@mookysam Fantastic critical review of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey! Extremely detailed and well-written. I appreciated the analysis of how the open world design conflicted with the immediacy of the plot, the historical perspective you offered when discussing the game's utilization of real historical events, the break down of the game's lack of focus in terms of world design and content, and, of course, the enjoyably personable style in which it's all presented.
Anyway, the climax of season six of BtVS didn't do it for you, I take it?
Tokyo Dark Platform: PC Completion: Two runs; totaling roughly 9 hours of playtime
Tokyo Dark started life as a Kickstarter project funded back in 2015 (and later released in late 2017), promising an adventure game/visual novel hybrid set in Japan that was a fusion of supernatural horror and police procedural. Players step into the shoes of Ayami Itō, a detective who is investigating the disappearance of her partner Tanaka Kazuki. This investigation quickly takes a supernatural turn as she discovers a mysterious mask with connections to an ancient cult, hears talk of a fantastical door nestled within the sewers of Tokyo that is connected to something called "the Dark," and is haunted by the specter of a frightening young woman from a previous case that took a tragic turn. The Kickstarter pitch promised a game with branching story paths, and where your choices matter.
Sounds good, right?
The presentation in Tokyo Dark is fairly basic. The game is presented on a 2D plane at all times (i.e. it's a sidescroller), and, like in most adventure games, the player clicks on points of interest around the map to have Ayami walk around. Ayami's character model and walk cycle look incredibly cheap, unfortunately. I also wasn't a fan of the art style in the character portraits that often paint the screen as well, which feel animesque, like what a Western artist would draw as an approximation of a Japanese art style. It's not a terrible looking game overall, though: the environments, as little as you end up seeing of them, look sufficiently detailed, and the game features a few, very short fully animated cutscenes that look way better than anything else in the game. It'll come as no surprise, then, that these sequences were farmed out to a small Japanese animation studio.
Tokyo Dark's investigations and choices come into play primarily through the SPIN system, which is an acronym for Sanity, Professionalism, Investigation, and Neurosis. Depending on what happens to Ayami throughout the game and what choices she makes, her stats in those four areas will shift. This should have made for some interesting trade-offs, and it's clear that this is what the developers were going for. As a basic example, when the player returns to Ayami's apartment throughout the game, they'll have the option of having her swallow some sort of medication (an anti-psychotic, I'm assuming), which will increase her sanity stat, but decrease her investigation stat, since it presumably makes her mind foggy. There are also applications of this system that are both inspired and expected. Unsurprisingly, if the player chooses to have Ayami behave violently and/or recklessly to speed through some of the game's scenarios and environmental puzzles, her sanity will drop. If Ayami drinks on the job in order to try and put a hostile bartender at ease, her professionalism will drop. The most interesting thing I discovered is that having her go back to talk to characters whose dialogue trees she's already exhausted within a given chapter will increase her neurosis.
Unfortunately, the implementation of the system is flawed. For a few reasons. While the game attempts to explain what the stats do, it's not always clear what they govern. A higher level of neurosis seems to make her sanity drop faster, but it's hardly like the game is long enough to make this a fleshed-out mechanic. In fact, it's questionable how much of an effect almost any of these stats have: aside from some slightly different dialogue, it seems like the game progresses along the same general path regardless. There's at least one explicit check for the sanity stat that'll lead to an early bad ending, but otherwise, the system seems needless, and feels like it was designed to add an illusion of depth to the gameplay that's not actually there. As far as I can tell, the SPIN system broadly doesn't matter thanks to the structure of the game, which is less investigatory and more just a matter of completing a series of events and conversations in the same linear order every time.
Which leads into another criticism I have of the game. It's designed to feature choices and multiple endings, but, much like the implementation of the SPIN system, these elements don't feel fully explored. The structure of the narrative is unyielding, which makes the vast majority of choices the player makes throughout the game mostly pointless. Like in a Telltale game, almost nothing the player does actually matters in terms of how things actually play out at the end of the game. There are some radically different endings, but the majority of these endings are obtained by choices made within the last half hour of play time.
The game annoyingly doesn't allow the player to save in multiple slots, or in different parts of the game on the first run, so if the player wants to see how other endings will play out, they'll need to replay the entire game again. There's a feature in most visual novels with multiple endings that allows the player to skip past previously seen dialogue on their quest for new content and different endings, but this feature seems sort of... broken in Tokyo Dark. A skip function exists for some dialogue, but most of it forces the player to re-read it, even though it seems generally identical to how it was in the first playthrough.
Thankfully, the "broken memories" mode that's unlocked in New Game Plus allows the player to save in up to four different slots at one time, which helps tremendously with both obtaining multiple endings and steam achievement hunting in the PC version. And while most of the game is identical in NG+, there are actually some differences in dialogue in specific sections that call attention to the fact that the player, and, by extension, Ayami, is experiencing these events again, and ties this into the broader plot. It's a small thing, but I definitely appreciate that sort of attention to detail.
I'm a bit mixed on the game's plot and writing. The story itself unfolds in the manner of a Lovecraft-inspired yarn, with a weary and traumatized investigator risking their life and sanity poking into dark corners of the universe because they're too invested in the mystery to ever look back. The game's many endings reflect this uncompromising horror quality: even the "best" ones are extremely bittersweet, and the game doesn't seem to mind exploring the bleak implications of its mythology. Unfortunately, the plot itself feels a bit undercooked, and the game sometimes feels like it's doing the bare minimum to progress from point A to point B.
This lack of depth in the writing, and the lack of any meaningful application of the fore-mentioned SPIN system, means that, as a game, this feels rather incomplete, like the rough draft for an extremely interesting game that was never fully developed. Throw in the bad character model for Ayami and the generally lacking 2D environments, and the only conclusion I can reasonably come to is that this game should have been developed as a pure visual novel from the get-go. Especially if the time spent developing gameplay systems and environments had instead been re-invested into the game by fleshing out the writing somewhat.
