Posts

Posted on

Shelved It #23 – Saros

More Info from Housemarque

  • Genre: Third-Person Shooter
  • Platform: PS5

This is a somewhat unusual shelved it in that this is a really well made game and I really have enjoyed my time in it. The…problem as it were? I just don’t enjoy roguelite loops. I can deal with it to a certain extent if the loops are quick but I usually hit a point where the growth of the experience has either stopped because it’s out of new mechanics or because it’s at a wall and I grew bored. I’m more at the first for this one at the 6th boss. However, for me it’s a bit of a miracle that I’ve played a roguelite for 11 hours and counting to begin with, and I can see this one slotting into the type of game that I occasionally return to and eventually just get through via time.

The thing I will absolutely call out here is how good the combat is and I think it comes down to one specific thing – despite being a “shooter” I’m not often doing a lot of aiming. Saros recognizes that it’s first and foremost a game about dodging projectiles, and not so much about creating projectiles. The entire experience is then built around that. You have a rapid dodge that allows you to go through some projectiles. You have a shield that allows you to absorb other projectiles to return as attacks. You have a parry that allows you to block other projectiles. Choosing the correct defensive maneuver is by far the most important part of combat with offense then being a secondary consideration.

This only works because the attacks that are coming at you are very clear and give you enough time to react. Blue can be absorbed, yellow can be dodged through, red should be parried (and additionally, red shields should be hit with a melee attack with the same button). You constantly move to stay at a range where you can still attack but have time to react and never stop being in some form of fast action. It’s fast and relentless but always feels fair. In the classic roguelite pattern it also feels like I’m constantly learning and using that to reinforce the upgrades I’m getting to move further every time.

The lack of aim is completely built into the weapon system. Most weapons have auto-hit with large aim correction built-in, with some specific weapons being instead built and balanced around auto-hit being off. Despite not really aiming though, the weapons still had important variety in letting me build the way that I felt comfortable. There’s things like shotguns and chakram discs that I totally disliked using because their damage felt so inconsistent around how much I was playing a run and gun style. On the other hand there were rifles and pistols that were reliable damage dealers if I needed an upgrade. When I got particularly lucky I was getting one of the crossbow types which were universally a ton of fun for my preferred style, putting out slower shots but much larger damage at a time.

This is then backed by the stat upgrades typical of the genre that have interesting modifications when in the eclipse state. This morphs upgrades from simple stat increases to things with drawbacks. Sure you might get some resilience, but now you take fall damage. You might get increased weapon power, but now you can’t stay still. You may bet better shields and absorption, but now you may have decreased damage at low health. It adds the type of fun decision making typical of the genre in a way built very well around the core gameplay of Saros. I knew I could always comfortably take the penalties standing still or the fall damage penalties because avoiding those things was crucial to my more run and gun play style and tailoring my build to that always felt incredibly effective.

However, the roguelite part of the game caught up to me at around the 10 hour mark near the 6th boss. Each biome introduced new mechanics but over time they were becoming less important because they were starting to become minor modifications to combat instead of large changes. I started seeing fewer new enemy types, and those that were new started to be some clear combinations of existing enemy types. It’s typical of the roguelite meta loop, but for me it doesn’t really work unless the loop is fast, and here it isn’t.

The death loops here are typically 25-30 minutes and that is just far too long for me. It works fine when I feel like I’m making progress, but I just zone out when I get some bad RNG and make no progress in a loop of that length. But that’s the genre expectation and it just doesn’t typically work for me. Getting the 11+ hours I got out of this one is highly unusual. Getting that far was only because the core combat in the game really was simply that good.

Posted on

Game Ramblings #225 – Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight

More Info from TT Games

  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Platform: PS5
  • Also Available On: Xbox Series, PC, Switch 2

If Lego Skywalker Saga felt like a big leap forward for the series, I would now consider it a trial run. Lego Batman has completely removed a lot of the old grind of the Lego games and now feels like something that can stand on its own separate from the cute visuals. Given the abandonment of the Arkham series, this is probably the best continuation of that type of game I could have otherwise hoped for.

There are things where this feels like a clever blend of Lego and Arkham, but because of that this definitely feels less like a Lego game than in the past. The first spot that really hits is in characters. Past Lego games have had lineups of literally hundreds of characters that share specializations, allowing you to kind of mix and match. That is now gone. You have a core set of characters that you unlock from the hero side of Batman IP and that’s it. The gameplay that you get out of them is still core Lego. For example, Batman has his batarangs, Batgirl can hack things, Robin/Nightwing can connect things together to pull obstacles or build bridges, but it’s purposeful and not just collecting.

The combat is also much improved here. It’s not that it’s necessarily full action game, but it’s deep enough to be sufficient and fun. For the most part combat is core punching, but you have counters and dodging timed by visual cues to give it a little more flair. You have your traversal skills and items that can also be used in combat. An example would be Catwoman’s whip being used to spin screws out of doors to open the way, but in combat can be used to spin enemies in circles causing them to be stunned or pinball off other enemies.

The fact that the game takes place in a single open world area instead of tailored levels is also fairly new within the Lego gameplay, but it works well. Skywalker started leaning in that direction, with sort of core hub levels. However, it was still distinct areas for each movie that weren’t that far off of what existed in past Lego games. Batman is just Gotham, and it’s the same Gotham for the entire game even though it’s a blend of various bits of a bunch of the films all packed together. Story segments go into specific tailored levels but they feel appropriate and still living within the open world that you’re presented with.

