I’m going to slightly spoil a puzzle here: specifically, revealing the arcane process of opening an envelope. In the course of trying to rescue his girlfriend from an evil scientist’s mansion, our hero Dave discovers a hidden envelope with something mysterious inside. Tearing it open to discover its contents, Dave unknowingly kills his girlfriend. The end. Turns out, depending on which two friends were selected to tag along at the start, carelessly tearing open this envelope can quietly leave you with no way to finish. The goal is to open it gingerly enough to be intact for future use, so try to imagine how this might be accomplished. Maybe there could be a letter opener somewhere, or only certain characters are careful enough, or maybe recovering it after giving it to the intended recipient would work… but none of these are correct, and the real answer is to microwave it. It loosens up the glue, opening up the envelope safely. However, I lied, that’s not the real answer, which is to microwave it with a jar full of water next to it to ensure the humidity remains high enough to loosen the glue without burning.

Singling out a puzzle like this is usually to demonstrate some ludicrous moon logic, but Maniac Mansion almost runs too far in the opposite direction. It requires normal Earth logic in such oddly specific ways that it’s almost equally opaque, but that’s sorta why I love it. It’s not like you’re in a realm of magic and fairy tales that builds off references and genre assumptions, the most difficult solutions actually require fairly mundane reasoning to solve. The house is just a small, singular location, so it’s easy to find all your tools quickly, and start theorizing the uses for each character. It’s common to come across a new item and think “Ah, if I get stuck, I can bring this other character next time and try that” and slowly learn the extent of the possibilities. That’s why the aforementioned softlocks are so heartbreaking, since they’re the only factor that prevent this from being a perfect genre entry point. It gets even more complicated when considering the version differences, like how ruining the envelope was considered too brutal to include in the NES port, and was removed. However, the interface doesn’t work well with a controller and many details were censored, so there’s no way around some awkwardness. If you’re coming into it cold, I would recommend playing the 1989 PC version and including Bernard in your trio, since he’s accepted as contributing to the smoothest route and doesn’t require any envelope microwaving. And really, I do recommend it in spite of the issues; I think its concept for a small-scale but layered adventure game is one that still holds a lot of promise. I would love to try some indie games that put their unique spin on the idea, at least in a way that doesn’t involve me despondently sitting in front of a microwave any more than I already do.

Classic-vania games all function so similarly that it seems pointless to go over their design except as a delta of the template, but that makes it difficult to review this game in particular. Bloodlines has multiple characters, Super Castlevania 4 focuses on setpieces more than challenging action, but Dracula X is essentially the first game all over again. It’s simple, it’s difficult, but it doesn’t have the same stylistic flair as its peers.

Ok, I can’t keep going on with that style, anyone who reads my stuff knows this sudden lurch in tone is the equivalent of me throwing the papers on my desk into the air, but I take issue with the way that Dracula X is discussed, and this is my chance to air some grievances. The phrase you can’t get away from is “botched Rondo of Blood”, and while there is some truth to that, I think it’s way too easy of an evaluation to slap on and call it a day. The truth is that Rondo of Blood has its own flaws, and Dracula X is a response to those criticisms mixed in with the limitations of the Super Nintendo. Namely, the difficulty curve of Rondo of Blood definitely needed a second look. Most of the game is pretty easy, until you reach the sixth stage, which is a massive difficulty spike that I found to be one of the hardest bosses in the series. Then, the difficulty jerks up and down until the final fight, a showdown with Dracula that’s one of the most effortless. Meanwhile, Dracula X’s curve makes much more sense, starting high but increasing steadily, finishing off with an appropriately difficult climax. Whether that makes the total experience for you better or worse is a question unto itself, but the point is that it shouldn’t just be dismissed as a porting mistake. Meanwhile, one aspect that’s an almost indisputable downgrade is the general game feel, where Richter feels less responsive and slower than he does in Rondo of Blood. However, when compared to the rest of the series, the movement in Rondo is the one that’s the outlier. Castlevania Bloodlines also came out after Rondo and feels the same way as X, but it doesn’t receive the same criticism because it fits in line with the rest of series without carrying those stylistic expectations.

That’s really what I wanted to put out there about Dracula X, that I hope people can play it with the perspective of the wider series, not just its most direct predecessor. Imagine how this game would be thought of if it had the exact same content, but was about, I don’t know, Steve Belmont instead of Richter. I think we would end up with more reviews like the one I started with, simply noting that this game felt like a SNES version of the original Castlevania. It’s simple, it’s challenging, and it requires more planning and experimentation with subweapons than either Bloodlines or Super Castlevania 4. As someone who likes that original NES Castlevania more than Rondo of Blood (I can hear people fainting), I’m completely ok with that. I like Dracula X, even if it really isn’t as good. In my view, it’s much worse of a fate to be dismissed and forgotten rather than critiqued, so I hope this review can inspire people to take a second look and be disappointed in a whole new way.

