A community blog by TheTallGuyGamer

_{[Here's a heartwarming story about growing up with video games from Destructoid reader TheTallGuyGamer. Sibling rivalries, lifelong friendships, and becoming a parent, all with unforgettable ties to gaming. -Jordan]}

It's December, ??1988, and I am about to fall in love. Its name is Nintendo Entertainment System. I call it NES for short. We were introduced by my older?? brother.

It's...*cough, hack*...ugh, sorry, I had some Dr. Manhattan stuck in my throat. Where do I even begin? The vast majority of good memories throughout my life are tied to gaming in some way. My earliest memories are of playing Super Mario Bros. with my older brother. I was only four years old when we got our first NES, so being five years my elder, he was naturally better. I remember once we sat down to start two-play?er mode and he was of course Mario, because he would just punch me otherwise. He beat the entire game without dying... The game then refreshed to show my? tiny Luigi waiting at the beginning of World 1-1. Even my four-year-old brain was smart enough to say "Nah...maybe later," and I just turned the game off.

Fast forward at least a year (or maybe two, it's hard to keep track at this point), my mom has hidden Faxanadu and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the bottom drawer of her dresser. They're supposed to be for Christmas, but my brother quic??kly discovers these (not sure what he was actually looking for) and apparently we MUST play them now. Hey, I was only the little brother, what do you want from me? I was a sheep!

The funniest part is my dad, one of the smartest men I've ever known, paid so little attention to the games we played he actually walked in on us playing them and was none the wiser. We still don't let him live that one down. Of course my older sister ratted us out, AFTER she played with us, so we didn't exactly get away with it. Can I also take a moment to shout out Faxanadu? How awesome was tha?t game? Can we get a re-release please?

Fast forward several years, my best friend and I rent Final Fantasy II (That's JP 4 if you're keeping track) for the Super NES. My god! We were enthralled! And guess what? I'm still enthralled! I still play it almost yearly and I've even got a pixel art of Cecil and Kain hanging in my office that he got me for a wedding present. It's not the "best" Final Fantasy, but it sure is my favorite. In no small part because of the memories I have with my friend. He's still my best friend after 30 years. I don't get to see him as much as I want to but I'll always be the Cecil to hi?s Kain if he needs me. Don't judge, of course I'm the main hero in my own story!

The years fly by and Zelda, Final Fantasy, DOOM, Mario, and countless others have new or first-time entries as we move into the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 era. Two special places are reserved in my brain for Mario Kart 64 and GoldenEye 007. Countless hours were poured into these games by my brother, our friends, and I. Amazingly all of this was usually done on a 13-inch TV split four ways. When my parents would leave the house and we could go out to the living room, we'd hook up to the 21-in?ch TV. Ah...screen real estate nirvana! These games also led to lots of arguing, fits, a??nd some extreme laughter that I thought for sure would be the death of at least one of us (you know who you are!).

In more recent years, it's been all about PlayStation for me. The Last of Us and the latest God of War being my favorites. Maybe it's because I'm a father now, but these games with dynamic well-characterized parent/child relationships move something inside of me. I honestly don't remember if I cried or not during the finale of the first TLOU, but I'll bet damn good money I had a lump in my throat ??at least. I may not be Kratos or J?oel, but if pushed to it, I would kill for my child. I can relate to these men.

I remember s?hortly after my daughter was born, one of the only ways I could get her to stay down for a few hours so my wife could get some much-needed sleep was to lay her on a pillow across my lap while I sat on the couch. ?I was essentially held hostage for at least three hours. What was I going to do? That's right! PlayStation!

I'm sure you can see a pattern, most of these memories aren't even really about the game. They're about who I? was with, where I was at in my life, or who/what were important in my life at the time. I??t's like when people associate a certain smell or sound to a particular memory in their life. That's what video games are to me. I play a game now, and I'm transported back to that time, with my friend(s), with my daughter, with my brother...

There are so many games and memories that I didn't mention. I could write all night and not get to t?hem all so I'll just wrap it up. Not all of these games st??and the test of time, but the memories, like a fine wine, only getter better with age. The fantastic difference is I can drink them as much as I want, and they'll never run out.

_{[Image credit: Moby Games, Wikipedia]}

The post All your memory are belong to us… appeared first on Destructoid.

A community blog by NinjaSpeed

_{[Destructoid reader Ninjaspeed opens up about the very relatable struggle to find time and persistent passion for video games as we grow older and other priorities take center stage in our lives. -Jordan]}

Do you remember the feeling of playing a new game an?d getting absolut??ely hooked to your latest gaming discovery? I've struggled to experience that blissful feeling for a while this year. Don't get me wrong; there are plenty of quality games available. Nonetheless, I'm starting to reconsider what I'm looking for in games at this point in my life.

Over the last few years, I've had a lot of fun discovering series I'd never played before. The rollercoaster ride of meeting new characters, intriguing storytelling, and compelling gameplay mechanics is what gami??ng is all about to me. I've also played and had fun with my fair share of open world and third-person action games.

At this moment in?? my life, I've completed my post-secondary education and I'm in that awkward place of trying to figure out my future amidst a crippled economy, an unclear path for my career, and a global pandemic. Add to that, increased costs of practically everything has led me to beco?me selective when it comes to buying games.

There was a point in time when I was planning to quit gaming by 30 years old. I thought I wouldn't have the time or money to continue gaming without squeezing the pastime into a tight schedule and budget like so many adult gamers. My interest in gaming was waning at the time, so that played a part in my considerations as we??ll.

Eventually, I realized that gaming is more important to me than I thought and I wasn't willing to let it go just yet. The issue is that I'm at a point of flux in between different phases of my life and I'm tryin??g to figure out where gaming fits in.

The idea of a life working at a regular 9 to 5 job seems so unappealing to me. I'm really not interested in that rinse-and-repeat lifestyle for decades ?on end until I (hopefully) reach retirement. It honestly scares me that I'll look back at my life and think that I wasted it. Life is p?recious and fleeting. With an unclear future ahead of me, I don't know what's next but I do know the same-old-same-old won't cut it.

Likewise, I still enjoy large open world games, but I'm looking around for something a bit different and I know I'm not alone. This year alone, I've purchased a puzzle game (Puyo Puyo Tetris 2), a rhythm action game (Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memories), a roguelike (Hades), and a free-to-play social game (Sky: Children of the Light). I'm searc??hing out older games I've never played as well.

A lot of the experimentation and unique ideas that stood out in the past have largely been replaced by the current tried-and-true game genres in the AAA market. The industry seems to be focused on bigg??er and more visually impressive games, which isn't a? problem in and of itself. I'm just not looking for a ton of those experiences now.

Popular game genres of past generations such as Metroidvanias (Metroid Dread), beat 'em ups (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge), arcade racers (Cruis'n' Blast), and mini-games (WarioWare: Get It Together!) seem to be making a comeback, thanks to indie studios and companies like Nintendo. With an ever-growing backlog and lengthy games looming over me, these smaller, distinctive titles a??re just what I need.

Due to multiple game delays as a result of the pandemic, many highly-anticipated games have moved to 2022. While that has left a bit of a void for a lot? of gamers in 2021, this has allowed us to tackle our ever-growing backlog, give som?e smaller games our attention, or just save our money for next year.

The focus on massive cinematic experiences from AAA studios seems unsustainable as the holiday season looks bare for some publishers. I hope risk-taking and unique titles start cropping up more from these AAA studios as well as Nintendo and the indie developers. They fill in the gaps for the long development cycles of the bigger titles and allow everyone to experience something wholly unique ranging from games like Spiritfarer to Splatoon.

The beautiful art style of Kena: Bridge of Spirits, the intriguing concept of 12 Minutes, and the pure cuteness of Stray capture my imagination like the earliest days of my childhood playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game. As I age out of my 20??s *shudders*, I want to spend the dwindling time and disposable income of my adult life on exciting experiences that keep my passion for gaming alive. Just like life itself, I hope there are still plenty of surprises and great moments yet to come.

The post The trials of post-graduation gaming appeared first on Destructoid.

A community blog by ChronoLynxx

_{[As part of our call for heartwarming gaming stories from the community, Destructoid user ChronoLynxx takes us back to the days of bonding with his brother over Tekken 3. Ironically, some of the most violent games bring about peace between siblings, and we're glad that was the case here. -Noelle]}

This won't be the most heartwarming story you ever see here, but it certainly warms my heart thinking back on it. Growing up, I never really got along with my siblings. I was the youngest of four (two older brothers and one older siste??r) and because of that, I was constantly picked on. I had to toughen up quick as we would often get into verbal and sometimes physical altercations. I won't go into detail here, bu??t things got kinda crazy here and there.

After all the fights and hurtful things said, it was video games that ultimately brought me closer to my two older brothers. We shared plenty of moments of split-screen multiplayer madness in GoldenEye 007, passing of the controller after one of us died in Super Mario Bros. 3, and having a blast playing beat 'em ups like Streets of Rage and Double Dragon together. Sometimes we'd brag over petty thoughts of who was better at whichever game, but more of??ten than not, we si??mply enjoyed the experience together as brothers.

_{[Image Source: Fraxial]}

My favorite memory of this would be playing Tekken 3 with my oldest brother.

I was in Jr. High at the time and he was fresh out of High School. He'd destroy me over and over again as at that time, the PlayStation was in his room and I had very limited playtime on it. He was good with almost every fighter on the roster but King was his main. He knew all the wrestling combos King had in his arsenal and he'd simply ragdoll me almost ?every time. Still, he'd challenge me again and again and I would never say no to a challenge from my brother. I was best with Bryan and Hwoarang but was still no match for him.

Then he got a job working with my dad at a moving company. I took this as an opportunity to get better. After school and sometimes on the weekends, he'd be bu?sy working. So I figured out how to sneak i??nto his locked room and practice while he was away.

I practiced with a number of characters but got really good using Bryan, Hwoarang, Jin, Heihachi, Lei??, and Paul. I learned what combos I could, but mostly just got good at learning most of the moves and learning when to best use them. Timing was key and I practiced my ass off to make sure I could keep him at bay so he couldn't use those wrestling combos with King on me. I acted like I wasn't in the mood to play for weeks so I could get in as much practice as possible. Then came time to challenge him.

He was being his usual cocky self but was happy to answer my challenge. We started the game up and picked our fighters. Of course he started with King, so I started with Bryan. I did what I set out to do. I kept him at distance and with Bryan being the much b??etter striker, I picked up the victory pretty easily. He was surprised, said it wouldn't happen in the 2nd round and it didn't. I still beat him, but it was a much closer match. Of course he wanted a rematch and I gave him plenty of them with both of us switching between characters. I'd say we were pretty even with him winning some and me winning some.

After so ma?ny brutal beatdowns, I could finally keep up.

It was a great time for both of us and my brother was shocked but also realized that I had been practicing. Afterwards, he didn't say the words but he looked at me like a proud brother would and smiled. It was the fir??st time he ever really acknowledged me in a positive way and coming from the broken home that we did, that honestly meant the world to me. I'm happy to report that we share a much stronger bond these days, and even though we're halfway across the country from each other now, we keep in contact often and catch up on all the crazy that life brings our ways.

The post Brothers bonding through gaming appeared first on Destructoid.

A community blog by Exber

_{[Destructoid user Exber tells the story of when, where, and how Persona 4 ended up becoming one of their most cherished games. It's a personal story, one that really resonates. -Jordan]}

There hasn’t been a game I have mentioned more than Persona 4, if I am honest. I talked about it twice as a student for some presentations, first in 2012 and then in 2015, and by that time, I had thought I wouldn’t be using the game to convey any kind of message anymore. I was wrong. Game Informer had these blog writing challenges where the subjects at hand were the perfect excuse to talk about my favorite game of all time for the third, fourth time without getting me or my readers bored due to the lack of innovation. I was wrong yet again. Persona 4 has this p??recise amount of information that when pl??aying one can know its writing, pacing, and narrative are top-notch, hence giving myriad debates after playing it. Character study, social critique, you name it.

Fun fact: when I first played it in 2008 I didn’t know any of this, I just? enjoyed the game to my heart’s content. So, why did it became my ?favorite and remained so after all of the games I have played since? Let’s go back to the Midnight Channel one more time.

2007: My First RPG

If by 2006 I got to play Ocarina of Time and saw the potential of gaming and how much fun I had with the medium, it was only a matter of time before I started to venture into new genres as I only used to play horror, racing, and action-adventure games. Come 2007 and I got a PS2 ready to fulfill that, with my brothers helping me along the way. While most of the recommendations didn’t click with me, there was one that also didn’t but at the same time had me curious. Why is this RPG not based on some medieval times? What’s with this orchestrated music? This looks like anime but it just doesn’t feel like it. And with that, Persona 3 had me hooked by watching my brother play the game and later qu?itting.

My curiosity led me to try it for myself having no idea whatsoever as to how RPGs work or if I would be able to fully understand the language as I was a 13-year-old native Spanish speaker with no English course behind me, only what I have learned with Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil 2, and my dictionar??y. Guess what? I loved the game.

It took me a long while to get used to this genre and how the Persona series since Persona 3 handles and mixes social simulation within it. Once I finished it, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to play the sequel as I thought the PS3 would be the ideal console to release it, until I watched the trailer for Persona 4 with a release date of December 8 for the PS2. Getting a new exclusive game for a last-ge??n console? So soon? With lots o??f quality of life improvements upon its predecessor? I was hyped.

2008: Izanagi!

It was December 8 and there I was at the local video game store, sad due to the game not getting shipped until December 12. However, as it was a Saturday, it was the perfect excuse to play late. My family was actually ??curious as to why I was so hyped and though ?they didn’t actually understand the game, my happiness was all they needed to see to confirm and be relieved of the purchase. The time was winter vacation so it was game time for me, and yet, I couldn’t finish the game by the end of the year, but during the first days of 2009.

Compared to my experience with Persona 3, Persona 4 was a breeze in many regards and a better experience, to be exact. The feeling of humbleness the game shows within its Inaba setting caught my interest since the trailer, as I have always been a country boy at heart. The character struggles and their boss fights felt personal, parti?cularly those of Yosuke, Kanji, and Teddy. And finally, the antagonist’s motives had a lot to do with the game’s narrative and how the mystery evolves the more you play it. I got to notice that during my first playthrough and so I decided to play another time on hard and to experience the game yet again trying to do more things within my time limit. Needless to say, I enjoyed it just as much and before I knew it, Izanagi was my phone’s wallpaper, Reach out to the Truth was my ringtone, and so on and so forth.

By that time replaying a game was something I used to do with many games but it was only to beat those in hard and get unlockables. With Persona 4, however, playing it again cemented it as something more of a gaming experience. It was a decisive factor in my future life: to study English education. To understand a story-driven game of 70 to 80 hours duration with no previous studied knowledge of the English language? If this game taught me something, it's to pursue one’s true self, and that was precisely what I wanted to do: lea??rn more English and make a living out of it.

2011: Persona 4 The Animation

Anime has never been my thing really, but I made an exception with this for two reasons. First, my girlfriend by that time loved anime and didn’t have a PS2 to play Persona 4 as she was interested after listening to me talk about it all the time,? so I decided to watch it with her. And second, to see if my memory still remembere??d that narrative and also, to see how it translates to anime. All of the above was a complete success. She loved it as well and we both confirmed that my relationship with this game was out of this world.

2012: Introducing Shoji Meguro To My Class

As expected, English I started with a bang: to give a presentation about a famous person to evaluate one’s speaking in fr??ont of a group of strangers to convey meaning. I talked about him knowing none in the classroom even knew what a video game composer was, but those claps at the end were worth it. Had I, perhaps, used my favorite game of all time to get a grade in college? Yes, I had.

2015: Selling The Game At An English Course

I had been giving another presentation, this time a longer one to talk about anything but with the purpose of getting the audience interested in what I was talking about. Video games were the subject to talk about right away as my classmates wouldn’t accept otherwise. They wanted to see my speaking freely into what has gotten me into English in the first place, and I delivered. Though Persona 4 was not brought to the conversation until the last minutes, the previous explanations I had given about gaming and its side effect, both positive and negative over us, got ?them interested and when I showed them my favorite game, many questions were asked such as: Why is the trailer so action-filled when your preview was that of a murder story and waifu dating sim?

A??nd to that I answered: Because the game is full of surprises and twists, and you have a life within it, which for someone with depression like me, is a breath not only of fresh air, but of everything. Then again, claps were heard and their support for me toward gaming hasn’t diminished since.

2020: My 3^rd Playthrough Of The Original PS2 Game

I wanted to get a PS Vita so bad last year to play Persona 4 Golden due to all the hype for the game getting released on Steam, but truth was, I couldn’t afford the handheld at the time. However, I still had my PS2 and my copy of the game so I decided to play once again during winter vacations, just like when it first released. 12 years later, I was more versed in gaming so I was ready to pi?npoint every detai?l to see if had aged well, to look for its flaws and whatnot.

That playthough reconfirmed why Persona 4 stands out above all the games I have played, albeit what faults might hinder the experience especially for those coming from Persona 5. For one, comparing a 2017 game with a 2008 one is out of the question, at least for me. To play games in the order they are released is one thing not many people can do due to not owning certain consoles, but there is one thing every gamer can do: to enjoy a game for what it is as long as the fun factor prevails throughout. Even though this is a game that can’t be recommended to everyone due to how long it is, its pacing and narrative are sublime. The combat system is a step in the right direction, as are some unique additions and the social aspect of the game. The thing here wasn’t only to correct where Persona 3 might have gone wrong, but to make thi??s one distinctive despite having the number four on it, and distinctive it was.

Being completely honest, it’s the humbleness the game offers the player that hooks me in every time. High school days are something forever engraved into our memories no matter how good or bad they were, so the setting is easily recognizable, and the character study based on their lives in a rural town resonates with that human factor we often tend to forget. Sure, gay themes aren’t taboo anymore in many countries, as well as social pressure and many of the subjects present within this game, but what about the rest of the world? For a video game, a medium often ignored by many, Persona 4 knows how ?to speak to the players without wanting to have a big impression but rather, a lasting one. Such has been m?y case.

