February may be a short month, but I had more free time than usual, so I still got a lot of game playing in. I didn’t beat near as many games as last month, but that was mostly because I was bogged down in a handful of RPGs. Good RPGs, but those things take some time. I am going to do something new this month with this post. I am going to name one game my , whichever game I like best that I do not plan on writing about on its own.

Beaten:

Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time:
GOTM Even though I am calling A Crack in Time my game of the month, I was actually slightly disappointed in it. It isn’t a bad game by any means, it just isn’t quite up to the mark set by most of its predecessors. It is only slightly better than Deadlocked, which I did not care overmuch for. It has the same big problem as Deadlocked: Ratchet and Clank are separated for most of the game. They work best as a duo. Sure, solo sections as Clank are fine and all, they featured prominently in Up Your Arsenal, my personal favorite game in the series, but Ratchet without Clank on his back just feels wrong. This is partly because it changes his moveset somewhat. Ratchet loses his long jump and high jump. Suddenly, places that are normally within reach are instead just beyond it. This is a minor complaint, a small attempt to change things up in a long running series without upsetting the applecart that doesn’t quite work. The other problem is the weapon selection. I really liked the new modable weapons. It gives the normal weapons a little more kick and is definitely more interesting than hunting for raritanium like in Tools of Destruction. But the other weapons didn’t do much for me. I may have had the same complaint about ToD, I don’t remember, but I guess there is only so far that unusual weaponry can get a game.

I did like the story in A Crack in Time, though. While I wasn’t exactly demanding answers to Ratchet or Clank’s origins, I like what they came up with. The Great Clock is about as cool a place as I’ve seen in a game in a long time. The way the two stories intertwined worked out well, as did Ratchet’s decision when confronted by Clank. That is just how that should have played out. Of course, Insomniac also provide just the right amount of Dr. Nefarious and Captain Quark. I do wish other characters that play a big role on some games would return, but I’m fine with the small cast of regulars this series has. It isn’t exactly a game one plays for the stories, but they have often hit that perfect spot of being genuinely all-ages games instead of for kids.

This series has long been a favorite of mine, and it feels like it is nearing the end. Maybe last years Into the Nexus is not going to be the last Ratchet and Clank game, but I wouldn’t mind if they took some time between now and the next installment. I think the secret to Nintendo’s success with series like Mario and Zelda is that rarely do more than one or two entries in each series appear on any one console. The time between games keeps things feeling fresh and new. I think R&C could do with a similar rest. That is not going to stop me, however, from playing each game. At least as long as they maintain the level of quality they have so far.

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze: thoughts posted here.

Bit.Trip Runner 2 The Future Legend of Rhythm Alien: I played a little bit of the first Runner and for some reason developed an unnatural hatred for it. My dislike was so great that I almost didn’t even download this despite it being free with Playstation Plus. Fortunately, I heard enough good things about it to convince me to give it a chance. I’m glad I did, I nearly missed a great little game. Runner 2 is not overly complex, but it is charming and challenging.

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars: This finished strong. Even some of the humor started to work for me near the end. I did keep a guide handy as I played it, but I used it less than I expected. I really liked the characters, but the romance didn’t seem to have a strong enough foundation. There really wasn’t a transition from partners to partners. It was a logical route for the story to take, but while central plot was well written, that little part seemed tacked on. It seemed like it ended that was because that was how it was supposed to end, not because it was actually set up. I don’t know why I’m writing about a small nitpick I had with the game when I enjoyed it so much though. Broken Sword is just a well written adventure game, only a small step down from Monkey Island.

Cross Me: This is a Picross style puzzle game I have on my Kindle. I have actually only beaten up through the advanced puzzles, but I’m done with it. It is maddening, brain busting and addictive. I am glad to be done with it and glad to have played it.

Ongoing:

Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams: I’ve played through the first world. It is reasonably fun so far, but the levels are already way too long. I hope it gets better about that, not worse.

Xenoblade Chronicles: More trickles of progress. I am still playing this, but it takes a lot of time to get things done. I will beat it by the end of the year.

