Ashs Adventures – Page 4

On Honorable Mentions, 2015

April 18, 2016 by Ashgar

This is the other backlogged post I have, then we’ll be into more recent things. At the end of January we did a Games of the Year show, and there are a few things I really enjoyed in 2015 that didn’t get much time on that one. Some of these made brief appearances on the blog, and some of them in the podcast; I consider all of these worth trying if you get a chance.

Evoland 2

The subtitle of this game is “A slight case of spacetime continuum disorder”, and it does live up to that. It takes probably the best segment of the first Evoland (the time travel section where you’re moving between 3D and sprite graphics) and uses it as the central premise of the game. For most of the game you are moving between the past, present, and future, occasionally messing things up enough that it affects a later era. Where Evoland mostly stuck to pretending to be Zelda or Final Fantasy, Evoland 2 is less restricted, and borrows from things ranging from Street Fighter to Puzzle Quest (in addition to a core that is mostly Zelda). It also has a card game that isn’t a triple triad knock-off, and I really enjoyed it. This just barely missed the cut for top 3 last year.

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon

The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games have generally been pretty good, and I would call the DS series (Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky) some of the best games with pokemon in them. The previous title, Gates to Infinity, was much less outstanding, but this one’s a return to form. For those unfamiliar, the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games involve playing as a pokemon, working through a series of randomly-generated dungeons towards some goal. This tends to be save-the world-type stuff, and a lot more story (and more serious story) than the main series. This one features all of the pokemon revealed at its release (all 720 of them) and features a story that is far better than the main games. It eliminates the random element of pokemon recruitment found in previous Mystery Dungeon games, which is nice, because there are plenty of other random things to worry about. This is my top 3DS game from last year.

LBX

I mentioned this a bit earlier. LBX is a solid mix of RPG and Robot Fighting game. Even though the actual robots are only about a foot tall, the battle system most de-emphasizes this by placing you on artificial terrain, so it feels like you’re still piloting giant robots. It has an obligatory tournament arc, and is full of other cliches, but it’s not really any worse for it. The story also goes a few places I wouldn’t expect for a kids game. Add in the large number of postgame activities, and there’s a lot here. Give this a shot if you like Level-5, action-RPGs, and/or customizable robots.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

This got revisited when I was going Star Wars crazy right before The Force Awakens came out. The Knights of the Fallen Empire content is one of the best pieces of narrative I’ve seen in an MMO, and some of the system revamps that go along with this (allowing you to use any companion for anything) were really appreciated. Changes to the leveling content also mean that you don’t need to do all of the (generally lower quality) side quests when levelling a character, and it gave me a chance to see some of the class stories that I did not have the patience to complete when the game came out. I’ll admit that other than the story content, there’s not a whole lot here that interests me, and the F2P model is still “please subscribe”, but it’s still worth checking out. The next chapter came out somewhat recently, so I’ll pop back in at some point to check that out.

On San Antonio, Redux

March 30, 2016March 29, 2016 by Ashgar

Relatively recently (okay, not that recently anymore), I spent some time in San Antonio, at PAX South, where I hung out with some awesome people and saw some interesting things. PAX South seems to be at a bit of an awkward time of year for game studios, and the only major video game publisher that was there was Capcom. As a result, there was a lot of opportunity to see indie games. This is a few weeks late, so I’ll skip mentioning Ultimate Chicken Horse, which you should buy. Here are some of the others:

Stories: The Path of Destinies

First, the name of this game makes me really sad, because it’s very generic and unmemorable. The game itself looks like it will be quite good. It’s an isometric action-RPG that is not really in the Diablo-style, although it looks like it at first. The story involves a fox named Reynardo, with choose-your-own-adventure storybook segments between levels. Combat is kind of reminiscent of Assassin’s Creed (the first one) or the Arkham series; countering enemy attacks is the most important element. It feels good to get a hang of the combat, and you’re graded at the end of every combat based on how well you strung together your attacks (more is better) and how much damage you took (less is better). This was announced for PC and PS4, and looks like it has a release date of April 12.

Just Shapes And Beats

Exactly what it says on the tin. This bullet hell-esque game involves shapes dodging other shapes to music. There is local multiplayer, and players can (if they’re quick) revive others. It sounds simple, and in a lot of ways it’s like a bullet hell shooter where you can’t shoot, but the PAX demo was quite difficult. I’m a bit concerned that this one would only be fun in multiplayer, and with a lack of online (citing latency concerns), my personal future with this one is undetermined. Release date and platforms are TBA (it was demoed with a 360 controller).

