I've been busy this month, yet I don't really remember what I did other than work on my latest remix. Here's a small rant I wrote on Facebook on the servers of Demon's Souls getting shut down.
https://atlus.com/fond-farewell-demons-souls-servers/
Demon's Souls is one of my favorite games on the PS3. It was one of the first games I bought after graduating college and I heard lots of great things about it.
My initial reactions to the game were less than favorable: "The opening music sounds cheesy!" "It's not a fast-paced Hack 'n Slash?" "Enemy placement never changes!" "The graphics are only okay..." "It seems so boring without music playing." "That death just wasted all my efforts and time..." I walked around the first area quite a few times and just couldn't get into it. I took a break for a month and still kept seeing posts and articles about how exciting boss fights were and how engaging combat felt. I went back to it, beat the first boss, and then it clicked.
I went to the next area, and then the next, and then I continually played the game until I beat it. It was a strange and different formula that's partially familiar, but done in a meaningful way. Combat forced the player into creating strategies for each engagement by limiting the amount of actions they can take before tiring out. Exploration punished the reckless, but rewarded the meticulous and daring. All builds worked and allowed a variety of ways to play the game. The game wasn't about the triumphs and victories, but the mistakes and failures that led up to them.
Demon's Souls isn't the most polished or highest quality of games, but its design is solid and delivers a kind of satisfaction few games has done before it. I haven't revisit it in a while because of my ever-growing backlog, but it still remains one of my favorites on the PS3 and perhaps all time.
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Let's talk about Warriors All-Stars [SPOILERS]
I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting out of this game. As excited as I was for this whacky cross-overs of mis-matched heroes from various Koei Tecmo games, I imagined the game being a bit more shallow. I was wrong, and I'm couldn't be happier about it.
Warriors All-Stars takes characters from Dynasty Warriors, Toukiden, Opoona, Atelier Sophie, Samurai Warriors, Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time, Nioh, Ninja Gaiden, Samurai Cats, Dead or Alive, Deception, Rio, and Nights of Azure and thrusts them in an unknown world that is dying. Heroes from all times and space are summoned to help revive this dying land. But as the journey begins, the heroes find themselves amongst a three way family feud. Each one of the family members have a reason for fighting. The princess Tamaki is the only one with enough energy to restore the power of the world as it once was. The older brother of the princess Shiki takes on an aggressive stance against his younger sister and cousin with mysterious motives. The cousin of the two heirs Setsuna sets off to be the one to restore power to the world once more and take his rightful place as King as his father before him had reigned before Tamaki and Shiki's father took over. So what are the true motives for each of these characters? Is restoring the energy to the planet the only threat? I guess you'll have to play it to find out!
So I actually didn't know there was an overarching story involving original characters. I actually thought this was supposed to be a continuation of the Warriors Orochi series. It is not. Other than the base combat and the inclusion of characters from many different games, the game showcases a wide variety of mechanics and design choices that sets it apart from the Warriors Orochi series.
Let's list some differences of All-Stars to Orochi:
- Orochi's theme was darker while All-Stars is bright and colorful.
- Orochi allowed up to 3 main characters in party while All-Stars has 1 main with 4 supports.
- Party building revolved around character types and passives while All-Stars' characters each had active abilities that attacks, buffs, heals or protects the main character in some way.
- The player can freely switch between the 3 characters in Orochi while summoning a support character or using their ability puts them in a cooldown state.
- Orochi mainly focused on characters from Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors while All-Stars had equal representation for all the games involved.
These are just some of the differences. Needless to say, they are two different games. You could say that Warriors All-Stars feels familiar, but fresh.
So how the game actually works is a bit different from most Warriors games. There isn't a linearity to the game, per se, but rather a somewhat open-ended experience that shapes depending on player choices and random chance. The sanctuary is a central hub that allows you to raise the bond levels between characters, buy/sell/upgrade cards, train character levels, and pick up requests. On the main map, you can return to the sanctuary, fight of bandits for cards, take on quests to raise money, participate in challenges for experience points, fulfill character requests, or proceed with main missions. Special quests periodically pop up on the map for a few seconds before disappearing again. Sometimes, finishing certain main quests will lock you out of other ones. Giving that freedom to the player was pretty cool, but it also felt like a way to virtually extend the gameplay time as character level and money can be a bit difficult to keep up with.
