For a very abridged version of a very deep series, Fire Emblem Heroes is initially engaging in that it has hooks for two different kinds of players: for fans, the hope of randomly unlocking a favorite character, and for newcomers to the series, an accessible and fun introduction to its turn-based battle tactics. But it also doesn't do much beyond that, and if you're somewhere in between those two archetypes, it doesn't give a compelling reason for you to stick with it.
Playing Fire Emblem Heroes consists mainly of engaging in battles to earn Orbs and then using those Orbs to unlock characters from previous Fire Emblem games at random. There are several currencies to manage and a layered leveling system, but that's the basic feedback loop. Win a battle, collect an Orb, and hope for a good character (or your favorite) to unlock; if you don't get what you want, keep trying. What's missing is why.
Heroes adapts the series' tactical gameplay for mobile by lowering the difficulty enough to increase the pace of battle. Fire Emblem is known for turn-based strategy on a battlefield, punishing perma-death, and RPG-style character and story development. Heroes features simplified combat without perma-death, and it has a minimal story that isn't at all interesting without previous Fire Emblem knowledge.
I breezed through the first few chapters with no problems aside from having a weak party initially, and it was a good warm-up after a long break from Fire Emblem. Battles themselves play really well on touchscreen thanks to intuitive controls, and dropping in for a few minutes while on a break makes sense and is definitely an entertaining way to spend some downtime. As the challenges get harder, executing the right strategy can take some serious trial and error, and finding a solution to a tricky map or tough enemies is satisfying.
Trying to unlock new characters, however, is more of a drag. If you have a bad party due to unlucky character drafts, pulling new, stronger allies is the best way to get the upper hand in high-difficulty battles. In the beginning, you can use reward items from completing challenges to quickly level up whoever you want to use. But if you hit a bit of bad RNG, that can mean a lot of grinding--and there are diminishing returns on how fun a battle can be when you're only doing it to avoid paying real money for Orbs so you can keep getting more characters.
Of course, it's like that on purpose, since that's often how free-to-play games turn a profit. But if you're not terribly invested in unlocking Tharja or Camilla or Marth, then the only reason to keep playing is for the battles. Before I'd put together a strong team, I started to lose interest in playing; but once I pulled good characters, I had a hard time putting my phone down. It's very tempting to keep playing thanks to Heroes' quick grind-reward loop, and when I wasn't spending Orbs on characters, I was using them to fill my Stamina--a separate currency you need in order to battle which refills over time in typical mobile game fashion.
While I never felt forced to buy Orbs, I did end up spending money on them once I started battling for extended periods of time. Playing for more than a few battles in a row meant needing (and buying) more Orbs--and that's when I decided I would much rather just play Awakening instead, where there's more of a challenge and my favorite characters are more fleshed out.
When the incentive to keep playing is to be able to keep playing, it's easy to burn out on Fire Emblem Heroes. Aside from obtaining your favorite characters--if you even care about that--Fire Emblem Heroes becomes less and less rewarding as time goes on. Grinding can only be fun for so long before chasing rare allies becomes a chore, and in that sense it caters to two ends of a wide spectrum while offering little incentive for anyone in between.
There's always been something voyeuristic about sniping in video games. With a powerful rifle in hand, you're perched in some bombed-out tower overlooking a Nazi-occupied town, your crosshairs fixated squarely on the head of an enemy soldier as he strides along his designated patrol route. He has no idea that with one pull of the trigger, you're about to send a bullet careening through flesh and bone, snuffing out his young life in a single, gory instant. It's in these moments, when an unaware enemy is trained in your sights and you take a deep breath before pulling the trigger on a skull-shattering killshot, that make Rebellion's Sniper Elite such a devilish joy. Where the series has regularly faltered, however, is in the moments between these euphoric, long-range kills, where it has often been a cumbersome chore just to get around in a stealthy manner. With Sniper Elite 4, Rebellion has changed all that.
This starts with the levels themselves. In Sniper Elite 3, Rebellion abandoned the linearity of previous series entries in favour of opening things up, and Sniper Elite 4 continues that trend in grand fashion. The smallest map in Sniper Elite 4 is three times the size of the largest one seen in its predecessor, and these expansive sandboxes are brimming with open-ended objectives you can choose to complete in any way you desire and in any order you please. They're varied locales, too, stretching across picturesque Italian landscapes on the verge of invasion: from the sunswept isolation of a cavernous island off the coast, to the narrow confines of an opulent beachfront town, to the dense overgrowth found in the heart of a verdant forest. Each one teeming with fascists just waiting to be extinguished with a well-placed bullet.
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And these massive playgrounds aren't just big for the sake of it; they grease the cogs of every other aspect of Sniper Elite 4's design. Collectibles and advantageous sniping positions are judiciously dotted around each map, encouraging you to explore, and the macabre satisfaction of sniping is increased tenfold when you're able to execute a pinpoint headshot from as far as 400 metres away. Sniper Elite's signature X-ray kills return in all their morbid glory here--now with even more detail--and it's a particular treat to see a bullet travel over these extensive distances before colliding with an enemy's skull, the hot lead bursting through eyeballs and sending a mixture of brain matter and skull fragments scattering onto the floor. This may sound tasteless, but the series' grisly ballistics are still second to none--and there's something wonderfully schlocky about rupturing an enemy's scrotum from 200 metres away.
Getting into these fruitful sniping positions isn't the chore it once was either. There's a newfound responsiveness to protagonist Karl Fairburne's movement that makes it easier to get around and stay hidden. This polishing of the underlying mechanics makes tiptoeing across these mammoth spaces enjoyable in itself. There's a decent degree of verticality to each map, too, and you now have the ability to utilize it by clambering up specific surfaces, jumping across gaps, and climbing in and out of windows to navigate with increased freedom--not to mention the ability to wipe out a few enemies with some stealthy ledge takedowns. Environmental kills also play a part, whether it's a convenient red barrell or a rickety-looking bridge, and foliage is often a welcome aid to keep you out of sight from curious Nazi eyes.
With the structure (or lack thereof) of its open-ended mission design, there's also a clear emphasis on experimentation. This is never more evident than with the two-pronged function of each item in your deep-pocketed arsenal. For distraction devices, this means you can switch between throwing rocks to lure enemies to a specific area, or a whistle that will bring them straight to you. Where it really gets fun, however, is with the bevy of explosives in your stockpile. Equip landmine, for example, and you can set it to detonate after one press or two. The former will see it explode the moment it's stood on, which is ideal for a single enemy; while the latter detonates after two steps, making it perfect for dealing with groups. Rig one up with two presses in, say, a doorway, and the delayed blast radius is liable to take out three or four enemies, rather than just the first guy to enter the room. Once you start booby trapping bodies, this devious feature really comes into its own.
Personally, I have a soft spot for the sniper rifle's secondary function: suppressed rounds. These trade dramatic bullet drop-off for silent sniper fire, giving you the flexibility to use the game's standout feature with much more frequency. This was actually an issue in Sniper Elite 3, where it often felt like there were too few chances to use the sniper rifle without alerting everyone to your position, almost encouraging you to stick with the silenced pistol. There are still opportunities to mask the loud crack of your rifle with malfunctioning generators or the thundering noise of Luftwaffe flying overhead, which is the ideal way to silently pop skulls. But in areas where this isn't always possible, you now have the option to snipe with far more regularity, which is key in a game built around doing just that.
If you are spotted and the bullets start flying, pulling out your Thompson and going toe-to-toe with the bloodthirsty fascists isn't as clunky or frustrating as it has been previously. There's a fluidity to the way the game shifts from stealth to action and then back again. And while its cover-based shooting is merely competent at best, its viability as a messy plan B for when things go awry is very much appreciated--which, once again, traces back to the size of the levels themselves. Every objective essentially occupies a pocket of space on these vast maps. Once you're inside one of these pockets, you can cause as much mayhem and destruction as you please, and the rest of the enemies dotted across the level will be none the wiser. This allows you to go in all guns blazing and savour each violent moment, safe in the knowledge that you won't have to worry about the rest of the mission being full of Nazis on high alert. It's a smart choice.
The AI shows a marked improvement over its predecessors in situations similar to this. They'll attempt to triangulate your position based on the sound of gunfire, and officers will command their troops to overwhelm you if they have your location locked down. Inconsistency is a common menace, though, and they're not always the brightest bunch. There were a number of occasions where I would simply circle around an area after being spotted, only to find a bundle of enemies cowering behind cover near my last known position. With all of their backs turned, it was easy pickings. In other instances I've killed an enemy whose body is quickly discovered by one of his buddies. Naturally, I kill him while he's examining it, which garners the attention of another guard, and you can probably tell where I'm going with this. Guard after guard after guard; each one brazenly disregarding the growing pile of corpses to wade into my line of sight.
If you want a harder challenge from the occasional bungling enemy, the "Authentic" difficulty setting strips away all of the handy assists and extends the life of the campaign with a steep learning curve. You'll probably want to skip all of the cutscenes a second time through, though. The plot is completely forgettable; a stereotypical World War II tale, with an unhinged Nazi villain, and a superweapon only our gruff American hero can stop. Some surface level details touch on the Italian resistance and the mafia's role in the war, but it never delves deep enough to be particularly enlightening or engaging as a story. Beyond the beautiful Italian landscapes, the setting isn't exploited as much as one might hope.
Sniper Elite 4 feels like a natural progression for this series, as Rebellion continues to refine its systems and put a greater emphasis on the long-range shooting
Multiplayer serves up a plethora of game modes spread across competitive and cooperative offerings. Control asks teams to battle for supremacy over an ever-moving control point, disregarding the sniper rifle in favour of some up-close-and-personal skirmishes. This sits in stark contrast to the rest of the competitive modes, which are predominantly marksman affairs. If you enjoy cautiously moving across maps with an eye open for the glint of an enemy scope, then there will be something here for you. I can't say I've ever regularly enjoyed sniping in multiplayer shooters, so entire matches based around this style of combat aren't for me. Killing a human player from the opposite side of a map is still immensely satisfying, but these moments are so few and far between, it was never enough to hold my attention for too long.
