game time it provides, but it's still one of the most fun and satisfying games I've played in a while. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
My Rating: 9/10 - awesome.
Channeling some of the best in gaming from the 80's, the highly-pixelated Super Time Force is a side-scrolling action game at heart. You'll fight through several stages in 7 distinct worlds, each with its own diverse set of characteristic enemies. The game starts with three playable characters with different weapons and unique abilities. Over the course of the campaign, you can unlock a dozen more, providing no shortage of skills at your disposal.
Even just those details, combined with a fluid control scheme and somewhat complex level design, make for a solidly entertaining game.
Of course, that's just the foundation for the game's real draw. What sets Super Time Force apart is, unsurprisingly, its use of time as a gameplay mechanic.
At any point during a stage, you have the option of taking a "time out." During a time out, you can rewind to an earlier point in the level to redo some sequence and change your active character, letting you switch to someone better suited for a particular challenge.
The coolest part, though, is that anytime you rewind the level, your previous actions are not reset. Your precise motions will still be carried out, allowing you to focus on other enemies or objectives or even to save a character from an untimely death (giving you a powerup in the process). As a result, in many stages you may have 8 or more shadows running around with you, firing their weapons, destroying enemies and other obstacles, each representing an earlier sequence of your own gameplay.
It's an awesome idea, and it's awesomely implemented. Many of the stages are designed in such a way that you cannot possibly beat them within the given time limit without setting up multiple characters to work together. Bosses are a great example - your damage output with one character is simply not enough to defeat the bosses; you must make good use of the time out feature to survive those fights.
It all amounts to a side-scroller with a strategic twist. Deciding how to set up your future actions sometimes requires thinking three or four sequences ahead. You can only use at most 40 time outs in a single level though, so you can't quite brute force your way through everything.
To be honest, I don't think my description quite does it justice. It's a really cool concept, and it's tons of fun.
Super Time Force also has a good balance of difficulty. Some of the stages are a little challenging to complete in the first place (though I never actually failed at any of them; 40 time outs is a lot), but earning all the medals in each stage, which requires reaching the end quickly enough, can be really tough. Nabbing all the collectibles isn't bad, but you really have to optimize your run to meet those timing challenges.
There's also a "Super Hardcore" mode available after beating the game, which makes the game quite a bit more difficult, and leaderboards for competing for the best overall medal counts and times.
Basically, there's a high skill ceiling and a competitive component for players interested in that sort of thing.
To top it all off, this phenomenal gameplay is embedded in a clever little story. It follows the titular group's mission to defend the world from the robot invasion of 1987 and other awesome things, like saving the dinosaurs from extinction and navigating the Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic world of the 1990s.
While the storyline and writing are pretty silly, it never substitutes randomness for lightheartedness, which is one of my biggest pet peeves with this sort of plot. It's full of pop culture references and amusing dialogue, making for an all-around entertaining game.
The presentation is fantastic, too. The pixelated graphics and chiptune-esque audio do a great job of dredging up nostalgia, but it's still fresh and detailed enough not to actually look dated. It may rub some people the wrong way, but I'd say it's a pretty good stylistic choice.
My only real complaint is that it's just much too short. I completed the storyline in under 6 hours, which included replaying a few levels to try to get more medals. Grabbing the rest of the game's achievements (which don't require earning the time challenge medals, so they're not too difficult) took another hour or so, leaving me desperately craving more levels to explore and bosses to fell.
Due to its length, Super Time Force may be a bit pricy for the amount of game time it provides, but it's still one of the most fun and satisfying games I've played in a while. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
My Rating: 9/10 - awesome.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Game Review - Child of Light (XBLA, 2014)
About a month ago, a friend and I lamented the fact that there haven't been any good turn-based RPGs recently. It's an old school style of gameplay that has fallen out of favor in the last decade, sure, but I still enjoy those strategic battles from time to time.
Child of Light's arrival last week filled that hole in my gaming heart. While not strictly speaking turn-based, Child of Light is a fabulous game that does a lot of things right.
The game's biggest success is its overall aesthetic - Child of Light is stunning from the moment you boot it up. It features a whimsical world with characters and monsters straight out of classic fairy tales. The graphics are incredible; smooth animation plus gorgeously detailed (and dynamic!) backgrounds do a fantastic job setting the stage, and each of the game's areas is as lovely as the last.
Child of Light is very possibly the most beautiful game I've ever played.
The sound quality is similarly high. The major melodies throughout the game are haunting, effectively combining the fantasy tone with the tragedy and despair prominent in the plot (more on that shortly). There are spurts of narration with voice acting, which are also well done, but they're brief enough to be forgettable. Even so, there's not a blemish in the game's overall presentation.
Thankfully, the rest of the game makes pretty good use of this fantastic foundation.
The story revolves around a young Austrian princess, Aurora, whose death sends her father into a spiral of depression in traditional fairy tale fashion. Her death is just a ruse, however, as she was actually transported to Lemuria, a mystical world populated by a variety of unusual creatures.
Aurora soon learns of Lemuria's plight: the Queen of the Night has stolen the sun, the moon, and the stars, leaving the entire world in eternal darkness. Helping the people of Lemuria is Aurora's only chance to return home, so she embark on a quest to find and defeat the Queen of the Night.
As you can likely tell, the plot is as influenced by classic coming-of-age fairy tales as the overall aesthetic. It's a little shallow when compared to its inspiration, as the sources of evil are pretty poorly developed, and it could stand to shake up the genre a little more (the characters are almost exclusively one-dimensional), but it's an enjoyable narrative nonetheless.
