Re: Games Beaten 2020
Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2020 5:08 pm
You realize your next task is to write your own spinoff: Win Ben Steins;Gate.
Page 76 of 95
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2020 7:23 pm
I don't even wanna tell you how long it took me to get that joke.
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2020 11:39 pm
First 50:
51. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - Switch
52. Star Control Origins: Earth Rising - PC
53. Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX - Switch
54. Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith - PC
55. Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls - PS3
56. Silicon Zeroes - PC
57. Warcraft - PC
58. Serious Sam 3: BFE - PC
59. Wasteland 3 - PC
60. Iron Harvest - PC
61. Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile - PC
62, Homeworld Remastered - PC
63. Homeworld 2 Remastered - PC
64. Offworld Trading Company - PC
65. F-Zero - SNES
66. F-Zero X - N64
67. Gauntlet (2014) - PC
68. Gauntlet Legends - Arcade
69. Halo 3: ODST - PC
70. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - PS4
71. Star Wars Squadrons - PC
72. Serious Sam 4 - PC
73. The Bard's Tale - PC
74. The Bard's Tale II - PC
Continuing my old RPG roll we come to Bard's Tale II, which lets you import your original party before they go "fuck... where do we go from here?" Which has been a constant battle in games that allow imports; giving progression while still making you feel good for getting the old bonus. How does it work out here? Poorly. The game is a balance mess and the dungeon design is a special kind of evil. It's a real shame, because the first game's dungeon design was quite solid.
So let's start with the good. The game now involves six cities, each with a dungeon, and a wilderness area connecting them that has two dungeons of its own. Seven of these are mandatory to get your plot items to fight the final boss; the first city has a dungeon designed for people starting with this game. The monsters here have a difficulty curve designed to get you up to speed. It also introduces you to some of the fuckery that this game will engage in. Let's talk other additions. There is now a fifth magic class, the archmage, which has all the best spells and requires you to have been in all four of the other classes first. At level three the archmage has a "cast all the buffs" spell, which is a godsend, and ends up with the best heal and the best nuke (which also hits all opponents). You'll want a few of these guys. And the combat has been extended with the idea of ranges. Whereas the first game just had "first two are melee, rest are ranged so only spells and backstabbing rogues can hit", this game has every group be at some range; melee is 10', then it goes 20', 30', etc up to 90'. The rogue's backstab can only go 20', spells have ranges (and some have a full/half damage split), and there are ranged weapons available. If no one is in melee you can spend your turn approaching by 10'; the monsters can just move into melee on their turn. The intent for this to be more interesting, but it mostly serves to make enemies more powerful (as they always have 90' ranges if they have a ranged attack/spell at all) and really makes enemies that can summon annoying (as summons will usually be in melee, keeping you from hitting the backline).
The other place where the game is more advanced than the original is in the myriad of dungeon triggers. It is no longer a matter of maneuvering through the maze to the next set of stairs; this game is full of puzzles involving obtuse riddles and needing to trigger one event to open a door or stairs. It all culminates with the Death Snare areas; the goal of each dungeon. You need to complete this puzzle area to get your plot coupon (which lets you cast specific spells without being counted as a spell for the purposes of anti-magic zones). These areas have obtuse riddles that make sense after the fact, but in the moment are incredibly frustrating. This is compounded on the early ones by the lack of tools you have; they are always anti-magic areas and sometimes have spinners to make navigation a nightmare. Oh, and they're timed. If you run out of time your party instant wipes, and since they're anti-magic areas you can't get out, so hope you got all the clues and can decipher them.
And this leads to the main problem with the game; the developers substituted interesting design for obtuseness and dickish dungeon layouts. Several dungeon floors have a very short proper path and then a ton of side paths that, if you're lucky, have clues for the Death Snare but frequently just have a ton of anti-magic, health drain, and huge areas of darkness. They definitely came in with "how can we challenge people who beat the first game", which ends up going far overboard and makes dungeon crawling painful rather than fun. This is compounded by your non-casters getting essentially empty levels; they gain some HP and that's it because their combat stats capped before you even started, and there's only a handful of new weapons that don't really change anything. Midway through the game you reach a point where the only melee folks killing enemies are your monks (because their damage is still stupid high) and characters who can critical hit through their class or special weapons. I am given to understand that Bard's Tale III sink's the Monk's usefulness and you just need to go caster. Meanwhile your archmages require a total of 4 million experience to get all their spells; if you don't realize that you're better off keeping everyone else at the guild and using summons to get a lot of experience you will essentially spend the game very underpowered due to the best stuff coming on the back end where the required experience is highest.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the thing that irritated me the most. A handful of the Death Snares require you to have open party slots. The starter dungeon and two of the snares require a single slot and one of the snares requires three slots. And only the one that requires three has an explicit clue ahead of time that tells you as such. The other two are vague clues that only make sense once you see the situation, the one where you can't teleport out and have to sit there and let your party die (or load a save). I would much rather have seen the game keep the first game's "special slot" for that sort of thing.
Bard's Tale II ends up pissing away a lot of the good will the first game built up. We'll see how the third game does.
51. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - Switch
52. Star Control Origins: Earth Rising - PC
53. Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX - Switch
54. Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith - PC
55. Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls - PS3
56. Silicon Zeroes - PC
57. Warcraft - PC
58. Serious Sam 3: BFE - PC
59. Wasteland 3 - PC
60. Iron Harvest - PC
61. Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile - PC
62, Homeworld Remastered - PC
63. Homeworld 2 Remastered - PC
64. Offworld Trading Company - PC
65. F-Zero - SNES
66. F-Zero X - N64
67. Gauntlet (2014) - PC
68. Gauntlet Legends - Arcade
69. Halo 3: ODST - PC
70. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - PS4
71. Star Wars Squadrons - PC
72. Serious Sam 4 - PC
73. The Bard's Tale - PC
74. The Bard's Tale II - PC
Continuing my old RPG roll we come to Bard's Tale II, which lets you import your original party before they go "fuck... where do we go from here?" Which has been a constant battle in games that allow imports; giving progression while still making you feel good for getting the old bonus. How does it work out here? Poorly. The game is a balance mess and the dungeon design is a special kind of evil. It's a real shame, because the first game's dungeon design was quite solid.
