PilesofSecrets
A brilliantly addictive detective game which makes you feel like a genius. Methodically going through each scenario and deducing exactly what happened was so delightful. Every single case in the game (especially including the DLCs) sunk their mystery hooks into me, and I was more than happy to be reeled in for the 10 hours-and-change it took to complete.
I don't rave that often, but, if you have any passing interest in detective games, I would press this into your hands immediately, no question. And, to those of you who played Obra Dinn and wondered, "Why don't they make more games like this?" THIS GAME IS ONE OF THOSE GAMES THAT THEY DON'T MAKE MORE OF LIKE THIS! A MUST PLAY!
I don't rave that often, but, if you have any passing interest in detective games, I would press this into your hands immediately, no question. And, to those of you who played Obra Dinn and wondered, "Why don't they make more games like this?" THIS GAME IS ONE OF THOSE GAMES THAT THEY DON'T MAKE MORE OF LIKE THIS! A MUST PLAY!
BUREAUCRACY MANIFEST
Governmental buildings are rigid things, staffed with stiff moustaches and an efficiency so blunt and clipped that you eventually start to find hours within minutes and decades within seconds. They’re all the same, and yet look nothing alike side by side. Society needs these unorthodox cathedrals to keep the wheels of society turning; to double stamp and cross-reference and double check that said wheels are also the correctly regimented wheels for the said job of turning said society. We worship these places, these structures of order, though we are never consciously aware of doing so.
I am consciously aware of the fact that I admire this game. I mean, it’s not perfect. In fact, it can become downright boring! But there’s something enthralling about its atmosphere, of chaos straining against order with neither really coming out the victor.
As Jesse Faden, you investigate The Oldest House, a para-FBI organization dedicated to the containment and study of “paranatural” phenomenon, in search of someone, and guided by a second-person entity who may or may not be YOU, the player. We realise that The Oldest House is invisible to the pedestrians outside, that the House itself is alive in some metaphysical sense, and – luckily for us – is in the middle of a hostile invasion by a terrifying “paranatural” force. Already a brilliant setup, and the game gets a ton of mileage from the concept of a bureaucratical house of mirrors.
I am finding that Remedy, the game’s developers, are talented narrative designers – perhaps especially Sam Lake, if he did indeed pen most of the game’s narrative and dialogue. The main story isn’t really anything to write home about by the end of your 20 or so hours with the game, but the construction of certain key moments is what stays with you the most. The supplemental materials acquired throughout the game add wonderfully to the overall atmosphere, although some of the scattered reports you find are rather hit-and-miss in terms of written quality or interest. I’m an enthusiastic proponent of the use of FMV in this game, and it's here where the writing quality really shone for me. Every time I unlocked a new Casper Darling (Head of Research) video earnestly explaining why a 1980s floppy disk MUST be kept in secure containment at all times and how it had once telekinetically launched a coffee cup, I set my controller down and breathed a contented sigh.
Same with the Hotline calls. Early on in the game, you gain access to lore-crunchy conversations accessed through an ethereal Bakelite telephone, wherein dead or “paranatural” entities may converse with you. The writing of these are also evocative, and sometimes cryptic enough to tempt you down a lore-forum rabbit hole, a la the best games of FromSoftware. There’s the odd clunker in there, too, of course. Ex-Director Trench’s calls have a rather tiresome “I guess that’s what the whiskey’s for” kind of hardboiled edginess at times, but are still wonderfully performed (by Max Payne’s voice actor, James McCaffrey, no less! The Remedy Connected Universe awakens…).
The gameplay itself is fast, loose, frenetic, and contains the Best Telekinesis in Games (TM). Shooting office chairs at your enemies at the speed of sound does get somewhat repetitive after 20 hours, but it never feels less than satisfying. The modding of weapons I can take or leave, however. I dislike extremely incremental upgrading systems of any sort; you know, slot this into your weapon to gain 0.5% movement speed? And I never paid much attention to the system apart from breaking apart the mods in order to get more experience points in order to upgrade my earth-shatteringly dangerous telekinesis. By the end of the game, I felt like Jean Grey on a phoenix migraine, I was THAT powerful.
What can be said of the game’s enemies? Dubbed ‘The Hiss’, they are original in the sense of being a “hostile resonance” able to takeover and puppet any organic matter for their own purposes. They are incorporeal otherwise, and without adequate protection, it is made starkly clear that anyone within the Bureau could be corrupted and turned. Again, kudos to the narrative design for this startlingly original antagonistic force, that, similar to Alan Wake’s Dark Presence, can invade at a moment’s
You Are A Worm Through Time
The Thunder Song Distorts You
You’ve Always Been The New You
You Want This To Be True
We Stand Around You While You Dream
********************************************************************************************************************************************************
END OF OFFICIAL F.B.C. TRANSCRIPT OF O.O.P #21, dubbed by debriefed personnel as ‘The Review’.
FULL REPORT AS FOLLOWS:
THE REVIEW (OOP9-KE)
CONTAINMENT PROCEDURE:
No unique containment procedure required when bound. However, copies MUST NOT be made and any duplication MUST be reported to the Head of Research immediately.
DESCRIPTION/PARAUTILITY:
A video game review written for the video game review and cataloguing site ‘Backloggd.com’. It contains 741 words, written in a somewhat diffuse and overwrought style. It purports to review a video game called ‘Control’, a video game which does not exist, but which, alarmingly, according to the scant details of this review, paint an accurate picture of our organization, The Federal Bureau of Control. Whether this is an isolated copy has yet to be determined. Our researches have determined that other copies may have escaped into the internet and our Head of Communications along with Dr Darling are currently investigating.
The object can cause violent reactions in any who attempt to read it. In some cases, as in the [REDACTED] incident, the violence/mania can infect others close by. After half an hour, the violence and mania subsides, leaving the victim in a subdued and catatonic state. After another hour, the victim will fully regain cognitive faculties with one marked difference: all their closely held opinions and morals will be completely reversed. As seen with Person A, a small town preacher, who [REDACTED] and is now being held at a secure facility in solitary confinement.
When bound, the object allows parautilitarians to affect public discourse surrounding a popular product (such as a video game or movie), effectively rewriting reality through their para-linguistic skills.
A similar effect was seen in the Bright Falls AWE incident, when another writer [REDACTED]. [SEE DR. CASPER DARLING AND THE HEAD OF INVESTIGATIONS FOR FURTHER READING INTO THE BRIGHT FALLS INCIDENT.]
BACKGROUND
The object was first discovered on a video game website: ‘Backloggd.com’ as stated above. Bureau agents in the Investigations Sector were alerted to its existence after the Bureau’s computer security system flagged certain key words used in the review as a possible secrecy breach.
An agent was tasked with shutting down the website, deleting its content, and uploading the OOP review to a secure Bureau USB which was then subjected to the usual containment procedures before being moved back to the Research Sector for further study.
The agent who initially contained the review has been transferred to Maintenance for peace of mind.
Further Note
The strange chant at the end of the Review OOP continues to elude explanations. The current hypothesis is some sort of dream logic mantra or some sort of metaphysical intrusion. We are currently cross-referencing 'The Hiss' with any known para-natural entities and will keep this file open.
End report
Governmental buildings are rigid things, staffed with stiff moustaches and an efficiency so blunt and clipped that you eventually start to find hours within minutes and decades within seconds. They’re all the same, and yet look nothing alike side by side. Society needs these unorthodox cathedrals to keep the wheels of society turning; to double stamp and cross-reference and double check that said wheels are also the correctly regimented wheels for the said job of turning said society. We worship these places, these structures of order, though we are never consciously aware of doing so.
I am consciously aware of the fact that I admire this game. I mean, it’s not perfect. In fact, it can become downright boring! But there’s something enthralling about its atmosphere, of chaos straining against order with neither really coming out the victor.
As Jesse Faden, you investigate The Oldest House, a para-FBI organization dedicated to the containment and study of “paranatural” phenomenon, in search of someone, and guided by a second-person entity who may or may not be YOU, the player. We realise that The Oldest House is invisible to the pedestrians outside, that the House itself is alive in some metaphysical sense, and – luckily for us – is in the middle of a hostile invasion by a terrifying “paranatural” force. Already a brilliant setup, and the game gets a ton of mileage from the concept of a bureaucratical house of mirrors.
I am finding that Remedy, the game’s developers, are talented narrative designers – perhaps especially Sam Lake, if he did indeed pen most of the game’s narrative and dialogue. The main story isn’t really anything to write home about by the end of your 20 or so hours with the game, but the construction of certain key moments is what stays with you the most. The supplemental materials acquired throughout the game add wonderfully to the overall atmosphere, although some of the scattered reports you find are rather hit-and-miss in terms of written quality or interest. I’m an enthusiastic proponent of the use of FMV in this game, and it's here where the writing quality really shone for me. Every time I unlocked a new Casper Darling (Head of Research) video earnestly explaining why a 1980s floppy disk MUST be kept in secure containment at all times and how it had once telekinetically launched a coffee cup, I set my controller down and breathed a contented sigh.
Same with the Hotline calls. Early on in the game, you gain access to lore-crunchy conversations accessed through an ethereal Bakelite telephone, wherein dead or “paranatural” entities may converse with you. The writing of these are also evocative, and sometimes cryptic enough to tempt you down a lore-forum rabbit hole, a la the best games of FromSoftware. There’s the odd clunker in there, too, of course. Ex-Director Trench’s calls have a rather tiresome “I guess that’s what the whiskey’s for” kind of hardboiled edginess at times, but are still wonderfully performed (by Max Payne’s voice actor, James McCaffrey, no less! The Remedy Connected Universe awakens…).
The gameplay itself is fast, loose, frenetic, and contains the Best Telekinesis in Games (TM). Shooting office chairs at your enemies at the speed of sound does get somewhat repetitive after 20 hours, but it never feels less than satisfying. The modding of weapons I can take or leave, however. I dislike extremely incremental upgrading systems of any sort; you know, slot this into your weapon to gain 0.5% movement speed? And I never paid much attention to the system apart from breaking apart the mods in order to get more experience points in order to upgrade my earth-shatteringly dangerous telekinesis. By the end of the game, I felt like Jean Grey on a phoenix migraine, I was THAT powerful.
What can be said of the game’s enemies? Dubbed ‘The Hiss’, they are original in the sense of being a “hostile resonance” able to takeover and puppet any organic matter for their own purposes. They are incorporeal otherwise, and without adequate protection, it is made starkly clear that anyone within the Bureau could be corrupted and turned. Again, kudos to the narrative design for this startlingly original antagonistic force, that, similar to Alan Wake’s Dark Presence, can invade at a moment’s
You Are A Worm Through Time
The Thunder Song Distorts You
You’ve Always Been The New You
You Want This To Be True
We Stand Around You While You Dream
********************************************************************************************************************************************************
END OF OFFICIAL F.B.C. TRANSCRIPT OF O.O.P #21, dubbed by debriefed personnel as ‘The Review’.
FULL REPORT AS FOLLOWS:
THE REVIEW (OOP9-KE)
CONTAINMENT PROCEDURE:
No unique containment procedure required when bound. However, copies MUST NOT be made and any duplication MUST be reported to the Head of Research immediately.
DESCRIPTION/PARAUTILITY:
A video game review written for the video game review and cataloguing site ‘Backloggd.com’. It contains 741 words, written in a somewhat diffuse and overwrought style. It purports to review a video game called ‘Control’, a video game which does not exist, but which, alarmingly, according to the scant details of this review, paint an accurate picture of our organization, The Federal Bureau of Control. Whether this is an isolated copy has yet to be determined. Our researches have determined that other copies may have escaped into the internet and our Head of Communications along with Dr Darling are currently investigating.
