The 2027 A.D. is a lovely year to live in. In the midst of the explosion of transhumanism and the resulting social and economic conflicts, there is a world to be discovered, in which to intervene to influence the fate of entire cities and massive corporations worth billions. This is the main objective of Adam Jensen, head of security at the Sarif Industries and at the centre of a plot involving industrial espionage and transhumanist philosophy.
Deus Ex Human Revolution (DEHR) is a delightful addition to the cyberpunk canon. It picks up for narrative and purpose from a lot of the genre milestones such as the novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, mixing apparently anachronistic themes with the consequences of an ultra-technological world where the boundary between organic and machine life becomes thinner and thinner. In the case of DEHR, this union is presented as a visual and thematic Cyberpunk Renaissance, with the setting being a futuristic ambient but the fashion, arts and the sense of grandeur from the majestic times of the XV century.
The era the game is set is lends itself to describe the contradiction of a technology that does not cease to evolve and move forward, contrasting with the part of humanity scared by the moral consequences that this advancement means. DEHR is often thought of as a curious hybrid of stealth and RPG because, beyond the exploratory and infiltration part that constitutes the first genre, the players will be led to answer moral questions related to the issues of technological development, influencing with their decisions the outcome of missions, destinies of people and the conclusion of the game itself.
In addition to this, the roleplaying component can be also observed in the wide variety of personalization that Jensen may receive by obtaining experience points. The player can aim to improve his hacking skills to ensure quieter and more precise infiltrations or decide to increase stamina and physical strength for a more "brutal" and direct approach.
Despite how enthralling the narrative of the title is, the gem of the game is certainly the stealth gameplay: offering the player immense but perfectly connected, contained and full of secrets maps to explore, DEHR offers a vast experience suitable for any style of approach to achieve certain goals, even if they are, more often than not, simply "go from point A to point B" or "get some data from computer C". The presence of side missions, some presented to the player, others hidden between the urban layers, increases even more the sense of greatness of the plot and world-building.
Years ago, at launch, the game could be blamed for, despite the ability to play without ever triggering an alarm or ever facing an enemy, some unavoidable boss fights, which were both mandatory and made futile to customize the character as a non-lethal spectrum. The Director's Cut, however, has masterfully solved this problem, magnifying different aspects of the basic game as well as the arenas of the bosses, expanding them from simple and bare rings to larger puzzles which lend themselves to the most different approaches for solution.
The Missing Link DLC can also be seen in a slightly negative way, as it blocks the narrative right in the middle for several hours and forces the player into an obligatory scenario that adds little to nothing to the main storyline.
DEHR works very well on every level it tries to explore: as stealth it presents claustrophobic, dirty, ultra-technological and rich in possibilities environments, among the pinnacles that the genre has to offer; as an RPG it is dictated by customization, immersion, a very strong narrative and a system of choices and consequences which brings some really interesting questions to light, especially for the modern context we live in. The relative simplicity of the title, even at the highest difficulty levels, allows anyone who wants to give a chance to something new to feel welcomed in this exciting and thrilling cyberpunk world.
Deus Ex Human Revolution (DEHR) is a delightful addition to the cyberpunk canon. It picks up for narrative and purpose from a lot of the genre milestones such as the novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, mixing apparently anachronistic themes with the consequences of an ultra-technological world where the boundary between organic and machine life becomes thinner and thinner. In the case of DEHR, this union is presented as a visual and thematic Cyberpunk Renaissance, with the setting being a futuristic ambient but the fashion, arts and the sense of grandeur from the majestic times of the XV century.
The era the game is set is lends itself to describe the contradiction of a technology that does not cease to evolve and move forward, contrasting with the part of humanity scared by the moral consequences that this advancement means. DEHR is often thought of as a curious hybrid of stealth and RPG because, beyond the exploratory and infiltration part that constitutes the first genre, the players will be led to answer moral questions related to the issues of technological development, influencing with their decisions the outcome of missions, destinies of people and the conclusion of the game itself.
In addition to this, the roleplaying component can be also observed in the wide variety of personalization that Jensen may receive by obtaining experience points. The player can aim to improve his hacking skills to ensure quieter and more precise infiltrations or decide to increase stamina and physical strength for a more "brutal" and direct approach.
Despite how enthralling the narrative of the title is, the gem of the game is certainly the stealth gameplay: offering the player immense but perfectly connected, contained and full of secrets maps to explore, DEHR offers a vast experience suitable for any style of approach to achieve certain goals, even if they are, more often than not, simply "go from point A to point B" or "get some data from computer C". The presence of side missions, some presented to the player, others hidden between the urban layers, increases even more the sense of greatness of the plot and world-building.
Years ago, at launch, the game could be blamed for, despite the ability to play without ever triggering an alarm or ever facing an enemy, some unavoidable boss fights, which were both mandatory and made futile to customize the character as a non-lethal spectrum. The Director's Cut, however, has masterfully solved this problem, magnifying different aspects of the basic game as well as the arenas of the bosses, expanding them from simple and bare rings to larger puzzles which lend themselves to the most different approaches for solution.
The Missing Link DLC can also be seen in a slightly negative way, as it blocks the narrative right in the middle for several hours and forces the player into an obligatory scenario that adds little to nothing to the main storyline.
DEHR works very well on every level it tries to explore: as stealth it presents claustrophobic, dirty, ultra-technological and rich in possibilities environments, among the pinnacles that the genre has to offer; as an RPG it is dictated by customization, immersion, a very strong narrative and a system of choices and consequences which brings some really interesting questions to light, especially for the modern context we live in. The relative simplicity of the title, even at the highest difficulty levels, allows anyone who wants to give a chance to something new to feel welcomed in this exciting and thrilling cyberpunk world.
The 2027 A.D. is a lovely year to live in. In the midst of the explosion of transhumanism and the resulting social and economic conflicts, there is a world to be discovered, in which to intervene to influence the fate of entire cities and massive corporations worth billions. This is the main objective of Adam Jensen, head of security at the Sarif Industries and at the centre of a plot involving industrial espionage and transhumanist philosophy.
Deus Ex Human Revolution (DEHR) is a delightful addition to the cyberpunk canon. It picks up for narrative and purpose from a lot of the genre milestones such as the novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, mixing apparently anachronistic themes with the consequences of an ultra-technological world where the boundary between organic and machine life becomes thinner and thinner. In the case of DEHR, this union is presented as a visual and thematic Cyberpunk Renaissance, with the setting being a futuristic ambient but the fashion, arts and the sense of grandeur from the majestic times of the XV century.
The era the game is set is lends itself to describe the contradiction of a technology that does not cease to evolve and move forward, contrasting with the part of humanity scared by the moral consequences that this advancement means. DEHR is often thought of as a curious hybrid of stealth and RPG because, beyond the exploratory and infiltration part that constitutes the first genre, the players will be led to answer moral questions related to the issues of technological development, influencing with their decisions the outcome of missions, destinies of people and the conclusion of the game itself.
In addition to this, the roleplaying component can be also observed in the wide variety of personalization that Jensen may receive by obtaining experience points. The player can aim to improve his hacking skills to ensure quieter and more precise infiltrations or decide to increase stamina and physical strength for a more "brutal" and direct approach.
Despite how enthralling the narrative of the title is, the gem of the game is certainly the stealth gameplay: offering the player immense but perfectly connected, contained and full of secrets maps to explore, DEHR offers a vast experience suitable for any style of approach to achieve certain goals, even if they are, more often than not, simply "go from point A to point B" or "get some data from computer C". The presence of side missions, some presented to the player, others hidden between the urban layers, increases even more the sense of greatness of the plot and world-building.
Years ago, at launch, the game could be blamed for, despite the ability to play without ever triggering an alarm or ever facing an enemy, some unavoidable boss fights, which were both mandatory and made futile to customize the character as a non-lethal spectrum. The Director's Cut, however, has masterfully solved this problem, magnifying different aspects of the basic game as well as the arenas of the bosses, expanding them from simple and bare rings to larger puzzles which lend themselves to the most different approaches for solution.
The Missing Link DLC can also be seen in a slightly negative way, as it blocks the narrative right in the middle for several hours and forces the player into an obligatory scenario that adds little to nothing to the main storyline.
DEHR works very well on every level it tries to explore: as stealth it presents claustrophobic, dirty, ultra-technological and rich in possibilities environments, among the pinnacles that the genre has to offer; as an RPG it is dictated by customization, immersion, a very strong narrative and a system of choices and consequences which brings some really interesting questions to light, especially for the modern context we live in. The relative simplicity of the title, even at the highest difficulty levels, allows anyone who wants to give a chance to something new to feel welcomed in this exciting and thrilling cyberpunk world.
Deus Ex Human Revolution (DEHR) is a delightful addition to the cyberpunk canon. It picks up for narrative and purpose from a lot of the genre milestones such as the novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, mixing apparently anachronistic themes with the consequences of an ultra-technological world where the boundary between organic and machine life becomes thinner and thinner. In the case of DEHR, this union is presented as a visual and thematic Cyberpunk Renaissance, with the setting being a futuristic ambient but the fashion, arts and the sense of grandeur from the majestic times of the XV century.
The era the game is set is lends itself to describe the contradiction of a technology that does not cease to evolve and move forward, contrasting with the part of humanity scared by the moral consequences that this advancement means. DEHR is often thought of as a curious hybrid of stealth and RPG because, beyond the exploratory and infiltration part that constitutes the first genre, the players will be led to answer moral questions related to the issues of technological development, influencing with their decisions the outcome of missions, destinies of people and the conclusion of the game itself.
In addition to this, the roleplaying component can be also observed in the wide variety of personalization that Jensen may receive by obtaining experience points. The player can aim to improve his hacking skills to ensure quieter and more precise infiltrations or decide to increase stamina and physical strength for a more "brutal" and direct approach.
Despite how enthralling the narrative of the title is, the gem of the game is certainly the stealth gameplay: offering the player immense but perfectly connected, contained and full of secrets maps to explore, DEHR offers a vast experience suitable for any style of approach to achieve certain goals, even if they are, more often than not, simply "go from point A to point B" or "get some data from computer C". The presence of side missions, some presented to the player, others hidden between the urban layers, increases even more the sense of greatness of the plot and world-building.
Years ago, at launch, the game could be blamed for, despite the ability to play without ever triggering an alarm or ever facing an enemy, some unavoidable boss fights, which were both mandatory and made futile to customize the character as a non-lethal spectrum. The Director's Cut, however, has masterfully solved this problem, magnifying different aspects of the basic game as well as the arenas of the bosses, expanding them from simple and bare rings to larger puzzles which lend themselves to the most different approaches for solution.
The Missing Link DLC can also be seen in a slightly negative way, as it blocks the narrative right in the middle for several hours and forces the player into an obligatory scenario that adds little to nothing to the main storyline.