As a gay man with depression and anxiety, to play a video game which tackles these situations with an open heart was what I needed back in 2008 to better trust myself and later, to better understand my feelings in many regards. And not only that, as the gameplay quickly reminds you, you are playing a video game to have fun, and fun is guaranteed. This balance of making the players reflect upon themselves while having a blast and laughing is what makes this my favorite game of all time. Granted, some other aspects sure helped but that is for another blog, a review of Persona 4 Golden where I’ll be comparing both?? versions as they both offer a unique experience.

2021: Persona 4 Golden Has Been Played

When this game came out back in 2012 I was happy yet a little worried this version would damage what the original one had already established with flying colors. Wrong again. While Chie’s original voice actress is certainly missed, the improvements upon an already well-thought formula not only make this one the definitive version, but one that is better enjoyed if the other was played first. By this time I was already fresh on the story I hadn’t forgotten even after all these years, and some dialogues I still remember clearly, so I was intrigued as to how the new scenes, interactions, and expanded story would work. I am satisfied. The voice actors remembered their characters very well thus continuing to deliver that Persona 4 experience I love so much??. It is amazing how a game delivered so much in its first release and then threw it out of the window on its rerelease.

I would lik??e to conclude ??by saying that no matter what game may be your all-time favorite, the reasons behind that are yours and yours alone. If you like that game so darn much, then those developers did a good job doing what they love: to bring fun and a lot more to the players.

Thanks for Reading.

The post Persona 4 and how a game be??comes an all-time favorite appeared first on Destructoid.

A community blog by GoofierBrute

_{[Destructoid user GoofierBrute takes us on a trip down Puyo Puyo lane with a retrospective on Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. Beat it, Eggman, I have a soft spot for "Robotnik" and his cornball metal-plated goons. -Jordan]}

Welcome back to Games That Time Forgot, where we take a look at games that are often forgotten and lost to time. The cold hard truth about video games is that a video game is a product that is created to make money first. Sometimes in order to do that, some things may need to be added to a game, removed or altered to appeal to a certain market, or in some cases reworked to be part of something completely different. While the former happens on some level even today, the latter is almost non-existent. In fact it's so rare, that you'll be forgiven if you can't name many instances off the top of your head. Of course, there's the obvious Doki Doki Panic getting turned into the US version of Super Mario Bros. 2, but there's also the infamous Crazy Castle series, which was reskinned multiple times across different regions, or even the Legacy Editions of the Fifa games if you want to be really scummy. However, none of them stick out to me as much as the game we're talking about today: Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine for the Sega Genesis.

Yes, the game we're talking about today was in fact a reskin of another game. In this case a reskining of Compile's Puyo Puyo game, which was turned into a Sonic spinoff in the hope of making more money overseas, which isn't even the only time this has happened by the way. And I use the term spinoff loosely because despite it being about Sonic's archnemesis, Sonic doesn't show up at all in Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, making it one of the few Sonic spinoffs where the blue blur is nowhere to be found. Hell, it's not even based on the version of Doctor Robotnik found in the games, but rather the version found in the cartoon The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Yeah, Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is probably one of the oddest games I've covered so far on Games That Time Forgot, if for no other reason than it seems like a whole lot of trouble to get a puzzle game series onto a Sega platform, a series that since developed its own audience and is now huge in its own right. But just because a game may seem odd or unnecessary, doesn't mean that it in fact is odd or unnecessary, nor does it mean that it doesn't have any value or is not worth playing today. And finding out if these old obscure games are worth looking at is the whole point of this series, so let's take a look at Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine.

What is Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine?

Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine �or Doctor Robotnik and His Mean Bean Machine as it was known in European regions outside of the UK �was released on November 26, 1993 in North America for the Genesis and December 1993 for the Game Gear, with Europe getting the console version in November 1993, and the Game Gear version coming out in January of 1994; Europe also got it for the Sega Master System July 26, 1994. It was never released in Japan on either the Mega Drive or Game Gear, though they did get a PC port of it in 2000. It's a westernized version of the Mega Drive port of the first game in the Puyo series.....Puyo Puyo. Developed by Compile and published by Sega, Sega were worried that the game's cute art style wouldn't be popular in the West, so they pulled a Doki Doki and changed the characters to be more Sonic related, specifically from the cartoon The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. And honestly, for the life of me, I just can't figure out why they did that. Not the westernizing of Puyo, on some level I get that, but why base th??is on a cartoon that not only wasn't out at the time of development (though it did premiere on September 6, 1993), bu??t was also based on a cartoon that had next to nothing to do with Sonic?

Seriously, when the show was first made, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog had only the first two games to work with, and Sega of America had made up most of the backstory to Sonic since Sega of Japan didn't really give them anything to work with. So they made the show more of a slapstick comedy show where Sonic took out his foes with? traps and wacky disguises. Not only that, but with the exception of three robots (Coconuts, Grounder, and Scratch) and Robotnik himself, all of the characters in this game only showed up in the first episode. And it was in a flashback, where Sonic took them out. I guess it was some sort of corporate synergy thing, but it still feels really weird, especially if the cartoon didn't do all that well.

Speaking of weird, I can't really talk about Mean Bean Machine without talking about the original game it's based on. Puyo Puyo was initially released in 1991 for the MSX2, developed by Compile, and later ported to the Mega Drive and was released in arcades. While I'm sure most hardcore Puyo Puyo fans know this, but Puyo Puyo is a spinoff (reboot?) of a series of dungeon crawlers released in the late '80s called Madō Monogatari, also developed by Compile, which is a series of games that used mostly magic instead of physical attacks and had a lot of voice acting and was a bit serious in its initial release. To cover Monogatari and a lot of the lore behind it is a story for another time (read: never), but I just wanted to mention it here briefly just to highlight how weird it's gotten to come to this point when it comes to Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. We have a game, based on a TV show, that is loosely based on a video game, whi?ch itself is a reskin of a puzzle game that itself is a spinoff of a dungeon crawler.

Everyone got that? Good, let'??s see how the g??ame is.

How does it play?

So confession time here. I'm not the biggest Puyo Puyo player in the world. I don't hate it, and I can play it well enough, but I honestly prefer Tetris for my puzzle fix, or Panel de Pon/Tetris Attack if I want my intense multiplayer puzzle game. And if we play Puyo Puyo/Tetris, I'm going with the latter.....and I'm promptly getting my ass handed to me. I'm saying this because this look at Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine comes from someone who is at most a casual fan and or observer of the series, though ironically, this and Kirby's Avalanche are what first introduced me to the concept of Puyo Puyo. And from that perspective, it's actually pretty good, ?if a little generic.

If you've played Puyo Puyo, then you've played Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, but for those of you who haven't here's how it goes. In short, you have pairs of blobs, or beans in this case, that fall down the screen. As you drop them, you can make them disappear by connecting four or more, which then sends garbage blobs, or robo beans in the case of this game, which then flood your opponent's screen, with the first having the middle left portion of the screen filled being the loser; for those wondering why that is, it's because that's where they're spawned, so covering up that one causes you to lose the game. All of this is simple to understand, but what makes the gameplay work is the strategy behind it, specifically how you clear beans. Sure, it's easy to just go for the first four beans of the same color (which is what I did when I first played), but to really succeed in Mean Bean Machine (and I guess Puyo Puyo in general), you need to move away from the simple four-bean clear and plan ahead, instead setting up the beans to create multiple chains, which is when you clear out some beans which causes some o??ther beans to fall into place and disappear; think of it like dominoes falling over. And that's where the brilliance and challenge comes into play, as while it can be incredibly frustrating to have your perfect chain blocked at the last minute, it's equally just as fun to get that same chain and launch a bunch of junk on your opponent's screen. Again, while this gameplay isn't my cup of tea, I can see why it's gotten as popular as it has.

Overall, Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is a pretty good game......but that's only because it's a reskinned version of Puyo Puyo, which itself is actually a good game. And while that may have been fine back in the early '90s, but looking back on it now, there was no point in changing this. Like I said earlier, all of the characters that you fight against in this game are characters that show up in The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and even then only four of them showed up consistently. Which again begs the question: why change the Puyo Puyo characters? Sure it may have gotten some sales, but was it really worth it ??when the reskin added nothing to the game? The characters don't change anything from the gameplay perspective, most of the music is reused from the original, and there's very few unique modes or backgrounds. There is a story of Doctor Robotnik taking the citizens of Beanville and turni?ng them into robots to end music and fun forever, but there's nothing here that sets it apart.

I know it feels weird that I've been spending so much time talking about the presentation, but it's only because it feels completely redundant. There really wasn't a need to reskin the game, as it feels like the Puyo Puyo cast would have been fine and no one would have batted an eye. And I know that feels obvious to say now, but even when I first played this, I was genuinely wondering who most of these characters were because I have vague memories about the show they were in despite me watching it as a kid. I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that if you're going to commit to something like this, at least go all-in with it. Remix some themes from the show, throw Sonic in there for good measure, do something. At least when Nintendo changed Doki Doki Panic to Super Mario Bros. 2, they added some Mario elements to make it feel like it belonged in the series. Even Kirby's Avalanche, a reskin of the Super Famicom version of Puyo Puyo, put in more of an effort to feel like a Kirby game (though not that much).

I want to emphasize that Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is a good puzzle game. It has a nice challenge and the controls feel nice. But the inclusion of Doctor Robotnik from the Sonic cartoon that is known more for YouTube Poops than being an actual goo?d cartoon does make it irrelevant and harder to recommend in this day and age. But how did everyone else feel about it?

The impact and why it was forgotten

Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine was overall pretty well received by critics, both at the time and in recent reviews, with CVG and GamePro giving the game a 90 percent and a 5/5 stars rating, respectively. Critics praised the gameplay, though were less than thrilled with its difficulty, as well as the lack of any real modes outside of some single-player offerings and its two-player mode. The Game Gear version was better received surprisingly, thanks to its inclusion of a puzzle mode. As for its influence, outside of a reference to it in Sonic Mania (the boss fight in Chemical Plant Zone), it was never really talked about all that much afterward, though Sega did surprisingly love to rerelease the game on various Sonic and Genesis/Mega Drive collections, which is actually how I first played it. The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog lasted for one season and was canceled to focus on the show called Sonic SatAM by fans, which was considered the superior show, though the Adventures show lives on thanks to the previously mentioned YouTube Poops and shitposting. And as for Puyo Puyo? While there was an arcade release in North America, the series mostly stayed in Japan as a Sega console exclusive, with Sega even buying the IP in 1998, and was developed by Compile until they sadly went bankrupt in 2001, with Sonic Team developing them from then on. The series was initially called Puyo Pop outside of Japan, and while it may not be as popular sales-wise as say something like Tetris, it still has a strong, dedicated fanbase that loves the games (though it might have been doing better if Sega decided to relea??se more?? of the games outside of Japan).

As for why I feel Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine was forgotten, that answer is simple: it became redundant. Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is a fine game in and of itself, and there's nothing wrong with playing it, but if you really wanted to experience that kind of gameplay, you can easily play any of the Puyo Puyo games. Yes, most of them are in Japanese, but considering puzzle games are usually the easiest games to understand language-wise (outside of maybe platformers), you wouldn't be missing much if you played it solely in Japanese. And even if you needed to read the directions, there are fan patches and translations that can help you with that. There's even an arcade version of Puyo Puyo that was released around the same time, and while most fans hate how it was translated in the West, it's still the original gameplay. Hell, you can ignore all of that and just play Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 or Puyo Puyo Championship if you wanted to, or whatever the next Puyo Puyo game is in the future.

The point I'm making here is that there really isn't a point in playing Mean Bean Machine right now when there are plenty of other options to play today. Most puzzle game franchises don't really change the formula too much, instead either adding new modes or gameplay options that will either became series mainstays or just get dropped when the next game comes around. For example, the original Tetris on Game Boy gets fondly remembered because of its Soviet Union origins and the fact that it came as a pack-in game for the Game Boy, but outside of a couple of games like Tetris DS and that one Tetris game with Mickey Mouse characters I remember renting once as a kid, I personally couldn't name many Tetris games, and I consider myself a huge fan of the series. The newest game always replace??s the older one in the case of puzzle games, and while there can be merit to going back to older games, more often than not it's just easier to stick with the newest game in a puzzle series.

That's not to say that there's no merit to Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. I'm sure for a lot of people, this was the first introduction to the Puyo Puyo gameplay, which is awesome. But nostalgia can only take games like this so far before people move on �see Mario Kart and Call of Duty, for example. It also doesn't help that the game uses the characters from a show that itself has been mostly forgotten by time. Yes, Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog only had two games to work with at the time, but it still seems weird that one would base a game's aesthetic around a show that itself was ultimately lost to time. It would have been a lot easier to release the game with the Puyo Puyo characters that you have (obviously change some things like getting rid of the zombie characters and the like), and it would have been fine. Which is funny, because as I said earlier, they did that with the arcade version, which came out around the same time as Mean Bean Machine. And while it wasn't all that well-recei?ved or did that well sales-wise, it still showe??d that it was possible to bring these characters overseas.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter how Mean Bean Machine looks, so long as the gameplay is solid, which it is. But it does make me wonder how things could have been if they didn't try to market this as part of the Sonic universe.

Is it worth playing now? And does it deserve better?

There's no harm in playing Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, but the better? question I would ask is why would you want to?

Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine isn't a bad game, but there really isn't anything in this game that makes it worth checking out right now. While I do think that it would have been a bit better if they didn't try to sell it as a Sonic spinoff, at the same time, I don't know if the world was entirely ready for a Puyo Puyo game. It's still a fine game, but much like other early games, Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine wouldn't be my first recommendation to get you into Puyo Puyo. Still, there's no real harm in playing if you're curi??ous.

I'll be honest though guys: this was an incredibly boring game to research and analyze. Hopefully the next game I look at will be something a little more interesting, and while I won't reveal it here, I will let you know that it is something Sonic-related.

The post Games That Time Forgot: Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine appeared first on Destructoid.

A community blog by humantofu

_{[Destructoid reader humantofu touches on a topic I've been thinking a lot about lately: CRT gaming. Namely, how much I miss it! Well, certain aspects, anyway. I can't spare the room for these big lugs. �Jordan]}

If you grew up in a pre-2010s household, then chances were good that at a certain point i??n time, there was a blocky, hulking behemoth of a TV that was resting snuggly in the middle of your family’s living room. The CRT was at times an absolute bastard of a television set, to put it nicely. Not only did some of the larger models take up a ton of space, but some entertainment centers made it an absolute pain in the ass to have multiple consoles plugged in at once. Having to worm your way around to the back of some set just to swap out a console’s A/V cables was never ideal, nor was it any fun for that matter to help carry a TV up a flight of stairs with how much some of them weighed.

This became less of a problem over time though thanks to the growing popularity of flat panel TVs, and with how much lighter and more abundant they were becoming around the 2010s, it didn't make sense not to pick one up. Given the HDMI-only transition that was taking place at the time and how much more affordable flat panels were becoming, it was hard not to be tempted by the allure of those HD displays. The deciding factor that pushed my family into getting one was the moment when Ol' Reliable died out and refused to turn back on sometime around 2012-2013, which basically marked the day that my family made the?? transition to flat panel displays and never looked ba??ck.

Or at least, that's how it went until I picked up a small TV/DVD combo? off the Facebook marketplace a few weeks ago.

It probably didn’t make sense to get one after bringing up some of the gripes I had with them in the past, and of course I had all the tim?e in the world to get one ages ago, so why get started now?

Well, a lot of that has to do with my small but growing collection of old game consoles, and the increasing frustration that comes with trying to make them look good on modern displays. You could plug them in directly into the TV, you could upgrade to S-Video or Component cables, you could buy those cheap Hyperkin/Pound Technologies HDMI cables, or you could ev?en spend hundreds and get all the upscalers you want, but I personally ran into the same problem time after time, and after a while I just basically reached my breaki??ng point.

Every time I looked at those old games, I mostly walked away with the same feeling that I had when I fi?rst connected my PS2 into a 720p Samsung monitor all those years ago. That feeling of disappointment followed quickly by thoughts of, "Man, no matter what the image quality here still looks kinda terrible."

Yakuza 1 (PS2) played on the GBS Control. Upscaling 480i via Component to 1080p IIRC, captured via the Avermedia Live Gamer Ultra.   

That probably came off as a massive slight to the makers of those products, but if there's one thing I want to do it's to not come off as dismissive towards upscalers. The teams behind devices like the OSSC, GBS Control, and Retrotink line of products are definitely doing god's work right now, making these old consoles compatible with modern displays and capture cards while also doing their best to clean up the image �better than how most TVs would process the image, at least. They do what they're supposed to and do it well, all the while barely taking up any space and without needing any internal console mods to do so. When your CR?T dies out or you find out your new TV only accepts HDMI inputs, you'll be happy to have one of these upscalers lying around.

It's just tough to not be disappointed when you eventually come to the realization that most of your retro gaming collection will probably never look "great" no matter what you do, or at least look?? as nice as you probably remembered them looking. Emulation exists and it's still a fine solution but dumping ISOs of games you own and playing them on the PC, it just doesn't really feel the same comp??ared to messing around with real hardware.

Thankfully, this is where CRTs come into the picture. The best solutions are sometimes the most obvious, and the best way to get a good image from your old consoles is to get a display made from around the same time when they were still sold on store shelves. While I was originally worried about having to settle for a bulky one and figuring out where I could even make space for it in my tiny apartment, I managed to track down a 13" TV/DVD combo set on the Facebook Marketplace. It unfortun??ately only supports Composite inputs, but it's the price you pay to get a CRT that fits on your desk, I suppose.

