Category: PS4

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Game Ramblings #69 – Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

More Info from Bandai Namco

  • Genre: ARPG
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Windows

TL;DR

  • Action-focused RPG battle system that is a lot of fun, even if it’s drastically different than its predecessor
  • Biggest negative is the ease of the main story path through the game
  • Kingdom-building content is the biggest focus for the player’s power curve improvements, but is going to be love it or hate it
  • Lots of side content between collecting citizens and killing tainted monsters

Ni no Kuni II is a bit of a strange game.  While it’s technically a sequel, it only loosely shares a setting with the original, completely scrapped the original’s battle system, and more or less scrapped the originals Pokemon-style collection.  While it also brought over the visual style of the first game, this one was not done in tandem with Studio Ghibli, so it’s missing a lot of the world charm of the first one. Taken on its own though, this is a really good game.  Visually this is still fantastic and is obviously helped being on a generation newer hardware.  The characters and story are still light hearted and enjoyable to play.  In place of the first game’s combat, we now have a very Tales of action combat system that is strengthened by the inclusion of some collectible helpers.  While it doesn’t necessarily succeed across the board, the fact that I got a platinum trophy on it says a lot about how much I enjoyed my time in the game.

While not necessarily as unique as the original was at the time, this is still one of the finer examples of visuals in an RPG.

While there are a lot of differences, it’s still pretty obvious this is in the Ni no Kuni franchise and universe.  Visually, this is another pretty astounding game.  While not directly a Ghibli product, it’s pretty clear that the employees they brought over into Level-5 have continued their legacy in the sequel.  The writing also has a lot of that Ghibli feel.  Despite the serious underlying story of a child king losing his rule to a coup, the interactions between the story’s main characters are often lighthearted and often pretty funny.  It’s not shy about having serious moments, but it also doesn’t take itself too seriously.  There’s even a few nods for fans of the original game throughout, despite the sequel taking place presumably a few hundred years in the future.

However, that’s about where the similarities end.

Higgledys may not feel that useful, but they sure are kind of adorable.

The first obvious difference is that capture and collecting of monsters that you fight in the world is gone.  In its place are the capture and collection of Higgledys.  These act as little helpers in battle that for the most part act autonomously.  Some are attack focused, some are healing focused, etc.  While they do all have special attacks that can be used to provide additional support, they generally just kind of existed in my peripheral vision in-battle.  Once I had a party of four that worked for me early on, I never switched them out for a new crew, despite the fact that there were dozens to collect.  They could also be upgraded for better stats, but again I never really noticed the difference in practical use.

Combat is simple, but a lot of fun in practice.

However, the higgledys not being obviously useful didn’t really matter because the combat was a lot of fun on its own.  At the end of the day this is pretty close to a straight rip of the Tales of series combat.  You have skills and ranged attacks that use a mana resource, two kinds of basic attacks that also recharge mana, items that can be fired off if needed, and occasional special attacks.  If that rings like Tales of it’s because it is, but the pace of combat is just as fast as the source and everything feels impactful.

If there’s one real problem with the combat, it’s that the core story path really is just too easy.  Most trash can be cleared with an opening skill to clear away the bulk of the pack.  Enemies that get killed end up dropping frequent mana and health orbs, so I didn’t really need to use items that frequently.  Even on the boss end, the core mechanics around immunity during dodging often meant that I could take literally no damage in a fight if I was being even a little cautious.  This is alleviated somewhat by the ability to fight 60 “tainted” monsters, which end up being the real difficult content in the game if done at appropriate levels.  However, if you’re the type of player that skips side content in favor of breezing through the story, this won’t help you at all.

I’m a fan of city builders so when I was told to start building I couldn’t stop.

Also on the side content front is the entire ability to build your own kingdom.  For me, building the kingdom and dealing with activities associated with it was very likely close to 50% of the time spent in the game.  The core loop for kingdom building is to recruit characters, build buildings for their specialty skills, have them work in the buildings, and then either gather resources they find or have them research upgrades.  On the upgrade front this could be anything from the ability to craft and upgrade weapons and armor, to buildings that allow you to upgrade your higgledys, to buildings that provide passive effects in battle, and more.  In addition, characters must be recruited via completion of side quests AND the characters you recruit also often give their own side quests, so you’ll have the option of spending a lot of time directly dealing with your own citizens.

This is another section where if you don’t like side content, you’re going to simply miss out on a lot what is there.  On the other hand, if you want the difficulty of the game to be higher, not upgrading your kingdom is a good way to miss out on a significant portion of your party’s power curve via all the available upgrades.  However, if the completionist bug hits you, this is where you will be spending a lot of time.

It’s good to be king.

