EphemeralEnigmas
18 Reviews liked by EphemeralEnigmas
As one of the last games on the Dreamcast, which was SEGA’s last real contribution to the console market before they just gave up in general, Skies of Arcadia is certainly a lost gem in its own regard.
For a game like this you sorta have to wonder how this even managed to string up a cult following when it was pretty much set to fade into history around the time real JRPG heavy hitters started rolling around the corner. And on a surface level, Skies of Arcadia really doesn’t have much to offer against the lot in terms of doing something really “unique” or “boundary pushing”, especially in terms of its story. Many of its plot points were obviously taken right from Final Fantasy 7; Valua is a dead ringer for Midgar, Fina and Ramirez are akin to Aerith and Sephiroth, you fight kaiju-sized personified weapons tied to an ancient civilization in this world, and Moon Stones might as well have just been called Materia.
It might even be a stretch to call a JRPG taking inspiration from the biggest game changer in the genre of the time a mere “rip-off” when in reality it’s taking these elements to provide a sort of alternative to what was available. In that sense, it’s almost like a response to FF7 and the impact it would leave on JRPGs trying to recapture or play into its existential and melodramatic pathos. Skies of Arcadia stands firmly against this wave of JRPGs by just being a simple, soul filled adventurous experience of a straightforwardly charming good dude who just wants to do good as a pirate.
While the Legends port (remaster?) fixes and adds a bunch of things to make the game feel more expansive and “complete”, I still think there needs to be more ironing out for the gameplay. Like many turn-based RPGs Skies of Arcadia falls into the unfortunate archaic trappings of battles feeling too slow which isn’t helped by the random encounters. The real culprit here comes with the ship battles, which while really fun on paper, definitely feels too sluggish and drawn out to really feel engaging after a while. You just hold out against your enemy long enough until you see the option to just blast your special cannon which usually instakills everything. There’s no real tension in combat up until the last stretch where the game really tries to get you on your toes. The actual mechanics for regular combat are a bit lopsided in how they’re designed, like adding an entire new layer to combat on enemies having elemental color weaknesses and changing your weapon’s color to abuse that is weird, but when it works it becomes worthwhile. I also like how Magic is still its own system with its own energy to use independently from Special Moves which only requires a shared meter that the entire party charges and uses to perform what’s basically just Limit Breaks.
But I think the real appeal that the developers intended for this game is the exploration. A lot of it feels condensed by modern day standards but for a DreamCast/Gamecube title the world design for flying your ship in is still great. It really drives home the grand sense of adventure as throughout the course of the game you upgrade your ship to get pass areas you weren’t able to before, creating shortcuts from one part of the map to the other, and even completely negate random encounters by flying high on top of the map or below it.
Gotta give props to the music tho. Gamecube port basically butchers the audio through decompression but it’s not enough to flush out how great the sound can still be, especially during boss battles where the boss theme dynamically changes rhythm and melody depending if you’re close to winning or losing the fight. It’s a really simple thing to do but it’s so damn effective especially during times when you finally prevail against the heavy hitters.
While this game would realistically never get a sequel I still liked to see it getting a new modernized port on something like the Switch with all the QoL features emulation helped provide to make this a smoother experience. Ideally, a remake would be better for overhauling the gameplay to re-balance the combat and maybe even fix up the over-world more. Other than that, unless you can fork over 100 dollars for a physical copy for your Gamecube, this is stuck in Emulation Hell.
For a game like this you sorta have to wonder how this even managed to string up a cult following when it was pretty much set to fade into history around the time real JRPG heavy hitters started rolling around the corner. And on a surface level, Skies of Arcadia really doesn’t have much to offer against the lot in terms of doing something really “unique” or “boundary pushing”, especially in terms of its story. Many of its plot points were obviously taken right from Final Fantasy 7; Valua is a dead ringer for Midgar, Fina and Ramirez are akin to Aerith and Sephiroth, you fight kaiju-sized personified weapons tied to an ancient civilization in this world, and Moon Stones might as well have just been called Materia.
It might even be a stretch to call a JRPG taking inspiration from the biggest game changer in the genre of the time a mere “rip-off” when in reality it’s taking these elements to provide a sort of alternative to what was available. In that sense, it’s almost like a response to FF7 and the impact it would leave on JRPGs trying to recapture or play into its existential and melodramatic pathos. Skies of Arcadia stands firmly against this wave of JRPGs by just being a simple, soul filled adventurous experience of a straightforwardly charming good dude who just wants to do good as a pirate.