Worse for the game are its frequent detours into goofy narrative territory that massively undermines any sense of atmosphere the game manages to build for itself. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm a big believer in the power of dark humor to keep bleak subject matter from becoming too depressing or overwhelming, but the humor here is just cringe-inducing. Like, I don't need a major chunk of this short horror game to be spent talking to catgirl-themed waitresses who talk in obnoxious puns. I don't need constant splash screens of Ayami joyously eating pancakes, or women snuggling cats, or... you get the picture. One sometimes gets the sense that the game would rather show off cute anime girls doing cute anime girl things than commit to maintaining a creepy atmosphere. Tonally, the game is all over the place as a result. It's like if Silent Hill 2's dog ending was integrated into the main story and kept popping up to undermine the sense of slow burning dread.
While I'm dogging on the game, I should also mention the strange visual glitch that frequently cropped up in my playthroughs of the game. For some reason, Ayami's character portrait will drift into the center of the screen and block text. At first, I thought this might be a stylistic choice to reflect Ayami's fracturing sanity or something, like the weird and ingenious sanity effects that affected the UI in GameCube survival horror classic Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, but it seemed to crop up kind of randomly and, when I looked into it, it does indeed seem to be something unintentional. Not a game-breaking issue, but I thought it deserved to be mentioned, since it doesn't seem to have been addressed via patches at all.
The aesthetic and design limitations of Tokyo Dark are unfortunate, because there is actually a lot to like here. The soundtrack is moody and evocative. While the animation itself is cheap-looking, there's an attempt at a grungy urban aesthetic that I liked. Most crucially, the core story is actually really interesting, and I did become rather invested in the characters: the protagonist and antagonist of Tokyo Dark are both deeply flawed, but also distinctly human, and their mutual spiral into violence, despair, and insanity as the supernatural mystery at the core of the narrative consumes their lives was engaging enough to keep me invested enough to play through the game twice, despite its narrative shortcomings.
Tokyo Dark's potent mixture of urban noir and supernatural horror mostly holds together on the strength of an interesting core narrative and decent sound design. Unfortunately, it's undermined by cheap character animations, amateurish character portraits, a recurring and very annoying visual glitch, tonal imbalance, very linear game design that bucks against its own focus on replayability and multiple endings, lack of QoL features, and an RPG-like stat system that seems thoroughly undercooked. It won't be remembered as one of the great indie games, but I definitely think this title shows some promise from developer Cherrymochi, who will hopefully more fully realize their ambitions in future titles. Tokyo Dark gets a 4.5/10.
@Ralizah I’m especially intrigued as to how the main character in Tokyo Dark generates a light source from her permanently rosy cheeks. Is she some sort of superhuman?
@nessisonett
It's called "Tokyo Dark". How do you expect the main character to see what she's doing in the dark, morally bankrupt maid cafes she frequents otherwise?（。々°）
Yeah, I could tell you knew what you were talking about on the Greek history front. Something I'm not hugely well-read on. It added tremendously to the review.
I didn't mind the season six finale too much, since Willow and Xander have such a long, well-established personal history together, and after countless episodes of depression and edginess, I kinda jived with the whole "saving the world through the power of love" thing. But then, I also didn't really mind the "love is a force of nature" thing from Interstellar, so maybe I just have a heavy level of tolerance for corny writing?
Thanks! I was a little unsure about how this review turned out, so I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it. The game's developers really would have benefitted from creating a more focused product, I think: ditch most of the pointless gameplay systems, incorporate an actually working text skip system to encourage replayability, and focus on weaving crucial choices into the narrative instead of making it where the majority of the endings can be seen if you replay the last 30 minutes or so of the game. If they didn't want to focus that much on making a genuinely choice-based game, then they should have focused on creating one core narrative instead. It's still an interesting experience if you can get it for cheaps, though.
I actually looked into what was added in the console ports, since the Switch version went on sale right before I started playing it. It doesn't seem like a huge upgrade, though: a couple new endings, some slightly altered environmental art, and apparently a new scene added here and there. Didn't seem like it was worth shelling out an extra $10 to upgrade. The character art and most of the problems with the game remain intact in the new version.
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
@RogerRoger Nah, I don't kickstart games (I made an exception for the Shantae kickstarter back in 2013, but that's it). It's almost always better to just wait and see how the game turns out.
In this case, I got Tokyo Dark in a Square Enix Collective humble bundle. It came with 12 games for 10 dollars, so, assuming I played all of them, Tokyo Dark would have ended up costing me less than $1. I mainly bought the bundle for five games I wanted out of it, but even then, that only made the game $2 or so for me.
PC gaming ftw!
Anyway, even if I had bought it for full price, it wouldn't have been that bad of a deal, since, like I said, I still enjoyed playing it. The core story is interesting. And, personally, I'm pretty forgiving of flaws if I happen to find a game interesting. But I try not to let my own biases impact my objectivity when writing these reviews.
Although the character portrait blocking the text thing did become rather annoying over time. I remember losing my patience at one point and shouting "lady, move!" when it happened during a more story-sensitive moment.
@RogerRoger Fantastic Quantum write up. Very detailed yet concise. Great sense of how the game is. If I didn't have ethics I'd take it for my site (I won't!).
I'm not ready to do a review of Hitman 3 yet. But I have to say I'm loving the China level. It's basically a copy and paste of Sapienza, both in mission structure and level design, but that was arguably the best level of the first game. It's a nice little area. Not sprawling like Bangkok or Marrakesh but it has a distinct vibe. Very enjoyable to be in.
Generally, projects I'm interested in are funded regardless, so there's no point in me donating when others have already put the project over its goal, y'know? Kickstarter pledges aren't meant to be pre-orders, but a lot of people treat them like they are, which leads to anger and confusion when people who didn't back the project end up getting superior benefits closer to release
Digital sales are a huge part of my backlog in general. Digital sales have exploded across all platforms this generation, to the point where it's super tempting to buy stuff I'm only halfway interested in. But I don't see the point in endlessly pumping money into purchases that I might never have the opportunity to play, so I've tried to limit myself to games I intend to play imminently, or at least within months of purchasing. Doesn't always work out, but, in general, the backlog has been shrinking for years.