Bravely Default: This is Final Fantasy in all but name. Specifically, Final Fantasy III. Many people think if it as like FFV, but the job system in this game is definitely more like FFIII. I am liking it quite a bit, though the difficulty is uneven. It is so good in so many ways, but the spikes in difficulty really needed to be smoothed out. I’ve just finished Chapter 4 and things are really picking up.

Final Fantasy VI: Another RPG I’ve spent a lot of time with. I expect to be writing about this again soon. I used to play it almost yearly, but I haven’t actually played it since the GBA version came out a handful of years ago. This is even better than I remembered. It is just so fast. Too many games take too long to get going, FFVI isn’t one of those.

Final Fantasy Dimensions: This phone fantasy isn’t bad, but I would much rather play it with a controller. It also drains my phone’s battery something fierce. So I can only play it in really short bursts. It goes through the motions of being a classic RPG, but it comes off as an inferior facsimile. It fares badly when compared to Bravely Default, but that has as much to do with platform as anything else.

Valkyria Chronicles: I’ve only just started this, but I think I’m in love. It feels like coming home. I had played about half of the PSP sequel, but it felt limited. So far, its big brother fixes all of the problems I had with that game.

SMT Devil Survivor 2: I played one day of this before Bravely Default arrived. This series has a tendency to be difficult. It takes some dedication to really make progress in. I just didn’t have that this month. Maybe once I finish with Bravely Default.

Upcoming:

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy: This will be coming from Amazon tomorrow. I have loved this series since the first game. I am sad to see it go but eager to play one more Layton.

Batman Arkham City: I started this around Christmas, but got distracted by other things. Now I am ready to put some real time into it.

Legend of Zelda Oracle of Seasons: I am determined to finish this up soon.

Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask: As soon as I finish Oracle of Seasons I am hopping right on this.

I had a lot of free time in January, so I managed to clear a ton of games off of my backlog.  Many of them were quite short or already half beaten, but it was still a whole lot of games.  A few of them were all-time classics.

Beaten:

Metal Gear Solid 4: This is a hard game to judge.  More so since I am so late to the party that I can’t imagine anyone else that cares about this game hasn’t already played it and had their say.  There is a lot of truly excellent game here.  There is also about 5 hours of barely interactive nonsense.  Honestly, I loved it. All of it, even the nonsense.  I can clearly recognize that there are parts of this game that are legitimately terrible and you can almost feel things falling apart the further you go along, but I don’t care.  The gameplay in the first couple chapters is great.  It is the perfect escalation of the usual Metal Gear Solid gameplay.  Instead of sneaking into an enemy held stronghold or area, you are sneaking through a contested warzone.  It adds layers to the already involved gameplay.  There are just so many more options and strategies available to the player.  Mixed in there are some good boss fights and cool set pieces.  After the start, though, things break down.  The control the player has had since the start is stripped away.  There is less and less gameplay, fewer and fewer decisions to make.  Those boss fights and set pieces become all there is.  It is not so much that the last couple of chapters are bad, it is just that they are so disappointing compared to what came before.

Then there is the story.  Kojima desperately tries to answer all the questions raised in the previous three games.  That overwhelming desire to provide answers gets in the way of telling a story.  The plot of this game is an incoherent mess, an inelegant synthesis of everything that has come before.  What the story lacks in coherence and logic, it more than makes up for in spectacle.  That is an area where this series has always towered above all others, and this game doesn’t disappoint.  Whether it is the assault of the cow tanks or the motorcycle chase or the series encompassing boxing match on top of a Metal Gear, the player is never far from something awesome happening.  It feels like a fitting end to this series, ambitious, enthralling and always a little messy.  Video games being what they are, though, it really isn’t one.