LucasArts games are typically thought of as comedies rather than character studies, but it was a merging of these concepts that made them so memorable. In The Secret Monkey Island, it’s not just the quips that made the game stand out, it was how Guybrush was a likable and resourceful character, and getting little bits of his perspective as you inspected items and evaluated scenarios made for an interesting journey. Even if he was pretty naive, he was easy to cheer for, since he was such a likable goof that you wanted to see him achieve his dream. Meanwhile, in a game that didn’t focus on the protagonists themselves like Maniac Mansion, a lot of time was spent giving the residents of the titular spooky house a lot of character. Learning what made them the way they were was an endearing little mystery, and this development transformed a basic story about rescuing a girlfriend into something worth remembering. Sam & Max sets up a similar framework with its basic plot hook, where the duo is tasked to find a bigfoot that’s escaped from the circus. The same sort of silly puzzles from Monkey Island are here too, so the structure seems the exact same, but the character development is sadly missing. The leads reliably throw out some good lines, but since the journey isn’t as personal as Guybrush’s was, or as mysterious as the plight of the family in Maniac Mansion, the jokes don’t build into a character piece, the duo just ambivalently quip their way through the story without a care. Their lack of concern bordering on misanthropy is a constant source of humor, but if the protagonists don’t really care about what they’re doing, it’s hard to care as a member of the audience. In Sam & Max, nothing develops or changes, the adventure is strictly a framing device for a series of jokes. Again, this isn’t necessarily a terrible thing, the humor mostly lands and the adventure format is a proven one, it just lacks the sort of involvement that made the other LucasArts games feel special to me. Its cartoonish comedy may be just fine, but I would have preferred something with a bit more character instead.

You know those flowcharts for “What movie should I watch”, or “What game should I play”? Imagine one for search-action games, where the first box would ask if you've played Super Metroid. With that obligation out of the way, the question would be why you enjoyed it. If it was for finding fun new abilities and items, then go to Symphony of the Night. If it was for the action or atmosphere, go to Hollow Knight. If it was just for the joy of going on a journey, Ori and the Blind Forest would be the place to go. No matter what aspect you enjoyed the most, the recent explosion of the genre means there’s at least one game that fully focuses on it, which puts me in a tough spot for recommending Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. It’s a game that can’t be placed anywhere near the top of the chart, a game that focuses more on being generally pleasant rather than focused. There certainly is a lighthearted mood to enjoy, but the zones are the unimaginative roster of grasslands/temple/ocean/jungle/ice/fire/etc that wouldn’t appeal to those wanting a thick atmosphere. There are a couple fun abilities to use, but the majority could be viewed as Samus’ powers simply broken into pieces. Your lion form has a dash that lets you charge through certain blocks, the pig form has bombs to break other ones, it’s the same stuff you’ve seen before presented in a superficially different way. The challenges are a little more difficult than the average game, but it’s never due to mechanical skill comparable to Hollow Knight, but rather little “gotcha” moments like an enemy swinging in from off-screen to knock you into a pit at the end of a lengthy platforming section. It’s not that any of this kills the appeal though; if someone told me they were interested in the game I certainly wouldn’t dissuade them, it’s just that I just find it difficult to imagine who that sort of person might be. The best I can guess is someone who just loves the genre, but has already played all the classics. So, I give it my recommendation… but only after you’ve played all my other recommendations. See you in a few years!

