2016 is here. It’s been here for a bit, actually, but now I’ve finally played some video games I feel like writing about. All I have down here at school with me are my PC (which works, sometimes), 3DS (which I’ve been using the most) and PS3 (which I haven’t hooked up yet). Don’t expect my hot take on Xenoblade Chronicles X or The Witcher 3 anytime soon, is what I’m saying. I do have some stuff in mind to occupy my attention in the coming weeks before Fire Emblem comes out and I write some lengthy treatise on that, but that’s a dark road that will be more fun for you, the reader, if you happen upon it without any direct forewarning for me. Let’s just say that I’ve made some... interesting HD collection choices for my PS3. But enough teasing, here’s the stuff I’ve spent the last month chipping away at between work and school.

Undertale

I think you should consider playing Undertale, if you haven’t already. While the king indie darling of last year has already had a bit of a backlash from all the hyperbolic praise it has accrued from various game publications and its weirdly zealous fanbase, I’ve found that having your opinion of a game be colored by the people who like it is a good way to hate everything. Do you think I’d like Fire Emblem as much as I do if I let the loony elements of that community affect me? Because right now I’m reading a thread where people are flipping the hell out over the removal of face rubbing in the US version of Fire Emblem Fates and it’s a good reminder that for as weird as it gets here on Giant Bomb sometimes, I don’t think we get that crazy. Where were we? Oh right, I enjoyed Undertale quite a bit. Best game of all time? That’s a stretch. Undertale is a charming, decently funny parody/deconstruction of 8/16 bit RPGs (and a little bit of games in general) that unfortunately is best experienced the first time with minimal spoilers. As a game, it’s almost perfunctory. The game’s vaunted concept is the ability to spare your foes instead of kill them, but a pacifist run will consist mostly of figuring out how to spare your random encounter RPG enemies while dodging their attacks. Do you like bullet hell shooters? I don’t. It’s never hard enough on a normal playthrough to be much of an issue, but if you are looking for thrilling moment to moment gameplay or deep and interesting RPG systems, that is not what Undertale is going for. It does some interesting things with the bullet hell concept here and there, and a few of the boss fights, but I still would classify the actual part where you play Undertale as “workmanlike.” That’s not really its goal, nor do I hold it against the game in any major way.

The point of Undertale is that it’s a genuinely funny, aggressively weird, but entirely heartfelt take on NES and SNES era RPGs with some Metal Gear Solid 2 levels of meta-commentary thrown in for good measure. There were parts of it that actually reminded me of The Stanley Parable, but with less condescending sneering at the player and more dates with skeleton men. By the time you get to said date, you should have a pretty good idea if this game if your jam or not, though I should also mention there’s a pretty good parody of the Final Fantasy VI opera scene. Getting into more spoilery territory, the game goes full crazy mode if you were to attempt the Genocide (Kill Everything) route, which acts as a giant middle finger towards completionists both in writing and in gameplay, calls out people watching it on youtube (myself included) and then ends with you being called a terrible person and a dark empty void after an absurdly difficult boss fight. I really like that. I have no regrets not doing it myself because it sounds like the opposite of fun. I can totally understand why some people love this game a ton, though I don’t think I’m one of them. It’s good, possibly great, with some quirky, likeable characters and a soundtrack that is more than just “Lol chiptunes like the old school chiptunes”. While I remain skeptical if it will actually be one of those games we cite 5 years from now as some sort of landmark, I recommend it nonetheless.

