E3 2019 Highlights: Ubisoft & Square Enix

While there were a total of seven E3 presentations today, I decided to focus on the two that tend to deliver consistently good shows, and even more importantly, consistently good games: Ubisoft and Square Enix.

Here's what stood out to me from the Monday conferences:

Ubisoft
Having set the bar so high in previous years, this show felt like a little bit of a letdown. Most of it focused on games in the Tom Clancy franchise, which is not really my thing, but I'm sure this was very exciting to fans of those games. Thus only a few parts of Ubi's presentation really spoke to me:

•  Watchdogs Legion - The new Watchdogs is set in a cyberpunk future London. While the basic gameplay looks like GTA with hacking, this game boasts an interesting system in which you can recruit and switch between a wide variety of characters. The assassin granny, was of course, the most amusing. Ubi stated that this game has permadeath (i.e. you can't revive a character once they've been killed) which seems like a shame since I think I would want to keep my favorite characters in my queue the whole time. (preview)
• Brawlhalla Adventure Time DLC - Finn and Jake are coming to the Smash Bros-like fighter, Brawlhalla. I briefly played some of this game at Momocon, and I could definitely see the Adventure Time characters fitting right in. (trailer)
• Just Dance 2020 - While I haven't played any of the Just Dance games, I like that Ubi always announces the new ones with a live dance performance. Also, this game is coming to all the typical platforms... and also Wii! Can you believe it, a brand new game for the Nintendo Wii in 2019?! (dance performance)
• Uplay+ - Similar to Microsoft's Game Pass, Ubi is offering a new subscription that gives you access to 100+ games and each of their new games as they're released on PC. The games can either be downloaded or played via the Google Stadia streaming service. At $15/month, it seems a little pricey.
• Roller Champions - A colorful futuristic sports game that reminded me a lot of the sport played in Battle Angel Alita. I'm not big on sports games, but I liked the stylized look and friendly tone of what they showed. (trailer) 
• Gods & Monsters - It's a shame this game got such a brief tease. It's an absolutely gorgeous action adventure game that appears to be based on Greek mythology from the studio that makes Assassin's Creed. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this one in the future. (trailer)

Square Enix
As one of my all-time favorite game publishers, I always look forward to Square's conference. They crammed a lot into this presentation! I found myself wishing that they had given each game a little more time to breathe, but there was definitely a lot of good stuff on display.

• Final Fantasy 7 Remake - They came right out with the big guns! The main focus of this part of the presentation was to not only showcase the graphics, but also explain how the combat system works. During battle, regular attacks are executed in real time like an action game in order to build up an ability meter. Special moves consume this meter and can be executed in either turn-based menu-driven style (like in the original FF7) or in real time using button commands. A boss battle showed during the demonstration also showed the the player can use the environment as cover to avoid enemy attacks. Square also said that FF7R will be a series of games rather than a single release; the first game will take place entirely in Midgar. I wasn't especially hyped for this remake before, but now I'm definitely on board! (trailer)
• Dragon Quest 11 S - The Switch version of DQ11 really does seem to be the most complete version of the game. Both the 2D and 3D art style options looked really good. My backlog is rapidly growing out of control, but this may be the game that pulls me back into Dragon Quest after being away for many years. (trailer)
• Romancing Saga 3 and Saga Scarlet Grace Ambitions - These two previously Japan-only RPGs are coming to the West! While these are both older titles, it's always nice to get newly localized JRPGs. The only part of the Saga series I've played is Saga Frontier on the PS1. I'm curious to hear about how these are in comparison. (trailer)
• Final Fantasy 14 Shadow Bringer - This expansion to the MMO Final Fantasy sounded intriguing with its concept of finding balance between the forces of light and darkness (typically all the other games in the series only focus on the Warriors of Light). Even though I'm not into MMOs, I will play at least a little of FF14 in my quest to play every numbered Final Fantasy game. (trailer)
• War of the Visions - This mobile game may be inspired by Final Fantasy Brave Exvius but the gameplay looks more like Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem. It also seems like it has some interesting lore. Perhaps this will the Square mobile RPG that'll finally get its hooks into me. (trailer)
• Outriders - A change-up from Square's typical far, this co-op shooter that appears to also involve magic could be interesting.  (trailer)
• Avengers - I may be kind of burnt out on Marvel's superheroes from all the recent movies, but this is a game from the developers of my beloved Tomb Raider, so it has my attention. There was little shown of the gameplay, but the cinematics were interesting because this an original depiction of the Marvel characters rather than being based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Also of note, they appear to be excluding Hawkeye from the Avengers team. While I know some people are big fans of that character, from a gameplay standpoint, he'd likely be the least exciting to play. (trailer)