Having composite-only input isn't the kiss of death you might expect from a CRT though. You could probably do better than me, but I found that it didn't really matter once I started gaming a??nd was treated to a night-and-day difference from upscaling on my 1440p monitor. The colors popped and the image was super bright; I had practically forgotten what it'd been like to game on these after not being anywhere near one for practically a decade. This wasn't a highly sought-after brand TV like a Sony Trinitron ei??ther, it was just a small set that came from some no-name Canadian company called Electrohome. Ever heard of them before? Me neither.

It's really something that needs to be re-experienced in person, as trying to take a photo of a CRT is a pain and requires a bit of messing around and probably isn't the best representation of what you could expect. Still, tracking down a CRT was well worth the effort. The image was certainly softer than an HD display, but it did more justice for these old games, with jaggies being smoothed over better, text, HUD, and pre-rendered elements appearing with less low-compression artifacts, and the flickering that comes with 480i content, while still present, is far less irritating here than it is with certain deinterlacing techniques on upscalers. Plus it supports light gun games, which makes revisiting House of the Dead and Virtua Cop on Sega Saturn an absolute treat.

It ain't just retro games that look far better on a CRT �movies and TV shows of course get the same treatment. That $2 DVD of Serial Experiments Lain that you found in a thrift shop is of course gonna loo??k better on a CRT than it ever will on a 4K display. The built-in DVD player on my unit was k??????????????????????????inda borked, but thankfully it's nothing that couldn't be solved by watching it on my PS2.

Comparison: Lain captures taken via the Retrotink 2X Pro (with the scanline filter enabled), the GBS Control, and a rough picture of Lain on a CRT with the built-in DVD player.

Regrettably though, it's just a shame that CRTs are likely no lon??ger long for this world. Most thrift stores in my neck of the woods refuse to stock them anymore, with most of the larger ones being sent to the local junk depot.

The only way you can really find one nowadays is if you check your local classifieds on places like Craigslist or the Facebook Marketplace. Some will gladly give them up for free, but unfortunately the retro g??ame craze drew the price up for some of them, with certain sellers really overestimating their worth. And that's not even taking into account the fact that some of the free 30"-plus-sized models will probably need a crack team of two people and a massive pickup truck ??just to move them around.

Still, while they probably aren't what? most people will want in their household and while most people will realistically do just fine with a modern upscaler, I think it's still worth re-experiencing the magic of a CRT while you still can. It's like taking a time machine back to a simpler time, only now you get to experience it with a massive game and anime backl??og that you probably didn't have back then.

If you want to relive this magic though, you better act fast and get as much enjoyment from these CRTs as you still can. They aren't making any more, and it's just a matter of time befo??re even the most expensive PVM dies out on you. Before you know it, CRTs may well? be unavailable even online, and your opportunity to reown one will be long gone.

The post Long live the CRT appeared first on Destructoid.

A community blog by Flegma

_{[Destructoid reader Flegma is here to talk about the navigation tools developers give players in video games. They aren’t trying to tell folks what works best, they just want to take the time to highlight an aspect of the medium that often gets overlooked. I think that’s pretty dang rad. �Kevin]}

I've been orienteering a few times this spring. The control points are in the forest for one ??week, I can buy a copy of the map with the control points' locations, and with that, I can go find them when ??I want (within that week) at my own pace. The next week the points are moved to a different place and the map is different as well. This left me thinking about directions, locations, and maps in games.

I admit I haven't played many open-world games, let alone recent ones, so I might be talkin??g about something that has been a reality for you for years now.

In the games I have played, mapping and placing yourself there has been mostly an automatic process. I see a minimap in the corner of the ?screen, properly oriented to show where the north is, which way I'm facing, and a point where I am on the map. Even when my character is lost, I know where they are on the minimap. It's also pretty common to have an arrow pointing directly where I'm supposed to be going.

How many of us use compass orientations when telling where something? somewhat nearby is? ??In real life, I mean.

One of the things I remember from the reviews of Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (Troika Games/Sierra, 2001) wa?s that the locations of buildings in there were given as street addresses. It wasn't "third house from the north end", but something like Steamvent S??treet 59 (very unlikely to be an address in that game). That this was made a point in a review was eye-opening. In many text adventures, your movement commands are compass directions �or just one-letter abbreviations of them.

[I didn't feel like playing all the way to a village, but looks like we got compass directions here too. Well, this game looks like a flat plane anyway, so "down" doesn't really mean anything.]

In a sense, when NPCs tell the player directions as compass orientations, they may be addressing the player rather than the pla??yer character. To be honest, though, I do not know how people ??gave directions to others in the Middle Ages.

Although, I remember the frustration when I had to find a specific tomb in an area of Vvardenfell in The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind (Bethesda/Ubisoft, 2002). (If you wonder why I mentioned Ubisoft there, they were the publisher in Europe.) The instructions I was given, if I remember correctly, used environmental cues like "over ??the hill." In none of the playthroughs of that game did I ever find that tomb easily. And, when the goal is t??o find a needle in a Gaur Plains-sized haystack... I think I can understand the benefit of having pins on the map telling where to go when you're in a bit of a hurry.

But, if you're not? Having the game refer to the world and have the player navigate by using the set pieces as route markers would, I believe, bring the world more to the forefront. ??These don't even need to be massive set pieces -- say, a boulder with carved runes.

This is not to say there haven't been interesting ??implementations of maps in games. Here are a few that I know of.

Miasmata (IonFX, 2012) sounded like an interesting concept, enough for me to look forward to buying it, but I never ended up truly playing it. The survival aspect put me off too much, and today I cannot see the text in the menu options. However, that game had the player actually triangulate landmarks to update their maps. Plus, as something more "realistic," if the player is running down a pile of rocks, they may stumble and fall, and even drop what they were carrying. Of course, if you're stumbling down a pile of rocks, you're likely already running for your life and cannot stay back to collect what you just dropped. (Eurogamer review.)

[Miasmata, very soon after the start of the game. You really, really don't want to be lost in the forest when the sun has set.]

You thought I wouldn't mention the Etrian Odyssey series (Atlus/NIS America/Deep Silver, 2006-2018), did you? Well, you draw your map in it, but I believe you still see where you are on the map, even when you're outside it? I'm not sure if FOEs always move on predetermined routes, but I'm imagining getting lost, running my team into a dead end, and then FOE blo??cking the only ?exit.

I'm not a fan of prefilled quest markers. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo, 2017) allowed me to mark goals on the world map (and in the world), but did that still make it too easy to fin?d the way to those shrines and whatnot when I began moving in the?? marks' direction?

In terms of games I haven't played -- Control (Remedy/505 Games, 2019) was called out for having a bad map. But... that may have been intentional. In an interview in Helsingin Sanomat (2??7.8.2019), the director of the game, Mikael Kasurinen, says (as translated by me):

Getting lost can be fun. In earlier games our goal has been that the player?? has to always know what's happeni?ng, where they're going and why. In one sense this is a good approach, but it reduces the suspense from the experience.

Later, he says:

I think it's fun to go on a walk in a new town: I go where I want to, I may get lost and that's OK. ?And this way I may find the most interesting things of them all.

The article also states that the player has to read signs, check the map, and find the right route themselves. The article's author even suggests that the director might want the player to get lost in the Oldest Building.

I don't like shooters, so I don't think I'll be playing that game, but I can see Kasurinen's point. Going back to Morrowind, I remember checking the road signs when I was walking from Balmora to Caldera. Lat?er, I installed a mod that added road signs with custom textures for each sign in the game, so the player didn't need to use the "tooltip" to see what the sign said. In this sense, having the path signposted isn't a bad thing. While I don't believe games like Control with a third-person camera are particularly immersive, pulling out a map on top of the screen doesn't help, and I'd rather read the signs present in the building than a map that unerringly tells me where I am, wherever I am.

In orienteering, choosing which pat??h to take is important. Whether to go through the bog, follow the easy-to-traverse path, go around the hill rather than over it. In a similar fashion, it's important to choose a path that doesn't cross the Territorial Rotbart, even if the shortest path to the minimap icon would take you right in front of them.

[Should've turned left at Albuquerque.]

Of course, then you have games like Dead Space (EA Redwood Shores/EA, 2008), where you're shown the full route where to go next. To be fair, I've seen t?he easy courses in orienteering that have a clear line going from one control point to another, like Ariadne's red thread Theseus used in the maze to find his way back. Those just aren't the courses I'd take.

Finally, which ga?mes do you k??now where you can actually get truly lost?

Zork: Grand Inquisitor (Activision, 1997) and its infinite co?rridor do not ??count.

The post Putting yourself on the map: Finding your way through video game?? worlds appeared first on Destructoid.

A community blog by NinjaSpeed

_{[Destructoid reader NinjaSpeed has been thinking about what could (and should) be next for superhero games, and I'd play any of these what-ifs. Especially a Streets of Rage 4-style X-Men game. - Jordan]}

We live in an amazing era for superheroes. The Avengers, Black Panther, Wonder Woman, and the like have transcended into cinematic phenomenons. At this point, film studios are diggi??ng deep into the wells of comic books with characters like Shang-Chi and the Eternals. On the flip side, video games seem to have left this market largely untapped outside of a consistent focus on mostly Spider-Man and Batman.

With the increased popularity of superheroes and their mythology, it's surprising that the gaming industry hasn't taken more advantage of this in the current landscape. In recent years, we have seen the conclusion of the excellent Batman: Arkham trilogy, the beginning of the popular Marvel's Spider-Man games, plus the return of the beloved Marvel Ultimate Alliance series.

There's a few upcoming Marvel and DC games with middling levels of excitement surrounding them. I'm going to keep an open mind?? about them, but I'm hoping to see some more hype-inducing reveals ??sooner than later.

So how come we aren't seeing more at the moment? As we know, video games take a long time and a lot of money to develop. It's not feasible to expect huge open world games for every major superhero.

The bes?t solution, in my opinion, is to work with different studios to provide a variety of experiences from story-driven AAA titles to smaller experimental titles. This would cut down on the wait time for new games. I also doubt we'd be seeing any superhero fatigue if all the games have a unique art style and eye-catching gameplay.

Marvel and DC have so many characters at their disposal who could be applied to different genres in the same way as the movies. We've seen popular superhero RPGs (X-Men Legends, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance), fighting games (Marvel vs. Capcom, Injustice), and co-op titles (Lego Batman, Lego Marvel) in the past. That's just the tip ??of the iceberg!

The Fantastic Four are practically made for four-player co-op. Likewise, Blade would fit perfectly in a stylish action game. The potential for Ant-Man is huge (no pun intended) from a Metroidvania set inside an anthill similar to the SteamWorld Dig titles to exploring a large outdoor environment as a tiny character like Pikmin.

I would buy a comedic fourth-wall-breaking Ace Attorney-inspired She-Hulk title without a doubt. The beat 'em up genre would be a nostalgic way of bringing the X-Men back into their own video games, following in the footsteps of Streets of Rage 4 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge. I can only imagine how psychedelic a po?tential Doctor Strange game could get.

One game I can imagine vividly is a Black Panther game that explores the vast forests and locales of Wakanda. The player should feel the pressure of being both a king and a superhero with player choice options that affect how your citizens feel about T'Challa. A politically-charged story in the same vein as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt would be brilliant to experience.

Square Enix attempted a live service approach to the Avengers and it didn't stick the landing (to say the least). I hope future superhero games make an effort to engage players in more exciting risks like the? rum??ored XCOM Marvel game. So far, Marvel Games have done a great job reaching out to different developers and publishers from Telltale Games to Team Ninja.

Over at DC, WB Games Montréal and Rocksteady Studios are focused on bringing DC Comics IP to video games. Let's hope that the rumored Superman gam??e is not only real, but also ??figures out how to adapt the character into a game that's fun to play.

The marketing tagline for Batman: Arkham Knight was "Be The Batman." I'm so glad I've experienced games that have made me feel like Batman and Spider-Man. I also want to feel like Black Widow, for example, and a bunch?? of other heroes. Let's cross our fingers (or snap them if you're wearing ??the Infinity Gauntlet) that we'll get the chance in the near future.

The post What’s the future of superhero games? appeared first on Destructoid.

A community blog by Kerrik52

_{[Destructoid reader Kerrik52 writes about the ways in which games have used lore to varying degrees of success. A fascinating topic that spans some of my �and many of your �favorite games. Dig in. -Jordan]}

A little while back, I wrote a bit ?about how differen??t games use crafting systems. So with the 10-year anniversary of Dark Souls inching ever closer, I thought it prudent to do the same for lore. I can't say I've seen much discourse on th??e subject, so hopefully I'll be able to write something novel or interesting. Maybe even?? both!

As before, let's start with defining what the hell we'r?e talking about here. Urban Dictionary (the most reputable of sources, I know) def??ines it as "The collective history and the sum of all knowledge available about a certain fantasy or sci-fi universe," which sounds about right for our purposes.

Expanding on that, I'd say it's any piece of story in a game not touched on by the main plot. So if you have a character that's on??ly around for a scene or two to serve a direct purpose (dying, exposition, boss fight), then their backstory presented in a log two hours later is lore. It's extra information available to give the setting more texture and prove that the character has a place in the world beyond their role in the plot.

With the two flavours of story (plot and lore) being separate, a game can naturally do one better than the other. A game can have the main story be really engaging but have terrible lore notes (like No One Lives Forever) or the plot can be as flat a dinner table and have all the good bits in the menu and loading screens (hello there, Dark Souls). There? are probably games out there that do both well, but none come to mind at the moment.

Just as with crafting systems, I don't find it interesting to merely single? out good and bad uses of lore. Instead, I'm gonna group together various approaches to lore and let that carry the discussion. But?? enough preamble, let's get talky!

Lore In The Manual

For a long time, putting a majority of a game's plot in the manual was the only way to go due to memo??ry limitations. But instead of focusing on deca??des worth of games that put most (if not all) of the story in the manual, I wanna talk about games that put extra details in the manual when they didn't need to.

I'm thinkin?g mainly of fifth an??d sixth-gen games here, as that's when devs got enough freedom to put a decent amount of words in their games, but before they turned their back on manuals entirely. So what ended up in the manual back then wasn't vital information to understanding the plot, but instead nifty extra information that would be difficult to slot into the game without it being awkward.

Looking over some manuals I have, it's most common to have a few paragraphs of worldbuilding that lead directly into the plot pl??us some character profiles explaining some interesting (but superfluous) details. Though even under such restrictions, some games still manage to have fun with it.

Muppet Monster Adventure frames the character bios of the bosses as in-character monologues directed towards the protagonist Robin. And for Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, the manual is styled after the titular book with the whole thing being framed as a dialogue between Sly and ?Bentley, giving you a taste of their interactions before playing.

I haven't done a deep-dive into the greatest manuals ever made, so if any special ones come to mind, be sure to tell me about them. I've heard that PC game manuals are the stuff of legend. But I wanna at least highlight the stuff that ended up in the manuals of Kojima's games. I've seen tutorial comics, timelines, and even a reference glossary. I'm pretty sure you won't even know what the title of Zone of the Enders means unless you check out the manual?? for details on?? what the hell an Ender is.

I'm of two minds on this. Manuals are rad and certainly more interesting than in-game codex entries and summaries of previous games, especially when there's some good art on display. Not to mention that putti?ng stuff there can help with a game's pacing, since the devs can assume you already read the manual. But I c??an't help but think that my perspective is heavily clouded by nostalgia here.

It's more efficient to have everything related to the game in the game (otherwise you can end up in the Taro-hole with its canon stageplays or the many CD dramas Japan is so fond of), ?especially since manuals can be lost. I've often been disappointed when opening up second-hand game cases only to find a mere disc, never to know what fun tidbits the manual had.

I think the way to go to make everyone happy is to standardize digital manuals or at least put in more extra content in games. Tell me that Hollow Knight wouldn't be better if there was a Zote comic in the main menu, or that it wouldn't be neat if you could unlock the lore bible XSEED used to maintain consistency when translating the Trails games after you beat Trails of Cold Steel. I'd be interested in seeing anything that'd help me engage with the worl?d of?? the game better.

I suppose?? what I'm arguing for here is "that extra touch" over better storytelling, but I'd say stuff like that would make games easier to connect with, which technically does make a story better, if only subjectively.

Lore As A Direct Reward

Depending on who you ask, any extra lore can be considered a reward, but I'm singling out Arkham Asylum specifically here due to the sheer amount of extraneous effort that went into the lore pages and inter??view tapes in the game.

While the tapes are arguably main story material that exists to give you a better understanding of the game's six active villains, the biographies of the rest of them i?s very much not. With Batman'?s storied (Read: convoluted) history, getting to grips with his rogue's gallery is a herculean effort.

So I was surprised to find out that I enjoyed reading the biographies of all of these D-liste??rs. You get a nice illustration, some basic information like their first appearance in comics, their backstory, and their relationship with Batman. They really managed to distill decades of history into the most engaging bits without necessitating an extensive wiki dive. That's probably why the series is so successful overall.

Now, this approach probably wouldn't fly for most games, as without a strong and diverse setting that people either have an interest in before playing or some really stellar worldbuilding, putting lore as the reward for a challenge could very easily backfire. Arkham Asylum does give out exp?? in anticipation of people who don't care about the lore, but even that might? not be enough to motivate a player if the setting is boring enough.

Lore As Flavour

This is incredibl??y subjective, but I have a pair of games here where the lore didn't resonate with me as writing. Instead, it feels better to describe it as a ton?e-setter.

The first game is Bastion, which is drenched in lore for each area you explore courtesy of the game's famous narrator. But since everything in the game is told through his narration, I found it difficult to connect with the plot, especiall?y when he narrates where one would expect normal dialogue instead. That's obviousl??y intentional and does lend the whole game this unique feel of degradation, isolation, and otherworldy-ness.

The other game that I think fits into this category is Thief: The Dark Project, which opens each mission intro cutscene with a religious passage or ancient letter from one of the game's factions. The text is often kinda difficult to map to the cu??rrent mission and can easily be disregarded as fluff (even though there is some meaning and foreshadowing to be parsed from it).