The best part of the story, however, is that the script is written entirely in rhyming verse. It's essentially an epic poem, and while it is occasionally very forced (as rhymes can be), it's quite impressive. This rhyming structure is even used as comedic relief at times.
When all is said and done, Child of Light presents a unique and enjoyable world to explore.
To top it off, the gameplay is a sleek meld of 2D exploration (think Metroidvania, though much more linear) and turn-based RPG combat.
The overworld exploration is full of goodies to uncover with excellent movement controls to boot. Colliding with an enemy in the world will enter combat, which I'd say is the most compelling part of the game.
The basics are pretty standard fare: Battles use an active battle system, where each character progresses along an action gauge. The rate at which the gauge fills is determined by a character's speed statistic, but the action pauses every time you need to issue a command.
However, there are two features that keep these battles interesting. First, after selecting which action a character will perform, there is a brief "casting" period. The duration of casting varies from ability to ability, but the important bit is that any time an enemy lands an attack against a character while they're casting, they will be interrupted and push them back down the action gauge. Enemies can also be interrupted, so fights become more an issue of managing interruptions than choosing the most powerful attacks. It's a cool system, making combat more tactical, and it's implemented pretty darned well.
Second, you're able to influence battles by moving what amounts to a cursor between the participants. If you highlight a friendly character, you can heal them; if you choose an enemy instead, you can slow their progress on the action gauge. Either action depletes some energy (which can also be used outside battle to heal your party), leading to an active component of these otherwise turn-based battles.
These ideas (plus a few other, less notable but also important features) are integrated almost seamlessly, giving a surprisingly fulfilling combat system.
Early on, these fights can get a little tedious, but there was a point within the first few hours where I noticed a big jump in difficulty. After that, nearly every battle was a challenge, which was refreshing, as many RPGs these days are full of filler content. To be fair, I played through the game on the "Hard" difficulty setting, so maybe the lower difficult setting isn't as exciting. I was pretty satisfied with it overall.
Though I've been praising Child of Light throughout this review, it's worth noting that there are some frustrating flaws.
The most obvious is that the game is relatively short. Once I completed the story and all the game's achievements, I had spent less than 15 hours on it, which includes a fair amount of experience grinding to deal with a couple of the bosses. There was a ton of potential for a longer adventure, and while I'm happy they didn't drag it out with monotonous quests, I would have liked to have seen more content, especially in terms of side quests (as there are only a few minor side quests).
Another big complaint deals with the skill system - each playable character has a pretty large, seemingly complicated skill tree, though each reduces to three linear branches. Basically, it looks like there's a lot more strategy involved in skill development than there actually is.
So it's not perfect, but those are relatively minor criticisms. All things considered, Child of Light is an incredibly charming and entertaining game. It's a beautiful game that's definitely worth your time.
My Rating: 9/10 - awesome.
Child of Light's arrival last week filled that hole in my gaming heart. While not strictly speaking turn-based, Child of Light is a fabulous game that does a lot of things right.
The game's biggest success is its overall aesthetic - Child of Light is stunning from the moment you boot it up. It features a whimsical world with characters and monsters straight out of classic fairy tales. The graphics are incredible; smooth animation plus gorgeously detailed (and dynamic!) backgrounds do a fantastic job setting the stage, and each of the game's areas is as lovely as the last.
Child of Light is very possibly the most beautiful game I've ever played.
The sound quality is similarly high. The major melodies throughout the game are haunting, effectively combining the fantasy tone with the tragedy and despair prominent in the plot (more on that shortly). There are spurts of narration with voice acting, which are also well done, but they're brief enough to be forgettable. Even so, there's not a blemish in the game's overall presentation.
Thankfully, the rest of the game makes pretty good use of this fantastic foundation.
The story revolves around a young Austrian princess, Aurora, whose death sends her father into a spiral of depression in traditional fairy tale fashion. Her death is just a ruse, however, as she was actually transported to Lemuria, a mystical world populated by a variety of unusual creatures.
Aurora soon learns of Lemuria's plight: the Queen of the Night has stolen the sun, the moon, and the stars, leaving the entire world in eternal darkness. Helping the people of Lemuria is Aurora's only chance to return home, so she embark on a quest to find and defeat the Queen of the Night.
As you can likely tell, the plot is as influenced by classic coming-of-age fairy tales as the overall aesthetic. It's a little shallow when compared to its inspiration, as the sources of evil are pretty poorly developed, and it could stand to shake up the genre a little more (the characters are almost exclusively one-dimensional), but it's an enjoyable narrative nonetheless.
The best part of the story, however, is that the script is written entirely in rhyming verse. It's essentially an epic poem, and while it is occasionally very forced (as rhymes can be), it's quite impressive. This rhyming structure is even used as comedic relief at times.
When all is said and done, Child of Light presents a unique and enjoyable world to explore.
To top it off, the gameplay is a sleek meld of 2D exploration (think Metroidvania, though much more linear) and turn-based RPG combat.
The overworld exploration is full of goodies to uncover with excellent movement controls to boot. Colliding with an enemy in the world will enter combat, which I'd say is the most compelling part of the game.
The basics are pretty standard fare: Battles use an active battle system, where each character progresses along an action gauge. The rate at which the gauge fills is determined by a character's speed statistic, but the action pauses every time you need to issue a command.
However, there are two features that keep these battles interesting. First, after selecting which action a character will perform, there is a brief "casting" period. The duration of casting varies from ability to ability, but the important bit is that any time an enemy lands an attack against a character while they're casting, they will be interrupted and push them back down the action gauge. Enemies can also be interrupted, so fights become more an issue of managing interruptions than choosing the most powerful attacks. It's a cool system, making combat more tactical, and it's implemented pretty darned well.
