Details: Released by Nintendo in 2017 for the Switch and Wii U. Played the base game without any of the downloadable content. Played for around fifty hours on the Switch.
I’ve seen a lot of review for Breath of the Wild and the majority give it a perfect score. I think this game definitely does not deserve a perfect score. However, I do think it’s really, really fun. Breath of the Wild is an open world game that adopts many of the mechanics already well established in other popular open world games while making a few new additions of its own. Many of those additions are great. Some of them are not.
There won’t be any discussion of the story except whether it’s good or bad, but there will be discussion of game mechanics. I guess that’s sort of a spoiler in a game like Zelda.
Details: Originally release in 1994 by Squaresoft (now Square Enix). Released for Windows PC in 2015. I purchased the game through Steam for about eight dollars. Played for around sixty-five hours.
Final Fantasy VI is one of the most beloved games in the Final Fantasy series. Some of my earliest memories were watching friends/family play this game. Decades later, I now have a chance to walk down nostalgia lane and play the updated version of the game for myself.
Details: Originally released in 2008 for various mobile systems and was subsequently released for the PC. I played the 3D version. I purchased this game for the PC through Steam in a bundle along with Final Fantasy IV for around $11.50. I spent about fifty-one hours playing through this game.
Final Fantasy IV: The After Years is a sequel to the beloved Final Fantasy IV (also known as Final Fantasy II in the United States), much like Final Fantasy X-2 was to Final Fantasy X. The version I played was the 3D remake of the original 2D version. While I enjoyed the game, there is no reason to play this game if you haven’t played and loved Final Fantasy IV.
Details: This is the remake of the game originally released in 1991 for the SNES and known in America as Final Fantasy II. They remade the game in 3D into this game for the Nintendo DS in around 2008. It was subsequently released for iOS and Android, then for Windows and PC. I purchased the PC version through Steam in a bundle with Final Fantasy IV: The After Years for a total of around $11.50. It spent about forty-one hours playing through the game.
Final Fantasy II (or Final Fantasy IV as it was known in Japan) was a game that had a big impact on me. I first saw my older cousins playing it, which, as a child, caused me to want to play it as well. So I did and enjoyed it very much. It was one of the first video games I ever played. Fast forward a couple of decades and I nostalgically wanted to play it again. Unfortunately, the game has visually not held up very well and it only took me a couple of minutes before I decided I couldn’t play a game that looked this old. Luckily, Final Fantasy II (now IV) was remade from 2D sprites to 3D models and subsequently ported onto Windows. It’s this version that I’ve played and it was a lot of fun walking down memory lane again, albeit with better visuals.
Details: Originally released in 2012. I purchased the Game of the Year Edition (doesn’t include all DLC) on Steam for PC for $8.80. I then purchased all five Headhunter DLC’s (all extra story content are in the Game of the Year Edition and the Headhunter DLC’s) for around $4.50 and the Ultimate Vault Hunter Pack 2 for another $2.50. In total, that’s about $16.00. I spent about seventy-five hours playing through the game.
I’ve got a lot of mixed feelings on Borderlands 2. Sometimes, the game is really fun. More times than necessary though, this game is freaking boring. So much so that I’m not sure I’m going to ever play a Borderlands game again. I haven’t played Borderlands 1 or the Pre-Sequel and I know there’s no Borderlands 3, but that’s probably in the pipeline.
Details: Originally released in 2015. Purchased through http://www.gog.com and their game client. Purchased for about $25. Played on the PC. The Game of the Year Edition comes with all subsequently released downloadable content, including the two expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. Spent about a hundred and ten hours in the base game, around thirty hours in the Hearts of Stone expansion, and about forty hours in the Blood and Wine expansion. Total time spent in the game: about one hundred and eighty hours.
No spoilers, as usual.