But even taken as simple fluff, these quotes do an excelle??nt job of making the setting feel grander than quaint presentation would suggest. Like there's this giant disaster looming over The City, which very much the case.

There's an argument to be had about style over substance (especially when intended substance gets interpreted as style), but I'm of the opinion that if there's enough groundwork there, then a game is free to prattle on up its own ass as much as it wants to. I think Thief succeeds over Bastion in this regard because the main character Garret? gives you a good leg to stand in with the setting, whereas the Kid and the narrator in Bastion are diff?icult to connect to.

Lore As A Monster Guide

To my recollection, not many games put a lot of effort into their monster lists, and even fewe??r manage to add something interesting to make them worth perusing. With a lot of monsters being designed as obstacles first and little thought being given to their ecology. What you usually get is a qu?ick blurb about what they eat or how they attack.

Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando has a Monsterpedia,? which does include some mildly entertaining descriptions and worldbuilding. But it's not as good as I remember it being, so I finally understand why it didn't make it to the next game.

A game that's really good about its monster guide is Devil May Cry. In that game, not only do you get lore about the monsters, you get specific combat tips that fill out as you get hit by rare attacks or manage to exploit a weakness. So if you accidentally get a critical hit, you can then check the relevant file for a description of what just happened. I find this to be ?an excellent way of helping the player master the game's enemies without being overbearing.

There's a lot of potential in this department, as the monsters you spend a whole game fighting would serve the game better by being more interesting to learn about. While it's hard to make the ecology of your monsters interesting (especially if they don't really make sense to begin with), I think a neat shortcut would be to have a ch??aracter i??n the game describe them for you.

That way, it'd be easier to write, as you don't need to think up perfect descriptions and you can use it as an opportunity to develop the character in question, highlighting what they like and dislike about the various monsters. Now that I think about it, Eternal Darkness did this to great effect in one chapter by having a character perform autopsies on defeated monsters. The Suffering did something similar and The Darkness 2 had a character prattle on about various magical artifacts y?ou collect in an entertaining fashion, so there are devs out there with the right idea.

Lore As Gameplay

Here's a fun (if sadly rare) way of using lore. By connecting it to the gameplay, you incentivize the character to care about it, which can lead to greater appreciation for the story. It can also backfire like in Ziggurat, where the lore gives yo??u exp (or a whole level with a specific perk card), but is so disconnected from the game that I didn't care about it at all aside from its gameplay benefits.

There are ways of making it work, like in Alpha Protocol where you can collect information about various people and organizations. For the most part it's just extra info, but if you collect enough, you can easily get the upper?? hand in a conversation, which feels great, since information is usually pretty expen?sive to acquire.

Then you?? have the whole immersive sim genre, which is built on the ability to steal passwords and passcodes from various notes and emails in order to more easily progress. You can usually hack your way through these problems, but if your skills are not up to task, stealing information is a fun alternative.

Implementing information into gameplay is difficult, but it has seen some success. If I were to pick out a place where it could be really great, it'd be in western RPGs. Some of them do let you skip steps or try alternate quest paths by collecting information, but from what I know, it's never a standardized mechanic outside of Alpha Protocol. So if more western RPGs were to allow for be?tter sleuthing, I think the genre would be?? a bit more exciting.

Lore Dumps As A Cost-Saving Measure

Here we are in the realm of main story stuff again, but depending on where you draw the line, it can still be considered lore. I'm mostly thinking of the aggressive lore dumps in the Metal Gear series, but there are some other examples that I can think ??of as well.

Metal Gear is infamous for its lengthy cutscenes and a lot of that is due to the sheer amount of detail Kojima wants to shove down your throat. Having access to that information is nice and there is a cert?ain charm to letting go of your controller to listen to a gigantic speech about destiny, genes, and nanomachines cut to still images or minimal animation.

But in many scenes, it becomes apparent that the characters serve as mediums for whatever Kojima read about that week instead of having the inform??ation contex??tualize the characters. It's a fine line between what accentuates the plot and what's just military trivia. Restraint is important.

Then you have games like Resident Evil and Onimusha, with very straightforward plots that feature some inexplicable bullshit, be it monsters or strange ??environments. In order to make the journey more believable, there are a ton of documents to discover, which hastily address current or upcoming things.

It can feel a little bit weak to lean on text so much, though I like it when Trails games cut to the newspaper after huge events occur. But it's a case-by-case thing, as sometimes you can just feel the budget drop with the arrival of a plot/lore dump (like in Xenogears). Other times, like in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, it feels perfectly natural to scour the leve??ls for side stories on the way to the next main plot point.

I think the key lesson here i??s to make sure that everything forcibly presented to the player flows properly so that even those only interested in a quick playthrough can keep up. Then you can add more materi?al to explain details for those that are truly interested.

Metal Gear started doing this with Peace Walker by making a bunch of conversation tapes optional but also non-missable, which I think was for the better. A shame about the follow-up, The Phantom Pain, not being able to have much of a main plot and instead having to rely on said tapes for its story. I think that game is a perfect example of how important it is to nai??l the ma??in plot before putting in extra side stories.

Lore As A Giant Tease

When making a setting, it'??s natural for certain past events to sound incredibly interesting when described. So much so that one would want a game exploring that part, even if it wouldn't really work as a game.

I'm mainly thinking of two franchises here, Devil May Cry and Castlevania. For Castlevania, there's the battle of 1999, which is when Dracula finally dies after getting resurrected 1267 times. To delegate such momentous occasion to the backstory of Aria of Sorrow is such a tease. Knowing modern Konami, I doubt th?ey could do it justice, but what few details we get makes it sound ??so damn cool.

Devil May Cry's tease of similar magnitude is what the hell happened to Dante's father Sparda. He was a demon who "woke up to justice," sealed away the demon world, and fell in love. Then he just went fucking poof. He is presumably dead, but nothing in the games says that's the case. It's so weird to have this intrinsic part of the mythology never come to light?.

Now, not cashing in on a promising idea may seem like a waste, but I totally get not wanting to risk it. If you s??crew it up, t??hen people are going to riot. If you simply leave it be, then people can use their imagination to fill in the blanks. That way, you save yourself both the effort and the associated risk.

You can look to the Metal Gear games starring Big Boss for an example on how this can play out. MGS3 is great, but even that brings about retcons that very much change the context of Big Boss compared to the legend you hear about in the previous game. ??It's a mixe?d bag that really shows the difficulties of writing backwards.

Lore As Fanservice

When you have a big franchise, a text document hidden somewhere is a very efficient way of giving closure to old characters or confirm that they haven't been forgotten and are still doing stuff. For example, there's a very minor character in Trails in the Sky 3rd Chapter named Leo who shows up as an author of a modern history book in a lat??er game, giving him a small, b??ut still evident place in the world after he goes off-screen.

I'm pretty sure that the Dead Space franchise takes things even further by putting references to characters from the series' impressive range of multi-media content in Dead Space 2 and 3. That's really neat, but to get something out of that, you'd need to be a super fan of the series, which I pers?onally found difficult. Both due to how inaccessible said media was to a European player getting into the ser??ies around when it died (where can I watch the animated movie and how can I play the iPhone game now?) and my perceived notion of said media's lesser quality.

Without the pizazz of a full game release, I find it difficult to care about the characters in something like Dead Space, especially when most if not all of them end up as monster food. The multi-media approach is valid, but it really needs to work with the setting and get the proper amount of care and money. Otherwise, you can very easily end up like Dead Space, where the multi-media content props up the expectations for the main games, thus making perceived?? sales failures more likely.

Anyway, back to the main point. As with all fanservice, moderation is key. It's best to only do it when it really matters or when you know people will flip when they see a reference to an old thing. Shouldn't be too hard to make that call, but you could end up making something like Dark Souls 3, which is built on a foundation of fanservice that has no place in a setting where things are meant to be lost to time. They still do some neat things with said fanservice, but I think I'll save that for a dedicated Dark Souls write-up closer to the anniversary.

Lore As Connective Tissue

For series with standalone games that are still in the same world, it's common for there to be some small sprinklings of lore to at least pretend that it's a cohesive narrative. Ys does it and I know I don't give a shit about it because it doesn't really matter outside of 1, 2, and Origin. Once you're past those, it's just a series of increasingly absurd amount of stories where Adol bumbles into being t??he chosen warrior of yet another lost civilization that might be vaguely connected to the last one.

Zelda is the big example here (though the Taroverse certainly counts as well, same with the Zestiria/Berseria connection), which comes with some baggage. Now, I'm not an expert on Zelda lore, so from my perspective, it seems like they tried making a cohesive timeline up until the ??N64 games, then gave up and promptly tried to throw something together later in order to sell the Hyrule Historia.

With th??e series taking place over a gigantic period of time, yet always retaining its core elements, it looks to me like it's not worth caring about how the games connect (barring direct sequels) and it's better to instead focus on how each game treats said core elements. Otherwise, you'll end up in the pit of despair where you care more about the series' overarching story than Nintendo ever did, forever hoping that they'll acknowledge your theories.

This approach is a valid, if lazy choice, since it communicates that you care about the wo?rld players have become invested in, if only a little bit. Being more detailed leads to a more impressive series, but that makes it both harder to make and pick up as it goes along, something I bet both Nintendo and Falcom are keenly aware of. They just wanna make adventurous games with a similar feel for as long as they can while making sure people can start playing whenever they want.

Lore As A Convoluted Nightmare

Of course, if you do value your writing over its accessibility, you can go Kingdom Hearts or fighting game route and just pile on lore until the series you're making becomes so incomprehensible that mo?st people just give up and focus on the gameplay.

Obviously, the story in fighting games isn't intended to engage the player in the same way as the story in other games, but some still try. Keyword being try, as shit gets dumb fast. I challenge anyone reading to explain to me the plot of BlazBlue without getting cross-eyed.

Kingdom Hearts is something I'm more familiar with and its issues can be traced back to the series' creative lead, one Tetsuy??a Nomura. This man is enamoured with keeping hi?s audience guessing and making sure just about every game has some surprises, even for the most dedicated fan.

The only way to do that is to expand the cosmology of the series and introduce more and more inane plot devices. I used to be u?p to the task of keeping up, but it's gotten to the point now, especially with the mobile game, where the work-to-enjoyment ratio is complete?ly off-the-walls.

Suffice to say, I do not care for this approach to lore. Fighting games get a ??bit of a pass, since they need to keep the characters in fighting shape across games. But for everything else, I just want to slap the keyboard away from the writer and force them to hire an editor.

Continuing with the Kingdom Hearts example, the series does have concrete elements that are appealing. It's mostly a bunch of teenage angst and cartoon shenanigans, but that's ok. The problem is the retconned bubble of bullshit it's encased in. It's the job of a writer to make the audience want to engage?? with the world they're connecting. The better the writer?, the more engaging the material, and the more of it you can justify.

But if you bite off more than you can?? chew and go for a grand tale you just cannot tell, sooner or later people are gonna look for something else to fill your niche.

Lore As A Challenge

All right, last category. And wouldn't you know it, this is where I finally get into Dark Souls. There are a lot of words out there that argue for and against the minimalist storytelling in these games. If we're being reductive, we can say that it's just cheaper to put most of the story in text. And from the other point of view, you can say?? that it's a way to help the player immerse themself in the world and challenge them to figure out what's going on, just like their character.

I like the approach, assuming the world is interesting and it's actually rewarding to learn about it. There are two layers at work here to make that happen. The first is what's explicitly written in the text. This is where you'll get most of your information and a bunch of basic information, which isn't terribly interesting in a lot of item descriptions. For example, ??the bosses that simply exist for a fight get enough of an explanation to make sense of, but they're not interesting beyond that. The Bell Gargoyles guard a bell, the Gaping Dragon likes to eat, and the Iron Golem runs on ground-up dragon bone.

You can get some interesting stuff straight from the descriptions (particularly in the DLC), but the real kicker comes in when you combine certain pieces of information and environmental details to draw conclusions. A?? lot of stuff about the world becomes a lot more interesting when you do this. Figuring out what happened to the gods of Anor Londo, Queelag's motivation, Griggs' identity, the true nature of Humanity and bonfires, what a Bottomless Box is, and where the first part of the DLC?? is feels awesome.

Stuff like that is great, but not as common as one would hope. I actually had difficulty thinking up good examples, since a lot of information is either straightforward ("Shi??t's bad in this way because this happened") or simply missing (which is by design to allow room for interpretation). I'm not surprised about thi??s, since it's difficult to present mysteries with satisfying conclusions constantly. And if they were more common, they probably wouldn't feel as special.

But it's important that they're there nonetheless, as they provide an incentive to engage with the setting. Souls-likes like Salt & Sanctuary and Remnant: From the Ashes only have one or two interesting conclusions to draw each as far as I know, which is probably why I found their worlds less engaging. It's a real tightr?ope to ma?ke a setting interesting while splitting up the story for the player to piece together.

Conclusions

I think I've made good use of my words to discuss why other people's words can make a game better. But as I hope I've p?roven, it's simply not a matter of writing well. You need to think of when and why to tell the player something and figure what needs to be force-fed and what is better ??left optional.

As with anything, lore is a tool, which can be used both creatively?? and destructively. One hopes the industry will put some more weight on the efforts of their writers, since when things click and the player gets a good world to learn about, they'll probably be fans for life. That obviously won't happen, but a man can dream.

The post The merits of lore in video games appeared first on Destructoid.

A community blog by The Blonde Bass

_{[Destructoid alumni The Blonde Bass returns with a brand new entry in the always-popular Destructoid Draws series, spotlighting the fine artistic abilities of our community. Another excellent gallery! Amazing work! - Moyse]}

Wow, I would totally buy this on a shirt!

Hot off the momentum of the last Destructoid Draws ei... Eight months ago? That can't be right, can it? Well, most video games out there are being delayed anyway, so why don't we... why don't we agr??ee this is a funny opener and just move on to the prompt. Sounds good?

This time around, members of the jbsgame.community were asked to draw a dream crossover of theirs. What does that mean, exactly? Well, I was looking for hypothetical video games that mix some of the favorite worlds and characters of my friends on here. More importantly, they can't already exist. To many, Super Smash Bros is a dream crossover... But for this prompt, we're going for ideas that haven't materialized j??ust ??yet!

Without further ado, let's get started!

Cactooze
Crossover: Street Fighter and Dragon Ball

"Both franchises came from the wellspring of creative life that was the late 80's/early 90's in Japan. Who wouldn't want to see Goku fight Ryu, Cammy vs. Android 16, Vega vs. Frieza? And ??what about the steamy match of Nappa vs. Zangief? We all win."

TurboKill
Crossover: Animal Crossing and Pokémon

"Pokémon has crossed over to many unexpected genres like strategy games and now a MOBA. Why not combine Pokémon with another beloved IP like Animal Crossing?

Gameplay could be a mash-up of Animal Crossing and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon (or perhaps Rune Factory).?? Develop your Poké Village, build and design a home built by an Eevee that is a stand-in for Tom Nook, and find many ways to earn zenny including explo?ring randomized dungeons.

The game would be a guaranteed hit!"

TriggerPigking
Crossover: Devil May Cry and Evil Dead

"This actually comes from an old drawing idea I had of Dante, Trevor, Ash and Doomslayer toget?her, the ultimate demon-killing team-up. I think Ash and Dante would get along best due to their goofy personalities!"

Shoggoth2588
Crossover: DC Comics and Marvel

"Infinite Alliance seemed like a good title given how often big DC and Marvel comics use the terms 'Infinite' and 'Crisis??' and how the big Marvel team-up games were 'Alliance'."

Flegma
Crossover: Earth Defense Force and Dynasty Warriors/Musou

"Earth Defense Force and Musou games are about large throngs of enemies. Setting an EDF game in the past could be interesting, and I don't know how close Zangeki no Reginleiv came to this."

The Whore of Babylon
Crossover: Metal Gear Rising and Bloodborne

"This hypothetical action game would serve as a canonical sequel to Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. The concep??t is that Raid?en is stripped of his cyborg augments and left to die in remote Europe.

Early MG/MGS titles have a pseudo open world that would blend well with the "Soulslike" level designs. In classic Metal Gear games, you acquire abilities that allow you into deeper parts of the map, but in this game, those abilities are Raiden reacquiring his cyborg augments. As the game progresses and Raiden's strength grows it shifts from stealth into all-out combat, with Revengeance's combat rebalanced with elements from Bloodborne-like firearms, "magic" (nanomachines!), etc.

This concept also solves one of Revengeance's biggest faults: its drab environments, by replacing them with evocative gothic/Lovecraftian a?rchitecture with a hint of future technology."

TheBlondeBass
Crossover: Yakuza and Scott Pilgrim

"This may seem like a greedy request. There's already a Scott Pilgrim video game, and it's already a brawler. But there is more to the Scott Pilgrim experience than just beating up people!

Open a random page from the comics and you're unlikely to land on an actual fight. There are people playing music, video games, chats between friends in bars, cafés, public parks... Racing through a Don Quijote-esque store, working part-time jobs, and going through some much-needed personal growth... At this point, I hope you see that a Canadian-themed Yakuza spinoff would totally fit! Replace the taxis by public transit, lower the stakes a little,? and you're al??ready there."

Inquisitive Raven
Crossover: The World Ends With You and Gravity Rush

"I thought it'd be interesting to combine the modern aesthetic of TWEWY with the faux-French classical look of Gravity Rush. Plus Kat in a jacket was too good to pass up! I tried translating as much of Kat's outfit as I could into something that'd make sense in a modern Shibuya. Arm rings became belts, high heels became combat boots, etc. Plus I snuck a little Arknights in there. It was a fun design to make!"

That's it for this edition of De?structoid Draws! Did this one get you thinking about some of your own dream crossovers? I'd love to see more pitches in the comments!

Want to check out the previous edition of Destructoid Draws??? Her??e are a few handy links!

• Guilty Gear
• Favorite Franchises
• Villains
• Original Mega Man robot masters
• Indie games
• White Whales
• Super Smash Bros.
• ENCORE: Guilty Gear

The post Destructoid Draws ENCORE: Dream Crossovers! appeared first on Destructoid.

