In no particular order:
• Evoland - Evolve from GameBoy to PS1 • Dragon Quest VIII - It’s 3D • Venture Kid - Essentially old school Megaman • Battleheart Legacy - Missing the story element, but a fun action/adventure RPG • Device 6 - Unique puzzle/mystery game • Final Fantasy 6 - Classic goodness • A Dark Room - It will make you question yourself • Walking Dead: The Game - Deep, dark, gritty, and an emotional rollercoaster • Zombie Highway: Driver’s Ed - Strangely addictive • Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions - Classic strategy, tactical RPG • Year Walk - Like living in an old, dark, European story book where the environments and creatures are as scary as they are bizarre • Shining Force - Another classic, turn-based tactical RPG • Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery - Beautiful design with an amazing soundtrack • Orbital - Incredibly simple design done right • Kingdom Rush - Fun, silly, and strategic
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Recently I wrote a post about my love/hate relationship with the game The Walking Dead: No Man's Land. As part of that post I offered a list of design ideas, and today I want to expand that list with some additional thoughts. Since writing that last post a ton of work has gone into improving this game, which I applaud, and I hope the momentum can continue forward. I also hope some of my ideas are helpful to the developers (if they see this). New ideas:
Ideas from previous post:
I want to love this game. I really do. I’m a huge fan of the Walking Dead comic and show, as well as the zombie genre as a whole. But this game…oh this game. A mixture of the now cliche Clash of Clans style freemium gameplay mixed with the tactical strategy games of old, The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land feels like an ongoing experiment in bad game design, put forth for all to cringe at as the developers slowly massage it into something presentable. Yet beneath the layers of grinding and clicking is the framework for something special. Something that desperately wants to come to life. There is so much room for growth, however, in its current form, The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land is a menagerie of lackluster, unbalanced, and lame design decisions, sprinkled with obnoxious pop-ups and ads. The pie chart below shows how I find my time is typically spent in this game, with an explanation of each slice. At a high-level, you will notice a trend where I argue that the most interesting features are where you spend the least amount of time, and vice-versa, which is primarily a failure due to the lack of content and feature diversity. Upgrading - Behind the safety of the town wall, players can build crops, storage areas, and stations for upgrading players and gear. While on the outside of the wall, with a recently added feature, players can now add and upgrade a walker pit. Supplies are spent to upgrade buildings, gear, and characters. Supplies which are obtained overtime and by scavaging. After the first couple of days of play I found that building and upgrading is an activity that is extremely infrequent, even after spending hours grinding to gather additional supplies. Story Mode - The story mode is, by far, the most interesting aspect in the game, and unfortunately it’s what players will find they will spend only a tiny fraction of time participating in. What gets so utterly frustrating about the story mode is how infrequent it can be played, because the difficulty curve is an insanely steep arch. Rather than including more levels that can be played more frequently, the developers opted for a drought of content that is stretched so thin that it cannot even be enjoyed. Raiding Outposts - Every time there is an update I get excited again, hoping for some fun, new features. And occasionally there are new features that, unfortunately, always feel flat, like a quarter of an idea, birthed from the womb far too early. Outpost raiding is one of those recent additions, where players build their own defensive outpost and raid the outposts of others in search for yet another type of resource. Raiding feels far too formulaic, not only in the limited environments, but in terms of strategy as well: kill the walkers, which charges your special skills, then unleash a flurry of your skills on the human enemies. Grinding
In short: great framework, terrible design, obnoxious ads, and an extreme lack of unique content. Next, I want to offer up some suggestions, that I feel could greatly improve this game:
I’m at that point again where I’m ready to, once again, uninstall. I’ll check back in again, one more time, and hope the positive elements of this game have been amplified, and the negatives have been sorted out. I grew up playing Dragon Quest games (or Dragon Warrior as we knew it here in the states) on the NES, which for me and many others, was an introduction to the console world of RPGs. At the time, I had a vague understanding of dungeons and dragons, had seen fantasy movies, and had read the Hobbit, so this type of world, at this point, was already very appealing to me. But after the NES days, I never experienced the later iterations of Dragon Quest, as they somehow fell off my radar. Fast forward to 2016, and we now have a collection of these games available on the iPhone. Many balk at the mobile price tag for this game, accustomed to 99 cent titles and modern, freemium games. What they don't realize is that this is a deep experience, packed with content that you don't get with most modern, cheap games (and unlike many modern mobile games, there isn't any in-game purchases). I recently completed the game, and am listing out what I feel are the "good" and the "bad" of DQVIII. Of course, I am omitting critiques one would make with modern games, this being about 12 years old. However, I am including criticisms about the platform of which I experienced it on (the iPhone 6s). Lastly, be aware that there are light spoilers below, although nothing that would ruin the experience. The Good
The Bad
Battleheart Legacy is a fun, action RPG, dungeon crawler, filled with campy humor, clean visuals, and interesting layers, but with some missed opportunities. Gameplay & Combat As with many RPGs, you can customize your equipment layout in order to maximize your skill set, such as by equipping weapons and armor that raise intelligence for spell casting. You aren't forced to pick a specific class, such as rogue or bard, and can actually mix skills from various classes to make for interesting battle combinations. At first I dabbled in a variety of classes and skills, in order to feel them out. My focus eventually was on the ranger class, with supporting skills mainly from the bard (charm) and necromancer (skeleton minions). The battle system is seamless and easy to learn. Details like being able to queue up your next ability while your current ability is being initiated allows for a smooth combat experience. However, combat becomes quite repetitive after a while. At first, a new combination of skills and fighting new enemies makes for a dynamic battle, but once you settle into your favorite skills and have learned how enemies behave, the battles get stale and formulaic. Progression The biggest issue with this game is the lack of activity and content starting around level 18, which left me attempting dungeons prematurely and battling in the arena with little success. I found myself slowly grinding to gain experience, replaying previous dungeons or getting smashed in high level ones. And this process carried on until the very end of the game. With just a little more content sprinkled in from level 18-30 the game could be infinitely more enjoyable, as it would maintain the steady cadence that the first half of the game provides. When you traverse the world map, you sometimes get drawn into random encounters. Unfortunately the enemies do not scale in terms of difficulty, so you will quickly be one-hitting baddies. Having scalable world map battles would also help solve for the lack of content in the latter half of the game that I mentioned above. Story There's not much story in this game; Don't expect to see a complex backstory to accompany our hero. In fact, don't expect any backstory, and don't expect him to be much of a hero either. There is some information here and there about the kingdom and history, but it's incredibly minimal. Overall, the major lack of story is a huge, missed opportunity. The only character defining elements in this game are the moments when you have the option to be nice or mean, which can translate to a sassy response or killing a stranger begging for mercy. Bugs & Suggestions
Summary I really enjoyed this game, at least at first, and then I got frustrated when the content got thin and combat got stale. Overall, its an enjoyable title that's worth checking out, and I'm eagerly hoping for a sequel that leverages the structure that has been created here, but with more content and preferably some story as well. Factions MP is the multiplayer mode in The Last of Us, and like its single player counterpart, you’ll find yourself shooting, sneaking, crafting, hiding, fleeing, and vaulting over rubble like a dystopian gymnast. There are 3 team modes to play: supply raid (players respawn in real time when killed until your team runs out of reserves), survivors (round based combat), and interrogation (gain intelligence from enemies and then crack open their safe). Players select a mode, a load out (weapons and abilities), and an optional one-use booster that they may have earned during previous sessions (e.g. cheaper purchasable ammo or a starting upgrade to their primary gun). And no, you won’t find any zombies in any of these modes (I’ll comment more on that later in the article). 