"And with regards to dog cruelty and such, I hate that as well, but so far it hasn't put me off playing a game that I'm interested in. I also really dislike that in so many video games wild animals will attack you on sight, something they'd normally never do."
Depends how realistic it is and how it's treated, I think. A lot of games still use animals as generic enemies that provide resources and XP for your character, so it's easy to not think twice about their inclusion in most games. Hunting turns my stomach IRL, but I've never had an issue hunting in Far Cry 4, or killing pack of wolves/coyotes/rats/whatever in most RPGs.
ND deliberately made every aspect of TLOU Part II as realistic and upsetting as possible, and that includes the way dogs are integrated into the game.
It's not an issue most of the time for me unless a game goes out of its way to be unpleasant about it.
Your point about animals being painted as the aggressors definitely isn't untrue, but I think that is a reflection of the way the majority of video games have structured themselves around mindless acts of violence and killing. As a medium, video games have grown and become more complex and attempt approaching more ambitious narratives and themes, but, when the times come to actually put hand to controller, you're usually just wandering around looking for people or animals to murder.
@RogerRoger There are definitely games that put more thought into the range of activities they offer, and then samey Ubisoft-esque game design where they toss activities at the player so they have checklists to tick off, but I'm not sure the distinction is always that clear. I think a lot of it comes down to how organically the game integrates side-activities into the broader experience.
One of the things I really like about SotC is how well it uses intelligent environmental design and visual cues to communicate to players how to tackle its frequently surprisingly complex puzzle-battle mechanics. On paper, the way you kill a lot of these colossi seem like they should be difficult to figure out, but the experience of actually playing it usually invisibly nudges you toward the solution you're looking for. With a few exceptions. There was at least one colossus battle where I thought: "How the hell would a new player ever figure this out on their own?"
Gleefully gloating about the sheer number of hours their game will burn off your total lifespan, as if that's an accomplishment on its own.
So, there's a colossus near the end of the game that's difficult to figure out how to even go about damaging, because he has no fur on the bottom half the climb, there are no objects to hide behind or interact with, and any higher ground is out of reach of your jumps. Through trial and error, one discovers that if you taunt the colossus to try and step on you and then jump out of the way, he'll end up raising a piece of concrete that you can quickly clamber up to reach a higher surface. After this, you're stuck between a bunch of pillars without any apparent way to climb up. Again, you have to gain his attention and provoke him to swing his weapon at you, which will collapse the pillars, making it where you can climb the rubble to an even higher level. After some platforming, you're supposed to run out to a bridge and provoke him try to attack you one last time, which will cause him to attack the bridge and create an opening where you'll be able to jump down on his torso and begin attacking him.
Even after that, there are more steps to the battle, though, because there's a weak point in the palm of his sword hand. So you have to climb down to his arm, stab a weak point that'll get him to drop the weapon (if you're lucky, you can shave off some time by actually shooting this spot on his arm with an arrow when you first reach higher ground), drop back to the ground, and get him to try and attack you with his fist. When he does this, you have a split second to jump into his hairy palm and attack his final weak point, killing him.
Some of this is drawn from strategies you learn from earlier colossi (several of the colossi require you to bait them to attack before you're able to mount them), but a lot of it doesn't give you adequate visual indicators and is dependent on frustrating trial and error. Trying to bait specific types of attacks also seems heavily dependent on RNG (time trials where you lose because you can't get him to pound the ground during that final segment are rage inducing).
Almost all of the other fights ingeniously combine set design and specific colossus behavior to elicit epiphanies in discerning players as to how to solve the puzzle of reaching and killing them, but this one only seems obvious in retrospect.
@RogerRoger I haven't played the Tomb Raider games, although I have them claimed on the Epic Games Store. If I ever get a PC capable of running games, will definitely try them out.
Wanted to share a review that I wrote a few months ago on my website/blog. Tried something a little bit different with this one. Hope you like it.
The Good, The Bad, And The Improved | Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Review)
With such a great first entry into a brand new series, NaughtyDog had a lot to live up to with Nathan Drake's second outing. They had to keep the core formula that made Uncharted tick while making sure the game feels new and refreshing, rather than a stale copy-paste of the first one.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is an amazing second landing for Nathan Drake and the series. With even more action and even more story than the first one, Among Thieves makes its own in an already exceptional franchise.
But as I sat down to review Uncharted 2, I realised just how iterative the game is on its predecessor-- something expected from a sequel. So rather than a comprehensive review, here are the good, the bad, and the improved with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
spoiler warning
The Good And The Improved:
Uncharted is a series defined by its action set-pieces and over the top thrill rides. Uncharted 1: Drake's Fortune started this trend and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves certainly continues it. Long combat sequences are intensified by a wild helicopter fight along a cities rooftops or the arrival of a fifty-ton armoured tank, while banter ensues between Nathan Drake and his compatriot.
In Uncharted 1 I felt as if these set pieces were too basic and similar, like shooting a gun while Elena drives a jeep away from an unrelenting wave of enemies or shooting a gun while Elena drives a boat past clusters of enemies. Uncharted 2 solves these caveats by making sure Nathan Drake is non-static during these sequences.
Take the train sequence from the middle of Uncharted 2. Not only is Nathan Drake constantly moving forward, but he is also jumping, climbing, and taking cover as the game throws one obstacle at you after another. At first, it may be a brute with a massive machine gun or swinging train signals that you have to avoid or even another helicopter. Seriously, this game loves helicopters. And I'm not gonna argue with their choice because Uncharted 2 provides one great adrenaline-pumping experience after another at a consistent pace.