PC Gaming
I didn't watch this conference, but a few interesting games were pointed out to me by folks on Twitter that I figured I might as well highlight. If you're interested in a full recap of what was shown at this conference, I recommend this article from Venture Beat.

• Cris Tales - A turn-based RPG about time travel that reminds me in some ways of Chrono Trigger. I really like the art style they used for the characters. There's a demo out on Steam that I'm looking forward to trying. (trailer)
• Vampire the Mascarade Bloodlines 2 - My streamer pal, Bogus Meat Factory, brought this game to my attention. A first-person RPG with a gothic vampire setting could be an interesting break from the typical fantasy settings we usually see in the genre. (trailer)
• Shenmue 3 - As a fan of this series, this game has, of course, been on my radar for quite some time (I backed the Kickstarter years ago). Seeing more gameplay was nice and we got confirmation that the game would be releasing this year. It was also announced that the PC version would be exclusive to the Epic Game Store rather than Steam, contrary to what had previously been stated. While I don't have a strong preference for one game launcher versus another, I can still understand why some fans are upset about this sudden change. (trailer)

Watchdogs Legion

Brawlhalla Adventure Time DLC

Just Dance 2020

Roller Champions

Gods & Monsters

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Final Fantasy 14 Shadow Bringers

Romancing Saga 3

Outriders

Avengers

E3 2019 Highlights: Microsoft & Bethesda

E3 has only just begun and there have already been some pretty exciting announcements! Since these conferences tend to be jam-packed with far more info than I could ever accurately summarize. , I'll be rounding up my personal highlights from each presentation.

Here's what stood out to me from the first two major press conferences of E3 2019:

Microsoft
Even though I haven't owned an Xbox since the OG, I always watch Microsoft's presentation because it tends to cover a broad range of games and their announcements tend to have far-reaching implications on the rest of the game industry. This year was no different.