DEHR works very well on every level it tries to explore: as stealth it presents claustrophobic, dirty, ultra-technological and rich in possibilities environments, among the pinnacles that the genre has to offer; as an RPG it is dictated by customization, immersion, a very strong narrative and a system of choices and consequences which brings some really interesting questions to light, especially for the modern context we live in. The relative simplicity of the title, even at the highest difficulty levels, allows anyone who wants to give a chance to something new to feel welcomed in this exciting and thrilling cyberpunk world.
The second chapter of the Trails in the Sky trilogy reconnects to its predecessor with a long introduction that plays both as the incipit of a new story and as a further epilogue to the events that happened in Grancel after the previous final battle. The sense of continuity that derives from this enthrals the viewer in such a way that the time gap between the two games almost vanishes, and immediately one is immersed in the direct consequences of what happened to Joshua and Estelle at the end of the previous chapter.
After having passed the entirety of the first chapter exploring a new world, both for the player and for the protagonist Estelle, and having shared with her the sense of wonder and discovery in front of the greatness of the kingdom of Liberl and of all the people who inhabit it, in the second chapter the player has the possibility of returning to the same world, but as a fellow inhabitant. Estelle is no longer a novice who does not know where to go, now she is a full-fledged bracer, and the people around give her the credit and recognition that this title deserves.
Trails in the Sky SC excels in giving the player this sense of return to a familiar land, accentuated even more by a prologue of a couple of hours set in a new map at the end of which the real plot starts again from Liberl, a further way of representing the short temporal separation between the two games (externally between the two commercial releases, internally between the prologue and continuation of the story) as well as the solidity of the plot that binds them. Finally, continuity is further maintained by the fact that the player will have the opportunity to start the second game by loading a save from previous one, thus maintaining the levels and statistics already reached in the end game. Too bad that equipment and quartzes are now completely worthless or just removed.
Nevertheless, graphics, combat system, game maps and music are mostly unchanged from the first chapter, new features can be found in the new types of Crafts and Arts, as well as the Chain system that allows you to connect more characters to massive attacks to inflict an absurd amount of damage that will win almost every match.
The plot, while wanting to show more focus and linearity than the first game, having the immediately clear objectives of finding Joshua and investigating the plans of Ouroboros (compared to the vague "Finding Daddy" of the previous title), maintains the same structure of the first game, with a division in chapters mostly self-contained from the point of view of the main individual quests but connected to each other from a narrative point of view, in a very solid continuation of opponents' presentations and building of the enemy plan. Despite this pleasant linearity, it will happen way too often that some side quests will force the player to deviate too much from the primary objectives to devote time to an absurd amount of backtracking in fetch quests that serve very little to expand the setting or plot.
Old characters, and some new introductions, are more expanded and get for the most part conclusion to their respective subplots. The world, as in the previous game, is full of npc, some destined to be just names without any consequences, others, probably many more than the first game, have short stories of their own, entertaining and continually evolving throughout the various chapters. The sense of being part of a living and immense world remains strong more than ever. Anyone who has loved to enter the world of Trails in the Sky will find immense satisfactions in the continuation and conclusion that this second chapter offers.
After having passed the entirety of the first chapter exploring a new world, both for the player and for the protagonist Estelle, and having shared with her the sense of wonder and discovery in front of the greatness of the kingdom of Liberl and of all the people who inhabit it, in the second chapter the player has the possibility of returning to the same world, but as a fellow inhabitant. Estelle is no longer a novice who does not know where to go, now she is a full-fledged bracer, and the people around give her the credit and recognition that this title deserves.
Trails in the Sky SC excels in giving the player this sense of return to a familiar land, accentuated even more by a prologue of a couple of hours set in a new map at the end of which the real plot starts again from Liberl, a further way of representing the short temporal separation between the two games (externally between the two commercial releases, internally between the prologue and continuation of the story) as well as the solidity of the plot that binds them. Finally, continuity is further maintained by the fact that the player will have the opportunity to start the second game by loading a save from previous one, thus maintaining the levels and statistics already reached in the end game. Too bad that equipment and quartzes are now completely worthless or just removed.
Nevertheless, graphics, combat system, game maps and music are mostly unchanged from the first chapter, new features can be found in the new types of Crafts and Arts, as well as the Chain system that allows you to connect more characters to massive attacks to inflict an absurd amount of damage that will win almost every match.
The plot, while wanting to show more focus and linearity than the first game, having the immediately clear objectives of finding Joshua and investigating the plans of Ouroboros (compared to the vague "Finding Daddy" of the previous title), maintains the same structure of the first game, with a division in chapters mostly self-contained from the point of view of the main individual quests but connected to each other from a narrative point of view, in a very solid continuation of opponents' presentations and building of the enemy plan. Despite this pleasant linearity, it will happen way too often that some side quests will force the player to deviate too much from the primary objectives to devote time to an absurd amount of backtracking in fetch quests that serve very little to expand the setting or plot.
Old characters, and some new introductions, are more expanded and get for the most part conclusion to their respective subplots. The world, as in the previous game, is full of npc, some destined to be just names without any consequences, others, probably many more than the first game, have short stories of their own, entertaining and continually evolving throughout the various chapters. The sense of being part of a living and immense world remains strong more than ever. Anyone who has loved to enter the world of Trails in the Sky will find immense satisfactions in the continuation and conclusion that this second chapter offers.
2012
“Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? Insanity is quoting the exact same f—ing line, over and over again, expecting people to find it clever” – Some dude on a beach
Far Cry 3 is a relic from a long-lost era; when not every single major Ubisoft game (but still many of them) was an open world sandbox with minimum plot and a map of ‘collectibles’, a term which, according to the dictionary, is now thanks to videogames a new synonymous for chores. High waypoint to discover the map, enemy outposts for fast travel and checkpoints, then also convoys to loot, hidden treasures, the aforementioned collectibles, hunting, stealth, it’s standard fare for the Far Cry series and for most modern high budget single player’s productions, it was all already here in Far Cry 3 but at least in 2012 it wasn’t so stale.
To be fair, Far Cry in all its iterations is still probably the most intense, polished and fun franchise Ubisoft can guarantee to its fanbase to this day. They are arguably always the same identical game but if you like the series you’d hardly ever feel the need of something so immensely diverse from the formula. What you get with the package is a vast assortment of guns, explosives, the ability to infinitely heal yourself by pulling bullets out of your arm with a stick and an immense, beautiful, exotic map to sightsee and wreak havoc upon. Does it get repetitive? Of course, it does, but for the mere 30 hours it takes to complete every single quest in the game, it is worth the purchase. Nowadays the same game would last more than twice with the same content but triple the amount of padding.
Then there is the story in Far Cry 3, which serves the straight and easy purpose of giving the main character (hence, by extension, the player) a reasonable motivation to justify the shift from a young everyman on vacation to a crazy madman skilled in every art of murder conceivable: in this particular instance, the prospect of having all their friends, brother and girlfriend abducted by pirates gives enough motivation to begin a manhunt, but as the scale of fighting gets bigger and louder the game also goes the extra mile of addressing the impacts that committing such brutalities do on the psyche of the protagonist. Nothing masterfully written or impactful for the players, but still a nice touch considering how little these aspects are usually dwelled in videogames.
For most of its duration, Far Cry 3 has enough content and thrill to entertain any FPS appreciator with an interest in open world, platforming, exploration, hunt and easy but rewarding and satisfactory stealth mechanics. Certainly, it doesn’t shine for innovation or originality now as it did at its launch, but it is still a nice, self-contained gaming experience.
Far Cry 3 is a relic from a long-lost era; when not every single major Ubisoft game (but still many of them) was an open world sandbox with minimum plot and a map of ‘collectibles’, a term which, according to the dictionary, is now thanks to videogames a new synonymous for chores. High waypoint to discover the map, enemy outposts for fast travel and checkpoints, then also convoys to loot, hidden treasures, the aforementioned collectibles, hunting, stealth, it’s standard fare for the Far Cry series and for most modern high budget single player’s productions, it was all already here in Far Cry 3 but at least in 2012 it wasn’t so stale.
To be fair, Far Cry in all its iterations is still probably the most intense, polished and fun franchise Ubisoft can guarantee to its fanbase to this day. They are arguably always the same identical game but if you like the series you’d hardly ever feel the need of something so immensely diverse from the formula. What you get with the package is a vast assortment of guns, explosives, the ability to infinitely heal yourself by pulling bullets out of your arm with a stick and an immense, beautiful, exotic map to sightsee and wreak havoc upon. Does it get repetitive? Of course, it does, but for the mere 30 hours it takes to complete every single quest in the game, it is worth the purchase. Nowadays the same game would last more than twice with the same content but triple the amount of padding.
Then there is the story in Far Cry 3, which serves the straight and easy purpose of giving the main character (hence, by extension, the player) a reasonable motivation to justify the shift from a young everyman on vacation to a crazy madman skilled in every art of murder conceivable: in this particular instance, the prospect of having all their friends, brother and girlfriend abducted by pirates gives enough motivation to begin a manhunt, but as the scale of fighting gets bigger and louder the game also goes the extra mile of addressing the impacts that committing such brutalities do on the psyche of the protagonist. Nothing masterfully written or impactful for the players, but still a nice touch considering how little these aspects are usually dwelled in videogames.
For most of its duration, Far Cry 3 has enough content and thrill to entertain any FPS appreciator with an interest in open world, platforming, exploration, hunt and easy but rewarding and satisfactory stealth mechanics. Certainly, it doesn’t shine for innovation or originality now as it did at its launch, but it is still a nice, self-contained gaming experience.
War stories are powerful. Not because they necessarily depict strong men handling big guns, accomplishing heroic, almost suicidal deeds, or for the popular recent Call of Duty’s mentality of one-man-armies power fantasies. Much like horror, war isn’t a genre that manages to fully realize its potential on itself, rather they make for perfect settings for a plethora of themes which succeed thanks to the backgrounds portrayed by harsh situations. Silent Hill 2 worked so well as a story because it was first and foremost a tale about psychological distress and the descent of a man in the madness of his own guilt, and these themes married magnificently with the visual imagery of a decaying city, slowly turning into hell itself.
Likewise, Valiant Hearts thrives as a war story because its narration revolves around a cast of characters dealing with motivations to act, self-sacrifices, loss and regret, all of which could be found plenty during World War I. Other videogames like Spec Ops: The Line or Valkyria Chronicles might try to do something different with their genre, but there is still a mechanic of rewarding the players (by progressing the story or unlocking achievements) for committing un unbecoming number of killings. Meanwhile Valiant Hearts puts the players in side-scrolling, cartoon-ish levels, and actively gives them any sort of objective that has nothing to do, or never results, with murdering other people. More often than not, rather players will be asked to save others.