So let's start with the good. The game now involves six cities, each with a dungeon, and a wilderness area connecting them that has two dungeons of its own. Seven of these are mandatory to get your plot items to fight the final boss; the first city has a dungeon designed for people starting with this game. The monsters here have a difficulty curve designed to get you up to speed. It also introduces you to some of the fuckery that this game will engage in. Let's talk other additions. There is now a fifth magic class, the archmage, which has all the best spells and requires you to have been in all four of the other classes first. At level three the archmage has a "cast all the buffs" spell, which is a godsend, and ends up with the best heal and the best nuke (which also hits all opponents). You'll want a few of these guys. And the combat has been extended with the idea of ranges. Whereas the first game just had "first two are melee, rest are ranged so only spells and backstabbing rogues can hit", this game has every group be at some range; melee is 10', then it goes 20', 30', etc up to 90'. The rogue's backstab can only go 20', spells have ranges (and some have a full/half damage split), and there are ranged weapons available. If no one is in melee you can spend your turn approaching by 10'; the monsters can just move into melee on their turn. The intent for this to be more interesting, but it mostly serves to make enemies more powerful (as they always have 90' ranges if they have a ranged attack/spell at all) and really makes enemies that can summon annoying (as summons will usually be in melee, keeping you from hitting the backline).
The other place where the game is more advanced than the original is in the myriad of dungeon triggers. It is no longer a matter of maneuvering through the maze to the next set of stairs; this game is full of puzzles involving obtuse riddles and needing to trigger one event to open a door or stairs. It all culminates with the Death Snare areas; the goal of each dungeon. You need to complete this puzzle area to get your plot coupon (which lets you cast specific spells without being counted as a spell for the purposes of anti-magic zones). These areas have obtuse riddles that make sense after the fact, but in the moment are incredibly frustrating. This is compounded on the early ones by the lack of tools you have; they are always anti-magic areas and sometimes have spinners to make navigation a nightmare. Oh, and they're timed. If you run out of time your party instant wipes, and since they're anti-magic areas you can't get out, so hope you got all the clues and can decipher them.
And this leads to the main problem with the game; the developers substituted interesting design for obtuseness and dickish dungeon layouts. Several dungeon floors have a very short proper path and then a ton of side paths that, if you're lucky, have clues for the Death Snare but frequently just have a ton of anti-magic, health drain, and huge areas of darkness. They definitely came in with "how can we challenge people who beat the first game", which ends up going far overboard and makes dungeon crawling painful rather than fun. This is compounded by your non-casters getting essentially empty levels; they gain some HP and that's it because their combat stats capped before you even started, and there's only a handful of new weapons that don't really change anything. Midway through the game you reach a point where the only melee folks killing enemies are your monks (because their damage is still stupid high) and characters who can critical hit through their class or special weapons. I am given to understand that Bard's Tale III sink's the Monk's usefulness and you just need to go caster. Meanwhile your archmages require a total of 4 million experience to get all their spells; if you don't realize that you're better off keeping everyone else at the guild and using summons to get a lot of experience you will essentially spend the game very underpowered due to the best stuff coming on the back end where the required experience is highest.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the thing that irritated me the most. A handful of the Death Snares require you to have open party slots. The starter dungeon and two of the snares require a single slot and one of the snares requires three slots. And only the one that requires three has an explicit clue ahead of time that tells you as such. The other two are vague clues that only make sense once you see the situation, the one where you can't teleport out and have to sit there and let your party die (or load a save). I would much rather have seen the game keep the first game's "special slot" for that sort of thing.
Bard's Tale II ends up pissing away a lot of the good will the first game built up. We'll see how the third game does.
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2020 8:20 pm
prfsnl_gmr wrote:Awesome reviews, Pidge. I love the CV series, although I have yet to beat Vampire Killer. My ranking would be like yours, except I’d move CVI up three spaces (largely due to nostalgia). Now, if you get through CV: Legends and Haunted Castle, you’ll have every classic CV game under your belt! Be warned, though, CV: Legends is very mediocre and a Haunted Castle is very bad!
EDIT: play CV: Chronicles too. It’s solid.
Thank, Prfsnl! It was really fun to play through 'em all, although the reviews did take a bit longer than I would've liked afterwards. Now I now how AJ feels
Haunted Castle and Legends miiiight get tried sometime, but I think out of all of them that Chronicles is the one I'll end up trying if and when I delve further into the barrel of lesser well known classic Castlevania games~
----
Partridge Senpai's 2020 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat
1-50
51. Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando (PS2)
52. Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
53. Nier: Automata (PS4)
54. Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2)
55. Itadaki Street Special (PS2)
56. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PCE)
57. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
58. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
59. Nazo Puyo: Aruru No Ruu~ (Game Gear)
60. Jumping Flash! (PS1)
61. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1)
62. Crash Team Racing (PS1)
63. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1)
64. Super Mario Galaxy (Switch)
65. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)
66. Battle Stadium D.O.N. (GC) *
67. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) *
68. Dracula Densetsu II (GB)
69. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) *
70. Super Mario's Picross (SFC)
71. Castlevania (Famicom)
72. Castlevania (MSX)
73. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
74. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
75. Castlevania III (Famicom)
76. Super Castlevania IV (SFC) *
77. Castlevania: Bloodlines (MD)
78. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
The 8th game on the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, and also one which had its debut in the West via that collection, Kid Dracula is a bit of an odd title. Very much in the vein of games like Famicom Splatterhouse game or Konami's Parodius titles (in which Kid Dracula himself would later appear), Kid Dracula is a silly take on an existing property in a familiar but different genre. Getting away from the melee-action platforming the series is so familiar with and going for a Mega Man-style shooting platformer, Kid Dracula is a very oddball but still fun entry in the wider Castlevania series.
Kid Dracula is chilling in his castle one day when it's suddenly attacked by monsters under the control of the galactic conqueror Galamoth. Not one to take such things lying down, Dracula sets off to kick some invader butt. The only catch is that Dracula isn't the big, adult Dracula we're familiar with. He's just a little kid! Obviously a non-canon game in the series, the game nonetheless has an epilogue that says that Dracula's defeat of Galamoth gained him such popularity that more and more monsters flocked to his banner until he was the new lord of darkness, which makes this something of a parody origin story for Dracula XD. The presentation all around is very colorful and silly like this, having bright, pastel color and a super deformed style for the monsters present, it is a very cute game (particularly for the Castlevania series). The only really exceptional thing is that the music is really nothing to write home about. It isn't bad, just not what you'd hope for with a Castlevania game.