•  Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order - The gameplay looked like it could be a lot of fun. I liked that you get to ride in an AT-AT (a quadrupedal mech) at one point. Star Wars games tend to appeal most to me when they offer vehicle combat since on-foot sword and gunplay are so common in other video games. The protagonist of Fallen Order seemed incredibly bland, however. I'll still keep my eye on this one. (trailer)
• Cyberpunk - This new RPG from CDProjekt, makers of The Witcher, made another appearance, this time showing off more story but only a tiny glimpse of gameplay. The real highlight of this was the announcement that Keanu Reeves would be playing a character in the game. He even appeared on stage to make the announcement himself! (trailer)
• RPG Time - I'm not entirely clear on what this game is, but it has a really cool handmade visual style that reminds me of Yoshi's Crafted World. It seems to be an RPG about a person making an RPG? (trailer)
•  Xbox Game Pass for PC - Microsoft announced that the new PC version of Game Pass would include over 100 games and that the first month would only cost a dollar! I signed up immediately. I'm hoping that most of their upcoming first and second party games will premier on both the PC and Xbox version of the software at the same time.
• Psychonauts 2 - While this game is a known quantity, and looks like exactly what you'd expect from a sequel to the original, the big part of this part of the show was the announcement that Microsoft has acquired Double Fine studios! It's nice that they won't have to rely on Kickstarter any more for funding but I hope their creative freedom doesn't become limited as a result of the deal. (trailer)
• 12 Minutes - It appeared to be a narrative-driven puzzle game in which the player travels back in time to avoid catastrophe. Looping through the same sequence over and over but getting different outcomes based on the player's choices made it seem like Groundhog's Day the video game. Seems like it has potential. (trailer)
• Forza Horizon 4 Lego Expansion - This was another big surprise, an expansion that turns the otherwise realistic Forza into a Lego racing game! In a call back to a previous Forza presentation, they unveiled a race car on stage that was entirely made of Lego bricks! I'm looking forward to trying this on Game Pass when it comes out on June 13th. (trailer)
• Tales of Arise - The newest entry in the Tales series of action RPGs looks gorgeous! I've only played Tales of Symphonia for GameCube, so this is light years ahead of my experience with this franchise. The world looked very lush and combat very fast-paced. (trailer)
• Phantasy Star Online 2 - While this MMO has been available for several years in Japan, Microsoft will be the ones to bring it to the West. I don't know much about Phantasy Star and I'm typically not into MMOs, but what I saw in this trailer reminded me a lot of one of my favorite RPG franchise, Xenoblade, so I'm definitely curious to know more. Supposedly the game will be free-to-play, so there's a good chance I'll give it a shot. (trailer)
• Xbox Project Scarlett and Halo Infinite - The new Xbox system was formally announced and it boasts 120 FPS framerates and 8K resolution. They also announced that the system will launch with the newest game in the Halo series, Halo Infinite. While I'm not entirely sold on the system based on specs alone (I still haven't even switched to 4K yet!), a new Halo game could be pretty exciting and I think it's wise for Microsoft to use it as a launch title. Both the game and system are coming out late next year. (trailer)

Bethesda
Much of Bethesda's show was devoted to online or mobile games that aren't really my thing. However, the handful of things that caught my interest have me really intrigued.

• Ghostwire Tokyo - A horror action-adventure game from the makers of Evil Within. Only a cinematic trailer was shown, but a paranormal mystery set in Tokyo seems like it could be pretty interesting. I also have to give a lot of credit to the game's director, Ikumi Nakamura. Not only is she making her directorial debut with an ambitious-sounding game, but she explained the game's premise live in front of a global audience in English, which is clearly not her first language. She did a great job and definitely has guts! (trailer)
• Commander Keen - This long dormant franchise is making its return as a mobile game. I doubt the game will be for me, but it was certainly surprising to hear the name Commander Keen come up at E3 2019! (trailer)
• Wolfenstein Youngblood - Bethesda showed a cinematic trailer of this first-person shooter last year, but this year we got to see much more gameplay. The co-op aspect of it looks particularly interesting. This game is supposedly coming to Nintendo Switch in addition to PC, PS4, and X1; I'm very curious to see how it runs on a technically limited platform. Switch is usually my preferred co-op platform, but I'm not sure it can do a graphically-demanding game like this justice. (trailer)
• Deathloop - A mysterious new game from the maker's of Dishonored. This appeared to be another game with a Groundhog's Day-esque premise. If the level design ends up being anything like Dishonored, I'm definitely interested. (trailer)
• Orion - This isn't a game, it's some sort of technology used to optimize games for streaming/cloud gameplay. They did a live demonstration of it being used to play Doom 2016 on a cellphone. If it's actually capable of playing a fast-paced game like Doom on a phone in normal network conditions, that's very impressive.
• Doom Eternal - There was much more gameplay showed off the next Doom, and it looks like exactly what I want: a continuation of Doom 2016. This game will also feature a multiplayer mode in which two players will control demons to try to take down a lone player controlling the Doom Slayer. It's an interesting concept but I could see it being difficult to balance. (trailer)