The fear of the unknown is famously the oldest and strongest emotion of all, so if the goal is to make a horror game, why directly present a plot? It may sound like a nonsequitur, but a plot contextualizes everything a player does, making the horrifying unknowns of their situation much more plainly understandable. Without getting a story explained in this way, players are left guessing and can’t take anything for granted, and this “show don’t tell” approach is what Little Nightmares uses to establish its world. All that players know in the beginning is that they’re a kid in a raincoat, but even that much isn’t guaranteed with how far out the camera is in cinematic platformers like these. That sort of distance is great at pulling the background into the foreground of the player’s mind, highlighting the details that constitute the bulk of the storytelling. It’s soundly constructed in theory, but this only contributes to the quality of the presentation, not of the plot itself. This is where Little Nightmares falters, in the actual narrative being presented through its wordless surreality. If a story is going to be told in such a way, it would be best to think of it like a picture book, where everything the player needs to know can be reasonably learned from key images, but this is where that theory of effective horror becomes difficult. On one hand, keeping these grounding details sparse can help preserve the mystery, but a lack of context can also lead to detachment, and of only understanding events in abstract. There’s a balance to strike, where enough should be given to where the stakes are understood, but the rest should be left in speculative shadow. The hallmark of effective surreality is confronting the audience with a sort of Socratic paradox, instilling the knowledge of how little they know and of all the horrific implications that may entail, not just leaving people confused or unfulfilled. Unfortunately, that's a balance the game wasn't able to strike, and confusion was my main takeaway in spite of the imaginative imagery and promising design concept. It’s unique enough to where I wouldn’t dissuade people from trying it, but it’s hard to recommend a game that’s only good in theory.

Adam Smith, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments:
“Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own.”

Regardless of the critiques one could have for Adam Smith’s philosophy (such as the ones at the core of this very game), this is a concept I think about a lot, how only the noblest and fewest of us are as driven by real tragedy as by personal issues. The unfortunate fact is that most of us would have to lose a finger before we would raise one, and at the risk of revealing myself as a part of the morally inert masses, this is what made Umurangi Generation a total miss for me. The premise seems simple, just walk around and fulfill requests for certain photos, but the real appeal is in the tragic story that’s being told in the background. There’s no direct presentation of a plot, just location after location full of details to soak in about what’s happening to this world. The environmental design and the progression of this quiet narrative are handled well, but even in the worst circumstances depicted, my little finger is still firmly on my hand. Without any personal stake or investment in what’s going on, I have a hard time caring about any of it. My friends in this story may be in terrible trouble, but they aren’t my friends, they’re the stationary and silent 3D models that have just been labeled as such. The world may be going through horrible things, but this isn’t a world I know, and I haven't been given the time or the reasons to have any connection to it. The mechanics of the core photography widen the gap between me and the world even further by introducing layer after layer of abstraction, whether that be through a time limit to take all the photos, scattering tiny little collectibles to find, or having to use very specific lenses for each shot, constantly reminding me that this is all artificial. I imagine that the game works best for the people who can draw parallels between the world of the game and the world they see around them, and thus connect to it with the same sense of reality, but as someone unable to do so, I went through it, finished it, and took my repose and diversion with the same ease and tranquillity as if it had never happened.

Addendum: This was another game taken from my suggestions list from user Cold_Comfort. Apologies for sounding fairly negative, but if a game’s unique, I would say it’s worth a look just by default, and this one certainly qualifies. I also want to give a shoutout to the developer, who actually said hi on Twitter even when I was poking fun at the game. They mentioned they used to be an armchair game critic just like me back in the day, so it was wonderful to have some assurance that I may make something worthwhile some day.

Note: In the spirit of this game’s legacy as a pack-in with the first game, this is a direct continuation of my Advance Wars review:
https://www.backloggd.com/u/Uni/review/161217/

Black Hole Rising might seem like a standalone expansion, but it’s really more of a map pack. Eight new CO’s were added along with the ability to use a CO power before it had fully charged, but other than that, there's only one new unit and all other mechanics stayed the same. Instead, the focus was placed on improving the depth of the campaign scenarios. Building up units and hiding behind a wall of artillery isn’t as viable when mission timers are thrown into the mix, and even when given an unlimited amount of time, there are other factors to force your hand. The most common of these are situations where the objective is to destroy defensive emplacements rather than rout the enemy, shifting the focus towards pinpoint strikes. These scenarios often put players at a disadvantage compared to the enemy’s starting spread of units and structures, so turtling would lead to getting snowballed instead of doing the snowballing. While this goes some way to address the tactical stagnation of the previous game, it has its own downsides. Namely, it creates a difficulty curve that looks more like a seismograph than a gentle slope, being heavily dependent on the way the AI happens to react in any given situation. The best example is in the final mission, where I quit out of my first attempt after the enemy formed a defensive line I had no way of penetrating within the deadline. Then, on my next attempt, I recognized that they hadn’t built defense against air units near the objective this time around, so I sniped it without destroying a single unit in a third of the allotted time. It was the perfect sendoff after the previous mission, which had a similar little exploit which let me finish without touching an enemy unit. The final missions were certainly the culmination of everything I had learned up to that point, but unfortunately, what I had learned was how to exploit the holes in each scenario for easy victories.

