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Jun 10th, 2024 at 05:59:53 - Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4) |
Epic but drawn out nostalgia machine, with the experience hampered further by the context in which I played.
This is, as the title suggests, a remake of FFVII, and I think that unless you've been playing the OG recently, you will experience it as a very different beast. FFVII is being split into three full-length games, and this is the first third, which takes Cloud et al. until their escape from Midgar. Most of the main story beats are the same as the OG, but Remake expands everywhere it can--both fleshes out and pads. I generally appreciated the more in-depth look at existing characters close to or in the party (e.g., Biggs, Jessie, and Wedge; they were great!), but disliked plenty of the additional content because it often didn't add anything compelling. That is, the story would have been the same if we didn't have to learn so much about Don Corneo and his pimps, or watch Hojo scheming, or spend a few hours in the sewers. The Don Corneo part was straight up cringe (minus an amazing dance scene). We are treated to Cloud dressing up as a woman, which I remember being much funnier when I was 14. In 2024, we get a one-liner on gender expression, identity, and fluidity from a dancer, which was nice, except that the game then represents stereotypical exaggerated femininity of gay-coded male (and/or trans?) characters (like the squat champion bodybuilder), and Corneo is trying to fuck Cloud until it is revealed with a change of clothes that he's really a man, and Corneo is disappointed (if we're practicing what we preach about gender fluidity and whatnot, perhaps Corneo would be into the representation of femininity, no matter male or female; there is no nuance or exploration there, negating the one interesting thing the game said about gender). We know Don Corneo's a lech. We know Hojo is deranged. Making players run around doing quests for Corneo's pimps doesn't add anything; making players spend forever in Hojo's endless labs doesn't add anything; making players operate slow-moving robot arms to solve simple puzzles in a greatly expanded sewers section doesn't add anything; etc.
The side quest parts, though optional, are neat for expanding on the lives of citizens in Midgar, but are dull in terms of gameplay (usually, go find these things or go kill these monsters). I did like the proximity-based conversations between NPCs. Instead of clicking on them to talk, you listen in on their conversations when you approach them, and they're often talking about whatever has just happened and its effect on them and their lives. Despite the long and sometimes padded parts, the game was highly engaging. The presentation of FFVII Remake is amazing in every way. It's visually stunning, especially the many, many cut scenes; the music is evocative; it's really well-written; the combat is fast and fun. I definitely did not take advantage of min-maxing weapons and materia, or re-slotting materia to suit the situation, or controlling all the characters in my party. I would have liked to have been more motivated to master the combat.
It's interesting how they took the first chunk of the OG and made it 40 hours. That means they had to put all the materia, summons, weapons, leveling up etc. of a full 40-hour RPG into what used to be like 5 hours of game time. But knowing that this is only the first third of the full game, I felt like I didn't want to spend time maximizing materia, doing side quests, fighting coliseum battles, and so on. Like, it felt like a waste of time to do more than I needed to given that I could pick up the next game tomorrow. This is part of what I mean when I say that the context in which I played hampered the experience. If there is a (more highly rated) sequel, I am not motivated to spend time beyond the main story on this one. I would rather spend my time on the next one (although the next one will have the same problem, because by the time I play it, the third and final game will probably be available). What would be awesome is if the three games were released in a package and you could play them as one...kind of like...FFVII. I know that you start back at level 1 with no materia and whatnot in the next game; they're all self-contained. That also makes me worried that it'll feel like playing the same thing three times (different story, of course, but if the gameplay is the same, it'll get repetitive).
The other two contextual things that affected my experience were: (1) playing on a time crunch. I played on a PS Plus subscription, which ends in 5 days, and I still have 3 games I want to play in that time. I was rushing to beat Remake, so the longer sequences were getting frustrating. I thought I would finish the game on Saturday afternoon because I had entered the "there's no turning back now; are you sure you want to continue" part. I didn't finish it until SUNDAY afternoon, like 8 gameplay hours later, because the end is so dang long! There are actually three "there's no turning back now" points. Three! And boss fight after boss fight after boss fight at the end. I mean, totally epic, but I felt the time crunch. (2) The other thing is that the room I was playing in has no air conditioning, and it's summer in Georgia. This weekend, it was about 90 degrees. Two fans blew on me, increasingly hot air as the morning turned to afternoon, and I was physically uncomfortable. (After beating the game, I moved my PS4 and beanbag into another room with AC.).
SO, despite my playing in less than ideal conditions, and the game feeling longer than it needed to be, it was undeniably epic. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and look forward to playing (and hopefully getting more out of) the second one.
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May 28th, 2024 at 23:41:19 - Blair Witch (PC) |
Finished tonight with Patrick. We've been playing this one for the past couple months and made a push to wrap up. What is this game about? Well, you're this guy Ellis with some serious PTSD. You go into the woods looking for a missing kid, against the wishes of your wife and the sheriff, who regularly allude to your mental illness (usually in flashbacks or hallucinations). A man with childhood trauma related to woods (??), who then joined the military and got his squad killed in an ambush, "accidentally" killed a civilian, came back and became a police officer, and shot an unarmed man, is totally the one you want getting lost in the woods with the Blair Witch.