Once you get into one of the missions, you'll be directed towards various objectives. Some are optional and can help give bonus items, money or experience points. But other times, they can be the condition that causes a failure. One of the new mechanics in the game is the Bravery level (I believe that's what it's called) where the player will always start at level 1 out of 9 at the beginning of each mission. As the player defeats more opponents and fulfill objectives, their bravery level goes up. It is safer to be at the same level or above of the bravery level of your opponent before taking them down. I believe this mechanic was implemented to prevent players from taking their strongest character and diving straight towards the main enemy to try to end the mission immediately. It can be a bit of a drag sometimes, especially if the mission decides to throw enemies with bravery level 6 or 7 at you right at the beginning. But it does add a new layer of strategy into the game. There are number of ways to confront each situation in battle. If the player is surrounded by a large number of enemies, they can summon their support characters and extend their weapon reach further horizontally up to 5 characters wide (by summoning all 4 support characters). If a particular general is too difficult to defeat, the player can use their support characters' abilities to raise the advantages in their favor. If there are too many generals after the player and want to be able to fight all of them at once without the fear of hit-stun lock or juggles, they can activate Musou Rush where minion enemies pour out from all sides of the screen while the support characters perform actions to assist the main character as they enter an invisible state of euphoria where they can hack 'n slash all they want in those 20+ or so seconds without fear of being hit (it's quite cathartic). Enemies can be pretty relentless if you're not careful, and objectives test the players decision making and time management on the spot. If you don't pay attention to character conversations or gloss over an important objective, it'll end in failure with possibly restarting the entire mission over again. Objectives can range from defeating certain enemies, defending a point, escorting an NPC or saving someone in need. Warriors All-Stars simplicity in direction and depth in party building made the experience quite engaging.
Now that I'm done talking about the main portion of the game, I'd like to mention all the little things about this game that I liked. Personally, I find it difficult to create a cross-over game that will satisfy fans of each of the franchises as their characters can be vastly contradictory in terms of personality, style of play, or reference. The developers found a balance that highlights each individual character by showing the player what's so great about them through conversation, gameplay and music while still managing to have them interact in a believable manner. The very first character that came to mind was Lu Bu of Dynasty Warriors. This man was a renegade that no one could control. He betrayed various leaders and always sought to show everyone how fearsome he was. So my biggest question when starting the game and having him join my party was "how would that make sense?" At first, he dismissed the idea of helping the indigenous people of the world he was summoned to and began to walk away. I believe it was Zhou Cang that spoke up and said that "there would be strong fighters from different worlds they'd have to go up against." This peaked Lu Bu's interest and he agreed to fight if it would entertain him and that "if anyone got in [his] way, he'd take them down too." The writing for the characters was careful in keeping everything canon and believable whenever it came to having them interact. Millennia and Laegrinna of the Deception series expressed their hatred for humans and refused to fight alongside the other members. When they're finally convinced to join them, they would mention in conversations saying that they were thinking of how they would trap each hero based on their abilities. So not all the characters actually get along with each other, but their interactions (even when hostile) can be perceived as humorous or charming in the context of this world they're stuck in. One other example is a hero mission in which Lu Bu insists on dueling William from Nioh. William didn't want to fight Lu Bu and also had a request to fight off bandits. William tricks Lu Bu by agreeing to his duel and bringing him to where the bandits were. Each time Lu Bu was ready to fight him, William would point out that a villager needed help. After fighting off the bandits, Lu Bu becomes enraged and blamed the villagers for getting in the way of their duel. This charade goes on for a while until William is paid by the villagers for his help and tells Lu Bu that he's too wiped to fight and that he'd probably be dissatisfied with fighting him in such a state. William makes it up to him by using the money he made to treat him to alcoholic beverages and challenged in who could drink more. It was just so much fun seeing the ways all the character interacted with each other.