A community blog by GoofierBrute

_{[Destructoid user GoofierBrute is here to remind us about the glory of Metroid Fusion now that a new 2D Metroid is happening this year and it's somehow Metroid Dread. I'm long overdue a replay of this GBA classic. -Jordan]}

Welcome back to Games That Time Forgot, where we look at games that have been forgotten by time. So how about this year's E3, eh? It's no secret that Nintendo absolutely dominated this year's E3, partially because everyone else was sorely lacking this year, but mostly because they genuinely brought some amazing games and news this year: Kazuya Mishima is coming to Smash, Breath of the Wild 2 looks amazing (though please let me play as Zelda this time Nintendo), and we're getting a new Advance Wars game done by WayForward (okay it's actually a remake of the first two games and not the superior Dual Strike, but I'll take what I ca??n), something that made me a real happy camper.

But easily the biggest and most pleasant surprise of their show wasn't a trailer for Bayonetta 3 or Metroid Prime 4, but rather a new 2D Metroid: the often whispered and rumored Metroid Dread. Hinted at, announced, and then mysteriously canceled numerous times, Dread has been the Holy Grail for the Metroid community, so to find out that it was not only happening and developed by MercurySteam (the same guys who gave us the excellent Samus Returns.....and the Castlevania Lords of Shadows games), but that it was also coming out this year was easily the highlight of the Direct and this year's E3. Hell, I would argue that even if the rest of the industry brought its A-game this year, Nintendo still would have won based solely on Metroid Dread alone.

So with all that hype around Dread, let's today talk about Dread's prequel, Metroid Fusion.

I know the easiest thing to look at would be some of the less popular and more reviled entries like Other M and Federation Force, and while I have things to say about those games, Fusion is the game we'll be discussing today for many reasons. Besides it being the most recent game chronologically in the Metroid timeline (yes there is a Metroid timeline) and also being the last original 2D Metroid released in almost 20 years (God I'm old), it's been largely ignored by many people despite getting widespread acclaim and was even in development for fans who were unsure about the new and untested developers (at the time) Retro Studios, and their controversial take on the series (again, at the time): Metroid Prime. Even today, with Metroid games being few and far between, Fusion is often ignored by many fans, since it's either Super or the first Prime that are often well-beloved.

But is that really warranted? Is Metroid Fusion the Metroidvania equivalent of peanut butter and chocolate, or is it more like oil and vinegar? There's only one way to find out. This is Metroid Fusion.

Man, it feels?? nice to do one of these in a timely and relevant manner!

What is Metroid Fusion?

Metroid Fusion is technically the fifth game in the Metroid series (Prime released a day before) and was released on the Game Boy Advance on November 18th, 2002 in North America, November 22nd in Europe, November 29th in Australia, and Japan getting it on February 14th, 2003. I'm not really surprised Japan got it last, since the Metroid isn't as big over there as it is over here, though it's nothing compared to when China got it, which was in 2006. The game was developed by Nintendo R&D 1, aka the developers who worked on the previous Metroid games (specifically Super), and was directed by Yoshio Sakamoto. Fun fact: this was actually their second-to-last game before merging with Nintendo Software and Development. When the game was first confirmed in 2001, Ken Lobb, director of game development for Nintendo of America, said that it was a new game and not a remake of Super Metroid. Something that was interesting to discover was that the team made it a point not to use programming and design techniques from previous games, actually using Wario Land 4 as an example, with ?even some of the code from that game being used here.

Okay, so I've covered most of the basic development history of Fusion, but in order to get the full picture here, I need to change course a bit and talk about Metroid Prime. Because even though Fusion was technically announced before Prime, they're pretty much intertwined at this point, and I don't mean just because you can use a link cable on the GameCube version to unlock the original Metroid. I'm not going to go over the entire development history of Prime, though if you want to hear about it I recommend watching Matt McMuscles' "Wha Happun?" series or even find a great article on Polygon about it, but needless to say that development for Prime was troubled and involved a lot of crunch, a lot of firings, some angry Nintendo higher-ups, and a whole lot of other things going on that it's a miracle the game turned out great, let alone got made. But even if development went smoothly and Nintendo wasn't forced to buy Retro because the founder was using Nintendo's servers to run a porn site (no joke), Prime still had a lot to prove. It was being developed by a Western studio (one that no one had even heard of), it was going 3D, and it was going to be in first-person. And while the game turned out great in the end and Retro proved itself, at the time it could have easily gone wrong, and in another timeline, I might be writing about how Prime is the forgotten game.

So when Fusion was shown off, and it looked like a more traditional Metroid experience, it's easy to see which one the fans were more willing to play. While I doubt Sakamoto and his team were making Fusion with that in mind, I can easily see an executive or marketing at Nintendo saying "Hey guys, we know you're unsure about Metroid Prime, so here's a traditional 2D game for you as well. Som??e sugar to ?let the medicine go down."

Let's see how that sugar tasted.

How does it play?

So full disclosure here: Metroid Fusion is my first 2D Metroid game. I had heard of the series thanks to Super Smash Bros., but I never got around to playing it until I got Fusion as a Christmas gift a couple years after its release; I also didn't play Prime (my first Metroid game) until the sequel was announced. I'm telling you this because I want it to be known where I am when it came to Metroid Fusion: I wasn't a fan of the series when I started, but by the end of it, I became a fan. Not someone who's going to speedrun the game or anything, but enough of one that my copy of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow can get a break? if I want to play a Metroidvania. But I'm a lot older and have some experience with these games, so how does this game hold up now? Prett??y great for the most part.

One of the things that set Fusion apart from previous games is that it's a bit more linear, with areas more closed off, progression through said areas being more linear, and most controversial of all, mission briefs that told you where to go. To this day this is without a doubt one of the most controversial design ideas from Fusion, and everyone in the Metroid fanbase seems divided on it: some people liked it, an??d others didn't. As for me........honestly I'm kind of in the middle here; let me break it down.

On the positive side, I can see why the developers did make it linear and less open, because Fusion is more focused on story than in previous games, which is actually pretty good. Taking place after Super Metroid (though I guess technically it's now after Other M), Samus gets infected by the X parasite after a visit to the planet SR388. After the events of Metroid II, the X parasite became the dominant species due to the eradication of the Metroids, and are a lot deadlier. They kill the host by draining their life energy and DNA, transforming into their host; Samus is no exception, as the infected parts of her Power Suit become the dreaded and feared SA-X. As Samus explores the abandoned BSL Station next to SR388, she encounters this heartless killing machine version of her with all of her most powerful abilities, made even worse by the fact that after being saved by a vaccine made from the baby Metroid in Super, she's weak to the Ice Beam.

From a story perspective, the linearity works because while it's not groundbreaking, Fusion'sstory is actually pretty decent with the right sense of dread, suspense, and mystery, all of which makes Samus' adventure quite compelling.?????????????????????????? That carries over into the gameplay as well, because at certain points of the game the SA-X will occasionally hunt Samus. At first, it's usually as simple as hiding in a room and waiting for it to leave, or hiding in a hole in your Morph Ball form. Eventually, however, the SA-X will get smarter and start using some Power Bombs and Super Missles to break through, and before long you have to actually run away from it with little to no room to hide.

It's weird to say this, but even today, the SA-X moments are still genuinely terrifying and suspenseful, and are among the scariest moments I've ever experienced in a video game. This is because unlike other games that have a powerful enemy chasing you like Resident Evil 2 Remake with Mr. X, the SA-X shows up so rarely that when it does appear, it's terrifying. You know it's there, but you don't know when it'll show up; it's nice to see a series that was inspired by Aliens tap into the original Alien for this game. And it feels really satisfying to finally take it down toward the end of the game, as revenge for all that crap it gave me throughout the adventure. So to go back to my earlier point, I can see why Metroid Fusion is so linear when compared to previous Metroid? games, because without that linearity, some of that impact is lost.

Having said all that, I can also see why a lot of Metroid fans are torn about this being more story-focused and linear. While it is great for new players to?? find their way and to understand what to do (every sector always has an opening area that has a briefing room, a save point, and a refill station), the problem is that the areas that you visit in question are so small and mostly easy to navigate that having the game tell me "go to this room" seems really pointless, since the game is already designed in a way that I don't have to worry about getting lost. Take for example one of the sectors that's supposed to be the fire area. Your computer tells you where to go, and that your path shouldn't have any fire or lava, so get out of there if you encounter it. Well gee that's great, but why not let me figure that out for myself instead of telling me, especially when previous games did this so brilliantly? Especially when there are some moments where the game does tell you to go look for something on your own or doesn't show you everything,?? so why be inconsistent with what you show and tell me?

Not to mentio??n that once you enter an area, you can't leave it until you complete the mission, and you can't go back to most areas until the end of the game, which again greatly limits what you can do. And while it is still possible to speedrun the game like all the others, it's a little bit harder and requires a few more exploits than previous games did, which while it's not something that I do personally (again, casual fan here), I can see why some people aren't fans of it. Oh, and since I'm still talking about design choices that are dumb, whoever thought it was a good idea to have bosses spawn as an X parasite that can kill you causing you to start the fight over again deserves a boot to the head.

I know that last paragraph sounds harsh, but in all seriousness, despite all of my headaches and grievances, I still enjoyed my time with Metroid Fusion. Sure it may have a few hiccups with its linear design, and it's something that many fans don't like, but Fusion was able to make up those shortcomings by making both an interesting villain in SA-X and a decent story, which were more than enough to get me through it. In fact, if you look at Fusion as more of an entry-level game in the series, it actually serves its purpose quite well, and I do actually recommend it as people's first Metroid or as a game to give the series a second chance if Super Metroid or the Prime games didn't tickle their fancy. I really hope that Dread works out some of the kinks that Fusion had, though based?? on what I've seen it s??ounds like that's going to be the case.

It may not be my personal favorite Metroid game, but Fusion is still a solid Metroid game that is absolutely worth your time. But how did everyone else feel about the GBA's first Metroid?

The impact and why it was forgotten

So Fusion did really well when it first came out; like surprisingly well actually. At least, when it came to reviews and critical praise. While it sold 100,000 copies in the US during its opening week and ultimately being the 24th best-selling game on the GBA (Metroid has never been known as a system seller), the press were a lot kinder and absolutely loved it. It received numerous positive reviews at launch, with IGN calling it an "outstanding achievement on the Game Boy Advance" and even giving it named the Best Game Boy Advance Adventure Game in 2002, while Game Informer gave it a perfect 10/10, one of the first games in the magazine's history to get such a score. GameSpot named the best Game Boy Advance Adventur?e Game in 2002, as well as nominating it for Best Story, Best Sound, Best Graphics, and overall Game of the Year. It even won Best Handheld Game at the 2002 Interactive Achievement Awards. And I'm just scratching the surface here.

I know I haven't been doing this for very long, but not since The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap have I covered a game that got this much critical praise, and I doubt that many of the games I'll be covering in the future will get that much praise either. To put it bluntly, Metroid Fusion was beloved when it first came out. As for the impact........did you watch E3? We're finally getting Metroid Dread, a sequel to Fusion that has technically been in developer hell longer than Duke Nukem Forever! So then why, despite all of the praise, the new game coming out this year, and people having a fondness for it, is Metroid Fusion so often forgotten?

Honestly, I feel like Metroid Prime is the reason. Going back to that game a bit, but after Prime was released, it was even more beloved and well-received than Fusion was, with it often being cited as one of the best games ever made. And I won't lie: I'm one of those people, and that as much as I like Fusion, the first Metroid Prime is a much better game overall, and it is easily in my top five favorite games of all time. And a lot of people feel the same way; remember when I said that GameSpot nominated Fusion for the best game of 2002? Guess what game it lost to? Metroid Prime; but that wasn't the only award it won. It won Game of the Year and Excellence in Level Design at the Game Developers Choice Awards, and won numerous Game of the Year Awards from GameSpy, GameSpot, Nintendo Power, Edge Magazine, and EGM. It's still one of the highest-rated games on Metacritic, and while it's still a stupid title, it was at one point named the "Citizen Kane of Video Game." I guess what I'm getting at is that Metroid Prime is an amazing game that proved Retro Studios was a talented developer and that without it we wouldn't have gotten the amazing Donkey Kong Country Returns games.

Compare all of that to Metroid Fusion, which keep in mind was pushed as the traditional game that fans could play in case Prime sucked, a game that while not bad, still has some minor complaints and was a bit of a mixed bag for fans. It's a lot more linear than most games, exploration is somewhat limited, and while it's still a great game, it was a radically different Metroid experience than what most fans wanted, kind of like what happened with Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (though again, Fusion is a much, much, MUCH better game than that dumpster fire). It also doesn't help that a couple years later we got a remake of the original Metroid on the Game Boy Advance, which while it didn't get as many glowing reviews as Fusion, was still well-received and is seen by many people to be the superior Metroid game on the GBA.

Combine all of that, and I can see why Fusion is often left out of most discussions, which is a damn shame because as I've said before, and I'll say again: Metroid Fusion is a great game. It has problems, yes, and there are better games in the series, but it's still an excellent game that is a crowning jewel of the GBA library. In an alternate timeline where Metroid Prime 1 was either canceled or turned out to be crap, Fusion would be seen as the amazing game and would possibly be getting all the praise saved for Prime. Hell, maybe even Metroid Dread would have come out sooner. But that isn't the case, and we're in a timeline where Fusion is on the bench while Metroid Prime 1 scored the winning to?uchdown and got us to the State finals.

Is it worth playing now? And does it deserve better?

Considering all the awards and critical praise it got, not to mention that Metroid Dread isn't a fever dream and is actually happening this year, I'm a little hesitant to say Metroid Fusion deserves better. But in terms of whethe?r?? or not you should play it? Yes, absolutely.

Metroid Fusion is a pretty good game that you absolutely need to play if you haven't done so. While it being more linear may be a turn-off for some fans, its story and sense of fear are definitely worth checking out, especially since few games in the genre or the series have been able to pull it off as well as Fusion. And while it may n??ot be my all-time favorite game, I can see some merit to checking this out, especially to new players who wanted to get into the series and were put off by some of its desi??gn choices......just know that the rest of the series isn't necessarily like this.

So in conclusion, Metroid Fusion is a great game, that you should absolutely play if you haven't done so, or again if it didn't click with you the first time. Besides, what else are you going to do while you wait for Metroid Dread?

The post Games That Time Forgot: Metroid Fusion appeared first on Destructoid.

Cblogs of 5/22 to 5/28/2021

-Gamingnerd writes an excellent retrospective on the Dragon Quest series on its 35th anniversary.

-Nior dis??cusses the gaming industr?y in Brazil by sharing the story about the failings of the world's first digital-only console.

-Mr Knives imagines some fruitfu??l game partnerships between some famous games that could produce an even better?? game.

-Flegma talks about m??aps in video games and the importance of "orienteering??" in development.

-Exber reviews Pandora's Tower on the Wii.

-Humantofu wonders if there is really a proper way to play The House of the Dead today.

-RiffRaff wr??????????????????????????ites about the history of the Adventu?re genre by focusing on some key examples.

-Black Red Gaming continues their playthrough on Sir Brante's Life, According to Myself and Others.

-Skeet warns Sega that a riot is coming if they don't release Daytona USA on the Switch.

-Shoggoth2588 responds to this month's BoB prompt regarding photo mode by detailing his difficulties engaging wit??h such modes.

-My Enormous Hairy Downstairs Kitchen writes about the magnificent speed of Wipeout 4.

-GoofierBrute writes about Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures in this blogging series exploring?? ?games that time forgot.

-Virtua Kazama bids farewell to Virtua Fighter :Final Showdown as it leaves the fighting tournament scene.

-GamingDino introduces the Raptor in ARK: Survival Evolved.

-PhilsPhindings discusses the similarities between the soundtrack of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and typical movie soundtracks.

-Milk3y wants to know about your opinion on the various Star Wars content that has been released over the years.

-ABowlOfCereal continues their thoughts on balancing Guardian Tales, with this blog focusing on ranged combat.

-TheBlondeBass wants to makes some "Weapon Stories" for Nier: Automata.

-Exber writes ??about his experience as a home school teacher and how sometimes it feels like a? video game.

-ChronoLynxx opens th?is week's TGIF t??hread for open community discussion.

Thanks to our readers for the great blogs and to Lord Spencer for providing us with the recap. This week, Destructoid will undergo some technical, which may temporarily affect the Cblog section as various levers?? are flipped and dials are spun. So just this bear this in mind if you plan to write a blog this week. Hopefully normal se??rvice will be resumed ASAP.

The post Dragon Quest at 35: What?? are your memories of this legendary series? appeared first on Destructoid.

Promoted from our Community Blogs

_{[Destructoid user Kerrik52 is coming in hard and fast with an incredibly detailed blog covering their thoughts on the entirety of the beloved Tales series of games. The absolute mad man wrote over 9,300 words here, highlighting each game with its own dedicated section. Whether you've only played a single game in the franchise or every single entry, there's likely something here for you. Just be aware, there are a few spoilers below.} 

_{Personally, my favorite entries were probably Vesperia, Xillia, and Symphonia. They're not exactly groundbreaking or genre-defining, but they're wonderful "comfort food" games. It's easy to get lost in their worlds and watch the hours melt away. I love that about them!}

_{Do you have a favorite entry in the series? Is Symphonia kind of overrated but still pretty dang good overall? Do you think Kerrik is right or wrong about some absurdly minuscule detail that is completely open to interpretation? Feel free to head on down to the comments and let us know! - Kevin]}

During my formative years, when I was exploring what kinds of games I like, I spent a lot of time trying out loads of different JRPGs, particularly Atlus' games. But, while I did try out some Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest stuff, one series that felt like a giant unknown t?o me was Namco Bandai's Tale?s series.