Survival fares much better, as up to four players work together to withstand increasingly challenging waves of enemies-- à la Horde mode. As snipers, distance is a key advantage, and it's fun finding an opportune location to seek shelter and pick off each wave of progressively difficult Nazis. In a unique twist, the supply box you use to replenish your ammunition also moves to a different location every few waves, forcing you to get creative with your trap placement, and discover new areas to camp out. Once mortar fire, tanks, and heavily-armoured units rain down upon you, it can get incredibly tense.
Sniper Elite 4 feels like a natural progression for this series, as Rebellion continues to refine its systems and put a greater emphasis on the long-range shooting it does so well. Its stealth and action mechanics may be simplistic, but they're functional and regularly enjoyable. And the maps--with their impressive scale, open-ended objectives, and clever level design--coalesce these disparate systems into a creative and fulfilling whole. There are still some issues with AI inconsistency, a bland story, and some dull competitive multiplayer, but it finally feels like this series is living up to its long-standing potential.
In Arc System Works' revival of the classic Double Dragon series, we have evidence that some video game throwbacks can be too authentic for their own good. Double Dragon IV is a direct sequel to the NES version of Double Dragon II (oddly not Double Dragon III)--and when we say "direct," we mean it. This is an odd game that, quite literally, could've appeared on the 30-year-old system and felt right at home.
While this might sound great in theory if you have nostalgia for the 8-bit era, reality tells a different story. The original Double Dragon games still hold a special place in many an older gamer's heart, but they are products of their time. Later side-scrolling brawlers would vastly surpass the primitive action of the series' Lee brothers. Capcom's Final Fight and especially Sega's Streets of Rage would go on to take the mantle of top brawlers in the 1990s, so seeing a sequel to the NES version in 2017 is a bit strange.
Double Dragon IV staunchly replicates the NES games' graphics and mechanics, complete with incredibly annoying screen tearing and flickering. Characters are crudely drawn, hit detection is sketchy, and the gameplay itself wavers between mindless and unfair. Some enemies stand around senselessly or rush blindly at you, and others start attacking with projectiles before they even appear onscreen. Compared to a modern brawler, the moveset--though slightly enhanced since the early '90s--is limited. You have a punch, kick, jump kick, and a couple of minor "special" moves like an uppercut. Regardless, you can get through most levels by spamming basic attacks.
Repetition has always been a problem with brawlers, but Double Dragon IV really doesn't overstay its welcome. Like the originals, it takes around 35 to 45 minutes to complete. Levels are short, transition story panels are slight, and while the scenery changes, there's not a lot of variety in the level design.
In light of a few sections that require pixel-perfect accuracy on your part, Double Dragon IV's stiff controls add an unnecessary layer of frustration to seemingly simple platforming. At one point, there's an odd level inside a freight ship that includes spiked ceilings and traps, that lead to a lot of annoying instant deaths. Tricky level design isn't unusual for Double Dragon, but unfortunately, it serves to highlight how sluggish the controls are.
So, Double Dragon IV isn't a good game in a modern sense, but it certainly is an honest trip back in time that will, if nothing else, offer a heavy dose of nostalgia for anyone with a fondness for the Lee Brothers' 8-bit adventures. Frankly, it mimics its source material perfectly. It's a worthwhile historical artifact if nothing else, but absolutely cannot match the vast improvements in gaming since those early days.
Warhammer 40,000: Sanctus Reach is a tough game to play. It's a turn-based strategy game packed with great ideas pulled straight from its namesake tabletop game, but it buries the good bits under layers of awful user interfaces, poor artificial intelligence, threadbare aesthetics, and a ton of bugs.
On the surface, Sanctus Reach seems like it'd be easy enough to pull together. You only have two factions to manage: the iconic Space Marines and the bloodthirsty Orks. Once a match starts, each player has a preset number of points they can spend on the units and gear they'd like to take into battle. Options are varied and run the gamut between colossal Dreadnoughts and packs of Goblins. After each side picks its warriors, players take turns moving across the board with the aim of controlling as many victory points as possible. Bouts are engaging, and depending upon your initial choices, you'll have a small array of strategic options at your disposal. Unfortunately, almost everything outside of that core is painful and frustrating. And it starts with the menus.
Starting a match in Sanctus Reach is a tedious process. At a point where players should be raring to go, excited for all the possibilities to come, menus with almost nonexistent tool tips bog and frustrate. Outside of the campaign--where you're railroaded into a series of rough-hewn maps--skirmishes and multiplayer games start you off with a few options. Most of these, like the size of the map, are simple enough. Others, however, don't make any sense unless you're a seasoned player, as they don't get any cogent explanation.
The game fails to demonstrate which troops do what or what types of foes they're effective against. Match length is unpredictable and the objective of each game mode is unclear. Options include "Attack," "Defend," "Meeting Engagement," and "Symmetric." None of those, on their own, explain their effects at the start.
Granted, some of that goes away with experimentation, but the bulk of the game's tutorials are in YouTube videos. They explain things in a direct, easy-to-understand manner, but they're not available in the game itself. You can access these videos from the game's splash screen, or click an in-game link that closes the program and launches your browser. Instructions within the game are insufficient as they are, and it's unfortunate that you need to leave the game entirely to learn the inner workings of its mechanics.
Even with the video tutorials, however, you'll encounter situations you won't quite understand. A Dreadnought (Warhammer speak for monstrous exosuit) can stand right next to a cadre of Orks, unable to attack. You might think it's because line-of-sight is blocked, but there's nothing preventing you from attacking. The Orks will shoot up your mechanical walker several times before you can reposition, and before you know it, you've lost one of your most expensive units. It's impossible to tell if there's some mystery mechanic that's never explained or if it's a bug.
Those bumps notwithstanding, matches do show some promise. Depending on the composition of your team, you'll have tactical options (though, again, you don't know what those are without experimentation) that range from area-of-effect attacks to suppressing fire to specialized melee abilities. Your only goal is to scout control points and hold onto them with your units' various abilities. Depending upon whether you're attacking or defending, you can charge forward, blowing holes in walls and destroying your foes' cover, or you can hunker down and prepare ambushes for the invaders. Regardless, this is where Sanctus Reach's scant strengths show.
Most units have a few different means of attack. Some have heavy weapons and melee options, while others are fast shock troops that switch between pistols and grenades. Your goal is to leverage each of their abilities and organize your teams into tight groups that work well with one another in order to clinch victory. Pairing units that complement one another--like vehicles that can hit hard and move fast with flamethrowers that can wreak havoc on swarms of enemies--is crucial. And the combination of troop variations with map obstacles often creates intriguing decisions. You can hold a defensive position in a bombed-out building, whittling enemies down as they approach before you blow through a wall to continue on to the next control point.
As fun as that can be, you won't have to wait long for it to wear a bit thin. Whether you're in the campaign or in skirmish/multiplayer modes, you're always dealing with control points. Turn timers put a hard cap on how long games last, too, so rushing tactics are the only real option. There's no total elimination and no multi-part missions with creative or varied goals.
Making matters worse, the game's AI is laughable. Often, Orkish hordes will march straight into an obvious trap, and then, once their soldiers have been reduced to mangled, bloody bodies, they'll send another detachment without any additional precautions or changes to tactics. The developers have openly acknowledged some of these problems, but at time of this review, it's a big drag on a game that desperately needs some more marks in its favor.
Sanctus Reach is frustrating enough with poor tutorials, bugs, and awful AI, but that's all magnified by bland aesthetics that blur together. Many units look similar, textures are grainy and pixelated, and many screens have low-resolution backgrounds. It's not usually an issue, but graphical oversights of all types abound and can make it difficult to recognize units and unit types, as well as hinder the legibility of tool-tip pop-ups.
Even if you can get past its many shortcomings, Sanctus Reach has some of the weirdest bugs I've ever seen. In my time with it, I found that the game wouldn't always maintain full-screen priority. Without warning, it would shift into the background and bring up a web browser or word processor. It would also lock up on occasion, and when trying to Ctrl-Alt-Delete to close, I'd get a Sanctus Reach-specific error code saying that it had a "Fatal Application Exit." Crashes like this were rare, as was the automatically shifting window priority, but they add even more frustration to an already flawed game.
Sanctus Reach does offer a handful of decent moments. I chuckled when I reduced a squadron of Orks to bloody puddles, and again when I managed what at first seemed an impossible incursion. But these flashes of satisfaction aren't enough to hold up a game that's mediocre at best and vexing at worst. Together with a host of minor annoyances, they add up to a long, dull stint with a bad game from a great franchise that deserves far better treatment.
Nioh is an immensely layered experience. Through its Dark Souls-inspired combat, you're taught the virtues of patience and the value of defense. With each death, you learn a bit more about yourself and your enemy. This Team Ninja production, set during a time of great social upheaval in Japan, demonstrates the studio's penchant for demanding action-driven gameplay that rewards tactics and high dexterity. And despite all the inevitable dying, Nioh is surprisingly rich with solutions to overcome its many hurdles.
Koei Tecmo's fondness for Japan's tumultuous Sengoku period is on full display in Nioh. The unusual foreign point of view of protagonist William Adams adds freshness to this familiar setting. Adams' real life notoriety as the first Western samurai is the kernel that allows the game to glorify him as a knowledgeable user of Japanese melee weaponry. His path to combat proficiency is partly motivated by his pursuit of antagonist and occultist Edward Kelley, also an English historical figure. Both are searching for Amrita, a type of magical stone abundant in Japan that is thought to have the power to turn the tide in Queen Elizabeth I's favor in her war against Spain.
Death is featured heavily, not just in the frequency of player failures but also in the war torn lands Adams explores. Many of Nioh's levels feel like you've walked into an imaginary epilogue of an Akira Kurosawa film. The extensiveness of ruin and the littering of corpses are complemented by a recurring musical theme that effectively captures the solemnness of what remains.
These devastated landscapes is also a breeding ground for hostile yokai, demons and creatures heavily inspired by Japanese folklore. Like the Onimusha and Toukiden series, Team Ninja puts their own spin on these fantastic beasts. There's great imagination on display as Adams confronts unusually agile ogres and homicidal ravens decorated like Buddhist monks. There's much to marvel at in the otherworldliness of the yokai's designs when you're not too busy dodging their deadly attacks.