Paper Mario Sticker Star: This game turned off many with its how thoroughly Nintendo tried to scrub the RPG out of it.  Outside of the art style, it is very different from the first Paper Mario and The Thousand Year Door.  While that is unfortunate, Sticker Star is still a very good game.  It has some ingenious puzzle elements.  The discrete stages help keep things from getting overwhelming and while battles play out like and RPG, the scarcity of resources force a big change from the usual grind your way through tactics of that genre.  Its biggest flaw is how closely it sticks to the well know Mario characters.  It is just Mario vs Bowser, with Mario’s sticker companion the only real new comer.  Instead of memorable takes on existing character types, like Toadette or Cooper, all the side characters in Sticker Star are Toads.  Frequently Toads that don’t have a name.  It definitely hurts the adventure that that game couldn’t do more with the opportunities it had for memorable side characters.  Still, it is a largely very good entry in the Paper Mario series.  Hopefully next time Nintendo will finally give us more Thousand Year Door.

Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction: The Ratchet & Clank series made the jump to HD consoles with very little change.  The title may say future, but this is the same game I loved on PS2.  That is a good thing: the Ratchet and Clank games were some of the best on the system.  With his wide variety of inventive weapons and combination of shooting and jumping gameplay, Ratchet is very much the modern day Mega Man.  Hell, he’s even got the yearly sequels.  Though Tools of Destruction is just another R&C adventure, that is in no way a bad thing. It means a terrific 10 hours of delightfully destructive action.  I do like that Insomniac is stepping up the story.  I think even at this point they were feeling the end coming with R&C and decided to get on with the character revelations.  So the game is about Ratchet looking for where he came from, only for Clank to find out that answer about himself.  It isn’t my favorite R&C game, but it is still very good.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds: wrote about it here.

Galaga Legions DX: I got this free with my PS+ membership and as I’d heard generally good things about it, I thought I’d give it a spin.  It is addictive fun; just complex enough to be interesting but simple enough that one can just pick up and play.  This is kind of the perfect downloadable game as far as I’m concerned.  It is not something that is going to take a significant commitment on my part to play. It is best played in short, intense bursts.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: wrote about it here.

Broken Age Act 1: This is only the first part of the first project I packed on Kickstarter and I already feel like I got my money’s worth.  I’ve written before about my troubles with adventure games, but this one so far manages to avoid the missteps that many of it’s brethren make.  The puzzles are largely logical, with none of the mind breakingly obtuse junk that always annoys me.  I suspect many adventure game fans will find this game too easy just because all the puzzles make sense.  I can’t imagine that anyone will be let down with the writing.  While Act 1 ends just as things really start moving, the opening adventures of Vella and Shay are wonderfully engrossing.  Vella’s story is much more straightforward, with her going on a quest to stop a monster that is eating young girls.  Shay’s story has him trying to escape a nanny ship that has not aged with him, leaving him a teenager stuck in the life of a toddler.  After seeing the twist at the end, I can’t wait for Act 2.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Speaking of adventure games, I had such a good time with Broken Age that I went looking for a similar experience.  On Steam I had the first Monkey Island, which a few months ago I played until I got my ship.  There are some obtuse bullshit puzzles in this game; puzzles with solutions that don’t make any sense until after you solve them.  There aren’t a lot of them, but there are a few.  Luckily, the writing is more than strong enough to carry the game past its few rough spots.  This game absolutely deserves its classic reputation.  I’ll admit that I kept a guide open as I played this.  I didn’t strictly follow it, but I don’t have the patience to spend a lot of time trying everything when I get stuck.  Still, I am eager to take the sequel for a go.

Dungeons and Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara: My brothers came by and we got a four player game of Mystara going.  We beat both games, but didn’t quite figure everything out until we were almost done with the second one.  There are some surprisingly deep brawlers.  I think I need to play this until I’ve seen everything.

Ongoing:

Broken Sword: I’ve been on something of an Adventure game kick lately and this looked good after I finished Monkey Island.  I’ve played through Cairo so far.  Its good, but its attempts at humor fall completely flat.  It is just painful at times.

Ratchet and Clank Future A Crack in Time: I’ve played the first quarter or so of this game.  It feels like something is missing, maybe because Ratchet and Clank are split up.  Still a ton of fun though.