Well, less a disembodied anime girl's head and more an anime girl's head and torso (I'm pretty sure one of the screenshots in the review showcases the phenomenon). It's like when somebody is standing in front of a TV you're trying to watch. Very annoying.
BTW, I see you're back to Bond! Unfortunately, a LOT of games in the seventh gen were QTE-riddled cover shooters. It is kinda weird that a game adapted from a film filled with almost constant action couldn't manage better setpieces.
It's a testament to how popular the PS2 and NDS both were that both platforms saw ports of this game. I remember playing games on NDS where I had to hold it like a book. I... don't miss that. At all. One thing I really liked about the 3DS, aside from the smaller but higher quality library of games, was that there were a minimum of gimmicks included in games on that system. I didn't have to turn my system on its side like a book, or blow into a microphone, or not use buttons because the game wanted to experiment with touch-only controls.
I do kind of miss bespoke ports, though. Publishers have gotten lazy in terms of porting and optimization this gen compared to previous gens, when games that released on weaker consoles would be tailored to the hardware.
Oh, and did you play this on PC or PS3?
@mookysam Similar question. Did you play Assassin's Creed Odyssey on PS4?
@RogerRoger Well this is one of the few games from that era that I did play. I think someone bought it for me as a present back when I first got my 360. It is one of those games that I can remember very very little about. I can remember playing it, not hating it, then not playing again. This is the issue with licensed games - there are some rare gems (I'd argue Batman Begins on PS2 was actually a darn good game and laid the foundation for the Arkham series) but often they are pretty functional games that you play and just... forget.
Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot
@mookysam Thanks for that review. Origins and Odyssey are on sale so often that I'm frequently tempted by them and your review sold it reasonably well until you mentioned the overwhelming amount of stuff to do and the rubbish ending. AC2 remains the only game of the series I've played and that felt bloated to me so it looks like I'll be putting off buying another AssCreed game for a while! Although "The Adventure of Kassandra's Sex Ship" is somewhat appealing..
@Ralizah Thanks for your review of Tokyo Dark. I like to read about stuff that I almost certainly will never play and it sounds like that one goes into "nice idea, shame about the execution" territory.
@RogerRoger Nice writeup there. To go with the cliche above "style over substance" seems to ring true here; the screenshots are certainly quite pretty! An interesting move to switch between first and third person though but it sounds like it paid off.
Completion rate: Game completed with the bonus "100%" ending; 85% of trophies; all clear and coloured gems on normal and N. Verted levels; all platinum Flashback tapes; a couple of time trial relics and N. Sanely Perfect trophies.
This guy looks familiar
After Toys For Bob had been tasked with the remaster of the Spyro trilogy and the Nintendo Switch port of the Crash remakes, they got their chance to have a go at a Crash game in their own right. While this is the eighth Crash game, it is created as a direct sequel to the original trilogy (incidentally, looking at Wiki, there are a huge number of Crash games I never even knew existed; Crash: Mind Over Mutant anyone??)
The basic premise of the game is that Neo Cortex escapes from his prison with N. Tropy through a rift in time and space, with the intention of using this to take over the multiverse! It's fairly standard fare to start with but builds as Crash, Coco, and Aku-Aku discover the Quantum Masks who have power over space and time, and who have appeared after the rift has been opened. Cue shenanigans across a vast array of worlds in the past, present, and future allowing for a real mix of levels.
Probably best not to linger here
The one thing you can certainly say about the game is that it looks great. The character models are well done and the numerous enemies you come across all look sharp too. Levels are colourful and flit between side scrolling and running to/away from the camera whilst always being great to look at. The various skins you can unlock along the way by obtaining gems in levels also allow you to customise Crash and Coco to match the levels you're in or just pick something altogether ridiculous as you go between pirate ships, prehistoric rainforests, and futuristic cityscapes.
Crash 3 biker gear!
I am not one to normally talk about music in games but most levels have their own distinct soundtracks and some of these are quite memorable. The level that stuck in my mind more than any, both visually and musically, was the slightly twisted Mardis Gras level which had a wonderful carnivalesque accompanying track.
Crash also feels good to control which is great after the remakes where many people felt that it never quite felt right and the new control system didn't really work with the original game in particular. There is also the introduction of a little circle underneath Crash that appears every time you jump which allows you to control your landings much more easily rather than sometimes guessing where this might be in the remakes (this can be turned if you want though). However, even with that I did find that it could be a real struggle with depth perception at times, particularly with crates that were in mid air off to the side of levels and I had many a death where I under or over called a jump.
The game also introduces some new elements with new crates making an appearance. There are flame crates which shoot little flames out periodically which are just a bit annoying to be honest; red ! crates which make crates appear but only for a set time; and then bounce crates which turn into nitro crates once they've been used a set number of times (these only appear in Flashback tape levels which I'll mention in a bit).
Deja vu?
There are also new mechanics with wall running used intermittently but I found this to be quite annoying as even though I completed the game, I'm not sure I could tell you exactly how you controlled these as sometimes I would fail to trigger the wall run and sometimes just randomly fall off and I never quite figured out why. A welcome new mechanic is how "lives" are used. Gone is the very 90s 16/32 bit era of having lives and "game over" once these have gone but instead you have a death count for the level which is one criteria needed to get all the clear gems a level offers. You can go "retro" with the old school lives system if you wish though.
One of the most fun changes though is the ability to play as three additional characters in side quests of sorts. Playing through some levels, you will get a short cutscene where something slightly odd happens for new apparent reason. On completing that level, a side mission will become available where you will play half the level as one of the new characters up to that point in the level to explain what happened before taking control of Crash/Coco again to finish the level. These characters include an alternative universe Tawna who has a grappling hook type contraption to attack enemies/collect crates and traverse levels; Dingodile is also playable and has a giant vacuum cleaner thing which hoovers up crates (including TNT crates which can then be fired); and finally Cortex himself who has a pathetic jump but can use his ray gun to turn enemies into platforms. These all help keep things interesting and the different mechanics can be frustrating but are mostly good fun.