Cyberpunk

Keanu Reeves presenting Cyberpunk

RPG Time

Forza Horizon 4 Lego Expansion

Tales of Arise

Phantasy Star Online 2

Halo Infinite

Ikumi Nakamura presenting Ghostwire Tokyo

Ghostwire Tokyo

Commander Keen

Wolfenstein Youngblood

Deathloop

Doom 2016 running on a phone via Orion

Doom Eternal

MomoCon 2019

 Having attended a general nerd/pop culture conventions like Dragon Con for the past several years, I've been interested in attending a convention that focuses a little more narrowly on my main nerd fandoms: video games and anime. Conveniently, Dragon Con's sister convention, MomoCon, happens to be focused on those two very things! While the anime parts of it were a lot of fun and the cosplay, of course, was on point, it was the gaming events that really stood out to me. In particular, I really enjoyed meeting indie developers and trying out demos of their games.

Here are some of the gaming highlights from the con:

Inti Creates (website)

Among the devs with displays on the MomoCon floor, Inti Creates was one of the largest and most well known. They make Bloodstained Curse of the Moon, which was one of my favorite games of 2018. As one of their employees stated, they are the makers "of fine 2D action games... and also Gal Gun."
I was able to demo four of their games at the convention:

• Dragon Marked for Death (Switch) - The newest game from Inti, an action RPG with 2D platforming elements. It's hard to get a good sense of an RPG during a brief convention floor demo, but it felt solid and had very nice sprite work. The combat was quite tough, so I think learning combos would be key.
• Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 (Switch, 3DS) - My favorite among the games I tried at the Inti booth. It's similar to Mega Man but with more of an over-the-top anime flavor. The character I played as, Copen, had an interesting mechanic in which you first dash into an enemy to lock on to them, and then jump back to fire homing shots at them. I may end up making space in my queue for a Gunvolt game in the near future. 
• Blaster Master Zero 2 (Switch) - I have very limited experience with previous Blaster Master games, but this one appeared to stick quite closely to the formula of the original. This series breaks up the Metroidvania format by having vehicle combat and occasional overhead shooter segments. Since the game controls differently depending on whether you're on foot, in a tank, or in the shooter segments, I would likely need to spend some time with it to get the hang of it.
• Gal Gun 2 (PS4, Switch) - This was probably the strangest game I played at MomoCon. It's an on-rails light gun shooter that also features dating sim elements; your character apparently is shooting crazed anime girls with pheremones?! Unfortunately, the floor demo used a PS4 controller, which I found really difficult to use to aim the gun. Also, the suggestive themes in this game made it a little awkward to play on a convention hall floor surrounded by thousands of people! 

Mega Cat Studios (website)
I had never heard of this studio before, but they had a rather prominently positioned booth with more games to try than any other developer. Most of their focus seemed to be on making new games for retro systems like the NES, SNES, and Genesis. I appreciated that each demo station uses a vintage CRT TV set. They also had a demo for one game for modern consoles.

Games Played:

• Log Jammers (NES, PC, Switch, PS4) - A lumberjack-themed sports game pretty clearly inspired by Pong and Wind Jammers. It was pretty basic I liked the work they put into the customer NES cartridge.
• Little Medusa (NES, PC, Switch, PS4) - A puzzle game in which you turn enemies into stone and knock them into the water to form bridges. A fun game for shorter sessions. I liked the cute and colorful graphics.
• Old Towers (Genesis) - A puzzle platformer in which your character zooms up vertical stages along rows of coins. The way the character moves coupled with the fact that you have to get every coin to reveal the exit reminded me of Pac-Man.
• Crunch Out (SNES) - I watched my wife play this one. In this area arcadey management sim, you play as the manager of a video game company and run around the office making sure your coders keep working by feeding them and keeping them awake. There's definitely some commentary being made about the state of the game industry here.
• Bite the Bullet (PC, Switch) - A 2D shooter like Contra or Metal Slug but with a twist, eating your downed enemies allows you to upgrade your character and charge up special moves. As their only game on modern hardware, it takes Mega Cat's retro designs and adds a lot of embellishment. The controls and character movement felt a little sluggish but I'm hoping that's just due to the floor demo being an in-work build of an unreleased game.