Second, you're able to influence battles by moving what amounts to a cursor between the participants. If you highlight a friendly character, you can heal them; if you choose an enemy instead, you can slow their progress on the action gauge. Either action depletes some energy (which can also be used outside battle to heal your party), leading to an active component of these otherwise turn-based battles.
These ideas (plus a few other, less notable but also important features) are integrated almost seamlessly, giving a surprisingly fulfilling combat system.
Early on, these fights can get a little tedious, but there was a point within the first few hours where I noticed a big jump in difficulty. After that, nearly every battle was a challenge, which was refreshing, as many RPGs these days are full of filler content. To be fair, I played through the game on the "Hard" difficulty setting, so maybe the lower difficult setting isn't as exciting. I was pretty satisfied with it overall.
Though I've been praising Child of Light throughout this review, it's worth noting that there are some frustrating flaws.
The most obvious is that the game is relatively short. Once I completed the story and all the game's achievements, I had spent less than 15 hours on it, which includes a fair amount of experience grinding to deal with a couple of the bosses. There was a ton of potential for a longer adventure, and while I'm happy they didn't drag it out with monotonous quests, I would have liked to have seen more content, especially in terms of side quests (as there are only a few minor side quests).
Another big complaint deals with the skill system - each playable character has a pretty large, seemingly complicated skill tree, though each reduces to three linear branches. Basically, it looks like there's a lot more strategy involved in skill development than there actually is.
So it's not perfect, but those are relatively minor criticisms. All things considered, Child of Light is an incredibly charming and entertaining game. It's a beautiful game that's definitely worth your time.
My Rating: 9/10 - awesome.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Game Review - Hexodius (XBLA, 2013)
I've always been a fan of the classic arcade style of gameplay. Easy-to-learn mechanics and a relatively high skill ceiling make this kind of game perfect for killing ten minutes or challenging everything you've got for a new high score, especially now that the coin-eating component is (mostly) obsolete.
Hexodius is a recent iteration of that classic formula, and it plays the role pretty well. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking about it, but it is a solid twin-stick shooter, and therefore worthy of your attention if you're into that sort of thing.
First, the basics: Hexodius is essentially your standard shoot 'em up. You work through stages flooded with waves of enemies, destroying everything you can for the highest score possible. Classic arcade action at its finest.
Game modes are divided between a "story" campaign, which uses a thin plot to push you through a quasi-nonlinear series of arenas and boss fights, and an "arcade" mode, in which you have three minutes to beat your friends' high scores.
It's a simple formula, but it's executed nicely. The story mode has levels with a variety of objectives, keeping things interesting as you trudge through dozens of stages. The boss fights can be taxing, especially if you're going for the highest possible rank, but the other levels tend to be pretty forgiving, making them feel like filler after sinking a few hours into the game.
Progressing through the story mode unlocks six different arcade mode arenas; those arenas are where the game's challenge really shines. Earning an "A" rank in any arcade arena is an impressive feat, as it requires quick thinking and reflexes to get the necessary score. It's definitely a case of "easy to learn, hard to master."
In a slight deviation from the standard shoot 'em up style, Hexodius gives you the opportunity to equip up to four secondary weapons and three upgrades, adding a tactical element to the genre. I found myself settling on one particular arrangement for the majority of the story mode, but when tackling the arcade, incremental advantages start to have huge implications. It's nice to be able to experiment with different equipment to find the one that fits your playstyle best.
It all works out pretty well, giving a simple but smooth action experience. There's not a whole lot of flourish, but the fundamental mechanics are sound, so the game tends to be pretty fun. The individual stages can usually be completed within five minutes, too, so it's a great game for killing a little time here and there. It's great entertainment in short bursts, only really showing its major flaws if you dedicate a few straight hours to it.
As for the superficial side of things, there's nothing to impressive to see or hear with this one. The music and sound effects are forgettable, and the graphics are pretty much standard fare for this kind of thing these days.
The story mode took me a little over five hours to complete (according to the in-game clock), but it seems like there's near-infinite replayability in the arcade if you're interested in securing a spot at the top of the leaderboards. As such, there's probably not enough content to justify the price of admission for your average gamer, but fans of twin-stick shooters or players looking for the occasional ten-minute filler will find a solid title in Hexodius.
My Rating: 6/10 - decent.
Hexodius is a recent iteration of that classic formula, and it plays the role pretty well. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking about it, but it is a solid twin-stick shooter, and therefore worthy of your attention if you're into that sort of thing.
First, the basics: Hexodius is essentially your standard shoot 'em up. You work through stages flooded with waves of enemies, destroying everything you can for the highest score possible. Classic arcade action at its finest.
Game modes are divided between a "story" campaign, which uses a thin plot to push you through a quasi-nonlinear series of arenas and boss fights, and an "arcade" mode, in which you have three minutes to beat your friends' high scores.
It's a simple formula, but it's executed nicely. The story mode has levels with a variety of objectives, keeping things interesting as you trudge through dozens of stages. The boss fights can be taxing, especially if you're going for the highest possible rank, but the other levels tend to be pretty forgiving, making them feel like filler after sinking a few hours into the game.
Progressing through the story mode unlocks six different arcade mode arenas; those arenas are where the game's challenge really shines. Earning an "A" rank in any arcade arena is an impressive feat, as it requires quick thinking and reflexes to get the necessary score. It's definitely a case of "easy to learn, hard to master."
In a slight deviation from the standard shoot 'em up style, Hexodius gives you the opportunity to equip up to four secondary weapons and three upgrades, adding a tactical element to the genre. I found myself settling on one particular arrangement for the majority of the story mode, but when tackling the arcade, incremental advantages start to have huge implications. It's nice to be able to experiment with different equipment to find the one that fits your playstyle best.