This is all tied together with the open world having very Arkham-style activities to do. There’s your general crime fighting with random events popping up where you can take out bad guys. There’s generally collectable things to get in true Lego game fashion. However, the real meat of the activities are tied into things like story content for Killer Croc or an entire set of puzzle activities tied to Riddler or street racing and combat AR trials created by Lucius Fox. It makes it feel much more grounded in traditional open world territory than in pure Lego game territory.

However, this being a Lego game does mean that it knows to not take itself more seriously. The writing of the game is way more in line with 1960s Batman than Christian Bale Batman, and that is a really fun setup against the backdrop of the movie plot points. Mr. Freeze may be threatening to freeze the entire city, but when Batman gets disabled in the fight it’s because he gets turned into a Lego brick made of ice. Enemies don’t die but get blasted into the brick parts of their minifigs. Large enemies aren’t just buff, but instead are comically larger than Batman and are defeated by things like clapping cymbals on their head or trapping their head in a net. Catwoman doesn’t just cut a circle out of glass when she’s robbing places, she’s cutting a perfect 8×8 circle plate Lego out. There’s just a constant barrage of these little details all over the place that the TT Games team have built up as expected behavior in Lego games that work so well because it’s simultaneously the opposite of the more serious side of Batman while also just working perfectly against the slapstick nature of its past.

But it ultimately comes back to the love of the IP. All of the expected baddies are here so it isn’t surprising, but it is fun and it makes it clear that this is a game for Batman fans by Batman fans. I probably wouldn’t go so far as to call this game a game of the year candidate, but it certainly is making a good push at it. It is distinctly enough of a Lego game where most systems are not fully fleshes out in a way typical of a AAA game, but there’s nothing there that stands out to me as bad. What it ended up being the entire time was just fun, and it’s fun in the same way that the Lego games always have been but turned way more seriously. It’s clear that TT Games’ pace of output was pulled way back for Skywalker Saga and that certainly was a risk for them, but that game and Lego Batman have both shown that they can grow the fun and silliness of Lego in ways that push it into more traditional games without losing what brought me to play them in the first place.

Posted on

Game Ramblings #224 – Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm

More Info from Cornfox & Bros

  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Platform: Switch
  • Also Available On: iOS, Mac, PS5, Xbox Series, PC

The first Oceanhorn title showed that an indie could tackle a 2D style Zelda game with a lot of success. It wasn’t without its faults, but it brought together elements of A Link to the Past and Wind Waker in a really successful way. This one I would argue is less successful. It’s still a reasonably fun game, but going fully 3D definitely shows where it can be difficult for small teams to scale up their ambitions.

There is no arguing that this is going straight after the dungeon-based Zelda market. The metagame flow is to get to a new location, gain access to a relevant dungeon in the area, and defeat a big boss. Along the way you generally get an item or upgrade relevant to traversal there – bombs to get through blocked areas, swords for more damage, hookshot for covering gaps. The one big change is that you’re often accompanied by AI companions that also can get into combat or help with puzzles, though admittedly their presence is often not that useful beyond forced opportunities to use them.

The main place where the 3D transition really shows an inability to scale is simply in scope. This game only has three core dungeons plus a bit of smaller side content and mini dungeons that you hit along the way. There’s simply not much there to play and if you really put your head down this isn’t much more than 10 hours. That can be padded out via collecting side stuff, but it all largely comes down to treasure chests with items that convert to gold and there’s not a very compelling reason to even have gold. You can buy ammunition from vending machines, but the bulk heavy costs are for small upgrades to existing items that really didn’t feel like they affected balance much.

So then we look at core gameplay. On the surface it’s pretty solid. Core sword swinging is fine and works pretty seamlessly. Enemies have good tells for when they’re attacking so the player can dodge away effectively. There’s a gun system that’s the equivalent of Zelda bow & arrows, including elemental bullets, that is well used both in core combat (ex: freeze enemies) or in traversal (ex: solid patch of ice to walk on in water). The AI companions attacking also means that there’s quite a few situations in which the player is mobbed in a way that feels fun, even if the AI companies and NPCs distracting each other means the player situation is similar from a gameplay perspective.

However, there’s a level of polish missing that is evident here that I think also ties back to this being 3D. The boss fights had kind of a pattern of exploiting a weakness then hitting weak points when the boss was dazed. In the example above, the player would use electric element bullets to hit a hook on the turtle and stun it, leaving open weak points on the legs and stomach. However, the pattern here was that you had to use bullets, which run out, which then resulted in me spending more time running in circles collecting more ammo instead of doing anything interesting. This was sort of fixed in the end game where the boss fight ended up just having a vending machine to use mid-fight instead of wasting time. It felt like a system leaning too heavily on limited resources with long grinding actions. This is accompanied by general lack of polish in camera use – for example, there’s no Z-lock – or movement where I was too often getting stuck on small collisions during combat.

That’s not to say I didn’t have fun though. The boss fights are legitimately cool. The overworld and story is legitimately solid. The companion system and elemental gun are both really good. Visually it even handles itself well on the Switch, with the bigger brother console and PC versions looking spectacular. It’s just not quite there, needing another iteration or polish pass in its current iteration. However, it does make me want to take a peek at Oceanhorn 3 now that it’s out on Apple Arcade and I suppose if nothing else, that’s a win for a franchise.