This is the main thing that separates Black Hole Rising from Advance Wars, how the success of each mission tends to weigh more on the micro of individual units than the macro of steadily accruing economic advantage. The problem with that is the exact sort of mindless objective sniping I just described, with the randomness of the enemy’s movements being what determines success. However, do keep in mind that missions with these tactical shortcuts represent a lower percentage of the total than the boring or simplistic missions did in Advance Wars, and Black Hole Rising has the additional advantage of giving players options on what missions they want to complete. It’s a case of the highs being much higher and the lows being a little lower, with bad missions being much more frustrating and random than the ones in the first game, but the good ones are even more satisfying to overcome.

All that said, the majority of each game’s DNA is shared, and it’s well established how wonderful their style is, be it through visuals or music, which work wonderfully within the GBA’s limitations. The bright colors and distinct visual design hold up perfectly, and their soundtracks are among the few on the GBA which sound fantastic even with the substandard hardware. Despite my griping about some boring missions in 1 and “that one level” missions in 2, I still definitely enjoyed my time with both these games. I would love to see the remake include an untouched classic mode alongside a reimagined version with better scenario balance, and I think there would be valid reasons to choose either version. I want the games to be preserved, but I also want the series to be revitalized for a new generation, who shouldn’t have to worry about the AI cheating by peaking through the fog of war. I truly believe that this series has yet to reach its full potential, so let’s hope the remake can deliver. Nintendo can be pretty unforgiving with sales expectations for their IP, so let’s hope the people at WayForward mastered the games well enough to know how to move some units.

Micro wins battles, macro wins wars. It’s a concept that RTS players know well, and most people tend to lean into one side of that equation more than the other. Being excellent at micromanaging units can help stretch their value enough to make up for a bad economy, and skillful macro decision making can foot the cost of inefficient maneuvering. Advance Wars is fairly unique in how it takes this paradigm into the realm of turn-based strategy, which usually focuses on individual encounters. Whether that be through Xcom or Fire Emblem, mechanics based around economy are normally relegated to the time outside of battles, but with this game’s focus on capturing cities to gain resources with which to build new units, players have to manage both strategic layers. It’s important to understand the strengths of each unit and ensure they get favorable engagements, but hanging back and waiting for opportunities isn’t a viable strategy whenever that would allow an opponent to capture resources. However, the scenario design and mechanics for attacking and capturing still heavily favor the defensive approach. Most maps provide players with a small group of cities which can be captured safely, with others closer to the AI requiring a committed force to hold, so the early game rarely allows aggressive play. This is especially true when considering how cities need multiple turns to be captured, taking a minimum of two if the occupying infantry is at its max of ten health, but five turns for a four-health unit to accrue the twenty capture points. All progress is reset if the infantry is killed or moves away, it can’t attack while capturing, and two units can’t occupy the same tile, so captures require a good deal of security. Then, add that to how ferrying units to contested zones with an APC requires five thousand additional points, equivalent to the output of a city for five full turns, so it’s easy to see how turtling is often the best approach. The combat between units essentially works the same way with how damage is modified by a unit's health, heavily incentivizing sitting out of range until you can get the first strike. As the cherry on top, long-range units require a turn to set up after moving, so if a line of artillery is guarded by armored units, it’s almost impenetrable without overwhelming force.

There are a few mechanics that keep the game from turning into a complete cold war though, and when these factors begin to shine towards the end of the game, the quality of the entire experience notably improves. Namely, the terrain becomes more robust and incentivizes a multi-pronged force of boats, planes, infantry, and vehicles. Players need to create zones of control even without walls of units, and the strategy begins to emulate something of a real battle. Mountain passes are fortified, jets are kept in strategic locations and scrambled in response to bombers, and each commander’s quirks factor into the types of engagements that are pursued or avoided. The only complaint I have is that these sorts of scenarios are in the minority, with most falling somewhere between the overly simple and the aforementioned defensive creeping. If the mechanics were going to favor a defensive posture so much, the scenario and map design should ideally pick up the slack and provide a balance, but this is something the game doesn’t quite achieve. Luckily, this is an aspect that Advance Wars 2 would try to focus on, so I’m doing something unique here and continuing the review directly with one for Advance Wars 2. Both games were included in the same cartridge in Japan, and will be released in a combined remake for the Switch, so you can find the rest of the combined-arms review over here:
https://www.backloggd.com/u/Uni/review/161218/