The demands and challenges of melee combat in Nioh cannot be overstated. Assuming your character level isn't significantly higher than the recommended level of a given mission, some enemies can kill you with a single stroke. By the same token, there's always a chance, however unlikely, you'll clear a chapter without a scratch. At times, enemies fight with the unpredictability of a PvP match. It's normally comforting when you can recognize the beginning animations of a enemy combo. Yet there's another layer of difficulty when that foe can switch up attacks mid-combo, a common occurrence in Nioh. You'll sometimes wish you could compliment these enemies for their cunning--that is until you throw your controller from dying at the hands of a boss for the twentieth time.
Nioh is at its most elegant when you're engaged in a one-on-one duel. Many enemies telegraph a lot of information even before they attempt their first strike. By studying their stances, you can deduce what attacks tend to result from those poses. Their outfits also offer hints on capabilities. Sword-wielding fishermen attack with two-handed labored lunges, making them frequently open to attack. Decorated and well-armored veteran samurai show more discipline and attack with greater efficiency. As you gain experience with a sword, you'll have an easier time anticipating the attacks of other sword-wielders, since many use the same stances and techniques as Adams. Being able to read your enemy and emerge victorious thanks to all this visual information provides some of Nioh's most gratifying moments. Between the occasional compulsion to fight honorably and the potential for one-hit kills, Nioh is the closest a game has gotten to recapturing the unique intensity of Squaresoft's Bushido Blade series.
At its most fundamental level, survival in Nioh is about managing stamina--known in the game as ki--which determines how frequently you can attack an enemy. To complicate matters, enemies often create ki dead zones where stamina does not replenish. The beauty of Nioh is how it's chocked full of countermeasures that deal with such obstacles. In the case of these dead zones, potential solutions include stamina enhancing consumables and ki-specific weapon enhancements. For the most dexterous players, a quick shoulder button press after a combo can potentially boost stamina recovery. And the fact that enemies are equally limited by stamina creates tactical and exploitable opportunities one seldom encounters in these types of games. Like a scene straight out of a samurai film, there's a sense realism when you and a foe are huffing and temporarily immobile from stamina-depleted exhaustion. That's followed with heightened suspense, knowing that one of you will fall once you both catch your breath.
Just as enemies have tricks that extend beyond melee combat, Nioh empowers you through a wealth of resources and choices that only expands as you make progress. A single weapon is capable of over a dozen types of attacks, organized and spread across a trio of battle stances. You acquire new weapons through a Diablo-inspired loot drop system, where myriad stats and special effects ensure that no two weapons are alike. Five melee weapons types, a selection of firearms, and non-samurai abilities like magic can be a lot to take in. Yet given Nioh's optional quests and the ability to replay completed missions, you can take your time to get your footing and learn what tactics work for you before advancing to the next mainline chapter. And even if these resources aren't enough for you to vanquish a boss in your first or tenth attempt, level grinding works as a viable solution.
Options for success further expand with the inclusion of cooperative play, available after completing the initial chapters. This isn't co-op in the traditional sense since there's no way two friends can experience new story chapters together. In order for a guest to be eligible for a host's story mission, the guest needs to have already completed that mission. This, unfortunately, nerfs what could have been a stimulating session. Save for a slight increase in boss' health bars, difficulty does not ramp up in co-op. The guest, armed with information on a map's layout and the boss' tactics, can help turn a chapter that would normally take three hours into a 15-minute jaunt.
Regardless how you choose to progress, the immense variety in environments is reflected in the thoughtful pacing of what will be an 80 hour playthrough for many. Nioh doesn't escalate in intensity with every subsequent mainline mission, although the endgame is rightfully brutal. Instead, there's a rhythmic ebb and flow as you advance through the story. For example, after an exhausting two-chapter skirmish on a ravaged battlefield, you're greeted with a less demanding yet still challenging trek through a lush and foggy forest with enemy ninja encampments. These reprieves from the more intense missions add depth to the campaign.
Each area exudes its own sense of character not just by conveying widespread destruction in its detailed backgrounds but also by challenging you with environmental puzzles. The chapter based in the Iga, for instance, capitalizes on the region's reputation as a nest of shinobi and a playground of stealth. It's a level loaded with enough hidden doors and confusing passages that you might need graph paper to make sense of the level. Adding to these engrossing complexities is a section that can be literally flipped, where the floor becomes the ceiling and vice versa. And these do not take into account all the ninjas hiding around corners and behind sliding doors. Iga is just one location that showcases Nioh's impressive labyrinthine maps, of which there are many. And much like the Dark Souls games that inspired much of Nioh's level design, having a fastidious exploratory mindset helps reveal a location's many shortcuts, the discoveries of which are always satisfying.
It is though exploration that you increase your chances of finding weapons and items, often by searching through the seemingly countless corpses strewn throughout the game. The final words of the dead echo in Adams' head, often providing clues to nearby dangers. The fallen are additionally represented by the gravemarkers of other Nioh players with a note of their respective cause of death. These serve as warnings to the living, whether it's a hint of a nearby cliff or a difficult yokai ahead.
Although the spectre of potential failure hangs heavy over any play session, dying in Nioh is never genuinely disheartening. This is thanks in part to the various avenues of character growth and many approaches you can utilize to tackle a difficult section or boss fight. It shouldn't be surprising that the foresight and patience needed to survive a battle in Dark Souls translates well to the fundamentals of samurai combat here. Nioh's most invigorating and intimidating moments occur when you feel you're at equal footing with your opponent. And it's during these encounters that one careless move can result in your demise or the right string of thoughtful actions can make you feel invincible.
Games set within countries plagued by totalitarian regimes generally cast you as either the chosen hero who must rise up against their oppressors, or as a cog-in-the-machine type whose primary concern is survival. Beholder is the latter sort of game, casting you as Carl, the landlord of a small apartment complex in a war-torn region. Carl must alternate between spying on and assisting his tenants to earn cash and avoid reprisal, all while observing an increasingly ridiculous list of state-imposed laws and completing quests handed out by various characters of competing interests.
You're presented with a cross-section of the building, which consists of six apartments and the basement where Carl lives with his family. You click your way around the tenement, talk to the people who live there, sneak into their apartments while they're out to search for contraband and install hidden cameras, and maintain the building's upkeep. The game is set entirely within this single complex; other characters can come and go, but Carl is drugged up on pills that prevent him from sleeping and forced to focus all of his attentions on the six apartments under his control. The game makes you feel simultaneously powerful and weak: as landlord you can save or ruin lives with your interventions, but you're still ultimately beholden to the laws and regulations of the state.
Beholder has a dark sense of humour, but its attempts at levity never really land. It strikes an odd tone, and it's hard to know how you're meant to respond to the game's bleakness. The nature of this game's totalitarian state is well established, and you learn a lot about how its people are treated and how arbitrary its oppression is, but there's little sense of what you're meant to take away from it. Self-preservation is an important part of the game, but Carl and his wife come across as fairly unpleasant people (in my second playthrough Carl's wife left him because he didn't buy her a radio), and while there's an imperative to protect your children their missions mostly boil down to accruing and then spending large sums of money.
Missions and objectives (often with time limits) pop up as you play, and you need to please the powers-that-be as they monitor your performance while also keeping your family happy and healthy. Completing the tasks handed out by the omnipotent 'Ministry', while also fulfilling requests from both your building's residents and the political dissidents who will occasionally contact you, means making choices about your priorities, right down to which missions you follow and ignore.
This is the 'people literally run down the street screaming sometimes' brand of dystopia.
Beholder is at its best when there's enough going on to overwhelm you, when time is ticking down on an important mission as you desperately look for ways to make money to buy a mission-critical item or you need to choose between two different objectives that aren't compatible with each other. Unfortunately, these moments can often be separated by long lulls, or frustrating moments where you need to speak to a resident who has gone off-site for the day. You can dictate the pace somewhat by choosing when to start certain missions, but striking a balance between being too busy and being bored can be difficult.
There are multiple ways to attend to each mission, but going for the 'morally right' option won't always result in a 'happy' ending, which is an interesting, albeit flawed, approach. For example, one early mission focuses on evicting a man in your building, potentially separating him from his family. You can catch him committing a minor, harmless crime easily enough by spying through the peephole in his door, or you can take illegal goods, either by buying them from a merchant or stealing them from another resident's room, and plant them in his apartment while he's out. After this you write the crime up at your desk, file your report, and watch as police come to drag him away, leaving behind a distraught wife.
On my first play-through I followed a lengthy alternate method, talking to other people in the building about the situation, and trading a series of goods until eventually I was able to procure the man and his family passage out of the state by boat. This seemed like a happy ending until the family left; news soon arrived that the boat had been sunk, killing them. On my second play through the game I had him arrested, having learned my lesson. The game is too bleak and the characters too simplistic to conjure up any feelings of guilt when you seal their fate and move on, especially when so few of your actions have positive outcomes for anyone.
The writing has issues, and sometimes it can slide into cringe territory.
This focus on choice and consequence, as well as the huge difficulty spike between the default and 'trainee' settings (you're given far more money and incur smaller expenses on trainee), means that Beholder feels like a game that you're meant to play through more than once. The game is too repetitive to really support this, though; the close quarters of the apartment complex begin to feel claustrophobic over time, since the location doesn't really change or evolve in any meaningful way over the course of the game. The on-going plotlines and characters aren't interesting enough to sustain motivation over multiple play-throughs either. The people you meet are thinly sketched out, very few of them emerging as real 'characters' beyond their impulses and stated allegiances to the government. Spying on them never really leads to any interesting twists or revelations; in fact, there are very few surprises in Beholder, despite its focus on subterfuge.
The game is at its best when desperation sets in. You might find yourself robbing your tenants of their valuables and writing blackmail letters when you need cash, and several missions encourage you to kill residents. The payoff to all your choices and actions, of course, is seeing which ending you get. Unfortunately, my game steadfastly refused to load my ending, so I'm not entirely sure how things panned out for Carl. This was the only major technical issue I experienced with the game, but it was an extremely frustrating one.
