Scattered Thoughts May 2018: Reimagined takes on older franchises

Another one of my mostly thematic months that only really fails with the last game in this list. Oh well, the video game industry loves taking older games and they try to make them work in a more modern context. Or they might even change the narrative hooks entirely to make it more interesting. Along with the age old tactic of just throwing a new coat of paint on a old game. I’ve seen a lot of these different takes on classic games in May via my reviews and now this list.

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God Of War: After last month it was pretty obvious what I was getting ready to play huh?

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Contra Rebirth: Yo this is a Contra game.

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Blaster Master Overdrive: I know the budget for this game was small but boy it feels like a bad flash game.

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State Of Decay 2: Looks like I should have took some screenshots of this game before my Game Pass trial ended.

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  God of War

  I was doubtful they could pull off a semi reboot of GoW but they did a solid job of it. Turning the once chaotic Kratos into a grumpy old man works surprisingly well. Leaving me really curious where they’ll head next even if I hope they just don’t do the obvious thing they seem to be hinting at. Yet the interactions between father and son where the highlight throughout the simple adventure to get to the highest mountain in all the land.

  Combat was very satisfying too with the very useful levantian axe being the key to most battles. Being able to throw and recall it is the key to many fights. General combat seems more about knowing when to use specials and timing dodges correctly. With Arterus proving backup in the form of firing arrows on command. As the game goes along the amount of tools at the players disposal increases. Keeps it from getting old till the adventure concludes. Overall I enjoyed it but didn’t feel like going back to finish everything once I completed it.

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  Contra ReBirth

  So unlike Castlevania Rebith this is pretty much a new game. Although it does feel like a mix of original Contra and the new weird story Konami made of this franchise in the PS2 era. Aka all the characters are now named labeled Contra as a way to note that they are brave warriors with abdominal spirit. Not that the story really matters since it is just a excuse to go wipe out another invading alien space force. On that front it plays like a game in this series should. All the movement and the weapons act the same while the bosses offer a bit of a challenge. Although the game does feel easier than previous entires but that might just be because it has infinite continues. Since this was released on WiiWare I doubt to many people got to see it. Might be worth checking out if you never played it before.

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  Blaster Master: Overdrive

  After playing through the superior update to Blaster Master via Zero going back to this looks like a bad flash game. Even though I’ve played both remakes at this point I’ve never touched the NES version. More so than Zero this feels like a direct update to the original. Other than making the story more darker the way it plays out feels like a classic NES game. Including some annoying boss battles. Since the gameplay is so stiff and slow other than the very effective drill dash I didn’t feel like continuing to throw myself at the latter bosses till I succeeded in beating them. Unless I enjoy playing something I don’t feel like it continuing to put more time into a game where I keep losing 15 minutes of gameplay each time. But if you still like tough old NES games then this might be worth playing.

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  State of Decay 2

  I didn’t expect to get pulled into this enough to finish the campaign. Games with minimal story either make the gameplay amazing or in the case of this game I just really liked exploring a town for materials while wiping out the more dangerous zombie nests with good planning. The fact I could lose anyone at anytime felt like I would hate it but it seems balanced well enough that it is pretty hard to lose everyone. As for the base planning elements they add some more strategy in the game yet it is pretty simple. I barely even interacted with it since most of the time I was on the road with a duo survivor team.

  While fights come down to just mashing x a lot they do require some thought since the goal of any fight is to not attract more zombies unless you have to. Getting overwhelmed is a easy way to fail. A variety of items will help in this task like distractions items or the ever useful molotov. The randomness of the drops does seem like it could be a pain. At some point I got real lucky and got two anti tank rifles that let me take out the rest of the pague hearts. Still a surprisingly fun game that I didn’t want to put down once I started playing it.