 

 

 

 

Studio Soft Colors (website)
This studio only had one game on display, a visual novel:

• Aquadine (PC, mobile) - This visual novel set in a Venice-like city had really pretty artwork. It seemed to have some pretty deep lore about mermaids, Atlantis, and other mythological concepts in addition to a more typical romance plot. The con floor was far too loud and busy to really focus on a visual novel, but what I saw has me interested to try the demo. 

Blue Bomber Games (website)

This developer's game won Momocon's Best Georgia Indie award!

• Looking for Heals (PC) -  A dungeon crawling action RPG in which the player character is the healer for a group of wreckless AI-controlled warriors. Most of the gameplay involves following your party around as they battle their way through skeletons and demons casting various healing and resurrection spells on them to keep them alive. It's a simple but novel concept. Only a limited demo was available, but the game seemed like it will feature some humorous writing as well.

Pixel Nicks (website)
Pixel Nicks also only brought one game, but they made it count by winning Best Overall in the Momocon Indie Showcase!

• Eagle Island (PC) - A Metroidvania with Rogue-like elements. The player character has very limited abilities, so he relies on his pet bird to attack enemies and pick up items. I liked the lush look of the environments despite the fact that they're procedurally generated.

 Cosplay
While I mostly focused on indie games for this con, of course, it wouldn't be a real con without some cosplay. Most people were cosplaying as anime characters (a little out of scope for this blog), but I did happen to snap photos of my two favorite video game characters cosplays that I saw.

Majora

Bayonetta

Devil May Cry 5 Review

After chipping away at it in bits and pieces over the course of a month, my first serious foray into a character action game has come to an end. While Devil May Cry 5's campaign of demon-slaying action had its ups and downs, I largely enjoyed the ride. Since I wrote pretty in-depth impressions in my previous post, this review will primarily focus on my thoughts on the second half of the game. Since its natural for some chinks in the armor to emerge as any game goes on, these observations may come across as stacked toward the negative, but keep in my that most of the positive things I had to say in my impressions still hold true.

Anyway, without further adieu...

Characters:

• In the first few of DMC5's missions, you play as the gun-and-sword wielding Nero. In subsequent missions, two more characters become available, V and Dante. Most of the game's 20 missions require you to play as a particular character, but a few allow you to choose who you'll control at the start of the mission.
• Shortly after writing up my early impressions, I got to play as the game's new character, V the summoner. Conceptually, V is a really cool character; he himself if very frail, but can summon demonic pets (primarily a bird and a panther) to fight his enemies for him. However, since demons can't kill each other, his pets can only reduce foes to a sliver of health and V himself has to finish them off by whacking them with his cane. This creates an interesting situation where the player is controlling V with the analog stick to keep him a safe distance from harm, while using the face buttons to send in the bird and panther to attack on their own until its time to deliver the finisher. While this is a really novel concept, I found myself missing being more directly involved in the action. Once I got used to his mechanics, I realized that V had the least depth from a gameplay standpoint and playing as him became stale after a while. I continued to enjoy his presence in the story, however. The scrawny, soft-spoken, and mysterious V was a nice contrast to loud tough guys like Nero and Dante.
• Later in the game, the original DMC protagonist, Dante, becomes available. Initially, he plays extremely similarly to Nero, with his use of a sword and handguns. The thing is, Dante is the most expandable and customizable character in the game. Pretty much every Dante mission involves acquiring a new technique or weapon. Before long, he has an arsenal of four melee weapons, four guns, four different types of martial arts styles, and two types of demonic power-ups. It's a lot to get your head around in the second half of the game. Once I figured out which of his weapons and fighting styles worked for me, I pretty much stuck to those to avoid confusing myself. Playing a character as versatile as Dante made the other two characters, especially V, feel somewhat limiting.
• Due to their initial similarities, I'd get a little thrown off every time the game would have me switch between Nero and Dante. In time, I came to appreciate Nero's third weapon, that I neglected to mention in my impressions, his prosthetic arm. The arm's main use is as a grappling hook, but it also comes with a variety of attachments that each execute their own special moves. In a pinch, Nero can also remove an arm attachment and detonate it like a bomb to clear a room. I never really got proficient at tactically swapping attachments in a given situation, but they were fun to play around with none-the-less. 
• There are two female demon hunters that join Nero and Dante on their quest, Lady and Trish, but they never become playable characters. I thought that was a little disappointing. 