I guess we're going that way then..
The Quantum masks also appear in some levels and have different abilities that also mix up the platforming. One "phase shifts" platforms/crates/enemies in and out between realities while others can slow down time or invert gravity. These also mix up the platforming experience and in one of the final levels you will flit between these abilities for some real mind boggling action.
As mentioned, gems make a return in the game but the purple crystals are nowhere to be seen. Each level has 6 clear gems available. The first three are obtained by collecting wumpa fruit (it seemed almost impossible to not got these if you weren't just rushing through); one gem is for completing the level in three deaths or less; one is for getting all boxes; and one gem is hidden in the level. On top of this, "N. Verted levels" unlock early in the game which flip the level on it's horizontal axis but also has a unique art style for that world. For example, one set of levels are all in black and white but spin attacks add colour; one world has it's levels underwater so jumps are slowed down; and one changes to a 16 bit pixel art style and associated music. These levels also offer 6 clear gems with the hidden gem being in a different location.
A beautiful N. Verted ancient oriental level
Additionally, the four coloured gems are also there with their obtuse ways of being collected. The blue gem is the most strange as you must complete a specific level without dying and without hitting any crates. Without using a guide there is absolutely no way you would even know about this though.
On top of the plethora of gems, there are also the time trial relics for each level and "N. Sanely Perfect" awards for completing a level with all crates and without dying. And then on top of that there are Flashback tapes to acquire which are found in most levels and can only be obtained by reaching that stage of the level without dying.
So all in all you can't really criticise the game for not giving you plenty to do. However, that was probably my biggest fault with the game.
An N. Verted pirate level with a splash of colour
If you're like me and want to try and do everything possible in the game, and get as many trophies as possible while doing so, you are really going to get sick of the levels no matter how well designed they are. If you want to get all the clear gems you'll probably end up doing one run of the level normally and could well miss a crate or two as most levels have some that are fiendishly well hidden. For example, see the image below. In the distance you can see the red ! box and the outline of the crates it will make appear but there are also six hidden boxes on this screen; two hidden behind each step. While these aren't the most obtuse you'll have to find, it shows that you'll end up scouring every centimetre of levels or having to use a guide to find them all.
Oh, THOSE crates!
So once you've done runs to get all the wumpa fruit and crates, you'll also have to find the hidden gem and complete the level without dying too much. If the level has a Flashback tape, you'll also need to make sure you get to that point of the level without dying to get that. So as levels get longer and harder, this becomes increasingly more difficult. Once you've done that, you'll then have to do the same thing in N. Verted mode! And then there are however many runs it takes you to get the time trial relics too (with only gold level giving you access to the 106% ending) and the N. Sanely Perfect awards as well. That means without bothering with relics or perfect runs, I still ended up doing most levels at least four times (including N. Verted mode) and sometimes with 30-40+ deaths in order to get every crate, or with many many restarts to get the difficult latter tapes. In addition the second half of the additional character side missions I mentioned already see you play through parts of the levels again as Crash/Coco so you then end up doing those sections and additional couple of times (normal and N. Verted)!
So... you need another 3 clear gems, the coloured gem, all the N. Verted gems, the time trial relic, and N. Sanely Perfect award to complete this level Crash!
This kind of sucked the fun out of the game for me. It was made more frustrating by the fact that getting everything in the first half of the game wasn't difficult but by the time I'd committed to trying to get everything in the second half of the game frustration set in. I kind of wish I'd done a "normal" run of the game to enjoy it and then gone back to mop everything up but to me it made sense to persevere to get everything on one level while you remembered the layout rather than coming back to them.
If you're not into collecting everything and aren't that great at platformers, the game is pretty sympathetic to this. Like in the old games, after a number of deaths in one checkpoint sequence, you will be given an Uka-Uka mask to help out (which allows you to take on hit without dying) and after more deaths without making the next checkpoint, you'll start with a golden mask (two hits without dying). It might even convert a standard crate to an additional checkpoint so you can still make progress. So even though the game can be tough it should still be manageable for most.
I'm no Superman
Boss fights are also in there and are fairly straightforward. Each has numerous phases and if you die you will only have to restart from that phase. That coupled with the fact you don't have lives makes these a much less frustrating experience and for the most part these are actually really well designed. N. Gin's rock concert battle was particularly memorable for me.
I mentioned the Flashback tape levels before and these were something I really enjoyed. These are designed as though Cortex is watching Crash/Coco run through trials he has set up back when they were in his lab. The level design is fun as it's like you're playing on an old CRT monitor with little screen flickers and it also has the date of the experiment on it (obviously from back in 1996!). These are definitely on the harder end of the platforming spectrum and use a lot of the games mechanics in clever ways and I enjoyed the challenge that these offered.
An early flashback tape level begins
Overall, I thought the game was really well done, loved the look and feel of the game, and thought most of the additions did make for a better experience. It's actually some of the older mechanics that I found most frustrating (I'm looking at you polar bear riding and jet ski sections). With everything I did I managed to get the "100% ending" which added a humorous little "what happened next" segment for the characters at the end which was a nice touch as well. But the repetitive nature required to get everything the game had to offer was a bit too much and ended up ruining the overall experience for me.
Not this guy again
That said, if you've been thinking of picking it up I would absolutely recommend you do!
@RogerRoger I actuallt bought Batman Begins on PS2 at the start of last year as part of a nostalgia drive. Licensed games are so hit and miss (mostly miss). I can remember that the gameplay was solid and the game looked good, but it was clear that the voice actors (Bale, Caine etc) were there for the paycheck but hey, at least they paid for them.
@Thrillho Good review - I'm not a huge 3d platformer fan, with the exception of Astro Bot games/demos, but good to know the game caters for people like me who just wouldn't spend the time collecting everything.
Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot
@Thrillho Nice Crash 4 piece! It's interesting how critical you are coming from a completionist perspective. I get it, though: repeating the same levels over and over can just dreadfully tedious. I feel like there's pressure on companies to make games bigger and bigger than ever before, and it often comes at the cost of games being more compact, satisfying experiences.