Realistically I enjoyed the hell out of this game and want to recommend it to everyone, but I suspect it’s more niche than my brain is telling me it is.  While the action combat system is probably more approachable than the first game’s system, you won’t really see it at its best unless you want to go searching for the actual difficult side monsters.  While I enjoyed the kingdom building and side quest process of searching for new citizens, I can see where people would think it’s slow and grindy.  While the story is entertaining for me, it definitely tends to lean into some pretty predictable results.  If that all still sounds fine to you though, go give this one a try; you certainly won’t find me telling you not to.

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Game Ramblings #64 – NieR:Automata

More Info from Square-Enix

  • Genre: ARPG
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Windows

TL;DR

  • Excellent story largely based around what it means to have a soul.  Multiple endings work fantastically in keeping you coming back.
  • Excellent combat that takes a mix of action and bullet hell mechanics and somehow blends them into a cohesive whole.
  • Biggest downside is that enemy variety is pretty low, with the environments being fairly sparse.

Now that the winter doldrums are here, I’ve got a bit of time to get to games that should have been played before and NieR was high on the list.  Having dipped my toes a bit into the overall Drakengard universe, I had some idea of what to expect but I was still surprised by how well this one was pulled off.  NieR is a game that spends a lot of time making you think about what it means to actually be alive and have a soul, whether synthetic beings can actually be capable of emotion, and ultimately what would happen when you find out everything you knew was a lie.  It wraps this into a fast-paced action combat system that seamlessly blends melee elements of standard ARPGs with ranged mechanics straight out of bullet hell games to create a game that is uniquely its own.

Combat mixes melee and bullet hell in a fantastic manner, usually to spectacular effect.

Since this is an ARPG and you’ll be spending the majority of your time involved in it, we’ll start off with combat.  Rather than being a straight melee hack and slash game, NieR blends in a lot of ranged mechanics for both player and enemy to make the actual process of fighting enemies a lot more varied than is typical of the genre.  Beyond the obvious picture of an enemy screen spamming bullets above, the player characters also have both a friendly pod that provides ranged damage as well as the ability on a lot of the weapons to do ranged attacks via slashing attacks that send out projectiles themselves.

The end result of all this is that directly hitting an enemy isn’t really all that important, and the movement ends up being the driving factor of battle.  Regardless of what range the player is at there’s always at least some damage source that can be used, so the actual process of avoiding damage becomes the most important factor.  The combination of all these attacks and an instant dodge with no cooldown gives the combat an extremely fun and fluid feel that I can’t really remember out of any other ARPG series.

Variety in battle is also a key, with multiple other battle types popping up to keep things from being repetitive.

It is worth noting that other battle systems do pop up from time to time to keep the player on their toes.  At times, you’ll take over giant ass robots that act as bullet sponges just for the sake of blowing lots of things up.  Sometimes you’ll enter a flight suit or hacking segments and switch between both vertical scrolling and dual-stick shooter modes to take out flying enemies.  Sometimes even in standard combat you end up in camera-restricted sections, giving a more side-scrolling focus to combat.  Just being able to hop into all of these things on the fly kept the game fresh when it could have otherwise been a long train of the same action combat on repeat.

It’s also worth noting that all of these combat types are tied into the same fantastic gearing system.  While there are the basic trappings of the genre (player level boosts base stats, weapons are upgradeable, the player’s ranged pod helper is upgradeable, etc), the real core of the system is the game’s chip system.  Chips are a customizeable feature where the player can slot helper items into a board.  Each item has some effect and some cost, so managing the benefits of the chips that are applied allows the player to setup the character in a style that fits how they want to play without being stuck in one path the entire game.  For my playthrough, I ended up applying a few basic increases (HP, Attack Power, etc), a few HUD helpers for convenience (in particular, one that revealed items on the overworld map), and most importantly for me a passive helper that gave me 40% of my own health back on a kill.  For me this meant that I could go into any encounter, dodge around like crazy killing things, and not be overly worried about taking too many hits.  If I took some hits it wouldn’t be a big deal.  I’d get a kill, heal up, and continue on.  A more passive player could load up on HP, defense, and ranged attack power, leaving it to their pod to whittle away enemies while they stay out of danger.  A real glass cannon could go heavy into attack power one shotting enemies in their way, but without any real safety if they got hit themselves.

Visuals are generally pretty good but some standout areas are definitely there, such as this area built entirely out of untextured assets.

The rest of the game may not be as good as core combat, but overall the pieces are all on average pretty damn good, and certainly better than most ARPGs out there.  Combat visuals are flashy but don’t interfere with the player’s ability to understand what is going on.  Environments are generally kind of sparse but all look really good with solid differences in theme between them.  Enemy variety is kind of low but the silhouettes always give proper immediate feedback as to what can be expected out of attacks.  The soundtrack has too many instances of repeating songs but what is there is extremely well done and catchy.  That’s kind of the overall end result where I can nitpick all day about specific things but end of the day what is there is all really high quality.