Valiant Hearts’s story is that of four different characters, a young German boy and his French father-in-law drafted under different flags, a nurse scouting the frontlines in search her father and an American volunteer looking for vengeance after his wife was killed in a German raid. Their paths intertwine on famous battlefields, deathly trenches, ravished cities, and they’ll have to cooperate to achieve the ultimate goal of every soldier: to survive and return home.
Such strong premise is certainly unusual in market filled with military shooters where violence is almost glorified and the feeling of repulsion and fear of guns and violence is removed, and for this exact reason Valiant Hearts is something war games needed. It is almost ironic how the most grounded take on the horrors of war comes from a game built with the UbiArt Framework engine and with a gameplay made of simple puzzles and platforming, easy collectibles and an art design that make the game look like an adventure title appropriate for children: which it kind of is and kind of isn’t.
Valiant Hearts arguably is as suited for children as movies such as Paths of Glory, Saving Private RYan and Letters from Iwo Jima are for children: all of them contain strong imagery and some of recent history’s most abhorrent events (one of Valiant Heart’s earlier levels is set during the first battle in which chloring gas was employed as a weapon) but eventually these are stories of capital importance that need to be known for what they signified and for what the characters in them stood for. As a matter of fact, the developer aim while releasing the game was probably more didactical than entertainment; an adult audience will probably be turned off by the bare minimum difficulty of the puzzles in each level, and the slight challenge might come only from the collectibles, which can’t be stressed enough how important are to find. They are a handful in each level and don’t serve any practical purpose, but all contain tiny details about the life of people in the early 20th century who found themselves thrown in the bloodiest conflict ever seen in history, left in disarray, disillusioned, and scared.
These are feeling often overlooked in war media, especially videogames, and why it is important to stress what actually is behind the glorification of action and heroism that military shooters depict. Even the beautiful soundtrack of Valiant Hearts wants to convey this message, just with some of the tracks’ titles, such as ‘evil’, ‘horror’, ‘loss’, ‘empty’, ‘sadness’, ‘no hope’, ‘hope for better’ and, the notorious and heart-breaking, ‘nurture’.
Valiant Hearts is not an uplifting story, it’s not a rewarding game and certainly won’t account as one of the most fun gaming experience, but it stands as a proof that some developers at Ubisoft cared to give their players something more, something to remember and understand, why so many people died, be it for nothing or for a reason, and why is it important for us nowadays to study history and never forget such sacrifices and mistakes.
Likewise, Valiant Hearts thrives as a war story because its narration revolves around a cast of characters dealing with motivations to act, self-sacrifices, loss and regret, all of which could be found plenty during World War I. Other videogames like Spec Ops: The Line or Valkyria Chronicles might try to do something different with their genre, but there is still a mechanic of rewarding the players (by progressing the story or unlocking achievements) for committing un unbecoming number of killings. Meanwhile Valiant Hearts puts the players in side-scrolling, cartoon-ish levels, and actively gives them any sort of objective that has nothing to do, or never results, with murdering other people. More often than not, rather players will be asked to save others.
Valiant Hearts’s story is that of four different characters, a young German boy and his French father-in-law drafted under different flags, a nurse scouting the frontlines in search her father and an American volunteer looking for vengeance after his wife was killed in a German raid. Their paths intertwine on famous battlefields, deathly trenches, ravished cities, and they’ll have to cooperate to achieve the ultimate goal of every soldier: to survive and return home.
Such strong premise is certainly unusual in market filled with military shooters where violence is almost glorified and the feeling of repulsion and fear of guns and violence is removed, and for this exact reason Valiant Hearts is something war games needed. It is almost ironic how the most grounded take on the horrors of war comes from a game built with the UbiArt Framework engine and with a gameplay made of simple puzzles and platforming, easy collectibles and an art design that make the game look like an adventure title appropriate for children: which it kind of is and kind of isn’t.
Valiant Hearts arguably is as suited for children as movies such as Paths of Glory, Saving Private RYan and Letters from Iwo Jima are for children: all of them contain strong imagery and some of recent history’s most abhorrent events (one of Valiant Heart’s earlier levels is set during the first battle in which chloring gas was employed as a weapon) but eventually these are stories of capital importance that need to be known for what they signified and for what the characters in them stood for. As a matter of fact, the developer aim while releasing the game was probably more didactical than entertainment; an adult audience will probably be turned off by the bare minimum difficulty of the puzzles in each level, and the slight challenge might come only from the collectibles, which can’t be stressed enough how important are to find. They are a handful in each level and don’t serve any practical purpose, but all contain tiny details about the life of people in the early 20th century who found themselves thrown in the bloodiest conflict ever seen in history, left in disarray, disillusioned, and scared.
These are feeling often overlooked in war media, especially videogames, and why it is important to stress what actually is behind the glorification of action and heroism that military shooters depict. Even the beautiful soundtrack of Valiant Hearts wants to convey this message, just with some of the tracks’ titles, such as ‘evil’, ‘horror’, ‘loss’, ‘empty’, ‘sadness’, ‘no hope’, ‘hope for better’ and, the notorious and heart-breaking, ‘nurture’.
Valiant Hearts is not an uplifting story, it’s not a rewarding game and certainly won’t account as one of the most fun gaming experience, but it stands as a proof that some developers at Ubisoft cared to give their players something more, something to remember and understand, why so many people died, be it for nothing or for a reason, and why is it important for us nowadays to study history and never forget such sacrifices and mistakes.
2009
Platinum Games’ sexy stylish madcap magnus opus introduced to the world at large one of the current most prominent Japanese developers when it comes to action games. As Clover Studio’s Okami reinvented the Zelda formula in 2006, three years later most of the same staff would come back to create Bayonetta, a love letter and a valid contender to the, up to that point, king of the genre, Devil May Cry. The Hideki Kamiya who came up with the latter franchise was back for more over-the-top action sequences, corny dialogues, 60fps fluid and brutal fights that put the player in a blood boiling adrenaline rush which is both incredibly satisfying to master (or not, the game also offers an auto-combo item for those with a lack of patience and reflexes) and self-awareness of its own silliness, to the point of almost making the whole plot and characters a giant 4th wall breaking joke.
First and foremost, the one reason any person would want to buy this game it’s for the gameplay, the combat, and there is no price high enough to ask for how worth of an experience this game mechanics are. Aside from a wide variety of combo to perform, some easy to learn others very hard to master and each of them frame perfect and stunning to look at, the game introduces two unique mechanics: these are the Wicked Weaves, powerful moves that either serve as finisher, knockback, stunner and launcher and the more they deal the harder they are to perform, and the Dodge Offset, a dodge move that allows the players to interrupt an attack while simultaneously keeping their articulate combo on hold, to unleash more deadly hits and raise more style points.
Bayonetta herself controls and plays in a beautiful, fluid, almost seamless manner, which is impeccably complemented by the enemy design, some of the most intricate the video games scenario has to offer. Instead of mobs of mindless goons, almost every enemy in Bayonetta can display its own unique moveset diversity, with their own share of combo, block, dodge, launcher, parry and so on, so that the player has always to keep in mind the surroundings and the foes at hand to maximize crowd controls and reduce the damage taken. The other major aspect behind the enemies is their ability to telegraph every attack and how frame perfect they are tuned to Bayonetta’s dodge and parry mechanics, so that no fight is ever too much of a hurdle, as every response and damage taken is entirely and fairly up to the players themselves.
Thankfully the game has so much variety and fun to offer for its gameplay, as there is also a high replay value in it: each playthrough is bound to unlock fresh features, from increasing difficulty levels to new, crazy weapons, overpowered accessories and, in turn, brand new fun mechanics to learn and play with. To unlock everything available at least four full campaigns are required, but the game never becomes dull or repetitive because of it.
Sound design works on two simple levels, how much does one like to hear gunshots and heavy punching sounds (which could’ve been more impressive, honestly) and every possible version available of the famous song ‘Fly me to the moon’, including but not limited to the main battle theme, striking and rhythmic but also kind of relaxing.
The storyline may be considered serviceable at best, just like Devil May Cry is a reinvention of the tropes of Christian Hell’s Demons versus Heaven’s Angels, played from the “bad guys” perspective. Yet the little details in cuts, themes and delivery show how Japan is still able to come up with uncompromising but unoffensive content about religion, sexuality, violence and so on. It’s so comfortable to know that there will always be some creators that don’t care about deeper meanings and just want to maximize the fun and cool factor as much as possible, while also releasing a complete and consistent videogame.
First and foremost, the one reason any person would want to buy this game it’s for the gameplay, the combat, and there is no price high enough to ask for how worth of an experience this game mechanics are. Aside from a wide variety of combo to perform, some easy to learn others very hard to master and each of them frame perfect and stunning to look at, the game introduces two unique mechanics: these are the Wicked Weaves, powerful moves that either serve as finisher, knockback, stunner and launcher and the more they deal the harder they are to perform, and the Dodge Offset, a dodge move that allows the players to interrupt an attack while simultaneously keeping their articulate combo on hold, to unleash more deadly hits and raise more style points.
Bayonetta herself controls and plays in a beautiful, fluid, almost seamless manner, which is impeccably complemented by the enemy design, some of the most intricate the video games scenario has to offer. Instead of mobs of mindless goons, almost every enemy in Bayonetta can display its own unique moveset diversity, with their own share of combo, block, dodge, launcher, parry and so on, so that the player has always to keep in mind the surroundings and the foes at hand to maximize crowd controls and reduce the damage taken. The other major aspect behind the enemies is their ability to telegraph every attack and how frame perfect they are tuned to Bayonetta’s dodge and parry mechanics, so that no fight is ever too much of a hurdle, as every response and damage taken is entirely and fairly up to the players themselves.
Thankfully the game has so much variety and fun to offer for its gameplay, as there is also a high replay value in it: each playthrough is bound to unlock fresh features, from increasing difficulty levels to new, crazy weapons, overpowered accessories and, in turn, brand new fun mechanics to learn and play with. To unlock everything available at least four full campaigns are required, but the game never becomes dull or repetitive because of it.
Sound design works on two simple levels, how much does one like to hear gunshots and heavy punching sounds (which could’ve been more impressive, honestly) and every possible version available of the famous song ‘Fly me to the moon’, including but not limited to the main battle theme, striking and rhythmic but also kind of relaxing.
The storyline may be considered serviceable at best, just like Devil May Cry is a reinvention of the tropes of Christian Hell’s Demons versus Heaven’s Angels, played from the “bad guys” perspective. Yet the little details in cuts, themes and delivery show how Japan is still able to come up with uncompromising but unoffensive content about religion, sexuality, violence and so on. It’s so comfortable to know that there will always be some creators that don’t care about deeper meanings and just want to maximize the fun and cool factor as much as possible, while also releasing a complete and consistent videogame.