The object can cause violent reactions in any who attempt to read it. In some cases, as in the [REDACTED] incident, the violence/mania can infect others close by. After half an hour, the violence and mania subsides, leaving the victim in a subdued and catatonic state. After another hour, the victim will fully regain cognitive faculties with one marked difference: all their closely held opinions and morals will be completely reversed. As seen with Person A, a small town preacher, who [REDACTED] and is now being held at a secure facility in solitary confinement.
When bound, the object allows parautilitarians to affect public discourse surrounding a popular product (such as a video game or movie), effectively rewriting reality through their para-linguistic skills.
A similar effect was seen in the Bright Falls AWE incident, when another writer [REDACTED]. [SEE DR. CASPER DARLING AND THE HEAD OF INVESTIGATIONS FOR FURTHER READING INTO THE BRIGHT FALLS INCIDENT.]
BACKGROUND
The object was first discovered on a video game website: ‘Backloggd.com’ as stated above. Bureau agents in the Investigations Sector were alerted to its existence after the Bureau’s computer security system flagged certain key words used in the review as a possible secrecy breach.
An agent was tasked with shutting down the website, deleting its content, and uploading the OOP review to a secure Bureau USB which was then subjected to the usual containment procedures before being moved back to the Research Sector for further study.
The agent who initially contained the review has been transferred to Maintenance for peace of mind.
Further Note
The strange chant at the end of the Review OOP continues to elude explanations. The current hypothesis is some sort of dream logic mantra or some sort of metaphysical intrusion. We are currently cross-referencing 'The Hiss' with any known para-natural entities and will keep this file open.
End report
2021
EPISODE 1: KALEIDOSCOPE
Twin Peaks was a great show – maybe one of THE GREATEST shows. It certainly influenced the heck out of subsequent shows, even the likes of ‘The X-Files’ or ‘Lost’, and probably most prestige dramas around the 90s to the early 2000s. It showed people that you could have a singular style while messing around with the audience’s expectations, especially in regards to genres. With Twin Peaks, genre was a concept that was almost eschewed: we’re watching a soap opera; no, a crime drama; police procedural; no, a supernatural horror; no, a comedy. In actual fact, we were watching a deconstruction of all these genres.
FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, possibly the main protagonist (although with such a large, bubbling cast, it’s harder than we might presume to stick that label with absolute conviction on him) is not written as the atypical FBI crime drama type agent. He’s straight-laced, yes, in some ways, and wants to uphold Justice, but in the same way that a police officer in a children’s cartoon does. Cooper is serious and idealistic and fanciful all wrapped up in one package. He loves Tibet, transcendental meditation, and is an open channel for the supernatural, dream-like experiences which inform his investigations as much as the mundane forensic clues of the physical world do. At no point are we meant to believe that Cooper is a REAL person. He’s a deconstruction of an archetype, chopped into pieces, put back together, and shot through the lens of a madman (David Lynch). This can be applied to any of the Twin Peaks cast. All the characters are deconstructions of specific genre-bound characters, and ultimately, this is what I believe leads to the satisfyingly uncanny feeling of the whole series.
This is accentuated by the strange, sometimes seemingly-on-purpose amateurish acting. Which isn’t amateurish AT ALL, but merely presents itself as that way during moments when Lynch’s “genre lens” swings more to SOAP OPERA colour. Think of it like a kaleidoscope of genres which can be switched at any moment, affecting the reality of the show itself, and even down to the meta-level of the actors’ performances. Sometimes the colours overlap. I’ve barely scratched the surface here, but that’s a fraction of my beliefs on why Twin Peaks was so zeitgeistingly influential.
So, to monochromatic Alan Wake. I remember the days of 2010 when this game came out. I was still in University, studying some English degree or other, and not particularly keeping an ear to the ground for new games, apart from listening weekly to the GiantBombcast, when I heard some murmurings about this game being Great but also slightly Disappointing given the not-insignificant amount of hype prior to its release.
I remember reviews talking about the linearity and the lack of variety, despite the story being well-told and intriguing. I had no seventh gen console at the time due to being a penniless arts student, but I was piqued enough by the discourse cloaking the game to watch a walkthrough on Youtube. It was the story I was most interested in, you see, although I hadn’t, at that point, even watched Twin Peaks. I was an avid Stephen King reader though, so the way that the horror worked in the story seemed somewhat Kingian to me: regular guy, who also happens to be a famous writer and asshole, caught up in supernatural shenanigans. I found that very Kingian indeed, apart from one caveat: Alan Wake doesn’t FEEL like a REAL enough character such as in King’s novels. In fact, we are never graced with any real details about Wake’s life prior to the start of the shenanigans.
And this MIGHT BE FOR THE BEST. Because the story takes a meta-turn, wherein we learn – AND HERE BE MASSIVE SPOILERS – that Alan Wake himself MAY be a character written into being by another in-game writer character decades ago, and who is only now enacting the plan set in motion by this 1970s writer. This would be, if true, a narrative coup de grace. In fact, the game laudably lays out the puzzle pieces leading to these conclusions and yet shows restraint by letting the player mostly decide what to believe. Even the ending is ambiguous regarding Wake’s actual fate, although the DLCs do add more post-game crumbs. The game can have its delicious cake and eat it, then, when it comes to this sort of meta-textual reading. Think Wake’s the most boring and irritating protagonist since Bubsy the Bobcat? Well, he’s literally WRITTEN to be that way – blame the Dark Presence for bringing him to life; after all, he’s just a conduit so Thomas Zane (the other in-game writer responsible for apparently unleashing and thereafter somewhat sealing the BIG BAD of the Dark Presence) can finish what he started in the 70s.
See, it can get weird like that. It’s probably the best narrative in a game from 2010, and worth the price of entry, even if there happens to be, unfortunately, a slimy video game wrapped around it, its choking tentacles intruding upon the intriguing meta-premises. Keep reading for a further dissection of this clunky kraken.
END OF EPISODE 1
PREVIOUSLY ON THE ALAN WAKE REVIEW:
“I was writing a review about a video game from 2010. It had seemed like a good idea.
But the review was slowly taking a life of its own. My sentences of praise slowly became twisted as I progressed, revealing negative gulfs in the pristine product. Gulfs filled with a squirming unconscious mass, blind and deaf to mercy.
I had to keep going.
I had to purge the game from my system. Before IT could purge me.”
EPISODE 2: DARKNESS
What Alan Wake is, as a video game, is a straightforward third person shooter of a somewhat generic bent. You are armed with a perpetual flashlight in one hand and some sort of unexciting weapon in the other. A revolver, a couple different shotguns, flares, flashbombs and a flare gun are all the tools the game bequeaths you to destroy the incarnations of the Dark Prescence, which is the malevolent force trying to claw its way back into reality by warping Wake’s story.
The Dark Presence, even though it can literally throw girders and large ships(!) at you, has decided that, no, the best way to dispatch the writer is to possess random humans and then have them jump out of bushes to do battle. This happens through the whole game. Wake is walking through the forest and then suddenly a squealing violin sting rips the air and the camera swings madly around to show the player the location of an emerging Taken (the proper noun the game uses to classify these possessed humans). The camera being wrenched from your grasp to show these dark goblins coming at you poses a few problems: one, if there are many enemies, chances are you will get clonked by one before you have the chance to recover from the impetuous camera. Two, it removes the element of surprise and horror. True, at the start of the game, it’s somewhat startling to hear the violin stab, punctuated by a shuffling shape coming at you, but after the fiftieth time, it produces more a sigh of resentment rather than a gasp of horror.
You use the torch to burn away the darkness cloaking the Taken so that you can then dispatch them with your actual arsenal. Or you could shoot a flare gun round or lob a flashbomb, which almost instantly kills most Taken in the area due to their extreme aversion to light.
But isn’t there something all-too video gamey about this whole notion? The idea that a sinister Lovecraftian horror can be shot to death after burning away its darkness cloak? And most enemies even follow the old Nintendo one-two-three, and that’s it – tango neutralized. There’s just something inelegant about shooting an intangible evil to death, but then it’s a video game. But imagine if Special Agent Dale Cooper rocked up to the Black Lodge with a wheelbarrow of AK47s, proceeding to shoot all the metaphysical entities IN THE HEAD before they can even make a backwards quip, and you begin to see why I describe the Alan Wake gun-solves-all mentality as being somewhat inelegant.
What would I propose instead? Either enemies that are defeated ONLY with the light-based weaponry, or having no enemies at all, but in the same vein that P.T (Silent Hills demo) had “no” enemies, if you get my drift. Killing them with just light seems truer to the narrative.
This is especially glaring when you start to notice that most of the difficulty of these encounters comes from getting rid of the Taken’s darkness cloaks before they close in on you. Once the darkness is dissipated, enemies can then be stunlocked to death with your guns – even the biggest enemies. Shoot, stagger, shoot, stagger, maybe up to five or six times for the Big Boys and then you’re done.
The rest of the combat is positioning. Getting yourself into a position where you’re not going to get clocked by a whirling axe (a la Resident Evil 4 Ganados) or shanked in your ass by a particularly mean-spirited spawn on the game’s part. Some encounters are extremely frustrating in this regard because it only takes one stagger for subsequent enemies to start forming a line and clunk you to death afterwards. Some enemies are somehow allowed to HIT YOU TWICE before you’re allowed to try and run away. Like Wake refuses to allow such a thing as testosterone to spur his escape after being stabbed in the side by a shambling gremlin man. The point is, it gets frustrating pretty quickly and some encounters become a matter of luck or practice, particularly in the back half of the game, where finale tension seems to equate to calling in a truckload of fresh Taken every few steps.
Sometimes, the game gives you a car. The cars feel soapy to control, but are mostly used in one-off sections where you need to drive down a road about half a mile before getting to a blockade necessitating the abandonment of your car and returning to your untrustworthy feet.
Much has been said (probably) about the god-awful running in this game, and the fact that Wake can’t seem to go a few meters without slowing down to a panting crawl. His lungs must be made of papyrus, his legs of lead. From a gameplay perspective, it’s clear they don’t want you to Usain Bolt your way past all those “delightful” encounters and so have deliberately driven these steel nails through Wake’s ankles. You know, to create more combat tension. It’s not good.
JUST WRITE YOURSELF SOME BETTER LEGS, AL!
There’s a dodge button. Possibly the most imprecise dodge I’ve ever played around with; after playing 15 hours of the game and its DLCs, I still don’t really know how it works. The best advice I can give is that you need to dodge when you see an enemy start moving its weapon. If the weapon is already slashing down on you, it’s usually too late to dodge. You need to dodge more on the wind-up of their attacks. Which is very imprecise and difficult to do, seeing as, you know, the enemies are cloaked in DARKNESS, masking most of their movements and tells.
There aren’t many enemy types to plough down, either. Most are deer-hunter looking things, with the occasional Big Boy or boss character thrown in. The bosses are just regular Taken, more or less, who take slightly more damage to dispatch. That’s it.
Then you have the possessed objects. Things like barrels, girders, and vehicles which have been corrupted by the darkness and throw themselves glitchingly in your direction. These also get hugely frustrating – a particular offender being a bridge section deep into the game’s last chapter. You see, the objects hurt you on contact and sometimes can keep hurting you if you stand too close. And if many of them are hurtling towards you, you can easily get pincered into a corner, bonked by a barrel and goodnight. The idea is cool, but the execution (or their execution of YOU) gets tiresome. Less enemies would make this a far snappier experience in general…
So the gameplay falls short and fails to light up the fun synapses of my brain. If you enjoy it, all power to you, but for me it’s too much too 2010s.