Beholder is based on a strong concept, and it has moments that land well, but it's also held back by repetition and an unexciting script. The unpleasantness doesn't always feel worth the hassle, and few players will realise the ultimate goal of saving their family and escaping the mundanity of their tenement basement life without kowtowing to the state. If you can cut through the extended moments of tedium you can get a lot of mileage out of Beholder - and reaching the best ending on normal difficulty will provide an immense challenge - but the game's dystopia isn't a particularly interesting one.
In a period when so many games vie for our attention with bombastic action scenes and deeply involving stories, finding a game like Linelight feels like a blessing. There's no excess, nothing to distract you from the mechanics and obstacles at play. As intended, its presentation is minimalistic, bordering on stark, with merely a few lines and colorful highlights against a lightly blushed backdrop. And as you ponder and test possible solutions to Linelight's puzzles, featherlight musical accents dance in your head. Come to it with a troubled mind and Linelight will sort you out in no time.
While its atmosphere is no doubt tranquil, Linelight's puzzles vacillate between straightforward and perplexing. The goal is simple: guide a beam of light on a path from one end of a puzzle to the other. At the start, you may only need to guide your light down a branching path to activate a gate that triggers another piece of the path to reconfigure itself. This becomes far more difficult over time, however, when other beams of light--enemies--patrol paths and trap you into inescapable corners. This is to say nothing of puzzles that incorporate multiple moving paths, treadmills, and magnet-like controls over enemies, to name a few of the challenges that await.
Despite how complex its puzzles become, Linelight's simple controls should allow the average player to dive right in. The game also does a great job of teaching you how to play and manage the ever-expanding ruleset through measured escalation. For each new world and mechanic that's introduced, a series of simple puzzles show you, step by step, what to watch out for and how to manage your options moving forward. You never feel like you're thrust into a tutorial, and yet your options are always clear.
Prodigies aside, you'll likely tread water at times to monitor all of the elements at play before cracking your knuckles and getting down to business on a particular puzzle. Red herrings in sprawling sections can occasionally trip you up, but the puzzles that inspire true consternation are those that look deceptively simple, but have no tolerance for mistaken movements or nervous hesitations. Of course, you can always charge ahead and try to brute-force your way into a solution--when you execute the correct series of actions, puzzles are resolved in a few seconds--but this rarely works in practice. Thankfully, should you fail, you're only one button press away from restarting the puzzle.
Within Linelight's six worlds of interconnected puzzles are collectible gems, some that you find organically as you move from one puzzle to the next and others that live along hidden paths. You can find these secret trails by pushing past perceived boundaries, which can sometimes occur due to blind luck as you rush to move your light around a given puzzle. Rather than coming to a stop at the end of a line, you'll unexpectedly continue onward and meet a new, far more challenging test. Successfully complete these trials, and you'll gain a different-colored gem and maybe even a newfound level of pride.
Linelight can be a short game, but with dozens of optional puzzles and gems, it doesn't have to be. Ultimately, if you neglect to search for hidden avenues, you could theoretically complete Linelight in a couple of sittings. But even if it only lasts a few hours, its presentation and crafty puzzles will make those hours feel well spent. Just don't be surprised when your desire for more pulls you back into the game, and you subsequently realize that old puzzles aren't as captivating the second time around.
Linelight is easy to recommend, but perhaps more as a deviation than a destination. It's a game worth savoring, and one so effective at instilling you with both curiosity and relaxation that it ought not to be spoiled by binge playing. To be sure, some of its potency is lost during repeat playthroughs--another reasons to consider it a salve for a stressful day. Linelight's aims and scope could be considered modest, but it manages to do more with what little it wields compared to many games that mask their inadequacies with blaring effects and overambitious promises.
When Yoshi's Woolly World came out on Wii U in 2015, its well-hidden collectibles seemed at odds with its often breezy platforming--most of the challenge was in finding its secrets, so opting to forgo them made some stages too basic. Updated for 3DS, the leisurely pace of Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World feels right at home on a handheld. It's the superior of the two versions and still works best when you're scavenging for collectibles, though it also has the same balance pitfalls.
Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World includes all 48 stages from the Wii U version and adds extras, including special Poochy levels and an updated version of the original's easier Mellow Mode. The standard levels still play well, and the lack of a level timer or lives to lose makes more sense on 3DS, where stop-and-start use is more common. Effortlessly (and adorably) hopping through a single level when you only have a few minutes to spare is a little more satisfying than running through several at a time, and of course, stopping to track down even the most hidden of items when you have more time to spare is still just as rewarding.
Though some of the platforming may seem basic for veterans, there are levels that really stand out, like an early Egypt-themed level that expands puzzle-solving beyond collectibles and into the platforming. But Woolly World also has its fair share of levels that don't require quick thinking or much work at all.
Woolly World isn't boring, though, thanks to its relaxed pace and charm. It's a good source of laid-back fun in the midst of intense stress, and its lovingly executed yarn theme is adorable. There's something delightful about Yarn Yoshi eating a yarn enemy and turning it into a yarn projectile--which would normally not be a particularly pleasant idea--or being able to gobble up yarn fire and repurpose it. Even though quite a few levels are a breeze, there's at least something cute to zero in on.
Many Nintendo games strive for accessibility--providing challenges that the player can opt into, choosing just how difficult or deep they want the experience to be. Woolly World does that to an extent, but there's often a noticeable disparity between casually running through a level and aiming for completion. There's not really a middle lane of difficulty for more experienced players who want a challenge without having to seek out the most well-hidden items. Some of that is remedied by the move to 3DS, and some of it is made better by an expanded version of the original's optional Mellow Mode.
Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World feels right at home on a handheld. It's the superior of the two versions and still works best when you're scavenging for collectibles.
Despite the name, Mellow Mode doesn't necessarily make Woolly World unbearably easy--though it does keep it accessible for younger or more inexperienced players. Like in the original, switching to Mellow Mode gives Yoshi wings that allow you to float indefinitely, which of course makes it easier to survive (though it's not guaranteed). On 3DS, Mellow Mode also comes with a few Poochy pups to help sniff out secrets. It essentially bridges the difficulty gap, making platforming and collecting more harmonious. And, since it can be switched on and off in the middle of a level, you can use it sparingly if you're looking for just a little bit of an edge.
And you shouldn't rely on Poochy too much, because Woolly World really wouldn't be worth playing without the fun of searching for all its collectibles. There are five flowers and five spools of yarn on each level, and some are almost cruelly hidden. If you're dedicated, you could potentially spend a lot more time in Yoshi's yarn world, taking half an hour even on earlier levels to find everything. Getting them all unlocks much harder levels, as well as some adorable Yoshi skins--and it's rewarding to figure out the tricks and maneuvers you need to find them.
For faster-paced platforming, Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World has a new addition starring its namesake. It's an endless runner-style set of bonus levels, and while not punishing, mastering the timing of jumps and Poochy's signature slide is a different kind of challenge. It's a welcome change of pace and a valuable addition for the 3DS version, making up for the lack of multiplayer by providing a good single-player diversion.
That said, it's not a reason to buy the 3DS version if you've already played the Wii U one, and the extras don't really give it much of an edge when the best part of the experience was there all along.
Though the gulf between two very different difficulties is not fully fixed by its additions, from the updated Mellow Mode to the extra Poochy levels, Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World gives you what you put in--it can either be almost frustratingly hard for a determined collector or a good fit for someone who's just looking for a fun, relaxing few hours of platforming.
The Dynasty Warriors games, despite their apparent absurdity, usually make a fair attempt at being historically accurate. You can, in series tradition, flatten ten men with the push of a single button; but you can also try--and fail--to save a comrade's life in one particular battle, only to look it up on the internet and find that they actually died there on that same battlefield in real life.
Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers is a departure from the norm in that it closely follows the exploits of esteemed warrior Zhao Yun as he investigates a spooky cave with his old friend, Lei Bin, only to awaken an ancient god who gives him the power to influence the minds of others and control them in battle. This, as far as we're aware, is not an accurate retelling of true real-life events, but rather Godseekers' narrative justification for being a turn-based strategy game rather than the usual hack-and-slash fare.
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Not that such an excuse is particularly necessary; Dynasty Warriors has actually trodden similar ground before with Koei Tecmo's heavyweight strategy series, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, though its enormous depth makes it off-putting for many. Godseekers, on the other hand, shares much more in common with Koei's more accessible Kessen and Dynasty Tactics series, but it's been a long time since we've heard from either of those. So, a return to a slightly less hardcore approach here is more than welcome.
So, rather than controlling a single general and sprinting around ancient China carving up hundreds of armed but terrified peasants--quite an unpleasant task, when you think about it--you instead take control of a number of Generals on a giant square grid. Most of the Generals come and go as the story progresses, with the focus almost entirely placed on childhood pals, Zhao Yun and Lei Bin.
Godseekers does a fine job of adapting the key concepts of the mainline Warriors titles. Traditionally, the series is all about learning your character's moveset so that you know which attacks are best to use when you have an orderly queue of enemies in front of you; or a whole crowd of them; or you're dueling with a single enemy General. Despite the series' reputation as a button-masher, understanding the area and distance covered by each attack is the key to higher-level play.
This is echoed in Godseekers, where, instead of fighting enemies one-on-one a la Intelligent Systems' Fire Emblem series, many of your characters' available attacks will cover a number of squares on the grid. It pays to watch enemy formations and to make sure your units are all suitably positioned to damage as many enemies as possible based on the area covered by their attacks. Further damage bonuses are awarded for attacking units from behind or the side, and the series trademark musou attacks are present, requiring a little time to charge up but eventually laying waste to a large area.
The real star of the show, however, is the Sync Gauge, which fills up as you deal standard damage to enemies on the field. Once it's fully charged you can 'Synchronize' your units, which gives you a number of big advantages. First, any units in a set formation with your currently-selected character are allowed to act again if they've already acted in the current turn, giving you a huge advantage. Second, and more importantly, you can unleash a Synchro Attack, where all of your units within the formation go absolutely wild at any enemies in a nine-square area of your choosing, while you repeatedly mash the X button to increase their damage output.
