Professor Layton versus ArbitraryWater (and other wonderful uses of time and money)

Ah, greetings dear readers. Turkey day has come and gone, as has Black Friday (I didn’t buy anything), and I’ve been enjoying the comforts of family and friends along with the usual discomfort of eating an inordinate amount of food. Know what else I’ve been enjoying? Anime! Thought I was going to say Video Games, huh? Nope. Those too, but let me take a second to say that Steins;Gate and Psycho Pass are two of the better animes I’ve watched in a long while. Ok, that second is over. My break was pretty good. Played a lot of video games! Perhaps I can tell you about them below!

Bayonetta 2

You may recall that I played the first Bayonetta last year, where I found it a great, if somewhat overwhelming, character action game. Welp, a few weeks ago I went home for my birthday and bought myself this game as a present for myself (Because that’s what you do when you’re an adult. You buy presents for yourself and your parents give you clothing because that’s what you actually need). Given that the Wii U is technically for “the family”, I can’t actually bring it down to school until I rustle up the capital needed to purchase a replacement. Fine by me. I have enough distractions from important things without high quality action games at my beck and call (except, y’know, the part where I have a 360 and the Devil May Cry HD collection, or a PC and Metal Gear Rising). Even now, during this Turkey-related holiday break, I find myself replaying it on 3rd Climax and still having a blast. Yo, if you own a Wii U and like these sorts of games (maybe even if you don’t), it’s very much a must-have for the system. No ifs ands or buts about it. Is it worth getting a Wii U for on its own? Nah. No one game is ever worth purchasing a system for. I’d argue that there are more than enough must-own titles to make the Wii U a justifiable purchase, though that obviously depends on how much one enjoys first party Nintendo games.

In general gameplay terms, the hyperkinetic character action fever dream is still in full effect, albeit without some of the minor issues I had with the first game. It’s a little easier, the pacing is tighter and the game is more generous at doling out weapons, which allowed me to find the ones that suited my fancy (a big fan of the giant hammer and the double swords, not a big fan of the ice/fire maces), whereas I don’t think I ever found anything better than that first katana in Bayo 1. The story is still complete nonsense, though I found it a little less overwhelming than the first. But man, whenever anyone is talking about things it sure does become tempting to press the skip cutscene button. Still silly and exceptionally Japanese, just the way I like it. I’m no wizard, I’m not fantastic at these types of games, but Bayonetta 2 is easily one of the best I’ve played in quite some time. Better than Metal Gear Rising. Better than that DMC reboot. Better than the little bit of God of War I played that one time. Don’t be surprised when it ends up quite high on my Game of the Year list.

Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright

After thoroughly enjoying and finishing Gyaukaten Kenji 2, my first order of business was to purchase this thingy for a sum of money. I’ll admit my expectations were sort of low after hearing some rumblings that the game wasn’t well-loved when it came out in Japan like two years ago, nor was I quite sure how well I’d take to the Professor Layton school of dumb video game logic puzzles. It turns out that: A. The game is very good and B. I like the Professor Layton school of dumb video game logic puzzles. For those who don’t know, PL vs PW is essentially a cross-over in the purest sense, in that you are either doing a Professor Layton-style puzzle or engaging in a Phoenix Wright investigation/courtroom segment without much creative interaction from either side. That’s fine, as it turns out, and the story that brings together the Ace Attorney and the Puzzling Professor is a surprisingly good one, albeit with an ending I found a little too convenient for its own good (which is the same thing I thought about Ghost Trick, for the record). While I’m not one for sharing details about the story when the story is the main draw, I think this game gets a lot of mileage out of its faux-medieval setting and the weird logic that sometimes accompanies it. I also thought the puzzles were decently clever without being crushingly difficult, and the game gives the player enough hint coins that you could brute force your way through without much difficulty.

All that said, I think the game plays it a little too softball with the courtroom segments. Maybe I’m a little spoiled, but Inquisitor Barnham is hardly the antagonistic presence that some other notable prosecutors/rivals have been. The cross-examination of multiple witnesses is a nice touch, especially when it comes to using their testimonies to contradict one another, as is the inclusion of magic spells as admissible evidence. Still, with those only comprising half the game, it’s not unfair to say that they aren’t the sole focus the way they are in other Ace Attorney games, and that’s fine. Because as a whole, Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright is a game I very much enjoyed. If you’re not a crazy person like me who has played every game in the series, then this isn’t a bad place to go either, since the story is entirely self-contained and not reliant on callbacks or previous knowledge the same way some of the more reference-heavy Ace Attorney games have been. It’s not quite as good as Dual Destinies, but it will probably end up on my Game of the Year list in some form too… though that likely says more about this year than it does this game.

Other nonsense:

I’ve been playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, though due to finals being in a few weeks and me needing to finish this semester strong, I’m not sure how much I’m going to play until the next holiday break. I like that game quite a bit, but I’ve been semi-deliberately avoiding a lot of discussion about it on these forums to keep myself fresh. Thus far I’ve been wandering around the Hinterlands, playing on hard and making heavy use of the tactical view, where it plays sort of like a cross between Origins and DA2. The idea of playing it like a bad action RPG doesn’t really work with me, to be honest. I figure it will get its own write-up should I ever have the trillion hours necessary to complete this game, because holy hell does it seem big.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is for all intents and purposes a stand-alone expansion for Bordlerands 2. I am surprisingly fine with that, given that I enjoyed BL2 despite its occasionally caustic sense of humor and repetitive grind treadmill. Sometimes you just want a dumb loot game, and this delivers that quite handily. I imagine I’m about halfway through the story, playing as Athena and generally enjoying the use of melee attacks and that reflector shield she has. Probably helps that the writing is a lot less offensive and it’s been like two years since I’ve played one of these, but I’ll likely finish this before the year is through.

Also I played some Mario Party with friends during the break. Holy shit, Mario Party is terrible. So of course we played two different games in the series. Well, actually, Mario Party 6 is terrible. Mario Party 4? Surprisingly ok. For as much as people say those games didn’t really change all that much from year to year, there is a drastic difference in minigame quality for those two games, not to mention a difference in board game quality. I’m half tempted to get the entire series on Ebay and do some sort of ill-advised comprehensive overview but that would cost too much in terms of both funds and human suffering to be something I’ll do anytime soon. Oh! Also we played some Smash Bros but that game is exactly what you’d expect. I like playing as Shulk. It looks very pretty. The end.