END OF EPISODE 2
PREVIOUSLY ON THE ALAN WAKE REVIEW:
“I was writing a review that was slowly taking a mad life of its own.
‘You gave it three stars, man! This reads more like a ONE!’
I had to hurry. I could feel it writhing at the dark edges of my consciousness, trying to worm its way further into the world.
I couldn’t let that happen.
But I was winning. I could sense it.
The pressure was lessening. The purging was working. I had to continue this ritual, had to keep opening that valve, until everything drained.
Until everything made sense.”
EPISODE 3 – FAÇADE
As an atmospheric work, the game definitely does all it can to cling to that atmosphere until the end credits roll. It’s interesting enough to hold your attention through the clunky fights, most of the time. Trudging through the forest for the first time, torch in hand, hearing the wind whipping through the creaking branches above while making for a pinprick of light emanating from a gas station in the distance feels good. Feels appropriate. The first few levels begin with showing you a remote landmark and then zooming back to Wake saying something like “Well, that’s where I need to go” for the benefit of someone or other. Your path inevitably takes you through forests, forests, and more forests. Occasionally you will take refuge in a cosy cabin (still creepy, but cosy by virtue of being some sort of enclave from the monsters outside, most of the time) where you may come across a radio broadcast or, better still, a television, which runs episodes of ‘Night Springs’ an in-game Twilight Zone homage, each of which only runs for a few minutes and tells a compacted be-careful-what-you-wish-for type story. Some are good, some are really good. They all use live action actors, which is something else that distinguishes Alan Wake, introducing real life into the video game. There’s a moment much later where you’re forced to watch a talk show featuring Alan Wake, played by the character’s actual actor in a real-life talk show setting. This is the kind of mixed media mind bending I really wanted to see more of, and am surprised that not many games since have picked up the gauntlet of mixed media storytelling. This is one of those situations where you think Remedy was really, really onto something interesting if only they could have tied it even more into the meta-narrative. Compelling stuff.
The town of Bright Springs is rendered in great detail, cribbing again from Twin Peaks: the Sheriff station is a virtual simulacrum of the one in Twin Peaks and there’s the obligatory Double R Diner stand in. The outskirts of town and beyond are also stunningly realized and quite chunky. Sometimes you will traverse what seems to be miles across forested landscapes, seeing small cabins and farms here and there. The Episode where you end up in the farm is a definite highlight that showcases this scope to its sumptuous extreme – the drive there, and the subsequent concert battle are core memories for this game.
You do feel a little sick of forests once you get to the back half of the game and realize that we’re all-in on this environmental style and that’s it. But at least it’s an environment done well, even if variety is not the order of the day. The gameplay is again at fault: having light based mechanics necessitates that most action happens at night, as that's when the ghouls also emerge.
There are set-pieces set during the day. Walking around a clinic for suffering creatives is another highlight here, and seeing the sun dip into a storm during that section was an artful experience, even if the other characters struggle to stand out. Even the villain of that particular section is bland. He’s no Nightingale, that’s for sure, the crooked FBI agent chasing after Wake and descending into madness as he realizes he’s trapped in a REAL story. Abusing Wake with the names of authors: “Got you now, H.P. Lovecraft! Get ‘em up, Edgar Allen Poe!” is one of the funniest “running gags” in the game. And there must have been deliberate comedic intent behind that character.
Surely.
END OF EPISODE 3
PREVIOUSLY ON ALAN WAKE:
“I was writing a review of a video game from 2010. Trying to keep the Writhing at bay.
The images were broken heaps now, but they could still muster the strength to overwhelm me.
I think I’d purged everything. I think I made the justifications REAL. I hoped.
Now the ritual was almost complete.
It would only take one more act of authorial intent to banish the Writhing presence for good.
They knew what I was about to do. Their screams of rage almost killed me, but I smirked as the symbols of my freedom formed. Three simple symbols that would banish the Writhing, would give me back my freedom, although I knew another would eventually have to take up the torch.
This was the end.”
3/5
Twin Peaks was a great show – maybe one of THE GREATEST shows. It certainly influenced the heck out of subsequent shows, even the likes of ‘The X-Files’ or ‘Lost’, and probably most prestige dramas around the 90s to the early 2000s. It showed people that you could have a singular style while messing around with the audience’s expectations, especially in regards to genres. With Twin Peaks, genre was a concept that was almost eschewed: we’re watching a soap opera; no, a crime drama; police procedural; no, a supernatural horror; no, a comedy. In actual fact, we were watching a deconstruction of all these genres.
FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, possibly the main protagonist (although with such a large, bubbling cast, it’s harder than we might presume to stick that label with absolute conviction on him) is not written as the atypical FBI crime drama type agent. He’s straight-laced, yes, in some ways, and wants to uphold Justice, but in the same way that a police officer in a children’s cartoon does. Cooper is serious and idealistic and fanciful all wrapped up in one package. He loves Tibet, transcendental meditation, and is an open channel for the supernatural, dream-like experiences which inform his investigations as much as the mundane forensic clues of the physical world do. At no point are we meant to believe that Cooper is a REAL person. He’s a deconstruction of an archetype, chopped into pieces, put back together, and shot through the lens of a madman (David Lynch). This can be applied to any of the Twin Peaks cast. All the characters are deconstructions of specific genre-bound characters, and ultimately, this is what I believe leads to the satisfyingly uncanny feeling of the whole series.
This is accentuated by the strange, sometimes seemingly-on-purpose amateurish acting. Which isn’t amateurish AT ALL, but merely presents itself as that way during moments when Lynch’s “genre lens” swings more to SOAP OPERA colour. Think of it like a kaleidoscope of genres which can be switched at any moment, affecting the reality of the show itself, and even down to the meta-level of the actors’ performances. Sometimes the colours overlap. I’ve barely scratched the surface here, but that’s a fraction of my beliefs on why Twin Peaks was so zeitgeistingly influential.
So, to monochromatic Alan Wake. I remember the days of 2010 when this game came out. I was still in University, studying some English degree or other, and not particularly keeping an ear to the ground for new games, apart from listening weekly to the GiantBombcast, when I heard some murmurings about this game being Great but also slightly Disappointing given the not-insignificant amount of hype prior to its release.
I remember reviews talking about the linearity and the lack of variety, despite the story being well-told and intriguing. I had no seventh gen console at the time due to being a penniless arts student, but I was piqued enough by the discourse cloaking the game to watch a walkthrough on Youtube. It was the story I was most interested in, you see, although I hadn’t, at that point, even watched Twin Peaks. I was an avid Stephen King reader though, so the way that the horror worked in the story seemed somewhat Kingian to me: regular guy, who also happens to be a famous writer and asshole, caught up in supernatural shenanigans. I found that very Kingian indeed, apart from one caveat: Alan Wake doesn’t FEEL like a REAL enough character such as in King’s novels. In fact, we are never graced with any real details about Wake’s life prior to the start of the shenanigans.
And this MIGHT BE FOR THE BEST. Because the story takes a meta-turn, wherein we learn – AND HERE BE MASSIVE SPOILERS – that Alan Wake himself MAY be a character written into being by another in-game writer character decades ago, and who is only now enacting the plan set in motion by this 1970s writer. This would be, if true, a narrative coup de grace. In fact, the game laudably lays out the puzzle pieces leading to these conclusions and yet shows restraint by letting the player mostly decide what to believe. Even the ending is ambiguous regarding Wake’s actual fate, although the DLCs do add more post-game crumbs. The game can have its delicious cake and eat it, then, when it comes to this sort of meta-textual reading. Think Wake’s the most boring and irritating protagonist since Bubsy the Bobcat? Well, he’s literally WRITTEN to be that way – blame the Dark Presence for bringing him to life; after all, he’s just a conduit so Thomas Zane (the other in-game writer responsible for apparently unleashing and thereafter somewhat sealing the BIG BAD of the Dark Presence) can finish what he started in the 70s.
See, it can get weird like that. It’s probably the best narrative in a game from 2010, and worth the price of entry, even if there happens to be, unfortunately, a slimy video game wrapped around it, its choking tentacles intruding upon the intriguing meta-premises. Keep reading for a further dissection of this clunky kraken.
END OF EPISODE 1
PREVIOUSLY ON THE ALAN WAKE REVIEW:
“I was writing a review about a video game from 2010. It had seemed like a good idea.
But the review was slowly taking a life of its own. My sentences of praise slowly became twisted as I progressed, revealing negative gulfs in the pristine product. Gulfs filled with a squirming unconscious mass, blind and deaf to mercy.
I had to keep going.
I had to purge the game from my system. Before IT could purge me.”
EPISODE 2: DARKNESS
What Alan Wake is, as a video game, is a straightforward third person shooter of a somewhat generic bent. You are armed with a perpetual flashlight in one hand and some sort of unexciting weapon in the other. A revolver, a couple different shotguns, flares, flashbombs and a flare gun are all the tools the game bequeaths you to destroy the incarnations of the Dark Prescence, which is the malevolent force trying to claw its way back into reality by warping Wake’s story.
The Dark Presence, even though it can literally throw girders and large ships(!) at you, has decided that, no, the best way to dispatch the writer is to possess random humans and then have them jump out of bushes to do battle. This happens through the whole game. Wake is walking through the forest and then suddenly a squealing violin sting rips the air and the camera swings madly around to show the player the location of an emerging Taken (the proper noun the game uses to classify these possessed humans). The camera being wrenched from your grasp to show these dark goblins coming at you poses a few problems: one, if there are many enemies, chances are you will get clonked by one before you have the chance to recover from the impetuous camera. Two, it removes the element of surprise and horror. True, at the start of the game, it’s somewhat startling to hear the violin stab, punctuated by a shuffling shape coming at you, but after the fiftieth time, it produces more a sigh of resentment rather than a gasp of horror.
You use the torch to burn away the darkness cloaking the Taken so that you can then dispatch them with your actual arsenal. Or you could shoot a flare gun round or lob a flashbomb, which almost instantly kills most Taken in the area due to their extreme aversion to light.
But isn’t there something all-too video gamey about this whole notion? The idea that a sinister Lovecraftian horror can be shot to death after burning away its darkness cloak? And most enemies even follow the old Nintendo one-two-three, and that’s it – tango neutralized. There’s just something inelegant about shooting an intangible evil to death, but then it’s a video game. But imagine if Special Agent Dale Cooper rocked up to the Black Lodge with a wheelbarrow of AK47s, proceeding to shoot all the metaphysical entities IN THE HEAD before they can even make a backwards quip, and you begin to see why I describe the Alan Wake gun-solves-all mentality as being somewhat inelegant.
What would I propose instead? Either enemies that are defeated ONLY with the light-based weaponry, or having no enemies at all, but in the same vein that P.T (Silent Hills demo) had “no” enemies, if you get my drift. Killing them with just light seems truer to the narrative.
This is especially glaring when you start to notice that most of the difficulty of these encounters comes from getting rid of the Taken’s darkness cloaks before they close in on you. Once the darkness is dissipated, enemies can then be stunlocked to death with your guns – even the biggest enemies. Shoot, stagger, shoot, stagger, maybe up to five or six times for the Big Boys and then you’re done.