On a whim, I picked up the PSP version of Tales of Eternia, which I loved, but I didn't pursue the series any further since I never saw any of the other games in my local game stores after that. Fast-forward to 2018, and I once again picked up a game in the series on a whim. This time it was Tales of Zestiria, which a friend sold to me for cheap.

It was then that I decided that it was time to play the rest of the games and get to the bottom of this series (as well as review most of it), with the end goal being the retrospective you're now reading. When I went out to buy what games I could find, I was pleasantly surprised by how cheap and easily?? available the modern games were. Usually, JRPGs are a nightmare to find in Europe, but maybe Atlus and their hate-boner for the continent has poisoned my brain.

While it is possible that Bamco overprints the games (I wish NISA and XSEED did that for my precious Falcom games), I think it's more likely is that the series isn't as popular as I first thought it was. Each game averages less than a million sales according to a recent report, and I think a large part of the series' notoriety was propped up due to Tales of Symphonia, which was the game I? had ??heard the most about before getting into the series.

I had heard that the series specialized in deconstructive twists meant to turn the JRPG formula on its head, but after playing almost all of the games available in English (sorry, Tales of Hearts, I have no room in my heart or wallet for a Vita), I can't really agree with that assessment. Symphonia i??s the only game that really does it, though there are aspects o??f the others that kinda get into that stuff.

It makes me think that Symphonia was the only one most people played (or the one they played first), and it coloured their view of the series. However, aside from the unique ?deconstruction shenanigans, it's a really g??ood example of what the series offers and what elements endure from game to game.

Much like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, the Tales games usually take place in their own unique settings, but stuff from the other games carries over and gets reimagined as needed. Beyond?? the series' roster of summon spirits, the pirate?? Aifreed, the sealed weapons sidequest, the Sorcerer's Ring, poorly drawn wanted posters, the Dark Wings bandits, and the incredibly inventive ways it handles "dual-world" setups, there's also a ton of fanservice in the games.

This made it really rewarding to go through the games in (mostly) chronological order after Zestiria. When I hit the postgame there and got to the cameo bosses, I had no idea who I was fighting and why I should care. Starting with Tales of Eternia (I think, unless I forgot some part of Destiny doing that), the series puts in direct nods to previous games, which I didn't get the first time through Eternia and Zestiria.

When I played the series properly, I was privy to understanding the cameo bosses, costumes and various small references to the other games, which helped me keep my momentum through this very lengthy endeavour going. The series doesn't have the same level of multiplicative payoff as Falcom's Trails games as you go ?through it, but you're still rewarded quite a bit for sticking with it.

That's everything I wanted to say before we begin, so now it's time to go into every game I played. 

Tales of Eternia

_{Read my review here.}

Being the game I played first in the series, and the one I played separate from my somewhat exhausting marathon, Tales of Eternia has a? lot of positive bias to its name. It borders on being nostalgia at this point, since it's been about a decade since I first played it. I can't untangle those feelings from my current take on the game, so I'm not going to try. Instead, I'll just talk about why I ??love it so much as clearly as I can.

While I have a lot of affinity for the PlayStation, I never got?? in contact with the many RPGs on the plat??form until much later. This was probably for the best, since I wouldn't have been able to appreciate them at the time due to my non-existent knowledge of the English language anyway. Even so, going back to these fifth-gen RPGs has been really engaging for me, as the trappings of the era still resonate with me, even if the games themselves don't on their own.

Stuff like the audio, menus, rendering techniques, experimental gameplay systems and the like. From that perspective, I consider Tales of Eternia the greatest expression of the charm inherent in P??layStation RPG??s.

The sprite work is great to see, especially since we didn't get a lot of highly-detailed sprite-based games on the PlayStation due to Sony's push for 3D at the time. What really sells the graphical style are the gorgeous backgrounds you get to run around in. Unlike the pre-rendered backgrounds in Resident Evil, the characters and the backgrounds meld really well here. Couple the unique? backgrounds with the diverse and God-tier soundtrack, and it becomes hard not to love the world that has been created here.

That's not all the game has to offer, of course. I can't in good faith call the story an outstanding experience, but I still like it and the characters a lot. Everything is simple and uplifting, but executed with care... aside from parts of the voice acting. I'll concede that I have a soft spot for it due to the main character Reid being played by Kevin Miller (Sly Cooper), which won't earn the game points for most people. Still, given the track record of the console generation, I'd still say Eternia is one of the better voiced games of the era.

The party is essentially divided into two parts, with our four main c??haracters in one section and our two tertiary? party members being in the other. The main characters are the focus of the story, with the other two mostly being there to offer some unique gameplay gimmicks and help the plot along in parts. While it is a bit of a waste that Chat and Max aren't given much to do, it does leave Reid, Farah. Meredy and Keele more room to bond with each other.

And they kinda need that screen time, as the game is a bit short by modern standards, only being a bit above 30 hours long. I think that's the perfect length for a JRPG, as the pacing remains good throughout, culminating in some good character growth from the main cast. It's a real shame that the camping skits were cut for the English release. I wouldn't say that the party members hav?e big arcs, but more so that they grow together as they become better friends who trust each other and decide to save the two worlds together.

Speaking of that, the world design on display here is probably my favourite in the series, as it provides a good amount of optional content. It reminds me a lot of Final Fantasy V (which I recently played), as there comes a point where the difficulty ramps up and you're? meant to go explore the world to find optional dungeons so you can power up. When I ?revisited the game for my review, I went through the content I had missed and was blow away by all the fun places you can go to. They even go so far as to make the last ship upgrade optional, which was a great extra to end the game on.

Now that I have more experience with the series, I can definitely see some flaws with the combat system, but I still think it's rea??lly fun to engage with. Just like the story, it's pretty simple (outside s??ome awesome extra moves that are really tricky to unlock and use) but solid. Before I revisited the game, I was afraid that it'd feel as janky as the previous two (more on those further down), but that wasn't the case.

Combat is pretty swift, spells don't freeze the action and there's a good back-and-forth as you block and counter-attack. However, the in??put buffer is incredibly strict, making combos difficult to execute, and outside of Reid and Farah, the playable characters are either boring to use or very gimmicky. Speaking as someone who has only played the 2D games released in the west, I consider this to be the best incarnation of the 2D Linear Motion Battle System.

Lastly, I wanna talk about some tertiary things, namely the anime and Star Ocean. The anime isn't super exciting, but compared to the clusterfuck that is the Phantasia anime, it's delightful (I haven't tried any other Tales anime). It's a filler plot that's slotted into the middle of the game, which fits into the story decently enough, but it really leans into being filler??, with almost the whole thing? being a giant beach episode since it takes place on an island.

In spite of?? that, I really enjoyed see??ing some more party interactions, the new character Marone, the action scenes and the music being reinterpreted for anime. It also introduces the annoying bard Corina and leans into a bunch of anime cliches which are either downplayed or non-existent in the game itself. So, it's a bit of a mixed bag mostly aimed at fans of the game.

The reason I bring up Star Ocean is because I kind of flipped when I played Second Evolution after Eternia and felt how similar the two games were as far as graphics, style and minor mechanics are concerned. Given the shared blood of the two series, this shouldn't be surprising, but I didn't know that at the time. I much prefer Tales of Eternia to both of the first Star Ocean games (and the rest of the f??ranchise, frankly), but I'm interes?ted in revisiting those games some day to see how they hold up.

Tales of Zestiria

_{Read my review here.}

I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I experienced Zestiria the way I did. Without the greater context of?? the series (not to mention ignorance of the trailer debacles and most of the sheer hatred people have for it), I managed to get quite a lot of ??enjoyment out of it, which is reflected in my review. I liked the presentation and the characters quite a lot.

Although, even as my second game in the series, it left a lot to be desired. For as much as I like the party, the plot is lacking both memorable mo??ments and a central hook or theme beyond "Let's explore the world!". The jokes and inter-party jabs may be excellent, but without a greater context to exist in, they have limited value outside of skit compilations. It's an uplifting but aimless experience.

While there is interesting stuff to find in the world (which triggers relevant skits) I think the game didn't go far enough with the concept of exploration. As I went through the series, I came to understand its budgetary issues better, which helped contextualize the emptiness that exudes from Zestiria. It's neat that they finally managed an interconnected world of this scale (with greater variety in geometry than Xillia), but most of i??t is just large empty fields to walk through.

Seeing as the plot moves so slowly anyway, they should have ??leaned into it by creating some chunky optional areas that feel rewarding to explore. That introduces its own set of problems, but it would have been so nice for the game to say "We need to go over here, but that place seems interesting, wink wink." That would have been an avenue for some better side quests too.

Now, one thing that was less than ideal about this being my second game is how damn complex it is compared to Eternia. A lot of its ideas are new, but it still builds on top of the other games, which made it even more of a nightmare to learn for me. I revisited it for a few hours to refresh my memory, and I can definitively say with confidence that Berseria managed to scale back a lot of tertiary mechanics? for the better.

There's just so much crap to keep track of, and it's difficult to justify learning all of it when the game doesn't even get something as basic as the battle camera right. The uninterrupted transition from cutscenes to the field to battle is neat, but it was not worth being unable to see when fighting in cramped corridors. Still, I think the Armatization mechanic is cool for its novelty if nothing else. I always like it when games present some fresh ideas, and the Tales series is fu?ll of neat ideas that may or?? may not be worth putting into other games.

Lastly, I wanna talk about the DLC a little bit. As highlighted in my review, I wasn't privy to the Alisha DLC (even though I had a sealed copy), only the minor "booster DLC" thing. But since Bamco hates me, I couldn't even g?et that, since their site was under repairs when I tried to redeem my code. That soured me on ever buying DLC from them, and I wasn't in a mood to do so anyway.

As such, I haven't played the Alisha DLC, even though I should for completeness' sake. But all I've heard about it is how much of a grindy disappointment it is, so I don't feel like engaging with it just to satisfy my curiosity. I even heard that it'd make me ?dislike Rose, who is like my favourite character in the game. If that's the case, then I'm content with writing the whole thing off as non-canonical.

Tales of Phantasia

I didn't review Phantasia or Destiny, sinc??e I felt there wasn't? enough material in each game for a standalone review, but since I'm doing a series retrospective now, it's much easier to get the words down.

Looking at Phantasia from the perspective of its original release on SNES in 1995, it's amazing how far it goes both on its own terms and as a foundation for the rest of the series, in spite of how much of the origina?l story was cut. There's so much here that's very foundational for the series, both mechanically and sto?ry-wise.

The most standout thing is the first incarnation of the Linear Motion Battle System, which remains pretty unique to this day. The only game I've seen that has used 2D fighting games as a basis for its combat system to this degree is Summon Night: Swordcraft Story on the GBA. To think that they made a co-op action RPG SNES in this style is bananas. The only similar game of the era that I can think of is Secret of Mana, wh??ich is not as technica?l and goes for a top-down view instead.

As alluded to in the Eternia section, one major issue with the combat is that spellcasting pauses the action, which really kills the pacing of most fight??s. Couple this with the fact that spells can't be dodged and a lot of battles just devolve into a DPS race where you force Mint to spam multi-target healing as much as possible. There are also some dungeons that rea?lly annoyed me.

For as difficult as it can be to get through in parts, that doesn't undermine some of the other ??standout aspects of the game. It's a time-travel story, meaning that there are multiple overworld maps, even on SNES it had small amounts of voice clips ??(upgraded to partial voice acting in the PS1 version and full voice acting in the PSP version), and it has a really rad war sequence where you get to fight on a flying horse!

Then there's the music, the backgrounds (which are not as impressive as Eternia's, but still quite good) and just how much o?f a good-ol'-fashioned adventure it is. The stake??s are quickly laid down, the characters are simple but easy to like and most of the plot deals directly with the problem at hand, which is the fight against Dhaos in multiple eras. I'm impressed that it all flows together so well and manages to remain so focused.

Tales of Destiny

Destiny sits in an awkward spot for me. Since it precedes the PS1 remake of Phantasia by a year, it doesn't get to enjoy the added features of that game. Also, since the PS2 remake wasn't localized (which I've heard good things about), you're stuck with this middle step between the SNES version of Phantasia and the PS1 version as an English-speaking fan.

What really stands out is the incredibly limiting combat. You can only attack once normally per combo before you need to use an arte to keep the combo going. That doesn't sound that much worse than the two times you can attack normally in Phantasia PS1 and Eternia, but it really grinds things to a halt, especially if you're playing in semi-auto mode and run back and forth only attacking once each time because you messed up the t?iming to chain int?o an arte.

Then there are the ??visuals, which are very similar, though noticeably less appealing than the other two games, especially when it comes to the world map. It's this really crunched up mode-7-esque map that really stands out for how ugly it is compared to the proper 3D overworld in the other PS1 games. The party screen is cute, but since the skits were cut in the English version, it serves little purpose.

If you can get past that (and the high encounter rates in certain areas), it's a decent time. The story is a bit by-the-numbers, but it works. I found it interesting that everyone is a magical sword-wielder in this game, giving them access to both a decent melee weapon (wh??ich levels up and can be outfitted w??ith an equipment disc for stats and extra spells) and spells.

Had the combat been more fles?hed out, making everyone a sword-user would probably have been lame, but I think the game makes it work by at least giving people unique artes. While I wouldn't call the game bad, it's not a game I'm super keen to revisit, especially when the other two PS1 games exist with better presentations and mechanics.

Tales of Symphonia

_{Read my review here.}

Finally. The big one.

I was really exc??ited about finally getting to play this seminal game, and to give this section some pizzazz, I reached out to some older fans to ask some questions and confirm some beliefs I had about the game and its legacy.

While the western releases of Destiny and Eternia garnered the series some fame in the west, it wasn't until Symphonia that Bamco struck gold. There were a couple of reasons for this, namely the voice acting, some QoL improvements over Eternia, the easily accessible four-player co-op (no Multi-Tap or Channeling Rings required!), the anime-inspired visuals finally being brought to 3D, the strong soundtrack, and how much Nintendo pushed it at the time. Given the GameCube's lackluster selection of JRPGs and Symphonia's quality, it makes total sense that Nintendo would do thei??r best to get everyone to buy it.

It was this pe?rfect storm of being a GameCube exclusive that catered to budding weebs (who may have had limited exposure to JRPGs up until that point) that provided solid replayability through the NG+ system (which?? lets you unlock cheats), the bonding system (which wasn't to my liking, personally), and the co-op combat that had multiple characters to mess around with.

Couple that with the rise of mainstream forums, and its no wonder that people latched onto the game as hard as they did and formed a strong fanbase for Symphonia in particular over the series as a wh??ole. Especially since the main games jumped ship to Sony and Microsoft? platforms for the most part after this.

It reminds me of my own experiences with Kingdom Hearts when that was new. It was my introduction to action RPGs, the concept of leveling characters (which feels really good when you haven't built up much resistance to those sweet, sweet brain chemicals it triggers), and being encouraged to explore a massive world. Viewed through this lens, I'm sure I'd be as much of a sucker for Symphonia as everyone else.

However, the game that I think holds greater value in comparison is Final Fantasy X. It much like Symphonia and KH1, showed what a then-modern RPG could look and sound like. It's easy to forget just how much of a jump it was to go from FFIX to FFX, and it's extra interesti??ng to compare the two, as their stories are superficially similar. Both start you on a journey across the world through?? various temples, which is intended to end with a sacrifice to save the world.

The key difference between the two games is that FFX plays its cards straight and slowly builds to the point where the party rejects destiny, whereas in Symphonia, the party changes their quest abruptly early on after going through a small-scale classical JRPG quest that ends in betrayal. Ultimately, both games have the same uplifting message of "Screw fate, we gotta do what's right through the power of anime!", but Symphonia hits harder by having the wo????rld itself be built on lies instead of just having some party members hide stuff.

I think that's why the story struck a chord with people. I can't think of another JRPG before this (barring a small part of Eternia) that played around with deconstructing JRPG tropes. What's important to remember is that Symphonia reconstructs those tropes in a greater context later ?on and ends up being the then-modern incarnation of what early JRPGs?? were in their day. It doesn't reject being a JRPG, it makes a statement of declaring that JRPGs should aim higher than before.

Said height ends? up looking a bit short in retrospect, as the theme of "racism ??bad, get along" isn't the most challenging message, but it sadly remains relevant, and the game does a good job of showcasing how dumb racism is by manufacturing a setting where you easily empathize with the non-racists.

On the combat front, I like the actual fighting more than in Eternia, as it's a bit easier to chain regular attacks into artes and you automatically maintain your position in semi-auto mode after attacking. The addition of 3D battle arenas makes it easier to target specific enemies at the cost of making it harder to protect spellca?sters from bosses. As such, heal-spamming is still very much the thing you ?need to be doing at all times.

Now, everything new is not quite to my liking, as the tertiary mechanics like Overlimit and the Exsphere system are either annoyingly random or difficult to experiment with. As such, it ends up having worse combat than Eternia, in spite of it feeling bett??er to play, wh?ich is such an unfortunate thing.

What isn't unfortunate is the removal of random encounters, which i??s delightful, as you can make an effort to avoid a lot of battles, and it's great for the pacing. Good thing too, as there is a larger focus on puzzles, some of which were too much for me if I remember correctly. A shame there wasn't more optional content, but I understand the increased cost inherent in developing for sixth-gen.

Lastly, I wanna briefly talk about this game's connection to Phantasia, which it's secretly a prequel to. Since I went to the effort of playing the games in order, I expected to get more out of this connection than I did. The connect?ion is evident, but due to the timescale, the two games share a main conflict over Mana, a few areas and little else. Still, i?t's a cool extra thing to think about if you're into both games.

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

_{Read my review here.}

Dawn of the New World (which I will respectfully refrain from referring to as Symphonia 2, so drop the pitchforks) is a game whose existence was seemingly brought to be in the name of money over creative expression. Devs gotta eat and all games sold are done so to make money, so this isn't strange. However, when you make a sequel to the best-selling game in the franchise on the successor platform of the GameCube, in spite of said game not having room for? a direct sequel and there already being a distant one, one can't help but raise an eyebrow.