Luckily, you have a faithful canine companion, Bullet. Bullet is the best, and our biggest regret is that we gave Bullet dark colors, which made him impossible to see at night. Most of the game occurs at night. Suggestion: make Bullet the lightest color you can and give him a bright collar. Bullet searches areas for you, sniffs out items, follows trails, and is a happy, good boy. He makes you feel less alone in the woods, but also makes you feel more unnerved. Because Bullet is so lovable, you know that something bad will happen to Bullet. You just don't know what or when it will happen.
I think that the game is split into two main parts: the woods and the house. I mostly enjoyed the woods, but mostly did not enjoy the house. In the woods, you are following the trail of the kid and whoever might have abducted him. The woods become creepier the deeper you go. You get turned around. There are monsters. There is a man with a coat of human skin. It's deeply unsettling. You occasionally find a tape for your camcorder (this is the Blair Witch, after all!). Some tapes are just story tapes; watch them to get info. Other tapes are interactable. If you are looking at a spot in the environment where something happens on tape, whatever happened on tape will happen in the environment. For example, a fallen tree is blocking your path. On the tape, the tree falls. Pause the tape before the tree falls, put the camcorder away, and voila, the tree will not be fallen. You'll use this trick to get through doors, find objects, and so on. It's neat, though can be annoying when (a) you can't figure out what has changed or what you are supposed to be paying attention to, or (b) you know what you are supposed to do but you can't trigger the change because you aren't lining up in just the right way or whatever. Those are the woods. Probably 2/3 of the game. Maybe 3/4.
Then there's the house. I think this is the house from the movie, or at least a very similar house. This is where, if you weren't sure yet, Ellis descends into madness and (if you got the bad ending like us at least) becomes a terrible version of himself (again) under the Blair Witch's influence. The house segment lasted far too long, with extremely repetitive hallucinations and flashbacks, with us having to see and hear the same things we'd been seeing and hearing for the entire game, as if the game didn't think that players knew Ellis was unhinged. This was established far earlier! The house appears to have three stories, but you will go up and down roughly 50 flights of stairs. Seriously, it lasts foreeeeever, just wandering through the house, here's a flashback, there's a hallucination, here's another monster to avoid, there's the screen shaking, here's the same room you already were in 10 times ("sigh," Ellis says every time--for real, me too!), here's another text message to read, and there are the stairs yet again.
Finally, it ends. With the bad ending, Ellis is trapped. With the good ending, Ellis is freed. You will get the bad ending, but this will free you from Blair Witch. Overall, I leaned toward enjoying it. The atmosphere is great, especially the sound design. It's creepy. But it's not a psychological horror game I would easily recommend.
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May 23rd, 2024 at 08:09:13 - Gravity Rush 2 (PS4) |
This was a neat one, and recommended with caveats. I'd never heard of Gravity Rush before looking through the PS4 catalog for anything it looked like I missed before I "finish" the console. The gimmick of Gravity Rush is that your character controls gravity. She doesn't "fly" by propelling herself forward; rather, she orients herself in whichever direction and "falls" that way. Traversing the environments, especially the spans between islands, was consistently thrilling. In tighter spaces though, and when aiming for precision as during combat when you need to hit a specific core on a monster that's moving around, movement and the camera can be extremely frustrating. The episode where Kat (the main character) and Raven have to go inside the ship monster and destroy the gravity engine, sliding through tight corridors and breaking barriers, was especially bad on this point.
The other caveat is similarly something that I liked at times, too: the story. I was hooked on it for the first half. It was coherent, following the main character, Kat, and the somewhat mundane everyday challenges of the Banga fleet, a group of people living on a flying settlement. I really enjoyed this part of the game because there is great character development, not just for Kat, but for a host of notable story characters, as well as minor characters. I got to know them a bit, understood their relationships, their history, and so on. This is done largely through side quests, which are varied, interesting, and usually teach you something about this or that character that adds depth. I completed about half the side quests before deciding to focus on the main story and finish up. After like 20 or 25 side quests, although they remained creative, I was losing interest in the larger story, and there were so many side characters in Jirga Para Lhao (the second main area of the game, a bit city that the Banga fleet docks at) that I stopped caring all that much. I also thought at first that you would get worthwhile rewards from side quests (gems to level up abilities, talismans to equip that make abilities stronger), but I don’t think I ever got gems. You occasionally get a special talisman. Usually, though, it’s a costume or a decoration for Kat’s room, neither of which I care about. It also turns out that talismans are unnecessary. I hardly paid attention to them the entire game.
I also hit on some frustrating side quests, like the one where you have to pretend to be Hekseville’s (the third main area of the game, a city that Kat gets to from warping through a gravity rift) hero, Kali Angel, and go around getting people to notice you, then once a bunch notice you, eat ice cream to drum up excitement about an ice cream shop. But they can’t notice you too much! Otherwise, they’ll realize that you’re not really Kali Angel and you fail the mission. Amusing, yes, but frustrating in practice. Some of the side quests took me half an hour or more. Another maddening one was the one where I had to find a dog’s frisbee, slowly being led around by the dog until we finally found it in the possession of a spoiled little girl, whom you can only convince to give you the frisbee by teaching her how to play fetch with the dog. Thereupon you play a little “fetch” minigame, attempting to toss the frisbee to predetermined locations from where you are standing. The frisbee, not obeying any known laws of physics, flips and spins and spirals and often lands outside the target zone. I tossed that frisbee like 50 times to build up the dog’s “joy” meter because when you miss the target, the joy meter decreases. I hated that side quest so much. Anyway, there were enough frustrating ones, and my own joy level was decreasing, that I finally stopped doing them.