The rest of the combat is positioning. Getting yourself into a position where you’re not going to get clocked by a whirling axe (a la Resident Evil 4 Ganados) or shanked in your ass by a particularly mean-spirited spawn on the game’s part. Some encounters are extremely frustrating in this regard because it only takes one stagger for subsequent enemies to start forming a line and clunk you to death afterwards. Some enemies are somehow allowed to HIT YOU TWICE before you’re allowed to try and run away. Like Wake refuses to allow such a thing as testosterone to spur his escape after being stabbed in the side by a shambling gremlin man. The point is, it gets frustrating pretty quickly and some encounters become a matter of luck or practice, particularly in the back half of the game, where finale tension seems to equate to calling in a truckload of fresh Taken every few steps.
Sometimes, the game gives you a car. The cars feel soapy to control, but are mostly used in one-off sections where you need to drive down a road about half a mile before getting to a blockade necessitating the abandonment of your car and returning to your untrustworthy feet.
Much has been said (probably) about the god-awful running in this game, and the fact that Wake can’t seem to go a few meters without slowing down to a panting crawl. His lungs must be made of papyrus, his legs of lead. From a gameplay perspective, it’s clear they don’t want you to Usain Bolt your way past all those “delightful” encounters and so have deliberately driven these steel nails through Wake’s ankles. You know, to create more combat tension. It’s not good.
JUST WRITE YOURSELF SOME BETTER LEGS, AL!
There’s a dodge button. Possibly the most imprecise dodge I’ve ever played around with; after playing 15 hours of the game and its DLCs, I still don’t really know how it works. The best advice I can give is that you need to dodge when you see an enemy start moving its weapon. If the weapon is already slashing down on you, it’s usually too late to dodge. You need to dodge more on the wind-up of their attacks. Which is very imprecise and difficult to do, seeing as, you know, the enemies are cloaked in DARKNESS, masking most of their movements and tells.
There aren’t many enemy types to plough down, either. Most are deer-hunter looking things, with the occasional Big Boy or boss character thrown in. The bosses are just regular Taken, more or less, who take slightly more damage to dispatch. That’s it.
Then you have the possessed objects. Things like barrels, girders, and vehicles which have been corrupted by the darkness and throw themselves glitchingly in your direction. These also get hugely frustrating – a particular offender being a bridge section deep into the game’s last chapter. You see, the objects hurt you on contact and sometimes can keep hurting you if you stand too close. And if many of them are hurtling towards you, you can easily get pincered into a corner, bonked by a barrel and goodnight. The idea is cool, but the execution (or their execution of YOU) gets tiresome. Less enemies would make this a far snappier experience in general…
So the gameplay falls short and fails to light up the fun synapses of my brain. If you enjoy it, all power to you, but for me it’s too much too 2010s.
END OF EPISODE 2
PREVIOUSLY ON THE ALAN WAKE REVIEW:
“I was writing a review that was slowly taking a mad life of its own.
‘You gave it three stars, man! This reads more like a ONE!’
I had to hurry. I could feel it writhing at the dark edges of my consciousness, trying to worm its way further into the world.
I couldn’t let that happen.
But I was winning. I could sense it.
The pressure was lessening. The purging was working. I had to continue this ritual, had to keep opening that valve, until everything drained.
Until everything made sense.”
EPISODE 3 – FAÇADE
As an atmospheric work, the game definitely does all it can to cling to that atmosphere until the end credits roll. It’s interesting enough to hold your attention through the clunky fights, most of the time. Trudging through the forest for the first time, torch in hand, hearing the wind whipping through the creaking branches above while making for a pinprick of light emanating from a gas station in the distance feels good. Feels appropriate. The first few levels begin with showing you a remote landmark and then zooming back to Wake saying something like “Well, that’s where I need to go” for the benefit of someone or other. Your path inevitably takes you through forests, forests, and more forests. Occasionally you will take refuge in a cosy cabin (still creepy, but cosy by virtue of being some sort of enclave from the monsters outside, most of the time) where you may come across a radio broadcast or, better still, a television, which runs episodes of ‘Night Springs’ an in-game Twilight Zone homage, each of which only runs for a few minutes and tells a compacted be-careful-what-you-wish-for type story. Some are good, some are really good. They all use live action actors, which is something else that distinguishes Alan Wake, introducing real life into the video game. There’s a moment much later where you’re forced to watch a talk show featuring Alan Wake, played by the character’s actual actor in a real-life talk show setting. This is the kind of mixed media mind bending I really wanted to see more of, and am surprised that not many games since have picked up the gauntlet of mixed media storytelling. This is one of those situations where you think Remedy was really, really onto something interesting if only they could have tied it even more into the meta-narrative. Compelling stuff.
The town of Bright Springs is rendered in great detail, cribbing again from Twin Peaks: the Sheriff station is a virtual simulacrum of the one in Twin Peaks and there’s the obligatory Double R Diner stand in. The outskirts of town and beyond are also stunningly realized and quite chunky. Sometimes you will traverse what seems to be miles across forested landscapes, seeing small cabins and farms here and there. The Episode where you end up in the farm is a definite highlight that showcases this scope to its sumptuous extreme – the drive there, and the subsequent concert battle are core memories for this game.
You do feel a little sick of forests once you get to the back half of the game and realize that we’re all-in on this environmental style and that’s it. But at least it’s an environment done well, even if variety is not the order of the day. The gameplay is again at fault: having light based mechanics necessitates that most action happens at night, as that's when the ghouls also emerge.
There are set-pieces set during the day. Walking around a clinic for suffering creatives is another highlight here, and seeing the sun dip into a storm during that section was an artful experience, even if the other characters struggle to stand out. Even the villain of that particular section is bland. He’s no Nightingale, that’s for sure, the crooked FBI agent chasing after Wake and descending into madness as he realizes he’s trapped in a REAL story. Abusing Wake with the names of authors: “Got you now, H.P. Lovecraft! Get ‘em up, Edgar Allen Poe!” is one of the funniest “running gags” in the game. And there must have been deliberate comedic intent behind that character.
Surely.
END OF EPISODE 3
PREVIOUSLY ON ALAN WAKE:
“I was writing a review of a video game from 2010. Trying to keep the Writhing at bay.
The images were broken heaps now, but they could still muster the strength to overwhelm me.
I think I’d purged everything. I think I made the justifications REAL. I hoped.
Now the ritual was almost complete.
It would only take one more act of authorial intent to banish the Writhing presence for good.
They knew what I was about to do. Their screams of rage almost killed me, but I smirked as the symbols of my freedom formed. Three simple symbols that would banish the Writhing, would give me back my freedom, although I knew another would eventually have to take up the torch.
This was the end.”
3/5
I want to start off by saying I dislike the negative hindsighting around the New Super Mario Bros games (the DS ones and that decent Wii U one) since Super Mario Wonder came out. Those DS games were just great, and I won't stand this slander, I tell ya! I'll say it again: New Super Mario Bros were serviceable and completely enjoyable Marios and WAH-gate was a storm in a teacup.
Super Mario Wonder blows them all out of the water regardless.
A delicious cake of a video game: very sweet, SOMETIMES TOO SWEET, and layered with all sorts of fillings and unexpected toppings. Even the in-game terrain reminds me of an actual cake. Look at the World Map view of W4 and tell me you wouldn't devour that continent!
So, The Mario Basics (TM) remain. Hold right and just have a good time. Jump and squish enemies beneath your (presumably) spiked, brown steel toe-capped boots. I killed a dragon by landing on its head (several times!) so those boots must be insane.
The Wonder effects, which in some cases you have to actually hunt for - and I enjoyed the fact that you could go through a level without actually running into one if you weren't being somewhat fastidious - are a fantastic addition to the series, and one of those gimmicks (and yes, they are gimmicks in most cases, but gimmicks that DO change up the gameplay in fresh ways) that will be difficult to do without in future Mario games.
I think I will add my voice to the gentle chorus of complaints regarding the somewhat SAFE nature of some of these WONDER effects.
Think about this: Nintendo sat on that Eternal Darkness "sanity effect" patent (TM!) for so many years, and this would have been the perfect place to bring it back! Imagine picking up a Wonder flower and having your TV go blue-screen-of-death for a few seconds, or having your Switch slowly "delete" your save files and games, or having Mario's limbs slowly sever themselves, one by one, from his body, until only his head remains, which also promptly PULPS itself like a rotten pumpkin, before the screen flashes jarringly-white back to normal with the accompanying:
"THIS-A CAN'T BE A-HAPPENNING! WAAAAA!"
You know it's good!
The levels of this game are delectable and have a clear theme or gameplay quirk clearly explained at the top of the level. Nintendo continue to be the masters of teaching you new things astonishingly quickly; imagine if they were real TEACHERS in our schools with that same level of innovation. To be able to communicate so much without even a TUTORIAL POP UP (are you listening at the back there, Activision?), or even a chatty flower or BILLBOARD to over-explain to you is a craft in itself.
Why did I deduct a point from this marvel? Simply put, the game lacks true challenge. Yes, I know about the masochistic FINAL FINAL level and the Special World (some of which is still a teeny bit easy), but I barely felt ANY progression in difficulty between W2-W6. Even the game itself throws its hands up about midway, going "Alright, off you pop. You can go to W4-6 in any order you want. Go wild!"
Because the levels' difficulty doesn't really scale after roughly halfway. And this DID affect my enjoyment of the game. My interaction with the levels became fleeting. Enjoyable, but wispy. I struggle to recall the layouts of most of them. By contrast, I could spin you a yarn about MOST levels from Super Mario World or Mario 3 - those games, after a while, gaze at you dispassionately, imperiously, watching you lose life after life until you LEARN YOUR PLACE, MORTAL!
Perhaps I will mellow on this difficulty point upon replays. Maybe I thought the same of Super Mario World the first time I played (on ye olde GBA version!). As with everything, I will keep an open mind. After all, making any definitive statement is mostly pointless when such a thing as time exists in this universe.
And on that weirdly pretentiously poignant note, I declare Mario Wonder to be: ONE OF THE GAMES OF THE YEAR the likes of which the world has never seen the likes of which.
Super Mario Wonder blows them all out of the water regardless.
A delicious cake of a video game: very sweet, SOMETIMES TOO SWEET, and layered with all sorts of fillings and unexpected toppings. Even the in-game terrain reminds me of an actual cake. Look at the World Map view of W4 and tell me you wouldn't devour that continent!
So, The Mario Basics (TM) remain. Hold right and just have a good time. Jump and squish enemies beneath your (presumably) spiked, brown steel toe-capped boots. I killed a dragon by landing on its head (several times!) so those boots must be insane.
The Wonder effects, which in some cases you have to actually hunt for - and I enjoyed the fact that you could go through a level without actually running into one if you weren't being somewhat fastidious - are a fantastic addition to the series, and one of those gimmicks (and yes, they are gimmicks in most cases, but gimmicks that DO change up the gameplay in fresh ways) that will be difficult to do without in future Mario games.
I think I will add my voice to the gentle chorus of complaints regarding the somewhat SAFE nature of some of these WONDER effects.
Think about this: Nintendo sat on that Eternal Darkness "sanity effect" patent (TM!) for so many years, and this would have been the perfect place to bring it back! Imagine picking up a Wonder flower and having your TV go blue-screen-of-death for a few seconds, or having your Switch slowly "delete" your save files and games, or having Mario's limbs slowly sever themselves, one by one, from his body, until only his head remains, which also promptly PULPS itself like a rotten pumpkin, before the screen flashes jarringly-white back to normal with the accompanying:
"THIS-A CAN'T BE A-HAPPENNING! WAAAAA!"
You know it's good!
The levels of this game are delectable and have a clear theme or gameplay quirk clearly explained at the top of the level. Nintendo continue to be the masters of teaching you new things astonishingly quickly; imagine if they were real TEACHERS in our schools with that same level of innovation. To be able to communicate so much without even a TUTORIAL POP UP (are you listening at the back there, Activision?), or even a chatty flower or BILLBOARD to over-explain to you is a craft in itself.