If planned correctly, you can wipe out half the enemy's forces in one go, and do enough damage to completely charge the gauge again; don't be surprised if you find yourself tearing your shirt off and roaring like an ape at the numbers flying out of your television.
The idea of players actually becoming invested in any of the characters or the game as a whole seems far-fetched
You'll also find yourself getting incredibly bored watching your enemies' and allies' turns play out on screen. A handy fast-forward button has been provided, but the second you press it you'll immediately lose track of what's happening as enemy units start magically teleporting all over the place. It would've been far more useful to have a happy medium between the standard action and the fast-forwarded speed, so that you can skip the boring drudge while also keeping track of the chess-like antics.
Meanwhile, outside of battle, there's an alarming amount of dialogue to sift through, and its appeal wears thin very quickly. Long-time Dynasty Warriors fans are used to the endless talk of honour and how super-tough everyone is, so they may actually appreciate the daft supernatural twist on the traditional yarn, but the majority of it is the same stuff the series has depicted countless times before. Newcomers, meanwhile, would likely find themselves utterly bewildered by the whole thing.
The game also does little on a mechanical level to endear you towards any particular character. The poor dialogue is one thing, but the game's systems surrounding character improvement often feel superfluous at best. Each character has a vast grid of abilities to be unlocked as they gain experience through combat, but you'll spend more time trudging your way through the various menus involved than actually considering which abilities you should unlock. Similarly, new weapons can be earned and upgraded, but the impact of this on your performance feels minimal; it's something you figure you're supposed to keep on top of, but you're never quite sure what effect it really has.
None of this is helped by the fact that, although Zhao Yun and Lei Bin are a permanent fixture throughout, you're otherwise dealing with a rotating cast of characters. Just spent all your money on upgrading Liu Bei's swords? Congratulations! He's now wandered off for the next three missions.
Despite the occasional high points of the game's battles, the idea of players actually becoming invested in any of the characters or the game as a whole seems far-fetched. Compare this to the Fire Emblem series, where players develop personal favorite characters thanks to the snappy dialogue and intricate systems that govern combat abilities and social interactions in tangible ways. In this context, Godseekers suddenly comes up short.
As entertaining as Godseekers can be, you have to wonder who you could happily recommend it to. It's not going to draw in any new Dynasty Warriors fans, nor will it satisfy fans of the main games, effectively making any potential players a niche within a niche. The appeal of being able to play the Vita version on the go is great, but even then you've also got access to the likes of XCOM, Disgaea, Steamworld Heist and Frozen Synapse Prime, all broadly similar titles that are easier to recommend.
And so, any suggestion that you should pick up Godseekers comes with major caveats. If you really like Dynasty Warriors and you're jonesing for a new strategy game to get into after exhausting all the other brilliant ones available, it's worth a look. But that's hardly enough of an endorsement in a strategy genre full of far better crafted games, is it.
These days, it's easy to let political frustration well up a bit. We like to think that, given the keys to the city, we'd do better than a real politician. "It's so simple!" you might say. "Give people what they ask for, take care of them, and there won't be any problems."
For better and worse, Urban Empire lets you explore that idea--or, at least, more than some of its iconic cousins. SimCity, for example, lets you take the reins of a nascent city, but it came with some huge limitations in terms of what sorts of decision-making powers you can wield. Urban Empire unshackles you, but in so doing gives you a sobering dose of reality. As the leader of your city, you can push for women's rights or abolish child-labor laws--but you're always at the behest of a fickle city council. That addition makes Urban Empire one of the most realistic (and, at times, most frustrating) city-building simulators around.
When the game starts, you'll have unchecked power, taking control of a political family with blessings from the emperor of the fictional country Swarelia. You can't be removed from office, and you can't run dry on money, either. If you get into trouble, you can run to the emperor and get a fat check and an easy bailout--though you'll lose a bit of political clout. Beyond that, you're free to push for whatever improvements and projects you'd like. Along the way, however, you'll also be making decisions about how you, personally, live your life. You may choose to send your eldest child (and your future successor) to a boarding school abroad, which could affect their reputation years down the line. That gives you a strong tie not only to the city you build, but also to the narrative of your family across many generations.
You'll also be in charge of zoning and organizing new districts, as well as deciding which types of technologies to bring to your fine city. As you progress, you can unlock sewage, electricity, and new types of roads, all the way up to robotics and sci-fi-inspired gizmos. Each new district will have an up-front cost to build out the necessary infrastructure, and then monthly maintenance that you'll have to keep in check as you turn on more and more services. That tension between the cost of different services and infrastructure upgrades, your own goals, and the capriciousness of the council members (each of whom have their own constituents to appease) is an excellent, sturdy foundation for this management sim.
Running water for all sounds nice, but unless your city is packed tight, it's a tough expenditure to justify. And even if you do have the money, you'll first have to propose whatever change you want to make, and then wait a few months as the city council deliberates on the change. As they bicker, you can spend political goodwill, call in favors, or make sweeping threats to sway the parties--each of which comes with consequences. It's a complex (albeit exhausting) system that reflects the struggles of politicians at almost every level of government.
As political parties evolve, their core values will twist and morph, until they've splintered into their component factions. While these shifts are unfortunately the same for each campaign, limiting replayability, they do provide an engaging challenge and an organic system for ramping up difficulty. To ram through critical legislation, you may need to play one group off another, making and breaking alliances as you go. This goes double for controversial social policies where you can't always make an easy-to-grasp economic case. As a general rule, though, if the city is prospering and you're well liked, you won't have much trouble getting your work done. The issue is that as you play, you're repeatedly reminded that understanding the city's well-being can be so difficult as to seem random--at least at first.
Most of your time with Urban Empire will be spent monitoring your cash flow. At first, these numbers will be pretty easy to manage--a few grand each month, slotted straight into the city's coffers. But Urban Empire begins during the industrial revolution, an era notorious for political and economic instability, and shocks to your municipal economy will come fast and hit hard, often jarring your income substantially in either direction. Those fluctuations appear random--and, to be sure, some are--but if you dig a bit, you'll often find some sort of economic bottleneck. A district you built early on might be struggling to cope with excessive traffic, limiting productivity, or an industrial sector may need a power plant and electrical grid to stay competitive.
Urban Empire supplies you with all the data you need to find these hiccups--or, rather, it tries to. You can (and should) drill down to individual businesses and homes to see everything from the area's political makeup to its business climate. Different edicts and ordinances will cause shifts in supply and demand, and that works in concert with your city's external connections--like rail stations and ports--to generate the simulation of your city's economic performance. That data can be tedious to sort through, and there's not much in the way of tools to monitor broad sections of the city. Everything gets organized by district, and that can make it tough to determine how different areas are working together or what's driving different types of demand.
Making matters worse is a nebulous, unpredictable blob of bugs that will, at some point, obfuscate critical information. Many edicts and technologies will show you a summary of their costs and effects if you hover the mouse over them, but that information won't appear at unpredictable points. Sometimes you can close the game and restart to get it back on screen, but once in a while, Urban Empire will crash at the main menu. These issues aren't killers, but they're annoying and have no place in a retail game.
Bugs aside, one solution to overabundance of information is actually simple, and it's something Urban Empire already does--but only for some of its features. Different tools are gated off based on your technological progress. For example, you cannot start with differential taxation. You're stuck raising or lowering taxes on businesses and citizens until you've done the social research needed to tax industry--for example--at a higher rate than corporations. That keeps parts of the game hidden away until you've developed more familiarity with how things work. The problem is that not everything in the game works like this, and as you move through time, you'll be saddled with an enormous amount of management that doesn't get a proper introduction or a safe means of experimenting with different effects. This tendency causes some major difficulty spikes that take far too long to overcome.
At the same time, many of these features come across as intentional. Playing the game doesn't quite feel fatalistic, but it does seem to bludgeon players with the idea that politicking is harder than most of us will admit. To that end, Urban Empire is quite the achievement. It's incredible to watch your own political empire collapse or thrive based on the butterfly effect of decisions both big and small.
Urban Empire is a trying game, but there's beauty in how it captures the many obstacles that plague political life, but it's still marred by instances of poor execution and an unwieldy user interface. Still, if you've ever wanted to know what a more realistic, less tongue-in-cheek rendition of SimCity would be like, you could do a lot worse. If you're willing to spend the time, Urban Empire has a lot to show you, but it comes with its share of annoyances.
What's in a name? As much as you can cram, or so Square Enix seems to think with Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue. If nothing else, the awkward, mile-long moniker hints at the impressive breadth of content available: an HD remaster of the Nintendo 3DS' Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, a short-but-entertaining coda of sorts to Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep for the PSP, and an hour-long cutscene based on the mobile game Kingdom Hearts X. It's a jumble that suffers somewhat for its lack of any real cohesion among its three parts, but at least two of those components are strong enough to warrant a return visit to the world that believably drops Final Fantasy and Disney characters into the same universe.
If it's original content you seek, then you're in luck--it's the best part of the package. Birth by Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage picks up where the secret ending of Kingdom Hearts II: Birth by Sleep left off; Aqua and her Keyblade facing Cinderella's castle in a realm of darkness where the shadows are preying on the lore's more brightly colored locales like Aladdin's Agrabah.
2.8 is likely most appealing for fans who love the series but didn't feel like bothering with the 3DS or mobile games.
Newcomers should beware, though. Aside from a text-based recap, it does little to prepare you for talk of characters like Ventus and Terra who haven't been in any of the recent games. It also takes a mere three hours to finish. Length aside, it's a rich and beautiful experience filled with effects that show off Unreal Engine 4's ability to render realistic details on surfaces like water and cobblestones without sacrificing the overall cartoony aesthetic. It's the best Kingdom Hearts has ever looked, frankly, and that's a good thing, since the engine (and the final cutscene) suggests A Fragmentary Passage could be considered a visual demo of sorts for the upcoming Kingdom Hearts III.
Even if it feels a little like playing the Kingdom Hearts games of a decade ago without all the additions in between, it's fun to play and often feels more fluid and focused. Light puzzles dot Aqua's journey, including some that have her chasing down gears to repair a bridge or using mirrors to tinker with gravity. The smooth combat sees her whacking aside fiends with her keyblade while double-jumping, building chained attacks, and casting spells. There's little in the way of true character progression, although various challenges allow you to earn cosmetic items like dress patterns and Minnie Mouse ears.