Linearity is something that exists in all Uncharted games. In Uncharted 1 this linearity was flat. Most combat sequences took place in a room or plateau-like area, while actual verticality was reserved for the climbing sections. Uncharted 2 solves this problem by making combat sections of the game much more vertical.
The experience of climbing up a winding hotel staircase while taking on enemies descending from above is unmatched by anything in the first game. In addition, towards the end of the game, there is an entire tower fight, where the player starts from the top and must make their way down while clearing out the building.
This drastically opens up the player's approach to a particular encounter. You can creep your way around and stealthily take out your enemies, and even if you do get spotted, there is loads of room for improvisation. Verticality is something I didn't know I needed until Uncharted 2 gave it to me on a golden platter.
What adds to the cinematic qualities of Uncharted 2's set pieces are the brilliant settings that the game takes place in. From the courtyards of a Turkish museum to the lush jungles of Borneo and a Nepalese city nestled amongst snow-capped Himalayan mountains, every locale of Uncharted 2 strikes a unique chord in NaughtyDog's guitar of environmental design.
While Uncharted 1 was relegated to a monotonous crowd of samey looking tropical forests, Uncharted 2's roster of various locales makes the journey all the more interesting and gives the player a true globetrotting experience.
Uncharted 1 had a pacing issue, both with its guns and its puzzles. Shooting is a core aspect of an Uncharted game. While nowhere near the number and variety of guns found in a looter shooter or any shooting game for that matter, Uncharted still has a small assortment of guns with different uses, whether its a shotgun for close range, an RPG for armoured brutes, or a sniper for far away enemies.
The first game had all these types of guns, but its pacing was off. For around the first three-fourths of the game, the player was given a very small sample of the gun arsenal to use. While it did open up later on, there wasn't enough of the game left to use these guns in. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves perfectly paces its delivery of weapons, while also adding a few more to the arsenal, making the combat in Nathan Drake's second outing more than just a continuation of the first.
The puzzles fall into a similar hole. The first game was rather short on these mind-stimulating activities and overloaded the second half of the game with all of them. Among Thieves rectifies this by improving their pacing, quality, and even lighting.
Uncharted 2's puzzles are well sprinkled throughout the game, perfectly placed to slow down the high-intensity gameplay with some calm and thoughtful moments.
In addition, all of Uncharted 1's puzzles relied on having to move apart or change the orientation of one or more objects/ engravings. In this game, however, the puzzles have some actual variations to them. While these simple styled ones do exist, more complicated and environmental ones were also added, a standout being one where light must be accurately reflected off mirrors and onto the right spot.
A more minor but appreciated improvement to the puzzles was their lighting. In the first game, it was frustratingly hard to see each and every piece of the puzzle properly due to it being too dark. Uncharted 2 fixes that by simply providing more light to the room by having open windows or flame-lit torches.
On the non-gameplay side of the spectrum, Uncharted 2 improves upon the first by providing a captivating and emotional story with actually interesting character relationships and interactions. El Dorado was a horrible centrepiece to Uncharted 1's story. The treasure was anything but iconic and recognizable, a mish-mash of incoherent details and nothing to grab the players attention or interest.
The lost city of Shambhala and the Cintimani stone on the other hand was a nice change to the story. The player now had a genuinely intriguing endpoint to chase after, making each of Nathan Drake's risky and stupid decisions more understandable to the player.
Uncharted 2's villain is now actually recognizable and villainy, unlike the confusing mess that was the trio of bad guys' villainous motives in the first game. Zoran Lazarevíc makes up for his unmemorable name by being the perfect villain for this game. The hardened war criminal feels like a genuine threat to Nathan and his adventuring party. Lazarevíc's search for power remains an underlying theme throughout the game. The motive is cleverly fused with Nathan Drake's own single-minded pursuit of this elusive treasure to create a deep and meaningful narrative that expertly unravels itself at the end.
The game is also just a harder experience than the first one. Enemies deal more damage to the player and come in more numbers, but the abundance of ammo and the game's cover system make sure the player never feels encumbered, while still providing a genuinely challenging experience.
The game's ending is also incredibly satisfying, as we finally see Nate and Elena's relationship come to fruition. The way the first game ended hinted at more things to come in the sequel, but Uncharted 2's beginning felt like a crushing blow to their relationship with the introduction of Chloe and the conspicuous absence of Elena.
Don't be too distraught because everyone's favourite journalist returns around midway through the game, sending everything that the game had built up so far into chaos. As the player continues their search for treasure, the relationship that was seemingly forgotten by the developers comes back into the spotlight, with great writing, character development, and a superb ending.
The Bad:
For everything Uncharted 2 succeeds at, it also does something rather poorly. The introduction of a supernatural element just after the halfway mark brings Uncharted 2 crashing down from the lofty heights that the first half of the game brought it up to.
With the game's story going smoothly and the player's enjoyment at peak levels, the game throws these yeti-like creatures at you, called Shambhala Guardians, seemingly reminding me of the Lycans from Resident Evil Village. While not as supernatural as the zombies of dead Spanish soldiers from the first game, these creatures were not an appreciated addition to the game.
Uncharted works so well as a realistic third-person shooter with treasure rooted in reality, it seems silly that developers would ever add something supernatural to the games. But for how much I hate the supernatural element due to it breaking the combat style and crushing the game's overall realism, I have to give the NaughtyDog credit for weaving this supernatural element into the game's lore, and not randomly dropping it into the game for fanfare or marketing possibilities.