Why did I deduct a point from this marvel? Simply put, the game lacks true challenge. Yes, I know about the masochistic FINAL FINAL level and the Special World (some of which is still a teeny bit easy), but I barely felt ANY progression in difficulty between W2-W6. Even the game itself throws its hands up about midway, going "Alright, off you pop. You can go to W4-6 in any order you want. Go wild!"
Because the levels' difficulty doesn't really scale after roughly halfway. And this DID affect my enjoyment of the game. My interaction with the levels became fleeting. Enjoyable, but wispy. I struggle to recall the layouts of most of them. By contrast, I could spin you a yarn about MOST levels from Super Mario World or Mario 3 - those games, after a while, gaze at you dispassionately, imperiously, watching you lose life after life until you LEARN YOUR PLACE, MORTAL!
Perhaps I will mellow on this difficulty point upon replays. Maybe I thought the same of Super Mario World the first time I played (on ye olde GBA version!). As with everything, I will keep an open mind. After all, making any definitive statement is mostly pointless when such a thing as time exists in this universe.
And on that weirdly pretentiously poignant note, I declare Mario Wonder to be: ONE OF THE GAMES OF THE YEAR the likes of which the world has never seen the likes of which.
2009
Ys1: The best things about this game are: its pacing, its music and its general art direction. The action-RPG combat I can take or leave. Now, I hate to disparage the "Bump" system, especially as it Tries Something New (TM), but I just have to ask: WHY? I completely appreciate the need to tackle foes from the sides and weird angles; it adds a small level of tactics to an otherwise breezy combat experience, just like 'A Link to the Past', where certain armoured enemies needed to be struck from the sides, lest the PLINK of defeat ring in thine ears...Would Ys1 be better with a dedicated sword button? Maybe...The biggest problem with "Bumping" is the lack of complete character control and there are some bosses where it felt like a race to the bottom of the HP barrel. Thankfully, you can save almost anywhere, meaning a judicious RPG-liker shouldn't be losing too much progress to a poorly designed boss.
There are, in my view, two such bosses, which were probably "designed" in the same way my local council "designs" roundabouts: badly, and with way too many bats. Ys1 likers will no doubt feel a shiver down their spine at the mere mention of "Bat Boss" and I can only gasp these words of advice having finally bested this beast of absolute dubious provenance: Please Don't Play This Game On Hard or Nightmare Mode!!!! Maybe Hard mode is possible, maybe; if you believe in the Heart of the Cards enough you might be able to prevail where I stumbled. But, ye gods! Never try Nightmare mode. Never!! Have you ever read those H.P Lovecraft stories that always begin with the protagonist already at the brink of sanity (but always find time to "set down" their experiences in extremely florid and pageful prose before jumping out a window or some such...) after a horrifying eldritch encounter? That's what playing Nightmare mode is like! In fact, Lovecraft himself would blush at the sheer Hell induced by this abominable mode!!
You should give it a try!
Nightmare mode aside, the game is breezy, I tell you, like a gust of wind gently pushing you along. The pacing is really well done for an RPG, a genre historically plagued by games that take a somewhat whimsical approach to the audience's time. Ys1 pivots from plot point to plot point at speed, introducing new macguffins and world-saving crystals conveniently tucked into old women's shawls at an alarmingly refreshing pace. Until we get to the final dungeon, where the developers seemed to completely panic and started to pad, pad, pad the time away with backtracking...Not a dealbreaker, and it only happens once or twice, although by this time your patience and serenity towards the game may be waning.
You know what doesn't wane, though? This kick-ass music! Mostly electric guitar based with some awesome synthy touches (think Castlevania: Symphony of the Night boss battle type music and you're in the same ballpark) it really helps to make you feel like a true hero as you skip through these dungeons, Bumping(TM) into your enemies. Very cool. I don't really remember the melodies very well, but highlights would include: the Plains music, Darm Tower and most boss battles (yes, even the horrible BAT boss is almost saved by the strength of those chugging guitar lines).
And I definitely want to check out some more Ys titles after this to see where the series goes. Like Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy, I need to pick on later games to get more of a feel for what this series is really supposed to be, or what it later became.
There are, in my view, two such bosses, which were probably "designed" in the same way my local council "designs" roundabouts: badly, and with way too many bats. Ys1 likers will no doubt feel a shiver down their spine at the mere mention of "Bat Boss" and I can only gasp these words of advice having finally bested this beast of absolute dubious provenance: Please Don't Play This Game On Hard or Nightmare Mode!!!! Maybe Hard mode is possible, maybe; if you believe in the Heart of the Cards enough you might be able to prevail where I stumbled. But, ye gods! Never try Nightmare mode. Never!! Have you ever read those H.P Lovecraft stories that always begin with the protagonist already at the brink of sanity (but always find time to "set down" their experiences in extremely florid and pageful prose before jumping out a window or some such...) after a horrifying eldritch encounter? That's what playing Nightmare mode is like! In fact, Lovecraft himself would blush at the sheer Hell induced by this abominable mode!!
You should give it a try!
Nightmare mode aside, the game is breezy, I tell you, like a gust of wind gently pushing you along. The pacing is really well done for an RPG, a genre historically plagued by games that take a somewhat whimsical approach to the audience's time. Ys1 pivots from plot point to plot point at speed, introducing new macguffins and world-saving crystals conveniently tucked into old women's shawls at an alarmingly refreshing pace. Until we get to the final dungeon, where the developers seemed to completely panic and started to pad, pad, pad the time away with backtracking...Not a dealbreaker, and it only happens once or twice, although by this time your patience and serenity towards the game may be waning.
You know what doesn't wane, though? This kick-ass music! Mostly electric guitar based with some awesome synthy touches (think Castlevania: Symphony of the Night boss battle type music and you're in the same ballpark) it really helps to make you feel like a true hero as you skip through these dungeons, Bumping(TM) into your enemies. Very cool. I don't really remember the melodies very well, but highlights would include: the Plains music, Darm Tower and most boss battles (yes, even the horrible BAT boss is almost saved by the strength of those chugging guitar lines).
And I definitely want to check out some more Ys titles after this to see where the series goes. Like Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy, I need to pick on later games to get more of a feel for what this series is really supposed to be, or what it later became.
2023
“And then…and THEN…he swoops from above, sword wreathed in flame and lightning, tears streaming down his face as he finally plunges the point up to the hilt in Titan’s forehead! A huge burst of energy radiates from the combatants, lighting up the whole continent!
“OK, OK, here’s the next part! God Himself descends on a metal cloud and gives Clive a thumbs up: ‘Nice one, Clive!’ Clive nods gruffly at His Holiness as he absorbs the essence of the entire planet, granting him the ability to open cans of custard WITHOUT a can opener. Clive finally smiles. ‘It’s just been revoked,’ he babbles to himself…”
As the young narrative designer finishes this totally awesome pitch, a small man in a green jacket, previously unnoticed by the enthralled FFXVI designers, suddenly snaps his fingers.
The room falls silent. Slowly, the designers gaze balefully at the interrupter.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s cool, babe…But listen, here’s 5 more side quests involving fetching planks of wood and chocobo butts.”
An awed silence fills the room. Slowly, the designers drift, zombie-like, towards the man in the green jacket. The narrative designer from earlier rips up his own storyboards for the awesome action he had detailed only minutes before.
They wouldn’t be needed where he was going.
The man in the green jacket smiles a slow, greasy smile.
Victory fanfare
“OK, OK, here’s the next part! God Himself descends on a metal cloud and gives Clive a thumbs up: ‘Nice one, Clive!’ Clive nods gruffly at His Holiness as he absorbs the essence of the entire planet, granting him the ability to open cans of custard WITHOUT a can opener. Clive finally smiles. ‘It’s just been revoked,’ he babbles to himself…”
As the young narrative designer finishes this totally awesome pitch, a small man in a green jacket, previously unnoticed by the enthralled FFXVI designers, suddenly snaps his fingers.
The room falls silent. Slowly, the designers gaze balefully at the interrupter.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s cool, babe…But listen, here’s 5 more side quests involving fetching planks of wood and chocobo butts.”
An awed silence fills the room. Slowly, the designers drift, zombie-like, towards the man in the green jacket. The narrative designer from earlier rips up his own storyboards for the awesome action he had detailed only minutes before.
They wouldn’t be needed where he was going.
The man in the green jacket smiles a slow, greasy smile.
Victory fanfare
A complete tonal whiplash after the sugar-rush pop of Rayman 1. I felt a degree of uncertainty, and could already tell within the first five minutes as the opening cutscene revealed that ROBO-PIRATES FROM DEEP SPACE had ENSLAVED the entire population of Rayman’s world and destroyed the HEART OF THE WORLD, that this game was going to exude quite a different atmosphere. And to this day, I’ve never quite seen another game replicate the exact atmosphere of Rayman 2. From dense, lush fairy tale forests to abyssal, skeletal caves where zombie chickens abound (yep, you heard, zombie chickens - actually more terrifying than the name might imply, particularly to an impressionable 9 year old!), to subdued coastlines and ancient abandoned temples, the world feels LIVED, feels much, much older than the characters inhabiting it. It’s the jarring hopelessness of a magical, fantastical world being invaded by an unstoppable, inhuman force – and the design really makes you feel this quite palpable sense of dread...of things being off...or damaged... or sickly, in a way which is sometimes difficult to pin down. Like a childhood nightmare, half remembered, but still gnawingly unsettling. Also buoyed by a sometimes catchy, often melancholic soundtrack, which again mixes fairy tale, tribal and robotic rhythms, sometimes within the same level, to augment this morbidly beautiful atmosphere.
It IS like playing through a child's nightmare in places, even though the game is mostly a lot of fun with its puzzle-platform dynamics. The combat seems tacked on, though: shoot at enemy until enemy falls down and, annoyingly, some enemies have a cooldown/invincibility window where you must wait before lobbing another energy fist-beam pellet at them. I mean, it only seems fair given that Rayman also has the same invincibility cooldown, but it does lead to a bit of aggravating waiting around during fights and turns them all into the same dance: dodge, shoot, wait, dodge, shoot. There are "bosses" which slightly eschew this pattern, but whatever. Does a game like this even need combat? asks the reviewer, tentatively waiting for the onslaught of dissent.
More complaints? Sure, I got ‘em. The camera, while not a massive dealbreaker in the sense that it can be stiffly controlled to some limited extent, still swings around obstacles rather awkwardly, sometimes getting stuck on terrain if Rayman’s too close. On the other hand, there are some cool shots where the camera will automatically zoom out as Rayman walks out of a dank cave to reveal a sizeable coastline or traversable vista, giving a much wider scope to the world. Certain platforming segments also have their own bespoke camera angles, usually to the benefit of the player. In fact, I wondered if a fixed camera for each corridor or gauntlet would be more beneficial, but then you’d lose some of the sense of wonder the world wants you to feel.
Although the game is quite linear, it still makes you want to stop and take it all in. The texture work and the environments and the art in general is vibrant and beautiful. Michel Ancel, the creator of Rayman and the director of Rayman 2, once commented on his love of Studio Ghibli, and in particular, My Neighbour Totoro, as a heavy visual inspiration for his own designs. And you can definitely see it in the more forested areas – the kind of almost impressionistic artwork where a flat vegetation texture can suggest a tree or forest far more evocatively and artistically than a real tree would in some way. There’s an artistic cohesion to the world, and hats off to the designers for straddling the line between the natural and the uncanny so subtly.