Not all characters come from action games, and that's when they had to be a bit more creative. With Sophie and Plachta, coming from the JRPG turn-based battle of the Atelier series, their attacks mimics skills and abilities from their game in an action form. The Deception series is all about setting up traps and having the humans run into them, and so the characters have various traps appear as their attacks in Warriors All-Stars. The little references and motions from its source material gave respectful homages to each of the games the characters came from.
Aside from the already beautiful recreations of each of the characters' models and graphics, playful dialogues, and fun gameplay, the game had an incredible soundtrack to boot. There are original songs specifically for the game, and those were really good: melodic, memorable, and moving. Then we have arranged songs from all the games the characters are from.
The music selection is just so much fun to listen to. It helps a lot that the source material is already great; however, the way they were able to transform each of those songs into one unifying style while still respecting the source material is truly beautiful. Before the game released, I got really into listening the music and finding the original songs to compare. There was one particular song that stood out to me while I was playing the game that I've never heard before:
"What game is this from? The melody is so beautiful and emotional!" I have never heard of this game before, but the song capture my heart. The music was so good that I felt interest in the game. If it ever got localized, I might give it a shot (btw, it's an otome. Meaning it's a romance game geared towards females). Often times, this is what they want in a cross-over game: to get the player interested in all the games the characters are from. But if you don't represent the character and its franchise very well in the cross-over game, it's much more difficult to convince the player to check it out (I'm hinting towards Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, and I'll be writing a review on that soon).
I had so much fun playing this game. The story (though a bit stereotypical) was simple, but a lot of fun to follow. The characters are full of personality and represented their games faithfully and respectfully. The gameplay could get repetitive in some parts, but I mostly had fun and really liked all the different teams I was able to form to change the experience of combat. The art style was easy on the eyes and I loved seeing the capabilities of the PS4 being showcased as opposed to the port of Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate where the game couldn't show of the technological advances the console has made from its predecessor. I played through the game three times with the first two times as a regular ending and the third time I accidentally stumbled into the true ending. I'm unsure if I'm going to be playing it more since there's still much I can unlock and discover, but I also have a lot of other games to get through. I loved it and I'm glad Koei Tecmo brought it over for us.
[STORY SPOILERS]
So if you'd like a quick run-down of the story, here it is:
-Tamaki wants to restore the planet's energy
-Setsuna doesn't actually care about "taking his rightful place as king" and wants to save Tamaki
-The only way to restore the planets power is by sealing yourself in the fountain
-Setsuna planned on taking Tamaki's place so that she wouldn't be sent to a sealed oblivion
-Shiki was so aggressive because in his father's dying breath, he was told that the sealed monster Yomi had already taken over someone close to him. He had to find out who
-On the true ending path, Sayo (Tamaki and Shiki's mother) is revealed to be the one controlled
-Continuing farther on the true ending path, it's revealed that Yomi is actually an ancestor in their family
-Rather than slaying her, the heroes were able to purge the darkness out of her and return things as they were
-Essentially, it's one plot twist after another and they're not too surprising. But I enjoyed it.
Warriors All-Stars takes characters from Dynasty Warriors, Toukiden, Opoona, Atelier Sophie, Samurai Warriors, Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time, Nioh, Ninja Gaiden, Samurai Cats, Dead or Alive, Deception, Rio, and Nights of Azure and thrusts them in an unknown world that is dying. Heroes from all times and space are summoned to help revive this dying land. But as the journey begins, the heroes find themselves amongst a three way family feud. Each one of the family members have a reason for fighting. The princess Tamaki is the only one with enough energy to restore the power of the world as it once was. The older brother of the princess Shiki takes on an aggressive stance against his younger sister and cousin with mysterious motives. The cousin of the two heirs Setsuna sets off to be the one to restore power to the world once more and take his rightful place as King as his father before him had reigned before Tamaki and Shiki's father took over. So what are the true motives for each of these characters? Is restoring the energy to the planet the only threat? I guess you'll have to play it to find out!
So I actually didn't know there was an overarching story involving original characters. I actually thought this was supposed to be a continuation of the Warriors Orochi series. It is not. Other than the base combat and the inclusion of characters from many different games, the game showcases a wide variety of mechanics and design choices that sets it apart from the Warriors Orochi series.