It all works out pretty well, giving a simple but smooth action experience. There's not a whole lot of flourish, but the fundamental mechanics are sound, so the game tends to be pretty fun. The individual stages can usually be completed within five minutes, too, so it's a great game for killing a little time here and there. It's great entertainment in short bursts, only really showing its major flaws if you dedicate a few straight hours to it.
As for the superficial side of things, there's nothing to impressive to see or hear with this one. The music and sound effects are forgettable, and the graphics are pretty much standard fare for this kind of thing these days.
The story mode took me a little over five hours to complete (according to the in-game clock), but it seems like there's near-infinite replayability in the arcade if you're interested in securing a spot at the top of the leaderboards. As such, there's probably not enough content to justify the price of admission for your average gamer, but fans of twin-stick shooters or players looking for the occasional ten-minute filler will find a solid title in Hexodius.
My Rating: 6/10 - decent.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Game Review - Mars: War Logs (XBLA, 2013)
I'm always looking for a great new RPGs. Immersing myself in an expansive world and seeing an epic story unfold or building my character(s) with the skills and equipment I find useful are some of the highlights of modern gaming.
Mars: War Logs is not one of those games.
While some aspects of the game make strong first impressions, evoking memories of Knights of the Old Republic with its aesthetic and basic controls, the whole thing rapidly deteriorates into a long sequence of tedious fetch quests, a frustrating real-time combat system, and a generally forgettable storyline that lacks momentum.
War Logs opens with a young soldier called Innocence describing the situation (a war on Mars) while he's taken to a POW camp. Immediately after exiting the prisoner train, a large prisoner threatens Innocence with rape.
This scenario is just the first of many scenes throughout the game that seem to have been written by a 12-year-old trying to be "edgy;" it seems totally out of place given the nature of the situation (a war prisoner is going to rape a kid from the same side of the conflict right out of the gate?) and the view of the world that we get elsewhere (after this initial confrontation, the camp as a whole seems surprisingly friendly and inviting).
And that's essentially the whole game: a vaguely oppressed group of prisoners deals with their situation and the occasional bout of unnecessary adult content.
To make matters worse, the story is divided into three acts, but they are only loosely related. The major issues introduced during each segment are hastily resolved during brief cutscenes, so you get a few disjointed storylines rather than the coherent narrative as you might expect from an RPG.
Overall, the story in Mars: War Logs lacks the depth and the polish to be anything more than a passing interest.
The gameplay sadly doesn't pick up the slack; there's just nothing really inspiring about it.
While the quests throughout the game aren't too unusual for a modern RPG, the lackluster story fails to mask the tedious elements. Nearly every quest reduces to "go here, fight them, get this," and its hard to overlook the repetitive structure.
Combat doesn't add much enjoyment, either. To be fair, there are a few nice technical features: battles are handled in real-time, playing almost like a third-person action game, and they're usually pretty intense, as 3+ enemies will all come at you simultaneously.
The problem with fighting lies in some of the details. First off, the introductory tutorials present strategies that are irrelevant during your first major encounter (and many encounters throughout the game). The ability to break an opponents guard seems totally ineffective against certain types of enemies, so rather than engaging them as the game teaches you, it forces you to develop new strategies almost immediately. That's just frustrating design.
Second, the level design forces you into combat more often than not. Ordinarily that setup wouldn't be a huge deal, but the game places some emphasis on being able to sneak around; I was almost never able to avoid fights, and the skills directly associated with sneakiness were impossible to use in most of the plot-oriented fight sequences.
As a result of the poor combat design, you're kind of pigeonholed into following a couple of paths through the game's skill trees. It looks like there are some interesting options to explore, but it's really a false choice - if you don't prep yourself for straight combat, you can very easily find yourself stuck in a near-unwinnable fight.
The gameplay is frustrating at almost every turn.
Sadly, the disappointment doesn't stop there. While the voice acting and overall sound design are generally pretty good (though never particularly outstanding), the art direction is uninspired. Yes, the whole thing takes place on Mars, so the dusty red setting is expected, but the fact that nearly every area is a rundown slum gets tiring, as there's no aesthetic incentive to explore.
The end result is a game that's just not very entertaining. It has some nice ideas, and the overall vibe evokes some nostalgia, but it rapidly becomes a tedious exercise.
If you're looking for an enthralling story with fun mechanics, you should look somewhere else.
My Rating: 2/10 - terrible.
Mars: War Logs is not one of those games.
While some aspects of the game make strong first impressions, evoking memories of Knights of the Old Republic with its aesthetic and basic controls, the whole thing rapidly deteriorates into a long sequence of tedious fetch quests, a frustrating real-time combat system, and a generally forgettable storyline that lacks momentum.
War Logs opens with a young soldier called Innocence describing the situation (a war on Mars) while he's taken to a POW camp. Immediately after exiting the prisoner train, a large prisoner threatens Innocence with rape.
This scenario is just the first of many scenes throughout the game that seem to have been written by a 12-year-old trying to be "edgy;" it seems totally out of place given the nature of the situation (a war prisoner is going to rape a kid from the same side of the conflict right out of the gate?) and the view of the world that we get elsewhere (after this initial confrontation, the camp as a whole seems surprisingly friendly and inviting).
And that's essentially the whole game: a vaguely oppressed group of prisoners deals with their situation and the occasional bout of unnecessary adult content.
To make matters worse, the story is divided into three acts, but they are only loosely related. The major issues introduced during each segment are hastily resolved during brief cutscenes, so you get a few disjointed storylines rather than the coherent narrative as you might expect from an RPG.
Overall, the story in Mars: War Logs lacks the depth and the polish to be anything more than a passing interest.