Back to the story…the Banga fleet arrives at a Jirga Para Lhao to stock up, where Kat and the fleet become involved in business and political intrigue. I liked all this stuff! But then, about halfway through, the game takes a turn. A giant evil city appears and after you kill the city, you get sucked into a gravity rift and appear in the city from the first game, Hekseville, where there are a lot of characters Kat knows but I don’t (and here is really where the side quests quit being interesting because I haven’t been with these characters for half the game and the story is going off the rails). The game just starts throwing crazy story beats at you. Did you know that the nice mayor whom everyone loves is also a mad scientist?! He’s going to freeze time to save his daughter!! And the city’s guardian, Kali Angel, is also his daughter and she’s also the sister of Cecie, who has been around since Banga fleet, but Cecie is also a gravity shifter really named Durga Angel, and then the entire city of Jirga Para Lhao comes through the gravity rift to help save Hekseville, and then you have to travel up a pillar because some old god appeared and said so, and when you get there, there is an ancient city and apparently you are the queen (???) of this ancient city (and honestly the part where you are the queen again was really cool; there are high points even when the story goes off the rails), but you were deposed 100 years ago and an insane child now rules the city, and the insane child releases an electricity monster (???) and you fight it and save the world the end. It was a lot of “this person is actually THIS person!!” and “this character is secretly doing THIS bad thing!! Bet you didn’t see that coming!!” type stuff.
One thing that was consistent though is how upbeat the game is. Kat is a downright positive and fun character. That upbeat and fun tone is conveyed throughout most every aspect of the game, which kept my joy meter high save for a few frustrating parts. The game looks and sounds great. The animations in particular make it look like Studio Ghibli, and there’s great detail in the world. Kat can get emotes, and early on I was using them on people to see if they did anything. Turns out that the emotes often get reactions from NPCs. I “scared” a juggler and he dropped his pins. I waved at people and they waved back. I sang and they clapped. The coolest one was when I scared someone carrying a box of goods down some stairs. He dropped the box, and about 10 tomatoes rolled out of it and went tumbling down the stairs. Detail!
So yeah, neat game for sure. I don’t think I’d sink the time into another Gravity Rush game, but I’m glad I played this one.
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May 21st, 2024 at 07:48:19 - Creaks (PC) |
I haven't played an Amanita Design game in a long time, and what a treat this was. I'd never heard of Creaks, but it was in some puzzle game bundle I purchased a while back. It’s got the exceptional art and music you expect from Amanita. The puzzles are creative and the concept is original. In Creaks, you are a guy who finds a hidden passage behind his bedroom wall. He turns on his flashlight and goes through the crawlspace. Turns out that below his room is a sprawling cavern with a massive tower, wherein live all manner of strange creatures. The anthropomorphic birds are the main ones, and they’ve got a problem. A giant monster is crawling around the outside of the tower, destroying everything. The birds are trying to figure out a way to stop the monster. You stealthily follow the birds down, down, down, watching what they are up to, solving puzzle rooms as you go. Eventually, they discover your presence and enlist you to help destroy the monster.
The puzzles in Creaks are great! Over time, you’ll be introduced to various mechanics, but they basically involve manipulating creatures and light sources, which when shining on a creature, change them into furniture. The first puzzle creatures you encounter are dogs. The dogs activate when you get close and bark at you. When you get too close, they chase you. If you jump off a ledge or go down a ladder, they’ll stand there barking for a minute, then trot back to where they were. So, for example, if you need to get around a dog, you might get it to chase you, climb down a ladder, and climb up a ladder now behind it while it stands barking at the ledge you dropped from. Or, if you lure it to a light source, then turn on the light, the dog will change into a chest of drawers, which (as long as it stays in the light!) you can move or climb on.
You’ll see jellyfish creatures, which have rules governing their constant movement; goat creatures, which run away from you if you go near, and which otherwise will move toward patches of grass to graze. Dogs will also chase goats. Then there are these weird plant (?) creatures. One type copies your movements and the other type does the opposite of your movements (e.g., you step left, it steps right). And so on. You are generally trying to position the creatures onto buttons or beneath light sources such that you can get past them and move to the next “scene.”
There are something like 50 scenes. Not only is the puzzle design excellent, but the larger environment design is cool too. As you’ll see, the scenes are all interconnected in the tower. The difficulty is just right. Some of the puzzles had me scratching my head and then feeling clever once I figured out the trick. I got really stuck only one time, but put the game down for a week, played Firework, came back, and with a fresh perspective solved the scene in 5 minutes.
Highly recommended for a creative, charming, chill puzzle game.
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