More about the game itself? Sure, if you insist. As mentioned, this is a relatively early 3D platformer, mainly focused on jumping and occasionally the odd scrap. There are a handful of other mechanics too, such as riding on the backs of missiles like horses (yep) or water-skiing and swimming. The levels are somewhat varied, although they typically fall into ‘forest’, ‘coastline’, ‘ancient temple’ or ‘pirate ship’ categories. You traverse these levels, free creatures from cages and collect Lums, which are pieces of the exploded heart of the world, which must also be collected in order to unlock certain gates in the level-select hubworld, although in truth I was never short on the Lum requirement at any point, which is why accusations of a collectathon nature are rather unfounded here. Yes, you can go for 100% and collect all the cages, lums and see all the bonus levels, but I never felt an imperative to do so and still felt I had a rollicking great time.
It IS like playing through a child's nightmare in places, even though the game is mostly a lot of fun with its puzzle-platform dynamics. The combat seems tacked on, though: shoot at enemy until enemy falls down and, annoyingly, some enemies have a cooldown/invincibility window where you must wait before lobbing another energy fist-beam pellet at them. I mean, it only seems fair given that Rayman also has the same invincibility cooldown, but it does lead to a bit of aggravating waiting around during fights and turns them all into the same dance: dodge, shoot, wait, dodge, shoot. There are "bosses" which slightly eschew this pattern, but whatever. Does a game like this even need combat? asks the reviewer, tentatively waiting for the onslaught of dissent.
More complaints? Sure, I got ‘em. The camera, while not a massive dealbreaker in the sense that it can be stiffly controlled to some limited extent, still swings around obstacles rather awkwardly, sometimes getting stuck on terrain if Rayman’s too close. On the other hand, there are some cool shots where the camera will automatically zoom out as Rayman walks out of a dank cave to reveal a sizeable coastline or traversable vista, giving a much wider scope to the world. Certain platforming segments also have their own bespoke camera angles, usually to the benefit of the player. In fact, I wondered if a fixed camera for each corridor or gauntlet would be more beneficial, but then you’d lose some of the sense of wonder the world wants you to feel.
Although the game is quite linear, it still makes you want to stop and take it all in. The texture work and the environments and the art in general is vibrant and beautiful. Michel Ancel, the creator of Rayman and the director of Rayman 2, once commented on his love of Studio Ghibli, and in particular, My Neighbour Totoro, as a heavy visual inspiration for his own designs. And you can definitely see it in the more forested areas – the kind of almost impressionistic artwork where a flat vegetation texture can suggest a tree or forest far more evocatively and artistically than a real tree would in some way. There’s an artistic cohesion to the world, and hats off to the designers for straddling the line between the natural and the uncanny so subtly.
More about the game itself? Sure, if you insist. As mentioned, this is a relatively early 3D platformer, mainly focused on jumping and occasionally the odd scrap. There are a handful of other mechanics too, such as riding on the backs of missiles like horses (yep) or water-skiing and swimming. The levels are somewhat varied, although they typically fall into ‘forest’, ‘coastline’, ‘ancient temple’ or ‘pirate ship’ categories. You traverse these levels, free creatures from cages and collect Lums, which are pieces of the exploded heart of the world, which must also be collected in order to unlock certain gates in the level-select hubworld, although in truth I was never short on the Lum requirement at any point, which is why accusations of a collectathon nature are rather unfounded here. Yes, you can go for 100% and collect all the cages, lums and see all the bonus levels, but I never felt an imperative to do so and still felt I had a rollicking great time.
2018
One of the first games I've played where I genuinely want to know how the designers pulled it off - to see "under the hood", if you will. Nothing short of meticulously designed, the game at first feels somewhat forbidding, especially the bosses, until you realise that every action you take gets you closer to reaching the end goal.
Was I getting better, or were the earlier bosses tuned to become slightly easier after a certain number of runs?
This game gave me one of the most satisfying feelings of progression, where I inched closer to the end goal each run. Somewhat Dark Soulsian, after your first few runs you swear that the wall is just too damn high, but then the game plays so smoothly and strengthens you so subtly, that by the time you reach the wall again, you find that you've already smashed through it.
Also the writing rules and the art design is...cough....godly.
Was I getting better, or were the earlier bosses tuned to become slightly easier after a certain number of runs?
This game gave me one of the most satisfying feelings of progression, where I inched closer to the end goal each run. Somewhat Dark Soulsian, after your first few runs you swear that the wall is just too damn high, but then the game plays so smoothly and strengthens you so subtly, that by the time you reach the wall again, you find that you've already smashed through it.
Also the writing rules and the art design is...cough....godly.
Guy goes to a doctor.
"Doctor, I am depressed."
Doctor looks at him and says, "Treatment is simple! Great game Resident Evil Village has been released. Plenty of action. Guns! That will cheer you up."
The man bursts into tears: "But Doctor, I am Resident Evil 4."
"Doctor, I am depressed."
Doctor looks at him and says, "Treatment is simple! Great game Resident Evil Village has been released. Plenty of action. Guns! That will cheer you up."
The man bursts into tears: "But Doctor, I am Resident Evil 4."
In my vague quest to complete the mainline Dragon Quest games, I took a little detour. A 40-hour ish, meandering detour through Dragon Quest Treasures.
Meandering is the key word here. The game unfolds at a leisurely pace as you unlock quests, locations and characters with every task or action. Do we all remember Chocobo Hot or Cold? This is that taken to its sumptuous extreme.
You set out with your party of monsters and search for as many treasures as your grubby mitts can carry. Then you bring said treasure back to base and watch languorously as your treasure total increases, thereby unlocking more features, monsters, treasures.
At its core, I found it too simplistic and, possibly, at any other time of year apart from this Season of Ice, I wouldn't have given it more than a few hours before bouncing off. But there's something to be said about COSY experiences - and this was akin to a blanket of soft, muffling snow to my wrazzled mind. So, cheers for that, Dragon Quest Treasures!
Dragon Quest aficionados (e.g. who've played every mainline game) will perhaps find more to love. All the treasures and trinkets which you collect are call backs to items and characters from all previous Dragon Quests. And there's an impressive variety to collect.
Even though this isn't a mainline Dragon Quest game, it still retains the charm and attention to detail for which the series is now known. Apart from the performance, of course. The graphics struggle to be on par with Dragon Quest 11 (which runs much better on the Switch than this game) and can become rather choppy in places. All those massive open areas...They should have taken a leaf from Breath of the Wild and just made everything slightly more....impressionistic?
In conclusion, I spent 40 hours with this game. I have fond memories of it. A cosy, winning experience from a beloved series.
Meandering is the key word here. The game unfolds at a leisurely pace as you unlock quests, locations and characters with every task or action. Do we all remember Chocobo Hot or Cold? This is that taken to its sumptuous extreme.
You set out with your party of monsters and search for as many treasures as your grubby mitts can carry. Then you bring said treasure back to base and watch languorously as your treasure total increases, thereby unlocking more features, monsters, treasures.
At its core, I found it too simplistic and, possibly, at any other time of year apart from this Season of Ice, I wouldn't have given it more than a few hours before bouncing off. But there's something to be said about COSY experiences - and this was akin to a blanket of soft, muffling snow to my wrazzled mind. So, cheers for that, Dragon Quest Treasures!
Dragon Quest aficionados (e.g. who've played every mainline game) will perhaps find more to love. All the treasures and trinkets which you collect are call backs to items and characters from all previous Dragon Quests. And there's an impressive variety to collect.
Even though this isn't a mainline Dragon Quest game, it still retains the charm and attention to detail for which the series is now known. Apart from the performance, of course. The graphics struggle to be on par with Dragon Quest 11 (which runs much better on the Switch than this game) and can become rather choppy in places. All those massive open areas...They should have taken a leaf from Breath of the Wild and just made everything slightly more....impressionistic?
In conclusion, I spent 40 hours with this game. I have fond memories of it. A cosy, winning experience from a beloved series.
2022
"Miyazaki-san! We have just completed the 100 page narrative design document for this game. A stroke of genius getting GRRM on board, too, sir. Players are sure to enjoy the rich narrative as well as the...
"Delete 95% of that document at once."
"But...Sir...!"
Hidetaka Miyazaki spits a twenty-sided die out of his mouth. It lands on a battered copy of the Necronomicon.
"I said burn 95% of that document," he intones, calmly, "Then get the team to work on twenty new NPCs who all cackle in different ways at the end of every sentence..."
As the young narrative designer turns around to exit, Miyazaki stops him:
"Cover another 80% of the game map with random gravestones, please."
"Delete 95% of that document at once."
"But...Sir...!"
Hidetaka Miyazaki spits a twenty-sided die out of his mouth. It lands on a battered copy of the Necronomicon.
"I said burn 95% of that document," he intones, calmly, "Then get the team to work on twenty new NPCs who all cackle in different ways at the end of every sentence..."
As the young narrative designer turns around to exit, Miyazaki stops him:
"Cover another 80% of the game map with random gravestones, please."
2001
“Sumptuously-coated platinum-haired man raises hell at local castle”
“STYLISH!” exclaims the blood-red, graffiti-like “Style” counter on the top right of the screen as I stab a lizard monster in the face from 20 feet with a sword crackling with lightning. As I continue to pound the attack button, more lizard monsters jump onto the scene; I pummel the attack button further, hit a shoulder button which engulfs my avatar, Dante, in a Purple Haze and continue slicing and stabbing, stabbing and slicing, sometimes quickly bringing out a well-hidden shotgun from the ether of Dante’s pants to shoot a lizard point-blank in the face, producing a satisfying glass-breaking crunching sound effect.
“STYLISH!” the game continues to declare in the top right hand of the screen.
But then…a lull in the combat; the weak-hearted enemies have now scampered too far out of the reach of further pummeling. “STYLISH!” slowly fades into the background, only to be replaced a second later with a blue-fonted, “AWESOME!”, and a further split-second later this is replaced with a poisonous-green, “BRAVO!”
The sinking feeling in my stomach seems strange. “BRAVO!” is still good, right? I wish people in real life would shout “BRAVO!” at me in the streets, rather than “SNICKER!” (Yes, in my world, I register facial expressions and onomatopoeia as actual, physical words or letters; the worst kind of synesthesia I’ve ever…er… heard). But “BRAVO!” isn’t “STYLISH!”, the latter being the highest accolade given by ‘Devil May Cry’ based on how much punishment you can dole out to a demon in the shortest amount of time possible. With extreme prejudice.
Of course, later DMC games became a bit more nuanced with this Stylish counter system. The seminal DMC3 requires you to keep switching up combos and weapons, lest you be affronted with the Yellow Font Of Failure coupled with the greatest insult any “righteous gamer dude” could ever bear:
“DOPE!”
And no - not the ironic, “Wow, that combo was DOPE, bro!” But “Dope” as in dunce – as in, YOU FAILED in your moral duty to crush those demons with enough STYLE. Man, just give me a safe ‘Game Over’ instead to ease the crushing deflation of being addressed by such an odious adjective.
But this ranking system is fair enough in DMC3, where you constantly have “ripping” combos dripping out of your greasy gamer palms and you’re doing cool stuff like pirouetting around enemies with twin blades of wind and fire before jumping onto a slice-downed enemy, skating it like a demented Roomba around the arena, knocking THE ORBS out of several by-standing demons in the process, before front flipping off the unfortunate ride, switching to a pair of “light-gauntlets” and dive-kicking another gawping demon in the face so forcefully and with such finality that its body literally shatters out of existence with a satisfying, “Awoooh?!” of puzzlement and despondency.
