What a charming game. I've never played anything quite like it, as it mixes metroidvania and pinball elements, two things you wouldn't think go together, but do here. The main metroidvania elements are the big, interconnected map that you explore a little more of with every new upgrade/item. One lets you grapple on flowers, another lets you swim underwater, and so on. Moving around the map to backtrack was the only criticism I had of the whole game. Movement can feel a little sluggish, especially over long distances, and using the "beelines" to navigate longer distances was annoying because you can't get on the beeline at any stop you like; you have to go to specific junctions, which likely require you to traverse a lot of the map on foot anyway. And much like Atlanta's MARTA public transit, it usually doesn't take you where you want to go.
Of note, there is no typical combat (which makes this super relaxing). Battles are clever pinball puzzles. These puzzles are integrated throughout the map and used not only for boss fights, but also for progression, to get upgrades, to find secret areas, and so on. Your character, Yoku, pushes a ball around, so when you're in a pinball puzzle, you have a little control over Yoku, but mainly control the flippers and bounce Yoku around to solve the puzzle. These (and the game in general) were never that difficult, but offered enough satisfying challenge to feel good about progressing.
The art and music constantly made me smile. It's so light-hearted, colorful, and whimsical. I had no idea I would enjoy the game this much. Just writing about it is making me want to give it another go, or at least go clean up side quests and find more collectibles. There is an air of mystery about some things that I never figured out. For example, there are little onion looking creatures hidden around called Wickerlings. For every 10 you collect, you can "activate" them at these magical staves, which goes to a cut scene showing a stone illuminating around an ominous creature in an egg. If you collect all the Wickerlings...does the egg hatch? Is that bad? You sort of find out near the end of the game because you wind up finding the location in the cut scene, but I wasn't clear on it. There is another ominous cut scene every so often when your Yoku-pinball goes between the flippers, when you would normally lose on a machine (but here, you drop down through some thorns, lose some fruit [money], and land safely by another flipper to keep going). The scene shows a number ticking up and some robed figure watching. Does that do anything? Or is it just telling me how many times I've lost my ball? I will look these answers up later...
Can we get a sequel?!
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XCOM 2 is brutal and I freaking love it. I have no idea how far I am through the game. Halfway? But I almost LOST and it had me so scared. XCOM 2 has a metagame with a lose state. The aliens are working on something called the Avatar project which, if completed, ends the game. They make advances on the project that fill a progress bar on the top of the geoscape screen. I am not entirely sure of the rules governing when and why they make progress. It seems they randomly build a new facility or complete some research. Right now, there is a "Dark Event" I can see that the aliens have queued that, if I don't address it within the month, will add two ticks to the progress bar. I am also not entirely sure of the rules governing when and why I can decrease the progress bar. I know that by completing (some?) main story missions, attacking black sites, attacking research facilities, and so on, one or two ticks on the bar will go away. This "add two ticks to the progress bar" Dark Event has me worried because often you have to choose which of the Dark Events to deal with, and the progress bar only has three empty ticks left. This would bring me to within one tick of losing. Usually there are three Dark Events queued at a time, and they all introduce problems. This is certainly the most pressing right now, but I have to wait for the game to give me the mission to stop the Dark Event. I don't know if it always does! I've had to let several Dark Events happen. Currently, for example, the aliens have beefed up their encryptions and I am burdened with 100% intel costs, which means that contacting new regions is very expensive. But I need to contact new regions because the aliens have built research facilities there. I need to destroy the research facilities to bring the progress bar down. So, the progress bar will keep going up unless I can make contact with new regions, which currently requires double the intel. Will I be able to gather enough intel to contact the new regions and destroy the research facilities before they complete the Avatar project?! Aaah!
I learned quickly that there are never enough resources to spare. I am always short. I have a laundry list of upgrades to make to armor and weaponry, research, buildings, communications, that all seem urgent. This is a game of baby steps and meeting a hundred little goals along the way, each of which feels monumental. And since you could have used every upgrade last week, everything feels like it comes too late yet just in time. For example, I recently completed research on magnetic weapons technology, which unlocks the purchase of magnetic varieties of common weapons (assault rifles, shotguns, pistols). This was huge, increasing firearms damage by about 33%. Enemies already use these weapons, so finally I am on par again! Well...except that you don't just "get" the weapons. You have to buy the upgrades after conducting the research. I bought assault rifles first since that's the standard loadout for rookie soldiers (all soldiers begin as unclassed rookies) and the Specialist class. That got me through a mission, which rewarded me with enough cash to upgrade shotguns, which I have equipped on my Rangers, who are killing machines. I skipped pistols because they are only used as secondary weapons for Sharpshooters and instead started researching gauss technology, which will let me upgrade cannons (Grenadier class) and sniper rifles (Sharpshooters). They already dealt the most damage (except for my Ranger killing machines), so I figured they could wait. But I also really need to upgrade armor because I do occasionally get one-shot. In the last mission I ran, an Advent Trooper shot my Sharpshooter for 7. One-shot kill! Of course I reloaded. Death is permanent and this game lets you save scum, which I am not above doing. Or at least, I was above doing until I almost lost the game. But I don't have money for any of these upgrades! I'm three ticks on the progress bar away from losing (again), and I desperately need to spend my resources on contacting new regions, recruiting resistance members, and destroying research facilities.