Difficulty:

• My biggest gripe about this game is its rigid difficulty selection. As I mentioned in my impressions, changing between "Human" (easy) or "Devil Hunter" (hard) requires restarting the campaign. I ultimately ended up doing this so that I could switch to Devil Hunter. Unfortunately, Human is so easy that I realized I could skip blocking or dodging enemy attacks altogether and still survive. This made the game feel kind of boring. Devil Hunter felt about right since it gave the combat stakes and required me to make effective use of my characters' skills. The game also throws enough healing and revive items at you that I never had to worry about getting stuck.
• While Devil Hunter made the gameplay much more exciting, it did cause some of the late-game boss battles to drag on a little longer than I would have liked. I found myself making liberal use of Gold Orbs (instant revives) during the last few boss battles just so that I didn't have to restart them if I got knocked out. The game reduces your score for doing this, but I was glad to have the option to keep moving forward. I'm sure that if I took the time to really learn the late-game bosses' patterns, I could have gotten through them without reviving, but I have too many other games I want to get to!
• Ultimately, I feel like DMC5's generosity with revival items makes the Human difficulty level irrelevant. I heavily abused Gold Orbs, which fully revive your character, during the game's last few bosses, and still had 19 left in my inventory as the credits rolled on my Devil Hunter playthrough... and this is without making any conscious effort to hoard them!
• Beating the game on Devil Hunter unlocks even harder difficulty levels, but I didn't have a chance to try them.

Level Design

• In my impressions, I mentioned that I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of level designs. It seems like the game designers may have used up most of their ideas early on, as many of the later stages eschew the platforming and puzzles for more kill rooms. This may play to the game's biggest strength, its combat, but it still would have been nice to see these other mechanics incorporated more evenly throughout.

Story

• At first, I found the lore and story to be intriguing. As the game went on, I found that the plot simplified to a fairly typical heroes-vs-the-big-bad affair (similar to a shonen anime). Also similar to a shonen anime, DMC5 would sometimes insert bizarre comedic gags, usually from Dante, that felt a little out of place.
• The game's characters kept me interested in watching this game's plethora of cut scenes. While most of these characters are pretty firmly rooted in their tropes, I found that they were just fun to watch.

As the credits, rolled on Devil May Cry 5, I was certainly ready for it to be over, but I also really enjoyed the ride. For me, a game of this style and length was just right to give me a story and some action in a streamlined way; a great break from all the lengthy RPGs I tend to play. I don't think character action games or the DMC series will ever rank too high for me among my favorite genres or franchises, but I can definitely appreciate them now. I'll be keeping an eye out for another game like this next time I feel the need for a change of pace (in fact I took a break while writing this to rewatch the trailer for Astral Chain 😅).

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Completion Time: About 14 hours, Devil Hunter (i.e. hard) difficulty

Note: I flip-flopped between a 3 and 4 for this game's score a couple of times as I played it, but ultimately decided to round up.

 

Devil May Cry 5 Impressions

When I picked up a new graphics card earlier this year, I was pretty excited to find that it came with vouchers for two free games from Capcom: Devil May Cry 5 and Resident Evil 2. While my experience with both of these series is pretty limited, it's hard not to be psyched to get two games from major series on launch day for free. I ended up setting aside Resident Evil 2 to play together with my wife (she loves horror games), and dove right into the fifth entry in Capcom's hack and slash franchise.