While the Legends port (remaster?) fixes and adds a bunch of things to make the game feel more expansive and “complete”, I still think there needs to be more ironing out for the gameplay. Like many turn-based RPGs Skies of Arcadia falls into the unfortunate archaic trappings of battles feeling too slow which isn’t helped by the random encounters. The real culprit here comes with the ship battles, which while really fun on paper, definitely feels too sluggish and drawn out to really feel engaging after a while. You just hold out against your enemy long enough until you see the option to just blast your special cannon which usually instakills everything. There’s no real tension in combat up until the last stretch where the game really tries to get you on your toes. The actual mechanics for regular combat are a bit lopsided in how they’re designed, like adding an entire new layer to combat on enemies having elemental color weaknesses and changing your weapon’s color to abuse that is weird, but when it works it becomes worthwhile. I also like how Magic is still its own system with its own energy to use independently from Special Moves which only requires a shared meter that the entire party charges and uses to perform what’s basically just Limit Breaks.
But I think the real appeal that the developers intended for this game is the exploration. A lot of it feels condensed by modern day standards but for a DreamCast/Gamecube title the world design for flying your ship in is still great. It really drives home the grand sense of adventure as throughout the course of the game you upgrade your ship to get pass areas you weren’t able to before, creating shortcuts from one part of the map to the other, and even completely negate random encounters by flying high on top of the map or below it.
Gotta give props to the music tho. Gamecube port basically butchers the audio through decompression but it’s not enough to flush out how great the sound can still be, especially during boss battles where the boss theme dynamically changes rhythm and melody depending if you’re close to winning or losing the fight. It’s a really simple thing to do but it’s so damn effective especially during times when you finally prevail against the heavy hitters.
While this game would realistically never get a sequel I still liked to see it getting a new modernized port on something like the Switch with all the QoL features emulation helped provide to make this a smoother experience. Ideally, a remake would be better for overhauling the gameplay to re-balance the combat and maybe even fix up the over-world more. Other than that, unless you can fork over 100 dollars for a physical copy for your Gamecube, this is stuck in Emulation Hell.
Elden Ring
2022
This review contains spoilers
Elden Ring was my most anticipated game since its announcement at E3 2019. I can happily say that I’ve enjoyed my time with the game, though it is far from flawless.
As someone who took the time to fully devour the open world and clear out any cave, mine, ruin, or dungeon I came across in my travels across the Lands Between, I can’t help but feel like I missed something reading so many people talk about how Elden Ring has fully transformed the genre of open-world games, or how Elden Ring’s open-world feels so different from others. I fail to see what truly differentiates Elden Ring from others in its genre beyond the unmistakably unique vibe that the Dark Souls games inherently have. As we’ll get into later in the review, the non-open-world areas of Elden Ring are the peak of its gameplay and level design, so I’m a bit lost as to how the game meaningfully benefits from an open-world.
The game’s opening regions, Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula, give an absolute breathtaking first impression, and I believe serve as the peak of Elden Ring’s open-world experience. There is an incredible variety in the opening zone, showcasing mines, ruins, abandoned churches, a traveling caravan, a giant walking mausoleum, at least 3 incredibly detailed and fun to explore castles, and by my last count, a whopping 38 bosses. Once you expand into the wider world beyond Limgrave, into Liurnia of the Lakes, Caelid, and beyond, it is a sad realization to find out that you have pretty much experienced 80-90% of what the open-world has to offer already. Every single region is a mish-mash of similar looking caves full of rats and wolves, mines full of rock-human miners and upgrade materials, tombs full of zombies and skeletons, 4-5 abandoned churches with identical layouts featuring a Site of Grace and a Sacred Tear, and the same dozen or so field bosses that feel unique the first time you fight them, then like busywork when you’re tasked with killing the Tibia Mariner for the fourth time or the Burial Tree Watchdog for the seventh.
Even Elden Ring cannot avoid falling into the same traps of every open-world game before it. This, I think, is its biggest and most fatal flaw. The exploration feels like it should be very rewarding, but once you delve into the 40th cave and fight the Crucible Knight once again (but this time there’s 2! How interesting!) just to receive another Ash Summon you won’t ever use (or worse, crafting materials, the biggest slap in the face), it just starts feeling like a waste of time. You start feeling like just skipping the boring dungeons and riding as quickly as you can to the next main story area. It feels like massive filler, and the countless people praising the Lands Between as “the evolution of open-worlds” just has me scratching my head.