A short interlude on Steamworld: Heist

Hey, remember how I bemoaned the quality of all the turn-based tactical stuff that came out last year? Well, I did that. The only turn-based strategy thing I really enjoyed from 2015 was Disgaea 5, which for whatever reason clicked with me the way that previous games in the series didn’t. Well, I have great news: There was another pretty good tactics game that came out at the tail-end of 2015. That game is Steamworld Heist. If you don’t know what it is already, it’s a pretty dope, pretty light 2D take on a XCOM-ish, Valkyria-ish turn based shooter thing with steam-powered robots and plenty of styyyyle. I found the game to be more than solid, well worth $20, and a perfect length at 8ish hours. While a tad repetitive, there are a lot of different ways to tackle missions, mostly determined by the squad you bring with you (all of whom have different abilities and all of whom seem totally viable). I played on the “Challenging” difficulty, one step above normal, and found the game to be acceptably challenging right up until the last third where I sorta just steamrolled everything (ha). The story, while bare-bones, has some charming dialogue from your hearty crew of robot space pirates I’ll be totally honest here and say that it doesn’t quite give me what I want out of a tactics game. As I found with some of last year’s disappointments, I want a certain level of mechanical complexity to my turn-based strategizing. I want numbers ‘n shit, maybe a few subsystems, and a little more variety in enemy encounters to go along with that. That’s why the likes of Massive Chalice and its sub-XCOM reboot depth was such a turn-off. It turns out I don’t want a tactics game aimed at the person who played Enemy Unknown once on Normal. I want a tactics game for crazy people. Sadly, Steamworld Heist is a tactics game for the rest of you, and it’s a great one at that.

Let’s talk about Majora’s Mask

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is a… divisive game, to say the least. Saddled with the burden of being the follow up to one of the greatest games of all time, to say that Majora’s Mask is experimental (supposedly the result of a challenge from Shigeru Miyamoto to Eiji Aonuma to make a new Zelda game in 18 months) is an understatement. It has no interest in being a follow up to Ocarina of Time, nor does it have much interest in expanding upon already established series conventions. That’s why Wind Waker and Twilight Princess exist. After playing the game through to completion, getting every mask and a decent number of heart pieces, I have something to say: the 3DS version of Majora’s Mask is great. After years of absolutely hating this game from my youthful attempts at playing it on N64, I’m glad I gave it another shot. That said… you people who think it’s the best Zelda game are still crazy. Talking to you, Patrick Klepek. Majora’s Mask’s strengths have very little to do with it being a Zelda game and a lot more to do with it being effin’ weird.

Not that Zelda isn’t always a little weird, but Majora’s Mask has the central conceit of being a Groundhog Day-esque 3 day cycle that you have to repeat over and over again to stop the nightmarish moon from crashing into Termina and ending everything. For a E-rated game, MM is surprisingly morbid at times, as the various citizens of Clock Town and its surrounding environs confront the misery caused by Skull Kid and the potential end of the world. It does mood in a way most Zelda games don’t. A lot of the best things about Majora’s Mask come from that increased focus on random side characters and their problems (which you will have to inevitably solve if you want masks or pieces of heart.) But along the way Link learns a creepy dance, defends Romani Ranch from aliens trying to abduct cows, sells Deku flowers for profit, engages in a freestyle sesh with a zora guitarist and plays a bunch of inane minigames. Oh, and it’s the first game to have the eternally hated Tingle in it.While minigames and trading quests are a staple of the series, no other game goes quite as extreme as Majora’s Mask does, so extreme it required the N64 Expansion pack’s extra RAM to be able to run, alongside such late N64 hits (“hits”?) as Perfect Dark and Donkey Kong 64. It might go too far in some places, actually. The infamous Anju/Kafei quest that nets you a handful of masks (which in turn net multiple pieces of heart) seems like something no one would’ve ever figured out without a guide, and it’s one of the more interesting side quests in the game. I’m not really sure how it got away with that 16 years ago, but I guess 2000 was a different time. We’ll touch on that a little later.