If you're put off by A Fragmentary Passage's three hour running time, you'll be happy to know you'll get a couple dozen hours out of the HD remaster of Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance. Considering that it's a straight remaster from the 3DS with nothing in the way of new elements, it doesn't look half bad. However, it's too bad nothing was done to populate Dream Drop Distance's overly roomy, empty worlds, a flaw that seems all the more obvious on a bigger screen. The upgraded graphics don't come anywhere near the detail in A Fragmentary Passage, but they are a big improvement over the source material. The Flowmotion combat system that sends you zooming past enemies, bouncing off walls, and swinging from light fixtures translates well, as does handling the Pokemon-like Dream Eaters that are now accessible with a quick flick of the analog stick. In almost every instance, the transition from handheld to gamepad has been smartly handled.
If you're put off by A Fragmentary Passage's three hour running time, you'll be happy to know you'll get a couple dozen hours out of the HD remaster of Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance.
Unfortunately the same can't be said of the Drop system. Two characters, Sora and Riku, have independent tales that take place concurrently, but a constantly depleting stamina bar dictates how long you can play as a particular character. Once it drains completely, the game switches to the other character regardless of what you're doing. It worked well enough on the 3DS since its mobile nature meant gameplay sessions would likely be comparatively short, but it's just tiresome when you're playing for long periods on the PS4.
And that leaves us with Kingdom Hearts x Back Cover, the weakest link in Final Chapter Prologue. It's not actually a game; instead, it's better described as a roughly 80-minute cutscene that dramatizes events from the mobile and browser game Kingdom Hearts X, apparently so players don't have to bother playing through the actual game. As with A Fragmentary Passage, it looks fantastic, as it's all rendered with Unreal Engine 4.
Unreal Engine 4 helps make 2.8 look more like a proper Disney movie than any other Kingdom Hearts before it.
However, it lacks some of Kingdom Hearts' charmingly goofy conceits, since it focuses on series-specific characters and omits cameos from the likes of Mickey Mouse or Jack Sparrow. The stars here are five animal-masked "Foretellers" whose heyday was ages before the Keyblade War and the events of Birth by Sleep. This might have been interesting had the runtime been extended to further examine the connection between the Foretellers. As it is, however, Back Cover amounts to little more than characters yammering about dull politics and fails to provide meaningful context for the lore. And worst of all, it ends on a cliffhanger that does little to justify the wait it took to reach it. It's largely forgettable.
It's a good thing, then, that Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue as a whole is more memorable than that. Birth By Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage might be short, but it's a beautiful, entertaining episode that fills in some gaps in the lore. Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance retains a lot of the fun that made it so popular on the 3DS, even if its Drop system grows tedious. And for all of its comparative drudgery, Kingdom Hearts x Back Cover is at least visually appealing. It might be an overall confusing entry for newcomers to the series, but on the whole, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue indicates that we have much to look forward to in the long-overdue Kingdom Hearts III.
Just from the title, there are a few things you can expect from a Tales game: a lengthy story, melodramatic writing, dated visuals, and a real-time battle system. For the most part, Tales of Berseria sticks to the same formula. The story is long and punctuated with both predictable and unexpected plot twists, the writing can swing from tender moments to cringe-worthy ones, and the real-time combat is engaging but becomes stale near the end. Where Tales of Berseria differentiates itself from its recent entries is its mature story and characters.
Velvet Crowe, the protagonist, is introduced as a wholesome young woman taking care of her younger brother in a world overrun by demons and an evil presence known as Malevolence. After her brother is sacrificed in order to quell the evil in the world, Velvet is transformed into a demon and locked away in prison. The opening hours are slow, but after they come to a close, Tales of Berseria quickly spirals into a story of revenge. When we revisit Velvet years later, she's no longer the innocent, wholesome girl from the prologue. She is angry. What's striking about Velvet, as opposed to past Tales protagonists, is that she's driven by rage and vengeance. Velvet isn't trying to save the world. In fact, she is trying kill the man who saved it.
The darker tone makes up for Tales of Berseria's slow opening hours. While the series has never shied away from heavy themes, it's refreshing to play as a character in a Tales game who's willing to do whatever it takes in order to get what she wants. She's not afraid to kill, steal, and threaten when it's necessary. Her apathy can be exhausting at times--even frustrating--but her motives are believable. The same can be said about the supporting cast of party members. Eizen is an infamous pirate trying to find the captain of his ship, Rokurou is a demon trying to slay his brother, and Magilou is an unpredictable witch who's always looking for trouble.
As with the previous Tales games, the best way to get to know these characters is through optional skits. These are fully voiced conversations between your party members that show off some of the game's best writing--and some of its worst. They can be funny, serious, awkward, witty, random, or just boring. In one entertaining scene, Rokurou and Magilou bet on whether or not Velvet will break before the journey ends, while in a far-too-lengthy skit, Eizen drones on about his pirate creed.
However, the standout character is Eleanor. Unlike the rest of the team, Eleanor is virtuous. She tries to help people and do what she thinks is right. But after she follows Velvet and her crew into an otherworldly dimension, Eleanor's forced to work with them in order to escape. Throughout most of the game, she's at odds with the company she keeps and finds herself stuck between two very different worlds. This foil creates an uneasy tension, and, at times, adds a much-needed reprieve from Velvet's cruelty.
The other half of the experience comes in the form of combat.The trademark Tales real-time battles return, but not without some changes. Encounters take place in an open 3D space where you're free to move, attack, and block at your own pace. Tales of Berseria removes the Technical Points bar and replaces it with the Soul Gauge--which is similar in that it dictates how long you can chain together combat and spell artes. However, unlike in previous games, you can steal souls from your opponents by knocking them out or stunning them. The Soul Gauge doesn't change the flow of combat too much, but it does add a bit more fluidity to it. This system forced me to rethink my normal tactics; rather than targeting smaller enemies, I emptied my Soul Gauge on bigger foes and then focused my attacks on smaller ones in order to absorb souls.
Tales of Berseria's combat allows for plenty of experimentation. The game offers a wide variety of artes (abilities) across all six party members, and as long as you have enough souls, you can chain any of them together to create unique combos. Tales games have always allowed for this kind of experimentation, but linking artes hasn't felt this fluid or interesting before. Once you have three or more souls, you can unleash a break arte. These drain your Soul Gauge but can have a devastating effect. As long as you time your break artes and carefully choose your hidden artes, you can keep the momentum of battle alive.
Unlocking artes and experimenting with new combos is initially delightful, but when new artes begin to dry up about halfway through the game, combat becomes increasingly repetitive and somewhat rote. Near the end, I found myself focusing more on avoiding enemies rather than trying different characters or testing out new artes.
Like Tales of Zesteria and Tales of Xillia, Berseria doesn't have an overworld. Instead, you travel from town to town by trekking through large, sectioned-off areas. These landscapes aren't all that inspired, either. Throughout the 50-hour adventure, you'll visit grasslands, tundra, meadows, and mountainous regions which could easily be confused with locations from previous Tales games. It would've been nice if these areas followed suit with the darker themes, but they don't. There isn't much to see or do in these areas, either, apart from fighting enemies and hunting for treasure chests. After venturing through these sections a few times, I found myself fixated on the minimap whenever I had to retrace my steps.
Dungeons consist of long corridors that occasionally branch off, simple puzzles, and dozens of similar enemies. Apart from a palette swap, these multilevel dungeons look identical from floor to floor. Textures and objects are reused from corridor to corridor, making it a pain to navigate. The puzzles don't require much thought, either. In most cases, you flip a switch or light a torch, and a door opens. These puzzles require minimal brainpower and usually had me backtracking through dungeons just to hit a switch I missed.
It doesn't help that Tales of Berseria looks dated. At times, it's indistinguishable from 2013's Tales of Xillia. Textures lack detail, side characters look bland, and, outside of battle, animations can be stiff. The art direction can go a long way at times to mitigate the poor graphics, especially in some later dungeons, but don't expect to blown away by it.
Tales of Berseria's weak presentation and dull world design may not excite, but they only account for a piece of an otherwise enjoyable tale. The refined combat, and the darker tone, paired with the sinister characters, makes for a more engaging experience overall . In these ways, Tales of Berseria actually takes the series in an intriguing new direction.
Update: Though I originally reviewed Resident Evil 7 on PS4 and PSVR, I've since had a chance to test the game on Xbox One and PC as well. Accordingly, additional information has been added to the bottom of this review. -- SB, 1/24/2016
We didn't know it at the time, but Resident Evil 4 was the beginning of the end. Though in many ways the series' best game, it also signaled the start of Resident Evil's transformation from survival-horror into something far scarier: forgettable, derivative action. By contrast, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard has been heralded as a return to form--a classic, uncompromising frightfest. And indeed, it is. In place of blockbuster pandering, the game delivers intimate horror with a tightly focused scope and all the trappings you'd expect from a survival game. No superfluous skill trees or meaningless fetch quests, just the stomach-churning tension of guiding a relatively helpless character out of a waking nightmare.
You do gradually gather weapons as you progress, but you could never mistake this for an action game. Every time you start to feel powerful enough to kick some ass, the game finds a way to pull the rug out from under you. I'm going to do my best to avoid spoilers, so let's just say it respects series traditions and that there's a lot more to RE7 than what you've already seen. And while the setting and characters have no obvious connections to any previous Resident Evil game, the series' DNA can be felt in everything from the puzzles and keys to the subtle psychological tricks used to cultivate dread.
But RE7 clearly takes cues from modern horror games as well, most notably by opting for a first-person perspective. Fans of games like Outlast may recognize a lot of structural similarities in large portions of the campaign, which--outside of some optional backtracking to collect items--follows a linear and highly scripted series of events. Annoyingly, that sometimes means wasting ammo on enemies who aren't scheduled to die until later fights, but at least those moments reinforce the tense, oppressive atmosphere that persists from start to finish. The results aren't always explicitly terrifying, but I was pretty damn stressed out for the duration.