The mechanics are very much like Mega Man more than they are Castlevania. Kid Dracula has a series of blaster-type powers he can use to fight enemies, and can even charge them for special effects (I think in-game they're spells he's casting). Upon beating a boss of a stage, you unlock a new power you can use, very much like Mega Man, however those powers very rarely (if ever) have any relation to the stage you just went through or the boss you just fought. You only get the special power of that weapon if you do a charge attack, so most of your time is spent with your weapon charged. The weapons also aren't dished out terribly balanced, with the homing shot you get for beating level 1 being one of the best weapons in the game. Several weapons aren't even weapons but platforming aids, letting you transform into a bat to fly or sticking to the ceiling. These are neat, but the execution isn't terribly inspired.
The level design is fine, but the later levels get pretty brutal with checkpoints, as the final stage doesn't have them at all. The bosses range from a little frustrating to super easy, and the final boss is a good challenge too. The only real dangers in the last few levels of the game is the aforementioned lack of checkpoints and a particularly nasty vertical climbing section, but even then the levels aren't that long. I didn't even end up using save states for this one. It's not a terribly long game, only coming in at around 2 to 3 hours over eight stages, but it's a fine time and a fine challenge for what it is, even if it isn't terribly Castlevania-y.
Verdict: Recommended. Kid Dracula isn't particularly amazing, but it's a very competent game and it's worth playing on the collection. The difficulty and overall design remind me a lot of Taito's Panic Restaurant or Konami's Biomiracle Bokutte Upa, where it's a silly, pastel-colored platformer, and the theme of this particular game just happens to be Castlevania's Dracula as a kid. It may not be the superior GameBoy sequel (whose absence on the Collection is quite odd, really), but it's still a fine game that will deliver a burst of retro platforming goodness, even if it's not ultimately that memorable.
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 11:48 am
ElkinFencer10 wrote:I was immediately sold. Yes, please, sign me up. Then my bank statement said, "Son, put your pants back on; you're too broke for this." So I had to wait until I could get a copy off of someone used for relatively cheap. Being a grown-up sucks.
That person sounds like a wonderful human being, a true kind soul. Probably the kind of person filled with light and kindness but also is pretty good looking and humble AF. You're incredibly lucky to know this person and you should bless your good fortune that they even acknowledge your existence.
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 4:10 pm
Flake wrote:ElkinFencer10 wrote:I was immediately sold. Yes, please, sign me up. Then my bank statement said, "Son, put your pants back on; you're too broke for this." So I had to wait until I could get a copy off of someone used for relatively cheap. Being a grown-up sucks.
That person sounds like a wonderful human being, a true kind soul. Probably the kind of person filled with light and kindness but also is pretty good looking and humble AF. You're incredibly lucky to know this person and you should bless your good fortune that they even acknowledge your existence.
Stop Flake, you're making me blush.
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 4:50 pm
1. NBA Jam (GEN)
2. Astro Bot Rescue Mission (PSVR)
3. Bastion (PS4)
4. Octopath Traveler (NS)
5. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS4)
6. Final Fantasy Adventure (NS)
7. LEGO: The Ninjago Movie Game (PS4)
8. Captain Commando (PS2)
9. Thumper (PSVR)
10. Eco Fighters (PS2)
11. Ys:Memories of Celceta (PS4)
12. Super Mario 64 (NS)
I beat Super Mario 64 in the 3D All-Stars collection today. Just a minimal 70 stars run, as this marks the first time I've ever rolled these credits. I played the whole game in handheld mode and never had any issues that I would blame on the emulation.
When the N64 was modern I was not doing much gaming. I always had a little interest, but my lack of spare money kept me from owning one. I had played some of this game through emulation a few times and eventually did own it in the cartridge form, but I've never committed to playing all the way to the end; only getting about 18 stars from what I recall.
I won't break any new ground by saying that this is a great game if you can accept some of the traits that 3D platformers had way back then. Most obviously the camera is unwieldy and unpredictable. This can make it as much of an obstacle as some of the enemies or platforms. Secondly, I never really got used to the way Mario has momentum even at very low speeds. I would often try to reverse directions before coming to a full stop and find myself stepping around instead of back. This lead to some frustration when I was trying to quickly transition to the backflip. All told though, these are not show stopping issues and the good far outweighs the bad.
The stages a relatively small, but densely packed with things to do. Getting the requisite 70 stars before meeting the final boss left me certain that there were still a few stages I hadn't yet explored. Boss fights are just ok, the variety is a bit lacking. The final boss beat me a number of times as I never really got the timing down for throwing him accurately. I'll admit that my final throw was just dumb luck.
This is a classic game that is still worth playing and so important to gaming history that everyone should at least give it a try. I'm glad the 3D All-Stars package finally made it convenient enough for me to commit.
2. Astro Bot Rescue Mission (PSVR)
3. Bastion (PS4)
4. Octopath Traveler (NS)
5. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS4)
6. Final Fantasy Adventure (NS)
7. LEGO: The Ninjago Movie Game (PS4)
8. Captain Commando (PS2)
9. Thumper (PSVR)
10. Eco Fighters (PS2)
11. Ys:Memories of Celceta (PS4)
12. Super Mario 64 (NS)
I beat Super Mario 64 in the 3D All-Stars collection today. Just a minimal 70 stars run, as this marks the first time I've ever rolled these credits. I played the whole game in handheld mode and never had any issues that I would blame on the emulation.
When the N64 was modern I was not doing much gaming. I always had a little interest, but my lack of spare money kept me from owning one. I had played some of this game through emulation a few times and eventually did own it in the cartridge form, but I've never committed to playing all the way to the end; only getting about 18 stars from what I recall.
I won't break any new ground by saying that this is a great game if you can accept some of the traits that 3D platformers had way back then. Most obviously the camera is unwieldy and unpredictable. This can make it as much of an obstacle as some of the enemies or platforms. Secondly, I never really got used to the way Mario has momentum even at very low speeds. I would often try to reverse directions before coming to a full stop and find myself stepping around instead of back. This lead to some frustration when I was trying to quickly transition to the backflip. All told though, these are not show stopping issues and the good far outweighs the bad.
The stages a relatively small, but densely packed with things to do. Getting the requisite 70 stars before meeting the final boss left me certain that there were still a few stages I hadn't yet explored. Boss fights are just ok, the variety is a bit lacking. The final boss beat me a number of times as I never really got the timing down for throwing him accurately. I'll admit that my final throw was just dumb luck.
This is a classic game that is still worth playing and so important to gaming history that everyone should at least give it a try. I'm glad the 3D All-Stars package finally made it convenient enough for me to commit.