Living up to an already great first game is not an easy task. But Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is an exceptional second entry in one of PlayStation's most iconic franchises, building on almost everything that made the first game such a success, while also carving out its own legacy.
NaughtyDog shot for the stars, but Uncharted 2 went above and beyond.
@DominusPlatypus Another solid write-up. These having originally been written for a personal blog actually makes a lot of sense, since they probably took a bit of time to whip up.
Despite not being an active PS fan around the time of Uncharted 2's release (and thus, having no nostalgia for it) and not holding it in as much esteem as a lot of people do, it's still unquestionably the entry that made this series what it is, as it provided the template for future Uncharted games and strayed from the arguably repetitive cover shooter antics of the original game by providing a much needed focus on cinematic set-pieces that keep the player constantly engaged. It also thankfully dropped the amount of time spent interacting with vehicles.
I tend to agree that, as with the first game, the supernatural elements feel sort of gaudy and don't integrate well into the larger world. I don't mind the inclusion of more subdued supernatural elements (Raiders of the Lost Ark, for example), but this game gets rather ridiculous with them by the end. But you're right about them being better integrated into the game. It's not like you're just rolling along nicely with an action-thriller and then, an hour before the end, BOOM: nazi vampires! That was always poorly executed in the original.
And I also liked that the combat was a little more dynamic in this entry thanks to the change in environments, although it arguably didn't get the revamp it really needed until Uncharted 4 (which I get the sense you're going to love, if you haven't already played it, that is).
I hadn't actually noticed any changes to the lighting during puzzle sequences, so that was an interesting observation.
The villain, Zoran, is probably the most generic late-00s action movie antagonist there ever was, but I am glad he worked better for you. As a stock villain meant to keep the plot rolling, he does his job, at least.
I will say, of all the games in this series, I think Uncharted 2 is the most relentlessly paced. It's difficult to even find a stopping place in this game, so you almost consume it like a movie in a couple of long play sessions. Or, at least, that was my experience with it.
Interesting supplementary approach you took with the review, although, IMO, your list of cons is short enough it doesn't even really feel like its own section, distinct from the conclusion. I suppose that's deeper praise than anything you're able to say outright about the game.
@RogerRoger Makes me wish they ported that over to console so I could actually play it (same goes for Uncharted and God of War on there), as I loved Killzone 2 and 3 on PS3. I still have yet to play Killzone Shadow Fall, but that's beside the point.
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@RogerRoger Nice review. I haven't even thought about this game for years, but I remember having fun with it when it first came out. The way it effectively rewards skilled play and hitting certain objectives in missions definitely made it a more addictive experience than I would have expected.
Vita games have the same sort of problem as Switch games, where they often look nice on the actual device, but then you export them to your PC and they look about a hundred times worse. I imagine that's particularly true now that Nintendo's newest model is using what is, by all accounts, a particularly attractive OLED display.
I don't know how anyone can play Killzone Mercenary without gyroscopic aiming, frankly. Trying to control a shooter purely with thumbsticks is already somewhat akin to trying to paint with a broom, but then you factor in how... fiddly... the Vita's sticks are, and... yeah, I need my gyro. Why would you need to look at your controller while you're using gyro, though?
Def. agree that touchscreen controls in twitchy shooters are unwelcome, though. Especially that back touchscreen which is, quite frankly, possibly the worst hardware feature I've ever seen on a dedicated gaming device. I actually bought a whole ass grip to put on my Vita just so I'd stop accidentally brushing my fingers against the back and randomly triggering inputs in various games.
I bought the botzone DLC years ago because servers were already not very populated, so I'm a little amazed to hear that anyone is still even playing this online.
@RogerRoger Great review! It's been a while since I played Mercenary, I remember highly enjoying my time with it. I think it's the best FPS on the system and it just holds up so well on a handheld thanks to Vita's dual sticks. But yeah, sadly the campaign isn't that long and the game focuses on replayability a lot so I ended up not playing it that much.
Is this the first time you've played through this game? It's definitely interesting reading people's thoughts about Vita exclusives today because barely anyone is playing these games. They either don't have a Vita, don't care or have already played them. Are you planning on playing more Vita exclusives after this one?
@RogerRoger My bad. Chains of Olympus was actually a PSP game that has since been included in the God of War Collection on PS3. Ghost of Sparta is another PSP game that was part of that collection as well. I'm guessing both can be played on the Vita though as I see gameplay videos of them being played on the Vita.
I will play Shadow Fall at some point this year, if at least for a pallet cleansing at some point since FPS games are good for that. I do have it installed and actually did try it briefly last year, but never had the time to give it a real shot. It was actually one of the first PS4 games I bought too, so it's really strange I never really played it, but I promise that will change this year at some point.
PSN ID/Xbox Live Gamertag: KilloWertz
Switch Friend Code: SW-6448-2688-7386
@Ralizah Thank you! From what little I've played of Uncharted 3, it's nice to see the game building on the dynamic combat from Uncharted 2. Considering that I've only finished 1, 2, and 4, I am in agreement that Uncharted 4 does combat the best.
Again, considering the fact that I've only finished 1, 2, and 4, I am once again in agreement that Uncharted 2 is the most relentlessly paced. With all the love Uncharted 2 gets, I think it goes to show how important Uncharted's gameplay is to the overall experience, certainly in my opinion more important than the story.