If there’s one thing people love, it’s a happy ending, but if there’s one thing people hate, it’s their favorite franchise not getting another entry. This leads to those situations where a hero keeps coming out of retirement for one last last job over and over again, and it becomes painfully obvious that the plot is no longer being moved by the characters, but by the demands of an industry. This is the dilemma that characterizes Yakuza 3, even when the team was much bolder in their approach to continuing the story of Kazuma Kiryu than most franchises would be with their heroes. If any other protagonist had wanted to run an orphanage at the end of their prior appearance, the next entry would simply open with a scene of the orphanage being attacked to spur the hero into action, but this game actually spends a lot of time depicting Kiryu’s new life. Hours are spent fleshing out his new family and exploring how he approaches the challenges of parenthood, there’s barely any action or drama at all. Even when it’s a massive pivot from the prior games, it’s a decision I highly value, perhaps directly because of the magnitude of such a change. It shows a commitment to the character, a respect for him as a person and not as a puppet to justify more games about beating people up. However, it’s not like the developers could forgo the formula completely and still expect to sell units and continue the franchise, so slowly but surely, a more orthodox crime drama takes the place of the intimate character study. I imagine that for most people, the change couldn’t have come soon enough, but the crime plot felt so contrived that I resented being taken away from the orphanage. It makes sense why this is one of the more divisive entries in the franchise, given this uncomfortable mix of narratives. On one hand, you get some great character development and a bold new direction, but on the other hand, there’s a reason why those “back in action” sequels pull in viewers so reliably. They’re a comfortable and simple platform to see your favorite characters doing the things you like seeing them do, and even if the call to action is a bit weak, it flies by fast enough not matter much. So, Yakuza 3 ends up in a situation where if you played it to follow Kiryu’s life, the back half feels like an annoying obligation, but if you wanted more punching and crime, the first half feels like a different franchise entirely. No one walks away completely satisfied, even if everyone still has a lot to appreciate.

My hunch is that the true value of Yakuza 3 shines in future installments, where all the development Kiryu got over the course of this game has more time to pay off. However, this is as far as I’ve gotten in the franchise, so I’m looking forward to seeing where things go from here. I’m not counting on getting as much character development, but from a team that was confident enough to go in that direction in the first place, I’m anxious to see what lessons they brought into the development of 4.

I had never played an MMO before this one, and I had always felt bad about my lack of exposure to the genre, since I’m someone who’s tried to experience the breadth of what gaming has to offer. The MMO experience is one that has drawn in millions and millions of people over the course of decades, with the most popular games becoming cultural landmarks, so it was a pretty glaring omission, and I was waiting for a perfect opportunity to jump in. Luckily, I had a friend who was one of the “XIV free trial up to the award-winning expansion Heavensward” cultists, and having seen the amazing positive reception of Shadowbringers, I began under his tutelage. This review is just a rough journal of my time in each major release of the game, which at the time of writing, excludes Endwalker. If I end up playing that, I’ll write a review on its own page.

I warn you right now, though: this is the most pointless review I’ll ever write.

A Realm Reborn
I had always heard that the FFXIV community was friendly to newcomers, but to my surprise, there was hardly a community at all. Not in the sense that no one was on the server, but in that I didn’t see anyone speaking to each other. The vision of an MMO hub that I had in my head was that of a bustling marketplace, people trying to get you to buy stuff, join their organization, scam you, any number of things. Instead, I was greeted by a giant cluster of Organization Thirteen lookalikes and catgirls silently standing in a circle around a giant crystal. I did my little starter quests in silence, occasionally intersecting with another newcomer who was doing the same thing, never speaking, just getting through the content as fast as possible. I attempted to follow the story of these quests, but so many were the sort of fetching and “prove yourself by killing a monster” quests that I tuned out of the story entirely. The friend who was serving as my guide agreed that this was the best way to play, at least until you started reaching the back end of the 2.0 content. So, for about forty hours, all I did was mindlessly run from one point to the next, not talking, no story to enjoy, and not enough abilities to have interesting gameplay in the dungeons along the way. It wasn’t exactly painful, the novelty of seeing all the different areas was nice, but these first forty hours were pretty evenly bland for me. However, committed to the task at hand, I pushed forward to Heavensward.