Now that I’ve played this game, I can understand why this game is so beloved. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt does not reinvent the wheel. It does not push some new kind of game. It is an open world, action role-playing game in a time with many, many similar games like Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Assassin’s Creed, The Legend of Zelda, and the Batman Arkham series. What Witcher 3 does do is that it pushes the genre of open world games forward, improving on almost every aspect of the genre and producing a game that can be considered essential if you are a video game lover.
Details: Originally released in 2000 for the Sony Playstation. Purchased for $10.00 on Steam and played on the PC. Played for about fifty hours.
Many years ago when the most recent Final Fantasy game was Final Fantasy X, I asked my cousin which of the previous Final Fantasy games was his favorite (he’d played all the prior games). His surprising response was Final Fantasy IX, not Final Fantasy VII. Years later, I now get to see what he was so crazy about.
Final Fantasy IX is an old video game and a classic example of a Japanese role-playing game. Although there are some mini-games and puzzles, gameplay consists largely of active time battles. What generally happens is that there are areas where random battles occur (like a dungeon) and areas where they do not. When the character you control walks into one of these battle areas and a battle occurs, you then enter a separate screen where the characters you control take turns attacking, defending, casting spells, or using items to defeat and enemy. Instead of being turn based, the battles take place sort of in real-time in that a gauge is constantly filling. When it fills completely, you get to take an action. Then the gauge empties and you wait for it to fill again so you can take another action. This system is called the active time battle system and is present in a lot of Final Fantasy games. The characters you control in battle can level up and each plays a different role with different abilities and spells to cast. It’s like any role-playing game in that regard.
Like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII, the game is divided into four acts/parts. At the time, the games were divided onto four data discs so it made sense to do it that way since you had to change discs as you progressed through the game. Accordingly, the world of the game generally changed each time you entered a new act/part and new quests would appear accordingly with developments in the story.
As with many role-playing video games, the weakest part of the game is the gameplay. It is still fun to level your characters and become more powerful and see the animations for new spells, but the primary motivator in a role playing game is its story. The story here, as judged by modern day standards, isn’t terrible for a video game. If you love classic Japanese RPG’s, then you will likely love this game far more than someone who doesn’t.
The premise is this: Zidane and a theater troupe filled with miscreants is hired to kidnap the princess of kingdom. This leads to a chain of events that require Zidane and friends he meets along the way to go on an adventure towards saving the world.
It’s a lengthy story and took me around fifty hours to get through. It’s also a story the Final Fantasy franchise is known for and the kind of story that fans of the series have come to love. Another aspect about the story and this world you get to explore is the mixture of magic and technology. It’s a fantasy story with many elements of a science fiction as well. This is likely one of the main reasons why nerds of the highest order have loved these classic Final Fantasy games.
Visually, this game looks pretty bad. I’m playing on a 1080p monitor and it’s clear that instead of increasing the resolution of the textures, they just stretched them out. The result is a game where most things are very pixelated and it’s hard to make a determination of whether this game looks better or worse than the original version on Playstation. Still, I learned to get used to it and enjoyed the game regardless.
The music in this game is great. This game is one of the last few games that Nobuo Uematsu (longtime composer of the Final Fantasy series) has fully scored. I really enjoyed a lot of the melodies here and, as usual, a lot of these memorable songs stuck with me after the game ended.
Overall, a fun game, though not the best looking. It’s old. I would not recommend this game to anyone though. I would recommend it to someone who loves the Final Fantasy series (specifically Final Fantasy VII) and to someone who loves classic, Japanese role-playing video games. Otherwise, I think you can skip this game.
Details: Beat the game in around eleven hours. Played it on PC. Purchased the game on sale from Steam for about $5. No voice acting, all text based.
Undertale is an independently published video game, funded on kickstarter.com, and was centered on the idea of a traditional role-playing game where no one has to get hurt.