@RogerRoger If I have enough stuff to say, then I will definitely do an Uncharted 3 review. I played Uncharted 4 before the first three and wrote a review on it in early 2020, but it's pretty poorly written and doesn't cover all aspects of the game. If I replay the game after beating 3, then I might review it again.
Some of my favourite gameplay combat sections in Uncharted 2 were the ones where you fought your way up or down a ruined tower. I really despise the guardians and I'm looking forward to replaying Uncharted 4 because it doesn't have any supernatural nonsense in it.
I agree that Uncharted 2 drags on a bit longer than it should have, but overall I still enjoyed the game a lot. Thanks for reading!
I also read your Killzone: Mercenary review, and while I can't comment on its analysis of the game because I haven't played it, I did find the review enjoyable to read and well written.
On an unrelated note, how can I add pictures to my posts? Thanks!
@RogerRoger Thanks for the help! I think I've understood how to add images. Your instructions were easier to understand than you think. I've watched TheRadBrad's Lost Legacy playthrough on YouTube already, so I may pass on playing that one. Did you take that image yourself in photo mode because it looks great.
@RogerRoger Damn it, I will promise if I want to promise!
Seriously though, not sure why I threw in the promise, but oh well. It will likely be at some point this year though, as like I said earlier, FPS games are good pallet cleansers. The list ahead of it is fairly long though, so who knows when it will be...
Finish my 2nd playthrough of Horizon Zero Dawn
Guardians of the Galaxy
Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep
Horizon Forbidden West
Deathloop
Death Stranding Director's Cut
Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut (2nd playthrough of the game)
Assassin's Creed Valhalla's DLC (never played any of the DLC)
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2nd playthrough as well)
Mass Effect 3
I could always squeeze in Killzone Shadow Fall in between something like Death Stranding and Ghost of Tsushima. Who knows, and kind of who cares right now.
@RogerRoger Ah okay, that's nice. Looking forward to reading your other reviews as well! It's always nice to see how well games have aged after a long time since release. I actually still have one first-party title left to play on my Vita and that's Unit 13 by Zipper Interactive. I did give it a try months ago and found it to be fun albeit a bit too simple for a third-person shooter. It's just too bad that Sony shut down that studio because I would've loved to see more games like this on the Vita from them.
@RogerRoger You never know. It could happen. It would be far from the first time a game gets lost in the shuffle (again in this case) when there's a lot of other games to play. Also, it'd be surprising if something new didn't pop up that gets released that we didn't know about. I also forgot Forspoken, which is a day 1 for me unless it becomes clear it's a turd before it gets released.
Yeah, I do have a lot to play. I definitely won't be bored. It was exciting as I was making the list though knowing how much fun I should have. Thanks, btw.
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The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap Platform: GBA Time to Completion: 24.5 hours (much of this spent chasing optional content; it's probably a 15 - 20 hour game normally)
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap was the final Zelda game developed by Capcom in a collaboration with Nintendo that resulted in Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons on the GBC and the local multiplayer title Four Swords on the GBA, with Mega Man maestro Keiji Inafune stepping in as producer. The game released in 2004 on the GBA just weeks before Nintendo officially launched their now-iconic Nintendo DS handheld (in Europe and Japan; NOA actually delayed the launch of the game into early 2005 to avoid distracting from the launch of their new hardware), and despite enjoying strong reviews, it had a bit of its thunder stolen as a result, much like Metroid: Samus Returns, which launched on the 3DS just a few months after the explosively popular Nintendo Switch. Nevertheless, the game has enjoyed a strong reputation with Nintendo fans over the years, and I've wanted to play it for a long time, and finally had the opportunity to do so!
How does it fare?
The Minish Cap's setup isn't really dissimilar from other 2D Zelda games in the series, although a few elements initially seem quite distinct. We learn at the beginning of the game that the Minish people (known to the Hylians as the Picori, and which are thought by many of your townsfolk to be an ancient myth altogether), gifted a young hero in the past with a sacred weapon known as the Picori Blade and a golden light in order to drive back the "darkness" that was swallowing the world. The Picori Blade was subsequently sealed in a box and stored in Hyrule Castle. A tradition developed that whoever won the swordsmanship content during the annual Picori Festival in Hyrule would be allowed to touch the sacred blade.
When the game starts, you learn that Link, a simple peasant's childhood, is also somehow childhood friends with Zelda, the young princess of Hyrule. In a charming sequence, you visit the Festival with Zelda before attending the sword-touching ritual. The victor of the competition, as it turns out, is the dark sorceror Vaati (a character so obviously evil looking that you have to wonder how incompetent the Hylian king's security truly is), who proceeds to break the Picori Blade and turn Princess Zelda to stone in his assault. You discover that Vaati is searching for the "golden light" that the ancient hero used to vanquish evil, and Link is tasked with setting out on an adventure to restore the broken Picori Blade and save the princess once it's revealed that only children are able to see the Minish.
In a concept reminiscent of modern Nintendo classic Super Mario Odyssey, Link explores the Minish Forest and rescues a sentient hat named Ezlo, who, we discover, has also been cursed by Vaati and agrees to help Link on his quest to restore the Picori Blade. The Minish people, as it turns out, are an ant-sized race who live undetected among Hylians, borrowing their walls, cupboard space, and so on to establish a sort of shadow society throughout Hyrule. Ezlo's magic allows Link to use magic portals throughout Hyrule to physically shrink to Minish proportions, which will prove to be an invaluable tool in their quest.