Some impressions after spending a few hours with the game:

• Even though Devil May Cry 5 is my first time ever playing a game in the series, I was able to drop right into the story thanks to a helpful YouTube recap video. The game also features its own story-so-far video, but I found the YouTube video to be much easier to follow.
• There's a reason why this game came with my graphics card; it looks fantastic and runs very smoothly with all the settings maxed out. Having both Resident Evil 2 and DMC 5, it's very clear that they run on the same engine.
• Being a game primarily about dispatching enemies in the flashiest manner possible, it's important to be able to chain together moves smoothly. I was pleased to find that despite being a newcomer to the genre, that not only could I pull this off,  but that executing sword and gun combo attacks just felt good. That being said, I doubt I'll ever be savvy enough to make use of the whole arsenal of moves or get high scores.
• While I was already familiar with the DMC series main characters Dante and Nero, this game introduces a fun new character, Nico. She injects some humor into situations filled with otherwise grim/dark anti-heroes like our series leads. Being another scantily clad female mechanic with a  southern accent, I can't help but compare Nico to Cindy from Final Fantasy 15 though.
• I like that, even though DMC is a linear level-based game, there's a benefit to exploring the levels in the form of gems that unlock character upgrades. The level designs feature some light platforming as well. These features help break up the succession of kill rooms that character action games and brawlers typically have; even the best combat systems can get monotonous if a game is entirely dependent on them.
• As a newbie to the series, I'm playing on the Human difficulty (i.e. the easier of the two difficulty choices). So far, I haven't come close to dying in the three missions I've played. Thus, I might try stepping it up. Unfortunately, changing the difficulty would mean having to restart from level 1 since the game only lets you decrease difficulty mid-campaign, not increase.
• With all the sprawling RPGs and open-world adventure games I tend to play, it's just nice to play a straight-forward linear game for a change.
• Unlike other character action games that I've tried and bounced off of before (like God of War or Bayonetta), DMC5 has a tone that appeals to me; it's got just the right balance of serious/edgy and ridiculous. 
• The game's main theme song and battle music, "Devil Trigger", is a really catchy tune!

From what I've played so far, Devil May Cry 5 has been a really pleasant surprise. I've never gotten into character action games before, but this one seems to have gotten its hooks into me.I'm really looking forward to digging further into it and trying out the new playable character, V the summoner!

 

 

 

Just Cause 4 Review

After having such a good time with Just Cause 2 a few years ago (review), I was pretty excited to check back into the series for its fourth installment and cause a little open-world mayhem. Similar to the previous games, in Just Cause 4, secret agent Rico Rodriguez is tasked with overthrowing an oppressive regime by causing chaos and inciting the citizens to rise up against their dictator.  While  there was plenty of satisfying havoc to wreak in the new game’s expansive world, I found myself wanting something more as the credits rolled. Here are my takeaways from my time with Just Cause 4:

Pros

• Being a game heavily inspired by corny action movies, there is one thing it absolutely had to get right: explosions. And, oh boy, does it deliver in that department. JC4’s upgraded physics engine allows for all kind of opportunities to blow up enemy compounds with vehicles, weapons, and chain reactions. One of my favorite techniques was turning propane tanks into missiles by shooting a hole in one side of them, causing them to rocket off in the opposite direction.
• Just Cause 4 continues the series’ penchant for excellent character locomotion. Equipped with a  grappling hook, parachute, and wingsuit, that he can swap between instantaneously, moving Rico around the environments of JC4 is a joy. One I got the hang of it, grappling to a tree or building to build speed and then abruptly switching to the parachute for lift followed by the wingsuit to fly through the air made Rico feel even more like a superhero (and I previously described him as “Spiderman with a gun”).
• In JC4, Rico’s grappling hook comes equipped with new gadgets that are a lot of fun to experiment with: a tether, a balloon, and rockets. The tether can be used for lashing enemies to objects (or each other), the balloon is great for those times when you just want to turn a tank into a blimp, and the rockets can turn pretty much anything into a missile. Several hours of my playtime probably consisted of trying out different combinations of these gadgets on various objects just to see what would happen.

