Category: PS5

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Game Ramblings #194 – Astro Bot

More Info from Sony

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: PS5

I was debating how to really start this because for me the gameplay of the game in a lot of circumstances is not worthy of the Metacritic score that this got. However, I was then thinking of the gameplay under the less normal circumstances and how playing a fully functional Ape Escape or Loco Roco level with its own mechanics ported over was incredible. I was thinking of how the challenge levels, despite their simplicity, brought in a sense of danger and speedrunning that was unique to those sections of the game. I was thinking about how playing a level themed around the Horizon series made me excited not for another title in that mainline – but instead, excitement for the possibility of the Lego Horizon game and how the Lego series typically adapts the various IPs that it uses. I was thinking about how exciting it was to find bots themed around games like PaRappa the Rapper or Space Channel 5 or Resident Evil or Ratchet and Clank or Sly Cooper or etc etc etc. This game really is a perfect example of the whole being better than the sum of its parts.

If I was to just talk about the core game, it’s simply a really good platformer. The jumping is solid. The exploration is solid. You get some occasional powerups that give for some fun changes to levels – for example, a chicken-shaped rocket jump, frog-themed boxing gloves, among others. However, on its own it’s still simply a really good platformer. Still worth playing for fans of the genre? Probably. However, the rest of the experience is what really elevates this to something worth playing for anyone. Lets talk about a few of those examples, because they are really what make this game click.

The most obvious example is the pure themed levels. You get one at the end of each world where the entire level and the powers you get during it are themed after the IP. Sure, the mechanics are simplified, but they’re effective. For example, God of War is reduced to the axe throw and return mechanic; Ape Escape simply has the radar and net; Loco Roco does not have any of the collecting mechanics. However, each level has just enough of the original IP’s mechanics adapted to the Astro Bot gameplay to be effective in really hitting that nostalgia while still feeling familiar within the scope of the core game.

Uncharted, God of War, and Horizon were not surprises. Those are arguably the biggest modern PlayStation franchises. Loco Roco and Ape Escape were absolutely surprises. Sure, those are past storied franchises – Ape Escape was certainly a PS1/PS2 era core platformer for Sony, and Loco Roco was a core franchise for the PSP, but both series haven’t had a new core entry in 15+ years. However, that gets at the real win here for Astro Bot. There’s something for everyone. Older PS1/PS2 fans are going to get a huge kick out of playing these levels because they are past memories. Newer PS4/PS5 fans are going to get a kick out of playing something new to them, and maybe introduce them to some series they should check out on PS Classics or through remasters. It works for both sets of fans because the levels are fun on their own due to the changes in game mechanics, but can still kick at the little nostalgia or curiosity boost for people playing.

Those little nostalgia spikes then extend to the act of simply collecting the Astro Bots. Each one is from some PlayStation game of the past so each one is another little tie to history. In most platformers it’s simply a core mechanic of the game, since you have to rescue them to progress to the end of each world. However, dressing it up like this is another way to open up memories for older players or new games to explore for newer players. It’s the perfect way to elevate a simple mechanic – the act of simply hitting a thing in a platformer – to a new fun height.

The boss fights are also worth talking about as an extension of the idea of the whole being better than the parts. Each world generally has a handful of boss or sub-boss type fights, and it’s here where I would argue the best combat mechanics take place. The boss fights are generally restricted to a small arena space with some power up, so rather than leaning on your core powers you’re leaning on the powerup as the core mechanic. For example, the snake fight above uses the chicken rocket to continuously jump over the snakes tail as it sweeps the arena, while the dinosaur fight above uses the Horizon IP to give you a bow to shoot at moving targets in the fight. They all do a great job of having a high action, fast response environment that still feels fair because of the fact that the actions are obvious. The powerups you bring into the fight will clearly be the main thing used in the fight. The tells by the enemies are well telegraphed, so I never felt like being hit was anything but my own fault. The set theming is all appropriately connected between the boss and its arena. They really are just all well done.

I also think it’s worth noting the challenge levels that are scattered around, because these are the real hard platforming available. However, they aren’t hard because they are being dicks. They’re hard for two reasons – there are no checkpoints and they demand precision. If you screw up, you are going back to the start of the level, regardless of the fact that you may have the end in reach. However, that’s balanced by the fact that complete runs of these levels are all under about a minute long. While these are absolutely testing your ability to execute the mechanics of the games precisely, they very much act like a speedrunning experience – very much a normal person digestable version of a Mario Kaizo game. Because of this, they act as nice breathers between longer levels. You can do a longer exploration, finish it up, then jump out to do a challenge level for a bit. Once you’ve hit a stress limit with these, jump right back into exploration. It’s the perfect way to break up the pace of the game.