The gameplay sadly doesn't pick up the slack; there's just nothing really inspiring about it.
While the quests throughout the game aren't too unusual for a modern RPG, the lackluster story fails to mask the tedious elements. Nearly every quest reduces to "go here, fight them, get this," and its hard to overlook the repetitive structure.
Combat doesn't add much enjoyment, either. To be fair, there are a few nice technical features: battles are handled in real-time, playing almost like a third-person action game, and they're usually pretty intense, as 3+ enemies will all come at you simultaneously.
The problem with fighting lies in some of the details. First off, the introductory tutorials present strategies that are irrelevant during your first major encounter (and many encounters throughout the game). The ability to break an opponents guard seems totally ineffective against certain types of enemies, so rather than engaging them as the game teaches you, it forces you to develop new strategies almost immediately. That's just frustrating design.
Second, the level design forces you into combat more often than not. Ordinarily that setup wouldn't be a huge deal, but the game places some emphasis on being able to sneak around; I was almost never able to avoid fights, and the skills directly associated with sneakiness were impossible to use in most of the plot-oriented fight sequences.
As a result of the poor combat design, you're kind of pigeonholed into following a couple of paths through the game's skill trees. It looks like there are some interesting options to explore, but it's really a false choice - if you don't prep yourself for straight combat, you can very easily find yourself stuck in a near-unwinnable fight.
The gameplay is frustrating at almost every turn.
Sadly, the disappointment doesn't stop there. While the voice acting and overall sound design are generally pretty good (though never particularly outstanding), the art direction is uninspired. Yes, the whole thing takes place on Mars, so the dusty red setting is expected, but the fact that nearly every area is a rundown slum gets tiring, as there's no aesthetic incentive to explore.
The end result is a game that's just not very entertaining. It has some nice ideas, and the overall vibe evokes some nostalgia, but it rapidly becomes a tedious exercise.
If you're looking for an enthralling story with fun mechanics, you should look somewhere else.
My Rating: 2/10 - terrible.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Game Review - Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (2014, Xbox 360)
The Castlevania franchise is one of the oldest and most beloved series in gaming, and the newest entry, Lords of Shadow 2, promises to build on its predecessor's success as a solid 3D action-adventure game. Sadly, the latest excursion into the Belmonts' world falls short due to a series of weird plot and gameplay features. The most frustrating issue is that there seems to be an awesome game hiding behind this awkward collection of confusing elements. Here's why:
NOTE: This review will contain spoilers for the original Lords of Shadow game. I will try to keep those spoilers as vague as possible, but it would be impossible to describe my disappointment with this game's storyline without including some specific details of the ongoing plot.
Lords of Shadow 2 is unique among Castlevania games, as the main player character is Dracula himself. During the game's opening tutorial, you get a chance to explore Dracula's powers while defending his castle.
While it's cool to see (and control!) Dracula at his most badass right off the bat, the tutorial gives the first hints of something amiss with the overall gamplay. The combat is fluid and a lot of fun, emphasizing the use of a whip as in the original Lords of Shadow, with a number of different ways to dispatch your foes.
The frustrating part is the surprising emphasis on Prince of Persia-style climbing: you will spend a large chunk of this game jumping from handhold to handhold, and you'll generally do it just to fill time. The platforming itself is rarely difficult, as only a few spots in the game require any sort of timing or strategy (one of the biggest challenging sequences actually appears in the tutorial), and you can always highlight grippable pieces of scenery using an in-game command. All that climbing gets incredibly tedious.
Back to the tutorial, though - the game's introductory sequence ends with Dracula's ostensible victory over the Brotherhood of Light, defeating an army in a matter of seconds. However, a cinematic indicates that the Brotherhood saw that battle as a victory as well, as Dracula disappeared following the fight, martyring the paladin who led the charge.
At this point, the storyline has incredible potential - we get a chance to see the Castlevania universe from Dracula's perspective. It could portray him as a tragic villain with some depth (you know, as opposed to just being pure evil), or it could embrace the whole evil thing and give the player control over one of Dracula's conquests (asserting his dominance over some race of evil beings, for instance). I was incredibly excited to see where it would go.
And then Dracula woke up in a modern world, emaciated from centuries of isolation...
Yep. It's a game with Dracula roaming streets straddled by skyscrapers. Sure, the world still has a clear Gothic vibe, and the overall aesthetic is generally well-done, but it's quite jarring to think of a Castlevania game in a contemporary setting.
But the weird doesn't stop there: one of Dracula's old acquaintances appears to restore some of his strength, informing the Prince of Darkness that Satan has finally regained enough power to fill the void left by Dracula's disappearance. In return for removing Satan from the world, Dracula's old friend makes an apparently irresistible promise: permanent death. Looking for an escape from his existence, Dracula therefore searches the city for Satan's acolytes in an attempt to bring the devil down for good.
Oh, and Dracula's memories try to kill him along the way, so there's that too.
The basic plot isn't necessarily offensive following Lords of Shadow, it's just really unexpected. The offensive part is that it seems to go too far. It's nice in that it humanizes the main series antagonist, but I felt that it made him too soft to be compatible with his previous appearances in the franchise. While I think it wraps everything up pretty nicely in the end, the generally schizophrenic presentation (jumping back and forth between the modern world and Dracula's memories, for example) makes for a confusing narrative that doesn't really seem to have a strong direction.
The gameplay, while built on a strong foundation, just doesn't have the oomph to support the shoddy storyline. I've already mentioned the mind-numbing breaks from action due to unnecessary platforming sections, but the combat loses its luster as the game wears on, too. There are some cool features - a nice variety of combos and a nifty weapon experience system which encourages you to diversify your attack patterns - but it falls all too easily into one or two repetitive combos that are the most effective in virtually every situation.