2013
Antichamber is the ultimate form of any platform puzzle videogame, one that gives to the players the mean to overcome every room they are put in but that also asks them to constantly question everything they have learned, including common knowledge physics and previous rules established by the game itself.
The concept of being put into a conceptual impossible structure, that resembles on many levels a hypercube, is already something that could’ve worked so flawlessly only in a videogame. The progression across each level is logical, but requires thinking out of the box on the same degree, if not even more convoluted, than The Stanley Parable and the Portal series. What is absolutely unique to Antichamber though it’s the almost soundless, eerie and unnaturally coloured ambient, which all the more convey the feeling of a metaphysical nightmare not even the philosopher Frank Jackson could be able to properly explain.
Aside from the players themselves, the only (much welcomed) recognizable human inputs inside the game are posters put around rooms and hallways, which use cute drawing and helpful lines to either hint the solution of a puzzle, to comment and congratulate an outcome with a clever moral lesson about the matter of perspective and the importance of keeping an open mind at all time.
From beginning to end, Antichamber will be a joy to immerse oneself in; truly engaging for how well it plays gameplay-wise and how the game itself plays with its players minds. There aren’t many not-meme metagames that can boast the same mind-blowing accomplishments.
The concept of being put into a conceptual impossible structure, that resembles on many levels a hypercube, is already something that could’ve worked so flawlessly only in a videogame. The progression across each level is logical, but requires thinking out of the box on the same degree, if not even more convoluted, than The Stanley Parable and the Portal series. What is absolutely unique to Antichamber though it’s the almost soundless, eerie and unnaturally coloured ambient, which all the more convey the feeling of a metaphysical nightmare not even the philosopher Frank Jackson could be able to properly explain.
Aside from the players themselves, the only (much welcomed) recognizable human inputs inside the game are posters put around rooms and hallways, which use cute drawing and helpful lines to either hint the solution of a puzzle, to comment and congratulate an outcome with a clever moral lesson about the matter of perspective and the importance of keeping an open mind at all time.
From beginning to end, Antichamber will be a joy to immerse oneself in; truly engaging for how well it plays gameplay-wise and how the game itself plays with its players minds. There aren’t many not-meme metagames that can boast the same mind-blowing accomplishments.
2006
“Well… We’ve been through a lot together. […] But for you, it’s just the start of an even greater adventure.”
For sure, this journey was a memorable one.
Okami is the quintessential old school adventure videogame: a large world made of multiple interconnected maps, subsequently opened to the players by precedingly unlocking new unique abilities. The different scenarios also offer a wide variety of side activities, quests and collectible, without choking the game full of time-consuming nothingness or making the players deviate much from the main quest: moreover, even the apparently most trivial side mission ultimately brings the player to unlock a new weapon, helpful accessories or ability upgrades, so there will never be a minute of gameplay lost just to achieve an empty 100% competition rate.
Certainly, there is not a tight world building behind every encounter, or interesting written stories for all the characters, like for example in the Witcher and Souls series, yet what Clover studio achieved by blending the Zelda formula with Japanese folklore resulted in a most unique product, even amid the vast catalogue of niche games for the Playstation2. No surprises Okami achieved a strong cult status among past generations of video gamers, other than receiving various porting and remaster.
The story itself sets the game as a niche product right from the beginning, as it explores themes and events reimagined from Shinto mythology, and as such it has many details and references that may be understood uniquely by a Japanese audience, or well versed in this particular cultural background. The whole premise of Okami reinvents the legend of the slaying of Yamata-no-Orochi, an 8-headed and 8-tailed dragon serpent, by the hand of the gods Susanoo and Amaterasu, with slightly differences such as Amaterasu, while still being the Sun goddess, as well as the players’ character, is represented as a mute wolf (Okami is a word play that while being written as ‘great god’ could be read as ‘wolf god’).
Other characters coming from different myths are Issun, Okami’s Navi although arguably more talkative and amusingly obnoxious, who serves as a narrator and as Amaterasu only mean to communicate with the world, aside from barking and headbutting; Urashima Tarou, Otohime and the Dragon Palace on the bottom of the sea, the shapeshifting fox spirit with nine tails, Fusehime and her eight dog warriors, Kaguyahime from the tale of the bamboo cutter, as well as actual historical figures such as Himiko, a real queen from the early days of Japan. The vast assortment of characters gives a pantheistic feeling to Okami’s otherwise primarily light-hearted and goofy plot, making the players immerse in a scenario akin to an Olympus, where the deities intertwine with each other to serve the purpose of a greater story.
What immediately strikes about Okami is certainly its visuals, the peculiar art design with broad black outlines and a soft colour palette that heavily borrows from various Japanese traditional art, such as ukiyo-e, sumi-e (ink painting) and even calligraphy on some degree. The end result is a less rough and more glistening rural world immerse in nature, with sparkling of true beauty but with the simple recognizable designs of a children story book. The gameplay also fits with the artwork of the videogame: Amaterasu can use her tail, the Celestial Brush, to enter a sort of otherworldly dimension from where she can utilize different strokes to unleash various effects on the game world: these effects range from manipulating the elements to fix broken or missing artefacts, slow time, evoke explosives and cut through most objects.
The Celestial Brush also heavily plays in the combat system, as aside from Amaterasu’s quick fighting style mix of Divine Instruments (beads whips, greatswords and mirrors) the brush techniques can also be implemented with various effects on the enemies to facilitate crowd controls or hit weak points. Despite the fast-paced combat, the use of the Celestial Brush also serves as a pace breaker, stopping the frenetic action and putting the players in a dimension of stillness from where strategies can be elaborated and executed with ease and calm.
The last impressive factor about Okami is its soundtrack: over five hours (if one were to listen to it from start to end) of classical Japanese music inspirations that range from soothing and atmospheric pieces played with relaxing woodwind instruments, to more rhythmic, frenetic and bombastic percussions fighting themes. The ambience is probably the most sublime aspect of this game, since the first opening of the main menu the players are hit with the slow tempo of traditional flutes and almost immaterial and echoing drumming, that immediately stages the Eastern opera that Okami sets out to be; a relaxing fantasy journey in a fairy tale land.
For sure, this journey was a memorable one.
Okami is the quintessential old school adventure videogame: a large world made of multiple interconnected maps, subsequently opened to the players by precedingly unlocking new unique abilities. The different scenarios also offer a wide variety of side activities, quests and collectible, without choking the game full of time-consuming nothingness or making the players deviate much from the main quest: moreover, even the apparently most trivial side mission ultimately brings the player to unlock a new weapon, helpful accessories or ability upgrades, so there will never be a minute of gameplay lost just to achieve an empty 100% competition rate.
Certainly, there is not a tight world building behind every encounter, or interesting written stories for all the characters, like for example in the Witcher and Souls series, yet what Clover studio achieved by blending the Zelda formula with Japanese folklore resulted in a most unique product, even amid the vast catalogue of niche games for the Playstation2. No surprises Okami achieved a strong cult status among past generations of video gamers, other than receiving various porting and remaster.
The story itself sets the game as a niche product right from the beginning, as it explores themes and events reimagined from Shinto mythology, and as such it has many details and references that may be understood uniquely by a Japanese audience, or well versed in this particular cultural background. The whole premise of Okami reinvents the legend of the slaying of Yamata-no-Orochi, an 8-headed and 8-tailed dragon serpent, by the hand of the gods Susanoo and Amaterasu, with slightly differences such as Amaterasu, while still being the Sun goddess, as well as the players’ character, is represented as a mute wolf (Okami is a word play that while being written as ‘great god’ could be read as ‘wolf god’).
Other characters coming from different myths are Issun, Okami’s Navi although arguably more talkative and amusingly obnoxious, who serves as a narrator and as Amaterasu only mean to communicate with the world, aside from barking and headbutting; Urashima Tarou, Otohime and the Dragon Palace on the bottom of the sea, the shapeshifting fox spirit with nine tails, Fusehime and her eight dog warriors, Kaguyahime from the tale of the bamboo cutter, as well as actual historical figures such as Himiko, a real queen from the early days of Japan. The vast assortment of characters gives a pantheistic feeling to Okami’s otherwise primarily light-hearted and goofy plot, making the players immerse in a scenario akin to an Olympus, where the deities intertwine with each other to serve the purpose of a greater story.
What immediately strikes about Okami is certainly its visuals, the peculiar art design with broad black outlines and a soft colour palette that heavily borrows from various Japanese traditional art, such as ukiyo-e, sumi-e (ink painting) and even calligraphy on some degree. The end result is a less rough and more glistening rural world immerse in nature, with sparkling of true beauty but with the simple recognizable designs of a children story book. The gameplay also fits with the artwork of the videogame: Amaterasu can use her tail, the Celestial Brush, to enter a sort of otherworldly dimension from where she can utilize different strokes to unleash various effects on the game world: these effects range from manipulating the elements to fix broken or missing artefacts, slow time, evoke explosives and cut through most objects.
The Celestial Brush also heavily plays in the combat system, as aside from Amaterasu’s quick fighting style mix of Divine Instruments (beads whips, greatswords and mirrors) the brush techniques can also be implemented with various effects on the enemies to facilitate crowd controls or hit weak points. Despite the fast-paced combat, the use of the Celestial Brush also serves as a pace breaker, stopping the frenetic action and putting the players in a dimension of stillness from where strategies can be elaborated and executed with ease and calm.
The last impressive factor about Okami is its soundtrack: over five hours (if one were to listen to it from start to end) of classical Japanese music inspirations that range from soothing and atmospheric pieces played with relaxing woodwind instruments, to more rhythmic, frenetic and bombastic percussions fighting themes. The ambience is probably the most sublime aspect of this game, since the first opening of the main menu the players are hit with the slow tempo of traditional flutes and almost immaterial and echoing drumming, that immediately stages the Eastern opera that Okami sets out to be; a relaxing fantasy journey in a fairy tale land.
“Let’s go back, to a life worth living.”
Thematically speaking, it is hard not to be impressed by what Valkyria Chronicles wanted to achieve with its latest iteration. While proposing to their audience a new chapter after the success of the first Steam porting (because let’s face it, without that the franchise would be very well dead with Revolution being the nail in the coffin), SEGA also went heavy hand on hammering the antimilitarist theme of the series with a new fresh cast of characters in an imaginative brutal campaign set during the well-known Second Europan War.
As per usual, the characters are mostly anime tropes of hot-blooded rebels, humble quiet blokes and various shades of aggressive but cutesy women. The great difference this time is how the addition of side squad stories for the non-main characters helps to expand on each member of Squad E, to brush more detailed personalities and motivations for them to be enlisted and at odds with a war that ultimately none of them wants to be in, for no one likes to murder or to risk their own life if not driven by a greater personal drive.