Earthbound: I’ve now made it to Fourside.  This is usually the point where someone erases my save or I just flat lose interest or I accidentally delete my emulator.  It’s been so long since I’ve played past this point that I don’t quite remember what I am supposed to do.  I may have to break down and take a glance at a guide.  It is strange that I know the first third or so of this game so very well, but I can only remember the rest vaguely.

Xenoblade Chronicles: I am hacking away at this again.  I made it to Alcamoth after nearly a month of trying to remember just how this game works.  I’m not quite as in love with this as I was a couple years ago when I first got it; in fact, I am feeling more than a little overwhelmed. Still, I am having fun. And it looks amazing.

Binary Domain: Another PS+ game that I likely would not have played otherwise.  It is a cover based shooter, like Gears of War.  However, it is made by the people who make the Yakuza games.  While it does play largely like the Western equivalents, there is something very Japanese about this game.  It isn’t present in the art style so much, it has a kind of anime Blade Runner feel to it.  It is hard to explain exactly what I mean.  I played the first two chapters and enjoyed it.  I’m not rushing to finish this up, but I’m not likely to abandon it completely.

Upcoming:

Bravely Default: Near the start of February this will hit.  The demo is scads of fun.  Its predecessor, 4 Heroes of Light, was largely great.  It looks to be the best Final Fantasy of the foreseeable future.

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze: This hits at the end of the month and I couldn’t be more excited.  I loved Donkey Kong Country Returns and everything else Retro Studios has touched.

Ys Origin: I played this just a little at the end of the month.  It seems fun.  I’ll probably put some serious time into it.  The Ys series is one I’ve wanted to get into, but the first game on the VC did nothing for me.  It was just too old.

Shin Megami Tensei: I’ve got a half dozen games from the various sub-series of this series and I intend to play them.  I’m not sure which one, but I’ll play one.

People love to get on Nintendo for offering the same games over and over again. Such people are, of course, morons but the idea that Nintendo has nothing new to offer is depressingly prevalent. No matter that they make some of the most polished, original games one the market, if they have Mario on the cover you can safely write it off as just another platformer. Which makes the overwhelmingly positive reaction that The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds has received more than a little puzzling. Not that the game isn’t excellent, it absolutely is, but because it is Nintendo’s most blatant mining of its own past.

A Link Between Worlds doesn’t try to hide this. It is unapologetically a follow up to A Link to the Past, one of the two most popular entries in a long running popular series. It uses the same world map, the same enemies and same look for the world of Hyrule. Most of the tools are the same as well. It absolutely drops the player down in the same world. Nintendo has used this trick before, Twilight Princess‘s world is reminiscent of Ocarina of Times‘s world, but it is far from an exact match. It is expanded and more detailed. ALBW’s world is not expanded from the original at all. It is simply the same.

Where the massive praise comes from is the change in structure the game features. One of the immutable rules of the Zelda series is that the player receives new weapons or tools in the dungeons. Usually the exact one needed to beat that dungeon or to reach the next one. After the first few dungeons, ALBW throws that out. You get your tools by renting, then buying them from the traveling salesman who has invaded Link’s home and set up shop. This lets the second half, more really, of the game be completely open. The player is free to tackle the dungeons in any order. While there is certainly a preferred order, an easier order, it is absolutely not forced on the player.

This contrasts with the last Zelda game, Skyward Sword for the Wii. While I was and am a big fan of that game, player freedom was not high on its list of objectives. The player was often forced down the one path available and if there was any confusion, the ever present Fi would forcibly point the player in the right direction. It was a good game despite that, but its hand holding greatly annoyed many people. So Nintendo fixed that.

ALBW is easily the most open Zelda game since the original. It respects the player. Unlike the vast majority of games these days it lets players find their way their own. There are hints to be found but never are they forced on the player. It is surprisingly refreshing. It is just easy to play. By the time I had but two hours in on this game, I had a full complement of tools and was ready to solve any puzzle and find any secret.

It helps that the game plays buttery smooth. Link speeds through the world. Everything moves effortlessly at a lightning pace. Trying to play, for instance, Oracle of Seasons after playing this shows just how pokey those old handheld games were. The graphics may be in an ugly style, they try too hard to echo LttP’s look, but they are well composed. And the music is par for the series as far as excellence goes.