In the few cases where those combos aren't the most powerful, the game overcompensates by making them completely worthless. Instead, you have to break the enemy's defenses (with a skill that requires magic power, so you may not be able to use it) so you can resume your normal combat strategy.
Even worse, many of your enemies throughout this nightmare-infested city have guns, so they can damage you from arbitrarily large distances. That makes some battles a serious pain; often I would have an off-screen enemy pummeling me with rapid-fire bullets, and projectile attacks make it very difficult to run from random mob encounters (because you have to do that silly rock climbing to transition between areas, and taking damage will knock you from a wall).
On the other extreme, boss fights are typically easy, as the only real obstacle to your success is learning the animations that signal specific attack patterns. As a result, the difficulty of the game's combat seems skewed in the opposite direction of what you might expect, and beating down a boss doesn't seem like much of a triumph.
And then there's the biggest disappointment of all the gameplay flaws: Lords of Shadow 2 has stealth sections. The Prince of Darkness must sneak through some areas of the game (primarily to avoid big dumb dudes with huge guns), and it is abysmal. The stealth sequences aren't very well designed in the first place, but the control scheme also doesn't give enough sensitivity for it to make much sense. A couple of these sequences were particularly bad simply because the path the developers expected you to take is far from obvious - in one instance, I struggled towards a clearly-visible ladder, only to find that you can't climb it; the "correct" path required a very different strategy.
To be fair, despite all the frustrations, the game has some impressive moments. A couple of scenes are downright visceral, which is pretty sweet, and many of the fight sequences are actually pretty fun. But the good bits make everything else even more depressing; its predecessor's strengths are still there, but they were downplayed in favor of a number of bizarre, poorly executed design choices.
Lords of Shadow 2 is one of the biggest gaming letdowns in recent memory. It took the brilliant, successful formula in Lords of Shadow and perverted it to the point that it's rarely recognizable. Fans of the series might get a kick out of seeing more from Dracula's perspective, and it can be genuinely entertaining, but the prevalence of unusual flaws make it a hard one to recommend.
My rating: 4/10 - mediocre.
NOTE: This review will contain spoilers for the original Lords of Shadow game. I will try to keep those spoilers as vague as possible, but it would be impossible to describe my disappointment with this game's storyline without including some specific details of the ongoing plot.
Lords of Shadow 2 is unique among Castlevania games, as the main player character is Dracula himself. During the game's opening tutorial, you get a chance to explore Dracula's powers while defending his castle.
While it's cool to see (and control!) Dracula at his most badass right off the bat, the tutorial gives the first hints of something amiss with the overall gamplay. The combat is fluid and a lot of fun, emphasizing the use of a whip as in the original Lords of Shadow, with a number of different ways to dispatch your foes.
The frustrating part is the surprising emphasis on Prince of Persia-style climbing: you will spend a large chunk of this game jumping from handhold to handhold, and you'll generally do it just to fill time. The platforming itself is rarely difficult, as only a few spots in the game require any sort of timing or strategy (one of the biggest challenging sequences actually appears in the tutorial), and you can always highlight grippable pieces of scenery using an in-game command. All that climbing gets incredibly tedious.
Back to the tutorial, though - the game's introductory sequence ends with Dracula's ostensible victory over the Brotherhood of Light, defeating an army in a matter of seconds. However, a cinematic indicates that the Brotherhood saw that battle as a victory as well, as Dracula disappeared following the fight, martyring the paladin who led the charge.
At this point, the storyline has incredible potential - we get a chance to see the Castlevania universe from Dracula's perspective. It could portray him as a tragic villain with some depth (you know, as opposed to just being pure evil), or it could embrace the whole evil thing and give the player control over one of Dracula's conquests (asserting his dominance over some race of evil beings, for instance). I was incredibly excited to see where it would go.
And then Dracula woke up in a modern world, emaciated from centuries of isolation...
Yep. It's a game with Dracula roaming streets straddled by skyscrapers. Sure, the world still has a clear Gothic vibe, and the overall aesthetic is generally well-done, but it's quite jarring to think of a Castlevania game in a contemporary setting.
But the weird doesn't stop there: one of Dracula's old acquaintances appears to restore some of his strength, informing the Prince of Darkness that Satan has finally regained enough power to fill the void left by Dracula's disappearance. In return for removing Satan from the world, Dracula's old friend makes an apparently irresistible promise: permanent death. Looking for an escape from his existence, Dracula therefore searches the city for Satan's acolytes in an attempt to bring the devil down for good.
Oh, and Dracula's memories try to kill him along the way, so there's that too.
The basic plot isn't necessarily offensive following Lords of Shadow, it's just really unexpected. The offensive part is that it seems to go too far. It's nice in that it humanizes the main series antagonist, but I felt that it made him too soft to be compatible with his previous appearances in the franchise. While I think it wraps everything up pretty nicely in the end, the generally schizophrenic presentation (jumping back and forth between the modern world and Dracula's memories, for example) makes for a confusing narrative that doesn't really seem to have a strong direction.
The gameplay, while built on a strong foundation, just doesn't have the oomph to support the shoddy storyline. I've already mentioned the mind-numbing breaks from action due to unnecessary platforming sections, but the combat loses its luster as the game wears on, too. There are some cool features - a nice variety of combos and a nifty weapon experience system which encourages you to diversify your attack patterns - but it falls all too easily into one or two repetitive combos that are the most effective in virtually every situation.
In the few cases where those combos aren't the most powerful, the game overcompensates by making them completely worthless. Instead, you have to break the enemy's defenses (with a skill that requires magic power, so you may not be able to use it) so you can resume your normal combat strategy.