However, in this first game, DMC1, where the combos (your ability to chain attacks one after the other in a fluent fashion by alternating button presses and the speed of said button presses – for any “noobs”, yes, that means MASHING with wild, rhythmic abandon) are far more limited, the word “DULL!” seems like a random criticism, especially during your first hour of play: Um...Video Game? I just rammed a lightning-veiled sword down the throat of a gigantic, demonic, fire-encrusted magma spider in the TWISTED HOUSE OF GOD, and all you can shrug at me is, “Meh…DULL!” That spider fight was atrociously awesome! Is this some attempt at goading me into further more furious button presses? If so, challenge accepted!
The ranking system extends to the end of each Mission. The ‘Mission Complete’ screen confronts you with a summary of how long it took to complete the Mission (note: taking your time and soaking in the atmosphere = not stylish, apparently) and how many Red Orbs you managed to milk out of the hapless demonic population of Mallet Island, like some crazed Bloody Baron putting the screws to his unfortunate serfs (if said serfs were horrific lizard monsters and scissor-wielding ghost people).
That’s right – time and orbs are the only two factors the game uses to produce your overall ‘rank’ for any given Mission.
However, this binary division of Stylishness is a little bit of a cheat. The game never explains the mechanics of this system. For example, how the on-screen ranks during battles eventually determines how many Red Orbs cough out of the enemies at the end of the battles. If the rank is ‘Stylish!’ towards the end of a battle, the larger number of Red Orbs gained. You could eventually deduce this by watching the ranks and the orbs, but in the heat of battle, it’s not easy to spot.
The ranking system is what personally keeps me interested during multiple playthroughs. The little skip of the heart when you gain your first ‘S’ rank for completing a Mission; the bitter taste of disappointment when presented with just a ‘C’ – it’s just a little extra incentive for wanting to do well, which translates into tenser battles and more frantic exploration in the downtime between battles. It’s a pretty short game when viewed as a whole – I completed it in about 6 hours the first time through, and then around 3 hours the second time around (on Hard mode). I’m now in the middle of a third playthrough on ‘Dante Must Die!’ mode (AKA: Very Hard). But this is also a blessing. It doesn’t feel bloated or padded – it’s quite a slim, snappy experience overall.
And this snappiness becomes more evident on repeated playthroughs, where you can zoom past all the Resident Evil “spot the antiques” puzzles which have been shoe-horned into the game (or kept in after the switch from RE4 to DMC).
Ah, the puzzles. If you’ve ever played a Resident Evil game in the past, you’ll know what I mean. If not, then imagine the whole world as a puzzle box, wherein strange relics, symbols and antiques are needed in order to progress. So instead of breaking down the (mostly flimsy, antique, wooden) doors which block his routes, Dante opts to shrug his shoulders instead, “Ah, well, better go and hunt for the Destroyer of Ardor in order to open this Wooden Door of Demoniac.” Why can’t I switch into Devil Trigger mode and just sneeze the door open? Because Game Design Reasons, that’s why. Because Unnecessary Padding reasons, that’s why. Part of me thinks that Capcom should have dispensed with The Antiques Roadshow altogether and went all in with the fighting. I mean, this battle system is pretty darn amazing (for 2001!!) so why not lean more into it with confidence? Why not make a cleaner break from its RE4 beginnings?
Traversal in this game would be fun without all the trinket hunting. I mean, Resident Evil 4 almost did this. Yes, there were curios to collect in that game, but they were placed on the critical path and required little to no actual hunting and rooting. Yes, there were a few odd time-waster puzzles for shiny baubles even then (does anyone else remember the weirdly simple-hard rotating puzzle in the graveyard in RE4? Who even builds stuff like that in rural Spain?) but they were few and far between and never interrupted the tense gunplay.
Some of the Item Questing is interesting. The flavor text on the keys and items can be quite evocative, although most of the subtext boils down to “This opens the door to HELL!! Everything in this game has to do with HELL! Demons!! Mwahaha!” I’m overstating this a little bit, but the main point remains: why not have more confidence in your fights and battle system? It’s pretty darn cool as is, man!
Perhaps one reason for the trinket hunts was a lack of confidence in the volume of content in this game. As stated, I finished the game, and most Secret Missions, in around 6 hours the first time through. And you tend to notice, around halfway through, that enemy variety is somewhat lacking.
The puppet enemies, which work well as introductory enemies in the first mission, keep popping up in unrelated locations later. They work well as enemies in the opening castle sections of the game but hearing the clank of wood feet tapping on the floor as you walk into a later greenhouse area seems out of place. Overall, there are only 5 different main enemy types: puppets, lizard-monsters, ghosts with a variety of scythes, Nobodies (the freakiest, flayed-monkey-est demons you will ever see) and those big rock spitting spiders which only pop up once or twice in the whole game. Oh yes, and later the lizard-monsters are replaced by ice-clad lizard monsters (quaintly called ‘Frosts’) in a half-hearted attempt at a pallet swap.
But the biggest disappointment are the boss battles. It’s my sincere belief that a short, mission-based game like this should bookmark each mission with a stylish Boss Battle. However, in line with the enemy variety, the boss battles leave more to be desired…
The Phantom is a recurring boss you must fight at least twice. Nelo Angelo, a cool, but somewhat underwhelming fight, pops up three different times. Griffon, the large bird-owl-lightning monster, also pops up for you to wallop at least three different times. And who can forget: Nightmare; a demonic puddle of slime, bone and robotic exoskeleton, one of the most challenging fights in the game. It turns up three times like the others. The last boss is against Mundus…the less said about that abomination of a fight, which includes an out of place bullet-hell section which seems to randomize whether or not you take damage from the various projectiles thrown at you; a fight in a lava lake with moving platforms; and a token fight at the end of the game where you mash the button repeatedly before Mundus is finally sent packing BACK TO THE PIT; the better.
Later DMC games rectify this by adding more boss battles (although still cling to the keys and locks hunts) which creates a much-needed variety, especially for repeated playthroughs.
Speaking of variety, check out the complete opposite of variety: THIS GAME! With tongue firmly pressed into the nether reasons of a cheek, I now proudly declare that Devil May Cry 1’s combat is almost the complete opposite of variety. In total there are 4 different DEVIL ARMS (as the game calls them) to be wielded and hefted around in pursuit of the complete genocide of the demonic population. These arms are (arms are): Force Edge, the starter sword – it slices, it dices, it….doesn’t do much else; Alastor, the second sword, wreathed in lightning, possessed with demonic intent bent to your anti-demonic will, this sword also slices and dices, but this time with lightning crackle aplenty. The world’s stylishest taser. Then there’s IFRIT, the flame gauntlets! Boots and greaves which you use to PUNCH OUT and KARATE KID opponents to smithereens. It is a most lugubrious inducing weapon to thine enemies.
“FLAME GAUNTLETS, DUDE!!”! Is what my 13 year old self would have said after the revelatory cutscene in Mission 9 (“NEW STRENGTH”) where the GAUNTLETS SPEAK WITH YOU before rocketing around the semi-circular area you happen to be in and latching themselves onto your arms and legs in a seemingly Darth Vaderesque ecstasy of pain after which Dante, staring dumbfoundedly at his decidedly not burned-to-cinders arms and legs, begins Rocky-jabbing and jogging on the spot, producing wreaths of flames with every stab and prod. Man, they even look cool in the EQUIP MENU! They look like spiky bear claws, dude! Oh, yeah, check out ALL your stuff in the EQUIP MENU – everything’s rendered to Stylish Gothic perfection over there.
And then there’s the last melee weapon – The ‘Sparda’ Sword. It’s the strongest in the game, kind of like a sword-scythe combo (Bloodborne, anyone?) and is so strong is completely deletes your Devil Trigger gauge as you wield it; as in, you CANNOT use your Devil Trigger AT ALL while wielding The Sparda – some sort of a handicap on its already ridiculous DPS potential. Me? I prefer Alastor and Ifrit personally. The Sparda always seems a little cumbersome to me – it’s just DemonicSword.txt. Alastor has lightning and is also a COOL NAME (as is Ifrit, as any Final Fantasy aficionado can gleefully attest).
Dante, the main character of this “Stylish Action” game, trashes vaguely demonic enemies with Big Sword and Big Glove. He wears a blood red leather jacket with multiple fasteners dangling rather like those of a good old-fashioned straitjacket. He “runs” (irony imminent) with legs and fists pumping artfully, and yet it’s like he runs in slow motion – a kind of comedic, fake, running-through-treacle type motion, which means he always gets where you want him to go slightly slower than you would believe him capable. He can also jump. Lord, the jumping…
While he runs like a man in a slow-motion reel, the jumping, on the other hand, is weirdly bouncy and cricket-like: sudden, sharp, violent little hops. He does a little forward roll in the air if you jump while tilting forward on the analogue stick. If you don’t tilt the stick at all, he merely does a shorter vertical hop, with arms slightly raised. If you jump against a wall, Dante will sometimes, and somewhat glitchingly, do a kick-off into a backflip, which gives him an extra height boost; the kind of movement trick which always seems like a fluke and which you can never adequately repeat. Some of the game’s secrets are hidden behind these calculated abominations of platforming. Coupled with a capricious camera which may keep flashing back and forth between two different, tilted, angles of the same hallway, jumping with any finesse turns into a weirdly frustrating and unfun process.
Still, I adore this game. It contains an abundance of macabre charm – that effervescent quality which is difficult to pin down. The upgrade systems are a thumbs up, always, the sense that you’re progressing between each Mission (the game is split up into several of these “Mission” which serve as Checkpoints between chunks of the game, really), upgrading your fighting capabilities, unlocking cool new tricks with your sword (not that many of them, which is refreshing!) and buying health and magic upgrades with the game’s currency (which turn out to be “Red Orbs” – the BLOOD OF THE DEMONS WHICH YOU HARVEST WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE DURING THE GAME. The orbs have screaming faces on them because it’s DEMONIC BLOOD!).
In conclusion, I think this is a pretty neat game.
“STYLISH!” exclaims the blood-red, graffiti-like “Style” counter on the top right of the screen as I stab a lizard monster in the face from 20 feet with a sword crackling with lightning. As I continue to pound the attack button, more lizard monsters jump onto the scene; I pummel the attack button further, hit a shoulder button which engulfs my avatar, Dante, in a Purple Haze and continue slicing and stabbing, stabbing and slicing, sometimes quickly bringing out a well-hidden shotgun from the ether of Dante’s pants to shoot a lizard point-blank in the face, producing a satisfying glass-breaking crunching sound effect.
“STYLISH!” the game continues to declare in the top right hand of the screen.
But then…a lull in the combat; the weak-hearted enemies have now scampered too far out of the reach of further pummeling. “STYLISH!” slowly fades into the background, only to be replaced a second later with a blue-fonted, “AWESOME!”, and a further split-second later this is replaced with a poisonous-green, “BRAVO!”
The sinking feeling in my stomach seems strange. “BRAVO!” is still good, right? I wish people in real life would shout “BRAVO!” at me in the streets, rather than “SNICKER!” (Yes, in my world, I register facial expressions and onomatopoeia as actual, physical words or letters; the worst kind of synesthesia I’ve ever…er… heard). But “BRAVO!” isn’t “STYLISH!”, the latter being the highest accolade given by ‘Devil May Cry’ based on how much punishment you can dole out to a demon in the shortest amount of time possible. With extreme prejudice.
Of course, later DMC games became a bit more nuanced with this Stylish counter system. The seminal DMC3 requires you to keep switching up combos and weapons, lest you be affronted with the Yellow Font Of Failure coupled with the greatest insult any “righteous gamer dude” could ever bear:
“DOPE!”