It's also interesting how the game just sort of ignores and glosses over the multitude of sequels that came afterward. I imagine this means Crash 4 is retroactively changing the canon after the first three games?
The flashback tapes seem like a fun conceit, up to and including the aesthetic elements meant to evoke dated technology (realizing how long ago the 90s were at this point makes me feel old, urgh).
Excellent screenshot choices, btw.
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
Thanks for the comments and taking the time to read my thoughts.
@RogerRoger The N. Verted levels are really well designed. Other ones I didn't mention include a watercolour style design and one done like an old comic book with Adam West Batman type "BANG" graphics when you jump on enemies and crates. The ideas are clever but it drags a little when the same design is used for the five or six levels in that world.
I'm not normally one that notices soundtracks unless it really grabs me and that one track did. After the criticism I just made above, they really made an amazing effort to have so many levels so unique with music, art styles, and enemies that only appear once.
And as you and @Rudy_Manchego say, I think the game is pretty accessible. Levels gradually get longer and more difficult but fairly so. Although when I was doing runs just to get through with minimal deaths and ignoring the crates, they actually didn't feel that long at all. The trickiest bits come in the Flashback tapes and bonus levels which are completely optional. The end of the final level is a bit of a humdinger though as you use the mask powers back to back in clever ways. I was just surprised they hadn't used that sort of idea elsewhere.
@mookysam I got the game in a recent sale and was happy with what I paid. I read some things about the game "having 100 levels!" as a way of justifying the full price but presumably that included all the N. Verted levels etc. It is still a pretty meaty game though! And I did like some of the little nods to the other games like the Deja Vu screenshot.
@Ralizah The problem of repetition and side missions is a difficult one. As much as I enjoy the Yakuza games, the plethora of side content does distract from the main story, and I've suffered the same problem with other games too; I remember Wolfenstein: The New Colossus having a similar problem for me. As someone who wants to do everything in a game before I move on, it is a cross I have to bear though
As for the story, I mean plot isn't really a big thing for the Crash games really is it? I guess carrying on from Warped makes sense seeing as the remake was so recent but in the grand scheme of things it's a fairly trivial thing for me at least. To be honest, I wouldn't have really noticed without reading elsewhere that that's what had happened anyway. If you're being pedantic, Warped ends with Cortex and N. Tropy stuck in a time prison as infants and Crash and Coco don't look to have aged between Warped and 4
The Flashback tapes were a highlight though as it really let them experiment with the platforming but so that the main game can still be completed. It also adds funny little bits to the backstory with comments Cortex and N. Gin make while the trials are being completed.
And thanks for the comments on the screenshots. It's a great looking game and I liked catching cutscenes with the different skins on the characters too.
@RogerRoger The levels are certainly longer by the end but yes, when you’re not riding platforms into the foreground and taking every branch to get every crate you can certainly get through levels quickly!
The hardest thing in the game was obtaining some of the flashback tapes as you have to get to them without dying. As levels get longer and harder, the tapes also get put deeper into the level so the one in the last level is fiendish as one slip up and you have to reload the whole level.
I’m also interested to hear what our resident Crash aficionado @DerMeister has to say on the game as I don’t recall seeing him write much about it.
@Thrillho Well, I figured I'd make my own detailed write up on it at some point. I will say that there was plenty with in your review that I agreed with. Namely, I do think the game is does have too much for it's own good, and at times the difficulty is less "challenge" and more "Let's make this guy hate himself". I'm nowhere near completely finishing the game, but there are some parts I'm actively dreading.
All said, good review, and I hope I can do my thoughts on this game just as well as you did when I get to it.
"We don't get to choose how we start in this life. Real 'greatness' is what you do with the hand you're dealt." -Victor Sullivan "Building the future and keeping the past alive are one and the same thing." -Solid Snake
@DerMeister From what you'd posted before, I thought you'd finished the game and gone back to try and get every single collectible. Good luck with the rest of the game then!
Some great reviews as of late, particularly the Crash 4 from @Thrillho, and the Bond reviews from @RogerRoger (as an aside, are you planning on reviewing the Wii Goldeneye, or it's port to the HD Twins?)
Meanwhile I'm currently working on my Xenoblade Chronicles: DE piece. It won't be as eloquently written as the reviews you guys post, but it'll probably be my biggest yet.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (Switch)
The enhanced Switch remaster/remake of the now iconic Wii era JRPG. Although I've played XC2 (and it's Torna expansion), this was my first time with the original adventure. This release also includes the all new Future Connected adventure, but for the purpose of this review I'm going to focus on the core game.
Gameplay:
In terms of structure it's actually pretty standard fare for a JRPG, as you'll traipse across towns, field areas, & dungeons on your way to your next story destination, tackling optional quests along the way (I will say I found this preferable to XC2, which I don't remember having bespoke dungeons, just many open areas, followed by a series of more linear areas near the back end. While this game does have a series of more linear zones in the back half as well, I think in general it does a good job of mixing up it's open & more focused areas). Where it stands out is in the expansive scope of it's environments, which is so impressive I could honestly believe this was built ground up for Switch if I wasn't aware of it's Wii origins (it's not open world, but many of it's areas are large enough to invoke that feeling of wondering if you can get to that distant location in the distance). I can honestly see why it would have been viewed as a revelation of sorts on Wii.
The world comes to life with monsters that have different "triggers" when it comes to attacking your party (if they have an eye logo above them they'll attack on sight, a vibration logo means they'll attack if you're moving quickly, a nuclear looking symbol means they'll attack if you use an ether based ability around them, and no symbol means they'll only attack when you make the first move), and you'll come to terms with avoiding powerful enemies levelled in the 70's & 80's that can prowl around even early areas, which helps to establish the world as a living environment with apex predators (while there is lore mentioned in the occasional side quest that mentions some groups of monsters being enemies with others, monsters don't actually react to each other in practice however). Enemies also have color coded icons above them that let you guage their strength relative to yours from afar (Red is too strong, Yellow tough but doable, Brown equal, Blue weaker, & No Icon no threat), and if they have no color coded icon they won't attack you even if you set off their trigger. Of course you can always target an enemy to get it's exact level as well.