It’s a good thing that stuff exists, because if you were to play Majora’s Mask straight through without touching any of that stuff, you’d probably hate it. As an actual Zelda game whereupon one enters a dungeon, gets an item and uses said item in the dungeon, it’s passable. The critical nature of the game’s time limit (which is something like less than an hour if you don’t play the Song of Inverted Time) means that each of the 4 major dungeons feel a little small and limited in a way that the best Zelda dungeons usually don’t (it doesn’t help that you have to fight the same miniboss wizrobe in each one). I found the highlight to be the Stone Tower Temple, which does some neat stuff with all 3 of Link’s transformation masks and flipping itself upside down. Since the masks are the focus, the actual dungeon items you get are literally just the bow and 3 different types of elemental arrows. There are areas that would qualify as “mini-dungeons” but I frankly don’t think those are all that great either. Maybe I need to replay some of the other 3D Zeldas for a more direct comparison, but I feel pretty good about saying that the dungeons in Majora’s Mask are as middle-of-the-road as they come. The Zelda parts of this Zelda game are not its strongest aspect.

In some ways, putting the most interesting parts of your video game in a series of optional side quests seems like bad design. And know what? I think the various quality-of-life improvements in the 3DS version make that argument a lot less valid. While the 3DS remake of Ocarina of Time was more or less a straight port, this MM remake had a lot more done to it to the point where I might say the controversial statement that the original N64 version is still not a great game. It’s not just the little stuff that adds up, like a more transparent game clock, moving the bank to central clock town, making the bomber’s notebook more useful, and redoing the boss fights to make them more interesting; it’s also about allowing for hard saves at owl statues and then increasing the number of statues in the world (The Japanese N64 version of MM didn’t even let you make suspend saves at owl statues, you had to play the song of time to record your progress in any fashion) and letting you move time forward as much as you want with the song of double time. I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed the game nearly as much (Or certainly had the patience to get every single mask) without some of those changes, which leaves me in a bit of a weird spot when it comes to me placing Majora’s Mask in my hypothetical and entirely objective Zelda tier list. I guess I’ll say this: Majora’s Mask 3D is a great game and you should consider playing it even if its original incarnation did nothing for you. Even if the dungeons are a little “whatever”, the various improvements to this remake help the weird and unique aspects stand out a lot better. Say what you will, there isn’t anything else quite like it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some homework, which isn’t an euphemism for anything. I actually have homework.

Huh, I had never heard of that Steamworld thing before, or perhaps I did but assumed it was another digging game like the first. Still, it's now on my 'watch' list and I'll hafta check out the QL in the near future to get a better grasp of it, too. I really wouldn't mind getting into some more tactics games, because I've played so very few of them but liked what I have played. Well, I liked the gameplay of VC... The XCOM reboot was a lot of fun too (though it didn't keep me locked in to play beyond a single playthrough) and it really sucks how its sequel isn't coming to consoles. Although it will surely make its way to other platforms eventually of course, because everything is released on everything these days. But from all I've read it seems like a game I'd have been interested to dig into sooner rather than later.

Speaking of tactics games, I was also really into Hogs of War back in the day...

alongside such late N64 hits (“hits”?) as Perfect Dark

Hey. HEY.

@yummylee: Yeah, Steamworld Dig seemed like a well-done version of a flash game I played in 2004, if I'm going to get a little reductive. Heist is far more interesting to me, though as I said it might be a little too "Tactics game for people who aren't crazy about tactics games" for my personal tastes. My computer is slightly below the minimum specs to run XCOM 2 (and would probably not run it well even if I did try to overclock my processor), so I'll have to sit that one out until it comes to consoles or I get a better computer (i.e. not anytime soon).

Yeah, that's right. You take my ambiguous phrasing and cash it in at the bank son, because I don't think Perfect Dark has aged particularly well.

@arbitrarywater: sure, that's fair. However, I made it my moral obligation to object anytime I see someone even slightly suggesting an N64 game I'm fond of is anything other that a masterpiece. Let me tell you this self imposed duty, nay, honor of mine goes over great at parties and family functions, at which all I do is bring up N64 classics and dare someone to say something bad about it.

Steamworld Heist sounds like something I'd really enjoy. A short tactics game, those are a rare breed. Gotta admit, I'm not sure if I'd like a SRPG that doesn't have an isometric perspective.