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:30 am
The First 50:
51. Kid Dracula (Switch)(Platformer)
52. Castlevania (Switch)(Platformer)
53. Akumajō Dracula (Switch)(Platformer)
54. Akumajō Dracula [Castlevania IV](Switch)(Platformer)
55. The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone (PC)(RPG)
56. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (Switch)(Platformer)
57. Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (Switch)(Platformer)
58. The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine (PC)(RPG)
59. The Darkness II (PC)(FPS)
60. MOTHERGUNSHIP (PC)(FPS)
61. SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash - SNK Version (NGPC)(Card Game)
62. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC)(RPG)
63. STRAFE (PC)(FPS)
64. Shadow Warrior [2013] (PC)(FPS)
65. Shanghai Mini (NGPC)(Puzzle)
66. Shadowrun: Hong Kong (PC)(RPG)
67. Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Shadows of Hong Kong (PC)(RPG)
68. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (PC)(RPG)
69. Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet - The Lovecraft Museum (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
70. The Mummy Demastered (Switch)(Action Adventure)
71. Just Cause 2 (PC)(Action Adventure)
72. Prey (PC)(FPS)
73. Prey: Mooncrash (PC)(FPS)
74. The Signal From Tölva (PC)(FPS)
When I say I beat Prey, I mean that I just beat the 2017 game, not the 2006 one. I beat the 2006 game over a decade ago and have no plans to ever go back. Just wanted to put that out there.
Prey
Imagine if the System Shock games had gotten a proper third release. That game would be Prey. It's an alternate future where the Cold War ended due to both the US and Soviet Union coming together to jointly research space, which has since been privatized. You play as Morgan Yu, your choice of brother/sister (which means you play the sister. Come on, folks, it's ok to play as a different gender) to head researcher Alex Yu on the Talos I space station. Upon waking up in your apartment, you think you're heading into a battery of tests to prepare for your launch into space. Then a scientist gets killed, and you discover that you're already on the space station and have been...possibly for years.
Over the course of the game, you will learn that you are a human guinea pig for alien-based modifications to the human brain, but their removal causes you to lose memories and eventually leads to substantial personality drift. The aliens have also gotten loose, so Talos I is going to hell, and you've somehow managed to plant yourself some bread crumbs to help you figure out your situation and also decide what should be the ultimate fate of the space station and its crew. Of course, nothing is ever as it seems, so expect consequences as you learn the truth of your situation in the end.
Prey handles itself by having the player get more powerful through the use of neuromods, which you can choose to use however you wish to fill out the substantial character development tree. Want to learn to hack harder computer systems, run faster, heal more from eating food, or perhaps learn how to use one of the alien powers to mimic an object's appearance or send out a shockwave? How you choose to build yourself is up to you, and the game is great about providing multiple ways to complete a goal while still keeping you locked on a specific trajectory to follow the plot. It enables exploration as you want yet doesn't break too badly unless you know how to abuse certain equipment.
Yes, you can most definitely abuse certain equipment. The game has a system for item destruction into basic components and creation of new items based on these parts. Got an extra handgun or bag of chips? Throw it in the recycler and then use those parts to make something you might need, like a healthkit or ammo for a weapon that is running low. Want to destroy stuff that isn't in your inventory? You can get handy recycler grenades that effectively work like miniature black holes. Recycler grenades are my favorite of all the throwables, and if you think a little creatively, they offer one of the ways around some of the various obstacles.
But grenades aren't all. Besides a trusty wrench, you get a small collection of firearms. These range from the workhorse pistol and shotgun to the more tech-centric stun gun and Q-beam. And then there is the foam crossbow, a Nerf gun which you can use to trigger doors or screens from afar and draw off enemies. Or better yet, there is the GLOO gun, which creates blows of hardened material that can seal damage pipelines, slow enemies, wall off areas, or even be used to create makeshift stairways. The GLOO gun lets you break a lot of the world and get into all kinds of places you couldn't normally go; it's fantastic.
Of course, all of this gear is going to be needed as you traverse the troubled corridors of Talos I, fighting an alien intelligence that is ultimately unknowable (and believe me, humans have tried). There is a lot of detail here, from crew logs and emails to notes and books scattered throughout offering information on the world. Most folks you meet are dead...or worse. But not all, and how you react will impact what happens in the overall story. Plus, get far enough, and the aliens will send an unkillable giant to hunt you. Yay!
I had a wonderful time with Prey. You should check it out.
Prey: Mooncrash
Mooncrash is the expansion to Prey, though it contains a separate story and offers a totally different way to play. Instead of being on Talos I, you're a computer expert stuck on a small satellite who is working for a rival corporation to figure out what happened to a moonbase. To do this, you have to play through the simulation, but as you traverse it, the simulation gets steadily harder. The goal is to unlock the five main characters, see their stories, and then get all five to "safety" as directed by your KASMA corporation handler. This means you'll likely be playing through the simulation over and over again, though to keep things interesting, it changes a bit each time.
Yeah, Mooncrash has roguelike elements. Sometimes a room that was open will now be locked or have a broken door. Sometimes an area lacks power, has fires, or is irradiated. Batteries may be missing from the tram system, preventing easy travel. There may be a problem with the structural integrity of the lunar dome, requiring you to monitor oxygen amounts and deal with visibility issues in the central crater. All while you deal with trying to survive in a steadily corrupting simulation that is throwing tougher aliens at you as the intensity ramps up.
Also, every character in Mooncrash plays differently, owing to all five having different neuromod possibilities. For example, the security guard gets no alien powers but a ton of physical enhancers, so he has a total health roughly equal to the other four characters combined. Meanwhile the prisoner test subject gets a lot of alien powers, and his few physical boosts serve to enhance those. While you can find ways to share gear and weapons across characters, those two are not going to be able to fight the same way against the variety of aliens that they'll be encountering.
While that may sound daunting, the simulation will ramp up slowly in the beginning, and the basic layout doesn't change, so you have time to learn. Eventually you figure out the five escape routes and find ways to slow the program's corruption, and certain things you find become permanently unlocked, such as neuromods or fabricator recipes. In fact, each recipe you find becomes something you can start the game with for any character, so even as things get harder, they get easier too.
It's a fun way to play through Prey's world, though it shouldn't be done until at least beating Prey, because it requires some knowledge of the history and how things work. Still, it's a fun expansion in its own right that can be enjoyed separately.