Which, despite the obvious contradiction of giving the players achievements for killing a large number of enemies, it’s still a commendable effort. Many times, throughout the game, the war is not just painted as a fight for freedom from the Federation viewpoint anymore: by adding, with due reinterpretations, real war episodes such as the winter retreat from the Russian campaigns, human experimentation, suicide attacks and so on, the tone is definitely darker than is previous titles of the series. It is almost graceful to the players to keep the light-heartiness of the characters, in spite of most of everything, to counter the strong subjects at matter.
This does not mean that the characters are unable to perform according to the tone of the events, they all have their breaking points and harsh moments, there is a fair share of melodrama and idealism, but they fit well considering how real and painful some events might appear to those familiar with actual historical war scenarios. After all, it is better to draw a positive meaning from ruthless times rather than cynically accepting that there is no significance to suffering.
Aside from the differences in themes, the gameplay remains mostly untouched but still as strong as it was in the first game: the turn based strategic combat is more versatile now thanks to more Command Points (CP) provided each turn to perform more actions, the promotions to corporal for standard privates to add even more CP and how tanks now don’t cost 2 CP for each time they move. The new Grenadier class is brutal, hard to employ in every situation and extremely overpowered, but well balanced if considering how also enemies’ Grenadiers can give hell to the players’ troops in almost every mission they are present. Hard difficulty in side skirmishes is still as silly as it was before, with any actual challenge replaced by just adding more enemies to each map and leave the players to figure out how to not be wiped out in a couple turns, when the placement is not merely dumb: in one of the last skirmishes, an enemy camp was guarded by three snipers that weren’t blocking the players from capturing it, while also being put behind a cover that hindered their shooting; what was their point exactly?
Features in the headquarters, like the experience point boot camp, the R&D department to upgrade weapons and tanks, the mess hall taking the place of the cemetery for learning new orders, are pretty much left unchanged with maybe more possibilities for characters customization thanks to a larger arsenal of weapons and equippable accessories for extra stats. Orders mechanic are still as exploitable as before and, since the game actively rewards with more EXP and war funds finishing missions in the fewer possible turns, many will be tempted to avoid immersion in the strategical setting in favour of a more one-man-army, blitzkrieg approach for the added bonuses. Which is a shame, since Valkyria Chronicles is still the most similar experience available in the videogame industry to the splendid turn-based tactics of the latest XCOMs.
Valkyria Chronicles is a hard title to recommend, it is very unique to its own genre and since this fourth chapter is on every level, even graphics and game engine, the same as the first one, many players may as well stick to that. Or, they may happily gift SEGA with their money, buy this game and hope for more future development from this series. Certainly, Valkyria Chronicles 4 won’t give anyone something inherently new, notwithstanding the aforementioned differences in plot presentation and themes, but it is still a solid game with enormous potential and open to both a fast-paced and a more relaxed and strategical approach to war games.
Thematically speaking, it is hard not to be impressed by what Valkyria Chronicles wanted to achieve with its latest iteration. While proposing to their audience a new chapter after the success of the first Steam porting (because let’s face it, without that the franchise would be very well dead with Revolution being the nail in the coffin), SEGA also went heavy hand on hammering the antimilitarist theme of the series with a new fresh cast of characters in an imaginative brutal campaign set during the well-known Second Europan War.
As per usual, the characters are mostly anime tropes of hot-blooded rebels, humble quiet blokes and various shades of aggressive but cutesy women. The great difference this time is how the addition of side squad stories for the non-main characters helps to expand on each member of Squad E, to brush more detailed personalities and motivations for them to be enlisted and at odds with a war that ultimately none of them wants to be in, for no one likes to murder or to risk their own life if not driven by a greater personal drive.
Which, despite the obvious contradiction of giving the players achievements for killing a large number of enemies, it’s still a commendable effort. Many times, throughout the game, the war is not just painted as a fight for freedom from the Federation viewpoint anymore: by adding, with due reinterpretations, real war episodes such as the winter retreat from the Russian campaigns, human experimentation, suicide attacks and so on, the tone is definitely darker than is previous titles of the series. It is almost graceful to the players to keep the light-heartiness of the characters, in spite of most of everything, to counter the strong subjects at matter.
This does not mean that the characters are unable to perform according to the tone of the events, they all have their breaking points and harsh moments, there is a fair share of melodrama and idealism, but they fit well considering how real and painful some events might appear to those familiar with actual historical war scenarios. After all, it is better to draw a positive meaning from ruthless times rather than cynically accepting that there is no significance to suffering.
Aside from the differences in themes, the gameplay remains mostly untouched but still as strong as it was in the first game: the turn based strategic combat is more versatile now thanks to more Command Points (CP) provided each turn to perform more actions, the promotions to corporal for standard privates to add even more CP and how tanks now don’t cost 2 CP for each time they move. The new Grenadier class is brutal, hard to employ in every situation and extremely overpowered, but well balanced if considering how also enemies’ Grenadiers can give hell to the players’ troops in almost every mission they are present. Hard difficulty in side skirmishes is still as silly as it was before, with any actual challenge replaced by just adding more enemies to each map and leave the players to figure out how to not be wiped out in a couple turns, when the placement is not merely dumb: in one of the last skirmishes, an enemy camp was guarded by three snipers that weren’t blocking the players from capturing it, while also being put behind a cover that hindered their shooting; what was their point exactly?
Features in the headquarters, like the experience point boot camp, the R&D department to upgrade weapons and tanks, the mess hall taking the place of the cemetery for learning new orders, are pretty much left unchanged with maybe more possibilities for characters customization thanks to a larger arsenal of weapons and equippable accessories for extra stats. Orders mechanic are still as exploitable as before and, since the game actively rewards with more EXP and war funds finishing missions in the fewer possible turns, many will be tempted to avoid immersion in the strategical setting in favour of a more one-man-army, blitzkrieg approach for the added bonuses. Which is a shame, since Valkyria Chronicles is still the most similar experience available in the videogame industry to the splendid turn-based tactics of the latest XCOMs.
Valkyria Chronicles is a hard title to recommend, it is very unique to its own genre and since this fourth chapter is on every level, even graphics and game engine, the same as the first one, many players may as well stick to that. Or, they may happily gift SEGA with their money, buy this game and hope for more future development from this series. Certainly, Valkyria Chronicles 4 won’t give anyone something inherently new, notwithstanding the aforementioned differences in plot presentation and themes, but it is still a solid game with enormous potential and open to both a fast-paced and a more relaxed and strategical approach to war games.
“Let’s go back, to a life worth living.”
Thematically speaking, it is hard not to be impressed by what Valkyria Chronicles wanted to achieve with its latest iteration. While proposing to their audience a new chapter after the success of the first Steam porting (because let’s face it, without that the franchise would be very well dead with Revolution being the nail in the coffin), SEGA also went heavy hand on hammering the antimilitarist theme of the series with a new fresh cast of characters in an imaginative brutal campaign set during the well-known Second Europan War.
As per usual, the characters are mostly anime tropes of hot-blooded rebels, humble quiet blokes and various shades of aggressive but cutesy women. The great difference this time is how the addition of side squad stories for the non-main characters helps to expand on each member of Squad E, to brush more detailed personalities and motivations for them to be enlisted and at odds with a war that ultimately none of them wants to be in, for no one likes to murder or to risk their own life if not driven by a greater personal drive.
Which, despite the obvious contradiction of giving the players achievements for killing a large number of enemies, it’s still a commendable effort. Many times, throughout the game, the war is not just painted as a fight for freedom from the Federation viewpoint anymore: by adding, with due reinterpretations, real war episodes such as the winter retreat from the Russian campaigns, human experimentation, suicide attacks and so on, the tone is definitely darker than is previous titles of the series. It is almost graceful to the players to keep the light-heartiness of the characters, in spite of most of everything, to counter the strong subjects at matter.
This does not mean that the characters are unable to perform according to the tone of the events, they all have their breaking points and harsh moments, there is a fair share of melodrama and idealism, but they fit well considering how real and painful some events might appear to those familiar with actual historical war scenarios. After all, it is better to draw a positive meaning from ruthless times rather than cynically accepting that there is no significance to suffering.
Aside from the differences in themes, the gameplay remains mostly untouched but still as strong as it was in the first game: the turn based strategic combat is more versatile now thanks to more Command Points (CP) provided each turn to perform more actions, the promotions to corporal for standard privates to add even more CP and how tanks now don’t cost 2 CP for each time they move. The new Grenadier class is brutal, hard to employ in every situation and extremely overpowered, but well balanced if considering how also enemies’ Grenadiers can give hell to the players’ troops in almost every mission they are present. Hard difficulty in side skirmishes is still as silly as it was before, with any actual challenge replaced by just adding more enemies to each map and leave the players to figure out how to not be wiped out in a couple turns, when the placement is not merely dumb: in one of the last skirmishes, an enemy camp was guarded by three snipers that weren’t blocking the players from capturing it, while also being put behind a cover that hindered their shooting; what was their point exactly?
Features in the headquarters, like the experience point boot camp, the R&D department to upgrade weapons and tanks, the mess hall taking the place of the cemetery for learning new orders, are pretty much left unchanged with maybe more possibilities for characters customization thanks to a larger arsenal of weapons and equippable accessories for extra stats. Orders mechanic are still as exploitable as before and, since the game actively rewards with more EXP and war funds finishing missions in the fewer possible turns, many will be tempted to avoid immersion in the strategical setting in favour of a more one-man-army, blitzkrieg approach for the added bonuses. Which is a shame, since Valkyria Chronicles is still the most similar experience available in the videogame industry to the splendid turn-based tactics of the latest XCOMs.
Valkyria Chronicles is a hard title to recommend, it is very unique to its own genre and since this fourth chapter is on every level, even graphics and game engine, the same as the first one, many players may as well stick to that. Or, they may happily gift SEGA with their money, buy this game and hope for more future development from this series. Certainly, Valkyria Chronicles 4 won’t give anyone something inherently new, notwithstanding the aforementioned differences in plot presentation and themes, but it is still a solid game with enormous potential and open to both a fast-paced and a more relaxed and strategical approach to war games.
Thematically speaking, it is hard not to be impressed by what Valkyria Chronicles wanted to achieve with its latest iteration. While proposing to their audience a new chapter after the success of the first Steam porting (because let’s face it, without that the franchise would be very well dead with Revolution being the nail in the coffin), SEGA also went heavy hand on hammering the antimilitarist theme of the series with a new fresh cast of characters in an imaginative brutal campaign set during the well-known Second Europan War.