Exploration is very encouraged and you'll earn experience for arriving at new locations & landmarks (the latter of which act as warp points once you reach them), and you don't lose anything when you die (you're just sent back to the last landmark you passed, though you keep all experience, money, etc.), so you don't need to fret over getting bodied by a powerful enemy around the bend when you want to explore. It really cultivates a sort of relaxing vibe, and while the size of some areas may seem intimidating at first, if you keep up on side quests they generally send off to every nook & cranny over time. One other thing I'll briefly mention is that there are blue dots scattered over the landscape that are material harvest points (each area has it's own set of materials to collect, and while there is some randomness to what spawns where in an area, some materials will have a higher chance to spawn at night, during bad weather, etc. It's largely up to luck of the draw though, and a few materials are very rare to spawn regardless. This is definitely inferior to the system in XC2, where specifically marked harvest points will only spawn bugs, flowers, etc). You'll often need these materials for sidequests, and you can also fill out a "Collectipedia", which earns you rewards for filling out an area's material list.
As for the side quests themselves they don't tend to be anything fancy, usually just stuff like Kill "X" number of this enemy or collect this number of items, though the basic gameplay loop was fun enough that I found doing them preferable to grinding, plus there were a few interesting ones from a lore perspective (though I thought the whole Giants' Treasure questline ended up being pretty anticlimactic). While it is true that doing all you can will over level you for the early areas, quest opportunities generally shrivel up into the second half & I felt things kind of evened out (not counting the endgame quests that pop up right at the end. Those are tough, however doing them will let you plow through the final boss). I'll also mention that whenever you have a quest selected as your main one there'll be a blue "!" marking exactly where you need to go, so there's no running around guessing where you need to go, which is especially helpful whenever you need to collect materials that spawn randomly (you can just open up the map and see exactly where the materials you need have spawned). Environmental designs aren't as intricate as those in XC2, so I never had the issue I had in that game where I'd seemingly go to the right location for a quest only for it to be at a different elevation. It definitely made things a bit easier.
One issue I had with quests though is the whole affinity chart. You see, by talking to named NPCs & completing quests you're reputation in that area of the game world will increase, and when it increases more quests will open up, however that's not all there is to it. You see there is an affinity chart that displays how every named NPC is connected to those around them, and sometimes you need to talk to one NPC in order for some other NPC to give you a quest, and it's not often apparent that you need to do this, so if you want to attempt to do all the quests you can, you'll spend a lot of time talking to random NPCs to see if the affinity chart will update. This is slightly compounded by the fact that certain NPCs will only be active at certain times (though you can freely change the in-game clock to your heart's desire, and after you talk to an NPC once you can check their active times in the affinity chart), and of course certain quests are missable due to story progression (these quests are marked with a clock icon, so at least you know to prioritize those).
Early on in the game you'll run across a settlement that has been destroyed and you'll be given the optional game long task of rebuilding it by gathering materials (and paying lots of money). While the character in charge of the rebuilding program will give you hints where you need to find certain items, the game is never quite as open as it is when it comes to pointing you in the right direction with normal quests, but I found it worthwhile to tackle though as I liked seeing the city being rebuilt, plus doing so grants you access to even more side quests, shops, & more.
Sorry if this drags... on.
When it comes to the game's combat (it's about time I got to this, lol!) it has a real time system where your character performs basic attacks automatically, though there are a series of special abilities (known as arts) displayed at the bottom of the screen, and it's the player's job to activate them at the right moment (you can't spam them as they have cool down gagues that must refill before you can use one again). For example Shulk has an art called "Back Slash" which, as you can imagine, deals extra damage when you're positioned behind the enemy you're targeting. There is a gauge with three bars that fills up as you fight, and when fully filled it allows you to pull off a powerful chain attack (the action stops, and you're free to chain together a series of arts, one from each of your party members, into a powerful combo), based on your party's affinity (more on this later) you may get extra chances to string even more arts into the combo. Doing so is a gamble however, as expending one bar of the guage is the only way to revive a fallen ally (there are no usable items like potions & such as there are in other JRPGs).
Certainly seems to be a lot to take in.
As briefly mentioned before there are no usable items in the game. This means that in order to heal yourself (or perform other buffs) in battle you'll have to make sure you have a character in your party with healing arts. Shulk has one that restores a small amount of HP to one character, but you'll largely be relying on Sharla once she joins the party a few hours in. I'll admit I was worried at first about leaving the health of my party largely up to an AI character (you can control characters other than Shulk in battle, but for reasons I'll get to in a bit, it's not something you'll likely choose to do often), but in practice it never presented any problems.
A key aspect of the game's combat that's unique are Shulk's visions of the future. Part of the game's narrative is that lead character Shulk can see the future, and this is worked into the battle system in a neat way. Whenever an enemy is going to hit a party member with a special attack that'll really wreck them (usually resulting in death, but not always), the action will be interrupted with a monotone colored vision playing out the attack. Once you're back in control you'll have a few seconds to keep the scenerio from coming true. While you can warn a fellow party member by walking up to them & pressing "B", letting you choose one of their arts to activate & potentially nerf the impact of the attack, your strongest course of action is to use one of Shulk's special Monado arts. The Monado being the game's sword of legend so to speak, Shulk has access to a special selection of powerful arts that can turn the tide of battle in these scenarios. If effective a Monado art will be highlighted with a "!", and if you select it in time the enemy attack will effectively be neutralized alltogether.