Here is the story about how I almost lost. I've described how you decrease the aliens' progress on the Advent project by destroying research facilities. They had built three, all in regions of the world I had yet to contact. You have to spend intel to contact regions before you can attack the research facility. But let's break down all the things I didn't know until the progress bar had almost filled! I had three ticks left on the progress bar, as I do now. I didn't understand that "regions available for contact" was a resource limited by your communications buildings. You need to build comms in order to enhance your capacity to maintain contact with more regions. When I realized this, I didn't have any free space on my ship to build comms. I had to use engineers to clear debris from empty rooms. This took perhaps 10 days to clear debris. In that time, the aliens filled the progress bar another tick. Down to two! But oh no! Comms cost 3 power to build and I only had 2 power, so I needed first to build a power relay. I assigned an engineer to begin clearing another room and assigned a second engineer to build a power relay. This took another 10 or so days to complete. Another tick on the progress bar. One tick left. I am freaking out. Power relay complete, build a comms station. 10 more days. Comms station is built and I still have one tick left! This might be doable! I traveled to the region I needed to contact, paid 30 intel. 3-5 days to contact the region. Shit, shit, shit. Miraculously, the aliens made no more progress. Region contacted! The research facility is actually one more region over. I knew that, but didn't know that intel costs to contact new regions increase the farther you are from your home base. Shit, shit, shit. I have 30 intel, but not the 60 required for contacting a more distant region. How do I get intel?! I googled this. Some missions, hacking certain enemies, and going back to your home base to scan for intel, which passes time, are all options. I flew back home and started scanning. One day. Two days. *ALERT! The Aliens have made progress on the Advent project!* I thought it was game over. I was ready to start over with all the knowledge I learned during this failed run. But a timer appeared for 20 days. I had 20 days left to delay the Avatar project! I scanned for a few more days to gather enough intel, flew back to the region, made contact, blew up the research facility. The progress bar ticked down by 2 and that seems to have buoyed me. I breathed a massive sigh of relief.
I haven't been almost dead since then. Now that I understand power and contact resources, I can plan ahead better, though my soldiers feel underpowered and I have had some terrifying missions, including some painful solder deaths, like my SPARK mech and a pretty advanced Grenadier. Recently, I had to attempt a couple missions while short on squad members. One I had to try with 4 (of 6) soldiers. I went sloooow and steady (luckily it was an untimed mission) and actually beat it with only one soldier getting injured. When soldiers get injured, they take time to recover (sometimes over 20 days!), and you can't use them during this time. This is why I had 4 soldiers to take on that one mission; everyone else was recovering. Playing safe is really important because otherwise, you will end missions with a full squad of injured soldiers. Then on your next mission, if it's thrown at you quickly, you'll have to rely on your benchwarmers and have far fewer options to build a good team for the mission. The biggest factor in playing safe is using cover. Your soldiers are either out of cover, in half cover, or in full cover. Shots have a +20% chance to miss against a unit in half cover and +40% in full cover. Full cover is GOOD. I read advice somewhere that said "half cover is no cover at all." I position units in full cover whenever possible. You can also flank and be flanked, which enhances hit % and critical hit chance. Never end your turn out of cover and do not let enemies flank you. They will ruin you!
Another wrench in my plans is when the game (randomly?) puts a boss in missions. There are three escaped alien science experiments that occasionally appear. They always take me by surprise. The first one is a scripted story mission that sets up these bosses. It is a Viper variant with two full rows of health. I don't even know how much that is. 30? 40 ticks of health? Enemy soldiers right now have probably 7 health on average, for comparison. Oh, and bosses aren't alone. They come out with other enemies too. I actually did a good job against the Viper. After depleting one full row of health, he opened up a portal and ran. The game hints that you'll see him again and finish him later. Well, I did see him again and finished him off. Then I encountered another boss, a hulking Berserker who gets a move after EVERY action you take. Not every unit's turn. Every ACTION. You move. He takes an action. You shoot. He takes an action. You reload. He takes an action. This thing has three full rows of health. He obliterated me the first time and it took me several tries to learn. This may have been the mission where I lost my SPARK unit and/or my Grenadier, and I am sure that everyone else was injured. He also warps out when you deplete a row of health. The second time he appeared was actually when I had a squad of four, but I noticed that he was--as a berserker might do--attacking anything in sight. I just set up an ambush, let him rampage around and kill all the other enemies, then focused fire to quickly bring him down a row of health. Poof, warped away, and I even knocked out a good chunk of his final row as he ran. During my last session, I encountered him again in a mission, but saved and quit there. He's far away and has two enemies patrolling with him, and I've got a strong squad on this mission, so I should be able to take him out pretty easily. But there's a third monster somewhere, and he might appear at the worst possible time! As with everything else in this game, all you can do is methodically prepare and hope that you're ready for what it decides to throw at you.
Hopefully I have a game victory to report in short order!
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This was a freebie at some point and I tried it out because of the Portal theme. The Portal mechanics are cleverly integrated with the building in Bridge Constructor. You basically build bridges to guide little workers and their carts through portals to the exit on each level. At first, I was pretty enamored with it. It's cute, they got GLaDOS to voice.
I got stuck on level 20 though (of 60); the challenge really ramps up! I think my struggle with it is that I know what I need to do, but I can't execute. Rather, I can execute, but it takes a lot of fiddling to do it. For example, on this level 20, you have to use panels to redirect some orbs into their holes so that cubes drop on the turrets, such that your carts can pass safely. Okay, so I had the idea figured out quickly! But getting the orbs to hit the surfaces at a specific angle to start a chain of bounces so that they go where you want them to is like...tweak, run test, tweak, run test, tweak, run test, tweak, run test, forever until you get it just right. Granted, my solution (when I looked it up) wasn't ideal, but it was going to work.
I watched levels 20-60 on YouTube, and there is no way I would have kept with it. The difficulty ramp happens around where I stopped. The game continues to add Portal mechanics, from speed gel and bouncing gel to laser grids to launching panels, and requires evermore elaborate bridges. I feel like I had a good understanding of the Portal bit, but not the Bridge Constructor bit. I shouldn't be an engineer.
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