Boss design in general is another point of contention for me. While there are a few standouts I’ll discuss in a moment, I feel overall, Elden Ring’s bosses are incredibly underwhelming. They feel creatively stretched thin over the 100+ encounters throughout the game’s immense length. Many encounters feel reminiscent of Dark Souls II, the game in the series most infamously known for “quantity over quality”. Simple basic enemies scaled up and presented as “bosses”, unimaginative monsters that flail around in tiny rooms and send the camera into a whirlwind, and possibly the largest amount of duo- or gank-fights in the series. Bosses are also reused constantly, leaving each additional encounter feeling staler than the last. I wouldn’t have too much of an issue with the field bosses, such as the Night’s Calvary being reused, but Astel, a major boss from an important side quest, whose initial encounter feels very special, is inexplicably reused in a random mine towards the endgame. Why? What purpose does this serve? It cheapens the original fight for no reason when they could have added another Stonedigger Troll and avoided this altogether. Bafflingly, main story boss Godrick is also reused in an Evergaol challenge, same voice actor and all.
When the bosses aren’t being egregiously reused or being otherwise completely forgettable, I think there are some excellent boss fights in Elden Ring. Margit, likely the first major boss players are going to fight, is an intense, shockingly deep battle for such an early encounter. Margit’s true form, Morgott, fought towards the back half of the game, improves this fight even more, adding a deeper movepool for the boss and some amazing visuals. The battle with the Fire Giant in the snowy Mountaintop of the Giants is one of From’s greatest spectacle bosses in the franchise. Weaving in and out of the absolutely monumental giant’s attacks as he rains fire down upon you is breathtaking and feels like a boss out of God of War. The battle against Rykard in the Volcano Manor is the ultimate evolution of the Storm King, Yhorm, and Divine Dragon boss fights and makes you feel truly powerful. The game’s penultimate major boss, Godfrey (and his alter-ego, Hoarah Loux), is a fast and frantic duel that shows you the true power of the Elden Lord.
I would also like to heap some praise on what the game calls Legacy Dungeons, aka traditional zones from previous Souls games. Stormveil Castle is a masterclass of level design and would stand among the best areas from the Dark Souls trilogy. The new jumping mechanic allows Fromsoft to go absolutely nuts with level verticality. It feels like you have half a dozen potential paths ahead of you from almost every point. The levels are also immense, with Stormveil alone feeling about the size of half of the Boletarian Palace from Demon’s Souls. While unfortunately I feel like Stormveil is the peak of these Legacy Dungeons, all of them feel like they have a lot to offer and are fun to explore and run through.
Build variety is at perhaps its best here, with every type of character feeling not only viable, but powerful. An arsenal of gigantic weapons await strength builds, dozens of daggers, spears, and flails are here for dex builds, and the greatest variety of spells are here for definitively the most interesting and fun caster builds in the entire franchise. After the disaster that was Dark Souls 3’s magic system, it’s great to see it being viable and strong.
The newest additions to the Souls combat system are Ash Summons and Ashes of War. Ash Summons cost MP (most of them at least) and summon in ghostly versions of enemies you’ve encountered throughout your journey to fight alongside you. These can range from a pack of wolves, a band of skeletal warriors, some minibosses you’ve fought, like the Black Knife Assassin, or even a clone of yourself that fights with your currently equipped gear in an absolutely brilliant twist on the Mimic from previous Souls games. I love this addition and feel it’s a great boon to the player against Elden Ring’s general increase in difficulty. It helps you balance the game’s harder fights closer to your favor in a way that doesn’t feel as cheap as summoning a co-op partner.
Ashes of War are the evolution of Dark Souls 3’s weapon arts. Whereas each weapon in DS3 had its own unique ability, Elden Ring allows you to mix and match them, purchase new abilities, and find hidden ones in the field. You can then apply them to any non-unique weapon you wish, allowing for even further build variety. The level of customization you have on your character in Elden Ring is truly staggering.
I’m super happy to say that while the multiplayer system is still needlessly archaic and convoluted, it’s an absolute massive step-up from the previous Souls games. Instead of requiring single-use, annoying-to-farm items like Humanity or Embers to engage in co-op, all you need is to craft one using a couple of extremely common flowers. At any point I could just open my crafting menu and whip out 20-30 of them. Additionally, playing online spares you from invaders in single-player, only opening you up to attacks when you have a partner with you. I think these are great changes and make the MP experience a lot smoother and accessible than in previous titles.