Let's list some differences of All-Stars to Orochi:
- Orochi's theme was darker while All-Stars is bright and colorful.
- Orochi allowed up to 3 main characters in party while All-Stars has 1 main with 4 supports.
- Party building revolved around character types and passives while All-Stars' characters each had active abilities that attacks, buffs, heals or protects the main character in some way.
- The player can freely switch between the 3 characters in Orochi while summoning a support character or using their ability puts them in a cooldown state.
- Orochi mainly focused on characters from Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors while All-Stars had equal representation for all the games involved.
These are just some of the differences. Needless to say, they are two different games. You could say that Warriors All-Stars feels familiar, but fresh.
So how the game actually works is a bit different from most Warriors games. There isn't a linearity to the game, per se, but rather a somewhat open-ended experience that shapes depending on player choices and random chance. The sanctuary is a central hub that allows you to raise the bond levels between characters, buy/sell/upgrade cards, train character levels, and pick up requests. On the main map, you can return to the sanctuary, fight of bandits for cards, take on quests to raise money, participate in challenges for experience points, fulfill character requests, or proceed with main missions. Special quests periodically pop up on the map for a few seconds before disappearing again. Sometimes, finishing certain main quests will lock you out of other ones. Giving that freedom to the player was pretty cool, but it also felt like a way to virtually extend the gameplay time as character level and money can be a bit difficult to keep up with.
Once you get into one of the missions, you'll be directed towards various objectives. Some are optional and can help give bonus items, money or experience points. But other times, they can be the condition that causes a failure. One of the new mechanics in the game is the Bravery level (I believe that's what it's called) where the player will always start at level 1 out of 9 at the beginning of each mission. As the player defeats more opponents and fulfill objectives, their bravery level goes up. It is safer to be at the same level or above of the bravery level of your opponent before taking them down. I believe this mechanic was implemented to prevent players from taking their strongest character and diving straight towards the main enemy to try to end the mission immediately. It can be a bit of a drag sometimes, especially if the mission decides to throw enemies with bravery level 6 or 7 at you right at the beginning. But it does add a new layer of strategy into the game. There are number of ways to confront each situation in battle. If the player is surrounded by a large number of enemies, they can summon their support characters and extend their weapon reach further horizontally up to 5 characters wide (by summoning all 4 support characters). If a particular general is too difficult to defeat, the player can use their support characters' abilities to raise the advantages in their favor. If there are too many generals after the player and want to be able to fight all of them at once without the fear of hit-stun lock or juggles, they can activate Musou Rush where minion enemies pour out from all sides of the screen while the support characters perform actions to assist the main character as they enter an invisible state of euphoria where they can hack 'n slash all they want in those 20+ or so seconds without fear of being hit (it's quite cathartic). Enemies can be pretty relentless if you're not careful, and objectives test the players decision making and time management on the spot. If you don't pay attention to character conversations or gloss over an important objective, it'll end in failure with possibly restarting the entire mission over again. Objectives can range from defeating certain enemies, defending a point, escorting an NPC or saving someone in need. Warriors All-Stars simplicity in direction and depth in party building made the experience quite engaging.