Another wrinkle to the combat are Mechon enemies. Robotic foes from Mechonis (more on this when it comes to the story) that are invulnerable to all attacks except those from Shulk's Monado. While other party members gain effectiveness against them as the story goes on, early on Shulk is really the only one that can harm them (one Monado art temporarily makes everyone effective against them, but activating it means you may not have another Monado art charged in time to stop a big attack if one is coming, so it's a bit of a gamble). Otherwise everyone can damage them if they are toppled or dazed. This is a mechanic that can be used against all enemies, but is particularly useful against Mechon early on (probably as a way to seamlessly train you to use it). Certain arts will have a chance to "Break" an enemy (arts with a pink icon can do so), which causes a gauge to appear above the enemy. They will then be "Toppled" if hit with a green colored art before the guage depletes, this causes the guage to be refilled and they can then be "Dazed" if hit with a yellow colored art before it depletes. An enemy will be immobilized with one of the latter two effects inflicted, and will take more damage as well (Mechon foes can be damaged by everyone as well while one is active). On top of this there are a couple early bosses that can only be damaged while "Toppled" or "Dazed" too. Also, your own party members can fall victim to "Topple" & "Daze", though similar to warning them about a future attack, if you are unaffected you can walk up to an affected ally and press "B" to get them back into the fight early (similarly, you can do the same thing to an ally suffering certain stat reducing status ailments, returning them to normal).
Being a JRPG there are many ways to strengthen your characters. Of course they can level up by gaining enough EXP (earned by beating enemies, discovering new locations/landmarks, rewarded after completing some side quests, and unlocking in-game achievements), and by equipping new weapons & armor (bought in shops, dropped by enemies, awarded for completing side quests). Equipment also has Gem slots (0-3 slots on weapons & 0-1 slot on armor pieces), which act a lot like Materia from FFVII Remake. New arts ARE NOT tied to Gems like magic is to Materia in FFVII, however they offer all kinds of various buffs (or debuffs to attacked enemies) for battle & exploration. Gems can be earned as side quest rewards or crafted from ether crystals (dropped by enemies or harvested from ether deposits in the environment). Also, it's important to note that the strength of your arts DOES NOT increase upon character level up like base attack/stats (rather you have to level up each art independently by spending from a pool of accured Art Points, which you also earn from defeating enemies. This is especially important for Shulk's Monado arts, as vision or not, you're not going to be able stop an upcoming onslaught if you don't keep these properly upgraded as you move forward). Of course with so many systems in play there's bound to be one or two you won't bother with, and for me it was the Skill Trees. Each character has three different Skill Tree paths (plus 2 extra ones earned after certain side quests, resulting for a total of 5 each), each containing 5 skills, and when you have a path selected you slowly unlock it's skills (which tend to be passive buffs) as you aquire SP (which earned alongside EXP & AP). You can also spend Affinity Coins (earned upon levelling up) to give the effects of an unlocked skill to another party member as well. This is something I rarely bothered with, mostly leaving everyone on their default Skill path & it never resulted in any noticeable trouble for me.
Outside of the Skill Trees I also never really bothered with Party Affinity. Party members gain affinity with each other by fighting alongside each other in combat (you can also have them give gifts to each other to build affinity), and if your party has a high affinity it earns you extra moves to add to chain attack combos (there's probably some other benefits as well). I really only ever used the same 3 characters, so their affinity was high with each other, but I never bothered to build affinity with anyone else outside of a certain side quest that required two female party members to have high affinity. This means I never got to see many of the Heart-To-Hearts (these are certain locations in the game world where two of your characters will have a personal chat, revealing more about themselves), which earn characters big affinity gains, but they usually have to have a pretty high affinity with each other to access them in the first place, kinda defeating the purpose, IMO.
Oh, there's also these little dimensional tear things you'll run across that'll take you to a psuedo dimension where you can take on timed challenges to earn rewards. I think there are different challenges for different characters, but I honestly never once bothered with it.
Another thing I never bothered with are the different difficulty modes. I played "Standard/Normal/Whatever it's called", however I know there's a "Casual" mode that at least weakens enemies, but probably has other effects too (being a Nintendo game, if you die 2 or 3 times in relatively quick succession it'll ask if you want to switch to the easier mode, which I ignored). At the other end of the spectrum is the "Expert" mode, in which EXP earned from exploration isn't automatically applied (it goes into a pool you can pull from at a later time if you feel like you need it), and you can actively de-level yourself if you think you over leveled & want a challenge (whether this mode actually makes enemies harder than normal I don't know).
In comparison to XC2, it seems like there's a bit of a step back with every step forward, but I think I actually slightly prefer XC:DE in terms of gameplay. While the moment to moment combat here has a good flow to it (and the vision mechanic is cool) I think I prefer the much more rhythmic flow of XC2's battle system, plus the second game has more intuitive material harvesting & I LOVED getting new rare Blades to add to my party. However XC2 also added one to many excessive systems, such as the Gacha mechanic to acquire new Blades (which was a grind), and the dreadful Field Skill system (you needed Blades in your party with certain adventuring skills to access certain areas, which hindered exploration & interfered with story progression occasionally), and I think XC:DE is better off without all that. At the end of the day I guess those two issues I had with XC2 were a bigger nuisance than the niggles I had with XC:DE.
That was a lot to take in, but let's move on shall we?
Story/Characters:
When the world was young two titans (the organic lifeform Bionis & the mechanical Mechonis) did battle in a vast ocean. While it's said that Bionis won the day, the battle was exhaustive and both titans have long since been immobile. Bionic life (including Homs, fantasy speak for Humans) were born from the flesh of Bionis, and have lived on it's body relatively peacefully until one day they came under attack from the Mechon, robotic lifeforms from Mechonis. Powerless against their assailants, the number of Homs has diminished, and only a few of their colonies remain...
There was hope however, as the Homs found themselves in possession of the Monado. Said to be the sword used by the Bionis itself, one warrior was strong enough to weild it's power and singlehandedly drove off the Mechon, seemingly winning the war. This was a year before the start of the game's events proper, where we join up with Shulk, a young scientist in Colony 9 who is studying the fabled sword. After the Mechon suddenly show up and shatter the fragile peace of the colony, lead by a new kind of Mechon immune to the Monado (during the events of which it's discovered that Shulk can weild the Monado & see visions of the future with it in hand), Shulk & his friend Reyn go off on a quest to reach Fort Galahad (the Mechon stronghold from the last war) to seek out revenge. Of course being a JRPG there are many detours & narrative twists along the way, providing for a grand adventure.