So, different from normal Zelda games, but also structurally similar, except Vaati replaces Ganondorf, the Picori Blade replaces the Master Sword, and the Light Force (or "golden light") replaces the Triforce. 2D Zelda games were all pretty distinct from one-another leading up to the release of A Link to the Past on the Super Nintendo, where the series forged a now utterly classic formula, tone, and identity that were missing in the series' earliest entries. Post-ALttP, however, all single-player focused Zelda games hued closely to the structure established in that game, and this was especially true of the 2D games that followed it, which largely filtered the design of that classic through the sieve of various transformative gimmicks. In The Minish Cap, that gimmick relates to changing Link's dimensions to solve puzzles in dungeons and especially throughout the overworld of Hyrule.
I have mixed feelings about the way this gimmick is implemented, however. While it's certainly clever how environments are effectively layered on top of one-another (the way you interact with Hyrule Town normally, for example, is wildly different than the way you explore it when Minish-sized), I found the focus on continually returning to magic pedestals to stumble around the same environments in different sizes to be a tad repetitive. I also had an issue with how some of the puzzles as implemented, as several of them require trial-and-error and don't adequately signal to the player what they're supposed to do. Now, this is par for the course for Zelda games, but there were far too many moments in The Minish Cap where I genuinely had to question how people were supposed to get through this game without significant trial and error. And it's not even just the size-changing sections that suffer from this! There is, for example, a moment early in the game where guards won't let you leave Hyrule Town for some reason, why stymies progress. So, what you're supposed to do is going to a particular dojo, learn the sword spin attack, then return to a particular guard who didn't have unique dialogue previously, talk to him again, and then demonstrate the sword spin attack in front of him. Moments like this are dotted throughout the game, and they really break up the flow of the gameplay.
Which is unfortunate, because when the game is good, it's quite good. Several of the puzzles in this game are also quite clever and give the player satisfying "A-ha!" moments when figuring them out. The dungeon design itself in this game is rather excellent for a 2D Zelda, with strong themes, surprisingly multi-layered dungeon design (something I also found enjoyable in the much newer A Link Between Worlds on 3DS), and unique progression mechanics that lean heavily on integrated puzzle design over the 'lock and key' design of ALttP's dungeons. My favorite dungeon, for example, sees the player traveling throughout and opening shutters that stream sunlight into the dungeon to open and close various paths, with the ultimate goal being to shine sunlight onto the dungeon boss who sits frozen in a block of ice in the very first area. It's very cool, and far more reminiscent of the complex puzzle design in the 3D Zelda games.
The other primary gimmick in The Minish Cap are kinstones. These colored rocks are designed to interlock with complimentary pieces, and pretty much everyone in this iteration of Hyrule knows about and collects kinstones. Link will acquire these through a number of means: as random drops, loot from treasure chests, prizes for completing mini-games, etc. If you can do something in the game, chances are there's an opportunity to find a kinstone. Find an NPC with a matching kinstone piece, and you'll unlock stuff throughout the game: new areas (some which are required to beat the game, so it's not REALLY an optional mechanic), new NPCs and shops, treasure chests, rare monsters who will drop better loot, etc.
They replace almost wholesale the traditional side-quests you'll encounter in your average Zelda game. Not all kinstones are created equal, of course: some are much rarer than others, and rarer kinstones, when paired with their complimentary piece, will unlock better rewards. The trouble is that you don't really know who has what until you get close to them, and some NPCs don't even become available for kinstone trading until later in the game, so you'll be constantly visiting with EVERY NPC in this game any time you revisit an area to see if you can match stones with them and unlock anything new.
So, this is already a kind of mindless system, but what makes it worse is that, once you're a fair way into the game, it won't even be worth engaging in most of the time, because most of the stuff you unlock isn't worth going for. Once you unlock some of the optional gear upgrades in the shop, you have no real use for money. You'll be able to collect large amounts of shells through some of these rewards, but shells are common loot drops anyway, and they're only used for a meaningless figure-collecting gacha minigame that is a horrible grind not worth engaging in. Unfortunately, there's just enough worthwhile upgrades and new areas locked behind this system that it's not really worth ignoring.
The Minish Cap is a really attractive GBA title. The upgraded specs over the older GBC are immediately felt, as this game is filled with chunky, detailed, and superbly animated sprite art that really brings the game's world to life compared to Capcom's much more visually basic Oracle duology. Art design-wise, like the NDS Zelda games, it feels like it borrows heavily from The Wind Waker's aesthetic, where everybody is pastel-colored and distinctly child-like in appearance. There's also some impressive Mode 7-like visual effects that give a sort of 3D feel to certain sequences, and effective environments really bring the evocative, Borrowers-esque vibe of the Minish world to life. It's a great technical showpiece for what the GBA was capable of.
The music is your usual Zelda fare: not exceptional, but appropriate at setting the mood and complimenting the action on-screen. I'll link two of my favorite tracks from the game: an atmospheric remix of the Zelda 1 dungeon theme, and a version of Zelda's theme that fits with the tone of this game.
Overall, The Minish Cap was an enjoyable and unique 2D Zelda that, despite some flaws, manages to upstage many of Nintendo's own in-house developed Zelda titles. The plot itself feels a bit undercooked and lacking in an emotional core, and it's a shame that brand new villain Vaati is never given the chance to make more of an impression than he does, but it works for the sort of simplistic adventure narrative this game is going for, and, despite my gripes, the game is a largely delightful experience. Particularly for those who just want a solid 15 - 20 hour dungeon crawler broken up by solid, conceptually-unique puzzles. You probably know what you're getting if you play a 2D Zelda game, and this entry doesn't subvert expectations in any way.
