Ashgar

On Missed Opportunities

by

It’s that time for Game of the Year discussions, and I find my list is pretty short. This is not because good games didn’t come out this year, but more because I didn’t play them (or enough of them) to have a solid opinion. Here’s a short list of games that seem good, but I can’t really comment on:

God of War

The big one. I’m not entirely sure what I was doing in April, but I didn’t pick this game up until the end of August and still haven’t gotten much of an opportunity to put time into it. People seem to like this game very much, but it’s so different from the old God of War games that it put me off at first. I think approaching it as its own thing would improve my experience, especially since the game seems to have a very strong theme of “new beginnings” anyway.

Marvel’s Spider-Man

The other big one. Swinging around in this game is so much fun but I didn’t pick this up until Black Friday. I’ve had not much time for gaming at all during December, and almost all of what I did have has gone to Smash Bros. This is at the top of the list once the holidays are over, but that’s not soon enough to get mentioned for GOTY discussions.

Ni No Kuni II

As far as gameplay goes, this is way better than the original. This one’s a victim of timing, since it came out while I was still buried in Monster Hunter World. Later, instead of going back to it, I went back to a different long JRPG. Nier: Automata could probably be mentioned here because it’s in a similar situation. Maybe no good JRPGs are going to come out in 2019, and I can finally catch up.

Omensight

I’m not sure what happened with this game. It’s the spiritual successor to a game I liked very much (enough to beat on two platforms): Stories: The Path of Destinies. It got a bit lost in the shuffle when it came out, and they announced a “definitive edition” patch not too long after that, which came out in October. One of the other games I think was great this year took over the time that would have gone here.

Shadows: Awakening

It’s entirely possible I’m the only person who would like this game. Shadows: Awakening is a sequel/remake to Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms, a game that came out when I was trying nearly everything on Steam that looked remotely interesting. I liked the premise but figured I’d come back to it when the story was complete, since Heretic Kingdoms was just supposed to be Chapter 1. This year that happened, but like many of the story-focused games in the above list, I haven’t made time for it.

Honorable mentions…

…to everything that came out in late November/December that isn’t Smash Bros. Ultimate. Mutant: Year Zero looks like my kind of game, and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is absolutely my type of game. The remasters of Katamari Damacy and Last Remnant would also have gotten a look, but neither of those would have come up in GOTY discussions anyway. (A remaster of We On Missed Opportunities︎ Katamari might have, though.)

On PAX West 2018, Part 2

by

More games from PAX West!

Soundfall

Like I mentioned with Spin Rhythm, rhythm games are kind of my thing. This one is a top-down style action-RPG where your actions are much stronger if you do them on the beat. This resembles Crypt of the Necrodancer in practice, but you aren’t punished quite so hard for failing to get the timing correct and you have free movement. The game looks really nice with a lot of neon, but manages to avoid the frequent problem that games with a lot going on tend to have with attacks that are hard to see. This should be coming out for everything under the sun next year (yes, including Switch) so we’ll find out how all of these ideas hold up.

Star Renegades

This is a somewhat non-traditional entry into the roguelite category. This is a sci-fi party-based RPG about a rebellion, and you play as a group of heroes fighting to dethrone the Tyrant. A big selling point is the battle system, which bears a very strong resemblance to Grandia. (If you’re unfamiliar with Grandia, Child of Light also uses a very similar system.) the idea is that actions take different amounts of time, and by choosing your actions and targets properly you can do the things you want while disrupting what the enemy is trying to do to you. The roguelike structure discourages you from getting too attached to your team members, but it still seems like you can have a sense of progression even if your party meets a horrible death.

Summoners Fate

I feel like that title needs an apostrophe somewhere, but there isn’t one to be seen. Summoners Fate is a top-sown tactical RPG-like game featuring deck building. In many ways this reminds me of Hero Academy, but with more of a focus on interesting single-player. It also features a primary character (your Summoner) that is both the source of all of your cards and your loss condition if they’re defeated. This one definitely looks like it’s developed for mobile first, but it was a lot of fun to play and should also be coming to PC at some point.

This game also earns lots of bonus points for having a ranged attack that spawns a squirrel on hit.

Honorable Mentions

I saw a lot more games at PAX: Party Golf/Party Crashers was a set of fun and highly customizable party games from the same studio. They’re on Steam now and should be hitting the Switch shortly. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a CRPG rendition of Pathfinder’s most popular adventure module, and it should be out very soon. Indivisible is a party-based RPG from the studio that made Skullgirls, and it brings that same level of incredible 2D animation to a very different type of game. All of these look like they’ll be interesting, and the future of indie games looks very bright indeed.