Let's do this.
While it does have it's more lighthearted moments, it definitely strikes a generally more serious tone than XC2, which wasn't afraid to go out of it's way for a laugh at times. While I think I actually preferred XC2 in this regard, the story on offer here is still really gripping, and I can understand why fans who started with the Wii original may have not jived with the second game's tone.
It has a pretty solid cast of characters, and while it's not as prevalent a theme as it is in something like XC2 or FFX, I think the romance elements worked into the narrative were done really well. After nearly 120 hours of play time it was kinda sad to let go.
I really liked the lore they worked into the game world like the Giant's ruins, and other vestages of civilization that show life was once more prevalent on Bionis. I also really like that some groups of monsters seem to have some level of intelligence (like the Turkin/Chillken & Ignas) as they fight with basic weaponry & make small camps or reside in the ruins of abandoned civilizations. This was similar to how they were presented in XC2 as well, and I'd be really be interested if they expanded on it in a future title, like having them have cultures at least on par with the Nopon (cuddly little round bird creatures that have appeared in every Xenoblade game, and one usually ends up in your party), just in a hostile role.
On a side note, while it's pretty clear at points that it's connection to XC2 was probably only fully realized during the second game's production (who knows how much of that was actually pre-planned), by the end I was pretty satisfied with how well it does connect (how much they changed for this remake to retroactively make it fit better, other than a slight alteration to one character's design, I do not know as I've never played the Wii version).
Graphics/Audio:
As mentioned before the sense of scale in the game can be absolutely awe inspiring & hard to believe it started life as a Wii game. Cleaned up in the XC2 engine, aside from a rough edge here & there it could totally pass for a ground up Switch title. It has a wide variety of biomes in a unique enough world where even the standard grassland & jungle areas feel anything but generic, and many areas, particularly on Bionis, take the Avatar approach of making everything glow in the night (of particular beauty are Satorl Marsh at night & Eryth Sea during a meteor shower). There is an additional sense of scale as in many places you can see were other parts of the titan you're currently on are in relation to you (and the other titan as well), which is a really cool piece of world building. My only little bit of disappointment in this regard is unfortunately many of the Mechonis locations. Granted, they still have an awe inspiring sense of scale & some really cool set-pieces in spots, but whereas the Bionis' locales (even it's sci-fi ones) feel like a living, breathing part of a coherent world, many of Mechonis' locales kind of blend together in a kind of series of brownish rust gold, generic militaristic sci-fi hallways & lifts. Still cool in general though.
Shots from various Bionis locales.
In a neat touch every different piece of armor changes your characters' appearance where it's worn (there is armor for your head, torso, arms, legs, & feet), and new to this version is the ability to set your appearance to a different set of armor compared what you're actually wearing for stat purposes (as long as you actually have the corresponding armor), so if you want the benefits of wearing the best armor in the game but want to see Shulk running around in his undies you can do that (if you payed close attention to my environment shots you can see I briefly did that with Sharla 😏).
The British voice work is absolutely wonderful & helps to set the fantasy tone (coming from an American yokel in the Midwest).
Great soundtrack too. I'm not one to usually notice music in games, and won't be tracking down individual pieces for my review, but it has a wide variety of tracks for various purposes & can be suitably sombre, upbeat, ready for action, relaxing & much more when it needs to be.
Conclusion:
I'm not quite sure it's my favorite Switch title, but at nearly 120 hours of playtime it's certainly the one I've spent the most time with (and that's not counting the Future Connected bonus story, which I'll be reviewing on it's own!). Whatever the case, if your one of those people who've played BotW, Odyssey, and a few other Switch titles, complain that it doesn't have enough "big" exclusives and haven't yet played the Xenoblade titles (this or XC2), so so now.
Hold on guys, I think we're finally done!
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
@RogerRoger I like these multi-platform reviews for older games, considering how wildly different bespoke versions often were. The way you describe the HD version of Blood Stone does indeed recall some of my experience with the older Uncharted games, where they felt thrilling, with pacing like a rocket blasting off into the atmosphere, but, by the time I had finished, it ended up feeling like more of an amusement park ride: the thrill wound down, and I wasn't left with a lot of memories. Such is the fate of the thrill ride, I think.
It's interesting how well the NDS version fared. Proof enough, I think, that weaker hardware is no excuse for turning out an inferior product.
And yeah, releasing two Bond games at the same time is dumb. Especially when one has a lot of nostalgia attached to it.
Is this based on one of the books or something? Usually the games seem to be adaptations of the films, but I don't remember a "Blood Stone" movie.
@RR529 Nice piece on Xenoblade DE. The affinity requirements were indeed the worst aspect of the original, IMO. The best change XC2 made was to not make it where there has to be a certain level of affinity built up between characters to see one of their heart-to-hearts, given those were often a pain to return to (in the 3DS version, at least), and building affinity between specific characters could take hours of grinding. Also, I admit, the affinity chart has always made me scratch my head in this game: it's inscrutable.
It is, indeed, a very pretty game on Switch (in docked mode, at least; I've heard mixed things about handheld mode performance, although hopefully nothing as awful as XC2's handheld performance at times). The new character models make this feel a LOT less like a PS2 game, but the environments are also pretty stunning this go around (the Wii version was a fuzzy nightmare on my HDTV, and the 3DS version is, well, low-res by default).
BTW, if the glut of systems in XC2 was bad for you (I was pretty okay with it outside of, as you mentioned, the insanely annoying field skill requirements; especially for side-quests), then you're going to have a bad time with Xenoblade Chronicles X if that ever gets ported to Switch. I played that game for 35 hours or so, and I still don't quite feel like I have a grasp on half of nightmarish pile of systems in that game.
Forums
Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread
Posts 1,021 to 1,040 of 2,213
Please login or sign up to reply to this topic