Heavensward
In terms of story and characters, this expansion ended up being my favorite, but it was also when I began to have problems with the learning curve. Specifically, the fact that the game doesn’t provide you with one, in a manner of speaking. You’re put through filler quests for a hundred hours, then into a dungeon with unique boss mechanics you’ve never been exposed to. If players are forced through the main story before they can queue for these dungeons, why do the quests not take the opportunity to teach mechanics? Veteran players swap memes about how terrible sprouts are for not understanding these things, but how in the world could they? Is the best path really to ask players to go look up a guide before even starting the dungeon, ruining any excitement for themselves? As you can probably guess, the raids and high level dungeons of Heavensward were the first time I received player communication of any type, which was usually of the “learn to play” variety. The problem with such statements is that the implication is that I should have already learned to play, not that I should continue the active process of doing so. As I shirked aggro to these players to provide them some downtime with which to consider this paradox, I thought about how there really isn’t a perfect solution to the problem. Some bosses are so intricate that loading up dungeons with simplified versions of individual mechanics isn’t a tenable solution, since the content is designed to work well in repetition. Having to replay a tutorial even once when playing a game in NG+ can be a drag, so redoing mini-tutorials hundreds of times could be terrible unless executed flawlessly. Even so, there are a lot more fundamentals that could have been included in the normal questline that would have helped immensely. Later expansions would go on to have enemies that use gaze effects and rotating zones of damage in the same way bosses do, but it was too little too late. The only reason I was able to make it through all the early content was because I had someone to explain all this stuff to me directly, and I can’t imagine the flaming I would have received otherwise. I may have even stopped playing the game altogether, which leads into...

Stormblood
This is where people thought I would stop playing the game altogether. The story of this expansion is pretty bad, with the focus falling on characters who are fairly uninteresting, namely Lyse, Fordola, Yotsuyu, and Zenos. The graphics engine may give these characters three dimensions, but the writing certainly doesn’t, and they stay stagnant and boring throughout the entire expansion. Splitting the action between two hubs was also a questionable move, with Ala Mhigo feeling boring and underdeveloped compared to the obvious love that went into Kugane. I wish there was more I had to say about this expansion or its gameplay, but it just felt like A Realm Reborn 2. Bland story content, running from place to place doing stuff I didn’t care much about, a drawn-out introduction to the much more interesting followup.

Shadowbringers
The way this expansion had been praised, you would think it was the best Final Fantasy game to release in the last decade, and I’ve seen it literally described as such fairly often. Some parts were pretty enchanting, and the characters received a notable improvement in their writing. I’m not sure how much I’ll remember of this expansion’s plot in the future, but my crush on Urianger will last forever, and I think that speaks to the quality of the characterization compared to Stormblood. The start of the DLC in particular grips you with one horrific moment that comes out of left field, so from that moment onward, I was totally invested in the story. The problem is, as good as the story is for an MMO, stretching it out over so many hours, over so many basic and mindless quests, the pace flows like a river of bricks. It was like watching a great movie for fifteen minutes, leaving to mow the lawn, watching another fifteen, then getting up and doing the dishes, over and over until the movie was over. It’s not that it makes the story itself bad, but the format is so clunky that it’s hard to stay involved.

Postgame
...otherwise known as “the game”. This is when I started doing the raids and trials I had missed during my run through the main quest. Even though it’s something that should have dawned on me earlier in this process, the same way it’s already dawned on everyone reading, this is when I started to realize that I might be closed off from MMO experience. Even though I was doing these raids, getting better stuff, and chatting with my friend while doing so, I just… didn’t care. I didn’t care about getting better so the parser-users would think I’m the best, I didn’t care about gear when it would be inevitably obsoleted by a future expansion, the appeal of the story was over, there wasn’t any content left for me. Even with thousands of hours of things to do, raid tiers and trials as far as the eye can see, I just did not care. The bosses weren’t as fun as the ones in my single-player action games, there wasn’t the expressiveness of a traditional RPG, I was always left thinking “I could be having more fun right now”. It’s emblematic of the way I approach games, where I’m looking for something focused and direct, not a game that I can get lost in, not a forum for enjoying time with a community or working with a team to get to the top. My goal may have been to get a taste of what it’s like to be into an MMO, but after hundreds of hours spent in the game, the only realization to be had was that there’s a lot more to that experience than just playing the game. You have to find people you like, you have to enjoy the lengthy journey, you have to find some heart in the game that lets you call it home. Even though I had decided to commit my time and energy, I couldn’t just decide to love it.

Post game
After spending all that time with XIV, focusing on it exclusively for a couple months, I was expecting it to heavily occupy my thoughts after stopping. I expected to sit down at my computer and think of something to do, only to feel the pang of wanting to go back to Eorzea. However, this ended up not being the case, and it slipped out of my mind to a degree where I had to google that name just now because I had forgotten it. Honestly, had I not developed such a crush on Urianger, I doubt I would have thought about the game afterwards at all. When the Endwalker trailer dropped, I was expecting another rush of wanting to go back to that world, but… nothing. I’m vaguely interested in it because I dumped so much time into this story already, but I could just as easily read a summary and be happy with it. To tell the truth, I’m a bit sad about how this whole MMO experiment went. I was hoping to open my eyes to a whole new style of game, to maybe find a nice, escapist home I could always go back to, but instead all I got was a reminder of how limiting taste and preference can be.