Even worse, many of your enemies throughout this nightmare-infested city have guns, so they can damage you from arbitrarily large distances. That makes some battles a serious pain; often I would have an off-screen enemy pummeling me with rapid-fire bullets, and projectile attacks make it very difficult to run from random mob encounters (because you have to do that silly rock climbing to transition between areas, and taking damage will knock you from a wall).
On the other extreme, boss fights are typically easy, as the only real obstacle to your success is learning the animations that signal specific attack patterns. As a result, the difficulty of the game's combat seems skewed in the opposite direction of what you might expect, and beating down a boss doesn't seem like much of a triumph.
And then there's the biggest disappointment of all the gameplay flaws: Lords of Shadow 2 has stealth sections. The Prince of Darkness must sneak through some areas of the game (primarily to avoid big dumb dudes with huge guns), and it is abysmal. The stealth sequences aren't very well designed in the first place, but the control scheme also doesn't give enough sensitivity for it to make much sense. A couple of these sequences were particularly bad simply because the path the developers expected you to take is far from obvious - in one instance, I struggled towards a clearly-visible ladder, only to find that you can't climb it; the "correct" path required a very different strategy.
To be fair, despite all the frustrations, the game has some impressive moments. A couple of scenes are downright visceral, which is pretty sweet, and many of the fight sequences are actually pretty fun. But the good bits make everything else even more depressing; its predecessor's strengths are still there, but they were downplayed in favor of a number of bizarre, poorly executed design choices.
Lords of Shadow 2 is one of the biggest gaming letdowns in recent memory. It took the brilliant, successful formula in Lords of Shadow and perverted it to the point that it's rarely recognizable. Fans of the series might get a kick out of seeing more from Dracula's perspective, and it can be genuinely entertaining, but the prevalence of unusual flaws make it a hard one to recommend.
My rating: 4/10 - mediocre.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Game Review - Lightning Returns: FFXIII (Xbox 360, 2014)
Lightning Returns is weird. Like the previous entries in the Final Fantasy XIII saga, the game is gorgeous, but the bizarre plot and a couple frustrating design choices make it the weakest entry in the trilogy. Here's what you can expect:
The game's plot opens 13 days before the end of the world, with series protagonist Lightning on a mission from God to save as many souls as possible so He can populate the next world with them.
Yeah, that's what Lightning Returns is about.
The storyline represents a weird deviation from the previous games, and as the plot progresses, other features pop up that seem to change all the rules of the FFXIII universe. As a fan of the first two installments of the trilogy, this unexpected turn was a little offensive to my sensibilities. If you can manage to get past the initial shock and its lingering effects (or if you haven't played the other FFXIII games), the storyline is actually pretty nifty, including a number of little tendrils that connect back to the previous games in complex ways. It took me well over 20 hours to get over the initial bad taste of the unusual plot, but by the end, I was inspired to replay the earlier games to get a clearer view of how it all fits together.
One of the outstanding features of the storyline is the way it is integrated into the gameplay. Unlike most RPGs, Lightning Returns abandons the traditional leveling system, instead giving the player character stat boosts for completing quests - perfectly in line with her goal of saving souls. The plot is also highly nonlinear; while there are a handful of important "key" quests (that is, VIP souls to save), they aren't presented in any particular order. You are instead free to explore the world and redeem souls as you see fit. The only restriction on your adventuring is that you must complete the key quests before the end of the last day, otherwise you'll miss the important end-game sequences that are dependent on saving a few specific souls.
All-in-all, these gameplay features enhance the story's presentation, as it actually seems like a coherent narrative. Furthermore, random side quests are given more significant weight - rather than wasting time when you should be saving the world as is the case in many RPGs, the game's side quests are presented as an important piece of the overarching storyline. It all makes the story more engrossing.
Supporting what turns out to be a rather interesting plot is a decent combat system. Lightning goes this one alone, so the paradigm system that was in place during the previous games doesn't quite work here. Instead, Lightning can have up to three active "styles," which serve the same role as paradigms. One of the more insteresting aspects of this combat system is that each style is tied to a particular outfit, so changing styles on the fly means that Lightning's appearance will change as well. These styles come with some prepackaged skills and abilities, but they also leave room for customization, which is certainly a welcome addition to the FFXIII gameplay. This setup also means that players play a much more active role during combat, micro-managing Lightning's attacks instead of the tactical approach featured in paradigm shifts.
Combat is therefore a more dynamic affair in Lightning Returns, which also has some drawbacks; the biggest is the game's difficulty. When your success in battles is sensitive to your available skills and styles, it is possible to get yourself into a position where you simply cannot defeat a particular boss. The game's nonlinearity is nice in those moments, as you can shift your focus to a different quest line and come back when you're stronger and have more options, but monsters get more powerful as you get closer to armageddon, so you may not always be better suited for a fight when you come back to it later. I found myself struggling quite a bit with a few of the battles throughout the game, and I was barely able to scrape by even after completing a dozen other quests. It was a frustrating situation, perhaps largely because it was so different from what I expected.
The worst part of all that struggling? It's possible to reach the final boss and just not have the gear, the stats, or the skills necessary to finish him off. At that point, there's no way to run off and complete more quests or get stronger stuff, so you're effectively screwed after investing 30+ hours. In a nice gesture to help players mitigate this scenario, you have the option to start a New Game+ (keeping almost everything you'd collected up to that point) before the door that leads to the final showdown, but it's incredibly frustrating to need to run through the entire game again just to be able to see the story's conclusion. That happened to me while playing on the "Normal" difficulty setting (there is an "Easy" setting which is a lot more forgiving), and I can see it being a huge turn off for a lot of players.