The experience starts to drag a bit by the end, though, as you end up performing similar tasks throughout the entire game. The campaign could have benefited from a slightly higher density of unique, memorable moments. But make no mistake: there are memorable moments, and when they hit, they hit hard. Despite its clarity of vision and prudent restraint in pursuit of that vision, RE7 still takes a few bold chances to refresh the campaign and renew the horror as you progress.
Some of these chances stem from its story, which follows series newcomer and all-around average guy Ethan Winters. After receiving a cryptic video from his wife Mia, who's been missing for three years, Ethan ends up in a dilapidated manor deep in the Louisiana bayou, where he discovers a demented family and a whole lot more questions. Thankfully, the narrative never devolves into trite "damsel in distress" cliches. In fact, the story's never really about Mia; it's about escaping a nightmare.
In true survival-horror fashion, you'll be totally defenseless for a surprisingly large portion of the early game.
Overall, the narrative delivers. The twists are generally predictable, but it's still exciting to see them unfold--and the game never lingers on a reveal for too long. The writing remains thematically consistent and drives towards a clear goal, making your circumstances feel that much more dire. The same can said of the setting: every moldy floorboard, every oozing entrail, every flickering light feels unbearably real. The textures, details, and sounds are, without exception, utterly gross in the best way, and impressively, RE7 relies far more on this atmosphere than cheap jump scares.
RE7 also smartly uses each family member to different effect. The father Jack provides in-your-face terror and drives much of the game's early combat. The mother Marguerite demands a stealthier approach, which provides some of the tensest moments and arguably the game's best boss fight. And the son Lucas sets elaborate, Saw-like traps that'll keep you off balance and make you wary of things you once took for granted. These different approaches add welcome variety in a way that feels completely natural in the context of the world, enhancing your immersion while mixing up the gameplay.
Outside of the family, collectible VHS tapes add even more variety. Each one contains a playable flashback from a different character's perspective, which works beautifully as both a narrative device and a way to break up Ethan's exhausting mission. You'll also encounter puzzles, though unlike early Resident Evil games, these play only a minor role overall, and most are simple and easy to solve. It certainly would have been nice to see a few more intricate, challenging tests, but like the VHS tapes, the puzzles fit well within the world and don't impede the campaign's momentum.
There are, of course, a few things that go bump in the night as well, and for those occasions, Ethan has access to a small but diverse collection of weapons. The game contains more guns than I expected, but I never felt super-powered. Not even close. Even the final chapter mainly relies on horror and tension (with one big action sequence exception). By and large, RE7 keeps it simple, prioritizing tone over action. Only one weapon feels truly outlandish, and you'll struggle to find more than a few rounds for it anyway--though in true survival game fashion, everything is in short supply. You'll need to manage your limited inventory and carefully scour areas for essential items, though if you're patient and vigilant, you'll likely find what you need. RE7 makes item collection tense without teetering into "unduly punishing."
Unfortunately, I found most generic enemies to be a little less capable than I would have liked. If they catch you off guard or confront you in a bottleneck, they can be tough to put down. But I could frequently see them coming, and they're neither fast nor smart enough to catch you when you simply run the other direction. Knowing when to run away is arguably part of any horror game, but I still would have preferred something more threatening, especially since I was playing on the highest difficulty available out of the box (you do unlock a higher difficulty after completing the game).
Boss fights were also a bit of a mix. One thrilling battle recaptures classic Resident Evil boss design by throwing you into a creepy, intricate arena that allows your opponent to surprise you over and over. But another more action-oriented fight was a real struggle...right up until the game showed me a prompt explaining how to perform a power attack with the weapon I'd received specifically for that fight. As soon as I knew that, I immediately won after many failed attempts. Thankfully, the game's pretty generous when you die, respawning you nearby with all your ammo and healing items intact. You're left terrified and upset, but at least you don't lose much time.
You will occasionally find safe rooms where you can save your progress. These spaces are relatively rare, however, so you may want to backtrack from time to time.
While RE7 does not contain multiplayer, you can play the entire campaign on PSVR. Fundamentally, the content remains the same, but the way you experience that content certainly differs. Overall, VR works well: the graphics hold up, aiming feels intuitive (especially since you can partially aim simply by turning your head), and horror just generally feels more real and immediate when it occupies your entire field of view. And importantly, RE7 does everything it can to deliver a top-tier experience, including a robust suite of options designed to minimize discomfort. While I can't imagine playing the entire 12-hour campaign with a headset on, RE7 is undoubtedly an amazing option for VR fans.
By the end of the campaign, I was ready for the game to be over, but that's okay. RE7 ends just as it starts to outstay its welcome, and after the fact, I felt like I'd survived a truly harrowing journey. The boss fights may be slightly inconsistent and certain sections might drag after a while, but RE7 is still a remarkable success. It has a clear vision and executes it with impressive patience and precision. By returning to horror, Resident Evil has once again become something special.
Update: Overall, RE7 runs smoothly regardless of platform. I never experienced any major technical problems--such as frame rate drops or game freezes--on any system. However, there are some noticeable visual differences among the various platforms.
As you might expect, PC offers the highest quality visual experience, with exceptionally believable lighting effects and extra detailed textures. The game runs smoothly even at 1440p with all the most demanding visual options selected. The graphics don't look quite so splendid on PS4, but they're also not a drastic step down, especially if you're playing on a PS4 Pro with a 4K and HDR capable television. (For the record, RE7 supports HDR on PC, PS4, PS4 Pro, and Xbox One S.)
Unfortunately, the Xbox One version of the game can't quite live up to the looks of the others. In contrast to the PC and PS4 versions, colors look washed out and muddy, while textures seem almost blurry. Certain details like hair look significantly less natural compared to other platforms, and one early moment involving a chainsaw and a window looks more like an object accidentally clipping through the geometry than a weapon intentionally slicing through solid material.
While these visual discrepancies shouldn't be enough to completely ruin the immersion for Xbox players, the differences are noticeable. We're currently working on a full graphics comparison video, but for now, I would recommend picking the game up on PS4 or PC, if you have a choice.
Despite the Yakuza series' cult status, mainstream success has eluded it in the west. If you've never played a Yakuza game before, however, Yakuza Zero is a logical place to test the waters for yourself. It's the series' debut on PlayStation 4, and as a prequel to the first Yakuza game, it doesn't rely on preexisting knowledge of its principal characters. More importantly, you should play Zero because it's a fascinating game that combines equal parts drama and comedy, and is unlike anything else out there at the moment.
Such a statement is worth scrutinizing, so to be clear: It's Zero's flaws that leap out at you at first glance, be it some seriously outdated character models and textures or the repetitive nature of combat. A reasonable person would take these warnings as a sign that something's amiss--maybe it's not surprising that Yakuza continues to persist as a cult-classic series after all. But to get hung up on these shortcomings is missing the point. Where some elements languish from a lack of attention to detail, other facets of Zero are masterfully executed.
Take the story, for example, which jumps back and forth from the perspective of two different yakuza on opposite sides of Japan. Kazuma Kiryu is a young yakuza gangster from Tokyo with an iron first but a heart of gold. He's caught in the middle of a battle between criminal organizations seeking to take control of a valuable piece of real estate. On the other side of the country, in Osaka, we meet Goro Majima, a disfigured yakuza masquerading as the manager of a grand cabaret. Also on the outs with his clan, Majima's sent on a mission to kill a troublesome business owner, but soon finds himself unable to complete the job for personal reasons.
Majima and Kiryu are on the run for the majority of the game, and they stumble into conflicts with yakuza big and small on a regular basis. During story-related cutscenes, Zero takes its storytelling seriously: Nobody cracks jokes or makes empty threats. When yakuza are involved, everything is at stake, including your life, but also the lives of your family and close friends. As such, the story is relentlessly tense.
Both characters will surprise you, slipping out of harm's way by showcasing a hidden talent or by devising a clever plan, elevating them to herolike status in short order. Extraordinary luck or ability aside, it's the allies they meet along the way that prove to be their most valuable assets. By weaving a complex web of relationships and alliances, Zero's story grows ever more fascinating, proving to be equal parts surprising and exciting from beginning to end. In the final act, all the cards are laid out on the table, and you realize who your real friends and enemies are--and what Kiryu and Majima are truly capable of.
Zero's plot is definitely a high point, and it's dutifully conveyed through effective camera work and strong voice acting. While the game is only playable with Japanese audio and English subtitles, the energy and attitude behind most characters doesn't need to be translated. When a yakuza boss snarls your way, you believe it. Bosses--or, more appropriately, captains--are often rendered with photorealistic facial features. Some textures go too far, revealing what looks like extreme cases of clogged pores, but blemishes aside, Zero's key characters look just as convincing as they sound.
Almost across the board, however, Zero's other characters exhibit middling animations. Where its most prominent characters offer nuanced expressions, the vast majority of models in the game move in a somewhat robotic fashion. Likewise, most passersby look as if they were lifted from the series' PlayStation 3 entries, if not from a PlayStation 2 Yakuza game. Given that moving through story missions is only half the Yakuza experience, this is a reality you have to confront on a regular basis.
Hand-to-hand combat is another key component of Zero that feels dated, despite its improvements over past games. Both Kiryu and Majima feature different fighting styles--three varieties apiece, no less--but Zero's straightforward beat-em-up trappings ultimately grow repetitive. By and large, you can choose one fighting style that works for you and focus on that for the entire game. Styles are developed by spending money you collect from fights and missions to invest in new skills and stat boosts, and you can get away with experimenting as much as you like.
Zero is nothing if not a brutally violent game. You'll grind enemies' faces into the pavement, stick a bat in their mouth and kick the exposed end, and pile-drive thugs skull-first into the street.
Majima is by far the more interesting combatant, as he can fight with a bat or by breakdancing in addition to standard fisticuffs. Both characters can pick up weapons in the environment and use them for a limited time, but otherwise, Kiryu's primarily a brawler, albeit at three different speeds. The enemies you face on the streets are somewhat diverse and include the likes of lonesome drunks, bikers, and lowly yakuza thugs. Thematically, the variety is appreciated, but mechanically, most enemies fight the same.