Cons

• Much of the campaign consists of seizing territory from the dictator’s control. While I like this concept, there are only about three or four different types of missions to take territory and Rico has to conquer dozens of regions to complete the game. This begins to feel repetitive after a while.
• The territory control missions and smaller story missions build to a handful of major story moments and action set pieces. Unfortunately, on several occasions, these set pieces took the form of cut scenes instead of interactive sequences. I found this to be a let down; I wanted to fly through the tornado myself and go head-to-head with the Big Bad, not just watch it play out in a pre-rendered scene.
• The game world is quite large and full activities to unlock new weapons, vehicles, and upgrades. Most of these tasks were what I like to call "open world busy work" such as performing deliveries, driving NPCs around, and flying aircraft through rings. For the most part, these didn't hold my interest for very long.

 At its core, there's a solid action game here with very strong mechanics, but the game design doesn't give you as many interesting things to do with those mechanics as I would have liked. With a little more development time or resources, I think Just Cause 4 could have been made into a fantastic action-packed experience, but what we ended up getting is mostly just a sandbox in which to experiment with physics. That's fine, but I can't help but feel like there's lost potential here.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐
Completion Time: 25 hours (normal difficulty, all territories conquered)

Hatoful Boyfriend Review

 For this year’s #DatingSiMonth, I elected to go for an oddball title that I’ve heard come up several times over the past few years, Hatoful Boyfriend. After picking it up for a song during the Lunar New Year sale on Steam, my wife and I played through one path of the game in a single evening. It was a very bizarre experience indeed. Bear with me here as I attempt to explain this one…

Overview:

Hatoful Boyfriend is a visual novel dating sim that takes place in a school attended exclusively by sentient birds. The player character, as the first and only human student, must navigate their strange school life and build relationships with their classmates (I did my best not to think too much about how human-bird dating would work while playing this). Like most visual novels, the majority of the gameplay consists of reading through dialog and looking at still images while making the occasional decision that leads down different branches of the story. Playing through a single story path takes less than two hours.

Observations:

• While the game initially starts out very jokey,  it has some genuinely dramatic moments as it goes on, especially during the "best friend" character's plot arc (which is the route I completed during my playthrough).
•  The decision-making is very simplistic. Most of the time you're just picking where you'd like to spend your time which generally very directly correlates with whom you'll be spending time with. Want to get to know the librarian bo-... bird better? Spend more time in the library. I didn't have an issue with the directness of this, but it could have been interesting to see a little more depth to the choices.
• As the only human in the game, I like how the player character is frequently the target of "hunter-gather" stereotypes. It was also a nice touch that the player's strength stat is always maxed out (presumably because the stats are on a scale intended for birds).
• For a seemingly silly game, there appears to be some sort of dark subplot going on in the background. I'm kind of interested to play through a few other paths to see more of it, but I must admit that it's unlikely I'll end up getting around to it (unless I pick up the mobile version at some point).
• I appreciated the mixture of serious and completely off-the-wall characters (e.g. Okosan).

This ended up being a strange one, but not in the way I expected. It’s simultaneously a parody of dating sims while also occasionally being a very earnest one. I tend to be someone who only plays through a game once, so the extra depth that may be added by replaying is something I'll likely miss. As interesting as Hatoful Boyfriend was as a cheap game to play on a lark (see what I did there 😜), for the next Dating Sim Month or Visual Novel November, I think I'll go with something a little less gimmicky that can tell a richer story in a single playthrough.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐

Completion Time: 95 minutes (one story path)

Note: Events like #DatingSiMonth and #VNNovember are put together by ApricotSushi from the Chic-Pixel Blog. Be sure to check out her whole calendar of Community Game-Along events.