So, that’s what brings me back to the pointlessness. I played a game for hundreds of hours, and all I can say is “I didn’t like it because I don’t like MMO’s, and that’s fine because everyone has different taste”. At least I warned you, but thanks for reading all of this. I had to get it off my chest after wasting so much of my friend’s time, who explained things to me so patiently. Cherish your friends, everyone.

Yars’ Revenge was Atari’s best selling original title on the 2600, moving about a million copies. The “original title” parenthetical may make it sound like a qualified success, but if anything, it makes the accomplishment that much more impressive. To sell that many copies without the backing of a known brand, it really had to be exceptional, and this becomes apparent when looking at its “best selling original title” contemporaries from some Nintendo consoles:

NES: The Legend of Zelda
SNES: Star Fox
N64: Banjo Kazooie
GameCube: Animal Crossing
Wii: Wii Sports

These are some legendary and influential games, and Yars’ Revenge may even stand out among them, given how it had to compete in an era before games media was established enough to help level the field against popular licenses. So, now that the stage is set, go play Yars’ Revenge. I’m serious, you can find it online in about two seconds; if you search “Yars' revenge online” the first link will get you there.

If you’re anything like me, your first thought was “is this really the best the 2600 had to offer?”, and the second was “why am I not dealing any damage?”. A quick trip to the manual explains that the process of destroying the enemy base is much more involved than one might expect. First, you need to break down the barrier using your standard shots, while avoiding the missile that’s chasing you. Then, you have to touch the base itself to charge up your cannon, which shoots from the far left of the screen instead of from your actual character, and can destroy you or the base itself. So, what starts as mindless shooting quickly develops a surprising amount of strategy. Each mechanic was constructed with an advantage and a disadvantage, a purpose and a twist: you can shoot anytime, but you can’t destroy the enemy base that way. Your cannon actually can destroy the base, but hurts you as well. The neutral zone protects you from the missile, but not from the spirals the base shoots at you, and you can't shoot while inside it. Touching the base gives you a shot with the cannon, but approaching it is risky since it may start launching a spiral. The cannon shots fire from the left side of the screen, so even each side of the neutral zone has its own unique advantages, with the left side letting you dodge more easily, but reducing the safety of shooting the cannon, forcing you to switch sides to focus on offense or defense.

What I find beautiful about this design is how it’s a perfect model of what makes action games interesting, even forty years later. The genre is at its best when taking simple ideas and letting players discover the potential for combinations, like how red, green, and blue are all that’s needed to display sixteen million different colors on your screen. Yars’ revenge may only have about three things going on, but… that’s enough. It looks entirely unimpressive at first, but once you get a feel for how it plays, the quality that made it such a success shines though. I would easily say it earns its spot next to the likes of Star Fox, not just as a grandfather, but as an equal pioneer.

Addendum: Thanks to user Jamep for recommending this one on my dedicated list, I never would have found this game had you not recommended it.

There’s an old joke that says heaven is where the police are British, the chefs are French, the weapons are from Blood, the movement is from Quake, and the personality is from Doom. I may have gotten a bit mixed up there but I’m fairly certain that hell looks something like Painkiller. The visuals are from Quake 2, the enemies are from Serious Sam, and the movement is from Counter Strike, it forms such a perfect palette of blandness that’s almost shocking to experience. Instead of feeling like an arena shooter, it’s more like a courtyard shooter, with all the hallmarks that make the genre enjoyable scaled down to a level that feels almost pitiful. Instead of flying around layered battlefields like in Quake, you walk from flat square to flat square, doing a limp sort of bunny hopping to speed the process up. There’s never a time where you walk into a room and get surprised by the type of enemies waiting for you, they usually just spawn in one-by-one, and the majority are forgettable melee-only chaff to be dispersed in a single hit. The only time you’re required to really think is when searching for the last enemy of a horde, since you aren’t allowed to progress to the next room until every single enemy has been defeated, even when they tend to get hung up on doorways and obstructions. The compass points in their general direction, but if you didn’t notice that a few enemies are running in circles on top of a nearby rooftop, you’ll be left wondering if the game just broke. That’s something that tends to happen a lot in this game, as I had multiple save corruptions that would crash my game whenever I attempted to load. Sometimes I could load a corrupted save, but from that point, trying to save in any form would cause a crash, including the automatic checkpoints. It took me a while to figure out what exactly was happening there and delete all the corrupted saves, so it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the majority of times I launched the game were when trying to recover from a crash.