The Signal From Tölva
Tölva is a weird little world, largely unremarkable except that it forms the housing for some kind of cult and has been putting out strange signals for decades which previously attracted all manner of governments, scientists, military, mercenaries, researchers, and so on. You're some kind of hacker merc who has been tasked by an Information Broker to run down errant signals on the planet's surface. But since the planet happens to house both nasty environmental hazards as well as factions of killer robots, you won't be going down directly. Nope, instead you will be hijacking settler robots on the surface to do your investigative work.
The Signal From Tölva is a fairly straightforward game: you wander through an open world, collecting resources, finding signals, and raiding enemy bunkers to give you new spawn and resupply points. As you find major signals, you unlock higher ranks and access to better gear, such as new weapons, armor, protective components for various hazards, and so forth. You start having uncovered a small corner of the world and then steadily make your way north and east until you've unlocked enough stuff to continue to advance further into new areas until you've found just about everything. At times you'll have to contend with groups of rival robots, either bandits that are intent on raiding and causing general chaos, or zealots that worship the signals coming from the planet. And at times you can get them to fight each other and pick off whatever stragglers are left.
However, there are a few secrets to complicate things, such as weird bunkers with portals that turn into twisted mazes, strange phantoms that occasionally appear and disappear before your eyes/sensors/whatever, and even a choice about how you will wrap things up regarding the errant signal. And the information you uncover? Well, turns out there is something deeply wrong with Tölva. Whatever it is you're uncovering, it may have consequences for the galaxy and be the product of some new form of intelligence you cannot even begin to fathom. That may be what the zealots are worshipping, and that may be why your final options include scorching the planet to a dead cinder.
And since the game isn't straightforward in how it presents its plot, you'll never really know.
That's the beauty of The Signal From Tölva. It's never going to sit you down and tell you. You just have to draw your own conclusions. Also, it helps that it's short; I beat the game in roughly 10 hours, and I was exploring everything.
It's not bad for what it is. It does get a bit samey after a while, so unless you can handle the monotony, I don't think you'd enjoy it. But for those who want a pretty bare bones open world FPS with an interesting mystery, it's not a bad game at all.
51. Kid Dracula (Switch)(Platformer)
52. Castlevania (Switch)(Platformer)
53. Akumajō Dracula (Switch)(Platformer)
54. Akumajō Dracula [Castlevania IV](Switch)(Platformer)
55. The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone (PC)(RPG)
56. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (Switch)(Platformer)
57. Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (Switch)(Platformer)
58. The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine (PC)(RPG)
59. The Darkness II (PC)(FPS)
60. MOTHERGUNSHIP (PC)(FPS)
61. SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash - SNK Version (NGPC)(Card Game)
62. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC)(RPG)
63. STRAFE (PC)(FPS)
64. Shadow Warrior [2013] (PC)(FPS)
65. Shanghai Mini (NGPC)(Puzzle)
66. Shadowrun: Hong Kong (PC)(RPG)
67. Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Shadows of Hong Kong (PC)(RPG)
68. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (PC)(RPG)
69. Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet - The Lovecraft Museum (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
70. The Mummy Demastered (Switch)(Action Adventure)
71. Just Cause 2 (PC)(Action Adventure)
72. Prey (PC)(FPS)
73. Prey: Mooncrash (PC)(FPS)
74. The Signal From Tölva (PC)(FPS)
When I say I beat Prey, I mean that I just beat the 2017 game, not the 2006 one. I beat the 2006 game over a decade ago and have no plans to ever go back. Just wanted to put that out there.
Prey
Imagine if the System Shock games had gotten a proper third release. That game would be Prey. It's an alternate future where the Cold War ended due to both the US and Soviet Union coming together to jointly research space, which has since been privatized. You play as Morgan Yu, your choice of brother/sister (which means you play the sister. Come on, folks, it's ok to play as a different gender) to head researcher Alex Yu on the Talos I space station. Upon waking up in your apartment, you think you're heading into a battery of tests to prepare for your launch into space. Then a scientist gets killed, and you discover that you're already on the space station and have been...possibly for years.
Over the course of the game, you will learn that you are a human guinea pig for alien-based modifications to the human brain, but their removal causes you to lose memories and eventually leads to substantial personality drift. The aliens have also gotten loose, so Talos I is going to hell, and you've somehow managed to plant yourself some bread crumbs to help you figure out your situation and also decide what should be the ultimate fate of the space station and its crew. Of course, nothing is ever as it seems, so expect consequences as you learn the truth of your situation in the end.
Prey handles itself by having the player get more powerful through the use of neuromods, which you can choose to use however you wish to fill out the substantial character development tree. Want to learn to hack harder computer systems, run faster, heal more from eating food, or perhaps learn how to use one of the alien powers to mimic an object's appearance or send out a shockwave? How you choose to build yourself is up to you, and the game is great about providing multiple ways to complete a goal while still keeping you locked on a specific trajectory to follow the plot. It enables exploration as you want yet doesn't break too badly unless you know how to abuse certain equipment.
Yes, you can most definitely abuse certain equipment. The game has a system for item destruction into basic components and creation of new items based on these parts. Got an extra handgun or bag of chips? Throw it in the recycler and then use those parts to make something you might need, like a healthkit or ammo for a weapon that is running low. Want to destroy stuff that isn't in your inventory? You can get handy recycler grenades that effectively work like miniature black holes. Recycler grenades are my favorite of all the throwables, and if you think a little creatively, they offer one of the ways around some of the various obstacles.
But grenades aren't all. Besides a trusty wrench, you get a small collection of firearms. These range from the workhorse pistol and shotgun to the more tech-centric stun gun and Q-beam. And then there is the foam crossbow, a Nerf gun which you can use to trigger doors or screens from afar and draw off enemies. Or better yet, there is the GLOO gun, which creates blows of hardened material that can seal damage pipelines, slow enemies, wall off areas, or even be used to create makeshift stairways. The GLOO gun lets you break a lot of the world and get into all kinds of places you couldn't normally go; it's fantastic.
Of course, all of this gear is going to be needed as you traverse the troubled corridors of Talos I, fighting an alien intelligence that is ultimately unknowable (and believe me, humans have tried). There is a lot of detail here, from crew logs and emails to notes and books scattered throughout offering information on the world. Most folks you meet are dead...or worse. But not all, and how you react will impact what happens in the overall story. Plus, get far enough, and the aliens will send an unkillable giant to hunt you. Yay!
I had a wonderful time with Prey. You should check it out.