Zero is nothing if not a brutally violent game. You'll grind enemies' faces into the pavement, stick a bat in their mouth and kick the exposed end, and pile-drive thugs skull-first into the street. Special takedowns like these add a necessary amount of flair to combat, saving fights from becoming truly rote. While these attacks would kill a normal person, enemies in Zero are able to walk their injuries off. This is your first sign that no matter how seriously the story takes itself, everything outside of cutscenes is a tongue-in-cheek affair.
The more you play, the more apparent it becomes that Zero wants you to feel both like a badass yakuza and like a participant in an absurdist comedy. The open-world structure of Tokyo and Osaka's fictional districts affords you the chance to interact with non-yakuza citizens through 100 optional missions that you discover by walking the streets and frequenting the game's various stores and amusement centers. Though these missions couldn't be more different from the main plot, that's part of their charm.
No one will argue that a yakuza on the run has time to pretend to be a random girl's boyfriend to impress her father or to stand in as a producer on a TV commercial, but these random and lighthearted challenges are excellent palate cleansers that often elicit a chuckle, make you scratch your head in bemusement, and refresh your perspective. You can also blow off some steam by taking on a handful of minigames, including bowling, darts, real-estate management, and ports of classic Sega arcade games like Out Run, Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, and Hang-On. These events are shallow but ultimately serviceable, and the game includes enough of them to satisfy your curiosity should you grow bored of any one in particular.
Traditional for the series, Zero also doesn't shy away from thrusting you into erotic situations, be it it in the form of softcore-porn video parlors or in a minigame that involves betting on wrestling matches between two scantily clad women. At best, you can momentarily excuse its more tasteless pursuits as a reflection of Japanese society in the late 1980s or accept them at face value as a source of titillation.
For the most part, you can avoid these erotic amusements if you want to, but there's an ever-present air of sexism in Zero's story beyond the aforementioned "catfights". Stereotypically, yakuza view women as objects to be owned and manipulated, and this issue can't be avoided if Zero aims to present a realistic yakuza tale; just don't expect the game to address it in a meaningful way. While these elements don't outright poison the well given the basis for their presence, they're ultimately an unavoidable and harsh reminder of the cultural valley of that exists between the game's setting and modern sensibilities.
Otherwise, Zero relentlessly adheres to its Japanese roots mostly for the better, and if you've ever traveled to Japan, the game's sights and sounds will almost instantly trigger fond memories and feelings of nostalgia. Its fictional slices of Tokyo and Osaka are based on real-life locations but tailored to custom-fit the adventure's scope and scale. For an open world, in terms of raw real estate, Zero's maps are small by modern standards. But what it lacks in scale, Zero makes up for with a wide variety of activities. It can keep you busy for 100 hours and then some if you take advantage of everything it has to offer.
By weaving a complex web of relationships and alliances, Zero's story grows ever more fascinating, proving to be equal parts surprising and exciting from beginning to end.
Were it not for the wealth of activities and side stories available around every corner, Zero would still be a riveting game for its story alone. It does a fantastic job of pulling you into the plight of its main characters and holds your attention through every step of their winding journeys. But, when you take in everything the game has to offer, Zero becomes something special. Yes, its presentation leaves a lot to be desired at times and the fights aren't always as engaging as they could be, but the rest of the game is incredibly diverse and engaging. The sheer amount of activities at your fingertips would feel overwhelming if they weren't so inviting--you're never pressured to do one thing or another.
Unless you have a strong aversion to violence, sex, or middling graphics, you owe it to yourself to give Zero a chance. Its story will surprise you, its inhabitants will make you laugh at every turn, and its ambitious scope will redefine how you think about open-world games. It's a fascinating adventure no matter how you approach it, and it's proof positive that a game can be wildly inconsistent yet remain a great experience.
The original Gravity Rush had many positive qualities, but controlling Kat, its upbeat and unusually skilled hero, was the reason to play the game. With the ability to control her center of gravity, you could walk on walls and ceilings, and--most important of all--fly through a magnificent floating city in the clouds. The unusual gravity-based nature of Kat's powers made the age-old concept of flight feel fresh and managed to carry the imaginative yet underdeveloped adventure. But by the end, with untapped potential and numerous unanswered questions hanging in the air, Gravity Rush felt like it needed a sequel to finish its tale.
More than just a simple follow-up, Gravity Rush 2 exceeds expectations, filling in lingering gaps while simultaneously telling a new story. It also crucially doubles down on depth and scale, significantly increasing the scope of the adventure and the number of optional missions. Like the first game, you spend most of your time peacefully flying around looking for key items and characters to move the story along. But when the alien-like Nevi appear, Kat turns full action superhero.
Kat can pick off small enemies or weaken large brutes from a distance by magically throwing inanimate objects, but you typically rely on her kick abilities to get the job done--quick-and-dirty combos on the ground and measured homing attacks in midair. Nevi have sensitive red orbs on their bodies, and while you're required to target them to inflict damage, built-in aiming assists make your life a little easier.
Kat eventually learns two new "styles" that mix up her relationship with gravity. Rather than merely changing the direction of gravity and falling at a fixed speed, the Lunar style makes Kat move in a floaty manner, with persistent low gravity, and makes her auto-targeting more effective. It also gives her the ability to leap great distances. The Jupiter style allows Kat to hit harder, but she moves in a much more deliberate, weighty manner. Kat's powers never feel lacking to begin with, but these additions give you a few new tools to wield during combat. Thankfully, you're rarely forced to use one style over the rest, so you're free to experiment and devise your own fighting style most of the time.
Fighting in midair in Gravity Rush 2 feels a lot like it did in the first game: exciting and unusual, and at the mercy of the camera. It's relatively easy to look past this issue since the camera only gets temperamental on occasion, but during tense, prolonged battles, this issue isn't as easy to reconcile.
More than just a simple follow-up, Gravity Rush 2 exceeds expectations, filling in lingering gaps while simultaneously telling a new story.
Kat's story is reestablished months after the conclusion of the first game, though you spend quite a bit of time in new locations before reconnecting with her past. After the appearance of a mysterious gravity storm, Kat and her detective friend Syd are violently whisked away to a mining camp. Dusty, Kat's feline guardian and the source of her power, is nowhere to be found.
Before she can locate Dusty and regain her powers, Kat has to navigate a slave-like existence at the camp. While this section does feel a little deflating given that Kat's powers are the first thing you want to explore, it thankfully doesn't last too long. If nothing else, the intro helps set up the new cast of characters and a new conflict for Kat and Syd to wrestle with.
After you break out of the intro, you're brought to a divided society where the rich live in opulence above the clouds, while the poor try to scrape by below. In working to bridge the gap between the two social classes, you come to realize that the poor aren't the ill-natured thieves the rich make them out to be; the rich, on the other hand, are mostly as slimy and greedy as you imagine. The examinations of these topics aren't revelatory or groundbreaking--Gravity Rush 2 loves silver linings--but they lend a small amount of relatability to the otherworldly realm.
Given the open world nature of the game, you're free to explore its locales and pick from a selection of activities and missions that are automatically pinpointed on your map. With over 20 episodes and at least 40 side missions--including skill trials--boredom is never an issue. Through expressive avatars and minimal but effective voice acting--and the joy of flight, naturally--even basic missions are a treat and rarely feel like filler content. Gravity Rush 2 goes to great lengths to connect side missions back to the main story too, revealing new facets of seemingly minor characters that enhance your understanding of their position in society--and, thus, your perspective of the bigger picture.
Simply flying around the world is a captivating experience in its own right, both for the innate thrill of flight and for the beauty of your surroundings.
The only types of missions that wear thin are those that force basic stealth rules. Sometimes you have to sneak around a soldier-filled base and avoid their sightlines while you make for a key location, or you may trail a suspicious character to gather intel. These brief missions aren't very challenging, but should you be spotted, you're immediately kicked back to the last checkpoint. They aren't a major intrusion, but by and large, these missions fail to leverage Kat's strengths, and come across as dull compared to the rest of her high-flying adventure.
Truth be told, you don't even need to engage with missions to enjoy yourself. Simply flying around the world is a captivating experience in its own right, both for the innate thrill of flight and for the beauty of your surroundings. The world pops with color and character, building on the first game's strong, Studio Ghibli-esque visuals. And basic exploration is once again made more rewarding by the hundreds of gems--used for ability upgrades--strewn across the map. Kat flies with an awkward grace that feels totally unique, and though you occasionally need to let her fall for a second or two to recharge her power during a long flight, there's an undeniable sense of freedom to flying through the world, unencumbered by architecture or enemies.
Beyond littering the world with collectible gems, Gravity Rush 2 incentivizes casual exploration by introducing emergent events, generated by other people playing the game. On a regular basis, notifications pop up when you're flying to and fro, indicating a nearby treasure hunt. Accept the challenge and you're whisked away to a specific point on the map. You're then given a chance to examine a photo of the relevant location in order to pinpoint landmarks and zero in on a treasure chest within a limited amount of time. This provides a fun diversion that tests your observation and navigation skills in new ways, and if you generate a photo that helps another player successfully locate some treasure, you'll receive a small reward for your work. It's a small touch, but treasure hunts also reinforce the feeling that you're part of world that operates independently of your adventure, befitting the new large, lively open world.
After more than a dozen hours of helping the poor, supporting your friends, and uncovering corruption at the highest levels of government, Gravity Rush 2 concludes its new tale before revisiting Kat's origin story. In the final act, you discover the answers to the biggest mysteries laid out in both games. You have to do a little detective work at first to get the ball rolling, but once you find the path forward, Gravity Rush 2 delivers a series of exciting, over-the-top boss battles--one with an unmistakable likeness to the olympic stadium battle from Akira--and narrative-heavy scenes that delve into Kat's pre-Gravity Rush past.
With a wealth of stories big and small to chew on, Gravity Rush 2 fulfills the needs of both a sequel and a prequel. The first Gravity Rush had enough going for it, but Gravity Rush 2 is stuffed with things to love. While its stealth missions are lame and it's disappointing to experience camera issues from time to time, Gravity Rush 2 excels in almost every other respect, making its predecessor seem quaint by comparison. This is easily one of the best video game sequels in recent memory, and an adventure truly worthy of its excellent lead character.
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