If Smash Bros is a celebration of Nintendo’s history, this is the PlayStation representation of that ethos. Similar to later Smash Bros, it’s not just a celebration of Sony’s games, but a celebration of everything that has made PlayStation the brand that it is. It takes that celebration and adapts it to a platformer that is always good and often great. However, it’s absolutely true that the nostalgia is part of the experience and elevates the game beyond being a simply good platformer. The experiences they’ve crafted around specific elements of PlayStation history are incredibly detailed and well put together in a way that would never have happened without the tie in to nostalgia. Do I think that it reaches the heights of something like Mario Odyssey? Not quite, but it’s far closer than it looks on paper. What the team has created here is nothing short of spectacular and will likely be considered my surprise of the year when all is said and done.

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Game Ramblings #192 – The Legend of Tianding

More Info from Neon Doctrine

  • Genre: Beat-em-up
  • Platform: PS5
  • Also Available On: PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Switch, Windows, iOS

Sometimes my backlog randomizer just really hits the mark, and this is one of those cases. I’d recently played Double Dragon: Neon and was left disappointed by how slow basic movement felt to me so I had set it aside. My randomizer followed it up immediately by this one and it was like night and day. Fast movement, solid platforming, a good power curve, variety in combat styles – this one feels like a modern take on the genre that really just worked well.

The thing that will pull your attention first is the overall presentation of the game, and it’s pretty solid in that regard. The in-game visual style is incredibly solid with a lot of obvious inspiration from comics. That extends to the way the story starts being presented with small vignettes cutting through actual comic book panel layouts. However, when gameplay starts it becomes obvious that the quality is more than just flashy visuals.

At its core, this is a very melee-focused beat-em-up. The player’s main weapon a dagger that works fine on its own. Other melee-focused defensive maneuvers include the ability to dodge as well as the ability to deflect projectiles back at the firing target. However, the red sash is the real fun item here. This isn’t necessarily a weapon on its own (though it’s used for traversal mechanics like a hookshot). What it does is allow you to wrap a weakened enemy and steal their weapon. This is where combat in the game really opens up wildly.

Any combat situation is an opportunity to change how you’re playing. Big enemies coming around that cause a bunch of damage? There’s likely a large weapon available to steal that will stun them quickly. Bunch of environmental dangers that make movement risky? There’s probably an enemy carrying a gun or molotovs that you can throw instead of moving. The combat scenarios overall felt like they were crafted with far more care than is typical of the beat-em-up genre simply due to the wide array of weapon mechanics available through stealing.

The way this was pulled into bosses was also pretty clever. Boss weapons can’t inherently be stolen. However, at certain health transition points the bosses get stunned and then can be stolen. This gives the player something fun to beat the boss up with during the stun phase if they want. However, the more important thing is that because the player stole that weapon, the bosses have to change their mechanics turning those periods into phase transitions. The actual mechanic of phase transitions and attacks changing isn’t new, but implementing it via the typical weapon steal mechanic is a clever way to both reinforce the mechanic for the players as well as tie it hard to the mechanics of the game.

The rest of the game is a pretty standard sort of platformer, though it is well tied together. The player routinely earns upgrades to enhance their traversal ability (ex: double jumps, air dashes, etc). The sash itself can be used like something akin to a hook shot. There’s hidden and puzzle areas with upgrades to be found all over the place. Basically, the game keeps you busy between combat segments in a way that really prevents boredom and enhances the platformer part of the game that isn’t typically that present in beat em ups.

The upgrades themselves are probably also worth mentioning. They’re all relatively small upgrades, but they are present all over the place and have a wide array of effects. Some are increases to weapon durability (ex: +1 swings of a stolen axe). Some are upgrades to core capabilities (ex: +10% dagger damage). However, the effect of this is that it really smooths out power increases so that the player always feels like they are improving. Rather than being large steps and plateaus when gaining upgrades, the player is always just getting a bit more inherently strong. It really works as an effective way to make it feel like some progress is always occurring.