Honestly, this is one of the rare times I have nothing nice to say about a game. The closest it gets is with its unique alternate fire-modes like the ones from Blood, but the enemy reactions are so devoid of personality and the ammo pickups are so unreliable that I hardly noticed their presence at all. The story is peak 2000’s supernatural schlock, the protagonist is totally unlikable, the bosses are all confusingly bad, I really can’t recommend this game to anyone. If you haven’t played Blood or its recent port, Fresh Supply, I would go check that out instead. It’s bursting with personality, and it was able to pack in much more fun and challenge than Painkiller was able to manage with every possible technical advantage.

The Game Boy Castlevania titles are a fascinating glimpse into the history of the franchise. The first of the trio, The Adventure, is heavily criticised, but it’s worth remembering that it was released even before Castlevania 3. The inspiration it could draw from was the discordant grouping of the first game, the confusing adventure that was Simon’s Quest, the odd semi-port that was Vampire Killer for the MSX, and the poorly received Haunted Castle arcade game. While it was wrangling with that diverse mix of influences, it also had to deal with the troubles of new hardware. The Adventure wouldn’t just be the first in the series to be on a handheld, it was the first game Konami ever developed on a mobile platform. It would release just six months after the Game Boy itself did, and all those factors lead me to believe that The Adventure had a difficult development. At least, that’s how it seems from the clunky controls, lack of features, and even its story. It claimed Christopher Belmont was the first of the family to fight Dracula, when the Castlevania 3 team would release their game about Trevor Belmont being the first only two months later. If there’s a game that completely embodies the growing pains of the franchise, it might just be this one.

Meanwhile, Belmont’s Revenge turned out much better. It was released a comfortable two years after Castlevania 3, and it’s apparent the developers had more time, more experience, or both. The controls feel much better, there are more features and levels, it’s a competently-made entry all around, even if it still feels limited by its hardware. It’s representative of the time that Castlevania games got into their flow, with the following mainline titles being Castlevania 4, Rondo of Blood, and Bloodlines, which each refined the formula to its peak in their own unique ways.

That brings us to Legends. If you played all these games in a row, or just mentally grouped them as “the Game Boy games”, its release date may seem a bit shocking. Adventure came out in ‘89, Revenge came in in ‘91, but Legends released all the way in 1997. It would release eight months after Symphony of the Night, and as such, would be the first time a classic-style Castlevania would try to mix in the exploration and story of the new format. However, what that ended up being within the limitations of the Game Boy hardware was a few times you could decide to either go left or right, with one of the two giving you an optional item that contributes to the true ending, and the other railroading you to the end of the level. You also get two cutscenes in the entire game, one with the new sexy Alucard, and one with the contemptuously beautiful Dracula. Powers similar to Alucard’s magic have been introduced, replacing the standard subweapons with innate magic like healing, stopping time, and damaging all enemies on screen. You can also go into a burst mode once per level, which boosts your damage and makes you invulnerable temporarily. The intention may have been to give players more tools to work with for more complex action, but that didn’t exactly pan out. Stopping time costs five hearts, but a full heal costs twenty, so there’s no point in using the time stop unless it allows you to clear a gap, or if using it four times would save you more than an entire health bar’s worth of damage. The burst power is so strong that you naturally save it for bosses, and it lets you defeat them by standing in place and mindlessly whipping. Overall, it’s probably the easiest classic-vania, with the bats that attack directly from above being more of a threat than all the bosses combined. While that’s emblematic of the game’s lack of balance, it also makes the game hard to hate. There aren't any frustrating levels, it has the smoothest control of all the portable games, it has a stylistic polish the others don’t, and it actually communicates a nice little story, even if it’s the third (or possibly fourth) time a Belmont was considered the first to fight Dracula.

This little Game Boy Castlevania journey I accidentally went down in the last couple weeks isn’t one I would necessarily recommend to everyone, but I definitely had a lot of fun looking at how they embody the series as a whole. The dark times, the good times, the shift in styles, the confused canon, the way you can tell the developers realized they made a horrible mistake by saying Dracula only came back once every hundred years, it’s all here. If you’re still hanging on as a fan of this abandoned series, I would say beating all three is a fun and enlightening little quest, but otherwise, it’s better to experience what they represent directly, by playing the big highlights like Castlevania 1, 4, Bloodlines, Rondo of Blood, and Symphony of the Night.