Yeah, the CDi games are a bad joke, but the third-party collaborations with other companies have mostly turned out really well (there was also the modern collab on Switch with the developer of Crypt of the Necrodancer, which shocked people at the time; giving a gigantic Japanese developer a swing at Zelda is one thing, but some tiny, no-name Western indie dev?). Nintendo's recent GOTY nominee Metroid Dread was also developed by a third party. Nintendo's own design principles have been so thoroughly celebrated and cooked into the brains of budding developers over the years that there are probably a ton of third-party collabs they haven't explored yet that would turn out well.
Most of the puzzles aren't bad, but classic Zelda games do well when they minimize the amount of time that you spend out of dungeons, and those overworld puzzle sequences really drag the pacing down a lot. The worst was this sequence where you, and I'm not kidding, literally have to hunt down people who never returned books to the library, so that the librarian can store them all back in the bookcase, you can shrink down, climb the bookcase, and visit the Minish sage who lived in a portion of the bookcase that became inaccessible when certain books were checked out.
Of course, these people aren't generally difficult to find, but each one, and there's three or four of them, have their own associated puzzle sequences where you have to find the right place to shrink down, and then follow a particular sequence of paths through town in order to reach their homes.
Like, it's all very clever, but I really just wanted these sequences to be over.
The dungeon puzzles are great, though. Really like those.
Yeah, the kinstone system... I mean, there are certain conveniences that make it a little less irritating. For example, if you walk up to someone, a visual indicator will tell you if they have something to trade or not, so you don't have to, like, talk to EVERYONE ALL THE TIME, but you do have to approach them, and it's still kind of irritating. At least it's not as annoying as the trading sequence in Link's Awakening, but, man, I'd rather just have normal side-quests.
I'm using an emulator set-up on PC that allows me to easily take screenshots. I even set it up so that, when I'm playing with my controller, sound gets piped in through headphones when they're connected. Very tickled with how it turned out. I think I bought the game on the Wii U VC, but I'd rather play it on PC for ease of use and the ability to screenshot. I'll likely do the same with the rest of my home console games: I've already ripped all of my PS2 discs and have set them up in my emulator frontend now. With PCSX2's ability to increase the internal resolution of games played on it, screenshots will look even better.
Yep, I'm pretty happy with it, when all is said and done. I ripped on how similar a lot of these games are to ALttP, but I can see why they keep using the template established by that game: it works so well. This is no exception. During my free moments, I couldn't wait to get back to it. I won't say it couldn't have been a much better game, but I'd also by lying if I said it isn't already great entertainment as is.
I've really been drawn back to the GBA lately. Hardware itself was never great (the best way to play GBA games is on an NDS, because the original GBA lacked a backlight, and the SP revision will pain anyone with adult hands, and also lacks a headphone port), but for being one of Ninty's shortest-lived handhelds, it certainly developed a great library.
@RogerRoger Nintendo seems to finally be a bit more open to partnerships and collabs for basically the first time since the late 90s/early 00s now. They veered away hard from that and went full protectionist until only a few years ago.
Well, the sage is apparently only accessible if you use certain books to climb up and across the case to his abode. It's silly, and a spot of irritating busywork, but I also kind of appreciate them keeping to the theme. Surely there'd have to be an easier way to get up to him than tracking down four separate checked-out books, though!
Some people use HD texture packs to make their old games look far newer than they actually are, but I'm pretty satisfied with upressing and a spot of anti-aliasing to smooth out the image a bit. Really helps with these old games, and, honestly, they look so much better running on my PC than on my TV on the real hardware. Amusingly enough, back in the day, pre-rendered elements were used to hide the visual deficits in games running on crappy hardware, but now, when emulated, those are the aspects of these games that look the worst, compared to the actual in-engine 3D bits that looks nice when you're increasing the resolution of them.
Yeah, unless you're into hardware modding, you basically can't get a fully satisfying GBA. The closest you can get to that is the AGS-101, which was a revision of the GBA SP that replaced the frontlit screen of the original (which made it pretty dim in darkness, all things considered) with a proper backlit screen, but you still had to deal with the cramped form factor and lack of a headphone jack. The original model is much comfier, but, of course, didn't have a lit screen at all, so you had to play in direct sunlight if you wanted to see anything. The Game Boy Micro was cute and had both a backlit screen and a headphone jack, but it was barely bigger than the cartridges the games came on and had an absurdly tiny screen.
Nintendo really didn't think through those console designs, lol.
@RogerRoger I like the format of this piece! It creates a unique rhythm that I liked, and engages the curiosity of the reader.
The Vita was a curious beast. Exclusives optimized for the hardware like Gravity Rush were genuinely impressive at the time, showing off visuals and game design that simply weren't possible on the 3DS. On the other hand, ports like this just sort of highlighted the gulf in specs between it and home consoles at the time. It sort of shares that in common with the Switch, where you'll go back and forth between: "I can't believe a game that looks like this is running on a portable console!" and "I... can't believe they tried to get a game that looks like this running on a portable console."
I take your point about it not being a particularly good game to play in short bursts, but I guess I just never really thought of my handhelds as systems to play in short bursts between other activities. I mean, they can be, and that's a massive part of the appeal, but, for me, the allure was always more about being liberated from the tether of a television. Being able to take a game anywhere with me makes it more intimate.