Though I complained about the game’s open-world and boss design, I want to stress how wonderful of an experience Elden Ring has been. The game completely devoured me for over two weeks, and while I can’t say I enjoyed every last second, Elden Ring was a brilliant package that will stick with me just as long as From’s other projects. Having this much to say (I could write another page on this game) is testament to how important and interesting FromSoft and Miyazaki’s contributions to the industry are. I hope they never stop releasing games, and I can’t wait for Elden Ring 2.
As someone who took the time to fully devour the open world and clear out any cave, mine, ruin, or dungeon I came across in my travels across the Lands Between, I can’t help but feel like I missed something reading so many people talk about how Elden Ring has fully transformed the genre of open-world games, or how Elden Ring’s open-world feels so different from others. I fail to see what truly differentiates Elden Ring from others in its genre beyond the unmistakably unique vibe that the Dark Souls games inherently have. As we’ll get into later in the review, the non-open-world areas of Elden Ring are the peak of its gameplay and level design, so I’m a bit lost as to how the game meaningfully benefits from an open-world.
The game’s opening regions, Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula, give an absolute breathtaking first impression, and I believe serve as the peak of Elden Ring’s open-world experience. There is an incredible variety in the opening zone, showcasing mines, ruins, abandoned churches, a traveling caravan, a giant walking mausoleum, at least 3 incredibly detailed and fun to explore castles, and by my last count, a whopping 38 bosses. Once you expand into the wider world beyond Limgrave, into Liurnia of the Lakes, Caelid, and beyond, it is a sad realization to find out that you have pretty much experienced 80-90% of what the open-world has to offer already. Every single region is a mish-mash of similar looking caves full of rats and wolves, mines full of rock-human miners and upgrade materials, tombs full of zombies and skeletons, 4-5 abandoned churches with identical layouts featuring a Site of Grace and a Sacred Tear, and the same dozen or so field bosses that feel unique the first time you fight them, then like busywork when you’re tasked with killing the Tibia Mariner for the fourth time or the Burial Tree Watchdog for the seventh.
Even Elden Ring cannot avoid falling into the same traps of every open-world game before it. This, I think, is its biggest and most fatal flaw. The exploration feels like it should be very rewarding, but once you delve into the 40th cave and fight the Crucible Knight once again (but this time there’s 2! How interesting!) just to receive another Ash Summon you won’t ever use (or worse, crafting materials, the biggest slap in the face), it just starts feeling like a waste of time. You start feeling like just skipping the boring dungeons and riding as quickly as you can to the next main story area. It feels like massive filler, and the countless people praising the Lands Between as “the evolution of open-worlds” just has me scratching my head.
Boss design in general is another point of contention for me. While there are a few standouts I’ll discuss in a moment, I feel overall, Elden Ring’s bosses are incredibly underwhelming. They feel creatively stretched thin over the 100+ encounters throughout the game’s immense length. Many encounters feel reminiscent of Dark Souls II, the game in the series most infamously known for “quantity over quality”. Simple basic enemies scaled up and presented as “bosses”, unimaginative monsters that flail around in tiny rooms and send the camera into a whirlwind, and possibly the largest amount of duo- or gank-fights in the series. Bosses are also reused constantly, leaving each additional encounter feeling staler than the last. I wouldn’t have too much of an issue with the field bosses, such as the Night’s Calvary being reused, but Astel, a major boss from an important side quest, whose initial encounter feels very special, is inexplicably reused in a random mine towards the endgame. Why? What purpose does this serve? It cheapens the original fight for no reason when they could have added another Stonedigger Troll and avoided this altogether. Bafflingly, main story boss Godrick is also reused in an Evergaol challenge, same voice actor and all.
When the bosses aren’t being egregiously reused or being otherwise completely forgettable, I think there are some excellent boss fights in Elden Ring. Margit, likely the first major boss players are going to fight, is an intense, shockingly deep battle for such an early encounter. Margit’s true form, Morgott, fought towards the back half of the game, improves this fight even more, adding a deeper movepool for the boss and some amazing visuals. The battle with the Fire Giant in the snowy Mountaintop of the Giants is one of From’s greatest spectacle bosses in the franchise. Weaving in and out of the absolutely monumental giant’s attacks as he rains fire down upon you is breathtaking and feels like a boss out of God of War. The battle against Rykard in the Volcano Manor is the ultimate evolution of the Storm King, Yhorm, and Divine Dragon boss fights and makes you feel truly powerful. The game’s penultimate major boss, Godfrey (and his alter-ego, Hoarah Loux), is a fast and frantic duel that shows you the true power of the Elden Lord.