On PAX West 2018, Part 1

by

As you may be aware, PAX West happened last weekend at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. A good time was had, and many indie games were played. Here are some of my favorites:

Risk of Rain 2

I had no idea this game was in development, although it was announced last year. The original Risk of Rain is possibly my favorite roguelike game. Permadeath doesn’t feel nearly as bad when your run was at most 40-ish minutes (and at that point you’re either dead or nearly immortal). Risk of Rain 2 is a faithful recreation of that experience in 3D. PAX West was the first public demo for the game, and it was one of the most crowded indie booths at the show. I got to try it out, but in two tries I died within the first two minutes on attempt #1 and died to the first boss on attempt #2, so it feels a lot like Risk of Rain.

Dragon Marked for Death

IntiCreates is calling this a “Dark Fantasy-Style Action RPG”, and that seems like a bit much. The developers largely responsible for a number of good 2D pixel art games lately (including the last few Mega Man games) are making a side-scrolling Action-RPG with co-op, where each playable character has different tools to navigate through the levels. Playable on the show floor were the warrior and the empress; the former focused on using his big axe and guarding, while the latter had a variety of melee and ranged attacks and a grappling hook. The final game will also have a shinobi and witch.

Spin Rhythm

As someone who is a sucker for Rhythm games, this one definitely caught my eye. In some ways it’s to DJ Hero what Rocksmith is to Guitar Hero, since they were demoing it on an actual DJ controller. Motion controls were also mentioned at the show for anyone who doesn’t want to buy a $100+ piece of hardware for use with a single (admittedly cool looking) game.* I hear the initial demo was for a mobile game, so who knows what control options will be supported by the time the game comes out, but I’ll be patiently awaiting more info about this one.

*Yes, I know people did this with dance pads and Rock Band. I’m just saying it’s not likely.

More to come later!

On Weapon Variety

by

Warframe has a very large number of weapons. There are currently over 100 primary weapons, almost as many secondaries, and more melee weapons than I care to count. While it’s true that many of these are variations of each other (there are 4 versions of the basic Braton assault rifle for example) there’s still a relatively large number of unique weapons. Here are a few primaries that I like:

Vectis

On Weapon Variety
The most standard weapon in this list, the Vectis is one of the first sniper rifles that you can get in the game. It only has one round so you have to like reloading, but does good damage with great critical stats and is capable of killing things from when you get it through some of the hardest content in the game. There is a somewhat difficult to get prime variant that does somewhat more damage and loads two rounds, but the normal one is still an amazing choice if what you want to do is kill enemies before they can even see you.

Supra

On Weapon Variety
The Supra is a hand-held plasma minigun, and is my most-used weapon overall. In sharp contrast to the Vectis, this one’s for pointing at a group of enemies that you want to go away. A significant amount of travel time and spread make this unsuitable for anything longer than mid-range, but for anything in the same room this can clean up amazingly. This also has a mod that can make it give you energy, cause an AOE explosion, and boost your max energy slightly.

Quanta

On Weapon Variety
There are a few cases of weapons that make it incredibly obvious that Digital Extremes worked on the Unreal Tournament series before making Dark Sector and Warframe. The Drakgoon bears a more than superficial similarity to the UT flak cannon (without the secondary fire, unfortunately). The Angstrum (which is a secondary weapon somehow) has a similar charge mechanic as the UT rocket launcher. Along these lines, the Quanta is a re-implementation of the shock rifle. Primary fire is a perfectly accurate continuous beam; secondary fire shoots floating cubes that explode when touched by enemies. If you shoot a cube before it blows up naturally, it does additional damage. This union of great AOE weapon and great single-target weapon is useful for just about anything.

Others

On Weapon Variety
This is just scratching the surface. There are shotguns that shoot exploding shells. There’s a giant cannon that you’re going to probably blow yourself up with more often than the enemy. There’s an energy bow that shoots arrows that explode into a giant cloud that freezes and then blows up your enemies. There are several highly-effective normal bows. I’m not sure where this statement was going.

The giant variety of weapons on offer here is one of my favorite parts about the game. The variety in Warframes and their abilities is a close second; the combination ensures that many different playstyles are possible. If you tried Warframe forever ago, now might be a reasonable time to give it another shot.

P.S. You have one week to finish the FFV Four Job Fiesta. Get to it!