Three strings left from 2021

33 months before this list was up, I put up my list for the year 2021. It has 18 games on it and those were only the ones yours truly gave thump-ups to. So, this fortunately short list contains the trio I would give thumb-downs to. 33 months are not enough time to erase my fury towards them, especially with reminders popping up in this long and hot summer…

Part 1 In which Voice of Cards: the Isle Dragon Roars is roasted

My next game is…Metaphor: ReFantazio 2! I, Yoko Taro, will be its director and writer. The game starts with blood and gore! All of the characters on the (first game’s) poster behind me get stabbed by a spear!

----Yoko “NieR creator” Taro, impression of Metaphor: ReFantazio demo

Mr. Yoko was clearly making a joke up there. Though I would not call it a good one: the punch line was delivered within the first sentence, yet it just kept going. “Impressive at first then dragging on” is not limited to things Mr. Yoko directs and writes, but things he merely oversees. Enters Voice of Cards: the Isle Dragon Roars.

As its title implies, Isle Dragon Roars looks as if it’s made of cards. But it’s just an orthodoxy to a fault turn-based JRPG. Either would have been fun on its own, but its combination under the supervision of Yoko feels off. For one thing the card look gets old very fast and makes the game feel rather cheap. One cannot help but see the game as cheap with not one but two thematic sequels coming out less than 12 months after the game’s launch.

The game let players save to their heart’s content, until the final dungeon. I see no reason other than dev fucking with players. The game’s happier ending is locked behind an extra challenging optional boss fight. And that was when the game’s flaws just flooded through.

For one the Random Encounters are not so random, once about three steps one take to be more precious. Without the fast-forward option in them Altus outings, even escaping would prove a drag. The game has voice-over narration as in a game master, but it feels as if someone played a little bit of Bastion (Not even until the Build A Wall is sung) and thought one voice was enough.

I personally do not think Yoko Taro deserves a bigger budget, but he should not get underfunded either. The man is one-note enough with the er modest amount given. Give him less and he would deliver less.

Part 2 where Bright Memory Infinite fades

Oh, not Journey to the fucking West, again!

-----Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, Fully Ramblomitc reviewing Black Myth: Wukong

Damn, Black Myth: Wukong! Even a foul-mouthed limey who did not even recognize your take on Zhu Ba Jie found your mining in the public domain tiring. Now imagine a Chinaman being told that he should read Journey of the West since his teenage days would feel about your expensive looking bullshit! Anyway, the subject here is not the potential “Black Myth franchise” and its despicable public domain exploitations, but rather something in many ways its polar opposite, Bright Memory Infinite. The game has “new ip”, female protagonist and short runtime, in opposite to Wukong’s public domain mining, “dick swinging” and long campaign.

I bet many had forgotten about 2021’s Bright Memory Infinite. The game is a way too short first-person shooter. It takes one longer to watch a Lord of the Rings flick (Theatrical cut and skipping end credits) than it takes to play this tech demo with a price tag on it. Being someone with a life, I do prefer shorter games, but there are sweet spots and then there is too short for its own good.

“6 hours” is on the shorter side but still a rather sweet spot. Not just for us who played in the Xbox 360 and PS3 days. It usually takes me 6 hours or so to read a novel composed of 500 or so pages, so it is about the right amount of time to make one feel satisfied with a purchase off the shelf. “3 hours” are just taking a piss compared to that. Oh well, the individual behind the game sure made what he set out to make and is getting the dress-up dolly income. I as part of audience just wrongly excepted too much.

Part 3 when Halo Infinite burnt

Initial I

In Halo Infinite, Master Chief’s armor ceases to seem invincible. His call to arms goes unanswered. The man is having a mid-life crisis.

----A Que, author’s afterwords for Halo fan fiction titled To Where Stardust Burns

“A Que” is the pen name an engineer turned game developer publishes his science fiction under. So, I suppose it’s out of professional courtesy that the man expressed his disappointment regarding Halo Infinite by writing fan fic, set in the old good days of 2003 to 2005 with some Last Star Fighter elements on the top. Yours truly does not have such concern, so time to pull out the flamethrower.

Whoever calls Halo Infinite a return to form is at the very least not telling the truth. During the 2020, in the early days of Covid lockdown, Microsoft was releasing Halo Master Chief piece meal on Steam, Halo 2 in May and 3 in July. Yours truly played those campaigns at their Steam launches and by the time Infinite came along it felt like a different animal. I can only imagine how much worse A Que did at a much worse time, as he binged through the whole series of first-person shooters up to Halo Infinite during the infamous 2022 Shanghai Lockdown. Well, his sentence quoted above is closest the man got to be a critic.

Anyway, thresholds like demons are in the details. Halo Infinite’s biggest sin is not allowing the player to go flight or fight like them Bungie games, for fights are all it offers. Once a button needs to be pushed, it cannot be until enemies are cleared out. Adding that on top of no stealth or otherwise one-hit melee kill against Elite style enemies, the campaign drags on and on.

The other part that feels dragged on is the lack of co-op at launch while some encounters are clearly designed with only co-op. I am of course talking about the double Brute fight in a crash site. Those fuckers have regenerating shield and very high firepower. Playing it while watching Keighley’s 2021 sure made me go “If this industry burnt to the ground today, I would not shed a tear”.

What 9 hours er, wasted on this game’s campaign, I took a long break. When I booted the game back up, there was a glitch preventing me from continuing the campaign. I just took it as a sign and stopped. Microsoft has sunk its flagship called Halo, and I am just done with it.