As such, I was hesitant to play DotNW (Wow, that's a terrible abbreviation. Let's go with Dawn instead). Seeing as I didn't have the same deep connection to?? the original game ??like the people Bamco were trying to appeal to, I managed to get a decent chunk of enjoyment out of the game in spite of its flaws. What delicious irony.

Instead of trying their damndest to make a new story for the old cast, Dawn instead opts to focus on a new pair of characters, protagonist Emil and his galpal Marta. The old cast is still there, but t?hey're level-locked guest party members with limited use that barely matter to the plot. If that wasn't alienating eno??ugh for old fans, the game manufactures a conflict between Emil and Lloyd by painting Lloyd as a false hero who killed Emil's parents.

With that in mind, I really don't blame people for dropping both the game and the series at this point. It's brave to make the old hero a villain, but it's also such a cheap way to create conflict that can easily backfire. I ??think the game would have been? received a bit better if the old cast was used a bit more tactfully.

Still, I couldn't ignore the improvements the game offers. The presentation is naturally better, since it's a Wii game. The models have better proportions, the text?ures are more detailed and the skits are voiced. Stuff like that really makes it easier to accept having run through the recycled areas.

Combat is pretty good overall, as the game cleans up a lot of my problems with Symphonia. Unison attacks take less time to charge, there's no annoying way to learn artes and chaining combos is slightly easier (to a fault frankly due to how easy air juggling is). Had the game only focused on Emil and Marta, it would be a great introductory Tales game, as the skill ceiling is low and it's pretty easy to understa????nd combos and the new charge attacks.

That's not the case though, as there's this whole monster catching system trying to fill the gap of there not being a proper party of characters available. Personally, I think Pokemon is flawed to begin with, but translating its design ideas poorly to an action RPG makes it hold even less water. I say that because monster catching and trying to match up strengths versus weaknesses isn't important at all. Here's my guide to playing Dawn:

Catch two ?bears and something e??lse. Teach them all basic healing. Done.

Do that and you're set for the rest o??f the game, as leveling the bears lets them evolve to some really fast fighters. Them being able to attack quickly and stunlock everything you can't air juggle yourself is all that matters. As such, trying to actively engage with the system as intended will only sully the experience, as you'll drag down the pa??cing doing so.

Dawn's story is difficult enough to enjoy without the pacing going down the crapper. Now, I'll go to bat for Emil's character arc, as I'm a sucker for doormat-to-hero narratives, but when I revisited the game, it was evident that the first chapter needed another editing pass.?? You get assaulted with flashbacks to scenes that occurred 30 to 120 seconds ago, Emil's repetitive schtick of over-apologizing and the ever famous "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality" line.

Which is a shame, since the game's singular focus on Emil's and Marta's relationship lends itself to a really good character dynamic. Marta gets enamoured with an interpretation of Emil that's not really him (it's complicated), which Emil tries to live up to. That secondary personality Marta was subjected to then starts to take o?ver and claim to be the better Emil. At that point, Emil struggles with accepting who he is and that he deserves to exist while Marta has to realize that the real Emil is more deserving of her affection.

Gameplay polish and a good character dynamic does not a great game make when they are?? grouped together with a setting with little more to give and a monster catching system that feels really shoehorned in. Frankly, Emil and Marta should have had a game in a new setting, it would have worked out so much better.

Tales of Legendia

_{Read my review here.}

Out of all of the Tales games I've played, Legendia is the one that stands out the most. Which makes sense, as it was made by a separate team from the Symphonia people. As such, it has a very different general feel and gives the impression of being much older than Symphonia, despite being released two years later. A part of that is due to the shift in platforms from GameCube to PS2, but even that doesn't excuse how much of a 2001 game it feels like, especially since Tales of the Abyss came out the same year and looks fine. But graphics d?on't?? necessarily make or break a game, so let's talk about the rest of it.

Having the whole game be set on a giant island ship and be themed around water is really unique. You've got fresh ?sett?lers, ancient ruins, otter people, and other continents interested in the island. And, to really give The Legacy its unique feel, the soundtrack is orchestral, jazzy and quite laid back compared to what we usually get. The soundtrack is the one part of the game I can recommend people checking out, even if it is a bit of an acquired taste.

Actually playing the game is mostly a chore, not helped by the plot being pretty boring for the most part. The combat is 2D, but feels worse than Eternia's and features so goddamn ma??ny HP sponge enemies that it's not even funny. For my quick revisits of these games, I've messed around?? with auto mode to save myself some effort (it works surprisingly well, especially as a laid-back easy mode).

Legendia is the only game where I would outright recommend peopl??e to not engage with the combat more than is necessary by using auto. The only interesting addition is Senel's throws, but even those kinda suck, since enemies are divided into multiple weight classes, making it guesswork to find out which ones you actually have the arte needed to throw around.

Couple that with some really lengthy dungeons (not helped by the re-introduction of random battles and the top-down perspective),? all of ??which the game expects you to redo during the character quests in the postgame, and you get an ordeal of a video game.

The character quests are the most interesting parts of the game, as every party member gets the focus to either finish their character arc or start up a new one. It's pretty good stuff, but the deck is stacked against this part of the game. As I said before,? you need to redo dungeons, but this is also where Bamco gave up dubbing the game (in English at least), meaning that some of the best scenes in the game aren't voiced. I quite liked Chloe and her struggle with her family, her sense of justice and her revenge, but I just do not have it in me to play the game again.

It did give me this stellar screenshot however, so it wasn't a??ll a waste:

Tales of the Abyss

_{Read my review here.}

After going through Dawn and struggling through Legendia, Abyss was such a breath of fresh air. All I knew about it is that the main character Luke is the only instance of a terrible protagonist who goes thr??ough enough of an arc that he becomes likeable. That turned out to be the case, but that's not all the game has to offer.

I really like the theming in Abyss, as its two major themes (fate and identity) are well-represented either through the worldbuilding or the party. The world of Auldrant is governe??d by the Score, which is a set of tablets inscribed with details about the future. As such, people get depend?ent on knowing their future and certain tragedies are seen through just because it's written in the Score. It's also a finite text, and Luke manages to prove it to not be all-powerful, which both kicks off the plot and keeps it turning.

Although, the party is what really holds the game together. They all have l??ayers to them, with secrets that they hide from the others either willingly or unknowingly. When these secrets get out, both the player, the party, and sometimes the character themself have to reassess their perception of said character, which really helps justify the game's 70-hour runtime a lot better than the other lengthy games in the series.

The combat sands down the rough edges of Symphonia's combat system (Side thought: What with all the musical theming in Abyss, shouldn't it have been named Symphonia instead?), making things a lot more dependable. Manual Overlimit and Freerun makes such a differ??ence for the experience. The Field of Fonon system (which alters artes with elementa?l properties) is neat, but there isn't much reason to engage with it unless you really want to.

The only negatives I can think of are the unvoiced skits and the Capacity Core system. Much like the FOF system, CCs aren't super vital to the game (besides getting the ability to u??se items on other party members). Which is good, as had CCs been super important, I would have been a lot more down on the game. As the system is now, you can't tell what support abilities you can get, nor wh?ich stats you need to raise to get them.

But that doesn't matter, since only the late game ones are any good, and those only matter for the NG+ bonus dungeon. It's such a waste of a mechanic, especially since Xillia 2 proves that it can be implemented better (though that incarnation of the system still has its faults). With a bit more tinkering to the sub-systems and combat plus a larger localizat??ion bu??dget, it would have basically been flawless as far as PS2 JRPGs go.

Tales of Vesperia

_{Read my review here.}

Here we are at the last game in the holy Symphonia/Abyss/Vesperia trilogy. It was lucky that Bamco decided to r?emaster this game for people like me who never got themselves an Xbox 360 just when I needed access to the game.

What stands out beyond the improved graphical presentation compared to Abyss is that we finally have voiced skits in a main game. It adds so much to be able to listen ?to the characters interact instead of just reading it, especially since the c??haracter portraits are so animated. Rita's slightly angry face is just the best.

All that helps you endear yourself to the characters, which are all quite good, even if they don't have much in the way of arcs. Yuri Lowell (somehow not voiced by Yuri Lowenthal) struggles less with himself and more with how to apply his beliefs that change is too slow and inefficient through official channels. It's a nice change of pace for a Tales pro??tagonist, but I still think he should have committed more mistakes. As it is now, he kinda comes off as always being right, even though I find it unlikely that he would always pick the ??"best" choice when faced with a dilemma. To err is human and all that.

The other big thing with the story is the environmentalist theme, which is handled slightly more tactfully than what Symphonia did with racism. A lot of the games deal with environmentalism to some degree, but here they went a few extra miles with it. The worldbuilding is paced well and lays the groundwork for the fossil fuel allegory by showcasing how necessary Blastia are and how difficult?? it'd be to simply stop using them. Although, when the cards had been played and the game was over, I was really missing an epilogue detailing the results of the party's efforts to save the world. It's obviously not a completely happy ending, a??nd I would have really liked to see a bit more.

The combat feels better than Abyss, but it's here where I see the beginnings of the three dozen needless mechanics that brought down Zestiria. Havi??ng four levels of Overlimit, less stringent input windows, and a lengthy list of differing artes to chain is great. With how annoying it is to learn Altered Artes, all the shit involving Fatal Strikes, and how difficult it is to air-juggle with Judith, I wish they reigned in their ambition. Just having the additions I praised earlier would have been enough.

The Definitive Edition brought with it many a thing (like extra scenes where Yuri is obviously not voiced by Troy Baker anymore), but what I really wanna focus on is Patty the pirate. This girl is crazy mechanically, so much so that she could carry her own game. While I was pleased to see some DMC moves in the game (Yuri has Prop S??hredder and Judith has Lunar Phase), Patty ??has fucking style switching!

It's somewhat random and difficult to get the hang of, but she is my favourite incarnation of the gambler archetype in a JRPG, as you get just enough control over her abilities to make it not feel like you'r??e just rolling a die. You need to adapt to your luck, learn to use her different forms and know which artes work best when. It's still a bit rough around the edges, but she's still great as a randomized mage/healer/buff machine to have in? your party.

Tales of Graces f

_{Read my review here.}

Graces was a nice surprise, as it deviates from the Symphonia lineage quite a bit and introduces a lot of fresh ideas and fixes. I get the feeling a lot of it is owed to its original home on the Wii?? and the limited amounts ??of buttons it has. I'm afraid to check if it had motion controls originally though.

The plot kinda snuck up on me with how much it ended up affecting me emotionally. Power of friendship stuff is a bit hit-or-miss for me, but here it was a hit for sure. There are a couple of reasons for this, with the first one being the childhood prologue and how well the rest of the game uses it. Some people are bound to have difficulty empathizing with?? the plights and wants of children, but I liked what was put on the table. Adults are nothing but oversized children anyway, which is something I hope everyone figures out eventually.

I especially liked it when the game introduced its fair share of tragedies, w?hich splits the party up and inspires Asbel to maintain his optimism and fight to reclaim the bonds he lost. His unending determination and optimism is the stuff of legend. While his worldview ends up being the solution to the plot, it's not without a ton of struggle, and that helped make it more believable. It's really heartwarming to see him somehow win out against those odds and create his own makeshift family.

Another thing I liked (which I have only ever seen in the anime Pandora Hearts) is the way power dynamics shift after the time skip. People who both Asbel and the player see as strong (which i?ncludes Asbel h?imself) don't seem so impressive as they once did, while those deemed as weak have done a lot to change that. It exemplifies how neither people nor relationships are stagnant and that one needs to work to maintain bonds.

It was also in this game where I realized just how much skits add to the series, especially when voiced. Since skits give the writers free rein to talk about basically anything through the characters, there's bound to be a skit or two that really hits home as long as you're willing to engage with it and pay attention to what's being said beneath the goofy veneer. I don't have a direct example (there are so many skits in one game alone), but these games do manage to get real from ti??me?? to time.

The raddest thing the game does though is to throw away a ton of staple mechanics for the combat in order to reinvent it. I'm a sucker for Souls games, so having a malleable stamina meter instead of a "mana pool" feels so right to me. This removes some of the item conservation ?aspect and lets the game hard-focus on the actual fighting.

When I revisited the game, everything clicked into place very quickly, as it's pretty straightforward to get the handle on laying down combos and frantically dodging. Even with the weakness combo system in place, you can still get a lot done by simply focusing on the inherent properties of each arte. Between the speed, range, stunlock-potential, and mobility, most artes really feel different, making it much easier to set up your favourite combinations. It's especially easy since you don't have to de??al with artificial combo limitations as much, since there are only two major types of artes. Couple that with spellcasters finally being fun to use (due to combos shortening cast times), every party member feeling good to play, and everyone having their own gimmicks, and you get a real blast of a combat system. Also, the secret Maxwell extension finisher for the final boss of the epilogue is fucking rad.

Tales of the Tempest

Now we're on the portable block of the retrospective, which is the one part of this whole ordeal I fully regret. As previously mentioned, I haven't played Tales of Hearts, but I can only hope that it's better t??han this sorry sack of software I subjected myself to?.

Tempest holds the unique "honor" of being the only mothership game in the series to retroactively be down?graded to an escort (spinoff) title. There are reasons for this, most of which I can't tell you because I barely got an hour into the game before giving up. What I can tell you is that it's slightly impressive for a DS game, but still very ugly and not very interesting. I don't know what else to say aside from that it needed better everything.

Oh yeah, Rubia scares me.

Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology

Being a fanservice crossover game, Radiant Mythology managed to hold my interest enough for me to beat it, but it was still very shallow compared to the games it plucked characters from. Instead of being a Tales game with crossover characters, it's a crossover game with Tales characters. As such, the story is?? bland and dotted with some neat cameos. The potential of the setup (like say having pre-development Luke collaborating with Raine for a ruin investigation) is completely wasted.

It's a mission-based RPG, which was all the rage on PSP and DS, meaning that you spend a lot of time running through the same areas under the guise of it being for a different reason each time. The combat is alright in places, but it's so hopelessly grindy. I have no idea how they intend you to have a fair chance of? beating the final boss without ??grinding your avatar into godhood status.

Tales of Innocence

At this point, my standards were lowered quite a bit, so Innocence being somewhat competent put me in a false sense of security. Combat works, but the dungeon design is as bad if not worse than Legendia, making it one hell of?? a journey to clear each dungeon. The final one in particular is basically a linear set of unavoidable bat??tles, and it's fucking terrible.

The only interesting thing about the plot is the cast being reincarnated gods (assuming my vague memories are trustworthy), but it does nowhere near as much with the concept as Digital Devil Saga, so I'd rather tell people to play that.

Tales of Xillia

_{Read my review here.}

Like Graces, Xillia was a game I didn't know much about except maybe a vague memory of Milla's character design. What's immediately interesting about the game is that she and Jude share top billing, meaning that the player can pick who to play as from a story perspectiv??e.

While it's a neat idea, it's not as interesting as one would hope, since most of the story is shared between the two save from certain parts where they split up. Beyond changing the colour grading (which still confounds me, since none of the areas?? look better tinted blue or pink), there are at least two reasons to replay the game as the other character. The first is to check out those exclusive scenes (I vote for going Jude first, even if his contributions to the story are lacking at times), and the second is to pick up on all the foreshadowing for the good t?wists in the game.

All of the post-Eternia games incentivize the player to replay the game by offering NG+ bonuses, but Xillia?? was the only game to get me to pull the trigger on that. Well, replaying the game that is. I was an idiot and assumed you wouldn't be able use a completed Jude save f?or a NG+ Milla save, but I still managed to have some fun on another fresh playthrough.

In spite of the environments being the worst in the 3D games (sooooo many tunnels and cliffy fields), thanks to the shop system it's pretty easy to maintain the game's pacing if you know what you're doing. By sacrificing upgrades to the equipment shops, you can hyper focus on the food shop, which eventually gives you exp boosts. You can then eat before every bos??s in order to keep up with the leveling curve without engaging with the intended amount of battles against common mooks.

That playthrough is the closest I've come to a boss rush RPG outside of Wild Arms 3, which I quite? enjoyed. The combat system shines the most in bosses, as that's where you need to fight long enough for everything to come into play.

Unlike Vesperia, Xillia distributes its complexities much better, meaning that it's worth caring about every major mechanic. Linking up with different characters for their support effects while doing co-op attacks is great fun. You still have to reign yourself in to enjoy the game, as the characters' different playstyles and gimmicks are so unique that trying to master them all in a single playthroug??h is a fool's errand.

That maintains replayability, but me being me, I still tried to play with almost everyone to limited success. If you can accept not kitting people out optimally, there are automated systems to use, which will totally get you through the game. However, it's so open to semi-complex choices that ?I couldn't help but try to optimize and figure out what I could do with most characters.

The biggest issue I have with the combat is how difficult it is to do the top-level combos. Said combos will only happen if you swap link partners during combat to extend how long of a link arte chain you can do during Overlimit. I find that so difficult because to do that you need a near-perfect setup of 16 artes, which you then need to internalize before you can pull off a link partner-switching combo. That takes a decent am?ount of practice and is made harder by the addition of new artes as you progress, since artes that feel good or hit a specific element may not fit well into your link arte setup.

I would have added a "standard setup" for each character that strikes a good balance between gamefeel and utility for people to fall back on (like what Berseria has), or an option that let you automatically pair the artes of the character you're currently using to the others in the active party. Although, now that I think about it, that sounds like a nightmarish algorithm to design. Interestingly enough, Xillia 2 had its own solution to this problem.

Tales of Xillia 2

_{Read my review here.}

In many ways, Xillia 2 and Dawn of the New World are cut from the same cloth. Both were made for less than stellar reasons (Dawn to cash in on Symphonia fans, Xillia 2 to make a game for cheap) and feature new protagonists, but Xillia 2 doesn't make the same mistakes and comes out the better game. Instead of shying away from the old party members in lieu of a half-baked Pokemon clone, it instead relishes in everything Xillia had to offer, builds on top of the story pretty well (all things considered), fixes issues with the combat system, and even adds more stuff to the mix without feeling as annoyingly complex as Vesperia (or god forbid, Zestiria).