Prey: Mooncrash
Mooncrash is the expansion to Prey, though it contains a separate story and offers a totally different way to play. Instead of being on Talos I, you're a computer expert stuck on a small satellite who is working for a rival corporation to figure out what happened to a moonbase. To do this, you have to play through the simulation, but as you traverse it, the simulation gets steadily harder. The goal is to unlock the five main characters, see their stories, and then get all five to "safety" as directed by your KASMA corporation handler. This means you'll likely be playing through the simulation over and over again, though to keep things interesting, it changes a bit each time.
Yeah, Mooncrash has roguelike elements. Sometimes a room that was open will now be locked or have a broken door. Sometimes an area lacks power, has fires, or is irradiated. Batteries may be missing from the tram system, preventing easy travel. There may be a problem with the structural integrity of the lunar dome, requiring you to monitor oxygen amounts and deal with visibility issues in the central crater. All while you deal with trying to survive in a steadily corrupting simulation that is throwing tougher aliens at you as the intensity ramps up.
Also, every character in Mooncrash plays differently, owing to all five having different neuromod possibilities. For example, the security guard gets no alien powers but a ton of physical enhancers, so he has a total health roughly equal to the other four characters combined. Meanwhile the prisoner test subject gets a lot of alien powers, and his few physical boosts serve to enhance those. While you can find ways to share gear and weapons across characters, those two are not going to be able to fight the same way against the variety of aliens that they'll be encountering.
While that may sound daunting, the simulation will ramp up slowly in the beginning, and the basic layout doesn't change, so you have time to learn. Eventually you figure out the five escape routes and find ways to slow the program's corruption, and certain things you find become permanently unlocked, such as neuromods or fabricator recipes. In fact, each recipe you find becomes something you can start the game with for any character, so even as things get harder, they get easier too.
It's a fun way to play through Prey's world, though it shouldn't be done until at least beating Prey, because it requires some knowledge of the history and how things work. Still, it's a fun expansion in its own right that can be enjoyed separately.
The Signal From Tölva
Tölva is a weird little world, largely unremarkable except that it forms the housing for some kind of cult and has been putting out strange signals for decades which previously attracted all manner of governments, scientists, military, mercenaries, researchers, and so on. You're some kind of hacker merc who has been tasked by an Information Broker to run down errant signals on the planet's surface. But since the planet happens to house both nasty environmental hazards as well as factions of killer robots, you won't be going down directly. Nope, instead you will be hijacking settler robots on the surface to do your investigative work.
The Signal From Tölva is a fairly straightforward game: you wander through an open world, collecting resources, finding signals, and raiding enemy bunkers to give you new spawn and resupply points. As you find major signals, you unlock higher ranks and access to better gear, such as new weapons, armor, protective components for various hazards, and so forth. You start having uncovered a small corner of the world and then steadily make your way north and east until you've unlocked enough stuff to continue to advance further into new areas until you've found just about everything. At times you'll have to contend with groups of rival robots, either bandits that are intent on raiding and causing general chaos, or zealots that worship the signals coming from the planet. And at times you can get them to fight each other and pick off whatever stragglers are left.
However, there are a few secrets to complicate things, such as weird bunkers with portals that turn into twisted mazes, strange phantoms that occasionally appear and disappear before your eyes/sensors/whatever, and even a choice about how you will wrap things up regarding the errant signal. And the information you uncover? Well, turns out there is something deeply wrong with Tölva. Whatever it is you're uncovering, it may have consequences for the galaxy and be the product of some new form of intelligence you cannot even begin to fathom. That may be what the zealots are worshipping, and that may be why your final options include scorching the planet to a dead cinder.
And since the game isn't straightforward in how it presents its plot, you'll never really know.
That's the beauty of The Signal From Tölva. It's never going to sit you down and tell you. You just have to draw your own conclusions. Also, it helps that it's short; I beat the game in roughly 10 hours, and I was exploring everything.
It's not bad for what it is. It does get a bit samey after a while, so unless you can handle the monotony, I don't think you'd enjoy it. But for those who want a pretty bare bones open world FPS with an interesting mystery, it's not a bad game at all.
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2020 10:41 pm
First 50:
51. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - Switch
52. Star Control Origins: Earth Rising - PC
53. Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX - Switch
54. Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith - PC
55. Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls - PS3
56. Silicon Zeroes - PC
57. Warcraft - PC
58. Serious Sam 3: BFE - PC
59. Wasteland 3 - PC
60. Iron Harvest - PC
61. Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile - PC
62, Homeworld Remastered - PC
63. Homeworld 2 Remastered - PC
64. Offworld Trading Company - PC
65. F-Zero - SNES
66. F-Zero X - N64
67. Gauntlet (2014) - PC
68. Gauntlet Legends - Arcade
69. Halo 3: ODST - PC
70. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - PS4
71. Star Wars Squadrons - PC
72. Serious Sam 4 - PC
73. The Bard's Tale - PC
74. The Bard's Tale II - PC
75. The Bard's Tale III - PC
Well, the original trilogy definitely ends on a high note. Bard's Tale III fixes basically everything that sucked about the second game while actually evolving the gameplay so that it feels much more like a sequel, rather than an expansion pack for masochists. You still have problems around the melee balance but you're given the tools to transition out of that anyway so it all works out.
This game starts with you finding out that certain side events in the first game have come back to haunt you; now the mad god Tarjan is on the loose and threatening reality. You start off in the wilderness outside a ruined Skara Brae. The city map has the same layout but a lot of it is blocked off due to the damage and everyone is gone, except for one quest giver. He first sends you to a starter dungeon; this again is used for new parties to level up (and finishing it cranks up your level to where it needs to be) but also completing it unlocks the main plot, as you've proven your mettle. With the ability to change one of your archmages into the new chronomancer class you can now travel to each of new areas one by one and finish the quests therein. This lets you collect relics of power that you'll need to take down Tarjan.
So this is where the game evolves; each of the areas you travel to has a theme and a story to it. The first is the forest land of Arboria and you need to finish the task that one of the local heroes never completed before dying so you can get the special items from their tomb. Another land is a frozen wasteland that had a spell cast to bring an eternal winter to kill off an invading horde. While each one is not terribly long this keeps it from feeling too stretched out. You go through a total of six worlds before you are ready for the final dungeon. They are all very well crafted, and the maps pull back on the challenge mode stuff of the second game. They also do a lot more instances of smaller maps that might have more floors so as to keep you from getting map fatigue.