A Link Between Worlds really highlights the best of Nintendo. It shows players the past and why Nintendo was great, then does something completely new for the series. The past is a framework that colors players expectations. It is a familiar backdrop for Nintendo to experiment with. Creating a freeform Zelda in a new version of Hyrule is more risky than exploding long held gameplay conceits in the guise of a sequel to what is maybe the most popular game in the series. Between this and Super Mario 3D World, Nintendo has shown that they still have the magic that made their golden reputation.

I just beat Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII. The core of the game is perfectly simple, but they slathered it in a heavy layer of inscrutable junk. It still works, and works well, especially the Materia system. The story, though, is one giant lump of wasted potential. That is true for the entire Compilation of FF7. Crisis Core may be the worst of the lot, though, because it had the potential to be truly great.

I have a different perspective on FFVII than most people. It’s not just that I was a fan of Final Fantasy before VII came, though that is true. However, there is no “I like it before it was cool” feeling that many fans of the SNES games have. I wanted to play FFVII, I thought it looked great. I just didn’t have a PS1. By the time I did have one, VII had skyrocketed in price. Plus, by that point it no longer looked so cool. Why spend the time to hunt down VII when I could find the readily available and better looking IX or Chrono Cross just about anywhere. When all was said and done, I didn’t end up playing VII until 2008. By that time the whole Compilation of FFVII had already come out. I was shocked at how different the game was than even its makers seemed to remember it. Honestly, in many ways it wasn’t hugely different than FFVI. There was change, especially on the visual side but in large part it plays out the same as its predecessor. Cloud was not as angsty as he is thought and while there are a lot of flaws with the localization, the story is easy to follow. All recollections of the game only seem to focus on the series parts of the game, and ignore all the fun goofy crap that made it so enjoyable.

The three parts of the compilation that have been released in the states have been by varying degrees missed opportunities. All, I would say, started with a good idea. Advent Children is the most obvious starting point. A movie sequel had promise. It was well rendered and largely well animated, but the only story idea they seemed to have was to regress the characters to about the midway point of the original game. There is also a seeming weightlessness to everything. Characters fight, but what happens in the fight doesn’t matter until the plot says is does. Cloud and Sephiroth can fight forever with no consequence. The film is pretty but pointless. Still, while largely disappointing it is not irredeemable. Then there was Dirge of Cerberus. Again, they started on some solid footing. Vincent is the probably the one character from FFVII with plenty of room to grow. He is an optional character with an intriguing visual design and cool backstory. Turning that game into a shooter/rpg also fits with what is already established. Too bad the game turned out to be unimaginably horrible. (Note: I only played it for about an hour before I gave up. I am going off of reputation with that statement.)It was a failure in execution, not conception. The one thing both of those had going for them is that they were pretty wide open with what the story could be. Pretty much anything they wanted to happen could. Crisis Core was different.

That is how Crisis Core disappointed me. Assuming you’ve played FFVII, you know how the story ends as soon as you turn the game on. Zack is gunned down by Shinra troops at the edge of Midgar. We know that he never sees Aerith again. They had a chance to make a game with a genuinely tragic story. Other than some established pieces of his story, mostly to do with the relationships with Aerith and Cloud, we know little about Zack coming into the game. The big event they had to build off of was Nibelheim and the apparent death of Sephiroth. That stuff is all here, and it’s good. It’s just all the stuff they have added around it is crap. The stories of Angeal and Genesis are warmed over retreads of Sephiroth, characters whose existence lessens the impact of finding out the Sephiroth himself is a genetic experiment. The conflict with Sephiroth should be the fulcrum of this game, but almost feels more like a side story. The Nibelhiem chapter is lovingly rendered but largely disconnected from the rest of the game.