The actual open-worlding sounds... painful. It would probably have been better off as a higher-resolution, higher fps take on the 3DS version. Most games that released on both platforms were usually far better experiences on Vita (despite my open preference for Nintendo's handheld, there were a few games where I looked at the 3DS version of a game and thought: "Nah, I'm pulling out the Vita for this one").
Kudos for sticking with it, though! There is, perhaps, something to be gained from experiencing a wildly technically inferior version of a game that everyone else avoids. There can't have been very many people who played through the late Vita port of a licensed Spider-Man game. You're one of the few humans in this world who gets to carry the hidden knowledge of what such an experience is like firsthand: take pride in that unique suffering!
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Great piece, as always. And the screenshots look... well, very illuminating. How'd you capture them?
@RogerRoger When the device a game is on ends up heavily influencing the experience, for better or worse, you kinda can't treat the software as if it's abstracted from the machine it's running on. Anyway, I'm a big fan of talking about games in terms of their historical context, which includes the devices that host them.
Haha, I saw that 'most powerful dedicated handheld line' and couldn't resist thinking: "Well, axtually, the Switch Lite is a dedicated handheld and is also way more powerful," but I get where you're coming from. A dedicated handheld that was only a dedicated handheld and not a budget revision of a device marketed as a home console by Nintendo. But yeah, one can recall the other easily, as both carried the flame of hosting home console-esque experiences on a handheld device.
Given it's Gravity Rush 2's fifth anniversary, I'm actually mulling over playing both games again on my PS4. I never fully beat Gravity Rush Remastered, and I'd love to get the platinum trophy for both games. As much as I love the series, I always felt a little betrayed that Sony moved development of the sequel over to the PS4, but now I'm just sad that it's gone and we'll never get another Japan Studio game again.
Oh, totally, I'm a big fan of 'portable-friendly' game design, even on home consoles. Certainly on any device that can be used away from the house, as some people really do use it as a way to pass the time on buses and such. Personally, I'm too self-conscious to play video games in public, but I've also always been a person who's borderline neurotic on that front with everything. It's become a running joke in my household that I must be 'hiding something' because I close my laptop when anyone's walking nearby and practically break out in a cold sweat any time someone asks to use a device of mine.
I've become a bigger fan over the years of playing games on... shall we say... sub-optimal platforms at times. Partially as a check on any tendency toward performance snobbery that might possess me, and also out of pure curiosity. Everyone knows Resident Evil 2 ran fine on a PS1, but how much more fascinating is it that the game was ported to the N64, despite the vastly different storage capabilities of that system's cartridges? Ditto with Witcher 3 on Switch, and Spider-Man and Resident Evil Revelations 2 on Vita.
I feel so stupid for asking. I literally have thousands of screenshots in my Vita's image gallery. I guess, since I just never bother exporting those pictures to my PC these days, I kinda... didn't think about the fact that you could do that.
The Mass Effect series is a Sci-Fi action RPG about exploring planets, befriending alien races and saving the universe from destruction. It’s an extremely beloved franchise, mainly thanks to its trilogy of titles where your choices matter and they carry over to the next game as well as a vast cast of memorable characters. However, today we’ll be looking at the series’ latest entry, Andromeda, which wasn’t received particularly well when it launched in 2017 due to many technical issues. The question is then, how well does this game hold up years later?
Unlike the previous games, this one doesn’t take place in the Milky Way galaxy, but instead in Andromeda. The alien species of Milky Way have joined together to create a project called “The Initiative” where the purpose is to explore a new galaxy. You’ll be playing as Ryder, either male or female, who later on becomes the Pathfinder. The goal of the Pathfinder is to find new planets for The Initiative residents to settle on. When you arrive to Andromeda, you’ll learn that the trip has taken over 600 years, the majority of the residents are still in cryo-sleep and you’ve encountered a hostile alien race. On top of this, you’re forced to land on a planet which you thought was habitable based on prior research but apparently is not. Your job then is to find a way to fight back against this new alien species and restore the previously thought habitable planets to a better state.
The reasons behind leaving isn’t actually explained in the main story but instead through unlocking fragments of your AI companion’s memories as you progress through the game. As a Pathfinder, you have an AI implanted in you in order to perform tasks that a regular human isn’t able to do. That’s how you’ll be able to restore the planets as they all contain so called Remnant technology that is able to terraform the planets and the only way to access the technology is through your AI companion.
Throughout your journey, you’ll meet several characters that will join your team. To begin with, you have two human teammates, Liam and Cora, that were with you as you arrived in Andromeda. Later on you’ll befriend Vetra; a turian, Drack; a krogan, Peebee; an asari, and lastly Jaal; who’s an angara, one of the new alien species that you’ve discovered in this galaxy. Contrary to the previous games, you have a much smaller crew overall and besides your teammates, there are also Kallo and Suvi; the pilots, Gil; the engineer and Lexi; the doctor. Because of how small your crew is this time around, it’s been very easy forming strong bonds with them and at the end of the game, you’ve basically become a family.
This is the one of the key improvements from the main trilogy that makes Andromeda stand out to me. The games used to constantly introduce new characters and that made it hard for me to become attached to everyone. Andromeda focuses on fewer characters and ultimately the results turns out much better. Add the fact that you can spend over 60 hours playing this game, doing epic story missions, memorable loyalty missions with your teammates and general side quests that genuinely felt meaningful, and you’ll be spending a lot of time getting to know your friends.