On the character advancement end the aforementioned chronomancer replaces the spell list of your archmage. They do the most raw damage but they lack in the utility spells for exploration, so don't convert all your mages. Also, in the third world you can buy the best nuke spell in the game, so you shouldn't feel like it is necessary to convert more than one mage. On the physical end the game does have a fair number of ways for your characters to do instant death attacks, whether through their natural abilities or weapons, but since they can only hit a single enemy at a time it ends up still seeing them fall behind. You still definitely want a rogue (due to their ability to melee attack distant rows by hiding over and over and instant kill them) and a bard for the utility. Your other melee characters can either be kept (a hunter with a ranged weapon is good for sniping bosses) or converted to the geomancer, which loses the special abilities of the base class (resistance, critical hit, bard songs) but gains the ability to use all caster gear and gains spells. These are more on the utility end; you get a series of spells that automatically mark important things on your entire map (or fill in the walls of the entire map, but not the stairs and other such markers), and you get a handful of damage spells. But since you convert so late you won't get a lot of spell points, so save them for utility.
Overall the game has a good difficulty curve to it; you start with a bard song that lets you run from every combat so you are free to decide when and what you fight (even bosses can be run from, but you still have to do them for their key items). As mentioned adding in the various stories makes the world feel more fleshed out and stands apart from its contemporaries, which stuck with the one overriding "kill the big bad" goal without much else going on. This game serves as a worthy conclusion to the original trilogy and is well worth playing.
51. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - Switch
52. Star Control Origins: Earth Rising - PC
53. Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX - Switch
54. Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith - PC
55. Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls - PS3
56. Silicon Zeroes - PC
57. Warcraft - PC
58. Serious Sam 3: BFE - PC
59. Wasteland 3 - PC
60. Iron Harvest - PC
61. Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile - PC
62, Homeworld Remastered - PC
63. Homeworld 2 Remastered - PC
64. Offworld Trading Company - PC
65. F-Zero - SNES
66. F-Zero X - N64
67. Gauntlet (2014) - PC
68. Gauntlet Legends - Arcade
69. Halo 3: ODST - PC
70. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - PS4
71. Star Wars Squadrons - PC
72. Serious Sam 4 - PC
73. The Bard's Tale - PC
74. The Bard's Tale II - PC
75. The Bard's Tale III - PC
Well, the original trilogy definitely ends on a high note. Bard's Tale III fixes basically everything that sucked about the second game while actually evolving the gameplay so that it feels much more like a sequel, rather than an expansion pack for masochists. You still have problems around the melee balance but you're given the tools to transition out of that anyway so it all works out.
This game starts with you finding out that certain side events in the first game have come back to haunt you; now the mad god Tarjan is on the loose and threatening reality. You start off in the wilderness outside a ruined Skara Brae. The city map has the same layout but a lot of it is blocked off due to the damage and everyone is gone, except for one quest giver. He first sends you to a starter dungeon; this again is used for new parties to level up (and finishing it cranks up your level to where it needs to be) but also completing it unlocks the main plot, as you've proven your mettle. With the ability to change one of your archmages into the new chronomancer class you can now travel to each of new areas one by one and finish the quests therein. This lets you collect relics of power that you'll need to take down Tarjan.
So this is where the game evolves; each of the areas you travel to has a theme and a story to it. The first is the forest land of Arboria and you need to finish the task that one of the local heroes never completed before dying so you can get the special items from their tomb. Another land is a frozen wasteland that had a spell cast to bring an eternal winter to kill off an invading horde. While each one is not terribly long this keeps it from feeling too stretched out. You go through a total of six worlds before you are ready for the final dungeon. They are all very well crafted, and the maps pull back on the challenge mode stuff of the second game. They also do a lot more instances of smaller maps that might have more floors so as to keep you from getting map fatigue.
On the character advancement end the aforementioned chronomancer replaces the spell list of your archmage. They do the most raw damage but they lack in the utility spells for exploration, so don't convert all your mages. Also, in the third world you can buy the best nuke spell in the game, so you shouldn't feel like it is necessary to convert more than one mage. On the physical end the game does have a fair number of ways for your characters to do instant death attacks, whether through their natural abilities or weapons, but since they can only hit a single enemy at a time it ends up still seeing them fall behind. You still definitely want a rogue (due to their ability to melee attack distant rows by hiding over and over and instant kill them) and a bard for the utility. Your other melee characters can either be kept (a hunter with a ranged weapon is good for sniping bosses) or converted to the geomancer, which loses the special abilities of the base class (resistance, critical hit, bard songs) but gains the ability to use all caster gear and gains spells. These are more on the utility end; you get a series of spells that automatically mark important things on your entire map (or fill in the walls of the entire map, but not the stairs and other such markers), and you get a handful of damage spells. But since you convert so late you won't get a lot of spell points, so save them for utility.
Overall the game has a good difficulty curve to it; you start with a bard song that lets you run from every combat so you are free to decide when and what you fight (even bosses can be run from, but you still have to do them for their key items). As mentioned adding in the various stories makes the world feel more fleshed out and stands apart from its contemporaries, which stuck with the one overriding "kill the big bad" goal without much else going on. This game serves as a worthy conclusion to the original trilogy and is well worth playing.
Re: Games Beaten 2020
Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2020 3:27 pm
56. Ys Eternal (PC)
Ys Eternal, a Windows 95 compatible PC game released exclusively in Japan by Falcom in 1998, is one of the many, many variants of Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished (simply known as Ys). As to where this one fits in, here's a brief history lesson. The initial version of Ys, for the PC-88, was released in Japan in 1987. It was then heavily ported to a variety of consoles and computers: three such ports made their way to the States, the Sega Master System game being the most notable. In 1989, Ys was enhanced and bundled with its (very similar) sequel to create the masterpiece Ys Book I & II for the TurboGrafx CD. The subsequent Saturn versions of the games (which are available on more generalized Falcom compilations) appear to be modeled after the TurboGrafx game(s).