7 Reasons Why You Should Play Let’s start by talking about some of the aspects that make Factions MP so great (and in no particular order). That feeling you get when you shank an enemy Nothing beats the satisfaction of creeping up behind an oblivious enemy that you have been tracking across the map, grabbing hold of them, and driving a shiv into their neck. It’s the ultimate insult. Challenges add a layer of complexity Every so often a challenge is presented to the player, which are divided into negative and positive outcomes that impact your camp, such as a hunter attack that you try to negate or new survivors that are looking to join you. The player has to decide how they want to complete the challenge, selecting from a list of options (e.g. X downs with Y weapon, heal X teammates, or perform X special executions). The game modes keep things diverse The 3 modes of play allow for a diverse set of gameplay. Perhaps you are in the mood for an all-out brawl with quick respawns. Then supply raid is your mode. Or maybe you are in the mood for a slow and strategic team based game with friends, in which case survivors is your mode. Endless load out combinations Load outs are essentially templates that you draft by combining weapons and abilities. You have a finite amount of load out points, which are used to arrange your gear, and customization is entirely up to you (with the exception of weapons and abilities that cost real cash, if you don’t want to spend the money that is). For example, you may prefer a stealthy approach that you can attain from a bow, covert training, and a silenced pistol (the bow and silenced weapons don’t show up on the enemy radar when fired). Others may go for a support role, opting for the ability to heal teammates and spot enemies from afar. Your load out will indirectly affect how you use the parts you collect in battle (essentially currency) to purchase upgrades to your weapons, armor, and purchasable weapons. For example, some players save parts for a purchasable weapon, while others use their load out points on abilities, skipping a purchasable, and instead use their parts for weapon upgrades. I’ve tried a lot of load outs, and at the time of writing this, this is my favorite: revolver, silenced tactical shotgun, agility 2, and covert training 2. I find that having a silenced primary is essential to your survival, as it allows you to get the necessary shots off to get a kill without giving out your location. The revolver is a solid compliment to the shotgun since it has the long-range versatility that the shotgun lacks. Agility level 2 means silent movement as well as the ability to walk, climb, and crawl very quickly, and the speed it provides cannot be overlooked in a game like this. Covert training level 2 pairs quite well with agility 2, as it allows you to crouch walk without appearing in the enemies listen mode. As a bonus, it starts you with a shiv at each spawn. The needs of your camp take you out of your comfort zone Every player has their own camp of survivors, and as you play your camp will grow in size, thus needing more supplies to stay well fed and free of sicknesses. One way to gain supplies is to down or execute enemies, and then collect the loot they drop. But sometimes raiding their body isn’t that easy, because the battles can be hectic, so you can’t just always go rushing over to your fallen target out in the open. Thankfully, your radar marks the locations of supply drops, so you can strategically return to them before the game ends, and collect them safely. As a tip, when you have sick and hungry survivors, use a boost that you collected from completed challenges in order to give you a tactical edge in your next supply run. Avoid the urge to waste boosts when they aren’t needed, unless you have a hefty surplus. Players automatically communicate This is a bit of a minor detail, but it’s a prime example of one of the many elements that adds depth to the game. The character voices not only contributes a layer of ambience, but also serves a necessary role in communicating out essential information. If a teammate is shot down and needs help getting back up, he will shout out “I’m down!”. If you dig into your backpack to craft something, your player will ask those nearby to watch his back. Out of ammo? They’ll yell about that too. And from all this, you’ll discover that these situational phrases allow for interesting team-based gameplay without the need for everyone to be chatting over a microphone. Properly balanced maps Every multiplayer map is well thought out and fine-tuned for a solid balance. The arrangement of cover and the map sizes keep the action moving quickly without being too chaotic, whereas the placement of supply boxes often force the player to take the risk of exposing themselves (and that’s a good thing for balance and gameplay). Health kits are a bit too easy to come by, especially considering you can also craft them, but that doesn’t disturb the flow of the game. Best of all, there aren’t any overpowered camping spots, and due to the nature of load out points, you see a strong diversity of weapons being selected. Gameplay Annoyances No game is prefect, and the issues I’m listing out are pretty minor as far as multiplayer games go. Unintentional targeting Every so often I find that I am inadvertently targeting the wrong enemy, which leads to my demise. Here are a couple of examples:
Rough bullet collision Occasionally, I will be firing through the window of a dilapidated car or between the railings of a stairway, and by bullets will fail to penetrate through them. In a game where every shot counts, a missed opportunity like this will often turn the table for the enemy. Wish list Everyone’s a critic, I know. And there’s only so much time, resources, and budget to work on a game. But whatever, we can dream, and this is what I wish Factions MP could add in:
Summary All in all, Factions MP is a solid multiplayer experience with enough diversity in weapons, modes, challenges, customization, and tactics to keep each game fresh and fun.