Speaking of the final showdown, it's worth noting that I think the game's closing cinematics provide the epic conclusion that the FFXIII trilogy deserves, even if they run on a bit too long.
Like the rest of the FFXIII games, Lightning Returns is absolutely stunning. In-game graphics are solid, cinematics are striking, and there are a few places with really impressive vistas to show off the game's beautiful world. The soundtrack is also incredible, featuring emotional tracks from the other games alongside new ones that add a rich depth to Lightning's universe. It's an audiovisual treat to be sure.
Overall, there is a lot of content in Lightning Returns worth exploring. There are four big areas with plenty of sidequests to complete and a number of other cool features (like the ability to hunt particular monsters to extinction) that I won't discuss in an effort to keep this review relatively brief. It's unfortunately brought down by radical departures from the previous games and an occasionally brutal difficulty curve (at least for the "Normal" difficulty setting), but it's a decent way to finish the FFXIII series and a worthy excursion in its own right if you're willing to put in the time (which, to be fair, can be substantial).
My Rating: 7/10 - good.
The game's plot opens 13 days before the end of the world, with series protagonist Lightning on a mission from God to save as many souls as possible so He can populate the next world with them.
Yeah, that's what Lightning Returns is about.
The storyline represents a weird deviation from the previous games, and as the plot progresses, other features pop up that seem to change all the rules of the FFXIII universe. As a fan of the first two installments of the trilogy, this unexpected turn was a little offensive to my sensibilities. If you can manage to get past the initial shock and its lingering effects (or if you haven't played the other FFXIII games), the storyline is actually pretty nifty, including a number of little tendrils that connect back to the previous games in complex ways. It took me well over 20 hours to get over the initial bad taste of the unusual plot, but by the end, I was inspired to replay the earlier games to get a clearer view of how it all fits together.
One of the outstanding features of the storyline is the way it is integrated into the gameplay. Unlike most RPGs, Lightning Returns abandons the traditional leveling system, instead giving the player character stat boosts for completing quests - perfectly in line with her goal of saving souls. The plot is also highly nonlinear; while there are a handful of important "key" quests (that is, VIP souls to save), they aren't presented in any particular order. You are instead free to explore the world and redeem souls as you see fit. The only restriction on your adventuring is that you must complete the key quests before the end of the last day, otherwise you'll miss the important end-game sequences that are dependent on saving a few specific souls.
All-in-all, these gameplay features enhance the story's presentation, as it actually seems like a coherent narrative. Furthermore, random side quests are given more significant weight - rather than wasting time when you should be saving the world as is the case in many RPGs, the game's side quests are presented as an important piece of the overarching storyline. It all makes the story more engrossing.
Supporting what turns out to be a rather interesting plot is a decent combat system. Lightning goes this one alone, so the paradigm system that was in place during the previous games doesn't quite work here. Instead, Lightning can have up to three active "styles," which serve the same role as paradigms. One of the more insteresting aspects of this combat system is that each style is tied to a particular outfit, so changing styles on the fly means that Lightning's appearance will change as well. These styles come with some prepackaged skills and abilities, but they also leave room for customization, which is certainly a welcome addition to the FFXIII gameplay. This setup also means that players play a much more active role during combat, micro-managing Lightning's attacks instead of the tactical approach featured in paradigm shifts.
Combat is therefore a more dynamic affair in Lightning Returns, which also has some drawbacks; the biggest is the game's difficulty. When your success in battles is sensitive to your available skills and styles, it is possible to get yourself into a position where you simply cannot defeat a particular boss. The game's nonlinearity is nice in those moments, as you can shift your focus to a different quest line and come back when you're stronger and have more options, but monsters get more powerful as you get closer to armageddon, so you may not always be better suited for a fight when you come back to it later. I found myself struggling quite a bit with a few of the battles throughout the game, and I was barely able to scrape by even after completing a dozen other quests. It was a frustrating situation, perhaps largely because it was so different from what I expected.
The worst part of all that struggling? It's possible to reach the final boss and just not have the gear, the stats, or the skills necessary to finish him off. At that point, there's no way to run off and complete more quests or get stronger stuff, so you're effectively screwed after investing 30+ hours. In a nice gesture to help players mitigate this scenario, you have the option to start a New Game+ (keeping almost everything you'd collected up to that point) before the door that leads to the final showdown, but it's incredibly frustrating to need to run through the entire game again just to be able to see the story's conclusion. That happened to me while playing on the "Normal" difficulty setting (there is an "Easy" setting which is a lot more forgiving), and I can see it being a huge turn off for a lot of players.
Speaking of the final showdown, it's worth noting that I think the game's closing cinematics provide the epic conclusion that the FFXIII trilogy deserves, even if they run on a bit too long.
Like the rest of the FFXIII games, Lightning Returns is absolutely stunning. In-game graphics are solid, cinematics are striking, and there are a few places with really impressive vistas to show off the game's beautiful world. The soundtrack is also incredible, featuring emotional tracks from the other games alongside new ones that add a rich depth to Lightning's universe. It's an audiovisual treat to be sure.
Overall, there is a lot of content in Lightning Returns worth exploring. There are four big areas with plenty of sidequests to complete and a number of other cool features (like the ability to hunt particular monsters to extinction) that I won't discuss in an effort to keep this review relatively brief. It's unfortunately brought down by radical departures from the previous games and an occasionally brutal difficulty curve (at least for the "Normal" difficulty setting), but it's a decent way to finish the FFXIII series and a worthy excursion in its own right if you're willing to put in the time (which, to be fair, can be substantial).
My Rating: 7/10 - good.
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