In the late 1990s, Falcom began shifting production away from game consoles and retro Japanese computers to focus on development for Windows machines exclusively. Alongside Vantage Master, Sorcerian Forever, and Brandish 4 came Ys Eternal: not a straight port, or "enhanced" port, but a full-fledged remake of Ys boasting some new environments, high-resolution graphics, additional art and animation, and remixed music. The Ys Eternal packaging is exquisite. It was sold in a "big box" (a really big one) complete with a gorgeous 100+ page hardcover instruction manual plus three bonus discs containing a full audio CD soundtrack, MIDI files, artwork, and even sheet music! Unsurprisingly, Ys Eternal was soon followed by Ys II Eternal. Though they've both fallen into obscurity, what's critically important about the Eternal releases is that they served as a template for all future "Book I and/or II" style games, whether they be for the PC, PlayStation 2, DS, PSP, or mobile devices. To put it another way, anyone playing the 2013 release of Ys I & II Chronicles+ is playing ports of Ys Eternal and Ys II Eternal, which are themselves remakes of the PC-88 games Ys and Ys II.
Moving on to the actual contents of the game, Ys Eternal is an old-school action-RPG with a compact world (three towns, three dungeons, and an overworld) and thus a relatively brief runtime. Comparisons to Zelda are obvious, though this one's roots can be traced back to older ARPGs like Hydlide and Falcom's own Dragon Slayer. The (mostly silent) protagonist is one Adol Christin, a redheaded young man with a terminal case of wanderlust. The story is rather vague. After washing ashore in a port town and awakening after a bout of unconsciousness, Adol finds himself in a land plagued by monsters. A fortune teller asks him to retrieve the titular "Books of Ys" which may divulge some secrets regarding ancient prophecies. Meanwhile, there are some smaller local matters for Adol to attend to, like the retrieval of a lost harmonica. Similar to games like A Link to the Past, there's a delightfully cryptic "mythological" background to all the events of Ys, which is something greatly expanded upon in subsequent series installments.
As far as the aforementioned "additional content" goes, it's been integrated smoothly into Ys Eternal and the core Ys experience remains intact. In the earliest versions of Ys, Adol essentially materializes into the town of Minea as the game begins. Later ports (like Ys Book I & II) state that Adol arrived by sea, but Ys Eternal is the first to feature the additional port of Barbado, as well as its many loquacious inhabitants. The grassy overworld has also been greatly enlarged and expanded. Rather than serving as a simple "connector" between the towns of Minea and Zeptik, it sprawls in various directions, with newfound nooks and crannies to explore. There are some "bonus" items to snag as well, like a scrap of paper that turns out to contain a poem which can be read if presented to a certain young lady.
The gameplay has been streamlined and refined, but is still vintage Ys. The big "gimmick" here is that there's no attack button; instead Adol attacks enemies automatically when he "bumps" into them. This was actually a common design element among retro Japanese ARPGs, though most of those went unlocalized which makes Ys stand out to Western gamers in this regard. Compared to its ancestors, this iteration of Ys showcases sleeker, smoother combat. It's easier to "aim" and thus hit enemies off-center, which is more likely to cause damage to them without harming Adol. There's an additional dash function available, activated by double-tapping a directional button. This boost of speed isn't tremendously helpful in dungeons but absolutely mandatory when facing some of the game's later bosses. Bosses are imbued with the same attributes that defined them in the earlier Ys variants: they're massive and ferocious, and the game's "save (mostly) anywhere" feature becomes an absolute lifesaver as deaths and reloads are inevitable. These are undeniably flawed skirmishes. Success against the earliest bosses is entirely level dependent. An underpowered Adol stands no chance, while an overpowered Adol will roll right over a boss, whereas a "perfectly leveled" Adol faces and appropriate challenge. Later bosses, once the level cap (of 10!) is reached are uniformly difficult. Dozens of attempts made against a single late-game boss is not unheard of, as players must learn to guide Adol along expertly-timed shmup-like paths of precision to inflict damage without also absorbing a greater amount. Interestingly, while the game is rich with various monsters, all "normal" enemies attack in what is essentially the same fashion. That is, they attempt "bumps" of their own, and vary in terms of offensive power, defensive power, and speed. Players have options in regards to how they wish to control Adol. Sort of. A controller is recommended and essentially required, as the keyboard and mouse controls are flaky and quite lacking in the accuracy department.
The game's structure remains intriguing as Ys Eternal dungeons cannot be cleared in a single trip. In the first two (the palace and mines) Adol must retrieve key items (and people) from the depths, return to the surface, and later begin spelunking once again. The final dungeon, Darm Tower, literally consumes 50% of the game, a point of contention for many. Even here, Adol must bounce up and down between floors, though a net vertical progression is ultimately required. The towns themselves are pleasant. Minea serves as the "hub" of the game with its bar and various item shops, while Zeptik is used to flesh out the game's lore, and Barbado is the fun and quirky bonus area. NPCs are numerous, and all speak Japanese. As far as the language barrier is concerned, anyone who has played Ys previously should be able to get through Eternal just fine, and Ys I walkthroughs are typically interchangeable (with the exception of those written for the Famicom, SMS, and X68000). As is common among older Japanese RPGs, item names are written in English, as are many of the menus, so shopping, equipping, saving, loading, and so on is an absolute breeze.
Visuals reach the pinnacle of 2D graphical design, straddling that line between late 16-bit and early 32-bit pixel art (think Terranigma, Magic Knight Rayearth, and so on). This remake adds a smattering of new graphical effects: Adol's sword is visible for a brief moment when he attacks, enemies "explode" dramatically, and various wild animals scuttle about the outdoor landscapes. Large character stills are displayed when speaking to key NPCs. These are stunning, and there is of course a special focus on the beautiful blue-haired anime gals. One specific issue with the visual presentation: the game is very dark. All versions of Ys feature a small circle of light around Adol as he explores the mines, but Ys Eternal takes it a step further with a "torchlight" effect in all dungeons, where the environments are granted an obscured hazy look. It's arguably "realistic" but becomes eye-straining after some time. Ys is world-renowned for its soundtrack. The Eternal arrangements are solid, with a somewhat larger emphasis on "real instrument" sounds (check out the graceful guitar strums in the Zeptik theme), though the TurboGrafx sound track of course remains the "definitive" one. There's no voice acting in the game, which is just fine, really.
Ys Eternal is a fantastic reimagining of a game that was already exemplary in its original form. But to end on an anticlimactic note: there's no reason to play this. Ys Eternal specifically, that is. It's very rare, very expensive, in Japanese, and Windows 95 compatibility means it doesn't run properly on modern computers. Ys I & II Chronicles+ is just a click away via Steam and GOG.com, and should be more than enough to satiate the needs of the modern retro ARPG player. As it stands today, Ys Eternal is a marvelous collector's item, but not practical for everyday gaming. Still, anyone who's interested in the best that the retro RPG scene has to offer needs to experience Ys in some format or another. Bump!