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The travel of table top to CRPG has a long and fraught path. The famous letters to Lord British leading to Ultima 4. Goldbox Games. This game's predecessors (both developer and franchises). The DREADED Gen 7. Pieces got to that level of interactivity and reativity like DOS2, Pathfinder, and Solasta. But one has finally got there, all while not scaring the bejesus out of everyone else but inticing them: BG3.
There's also a ton of little fixes to both D&D5e rule system and Larian's battle system. Brilliant use of Shove, Throw, Jump, and how the famous surface system is toned down to be a fun advantage and no longer a Splatoon-fest of insanity.
The characters as a group are subtle (god knows they aint as individuals, but I digress). What starts as a gang of drama llamas (and Karlach) show real varied depth and maddening oxymoronic traits by close.
Big quibble with the lack of sliders for sound. Only overworld barks could be adjusted individually, continuing the backslide seen in SMT V, whereas the below Nayuta did have this.
But overall, we have the first of two watershed moments for their genres this year, and to see Larian grow and so many "get" this kind of intricate prep and insight-heavy gaming is heartwarming.
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After alot of kvetching and empty threats, underfunded and undercooked Fighters, we have one of the absolute best on-launch in the genre's history with SF6.
The breadth and brilliance of the systems, audience interaction, and vibes is immaculate. We'll start with the systems.
The Drive gauge is so intricate while being so obvious. You got Alpha Counters, SF3 Parries, Focus Attacks, Focus Cancels, and V Gauge in one, all while giving you access to some instant offense from round 1 go but at a cost of making you easily bullied. Drive Impact forcing creativity and not autopiloting on offense. Cancel for some wild-ass combo creativity. Parry as a refill not a guarenteed reversal without perfect...the list goes on and on.
I called it audience interaction as that's what it is right? Not so much the lowest floor possible as the Gamer Bribery crowd wants, but one that's inticing, tempting. Modern Controls are what Capcom has been tinkering with for literally 3 decades and they landed it here by designing one for controllers. Plus, you have characters in World Tour telling you the mentality or showing by having you do it via fights (drones teaching you to anti-air, parry-happy opponents needing to be thrown, etc). Its easily the best Fighter tutorial since VF4.
There is such a vibe with this game. From Metro City going the only route it could having Haggar and Cody being mayors back to back with people fighting in the streets, to the return of hip-hop to VGM and the spray paint aesthetic to the many of the returning classics remeniscing and opennin up in WT to some of their history and thoughts. Its really holistic in that way Kinu-era Capcom did.
There are a few problems. Their Krusty Bucks fighter coins debacle, bad EA Sports game-level WT main plot, and the garbo menus being among them.
But this is it, we've never seen such a strong Fighter out the game like this, especially for the series.
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I crave novelty. Like, nostalgia is something I'm wary of unless its been self-vetted. And Mario is the absolute KING of nostalgia...but also novelty. The series has always done best when its really reveling in crazy new concepts.
So what if you made a game entirely around novelty?
Nintendo sat on this for years, adding ideas from the company as a whole, leading to most levels having a game-wide hook. Its so dense! Dancing Piranha Plants! Walking on the walls! Stampede surfing! Swiming from water blob to water blob! On and on it goes. And it has this slick mulitplayer feature cribbed from Souls acting like an easy mode too (note also there's no Skill Wall after credits too!) Plus it gets rid of that degenerate and incredibly tired BAH BAH from the News, sounding more like in a general vein of Odyssey.
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Finally, FINALLY people have come to understand that Finland Is Where Good Games Come From. And from Antti Tiihonen, of Legend of Grimrock series, Noita, Control, Alan Wake and Druidstone specifically, comes this very zen puzzler. From just picking up boxes, and not very many per level either, you play thru one of the most Restriction Is Strength games Ive seen. Almost no fluff here, its you, 1 to 6 boxes, and some android labor between you and a good deal of staring at the screen as all good puzzlers do.
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Short and bittersweet (and hunger-inducing!) Venba gives a very respectable nuance look at culture, people, food, the march of time, (food), and indian kitchen appliances. Wonderful menus. Wonderful scene setting. Hard-hitting truths...but if only there was a trashcan option when it got to the cilantro.
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A fun little action game that solves two major problems in the Bad Mike Tyson's Punchout environment we find ourselves in.
1. You're active. Flynning means going on offense doesnt mean you get armored thru (like Sekiro).
2. There's tons of fun cartoony swashbuckler stuff to do people in like buckets on heads, kicking people swaying on cliffs, or the satisfying chandelier drop, all of which makes adds fun rather than a bad pacing mechanic.
Its also quippy as hell, again, living up to the Three Musketeer/Insult Swordfighting trope perfectly.
The one real problem is, that despite its apt and breezy 4 hour playthru, the last level sans final boss is entirely recycled despite the setting just to pad.
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Trails' second of three "intermission" games has a burden not only to painting a path onwards to the back third of the series, but also digging out of the corner they painted themselves in with the previous few games.
Gone are endless rescue missions, harem scarem, fleeing villians, and needless bloat of the last 4 games. Main game is 45 hours, 3 paths, and in general books thru the story and character beats they wanna tell. It's a refreshing change of pace to have mistakes fixed and sludgy storytelling clarified, and having the fluff being fun and shoved off the end to the largely voluntary dungeon crawler.
Now, its 7th, so that means there were problems. One is that the 3 paths are not equal, with C's route being an excellent emotional ride concerning pentience and belonging, Rean's being a pretty good yet procrastinated mopping up of Erebonia's and his threads, and Lloyd's...oh boy Lloyd's. Yall've seen how good Zero and Azure was right? How much sense of place Crossbell is, the ever-increasing tension and intricacy of its plot, and its vast cast of lovable and interesting characters right?
Yeah, that doesn't exist in his route. Most of their personalities are sucked out, plot beats are recycled wholesale, and the city feels like a theme park more than Mishelam could ever be. Here's also where all the skeevy and anti-LGBTQ stuff ended up too.
Music's better than its predecessor tho!
And this ties into BG3 above, in that this was another series some dont give the earlier games of its maker much of a look before it went cinematic, but with Reverie, they actually choreographed scenes out and had all character movement look good for the first time. Seriously, this is actually quality now.
Looking forward to the series continuing to shed its recent bad habits with Daybreak after playing this.
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Another from the (now ancient) Falcom vaults, a relabeled Zwei game. Its pretty good! Gets alot of mileage out of the seasons conceit for the first half of the game to complement the Zwei gamefying.
But what also comes from that Zwei heritage is the occasionally sloppy combat (bosses shoving you around with phantom hitboxes, bizarre timing) which saps some of the really creative bosses of the game. Also the Game Gear-tight camera at times is a real problem.
Can't beat that soundteam_JDK Goodness tho.
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VE is fine, but its in a very crowded field and one of those indie games where the makers were trying to wear more hats then they could reasonably do so, making it erratic between brilliant and mediocre. The music is phenomenal, but sfx are often scant and soft. Player mobility and attacking feels great, but combat is often in prefab monster closet boxes. Dungeon level design is aces but the dialogue is flat YA stuff, etc.
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A feast for the eyes and ears, but like VE above, feels very partial.
There is a really strong level and traversal design backing up those gorgeous art direction, but the "metroidvania-ness" of the overall level design is very rote and more like key cards rather than tried and true staples like "you got double jump!". And enemies slow down the action soooooo muuuuuuch and have alot of palette swaps too.
But maaaaaaaaaaan the prog/fusion soundtrack and that GLORIOUS use of color and the proper framing on cutscenes. Try it out on a sale for that alone.
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