That's a really salient point @arbitrarywater about the Save system in Majora's Mask. I haven't played that game since it launched, but I remember being irked repeatedly that I'd lose my progress if I didn't play longer sessions than I wanted to. A good save system is so important to a game, I would love it if Nintendo Remade Zelda II: Adventure of Link with a save system that isn't so punishing. Honestly I think that's the sole reason that game was divisive as it had a tone of innovations people tend to overlook.

I liked Majora's Mask, it definitely felt more like an expansion pack than a true mainline Zelda to me and it seemed to come out of nowhere in an era where every Mario & Zelda releases was blasted repeatedly in TV ads

Or maybe I just didn't realize these trippy things were Zelda ads

I miss the days when Nintendo had a huge ad budget.

@slag: Late era N64 into Gamecube era was such a weird time for Nintendo of America, because they were trying SO VERY HARD to be edgy, even though the games that Nintendo development was putting out just were not quite that level of dark. Like, nothing ever reached FF7 levels of angst. Though admittedly Perfect Dark, into Majora's Mask, then followed a little later by Metroid Prime are probably the three most thematically dark Nintendo games to come out in such a short time.

Also, look at this insanely overproduced CG ad for the Game Boy Color Zelda games:

@bisonhero: ha so true!

I've never seen the Oracle Zelda ads before, that was certainly something.

@bisonhero: The early 2000s were a different time and I definitely agree with your assertion that NoA was trying to be hard and edgy. Both of those ads exemplify that quite well I think.

@slag: A short tactics game is like a vegetarian burrito. I might enjoy it, understand why other people enjoy it, and perhaps even acknowledge that it's better for me in some way, but it will never have enough meat in it to be my favorite.

Much like how I think Firaxis should make straight up sequels to Sid Meier's Colonization and Sid Meier's Pirates!, I think Nintendo should make new games that expand and modernize the ideas of Mario 2 and Zelda 2. I've never actually played a ton of Zelda 2 myself, though I have thought about getting it on 3DS and simply abusing the save-state functionality.

@arbitrarywater: Oh I feel the same way. But sometimes I want a palette cleanser per say in between longer games. i.e. to use your example A Vegetarian burrito as a snack ain't bad, not super excited about it for dinner though. I rotate between a bunch of different genres. I'll have an itch to play a SRPG, but I don't feel in the mood to go full Fire Emblem or something.

Hell yeah a Pirates! sequel would be so sick. Wasn't there supposed to be some Action Pirate game coming to Xbox One announced at last E3 or some such...Figure that is about all we're likely get for the swashbucklin in the immediate horizon.

Zelda 2 is worth your time if you are curious. Whereas Mario 2 was more accidental innovation Zelda 2 feels like a very deliberate choice Nintendo made in a time the business of strategy of creating games for console was still pretty formative. In many ways its feels just as foundational to the "metroidvania" subgenre as Metroid or Castlevania. Looking back it's really amazing how gutsy Nintendo was to reimagine Zelda from the ground up as a different type of game. Given that genre's revival in recent years, I almost feel like Zelda 2 is the second most influential Zelda game behind Ocarina of Time in terms of what it's inspired.

I always appreciated how creative Perfect Dark was, at a time when FPS games were starting to play "follow the leader" with few innovations of their own. I really like the genre, but I play so few games from it because they all feel the same. It's stuff like Portal, Borderlands and Singularity that break the mold that keeps me coming back. I actually thought the same thing about TimeSplitters 2 as well: no-one seemed to like those games because they used what was, at the time, a very weird control method with the two analog sticks. Holy shit, was that second one packed with a lot of really fun and stupid ideas though.

Glad to hear about the Majora's Mask 3D improvements too. They did the same thing with Wind Waker HD, adding so many extra conveniences on top of the graphical tweaks, and it's encouraging to know how well they understand the modern Zelda audience while we're still in this interim gap between Skyward Sword and whatever this next imminent Zelda is called. It makes me hopeful that they're learning all the right lessons for the new Zelda. Way fewer tutorials, for one.