This brings me to my next point, which is that this game does an outstanding job of feeding information to you about your teammates in a natural way. This mostly happens through chatter, which occurs when you’re out exploring planets in your Nomad vehicle or on your spaceship the Tempest. Your teammates will constantly have new things to talk about and as you pair them with other members, they will have different things to say. This aspect truly brings the game to life and makes for a more immersive experience.
Speaking of planets, another thing this game did a better job at compared to its predecessors was making huge open worlds that were more detailed and filled with meaningful things to do. That’s always been something the previous titles haven’t been able to achieve. After all, the series is all about exploring a galaxy with different planets, which gives you the expectation that there will be massive areas to explore. They tried doing this in the first Mass Effect, but the planets were mostly empty. That’s not the case at all in Andromeda and I can say that I absolutely loved exploring the open worlds in this game. As you progress through the story, you’ll discover planets with different biomes such as desert, ice, jungle and bog. You’ll be able to help out the inhabitants with various missions, clear our enemy bases, and ultimately restore the planets to a better state.
One thing that’s impressed me is the game design. There are five primary planets that you’ll explore and at first you’d think they’ll all be massive in scope. The first two planets are, but then you get to the third one and you realise that it’s very small. So small that you don’t need a vehicle to traverse it, you can just walk around. That’s something that I appreciate as it’s such a breath of fresh air compared to sticking to a strict formula. Because the last two planets are also fairly large in size, so I was very glad to see that they made the third one small. And I’ve also noticed other great aspects of the game design. Throughout the game, you’ll be restoring the planet by connecting Remnant structures. At first you do this by solving Sudoku puzzles (which I absolutely adore!) but later on you don’t need to do anything other than activate them with the push of a button. In the final phase of restoring the planet, you’ll gain access to a Vault and here you’ll have to do different things each time in order to clear them. Again, I just like the fact that the game doesn’t follow a strict level of design of forcing you to do the same thing over and over. It kept my playthrough interesting from beginning to end.
Subsequently, I just loved being a Pathfinder in this game compared to a Spectre in the previous ones. Each time you build a new outpost on a planet or rescuing an alien species, you'll be praised by your leaders. Because the work you're doing is actually meaningful: you're contributing to the survival of your people. That's why I find the missions and the side quests in this game to be more satisfying in general compared to the main trilogy. Getting constant praise in this game for all the work I've done as a Pathfinder just motivates me even more to keep playing.
Moving on to the gameplay side of things, once again, it’s a vast improvement compared to the predecessors. The series has always been a cover-based shooter with limited movement and that’s something that I didn’t really like. However, Andromeda has added the ability to jump, hover and dash, and those three things alone make the gameplay so much better. You’re allowed to move around more freely, which makes battles more dynamic. On top of this, you’re also able to hotkey three weapon abilities to the shoulder buttons. Since I decided to focus on a biotics build, I had powers such as singularity, shockwave and charge mapped and all of this combined made for some truly exhilarating battles, which I will demonstrate below:
Another thing worth mentioning is that this time around, you don’t choose a class from the beginning and stick with it until the end of the game, like in the previous titles. Instead, you have access to all of them at any time and depending on which areas you decide to spend your skill points on, you’ll increase the rank of that class, granting you more powerful stats. So as I previously mentioned, I went with a biotics build, which enabled me to level up the Adept class that specialises in biotics. At any time though I can switch to another one, for example Vanguard, and use it instead. In other words, you can focus on multiple classes and there’s even an option to switch classes during battles. This is a huge change for the series’ formula and a most welcoming one for people who want more choices in terms of combat styles.
In terms of music, the series really isn’t known for its soundtrack as there are barely any standout tracks to begin with. The only song I remember from the trilogy is the “Uncharted Worlds” theme that you hear when navigating the systems. There is a theme like it in Andromeda, but I didn’t find it as memorable.
One thing I’d like to close off with before the verdict is this game’s messaging. The most important thing this game teaches you throughout your playthrough is to respect and befriend all kinds of species (the real world analogy being the different human ethnicities). This was true of the original trilogy as well, but the fact that you arrive to a new galaxy together with other species and then discover a new species that’s already cautious of other ones due to a poor encounter with a previous one emphasises this aspect even more. As a human, we’re helping out other species we arrived with because we’re in this together, so it doesn’t matter what you look like or who you are. If an asari and a human are in danger, I wouldn’t simply choose to save the human just because I’m a human. Everyone is treated as an equal. And then showing the new species that not all species are bad shows that we can form strong bonds despite all the bad stuff that’s happened. I just love this game’s messaging, it teaches you this so naturally that it absolutely doesn’t feel forced and because you’re spending so much time with the game, it just grows on you. I feel like if there ever was a cure for racism, this game would be it. I’d just let those kinds of people play this game and see how their view of the world changes.
So as an overall package, I found Mass Effect Andromeda to be the best game in the series. While I didn’t like the story as much as in Mass Effect 3, the game delivers much improved character interactions, more open worlds with lots of things to do in them and a massively improved gameplay system. It took me 66 hours to complete the story and the majority of the side quests. You could easily finish it in 20-30 hours, but I highly encourage you to spend more time with it. Because unlike the previous Mass Effect games, which would only take around 30 hours to complete, you can spend more time getting to know the characters better and the world around you in general. That has always been something I’ve wanted to do more of in the series, so I’m glad that Andromeda is much longer than its predecessors. Some games just get more appealing to play if they take a long time to complete (Persona, Trails of Cold Steel, Mass Effect and so on).
To round off this review, I’d like to show a clip of one of my favourite moments in this game and hopefully you’ll get a better idea for why I love it so much.
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