As per usual, the characters are mostly anime tropes of hot-blooded rebels, humble quiet blokes and various shades of aggressive but cutesy women. The great difference this time is how the addition of side squad stories for the non-main characters helps to expand on each member of Squad E, to brush more detailed personalities and motivations for them to be enlisted and at odds with a war that ultimately none of them wants to be in, for no one likes to murder or to risk their own life if not driven by a greater personal drive.
Which, despite the obvious contradiction of giving the players achievements for killing a large number of enemies, it’s still a commendable effort. Many times, throughout the game, the war is not just painted as a fight for freedom from the Federation viewpoint anymore: by adding, with due reinterpretations, real war episodes such as the winter retreat from the Russian campaigns, human experimentation, suicide attacks and so on, the tone is definitely darker than is previous titles of the series. It is almost graceful to the players to keep the light-heartiness of the characters, in spite of most of everything, to counter the strong subjects at matter.
This does not mean that the characters are unable to perform according to the tone of the events, they all have their breaking points and harsh moments, there is a fair share of melodrama and idealism, but they fit well considering how real and painful some events might appear to those familiar with actual historical war scenarios. After all, it is better to draw a positive meaning from ruthless times rather than cynically accepting that there is no significance to suffering.
Aside from the differences in themes, the gameplay remains mostly untouched but still as strong as it was in the first game: the turn based strategic combat is more versatile now thanks to more Command Points (CP) provided each turn to perform more actions, the promotions to corporal for standard privates to add even more CP and how tanks now don’t cost 2 CP for each time they move. The new Grenadier class is brutal, hard to employ in every situation and extremely overpowered, but well balanced if considering how also enemies’ Grenadiers can give hell to the players’ troops in almost every mission they are present. Hard difficulty in side skirmishes is still as silly as it was before, with any actual challenge replaced by just adding more enemies to each map and leave the players to figure out how to not be wiped out in a couple turns, when the placement is not merely dumb: in one of the last skirmishes, an enemy camp was guarded by three snipers that weren’t blocking the players from capturing it, while also being put behind a cover that hindered their shooting; what was their point exactly?
Features in the headquarters, like the experience point boot camp, the R&D department to upgrade weapons and tanks, the mess hall taking the place of the cemetery for learning new orders, are pretty much left unchanged with maybe more possibilities for characters customization thanks to a larger arsenal of weapons and equippable accessories for extra stats. Orders mechanic are still as exploitable as before and, since the game actively rewards with more EXP and war funds finishing missions in the fewer possible turns, many will be tempted to avoid immersion in the strategical setting in favour of a more one-man-army, blitzkrieg approach for the added bonuses. Which is a shame, since Valkyria Chronicles is still the most similar experience available in the videogame industry to the splendid turn-based tactics of the latest XCOMs.
Valkyria Chronicles is a hard title to recommend, it is very unique to its own genre and since this fourth chapter is on every level, even graphics and game engine, the same as the first one, many players may as well stick to that. Or, they may happily gift SEGA with their money, buy this game and hope for more future development from this series. Certainly, Valkyria Chronicles 4 won’t give anyone something inherently new, notwithstanding the aforementioned differences in plot presentation and themes, but it is still a solid game with enormous potential and open to both a fast-paced and a more relaxed and strategical approach to war games.
What does make a good platform and puzzle videogame? Is it the unresponsive controls? Or maybe the luck-based stages with instant deaths? Probably it’s how abilities’ lag may cause losing time and many more deaths. Some may argue it is the long backtracking from checkpoints to the actual puzzles, with slow sections in between where control is taken from the players, thus making the videogame a glorified slide show. Others will say “No, it’s how control inputs overlap with each other, so every move is always a shot in the dark”. But then again, can we forget the huge importance of having slow characters during segments that require perfect, immediate reflex to achieve success? As well as how important is to have precise movements nullified because the characters’ idle animations, like breathing and floating, still lead to death as they are out of the players control? My favourite though has to be having controls mirrored for an entire chapter but the camera still functioning as normal, so that the players cannot see where they are going and move in that direction at the same time. Priceless.
So, really, what does make a good platform and puzzle videogame? Because I don’t know anymore.
What I do know is that blind trial and error does not equate to a balanced learning curve, just as banging the head against a door does not equate to finding the key to open it. Putting aside how highly impractical that is, most importantly it can’t be described, by no means, as a fun experience.
So, really, what does make a good platform and puzzle videogame? Because I don’t know anymore.
What I do know is that blind trial and error does not equate to a balanced learning curve, just as banging the head against a door does not equate to finding the key to open it. Putting aside how highly impractical that is, most importantly it can’t be described, by no means, as a fun experience.
2010
Years past its PlayStation3 debut, Vanquish is still the highest realization of third person shooters videogames. It implements the easy, familiar and stale cover mechanics made mainstream by Gears of War, Uncharted and Mass Effect, then shatters them by evolving the system to new and still today unreached heights. Cover mechanics are usually built to make the players feel protected during gunfights, safe spots that restrict movements, making the game akin to a less explicit tower defence; they feel derivative and rarely rewarding since, aside adding maybe different weapons thorough the playthrough or forcing incentives to move from one cover to another, once you played a cover shooter the general gameplay will always be identical.
Then along came Platinum Games, they decided that staying put picking out enemies from safe spots was slow and bollocks and crafted an eight-hour long joyride in outer space, with augmented movesets, faster combats in larger arenas and their signature excessive aesthetic of B-movie camp dialogues and relentless action. Vanquish major gameplay’s accomplishments are in its implementation of the Augmented Reaction (AR) suit and its versatility: this AR suit allows the utilization of boosters to rapidly traverse the game areas, ram into enemies, change covers, as a vast and more powerful sprint mechanic. Not so rare for cover shooters is also the dedicated dodge button, but unlike other more – tentatively – ‘realistic’ videogames, in Vanquish there is no input or animation delay, the dodge is omnidirectional and with immediate, if none, recovery time, thus guaranteeing quick means of evasion and closing in on enemies.
Another Platinum’s well-known gadget is the AR mode, a device to slow time, reminiscent of Bayonetta’s Witch Time, that enhances precise aim and favours more calculated movements. AR mode however has to be triggered via players’ movement of the character, be it a dodge, a boost sprint, a drop kick against an enemy, vaulting out of cover, thus incentivising the players to actively leave covers and experiment with the versatile combat. Alternatively, receiving too much damage and being put in critical condition will automatically trigger the AR mode, yet also deplete its charge completely, as would an abuse of boost and AR mode. The ingenious thing is, once the AR suit is overheating and the players temporarily lose the ability too boost and slow time, it doesn’t immediately equate to a death sentence, there always is the safe having of taking cover and letting both the suit and health points regenerate: meaning, the game’s ‘punishment’ for lacking resources management is to play a standard cover shooter. How lovely.
Vanquish though failed to find strong public recognition in its lifetime, because aside from its revolutionary, immensely fun and hard to master gameplay, and for the high-quality production in cutscenes and graphic, the rest of the package is rather bland. Sound design does its job, but there is nothing impressive in both soundtrack and gunplay, which are hardly distinguishable from other products of the same genre. Enemies design lack variety and interesting mechanic to counter, will all of them, small and big, playing the same with annoying long-range distractions and close quarter devastating one-hit kills. Visually speaking there also isn’t much to look at, even bosses are devoid of the usual Platinum’s intentionally grandiose scale, with intricated mechanical designs and diverse battles, as they were, for example, in Binary Domain.
Speaking of Binary Domain, the screenwriter could’ve also used some more inspiration from better science-fiction sources. While the latter videogame could offer a compelling narrative, with clear developed characters, in Vanquish things seem to happen mostly just because: the story’s premise revolves around a terror attack and a war declaration to the US from a Russian space colony, which is promptly invaded and made theatre of mayhem. All in all there are about five or six recurring characters and none of them seems to have strong motivations to achieve anything; there is a mission to accomplish, but it is as empty as generic as the quest mark on the minimap, with no personal struggle in between nor certainly any social commentary about terrorism and the dark side of politics. Most of the time something happens just so stuff can blow up, a la Michael Bay but with even less pretence of seriousness.
It is a mess, but indeed a beautiful mess to look at, and even more beautiful and engaging to play.
Then along came Platinum Games, they decided that staying put picking out enemies from safe spots was slow and bollocks and crafted an eight-hour long joyride in outer space, with augmented movesets, faster combats in larger arenas and their signature excessive aesthetic of B-movie camp dialogues and relentless action. Vanquish major gameplay’s accomplishments are in its implementation of the Augmented Reaction (AR) suit and its versatility: this AR suit allows the utilization of boosters to rapidly traverse the game areas, ram into enemies, change covers, as a vast and more powerful sprint mechanic. Not so rare for cover shooters is also the dedicated dodge button, but unlike other more – tentatively – ‘realistic’ videogames, in Vanquish there is no input or animation delay, the dodge is omnidirectional and with immediate, if none, recovery time, thus guaranteeing quick means of evasion and closing in on enemies.
Another Platinum’s well-known gadget is the AR mode, a device to slow time, reminiscent of Bayonetta’s Witch Time, that enhances precise aim and favours more calculated movements. AR mode however has to be triggered via players’ movement of the character, be it a dodge, a boost sprint, a drop kick against an enemy, vaulting out of cover, thus incentivising the players to actively leave covers and experiment with the versatile combat. Alternatively, receiving too much damage and being put in critical condition will automatically trigger the AR mode, yet also deplete its charge completely, as would an abuse of boost and AR mode. The ingenious thing is, once the AR suit is overheating and the players temporarily lose the ability too boost and slow time, it doesn’t immediately equate to a death sentence, there always is the safe having of taking cover and letting both the suit and health points regenerate: meaning, the game’s ‘punishment’ for lacking resources management is to play a standard cover shooter. How lovely.
Vanquish though failed to find strong public recognition in its lifetime, because aside from its revolutionary, immensely fun and hard to master gameplay, and for the high-quality production in cutscenes and graphic, the rest of the package is rather bland. Sound design does its job, but there is nothing impressive in both soundtrack and gunplay, which are hardly distinguishable from other products of the same genre. Enemies design lack variety and interesting mechanic to counter, will all of them, small and big, playing the same with annoying long-range distractions and close quarter devastating one-hit kills. Visually speaking there also isn’t much to look at, even bosses are devoid of the usual Platinum’s intentionally grandiose scale, with intricated mechanical designs and diverse battles, as they were, for example, in Binary Domain.
Speaking of Binary Domain, the screenwriter could’ve also used some more inspiration from better science-fiction sources. While the latter videogame could offer a compelling narrative, with clear developed characters, in Vanquish things seem to happen mostly just because: the story’s premise revolves around a terror attack and a war declaration to the US from a Russian space colony, which is promptly invaded and made theatre of mayhem. All in all there are about five or six recurring characters and none of them seems to have strong motivations to achieve anything; there is a mission to accomplish, but it is as empty as generic as the quest mark on the minimap, with no personal struggle in between nor certainly any social commentary about terrorism and the dark side of politics. Most of the time something happens just so stuff can blow up, a la Michael Bay but with even less pretence of seriousness.