And no - not the ironic, “Wow, that combo was DOPE, bro!” But “Dope” as in dunce – as in, YOU FAILED in your moral duty to crush those demons with enough STYLE. Man, just give me a safe ‘Game Over’ instead to ease the crushing deflation of being addressed by such an odious adjective.
But this ranking system is fair enough in DMC3, where you constantly have “ripping” combos dripping out of your greasy gamer palms and you’re doing cool stuff like pirouetting around enemies with twin blades of wind and fire before jumping onto a slice-downed enemy, skating it like a demented Roomba around the arena, knocking THE ORBS out of several by-standing demons in the process, before front flipping off the unfortunate ride, switching to a pair of “light-gauntlets” and dive-kicking another gawping demon in the face so forcefully and with such finality that its body literally shatters out of existence with a satisfying, “Awoooh?!” of puzzlement and despondency.
However, in this first game, DMC1, where the combos (your ability to chain attacks one after the other in a fluent fashion by alternating button presses and the speed of said button presses – for any “noobs”, yes, that means MASHING with wild, rhythmic abandon) are far more limited, the word “DULL!” seems like a random criticism, especially during your first hour of play: Um...Video Game? I just rammed a lightning-veiled sword down the throat of a gigantic, demonic, fire-encrusted magma spider in the TWISTED HOUSE OF GOD, and all you can shrug at me is, “Meh…DULL!” That spider fight was atrociously awesome! Is this some attempt at goading me into further more furious button presses? If so, challenge accepted!
The ranking system extends to the end of each Mission. The ‘Mission Complete’ screen confronts you with a summary of how long it took to complete the Mission (note: taking your time and soaking in the atmosphere = not stylish, apparently) and how many Red Orbs you managed to milk out of the hapless demonic population of Mallet Island, like some crazed Bloody Baron putting the screws to his unfortunate serfs (if said serfs were horrific lizard monsters and scissor-wielding ghost people).
That’s right – time and orbs are the only two factors the game uses to produce your overall ‘rank’ for any given Mission.
However, this binary division of Stylishness is a little bit of a cheat. The game never explains the mechanics of this system. For example, how the on-screen ranks during battles eventually determines how many Red Orbs cough out of the enemies at the end of the battles. If the rank is ‘Stylish!’ towards the end of a battle, the larger number of Red Orbs gained. You could eventually deduce this by watching the ranks and the orbs, but in the heat of battle, it’s not easy to spot.
The ranking system is what personally keeps me interested during multiple playthroughs. The little skip of the heart when you gain your first ‘S’ rank for completing a Mission; the bitter taste of disappointment when presented with just a ‘C’ – it’s just a little extra incentive for wanting to do well, which translates into tenser battles and more frantic exploration in the downtime between battles. It’s a pretty short game when viewed as a whole – I completed it in about 6 hours the first time through, and then around 3 hours the second time around (on Hard mode). I’m now in the middle of a third playthrough on ‘Dante Must Die!’ mode (AKA: Very Hard). But this is also a blessing. It doesn’t feel bloated or padded – it’s quite a slim, snappy experience overall.
And this snappiness becomes more evident on repeated playthroughs, where you can zoom past all the Resident Evil “spot the antiques” puzzles which have been shoe-horned into the game (or kept in after the switch from RE4 to DMC).
Ah, the puzzles. If you’ve ever played a Resident Evil game in the past, you’ll know what I mean. If not, then imagine the whole world as a puzzle box, wherein strange relics, symbols and antiques are needed in order to progress. So instead of breaking down the (mostly flimsy, antique, wooden) doors which block his routes, Dante opts to shrug his shoulders instead, “Ah, well, better go and hunt for the Destroyer of Ardor in order to open this Wooden Door of Demoniac.” Why can’t I switch into Devil Trigger mode and just sneeze the door open? Because Game Design Reasons, that’s why. Because Unnecessary Padding reasons, that’s why. Part of me thinks that Capcom should have dispensed with The Antiques Roadshow altogether and went all in with the fighting. I mean, this battle system is pretty darn amazing (for 2001!!) so why not lean more into it with confidence? Why not make a cleaner break from its RE4 beginnings?
Traversal in this game would be fun without all the trinket hunting. I mean, Resident Evil 4 almost did this. Yes, there were curios to collect in that game, but they were placed on the critical path and required little to no actual hunting and rooting. Yes, there were a few odd time-waster puzzles for shiny baubles even then (does anyone else remember the weirdly simple-hard rotating puzzle in the graveyard in RE4? Who even builds stuff like that in rural Spain?) but they were few and far between and never interrupted the tense gunplay.
Some of the Item Questing is interesting. The flavor text on the keys and items can be quite evocative, although most of the subtext boils down to “This opens the door to HELL!! Everything in this game has to do with HELL! Demons!! Mwahaha!” I’m overstating this a little bit, but the main point remains: why not have more confidence in your fights and battle system? It’s pretty darn cool as is, man!
Perhaps one reason for the trinket hunts was a lack of confidence in the volume of content in this game. As stated, I finished the game, and most Secret Missions, in around 6 hours the first time through. And you tend to notice, around halfway through, that enemy variety is somewhat lacking.
The puppet enemies, which work well as introductory enemies in the first mission, keep popping up in unrelated locations later. They work well as enemies in the opening castle sections of the game but hearing the clank of wood feet tapping on the floor as you walk into a later greenhouse area seems out of place. Overall, there are only 5 different main enemy types: puppets, lizard-monsters, ghosts with a variety of scythes, Nobodies (the freakiest, flayed-monkey-est demons you will ever see) and those big rock spitting spiders which only pop up once or twice in the whole game. Oh yes, and later the lizard-monsters are replaced by ice-clad lizard monsters (quaintly called ‘Frosts’) in a half-hearted attempt at a pallet swap.
But the biggest disappointment are the boss battles. It’s my sincere belief that a short, mission-based game like this should bookmark each mission with a stylish Boss Battle. However, in line with the enemy variety, the boss battles leave more to be desired…
The Phantom is a recurring boss you must fight at least twice. Nelo Angelo, a cool, but somewhat underwhelming fight, pops up three different times. Griffon, the large bird-owl-lightning monster, also pops up for you to wallop at least three different times. And who can forget: Nightmare; a demonic puddle of slime, bone and robotic exoskeleton, one of the most challenging fights in the game. It turns up three times like the others. The last boss is against Mundus…the less said about that abomination of a fight, which includes an out of place bullet-hell section which seems to randomize whether or not you take damage from the various projectiles thrown at you; a fight in a lava lake with moving platforms; and a token fight at the end of the game where you mash the button repeatedly before Mundus is finally sent packing BACK TO THE PIT; the better.
Later DMC games rectify this by adding more boss battles (although still cling to the keys and locks hunts) which creates a much-needed variety, especially for repeated playthroughs.
Speaking of variety, check out the complete opposite of variety: THIS GAME! With tongue firmly pressed into the nether reasons of a cheek, I now proudly declare that Devil May Cry 1’s combat is almost the complete opposite of variety. In total there are 4 different DEVIL ARMS (as the game calls them) to be wielded and hefted around in pursuit of the complete genocide of the demonic population. These arms are (arms are): Force Edge, the starter sword – it slices, it dices, it….doesn’t do much else; Alastor, the second sword, wreathed in lightning, possessed with demonic intent bent to your anti-demonic will, this sword also slices and dices, but this time with lightning crackle aplenty. The world’s stylishest taser. Then there’s IFRIT, the flame gauntlets! Boots and greaves which you use to PUNCH OUT and KARATE KID opponents to smithereens. It is a most lugubrious inducing weapon to thine enemies.
“FLAME GAUNTLETS, DUDE!!”! Is what my 13 year old self would have said after the revelatory cutscene in Mission 9 (“NEW STRENGTH”) where the GAUNTLETS SPEAK WITH YOU before rocketing around the semi-circular area you happen to be in and latching themselves onto your arms and legs in a seemingly Darth Vaderesque ecstasy of pain after which Dante, staring dumbfoundedly at his decidedly not burned-to-cinders arms and legs, begins Rocky-jabbing and jogging on the spot, producing wreaths of flames with every stab and prod. Man, they even look cool in the EQUIP MENU! They look like spiky bear claws, dude! Oh, yeah, check out ALL your stuff in the EQUIP MENU – everything’s rendered to Stylish Gothic perfection over there.
And then there’s the last melee weapon – The ‘Sparda’ Sword. It’s the strongest in the game, kind of like a sword-scythe combo (Bloodborne, anyone?) and is so strong is completely deletes your Devil Trigger gauge as you wield it; as in, you CANNOT use your Devil Trigger AT ALL while wielding The Sparda – some sort of a handicap on its already ridiculous DPS potential. Me? I prefer Alastor and Ifrit personally. The Sparda always seems a little cumbersome to me – it’s just DemonicSword.txt. Alastor has lightning and is also a COOL NAME (as is Ifrit, as any Final Fantasy aficionado can gleefully attest).
Dante, the main character of this “Stylish Action” game, trashes vaguely demonic enemies with Big Sword and Big Glove. He wears a blood red leather jacket with multiple fasteners dangling rather like those of a good old-fashioned straitjacket. He “runs” (irony imminent) with legs and fists pumping artfully, and yet it’s like he runs in slow motion – a kind of comedic, fake, running-through-treacle type motion, which means he always gets where you want him to go slightly slower than you would believe him capable. He can also jump. Lord, the jumping…
While he runs like a man in a slow-motion reel, the jumping, on the other hand, is weirdly bouncy and cricket-like: sudden, sharp, violent little hops. He does a little forward roll in the air if you jump while tilting forward on the analogue stick. If you don’t tilt the stick at all, he merely does a shorter vertical hop, with arms slightly raised. If you jump against a wall, Dante will sometimes, and somewhat glitchingly, do a kick-off into a backflip, which gives him an extra height boost; the kind of movement trick which always seems like a fluke and which you can never adequately repeat. Some of the game’s secrets are hidden behind these calculated abominations of platforming. Coupled with a capricious camera which may keep flashing back and forth between two different, tilted, angles of the same hallway, jumping with any finesse turns into a weirdly frustrating and unfun process.
Still, I adore this game. It contains an abundance of macabre charm – that effervescent quality which is difficult to pin down. The upgrade systems are a thumbs up, always, the sense that you’re progressing between each Mission (the game is split up into several of these “Mission” which serve as Checkpoints between chunks of the game, really), upgrading your fighting capabilities, unlocking cool new tricks with your sword (not that many of them, which is refreshing!) and buying health and magic upgrades with the game’s currency (which turn out to be “Red Orbs” – the BLOOD OF THE DEMONS WHICH YOU HARVEST WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE DURING THE GAME. The orbs have screaming faces on them because it’s DEMONIC BLOOD!).
In conclusion, I think this is a pretty neat game.
2004
I thought I'd work my way through the mainline Dragon Quest games, so I booted this up on the Switch. It's intriguing how much of what's to come is in this game: items, enemies, the levelling system - some of which are unchanged even in the latest DQ11.
I enjoyed my time with it overall. The grind was real. But also hypnotic. I disliked the long spiel the King gave you every time you booted up your Save. Listen, by the time you've finished telling me how much EXP I need for the next level, your daughter will be dead, old man!
I enjoyed my time with it overall. The grind was real. But also hypnotic. I disliked the long spiel the King gave you every time you booted up your Save. Listen, by the time you've finished telling me how much EXP I need for the next level, your daughter will be dead, old man!