My biggest problem is that the game I imagined is much different (and in my opinion much better) than the game I played. I wanted more of stuff like the ending, with Zack facing impossible odds but still striving to reach his goal and protect his friends, the whole thing made all the more tragic by the fact that the player knows the whole time it ends in tragedy. I wanted Zack and Cloud on the road, on the run, hounded constantly by Shinra. There is one chapter like that, I wanted more. I wanted to see more of Sephiroth the hero, if he ever was one. As cool as Sephiroth looks, he remains mostly a cipher in the main game; Crisis Core was their chance to correct that.

I wanted more pretty much sums up my experience with Crisis Core, and most of Square Enix’s output for the last half decade. There are good ideas, even good games but they all leave me feeling a little shortchanged. There are glimpses of the company that ruled the PS1. Sure, they had their failures then as well, but they were interspersed with a consistent stream of classics. I liked FFXIII, but it was a deeply flawed experience. FFXIII-2 was a three steps forward, two steps sort of follow up. Both games left me wanting more in a bad way. I wanted to like Crisis Core; the potential for an excellent game is there. Instead, I play a solidly good game. It had some nice combat mechanics, handheld friendly mission set up and was darn pretty. Still, I wanted more.

I played Bioshock recently. Not Bioshock Infinite, this year’s critically acclaimed FPS with a unique setting and a politically charged story, but 2007’s FPS with a unique setting and a politically charged story. Of course, with a game so acclaimed and talked about when it was new, I have little to add to the discussion now. What was most surprising to people that know me is that I played Bioshock at all. I play all kinds of games, just about everything except FPSes. My disinterest in the genre is longstanding; even back when my brother and I found Doom on our uncle’s computer I got bored much more quickly. Still, I like games and Bioshock is so seminal a game that it is hard to be a part of the conversation without playing it. That is how I approach it, as an obligation. I won me over though. Bioshock is a game worthy of its reputation, even for someone who has a decided disinterest in FPSes.

I have played a handful of first-person shooters in my time. My friends moved from multiplayer game to multiplayer game, so I played plenty of Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and Halo 2 at times. I never even pretended to like those games. I rarely complained or anything, I like to play with my friends even if it is a game I don’t particularly enjoy. So I played, having a reasonably good time mostly just due to hanging with my friends. I’ve also played the Metroid Prime games, which are first person, but aren’t really shooters. The last FPS I played was Metroid Prime 3 more than five years ago. The point is, these sorts of games aren’t really my thing and I am far from an expert on them. Still, Bioshock was a wholly enjoyable experience.

Unlike the little bits of other FPSes I’ve sampled, Bioshock’s movement has weight to it. When you swing the wrench, there is heft behind it. Each of the limited, unique weapons has a specific role and feel. The player character doesn’t feel like an unstoppable warrior, he feels like a guy who kind of knows how to shoot a gun. And while the number of weapon are limited, combined with the different kinds of ammo and plasmids gives the player a wealth of options. It really lets the player find their own strategy. I favored a combination of wrench enhancing powers and the fire plasmid. While there are tons of options, any choice the player makes is viable, making for a game that fits to the player’s preference.

The big moral dilemma of the game, whether to harvest or save the Little Sisters, is truly a non-choice. The bonus for harvesting them rather than saving them is small enough that anyone who gives two craps about the story is going to rescue them. To do otherwise is to be a monster for the slightest benefit. There is no dilemma there. One answer is obviously right morally. Anyone looking at it as a moral choice can only do one thing. It is an interesting world building and narrative device, but it is not a moral choice.

The setting is the true star of the game. Rapture is a place unlike anything else in gaming. Looking around the ruins of the great submarine city is entrancing, as is getting to the bottom of just what happened to turn Ryan’s Utopia into the terrifying wreck that it is. Each area makes sense in terms of the construction of the city and is visually interesting. Even if the rest of the game was crap, the setting would be enough to make Bioshock a memorable experience. While I wasn’t as floored by the actual story of the game as most seem to have been, the fact that there seemed to be thought put into it pushes it ahead of most games.

It is really just a truly great game. Even someone who has no interest in shooters should find a lot to love here. I will likely look into the other games in this series, but I’m still not on the shooter boat. They are just not for me.