Firstly, the visuals need to be addressed. If you are intolerant of the look of old, 8 bit pixellated graphics, then this game is not for you. Watch the trailer to get an idea of what you’re in for. If you can tolerate or enjoy these kinds of graphics, then I thoroughly recommend this game, especially at the five dollar price point. Furthermore, this game isn’t always a true 8 bit visual experience all the time. The game plays with your expectations and sometimes does things with the visuals that an 8 bit game should not be capable of.
Speaking of overturning expectations, the story does a great job surprising the player over and over again. The premise is this: you are a child who has fallen into down a hole into the kingdom of monsters. You have to make your way through the kingdom of monsters and get back to the surface. There are a lot of interesting characters in the game. Despite a lot of dramatic moments, this game is mostly a funny game and draws from many places for its humor, like from internet humor.
There are multiple endings to the game depending on how you play the game. As per the core idea of this game, the primary choice to make is whether you want to hurt your enemies or spare them. I’m not going to go into it further because there are a lot of twists and surprises in this game. If you are unsure whether you want to play this game, I will write a minor, easily missed spoiler at the bottom of this post which will give you a taste of the surprises in store for you if you play this game. I enjoyed the story greatly and found the ending I got surprising and satisfying.
The music in this game is one of the best parts of this game. It is some of the greatest 8 bit soundtracks I have ever heard, perhaps even the greatest. The music is surprisingly complex and catchy for this kind synthesized soundtrack.
The weakest part of this game, like in most role-playing video games, is the gameplay. Gameplay consists mostly of puzzles and combat. Puzzles vary, but were not too difficult to me. Combat consists of controlling a heart-shaped icon and dodging obstacles that come at you. Think the Space Invaders video game, except expanded. This takes that idea of dodging icons and ramps it up much further. Even still, it’s kind of boring and difficult at the same time. I died a lot of times in combat and found myself frustrated at times. Sometimes, I just wanted to quit the game because not only was the combat hard, it was boring and repetitive.
Overall, this was a fun game with an engaging story. I would recommend Undertale if you can tolerate the old-fashioned visuals and can get the game for five dollars or less.
Score: 6.8/10
SPOILERS BELOW
So when you first start the game, you’re found by a motherly, talking cow who takes care of you. When you try to leave her house, she obstructs your way and you have to fight her. If you figure out how, you can spare her and not kill her. The first time I fought her, I just killed her. I felt bad about it afterwards and reloaded my save file and figured out how to spare her instead. In my second play through and before I fought her the second time, I took a nap in a bed and dreamed about how I killed her the first time, something that did not happen in the prior save file. After sparing the talking cow, I encountered a talking flower who confronted me and told me that he saw me kill the talking cow in my last playthrough. He asked if I thought no one had seen it and if I had thought I got away with it by reloading my save. The flower went on about the flower had a similar power to save and rewrite reality, similarly to how I had reloaded my save file. This encounter freaked me the hell out and changed how I played the rest of the game. What’s amazing to me was that if a player did not kill the cow and reload the game, then they would likely have never had this encounter or at least had different dialogue when they met the talking flower.
A while back I bought the season pass for Fallout 4. I enjoyed, but was largely disappointed by Fallout 4 because I was expecting more content and better graphics. In my opinion, the DLC (downloadable content) continues to follow this trend. To be more succinct, Fallout 4 and its DLC are good, not great.
To make things easier I’ll just do a quick review and score for each DLC in the chronological order they were released starting from the oldest one.
Automatron
The first DLC for Fallout 4 was lackluster. It had some bare story moments and opted for crafting robots, which is fun for about ten minutes. When it comes to role playing games, I desire good story with a sense of discovery and adventure. This game barely offered any story in that regard. Unfortunately, many of the subsequent DLC has even less plot than this one.
Score: 3/10
Wasteland Workshop
More crafting tools and objects. You can catch monsters and have them fight each other. Also some more stuff for your settlements. No story unfortunately.
Score: 1.5/10
Far Harbor
Far Harbor is what I consider the first true story DLC for Fallout 4. A new case brought to Nick Valentine takes the player to an island known as Far Harbor. Here the player will meet new factions and solve mysteries. It was a really fun DLC with hours of content. I also enjoyed the tone of the narratives here and the art style of the island.