On the surface Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas is a Zelda clone, but unfortunately it feels like our newborn clone came out of the lab a little too early and with only a fraction of the charm and complexity that we all come to expect from the Zelda series. Simply put, it's a watered down version. Let's take a closer look at the various elements that make up this game and examine where it feels flat (warning, some spoilers ahead): StoryThe game begins with the main character's father leaving to battle the ancient monster known as Oceanhorn and ends with father and son reuniting. The relationship between father and son, while cliche, is an obvious opportunity for interesting story telling, and Oceanhorn completely fails to write their story to be any more than 'dad leaves, son finds him and defeats monster, both are together again'. Seriously, it's that simple. You won't find any emotion in either of these characters, or any of the hollow characters in this game for that matter. For example, the son could have had a complicated daddy complex, thinking that his father abandoned him, with dad's sudden disappearance being misunderstood. Instead we have a father that left to fight a monster, leaving a clear journal behind (no mysteries here) and when they are reunited the dad just spews out some light history of the world instead of exhibiting any ounce of emotion. What we have here is a very generic, linear story with our hero catching up to his dad and defeating a big monster. The overarching story is that the world is not what it used to be and the only way it can be restored is to defeat Oceanhorn. Yet, other than the aquatic half-human half-fish people who claim the open sea is too dangerous for them to swim out in, everyone seems very normal and extremely happy in the game, hardly a group of oppressed people in a dark world. The town people freely wander about their island, run shops, and even hold a joyous festival. Boats pass you in the open sea and relay cheerful messages in your direction as you sail past them. It's almost as if the person that wrote the primary story and history for the game forgot to coordinate with the person that wrote the character dialogue and events. Gameplay & ControlsThe controls were relatively easy to get used to, and with the exception of sometimes directing my character slightly in the wrong direction I found them to be fairly seamless. And the controls are pretty basic, primarily consisting of moving the character, an action button (attack, grab, talk, etc.) and a secondary action such as your shield or bombs. The battles between common enemies become repetitive very quickly and require little to no tactics: you swing your sword or you throw an object at them. The world is comprised of a series of islands which are fragmented by open water. The player uses a small sailboat to traverse between the regions, and during travel some bombs and enemies occasionally (and in a very formulaic way) appear straight ahead of the player, which must be blasted out of the way with a pea-shooter. The process of traveling between islands, something that could have included interesting quests and moments of exploration, is instead filtered down into a boring mini-game that the player is forced to repeat over and over. EnemiesAt a point in the game I earned an achievement for having seen all of the enemies, and usually when I get an achievement I momentarily feel a sense of satisfaction, but in this case I instead felt a great disappointment, thinking to myself "really, that's the last unique enemy I'm going to see in this game?" With only a handful of baddies the world felt rather small and uneventful, and with their limited AI I often felt like I was fighting only two enemies the whole game: the ones that charge directly at me and the ones that zigzag a little then charge at me. There are four or five boss battles, all with a winning strategy that is discovered rather quickly. Toss bottles at this guy, block lasers with your shield against that guy...you get the point. The boss fights aren't terrible, they just aren't very fun or interesting either, and are yet another missed opportunity in this game. Items & WeaponsThe weapons in Oceanhorn are what make for the most similarities to Zelda (arrows, bombs, and even a sword that shoots magic when your hearts are full), not to mention other cloned items such as quarter heart pieces you collect to make a full heart container. One strange item worth noting is a flute that you receive near the end of the game. The item itself isn't strange, but rather the odd way it is just thrown into the game is what really felt odd and lazy. The flute is in the final dungeon, sitting out in the open, on a narrow pathway that the player has to pass through. It really feels like the developers decided to add in the item after they had already fully planned out and started to develop the environments. In other words, it is as if the developers had this conversation:
Following the theme of content that isn't quite fully thought out are the coins that are collected by chopping down bushes, defeating enemies, or discovered in treasure chests. Coins (or a like form of currency) are extremely common in RPGs and usually provide for some added depth and customization, allowing players to purchase upgrades, refill items, unlock rare content, bribe guards, or change the appearance of a character. But in Oceanhorn instead you get only one shop with many near useless items and only one item worth purchasing, which is a heart container. Why would I spend coins on a potion that immediately refills my health or mana when I can quickly refill them by slashing down a couple of bushes next to the shop? Instead, a useful, similar item would be health and mana potions I can carry with me and use at a later time, such as when I am battling a boss and am in desperate need of a refill. In the end I had over a thousand spare coins and nothing interesting to spend them on, making me feel as if the time I took seeking out the various chests in the game was rather pointless. TownThere is one town in Oceanhorn, consisting of one shop, some houses, people milling about, and some dungeon elements. This is where I expected to gather side quests and missions, the content meat that fits snugly between the bread that is the story arc. Fitting with the lacking content theme of this game I became rather displeased upon the realization that there is basically only one side quest in the entire game, and it is to collect red rocks to be later returned for a single prize. I enjoyed seeking out the red items, which forced me to fully explore each environment, but of course wished to see additional quests. Dungeons & PuzzlesThe dungeons and puzzles are both repetitive and predictable, only increasing in complexity or difficulty in a few select places. Most puzzles consisted of stepping on a button (or placing an object on a button) which opened a nearby door. I did this same, lame "puzzle" so many times that I would walk into a room and hope that this is going to finally be the point where something unusual happens, but it just never came. Instead I would approach a puzzle and even for the ones that were slightly more complicated than the typical button press were usually so simple that the instant resolution that popped in my head was always the correct, and simple, solution. In the end there were zero thought-provoking puzzles, and referring to them as puzzles is an injustice. The massively unfortunate part is that the mechanics needed for generating more interesting challenges were already present in this game, so the primary blame, in my eyes, is on the designers that did not take enough advantage of the tools available. For example, some puzzles involved the player pushing a box aside to reach the other side, and in almost every case the player had to only push one box to get past. Why not have the player push multiple boxes in a unique combination in order to reach their goal? And with a little extra work the puzzles could have been greatly expanded, such as actually making a puzzle-tied use for the freeze spell, which was something I earned in the game and never used (literally never). DifficultyCombine the simple puzzles, easy combat system, and straight forward story and you have a very easy game. A player can refill his or her hearts with ease by breaking a few bottles or cutting down some bushes (which are everywhere) and losing to an enemy is a rarity that should only occur when a player is looking up from their iPhone to glance at the real world. SummaryOverall, Oceanhorn feels rushed and simplistic. While it has the framework of a good game it came up short due to a lack of content, a lackluster story, and predictable elements throughout. The fact that this game borrows so many core elements from Zelda is not the reason why this game fell short for me, as I was actually excited to play something Zelda like on my iPhone, but rather the laziness that this game embodies ruins what otherwise is a decently structured game with a poor execution. Let me start by saying Final Fantasy V is not a terrible game, but it does have many terrible qualities to it that made me cringe constantly throughout my experience. The game starts off slow, simple, and boring, and after many hours this game does eventually ramp up to have some complex battles, abilities, and jobs. In fact, the most enjoyable dungeon is the optional one that you can only access after you have completed the game. And by the time you get near the end of the game you