While the silent Ludger isn't nearly as fleshed out as Emil, I was still interested in his relationship with Elle. They make for a fun pair. What really sold the story for me was how it uses the old characters. Everyone gets something to do in the new world as they try to find their place in it, and it feels a lot more natural than what Lloyd was up to in Dawn. Even just taken as a vector for new skits, Xillia proves its ?worth as a product. It's just so good to see everyone hang out and go on weird tangents.

While the game is shameless about its recycled assets, I found its laid-back presentation to really work in its favour. The music and fourth-w??all-breaking UI messages really helped in that regard. It's not a game for everyone, but if you go into it with the correct mindset and accept it as a reall??y fun expansion pack, there's a lot to like.

I have my grievances with the removal of the Allium Orbs, but the combat really shines. Ludger is the closest rival to Patty when it comes to mechanical complexity in the series. So much so that you can easily play as him exclusively and not get bored. Then you have the reintroduction of sidesteps from Graces, generic Link artes to make Overlimit combos flow better and even som??????????????????????????e new basic attacks.

I'm glad I gave the game a chance to impress me because, even with its issues, it has a lot to offer, both as ??a sequel and as an installment in the series.

Tales of Berseria

_{Read my review here.}

During this two-year journey, I heard more and more things about Berseria, painting it as a return to form after Zestiria, which was encouraging to hear. In many ways, it is, but it wasn't as good as I had ?hoped sadly.

The Berserk-inspired story made me feel things, and the mechanics are not as brain-shatteringly complex as Zestiria's, but even so, the game has clear faults to me. As far as the story is concerned, the pacing during act 2 (when the party investigates Therions) and how needless Rokuro feels really makes me wish they had taken an axe to the script. I believe a part of those feelings may be due to series fatigue, but I still think Berseria is the game in the series that would have the most to gain by being shorter. ??There are just so many hours in be?tween the game's most emotional moments, which makes it a bit of a slog.

While gameplay isn't as befuddling as Zestiria's, it features a bunch of half-steps that seem caught between series tradition and wanting to reinvent things even more than Graces did. With the removal of directional input (for the most part, four artes can still be assigned to directional input), a really shoddy sidestep, a debilitating stamina system during boss fights, and a customizable arte tree, I found it hard to engage with the game on an immediate level. Comparatively, the basics of Zestiria are easier to grasp. It's just all t?he extra bullshit on top of that and the bad camera that drags it down.

Beyond the Soul system, what really got me down is the intersection of the power combo system and the customizable arte tree. When I revisited Zestiria, I was shocked to see that the arte tree there was unchangeable, putting it closer to Graces than I had realized. In Berseria, you can either use the pre-made tree or try to figure out your own setup. Although, with enemy weaknesses be?ing so modular, you can never have a comfortable setup for a character. Instead of it being "Oh, I need to use these two abilities on this enemy. Lemme switch my approach a bit." it's "Okay, if I wanna hit those three weaknesses, I need use one of these two characters and fiddle with the arte tree for a couple of minutes, so I can figure out a ??combo that chains well and doesn't hit a resistance."

Now, I realize that there are mechanics in play to give you more freedom for combos. There are derivative artes which you can access from other artes, plus the aforementioned directional shortcuts, but that just adds another dimension of complexity to the whole thing. The default tree doesn't cover things as well as the static tree in Graces or Zestiria. Trying to figure out a good custom setup takes forever since you won't have access to all artes until level 60, and there's no practice mode. After a while, I just went for the braindead approach of ignoring weaknesses and spamming things with Velvet, which expressly undoes a lot of the gameplay depth due to how ?strong she is.

The four-button attack buttons and the free movement are valid ideas, but for them to work, the game needs to let up even more and go even further into Musou. If you could simply focus on designing combos that felt good to use with intrinsic properties (like the Burst artes in Graces) with an omnidirectional dodge without having to think about hitting multiple weaknesses, I think the game would be in a better place. If the? series wants to be more involved Musou, then that's fine. However, this half-step isn't the way to go.

End of First Half

I'm glad you're still with me. That was quite the journey. Stay tuned for the e?nd of the retrospective where I'll dole out awards, rank the games, and give my final thoughts on the seri??es. Until then, Imma get some rest.

The post Hunting My Wh??ite Whale: The Tales Series Retrospective appeared first on Destructoid.

Cblogs of 5/15 to 5/21/2021

-Eggs&Brewsterjr discusses ?eight Game Boy games ?they know they would love to play.

-GamingDino highlights another gaming dinosaur in ARK.

-D-Volt writes about how the Sonic franchise may b??e limited by their own focus on Sonic's speed.

-Manasteel88 highlights an incoming Sonic fan gaming jam.

-Lord Spencer reviews Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee as part of his PS1 REVIEWS blogging series.

-Eggs&Brewsterjr shares a list of random 22 ga?mes that they just heard about and might play sometime in the future.

-Black Red Gaming reviews Days Gone on the PC.

-PhilsPhindings discusses the similarities between the soundtrack of Metal Gear and both folk music and synth-pop.

-ABowlOfCereal continues their balancing suggestion of Guardian Tales, with a focus on the Warriors class this time.

-Queen of Philosophy opens this week's TGIF open community forum.

Thanks to our readers for the great blogs and to Lord Spencer for providing us with the recap. If you'd like to be part of next week's front page? roundup, head on over to the Cblogs sections and speak your brains. So??me weeks we get a lot, some weeks only a few, but we always enjoy reading your thoughts and opinions!

The post What’s your all-time favorite Game Boy release? appeared first on Destructoid.

Cblogs of 5/8 to 5/14/2021

-Gamingnerd w?onders if single-??player games are simply a multiplayer game against the game's AI.

-Febochulus reviews indie game, Hylics.

-Lord Spencer reviews Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix as part of his PS1 REVIEWS blogging series.

-Dinoracha reviews the early access version of RoboQuest.

-NinjaSpeed writes abou?t playing a long-term franchise f?or the first time.

-Black Red Gaming does some mini-reviews for three indie games: Deadly Days, Narita Boy, Road Redemption.

-PhilsPhindings discusses the similarities between the soundtrack of Metal Gear and some Jazz/Rock fusion.

-ABowlOfCereal continues their balancing suggestion for Guardian Tales.

-Boxman214 shares his exp??erience being a Dungeon Master for the first ti?me.

-ChronoLynxx opens this week's TGIF community thread.

Thanks to our readers for the great blogs and to Lord Spencer for providing us with the recap. If you'd like to be part of next week's front page roundup, head on over to the Cblogs sections and speak your brains. We're look forward to your discourse! Don't forget to check out the Band of Bloggers "Photo Mode" prompt

The post Wh?ich video games do you think demonstrate t??he sharpest A.I.? appeared first on Destructoid.

Cblogs of 5/1 to 5/7/2021

-Black Red Gaming continues listing their "Game Selections" with entries 17-20 regarding ga??mes everyone should play.

-LaTerry presents this month's Band of Bloggers prompt focusing on Photo Modes in Video Games.

-Flegma responds to the prompt quickly with this blog about the shmup, Shoot the Bullet.

-Kerrik52 continues their Tales of series retrospective with this second blog with rankings and awards on the Namco fra?nchise.

-Shoggoth2588 shares their personal April gaming journal.

-Exber reviews the original Xenoblade Chronicles.

-Dango shares the first part of their thoughts on Hitman: World of Assassinations.

-Siflox Gaming reviews Brawl Stars on Mobile.

-Lord Spencer reviews Fear Effect as part of his PS1 REVIEWS blogging series.

-Propeller48 talks about how NBA 2K21 tips will help you play the game better.

-GamingDino writes about the first partner you can get in ARK Survival Evolved.

-Chris Bradshaw reflects on race and racism in a thoughtful blog.

-PhilsPhindings discusses the similarities between the soundtrack of Indiana Jones IV and marching music.

-ABowlOfCereal continues their Guardian Tales balancing suggestions.

-Alphadeus is in the process of making his 50th album, and?? he is taking i?nput from the Dtoid community.

-Solidsnape talks about how streamers are affecting GTA's servers.

-Queen of Philosophy opens this week's TGIF open community forum.

This was a really varied run of topics from our community this week - photo modes, shmups, PS1 classics, music, memories and much more. That's what we like to see! Thanks to Lord Spencer for providing us with the recap. If you'd like to be part of next week's front page roundup, head on over to the Cblogs sections and speak your brains. We're look forward to your discourse! Don't forget to check out the Band of Bloggers "Photo Mode" prompt!

The post What’s one title you think every single video game fan should experience? appeared first on Destructoid.

Cblogs of 4/24 to 4/30/2021

-La Terry responds to April's Band of Bloggers prompt by writing about how Nier: Replicant subverted their genre expectations.

-Black Red Gaming writes about 007 Legends, the James Bond game ??that almost killed the video game future of the franchise.

-Exber responds to April's Band of Bloggers prompt by writing abo??ut several games that exceeded expectations.

-Lord Spencer reviews Klonoa: Door to Phantomile as part of his PS1 REVIEWS blogging series.

-Solidsnape writes about how Battlefield 4 still holds the flag of the franchise.

-RedHeadPeak writes about how some videogame storytelling focuses on talking too much instead of showing the story (JRPGs are particularly guilty of this?).

-Famutimi writes about the importance of Lidia Sobieska of Tekken 7 in the canon of women video game characters.

-Solidsnape shares their thoughts on Scavengers Early Access gameplay.

-Deatheagle writes about how Epic cross-platform policy without matchmaking parameters ruined Fortnite on the Switch.

-Kerrik52 celebrates finishing their Tales series retrospective blogs and ??takes a we?ll-earned break.

-Black Red Gaming shares a list of their most antici??pate?d games to be released in May.

-Damien Quicksilver writes about "Antst?ream",&nb??sp;a streaming service for retro games.

-PhilsPhindings discussed the similarities between the soundtrack of Paper Mario 64 and Latin Music.

-NinjaSpeed tries to craft a corner of sunshine in the black abyss of the inter??net, go and bask in the positivity.

-Taterchimp shares a number of Keto diet recipes.

-ABowlOfCereal continues writing balancing suggestion blogs about Guardian Tales.

-Taterchimp reminds you that their Final Fantasy VI charity stream is starting May 1st, check it out.

-Narwhalnut updates us on the progress of their video game, Belle Boomerang.

-ChronoLynxx opens anoth??er TGIF community forum for open di??scussion.

Really good stuff from our community this week. A healthy run of blogs and a very varied list of topics. Thanks to Lord Spencer for providing us with the recap. And? if you'd like to be part of next week's front page roundup, then head on over to the Cblogs and spill your opinions. We're looking forward to hearing from you!

The post If NieR: Auto?mata was your entry to the franchise, how are you finding NieR Replicant? appeared first on Destructoid.

Promoted from our Community Blogs

_{[I'm a huge fan of bite-sized games. The goofier and weirder, the better. I had heard of Dread X Collection before, but I'd never really taken a closer look at it until Mr. Knives conveniently put this blog together covering the series. Immediately after watching these trailers, I went ahead and bought them all. Some of it seems like standard indie horror fare, but a lot of it looks like it goes to some pretty fun places. - Kevin]}

Think about how cool it would be to have a bunch of wildly different games in one collection. Think Heavy Metal. Think The Animatrix and Love, Death, and Robots. Think of video game anthologies, which were almost non-existent outside the occasional retro compilation that seems to come out every generation until the release of The Dread X Collections.

This is different though. It's is? raw and horrifying. It's hilarious and action-packed. It's janky and sometimes clunky to play.

This is Dread X and I am so thankful for its existence.

Dread X is a collection of bite-sized game experiences all centered around a single theme. It's more in-depth than something like Mario Party or Warioware but just stopping? short of the 5 to 8-hour campaigns seen so often in modern gaming.

The Dread X collections gather different developers to build short games centered around a theme, put them in an affordable package, and be released to the general PC gaming public. W?hat we get is an uneven, sometimes jarring, sometimes frightening, but always fun collection of games that truly show the nearly limitless potential of some of these developers' im?aginations.

Spearheaded by David Szymanski, the creator of boomer shooter Dusk, each Dread collection comes with at least several games that vary in length. Some take only a few minutes to complete while others can take upwards of one hour to fully play through. Each game though is wildly different in gameplay, visuals, and themes making each one worth checking out, as you'll continually want to see what's next. One moment you'll be stuck in a world while a comet slowly plunges towards Earth, and next you'll be stuck on a deserted island with a bucket that keeps asking you to do more sinister deeds, only to finally be a pistol-packing priest sent to a Resident Evil-esque mansion wi?th the task of shooti??ng demons and exercising humans.

The latest release in the Dread X series, The Hunt comes the closest to forming an overarching narrative and an attempt to loosely tie together these seemingly random games into one cohesive narrative. Pulling from movies like The Thing, you play as an explorer stuck in an abandoned Arctic base who has to complete each microgame to progress through the base and solve its deadly mystery. While one could argue that each game's themes have nothing to do with the overarching plot, the gameplay more than makes up for it. You'll take on spirits with your camera, a la Fatal Frame, only to find yourself fending off cultists with your one-hit-kill wonder flintloc??k rifle that you have to reload one agonizing step at a time, no pressing R here.

This variety is where the true strength of Dread X lies and helps set it apart from a more unified, traditional game. The thrill of the unknown and the unexpected nature that comes with it is in full force in each of these collections, giving you only a few moments to get your bearings on how each game works and what you need to do to ??progress. This more than makes up for some of the more uneven or forgettable titles as most of them are finished in a short period, and even if they don't click with you, you can?? easily move on to another title.

However, the collection's greatest strength is also is the weakest link. Far too often, there are games with many interesting mechanics or unique ideas that end too soon. There were multiple times in all three collections where I felt myself wanting more. Mor??e of that world, more of that cool mechanic I've never seen done in games before, more of that sweet lore that was just starting to develop. If anything, hopefully, it gives these developers the chance to fully dive back in and flesh out these ideas for a full-fledged title, but for now, I'm left with that empty feeling of wanting more and the melancholy that follows their completion.

I don't hear these titles talked about very often through mainstream channels, and it seems even fewer people know about their existence. The ones that do either fervently love every aspect of them or feel that they are a jumbled mess that misses more than hitting the mark. It's this extreme polarization that makes them worth playing at least once, if only for the reason to see a celebration of the horror genre of video games and the ability to see them now rather than years later. Dread X titles come out at a s?urprisingly fast pace meaning that new ideas a??nd new experiences are always on the horizon without the need to wait for a long development cycle.

I'm not going to pretend that they are perfect collections, but I will celebrate their existence of cool ideas, vivid concepts, and talented developers getting the opportunity to show off what they've been dreaming up behind the scenes. I would rather have an experience that doesn't always stick the landing but provides something interesting and memorable. Dread X does that. Hell, Dread X excels in that. If you're looking for an experien??ce a little less ordinary, I cannot recommend all four of these collections ??enough.

For more information on the Dread X Collections, please visit their website. 

For weekly streams on retro and weird video games, please follow me on Twitch.

The post Dread X Colle??c?tion: An imperfect collection of unchained creativity appeared first on Destructoid.

No matter how farfetched

Cblogs of 4/17 to 4/23/2021

-Egg&Brewsterjr gives thanks for the fan translation of Marvelous: Mohitotsu no Takarajima.

-BRAV0 F1VE reviews indie game Narita Boy.

-Gamingnerd looks back at the history of the Metal Slug franchise on its 25th anniversary.

-Lord Spencer writes a report about 11 games as part of his PS1 REVIE??WS bloggin??g series.

-Dinoracha reviews Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Switch.

-Gamingnerd looks back at the history of the Wonder Boy franchise on its 35th anniversary.

-Lord Spencer upd??ates his PS1 REVIEWS List where you can suggest games for him to ??review.

-Mr. Knives share his thoughts on the Dread X Collection of bit-sized games.

-Osc updates us on the progress of their hobbyis??t game.

-ABowlOfCereal continues the discussion on balancing Guardian Heroes.

-ChronoLynxx opens another TGIF open community forum thread.

A smaller run of blogs this week, but all of them are aces! Thanks to Lord Spencer for providing us with the recap. And if you'd like to be part of next week's front page roundup, then head on over to the Cblogs and spill ??your opinions. We're looking forward?? to hearing from you!

The post What video games would you love to see localized? appeared first on Destructoid.

Cblogs of 4/10 to 4/6/2021

-Siflox Gaming reviews Apex Legends in its current 2021 form.

-Aurachad shares their thoughts on Assassin's Creed: Valhalla.

-Lord Spencer reviews SaGa Frontier 2 as part of his PS1 REVIEWS blogging series.

-Exber reviews all the games they pla?yed ??in the first quarter of 2021.

-Beatlemaniaxx writes in detail about Mole Mania, a game that few people know was actually made by Ninte??ndo.

-Siflox Gaming reviews Rouge Company.

-Gamingnerd rants on Sony and the future of gaming.

-Black Red Gaming reviews Ghost of Tsushima on the PS4.

-TheBlondeBass's Awards now have their [Epilogue].

-Boxed Swine discusses the Netflix show, Disenchantment.

-Spazzzh20 shares their thoughts on how to fix Evangelion 3.0+1.0.

-PhilsPhindings discusses the similarities between the soundtrack of Donkey Kong '94 and old-time pop music.

-Taterchimp will do a charity stream of Final Fantasy VI, so check it out.

-ChronoLynxx opens this week's TGIF open community forum.

Thank you for this week's great content! Thanks, as always, to Lord Spencer for providing us with the recap. If you'd like to see your own thoughts captured for posterity on our fron??t page, then head on over to the Cblogs and have at it. We always enjoy reading your?? innermost thoughts!

The post As Apex Legends surpasses 100 million players, have you given it a shot?? yet? appeared first on Destructoid.