Ashgar

On San Antonio, Redux

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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. Stories

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). JSnB

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. pixel

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

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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.

On 2015
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 2015

On Continued Evolution

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

Pretend there’s a plot

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

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And the second half is in a different area. I’m pretty sure this is the wrong choice, but it’s the one I made.

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A few UI tweaks later, and you’re playing something that looks suspiciously like Diablo.

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It wouldn’t be a compete simulation without loot. Unfortunately, nothing you can pick up has any effect on your character.

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One boss and one town portal later, the second half of the amulet is acquired.

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

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The evil force reveals his name, and it’s time for a boss fight. Sadly, you can’t win this one, and after a certain point he’ll spam an attack that gets stronger each time he uses it.

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After which Kaeris follows in the footsteps of her namesake. It’s hard to call this a surprise in any way.

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You do get to go back to the fight with Kaeris’s heal ability, and a little bonus.

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This has an animation that is about as over-the top as one would expect from a summon. It also does enough damage to finish the fight in one hit.

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But we can’t end there, so there’s one more thing to do.

The Final Battle

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You have to take an airship the the final boss, but it’s also a wonderful opportunity to clean up anything you might have missed from earlier in the game. In particular, you have bombs and can open passages in the Zelda dungeon.

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The first form is pretty straightforward. Avoid the bad stuff, beat on the hands. When they’re gone, run around behind and beat on the core.

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Then get your Ganon shoes on, because you have to reflect his projectiles back to finish him off. There are two colors, and you can only reflect one of them, so I took a few hits figuring that out.

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Actually, I was pretty bad at that fight all around, but a victory is a victory.

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.

On Evolution

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Assembling these is kind of fun, so the screenshot posts will continue for a while. Here’s more of Evoland. This is going up later than planned because reasons.

The Next Dimension

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When you get the crystal, this happens. With one exception, we’ll be in 3D from here on out.

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In 3D, you can actually move over things. You also earn the ability to not die in one hit.

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This is the visual style the game uses from here on out. We’re back to pretending to be Zelda for a bit, including…

On Evolution
…a Zelda-style dungeon. Trapped rooms, bombable walls, puzzles, it’s all here. You don’t have bombs yet, so there are some secrets here if you come back later. The boss reminds me more of Ys than Zelda, however.

Ultimate Illusion

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At this point the game swerves hard back into Final Fantasy, arriving squarely at FF7.

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Can you feel the power of the original PlayStation? The funny part is that this section is mostly about getting bombs, so you can move on to the game’s strongest moment.

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This sections is… not that. Once you get past the FF7 joke, it’s actually kind of annoying.

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There is this, if you missed FF8 that much.

Spacetime Continuum Disorder

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Once you have the bombs, you can move on. To pretend like there’s a plot, this area is withered compared to the start of the game.

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The gimmick here is that you can switch between the past and present. In the past, you can’t travel over “dimensional stones”. In the present, trees have grown to block your path.

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You also complete your link outfit by getting a Bow here. Once you have it, you can start messing with the environment.

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Shoot an arrow through a torch in the past, and…

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…That tree will no longer exist in the present. This makes for a pretty neat puzzle section. The game’s entire sequel takes this idea and runs with it.

Looks like it’ll take one more to finish this one. See you next time.