have so many classes to choose from with a lot of interesting abilities, which allow for various tactical combinations. Unfortunately the "bad" in FFV is overshadowed by weak design decisions throughout, making an otherwise enjoyable RPG something rather laughable. Below I am listing out what I think are the 6 worst attributes of FFV, and in no particular order (they're all bad). Warning: spoilers. #1 - A Very Slow Start For about the first 40% of this game I found myself just letting auto-battle fast-forward me through the majority of battles, mainly just melee hitting every enemy. The boss battles for the first half of the game are incredibly simple and one-dimensional, lacking any real sense of strategy offensively and defensively (just whack at him over and over and maybe cure on occasion). #2 - Lazy Story Telling Nothing breaks immersion more when you can feel how lazy or predictable a writer or designer is, and there are 3 parts that stand out as prime examples from FFV:
#3 - Our Dorky Hero When I play an RPG I hope that the main character is cool looking, or at least evolves to have some more edge (as we see in Final Fantasy Tactics). However in FFV you get one of the worst looking main characters produced by an RPG. What's sad is that there are some great looking outfits for the various classes (e.g. Dragoon, Ninja, and Warrior), but you only see those outfits when you are in battle. And since you spend the majority of your time moving the main character around towns, the world map, or inside dungeons, you are forced to look at man-boobs here for hours. #4 - The Lame Character Gestures I'll just let the screenshots speak for themselves on this one: #5 - Bad Controls Somehow the FFV team managed to create such terrible movement controls for such a simple top-down game. I frequently found myself driving my character in directions and angles I never intended, often rubbing him against walls that he would slide across as I attempted to get him to go up a flight of stairs. #6 - Cheesy Dialogue
I swear this game must have been written by a 7 year old boy (or at least the "humor" parts). The story-line is very cliche (most RPGs are), but it was the cheesy one-liners that really made me drop by face into my palms, with gems like "hasta la bye-bye". This game couldn't decide if it wanted to be a serious, epic adventure or just be a string of campy jokes and exaggerated animations, and it really suffers as a result. Check out some of my favorite lines in the below screenshots: Warning: spoilers below 400 Days is the latest addition to Telltale Games' The Walking Dead series, where you play the role of 5 different survivors. You select the character order to act out, and the choices you make in the individual stories impact portions of how the other stories act out (at least to a degree). Ultimately the characters all come together, and are offered a proposition by an outsider. As with the previous 5 episodes the experience is a mixture of rich story telling and engaging decision making. There were definitely a few gritty moments where I was shocked (in a good way) and would cringe at what had just occurred (but again, in a good way). Seemingly missing from this specific episode are the simple puzzles that I enjoyed in episodes 1-5, leading to a much more linear, and simplified experience. I am a huge fan of the 5 episodes that proceeded this installment. In fact, it's the best iPhone game I have ever played, however I am a bit disappointed in this particular release. While the stories are interesting, overall the experience was very short lived. After completing the episode I was left with more questions than answers, which may prove to be a good thing once the second season of this game is released. Also, I felt somewhat cheated to spend 5 dollars on an episode that now gets packaged for free with the bundle that I had previously purchased, a purchase made before this episode was developed. But more problematic than the length and the price was the disconnect I felt from all of these characters. The reason being that the stories, of which there are 5, are spread too thin. By the time I start to connect with a character or understand a fraction of their background, their story comes to an abrupt end, and we move on to another brand new character. Again, my hope is that Telltale Games continues to expand on these characters, but as it is right now, just getting a taste of the intro to a story, with an inevitable wait until the next release, leaves a bitter taste. |
AuthorBrian Riggsbee lives in San Francisco CA. He enjoys gaming, writing, creating art, practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, chasing adorable dogs, and spending time with his wife and boy. Categories
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