Score: 6.7/10
Contraptions Workshop
More tools and objects to build in your settlements. No story.
Score: 1.3/10
Vault-Tec Workshop
The idea of this DLC was a player controlled Vault similar to the Fallout Shelter app on IOS and Android. Some lousy quests and more crafting tools and objects for your settlements.
Score: 2/10
Nuka-World
The final DLC for Fallout 4 and, with Far Harbor, one of the only two DLC’s that I feel are worth their price. The player gets to investigate Nuka-World, a ruined theme park occupied by raiders. A big selling point for this DLC was that players could now play as raiders. After playing through this DLC, I can say that that draw was crap. Raiders play like any other faction. There are a number of notable missions that play out hilariously or morbidly. It was fun, but felt a little shorter than Far Harbor. My biggest complaint is the lack of playable quests. Felt like most of their budget went towards the art department rather than quest/story development. I also dislike how siding with factions is the only narrative trick in Bethesda’s bag. It’s getting boring.
Score: 6.9/10
In Conclusion
Fallout 4 and it’s DLC have been fun, if not disappointing. I expected so much more. instead I got a game that I felt like I’ve played before. A good sequel expands upon what was established before and adds something new. There was nothing new here when compared with past Fallout games. After playing this game, I really think this might be my last Fallout game, maybe even my last Bethesda game. At the very least, I will wait till future Bethesda games drop to a dirt cheap price before I purchase them.
A short preface: played this game for about twenty hours. Beat the main quest and most if not all side quests.
In order to truly enjoy this game, you must first check off two boxes: (1) you’ve watched South Park before and you are a fan, and (2) you like turn based role playing games (especially old Japanese RPG’s). If you fit this criteria, South Park: The Stick of Truth is an incredibly fun game, arguably even a near perfect adaptation of a television show and a near perfect South Park game.
However, it is important to note that the first twenty minutes of this game are a slog. When I first tried this game out, I found it really boring and gave up on it for a few months. I came back to it later and forced myself through the beginning tutorial and I am so glad I did. After that first twenty minutes the game opens up and you get all the South Park humor you’d expect in this type of game.
Speaking of humor, this game exudes the humor of the television series to an extreme, R rated degree. The premise is thus: you are the new kid in South Park and you play a fantasy role playing game with the other kids of South Park when a sudden crisis strikes the town.
While not all of the past South Park characters are present, there are a ton of them. Some cameos include Al Gore, Jesus, Moses in dreidel form, Terrence and Philip and the Canadians. It’s just good fun to see familiar faces, and then see that character used as a magic spell or an enemy boss. For example, (minor spoilers) you get to fight Al Gore and one of his attacks is a power point on the environment which has the effect of putting you to sleep. You can also summon Mr. Hankey onto your side and he casts a poop themed wave attack reminiscent of Disney’s Fantasia. It’s pretty nuts, yet awesome at the same time.
Of note is just how far this game goes. There is nudity in this game, even though it is cartoon nudity. In fact, one boss fight takes place in the middle of a bedroom while two persons engage in sex. The battle ends with one of you getting hit by a boob while the other gets hit by a nut sack.
In regards to gameplay, it is a fairly simple form of turn based role playing game reminiscent of Super Mario RPG and old Final Fantasy games. There are a lot of spells and attacks that involve timed button presses, which can be annoying. However, I’m okay with these since they do at some interactivity to turn based combat.
Visually, the game looks just like an episode of South Park, which I loved.
Score: 8.2/10 Loved this game. It captures the spirit of the show so well. It’s like playing through a really long episode of South Park, yet even better because of all the references and cameos from old South Park episodes. If you like the show, playing this game is a no-brainer. This game is perfect for a rental or to borrow from a friend. There is also no replay value to the game after beating the main quest and side missions.
Muse Bank 