Pixel: RU Squared

I actually saw this for the first time at PAX South 2015, and I thought it looked kind of uninteresting, although it had some neat ideas. It’s come quite a way in the year between shows, and now I think its worth a mention. It’s a little unfair to call this VVVVVV with some additional mechanics, but that’s what it really reminds me of. It’s even more abstract (you play as a square) and the player has the ability to jump and eventually shoot. Color also plays a role in the puzzles in the game, and the level can rotate around at times. It’s shaping up to be an interesting puzzle-platformer, and it’s on Early Access on Steam.

Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok

This is not a video game, but instead a tabletop RPG. I was drawn to the theme (Norse mythology) and the mechanics of this one. Instead of dice, this uses a set of runes for action resolution. The composition of this set is based on your character, so a tough character might have more ability to fight things based on what their runes are. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to try the demo while at the show, but I’m interested in taking a closer look. Post-convention researched told me that this is actually a re-imagining of a fairly old game (1993) with this system. This edition is also a few years old, but it was still my first time seeing it. This one’s available in multiple forms from DriveThruRPG. https://youtu.be/TfMrWvEFD_g

Pushfight

Also not a video game, this is a 2-player board game with very simple rules and very simple pieces. It was originally released in 2008, and produced by Penny Arcade starting last year. With 5 pieces, figure out a way to push one of your opponent’s pieces off the board. Actions in a term are limited, so a lot of though has to go into what you’re going to do on a particular turn. When we played, defeat tended to be somewhat sudden, as keeping track of which of your pieces is one turn from being trapped while trying to mount an offense of your own is a lot more complicated than it sounds. It was still fun, and the game can be picked up on the Penny Arcade store. https://youtu.be/hCvms0ATlqE

On 2015

January 28, 2016 by Ashgar

I had an interesting time over the holidays, and I was going to write a highly personal post about it that I decided not to finish. 2015 was an interesting year for games in general, so I’d like to focus on that first.

AAA where?

Personally, I did a whole lot of not playing AAA games this year. The GOTY contenders I keep seeing mentioned by big publications are Witcher 3, Bloodborne, and Undertale, and I haven’t played any of them (and I only own the last one). Other big releases I ignored include Splatoon, MGS 5, The Order: 1886, Batman Arkham Knight, and Star Wars Battlefront. I did pick up Dragon Quest Heroes, and we played Fallout 4 for our Game of the Month(s) for November/December. Xenoblade Chronicles X is probably the only other $60 release I devoted a lot of time to, so I didn’t miss all of the big games, just most of them.

Part of this is because I played quite a lot of portable games this year, some of which weren’t even released this year. Radiant Historia, Breath of Fire 3 (which I still haven’t beaten), LBX, Puzzle and Dragons Z, and Majora’s Mask all saw playtime this year. Another reason is definitely the Game of the month, which saw me play some things I definitely would not have tried. Secrets of Grindea is probably a game I would have picked up after it came out, but I’m not sure I would have ever acquired Tron 2.0 or Hatoful Boyfriend on my own. A third factor is the MMO Factor, I spent a lot of time playing Final Fantasy 14, and poked my head into a few other games too (Marvel Heroes, Wildstar, Star Wars: The Old Republic).

Posting

My posting remained pretty sporadic. I did Blaugust, and wrote a bunch of posts for that while on the plane to Seattle for PAX Prime. Outside of Blaugust, I still haven’t quite gotten it through my head that not everything I write needs to be a well-researched article, or a guide I put a bunch of work into, or a short novel. I have 2,942 screenshots of Evoland 2 that I intended to use in a post at some point (I still might). Just figuring out where to start on that kept me from saying much about it here at all.

I’m still trying to figure out what exactly I’m saying whenever I hit publish. I’m kind of just throwing my words out and seeing where they stick. I tend to like it if someone finds what I’m writing helpful, but I realize that won’t always be the case and it doesn’t necessarily need to be. Just getting thoughts on screen is helpful to me personally, and sometimes that’s what matters.

On Continued Evolution

December 4, 2015 by Ashgar

One more of these, then I think we’ll do something else.

Pretend there’s a plot

On Continued Evolution — Get the Amulet, defeat the bad guy. The first half is in the time travel area…

I didn’t feel like coming up with another synonym for Final Fantasy

The Final Battle

That’s it for Evoland. I wasn’t terribly completionist, and there are a both stars and cards to collect, but I can do without. Maybe I’ll try this for something else later.