It is a mess, but indeed a beautiful mess to look at, and even more beautiful and engaging to play.
In the midst of the ending of the warring states era of Japan, a time of intense struggles and conflicts, of subterfuges and heroes, where both history and myth were in the making, From Software and Hidetaka Miyazaki bring us another bleak depiction of the conclusion of such age. This is no surprise as, since the Souls series, they made their standard to work with stories set during, or shortly after, the demise of what was once a great and powerful entity, only to be now being ruined by excess, misfortune and human faults.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice sets to portray the land of the Ashina clan, shortly after the end of a major conflict during the Sengoku jidai, the aforementioned Japan warring states era, but to anyone with a mild interest in the matter should be known that there was nothing left of the land nor the clan once the era was over. The game begins showing Isshin Ashina, the faction leader, obtaining a huge victory for himself and his clan, but as the player get control over the protagonist actions, we are immediately treated to a sad look over his domain. Despite, or probably because of, his victory, Isshin brought on himself the attention of the central government of Japan, always in fear of any daimyo gaining power as they might become exceptionally threatening in the power struggle going on at the time. Over the course of the game this situation will only exacerbate, as the conflict between the Ashina and the government will bring further ruin to the former clan, slowly erasing any of its member from history.
Thus, we are presented to one of the central themes of Sekiro: the cycling shifts in history, between one power to another, in a seemingly never ending spiral where everything comes full circle and begin anew, repeating itself over and over again. This is mostly and directly symbolized by the main character’s, known solely as Wolf, ability to resurrect after death, one of the main features of the game, but it is also shown by the many references to immortality, rebirth and ascension scattered thorough the story. As it is bursting with references and themes borrowed from the Buddhist mythos and Japanese folklore, it is only natural that Sekiro would tackle leitmotifs such as the cycle of death and rebirth, and the underlying essence of escape from the mortal coils and sins to achieve a higher state of being, of purification almost.
In the context of the story, the journey towards purification for the main character and his protégé and master, Kuro, last descendant of the extinct Hirata family, is filled with references to self-sacrifice and how to achieve liberation from their roles in the sad history of the Sengoku era by means of death. Directly in contrast with this view, there is Genichiro Ashina, heir to the clan name and willing to sink to any low possible to avoid the Ashina demise and save its land from ruin; and those lows will go very, very deep over the course of the game. What is this conflict between two opposed morality if not the same contrast between the inevitable conclusion of the Age of Fire, a time of deceit and conflict, and the eerie vision of an Age of Dark, which sure sounds undesirable in its bleakness representation of death, but is it really so much worse than a never-ending state of lies and suffering?
The players should decide for themselves, there are enough endings and viewpoints among all the different characters to develop a personal standpoint on the matter.
Gameplay-wise, Sekiro takes the quickness of Bloodborne and turns up the notch. A lot. Whilst Bloodborne incentivised the player to be constantly near enemies to attack, recover life and stagger for delicious critical hits, Sekiro gives the player one of the most intuitive and rewarding parry mechanic to ever be conceived. Just like in real sword fights between blade masters, Sekiro doesn’t play on the clunkier balance between hit and run, but rather block and counterattack. The enemies – particularly bosses – health bars are going to look massive and impossible to reduce to zero, if not for the possibility to play along with this mechanic of parry and counterattacking to reduce the enemies’ posture, so to strike a fatal blow. The genius behind this is how that can be achieved when the enemy still has over half of its health bar, with enough focus and precision in the movements. Sekiro highly rewards patience and perfect reflexes and, whilst the enemies hit hard, since the parrying is very lenient on the frames and the blocking can nullify almost all damages, it is far more accessible than a first blind run on Dark Souls.
The setting of the decayed Ashina and its environs are varied but beautifully interconnected, and it really looks like traveling through an organic territory which includes cities, castles, mountain paths, temples and so on. It is a very linear scenario, it rarely presents to the players tricky mazes or multiple choices as to where to go next, yet as it plays more as an action title than a dungeon crawler RPG it never feels like is lacking for content or variety. The enemy placing might be one of the best in the series, with the right balance between isolated opponents and large groups of mobs, which can both be dispatched with ease and intuition using both one’s prowess with the sword or with the engaging – albeit underdeveloped – stealth mechanic, which allows to act like a true shinobi, by striking deathly blows from the shadows, run away and instil fear and confusion in the enemies.
Bosses have, for the most part, anthropomorphic features, as to maximize the use of the sword mechanics and fit the setting, but there will be some interesting fantastic designs of folkloristic creatures to roam the land of Ashina. Most of these bosses will prove quite challenging and each of them presents in some way a new step to the learning curve, always fairly rising and requiring at each turn for the players to have mastered some aspect of the abilities and skills the game has to offer. These abilities may include passive boosts or actual techniques to utilize against enemies with particular movesets and resistances.
The musical score sees the return of Kitamura Yuka, already a veteran on previous From’s titles such as Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, and it proves again a rightful choice as the atmosphere of the medieval Japan is perfectly conveyed by her tunes, played with traditional Japanese instruments, full of mystery and nostalgic melodies. The tracks are somewhat less noticeable and memorable than previous examples in other games, yet they will undoubtedly play the right atmosphere for the players immersion in the game.
Some of the downsides of the game can include the lack of real replay value, since there are not many different builds to experiment with, even considering all the different abilities at hands, since by the end of the first playthrough the players will have obtained almost all of them with enough care and the most overpowered and useful are clear the moment one tries them for the first time. Bayonetta it is not. The Dragonrot mechanic is also very downplayed and useless on the long run, except for being a somewhat hint that the player is sucking too much at the game all at once and various lore implications. The camera works better than in previous games but it will still lead the players to many moments where no possible divine help could have saved them from being brutally massacred in a corner with no escape.
Sekiro will certainly prove a delightful experience for any From fan in love with their style of show-don’t-tell storytelling and subtle worldbuilding, as well as the grim depiction of the dread of humankind. And if that won’t suit any personal preferences, the rewarding combat system is going to prove an immensely immersive and fun challenge for any who want to feel the thrill of handling a blade as it is meant to be handled.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice sets to portray the land of the Ashina clan, shortly after the end of a major conflict during the Sengoku jidai, the aforementioned Japan warring states era, but to anyone with a mild interest in the matter should be known that there was nothing left of the land nor the clan once the era was over. The game begins showing Isshin Ashina, the faction leader, obtaining a huge victory for himself and his clan, but as the player get control over the protagonist actions, we are immediately treated to a sad look over his domain. Despite, or probably because of, his victory, Isshin brought on himself the attention of the central government of Japan, always in fear of any daimyo gaining power as they might become exceptionally threatening in the power struggle going on at the time. Over the course of the game this situation will only exacerbate, as the conflict between the Ashina and the government will bring further ruin to the former clan, slowly erasing any of its member from history.
Thus, we are presented to one of the central themes of Sekiro: the cycling shifts in history, between one power to another, in a seemingly never ending spiral where everything comes full circle and begin anew, repeating itself over and over again. This is mostly and directly symbolized by the main character’s, known solely as Wolf, ability to resurrect after death, one of the main features of the game, but it is also shown by the many references to immortality, rebirth and ascension scattered thorough the story. As it is bursting with references and themes borrowed from the Buddhist mythos and Japanese folklore, it is only natural that Sekiro would tackle leitmotifs such as the cycle of death and rebirth, and the underlying essence of escape from the mortal coils and sins to achieve a higher state of being, of purification almost.
In the context of the story, the journey towards purification for the main character and his protégé and master, Kuro, last descendant of the extinct Hirata family, is filled with references to self-sacrifice and how to achieve liberation from their roles in the sad history of the Sengoku era by means of death. Directly in contrast with this view, there is Genichiro Ashina, heir to the clan name and willing to sink to any low possible to avoid the Ashina demise and save its land from ruin; and those lows will go very, very deep over the course of the game. What is this conflict between two opposed morality if not the same contrast between the inevitable conclusion of the Age of Fire, a time of deceit and conflict, and the eerie vision of an Age of Dark, which sure sounds undesirable in its bleakness representation of death, but is it really so much worse than a never-ending state of lies and suffering?
The players should decide for themselves, there are enough endings and viewpoints among all the different characters to develop a personal standpoint on the matter.
Gameplay-wise, Sekiro takes the quickness of Bloodborne and turns up the notch. A lot. Whilst Bloodborne incentivised the player to be constantly near enemies to attack, recover life and stagger for delicious critical hits, Sekiro gives the player one of the most intuitive and rewarding parry mechanic to ever be conceived. Just like in real sword fights between blade masters, Sekiro doesn’t play on the clunkier balance between hit and run, but rather block and counterattack. The enemies – particularly bosses – health bars are going to look massive and impossible to reduce to zero, if not for the possibility to play along with this mechanic of parry and counterattacking to reduce the enemies’ posture, so to strike a fatal blow. The genius behind this is how that can be achieved when the enemy still has over half of its health bar, with enough focus and precision in the movements. Sekiro highly rewards patience and perfect reflexes and, whilst the enemies hit hard, since the parrying is very lenient on the frames and the blocking can nullify almost all damages, it is far more accessible than a first blind run on Dark Souls.
The setting of the decayed Ashina and its environs are varied but beautifully interconnected, and it really looks like traveling through an organic territory which includes cities, castles, mountain paths, temples and so on. It is a very linear scenario, it rarely presents to the players tricky mazes or multiple choices as to where to go next, yet as it plays more as an action title than a dungeon crawler RPG it never feels like is lacking for content or variety. The enemy placing might be one of the best in the series, with the right balance between isolated opponents and large groups of mobs, which can both be dispatched with ease and intuition using both one’s prowess with the sword or with the engaging – albeit underdeveloped – stealth mechanic, which allows to act like a true shinobi, by striking deathly blows from the shadows, run away and instil fear and confusion in the enemies.
Bosses have, for the most part, anthropomorphic features, as to maximize the use of the sword mechanics and fit the setting, but there will be some interesting fantastic designs of folkloristic creatures to roam the land of Ashina. Most of these bosses will prove quite challenging and each of them presents in some way a new step to the learning curve, always fairly rising and requiring at each turn for the players to have mastered some aspect of the abilities and skills the game has to offer. These abilities may include passive boosts or actual techniques to utilize against enemies with particular movesets and resistances.
