LOG 3: APRIL 2020
By MCCash4Gold 0 Comments
Another month stuck inside a prison of my own design. I don't know about any of you, but I've found myself reaching the crushing ennui stage of my lockdown. I've had trouble finding something to keep me distracted, and usually when I do, it doesn't last for long or is very frustrating and annoying. I just want to leave. Let me out. LET ME OUT!!!
Anyway, video games or whatever.
Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole
When I first tried out all the games on the Sega Genesis Classic, this was one of the few that really stood out to me. Was this Sega's answer to Zelda? Sure, why not.
The game sees you playing as The titular Landstalker… Bill, I want to say? It's been a while since I stopped playing it. Either way, Bill and his girl Friday, are going around some island to finds some treasure and, uh… saving the world, I think? I know that I could very easily look all this up on Wikipedia, but I simply don't feel like it. Don't worry about it.
The game itself is a standard Zelda clone, mostly concerned with slashing away at enemies and solving puzzles every now and again. The swordplay mostly involves sticking in place and letting the enemies come towards you as you mash the sword button. I suppose you really can't expect much in the way of nuance at this point in time in gaming history, but it would be nice to have some more variety. Strangely, when Bill is too close to a wall or a bush he won't swing his sword and, there will instead be a metallic clinking sound. I assume the logic is that he doesn't have enough space to remove his sword from the sheath, but it didn't seem too consistent and was more of annoyance than anything else.
The real problems came from the isometric perspective. This game has it's fair share of jumping puzzles, but there are no shadows or any other indicator of depth in the game. There are several rooms where I had to just guess which direction would lead to the next platform and hope for the best. It's obnoxious, but I was able to deal with it for most of the game.
What started as a fun game just became tedious after a while, and a short time after going in circles in a maze, I was starting to get tired of the game. I switched over to playing on my PC with one of those "chill" mods that steam is inundated with. I know it's cheating, but I wanted to see the game to the end and being able to walk past any problems was a big boost. Plus, cheating is actually good, now.
However, even after going through the game in cheater mode, I simply found myself reaching a point where I didn't want to continue. There are some puzzles, especially later in the game that require very precise timing and pixel perfect placement. I wouldn't mind so much if these very precise puzzles weren't required to continue.
Landstalker has a lot of promise, and I did have some fun at the beginning. But there was a certain point where the frustration got the better of me. I hope Climax Entertainment figured out what to do when it came to Dark Savior, but if this gamespot guy is to be believed, my hopes are not high.
Still a classic after all these years. Still funny too, which is even more impressive. Too bad the sequel is probably never coming out.
Brume is a minimalist soulslike, complete with pixel graphics and an A24-style square aspect ratio. I screwed around with it for a few hours, but honestly, it didn't grab me. It's not to say that it's incompetent, but it was hard for me to retain interest for too long. I might dive back in, but I doubt I will.
Still holds up!
Pink Hour and Pink Heaven
After getting some time in with Cave Story, I decided to explore some more Pixel stuff, and played these two free games. They're short, sweet, and to the point. You can get through both in less than an hour, but they're enjoyable for what they are. Besides, they're free, so who really cares about the length.
Gris is a game that I was skeptical of when I started because it seemed like one of those very "GAMES ARE ART"-type of games. I was surprised and happy to see that there was a well-constructed game underneath the metaphor of it all.
Gris is a competent platformer, traversing through a ruined landscape that wildlife has started to take over. Unlike most platformers, there are no enemies to get rid of along the way. At least I don't remember any enemies. It's hard to remember everything with the sheer volume of media I'm consuming every month. Please, for the love of god, let me get back to work soon.
And of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the lovely hand-drawn artwork. Gris is a beautiful game, with some watercolor backgrounds, and some beautiful ruined architecture. If you're at all familiar with my opinions (the two or three of you that are), you'll know how much I dig that. It's a joy to explore, and it's something I might revist in the near future.
This game is cute, fun, and functional. And luckily the humor is not grating, which in video games is never a guarantee.
There will always be a place in my heart for this game, but I think this might be the last time I replay it for a while. It's still a great-looking game and an impressive feat by LizardCube, but I found myself losing interest after a while. Again, I have that CoronaVirus ennui.
What is immediately noticeable is the graphical upgrade. over the previous game. The artwork is much more detailed, and the animation is still as smooth as ever. There is a weird trick that the game pulls by making enemies with more health by scaling the sprite up in a way that looks weird and ugly. Aside from this, the game is largely the same as it's predecessor.
This time you play as Leon, the Spirit King, a character who I found more likable than the previous game's protagonist, less because of actual characterization, but more because I find his design more appraling. Like the previous game, Leon is going around the kingdom, gathering various elemental spirits to take on a terrible evil. It's not much to write home about, but it's not really that kind of game anyway.
The gameplay remains largely unchanged, though with the five additional buttons that come standard on a Saturn gamepad, there is some more spread out and nuanced controls, including a dedicated bomb button (note to developers: the more dedication you put into bombs, the better your game will be). And satisfyingly enough, the game still has the fighting game-like input system to really up the DPS of certain items.
The weapons system in Legend is where this game stars to distance itself from it's predecessor. Your weapons no longer degrade, but you now only have four of them. Since the previous games weapons were largely the same, I don't see this as too much of a downgrade. The wepaons also have certain buffs that have to be activated to get past environmental obstacles, but I often found little use for them outside of that; I often found myself sticking with my starter knife unless I absolutely I had to use a weapon to solve a puzzle. I'd actually prefer the older weapons system, but what do I know, I wasn't developing games at the tender age of five.
One of the other big changes that can be found is in the spirit system that was seen in the first game. While All Your Favorites Are Back there are also two new spirit companions representing the elements of sound and air. But who cares about that, the best is still the shade spirit as it's still the coolest. Again, I often found the spirits underutilized, but all of them do contribute to fighting whatever enemies are around, as opposed to the last time when only the fire one would.
The biggest problem I found in Legend of Oasis was in the design of the dungeons. The dungeons are largely vertically-oriented, which is unfortunate when paired with the 3/4 perspective. It's often difficult to judge what ledges Leon can jump up to and which are too high. This is paired with a lot of backtracking and makes Legend start to wear out it's welcome long before it's predecessor did.
If you are a diehard fan of the previous game, you might enjoy this, but I just found the whole thing disappointing. Hopefully this is something that will be fixed in the third Oasis game. It's coming any day now, mark my words.
How is it the best surprises seem to always come at the end of the month? I wasn't expecting much out of this game, as I forgot I had even had it. I got it from some humble bundle (don't know which one), and just had it downloaded for a while, not knowing anything about it. Hell, there isn't even a quick look of it!
Cathedral is a very well-made pixel-art, retro-style MetroidVania number. Sure, it's been done before, but I think Cathedral is one of the best ones out there. I thought I would put a few hours into it, but I ended up dedicating nearly four days just to playing it.
I would say more, but there are so many of these types of games, that you should already know whether or not you'd be interested in such a thing. This is a better one of those. I did have some strange display stuff, but it seemed to go away when I reinstalled windows.