Now that I'm done talking about the main portion of the game, I'd like to mention all the little things about this game that I liked. Personally, I find it difficult to create a cross-over game that will satisfy fans of each of the franchises as their characters can be vastly contradictory in terms of personality, style of play, or reference. The developers found a balance that highlights each individual character by showing the player what's so great about them through conversation, gameplay and music while still managing to have them interact in a believable manner. The very first character that came to mind was Lu Bu of Dynasty Warriors. This man was a renegade that no one could control. He betrayed various leaders and always sought to show everyone how fearsome he was. So my biggest question when starting the game and having him join my party was "how would that make sense?" At first, he dismissed the idea of helping the indigenous people of the world he was summoned to and began to walk away. I believe it was Zhou Cang that spoke up and said that "there would be strong fighters from different worlds they'd have to go up against." This peaked Lu Bu's interest and he agreed to fight if it would entertain him and that "if anyone got in [his] way, he'd take them down too." The writing for the characters was careful in keeping everything canon and believable whenever it came to having them interact. Millennia and Laegrinna of the Deception series expressed their hatred for humans and refused to fight alongside the other members. When they're finally convinced to join them, they would mention in conversations saying that they were thinking of how they would trap each hero based on their abilities. So not all the characters actually get along with each other, but their interactions (even when hostile) can be perceived as humorous or charming in the context of this world they're stuck in. One other example is a hero mission in which Lu Bu insists on dueling William from Nioh. William didn't want to fight Lu Bu and also had a request to fight off bandits. William tricks Lu Bu by agreeing to his duel and bringing him to where the bandits were. Each time Lu Bu was ready to fight him, William would point out that a villager needed help. After fighting off the bandits, Lu Bu becomes enraged and blamed the villagers for getting in the way of their duel. This charade goes on for a while until William is paid by the villagers for his help and tells Lu Bu that he's too wiped to fight and that he'd probably be dissatisfied with fighting him in such a state. William makes it up to him by using the money he made to treat him to alcoholic beverages and challenged in who could drink more. It was just so much fun seeing the ways all the character interacted with each other.
Not all characters come from action games, and that's when they had to be a bit more creative. With Sophie and Plachta, coming from the JRPG turn-based battle of the Atelier series, their attacks mimics skills and abilities from their game in an action form. The Deception series is all about setting up traps and having the humans run into them, and so the characters have various traps appear as their attacks in Warriors All-Stars. The little references and motions from its source material gave respectful homages to each of the games the characters came from.
Aside from the already beautiful recreations of each of the characters' models and graphics, playful dialogues, and fun gameplay, the game had an incredible soundtrack to boot. There are original songs specifically for the game, and those were really good: melodic, memorable, and moving. Then we have arranged songs from all the games the characters are from.
The music selection is just so much fun to listen to. It helps a lot that the source material is already great; however, the way they were able to transform each of those songs into one unifying style while still respecting the source material is truly beautiful. Before the game released, I got really into listening the music and finding the original songs to compare. There was one particular song that stood out to me while I was playing the game that I've never heard before:
"What game is this from? The melody is so beautiful and emotional!" I have never heard of this game before, but the song capture my heart. The music was so good that I felt interest in the game. If it ever got localized, I might give it a shot (btw, it's an otome. Meaning it's a romance game geared towards females). Often times, this is what they want in a cross-over game: to get the player interested in all the games the characters are from. But if you don't represent the character and its franchise very well in the cross-over game, it's much more difficult to convince the player to check it out (I'm hinting towards Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, and I'll be writing a review on that soon).
I had so much fun playing this game. The story (though a bit stereotypical) was simple, but a lot of fun to follow. The characters are full of personality and represented their games faithfully and respectfully. The gameplay could get repetitive in some parts, but I mostly had fun and really liked all the different teams I was able to form to change the experience of combat. The art style was easy on the eyes and I loved seeing the capabilities of the PS4 being showcased as opposed to the port of Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate where the game couldn't show of the technological advances the console has made from its predecessor. I played through the game three times with the first two times as a regular ending and the third time I accidentally stumbled into the true ending. I'm unsure if I'm going to be playing it more since there's still much I can unlock and discover, but I also have a lot of other games to get through. I loved it and I'm glad Koei Tecmo brought it over for us.
[STORY SPOILERS]
So if you'd like a quick run-down of the story, here it is:
-Tamaki wants to restore the planet's energy
-Setsuna doesn't actually care about "taking his rightful place as king" and wants to save Tamaki
-The only way to restore the planets power is by sealing yourself in the fountain
-Setsuna planned on taking Tamaki's place so that she wouldn't be sent to a sealed oblivion
-Shiki was so aggressive because in his father's dying breath, he was told that the sealed monster Yomi had already taken over someone close to him. He had to find out who
-On the true ending path, Sayo (Tamaki and Shiki's mother) is revealed to be the one controlled
-Continuing farther on the true ending path, it's revealed that Yomi is actually an ancestor in their family
-Rather than slaying her, the heroes were able to purge the darkness out of her and return things as they were
-Essentially, it's one plot twist after another and they're not too surprising. But I enjoyed it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)