I would also like to heap some praise on what the game calls Legacy Dungeons, aka traditional zones from previous Souls games. Stormveil Castle is a masterclass of level design and would stand among the best areas from the Dark Souls trilogy. The new jumping mechanic allows Fromsoft to go absolutely nuts with level verticality. It feels like you have half a dozen potential paths ahead of you from almost every point. The levels are also immense, with Stormveil alone feeling about the size of half of the Boletarian Palace from Demon’s Souls. While unfortunately I feel like Stormveil is the peak of these Legacy Dungeons, all of them feel like they have a lot to offer and are fun to explore and run through.
Build variety is at perhaps its best here, with every type of character feeling not only viable, but powerful. An arsenal of gigantic weapons await strength builds, dozens of daggers, spears, and flails are here for dex builds, and the greatest variety of spells are here for definitively the most interesting and fun caster builds in the entire franchise. After the disaster that was Dark Souls 3’s magic system, it’s great to see it being viable and strong.
The newest additions to the Souls combat system are Ash Summons and Ashes of War. Ash Summons cost MP (most of them at least) and summon in ghostly versions of enemies you’ve encountered throughout your journey to fight alongside you. These can range from a pack of wolves, a band of skeletal warriors, some minibosses you’ve fought, like the Black Knife Assassin, or even a clone of yourself that fights with your currently equipped gear in an absolutely brilliant twist on the Mimic from previous Souls games. I love this addition and feel it’s a great boon to the player against Elden Ring’s general increase in difficulty. It helps you balance the game’s harder fights closer to your favor in a way that doesn’t feel as cheap as summoning a co-op partner.
Ashes of War are the evolution of Dark Souls 3’s weapon arts. Whereas each weapon in DS3 had its own unique ability, Elden Ring allows you to mix and match them, purchase new abilities, and find hidden ones in the field. You can then apply them to any non-unique weapon you wish, allowing for even further build variety. The level of customization you have on your character in Elden Ring is truly staggering.
I’m super happy to say that while the multiplayer system is still needlessly archaic and convoluted, it’s an absolute massive step-up from the previous Souls games. Instead of requiring single-use, annoying-to-farm items like Humanity or Embers to engage in co-op, all you need is to craft one using a couple of extremely common flowers. At any point I could just open my crafting menu and whip out 20-30 of them. Additionally, playing online spares you from invaders in single-player, only opening you up to attacks when you have a partner with you. I think these are great changes and make the MP experience a lot smoother and accessible than in previous titles.
Though I complained about the game’s open-world and boss design, I want to stress how wonderful of an experience Elden Ring has been. The game completely devoured me for over two weeks, and while I can’t say I enjoyed every last second, Elden Ring was a brilliant package that will stick with me just as long as From’s other projects. Having this much to say (I could write another page on this game) is testament to how important and interesting FromSoft and Miyazaki’s contributions to the industry are. I hope they never stop releasing games, and I can’t wait for Elden Ring 2.
Sonic Adventure
1998
I've never liked comparing this game to Super Mario 64, because there is so much different about them that it inherently is unfair, even once you get past the simple fact that this is a childhood-defining game for me, whereas Mario 64 just isn't.
But one thing I think both games share is that when you are willing to engage with them on their terms, they are fantastic and fun games. There's a genuine earnestness and sincerity to them, even within the constraints of early 3d, and that is something that I think no amount of teraflops and traced rays can really replicate.
Sonic Adventure does live up to its name. It's an adventure, a game that feels absolutely massive, with three hub worlds and levels that span these hubs, visited by each character at different times, interacted with in different ways. Mario 64 can feel like a big game, but I think when you are shown tangible connections between each part of the world and the levels, it adds something to the scope of the map. Eschewing the traditional act structure of earlier Sonic games for one larger level, defined more by the moment to moment and the setpieces you visit, adds to this, but certain levels can have their superfluous moments.
But one thing I think both games share is that when you are willing to engage with them on their terms, they are fantastic and fun games. There's a genuine earnestness and sincerity to them, even within the constraints of early 3d, and that is something that I think no amount of teraflops and traced rays can really replicate.
Sonic Adventure does live up to its name. It's an adventure, a game that feels absolutely massive, with three hub worlds and levels that span these hubs, visited by each character at different times, interacted with in different ways. Mario 64 can feel like a big game, but I think when you are shown tangible connections between each part of the world and the levels, it adds something to the scope of the map. Eschewing the traditional act structure of earlier Sonic games for one larger level, defined more by the moment to moment and the setpieces you visit, adds to this, but certain levels can have their superfluous moments.