This was a pleasant surprise. I’d picked it up a little bit ago when I saw the disc version on sale and just hadn’t gotten around to it for a while. I’ve been in a bit of a run of just letting my backlog randomizer choose and it sure hit here. Games like this that have a tight mix of platforming and combat where both sides are solid are just so rare to find, and this really hits both. The combat is incredibly varied despite its surface simplicity, so it doesn’t get old through the 6-8 hours of play time. The platforming is incredibly fluid and makes good use of an expanding set of capabilities as you get to new levels. Overall this just hit all the marks I’m looking for in this type of game.

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Game Ramblings #189 – Sand Land

More Info from Bandai Namco

  • Genre: Action RPG
  • Platform: PS5
  • Also Available On: PS4, Windows, Xbox Series X|S

I don’t really know why I expected this to be more of a traditional ARPG than a tank game, but I’m glad I was wrong. The game throws you into a bit of ARPG action early on, but from there it’s almost entirely a tank game and boy did it hit far better for me because of it.

There’s just something that was so satisfying about the tank combat for me in this game. The moment-to-moment combat was solid on its own, but it wasn’t the core of what drew me in. I think ultimately it came down to how well the ARPG aspects were integrated into the tank crafting system. The core power curve of the game is the player level, based on normal XP. As the player levels, enemies in the world get stronger. However, that is not how the player gets stronger. The player’s vehicles get stronger purely through crafting.

The core vehicle levels then have some basic stat increases, but the core power curve is through vehicle parts – weapons, engines, suspensions, etc. This customization is obviously driven by the player’s need to get stronger but it also lets the player hugely modify the vehicles around their play style. Want to be a bit pray and spray? Go into fast fire with lower damage that reloads quick. Trust your aim? Go huge damage and one-shot enemies. Want to move quick at the expense of lower defense? Go ahead and be a turbocharged glass cannon. This all takes place over a whole slew of different vehicle types (tanks, walking bots, motorcycles, dune buggies, hovercraft, and more) to also fit all sorts of environment styles. The game gets a huge amount of flexibility out of the customization options available, which really drove me to experiment and constantly be crafting new things to try.

None of that would have mattered if the crafting itself was a slog, but luckily that isn’t the case. Enemies are incredibly common to find if you need something, but easy to avoid if you don’t. Every kill drops something and often multiple somethings. Side quests give rewards of all sorts. Treasure chests are available all over the place that give crafting and vehicle parts. This all really just feels tuned around the idea that they want you to play around with everything available to you without the game wanting to be in the player’s way.

It’s also worth noting how good the variety of vehicles ends up being in core gameplay. My tank was my obvious #1 in combat as it tended to have the best overall weapon set for huge damage. However, it’s a relatively slow vehicle. For large traversal I would swap out to a motorcycle. It had some weapons for taking out trash enemies but the main benefit was how fast it moved. However, the speed didn’t matter in tight spaces. For those I’d swap out for a walking bot that I had equipped with more crowd control-style weaponry to give me some strong offense that I could lob around hallways. These are then available to quick swap at any time through a clever use of the storage capsules from Dragon Ball to allow the player to “carry” a bunch of vehicles with them at all times. The game wants you to be using your full arsenal in a variety of situations and just gives you every tool imaginable to do so.

The rest of the game then just kind of falls into place. Main quest line objectives are far enough apart that you inherently explore on the way between them. Just as you’re generally finding the bulk of things in an area, the story will push you into a new region with new stuff. Just as you’re starting to feel bored of going back to old areas, you open up new vehicle types that open up new stuff in those areas. Just when you’re starting to get bored of the main Sand Land, you then open up Forest Land with entirely different environmental aspects to it. I’m not going to sit here and say that this is a blow your socks off game by any measure, but boy could it be far worse and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it the entire time. It’s just far better of a licensed game than it had any reason to be.

When I looked into the developer of the game that made incredible sense though. ILCA was also the team behind One Piece Odyssey. That game fell into a similar place for me. It wasn’t a blow your socks off game, but it had such incredibly fun core combat that I didn’t want to stop playing it. This feels like a studio who understands that they can adapt an IP to good game mechanics, rather than adapt game mechanics to an IP and it’s been hugely to the benefit of their last two titles.

This was just a pleasant surprise. It has great combat mechanics, great customization mechanics, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. It was a trim 25 hours or so for me to mostly complete everything and I enjoyed it all the way. ILCA‘s next title looks to be a new entry in the Ace Combat series after they assisted development on the incredibly fun Ace Combat 7 and boy am I now looking forward to it more than ever.