The musical score sees the return of Kitamura Yuka, already a veteran on previous From’s titles such as Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, and it proves again a rightful choice as the atmosphere of the medieval Japan is perfectly conveyed by her tunes, played with traditional Japanese instruments, full of mystery and nostalgic melodies. The tracks are somewhat less noticeable and memorable than previous examples in other games, yet they will undoubtedly play the right atmosphere for the players immersion in the game.
Some of the downsides of the game can include the lack of real replay value, since there are not many different builds to experiment with, even considering all the different abilities at hands, since by the end of the first playthrough the players will have obtained almost all of them with enough care and the most overpowered and useful are clear the moment one tries them for the first time. Bayonetta it is not. The Dragonrot mechanic is also very downplayed and useless on the long run, except for being a somewhat hint that the player is sucking too much at the game all at once and various lore implications. The camera works better than in previous games but it will still lead the players to many moments where no possible divine help could have saved them from being brutally massacred in a corner with no escape.
Sekiro will certainly prove a delightful experience for any From fan in love with their style of show-don’t-tell storytelling and subtle worldbuilding, as well as the grim depiction of the dread of humankind. And if that won’t suit any personal preferences, the rewarding combat system is going to prove an immensely immersive and fun challenge for any who want to feel the thrill of handling a blade as it is meant to be handled.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided received at launch many negative reviews for its lack of a clear cut conclusion to a plotline that definitely couldn’t end with this game – as the first Deus Ex in 2000 still exist apparently – and because of Square Enix egregious policy of shipping the game with an online mode nobody asked for, which turned out to be another cash grab for people with money spending disorders. Also, the onetime use only DLCs. These two latter are probably the worst offenders, as the lack of definitive conclusion could either be justified on the developer part as an intentional choice to respect the series canon or to make Mankind Divided work as a middle chapter much like Mass Effect 2 did already for its own saga. Sure, there are enough reasons to call out on Square Enix for being a greedy company that preys on its brands’ legacy, let’s not push too much stress on the guys at Eidos.
I digress.
Mankind Divided works as a direct sequel to Human Revolution, more or less. What happened in the two years gap between the games is never fully explained, and suddenly the series shifted from being a cyberpunk spy story about mega corps and their wrongdoings to a tale about the problem of racism and social acceptance in the modern and futuristic society. Considering the sci-fi setting, this new premise works beautifully intertwined with renowned cyberpunk thematic, especially in our modern times where it is apparently important to remind people what bring racism to arise and why it is important to actively argument against it. Or maybe, more simply, Square Enix ordered Eidos to remove any reference to massive corporations being evil and all since they have become one themselves in the last decade.
I digress again.
The plotline is more of the same from previous games and the characters aren’t much different or interesting either, they are actually quantifiably less memorable than any previous major titles of the series since there is a lack of significant development for any of them, nor the charisma previous casts had. The gameplay also is almost identical to Human Revolution, except for some new augmentations which are funny to play with but rarely really useful on the long run if the players liked the series for its stealth approach rather than the ability to use a massive plasma cannon or firing explosive blades. Especially since the game actually rewards players the less they raise alarms and kill anyone, so it would be counterproductive to use most of these new destructive gadgets. Shame tho.
What makes the game shine and be worth the purchase, especially now since the prolonged negative responses to it made it terrific cheap to buy, is the magnificent and vast hub of Prague City, full of secrets, quests to be discovered and it generally makes the game into a glorious cyberpunk sandbox stealth game. That’s where hours will be spent, choosing different routes to same objectives, trying to unlock everything before the player is even able to reach that point and just getting lost in the massively and detailed world of the Czech’s futuristic capital. If you think this kind of freedom united with the renowned stealth mechanics are enough to interest you, then the game will be a blast, albeit the replay value will probably be mostly lost if the challenge of higher difficulties or the storyline aren’t of interest, since doing everything from the top again will prove to be quite tedious without the incentive of interesting collectibles, aside from lore related e-books and scarce achievements from doing random stuff and side quests.
These side quests are often times smartly written and integrated with the setting, but many times are either completely disjointed from the plot or feel pointless and just a massive waste of time considering the backtrack involved. They are however a nice distraction and incentive to further explore what might have been missed in the giant hub.
Mankind Divided is on many levels a great upgrade to its previous iteration, for what concerns the technical department – graphic, music, some gameplay mechanic, – but on many others it feels surely incomplete and missing the gripping storytelling the series is famous for. It is still one of the best and rare examples of a modern well-done cyberpunk video game, or a first-person hybrid RPG-stealth video game for that matter.
I digress.
Mankind Divided works as a direct sequel to Human Revolution, more or less. What happened in the two years gap between the games is never fully explained, and suddenly the series shifted from being a cyberpunk spy story about mega corps and their wrongdoings to a tale about the problem of racism and social acceptance in the modern and futuristic society. Considering the sci-fi setting, this new premise works beautifully intertwined with renowned cyberpunk thematic, especially in our modern times where it is apparently important to remind people what bring racism to arise and why it is important to actively argument against it. Or maybe, more simply, Square Enix ordered Eidos to remove any reference to massive corporations being evil and all since they have become one themselves in the last decade.
I digress again.
The plotline is more of the same from previous games and the characters aren’t much different or interesting either, they are actually quantifiably less memorable than any previous major titles of the series since there is a lack of significant development for any of them, nor the charisma previous casts had. The gameplay also is almost identical to Human Revolution, except for some new augmentations which are funny to play with but rarely really useful on the long run if the players liked the series for its stealth approach rather than the ability to use a massive plasma cannon or firing explosive blades. Especially since the game actually rewards players the less they raise alarms and kill anyone, so it would be counterproductive to use most of these new destructive gadgets. Shame tho.
What makes the game shine and be worth the purchase, especially now since the prolonged negative responses to it made it terrific cheap to buy, is the magnificent and vast hub of Prague City, full of secrets, quests to be discovered and it generally makes the game into a glorious cyberpunk sandbox stealth game. That’s where hours will be spent, choosing different routes to same objectives, trying to unlock everything before the player is even able to reach that point and just getting lost in the massively and detailed world of the Czech’s futuristic capital. If you think this kind of freedom united with the renowned stealth mechanics are enough to interest you, then the game will be a blast, albeit the replay value will probably be mostly lost if the challenge of higher difficulties or the storyline aren’t of interest, since doing everything from the top again will prove to be quite tedious without the incentive of interesting collectibles, aside from lore related e-books and scarce achievements from doing random stuff and side quests.
These side quests are often times smartly written and integrated with the setting, but many times are either completely disjointed from the plot or feel pointless and just a massive waste of time considering the backtrack involved. They are however a nice distraction and incentive to further explore what might have been missed in the giant hub.
Mankind Divided is on many levels a great upgrade to its previous iteration, for what concerns the technical department – graphic, music, some gameplay mechanic, – but on many others it feels surely incomplete and missing the gripping storytelling the series is famous for. It is still one of the best and rare examples of a modern well-done cyberpunk video game, or a first-person hybrid RPG-stealth video game for that matter.
Rance it is not. It is unfair to bring up similar titles when discussing a game own merits but this one tried way too hard to be Rance to ignore its haughtiness.
Eiyuu Senki - the World Conquest is a turn-based strategy RPG visual novel type of game, a genre mixture of which many examples exist in Japan but it is still abundantly rare in the west. The Rance series has long been the most famous example in the western niche interested in this kind of games, but it is important to understand how influential this name has been for over 30 years in Japan and realize how many similar titles have been developed with mixed results.
Some like the Eushully games have tried to revamp the strategy RPG aspects of the games, other like Utawarerumono tried to focus on the narrative. Others like Koihime Musou and Eiyuu Senki just tried to the same exact thing without the distinctive gameplay, narrative or charisma of the aforementioned games. If the Steam version allowed to utilize the 18+ content of the game – and, in some way, it does, – I would say that this is just a costly masturbation simulator, with some boring cutscenes between erotic scenes. Since, at least on the paper, the players are supposed to enjoy the gameplay and the story, do they have any interesting feature to make worth the experience?
No, they do not.
The gameplay is so bare and pointless, there is no challenge or strategy involved in just clicking enemies and letting your overpowered heroes win the game, heroes you obtain since the start. There are some upgrades if you also want to make it easier, for some reason, but even if you beat all the main and side missions all you are treated to are unimpressive vignettes of banter between uninteresting characters. The protagonist is a blank slate for the players immersion but he hasn’t any substantial, role-defining choice to make him fit the role of the players’ avatar, the plot will stay the same no matter how you imagine him to sound and feel because he acts the same regardless. The heroines, which are supposed to be the meat of the game, are nicely drawn and colourful but they too lack any interesting personality or trait, the event in which they are protagonists are uneventful at best and trite at worst; each of them will sound the same after a certain point, so despite having different traits they hold the same unimportance to the game.
Eiyuu Senki is a game for those who will take absolutely everything as long as it is from Japan, is an eroge or in general just has a decent character design for its heroines. Those seeking something worth investing time and attention, as a video game experience, won’t find anything here.
Eiyuu Senki - the World Conquest is a turn-based strategy RPG visual novel type of game, a genre mixture of which many examples exist in Japan but it is still abundantly rare in the west. The Rance series has long been the most famous example in the western niche interested in this kind of games, but it is important to understand how influential this name has been for over 30 years in Japan and realize how many similar titles have been developed with mixed results.
Some like the Eushully games have tried to revamp the strategy RPG aspects of the games, other like Utawarerumono tried to focus on the narrative. Others like Koihime Musou and Eiyuu Senki just tried to the same exact thing without the distinctive gameplay, narrative or charisma of the aforementioned games. If the Steam version allowed to utilize the 18+ content of the game – and, in some way, it does, – I would say that this is just a costly masturbation simulator, with some boring cutscenes between erotic scenes. Since, at least on the paper, the players are supposed to enjoy the gameplay and the story, do they have any interesting feature to make worth the experience?
No, they do not.
The gameplay is so bare and pointless, there is no challenge or strategy involved in just clicking enemies and letting your overpowered heroes win the game, heroes you obtain since the start. There are some upgrades if you also want to make it easier, for some reason, but even if you beat all the main and side missions all you are treated to are unimpressive vignettes of banter between uninteresting characters. The protagonist is a blank slate for the players immersion but he hasn’t any substantial, role-defining choice to make him fit the role of the players’ avatar, the plot will stay the same no matter how you imagine him to sound and feel because he acts the same regardless. The heroines, which are supposed to be the meat of the game, are nicely drawn and colourful but they too lack any interesting personality or trait, the event in which they are protagonists are uneventful at best and trite at worst; each of them will sound the same after a certain point, so despite having different traits they hold the same unimportance to the game.
Eiyuu Senki is a game for those who will take absolutely everything as long as it is from Japan, is an eroge or in general just has a decent character design for its heroines. Those seeking something worth investing time and attention, as a video game experience, won’t find anything here.