The story ends up being a great thinker if you pay attention, but it’s certainly not without its moments of comedy; intentional or not.

Ultimately I’d generally recommend playing this game if for no other reason than to play through the story.  I really don’t want to say any more than I did in the opener to avoid spoilers, but suffice to say if you are a fan of stories that involve ponderings over the meaning of life, this one will likely stick with you.  It’s also spread out over multiple characters to allow for great side-by-side comparisons of multiple viewpoints.  For reference, the game plays through the first half of the story from the perspective of two main characters (listed as A and B routes in the game).  It then provides a C/D route that plays through the second half of the story with two branching endings.  An E route then provides an ultimate ending after the conclusion of the game.  Because of the multiple viewpoints the story is able to give much greater depth to the overarching theme of what it means to truly be alive, with each character fighting their own struggle to figure it out.  The rest of the alphabet is then filled with a number of secret endings, typically the result of some joke sequence.  For example, the player can remove their OS core from the android player characters, immediately killing them and ending the game.

I suppose the question becomes, should I have gotten to this sooner? Ya, probably.  NieR is a game that mixes a lot of action combat elements into a cohesive whole that somehow works.  It adds a great sci-fi story from multiple viewpoints to keep you coming back to the game.  A dash of comedy here and there keeps things light, while segments of other combat types keeps the variety strong.  If you haven’t gotten to this one yet, I guess you can consider this my glowing recommendation.  Just make sure you play after the first credits roll; there really is a lot more there.

I’ll leave you with this – the best rendition of Romeo and Juliet of all time.
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Game Ramblings #63 – Okami HD

More Info from Capcom

  • Genre: Action RPG
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: PS3, Windows, Xbox One
  • Original Platforms: PS2, Wii

TL;DR

  • One of the best examples of the Pre-BOTW 3D Zelda ARPG
  • Fantastic visuals that scaled up to modern systems nicely, as long as the screen filter is turned down
  • Combat generally simple, but a lot of fun thanks to the Celestial Brush mechanic, turning each encounter into a small puzzle

This is going to be a relatively short one, simply because there’s been enough said about Okami since its 2006 release.  As far as 3D Zelda-style games go, this is one of the best.  It starts with the typical Zelda pattern of going to a dungeon, finding an upgrade, and using that upgrade to finish the dungeon.  It adds much deeper combat that is more typical of JRPGs, with each encounter being its own little experience.  It uses a Celestial Brush system to literally draw in the world, repairing bridges, breathing life to trees, shooting fire at enemies, and more.  It then wraps all of that into one a gorgeous aesthetic reminiscent of Japanese sumi-e painting.  Put all together, it’s one of the finest examples of a Zelda game prior to Breath of the Wild, even if it wasn’t actually a Zelda.

There’s no talking about Okami without going straight at the visuals.  That little cutscene above is just a taste of how the game looks, but by and large it’s always that gorgeous.  Enemies killed with slashes float into the sky and separate into pieces like sheets of paper.  Trees explode into flower petals when brought back to life.  Even the static areas of the environment take on a beautiful painted look, with large outlines and simple color shading, giving the entire game a look that is entirely its own.

Combat takes place in its own little areas, giving a very JRPG feel to an otherwise action-focused system.

However, being an ARPG combat is still the focus, and this has much more depth than your typical Zelda game.  Sure, Zelda has its moments in boss fights, but your typical encounter with any enemy in the world is a few quick slashes and the player moves on.  In Okami, every encounter is its own little puzzle.  Some enemies may be weak to elements, so the player can drag those in from environmental source to stun enemies.  Some may have to be beaten down a bit before their weak points are exposed.  Some enemies can’t be hit unless time is slowed down, giving an opportunity to rush in for the kill. In general, each encounter has its own little piece to figure out in order to get through the fight in the most optimal matter.  Sure, you can usually also just beat on enemies until they die, but rewards scale based on time to complete an encounter, so effective use of the tools at hand is always the smart way to go.

All of this goes through the Celestial Brush system, which uses painted symbols to activate abilities.  Drawing a straight line on the screen will activate a powerful sword slash that can cleave enemies and environmental pieces in two.  Drawing a line from water, fire, ice, or lightning can cause those elements to help or hurt, depending on their use.  A swirling motion will activate wind, blowing away fire that may be shielding an enemy.  At its core, this replaces the typical items that Zelda games use, and allows for interactions that end up feeling more meaningful in their end result due to the need to draw on the fly.

The screen filter’s default option me feeling crosseyed.

I suppose the question then becomes, is this a good port?  More or less, but it has a few rough edges.  The default visual filter in place definitely had its problems, with some of the visual separation of things really looking awkward.  Turning that down to low solved most of the problems.  Otherwise things were solid.  Performance was consistent throughout the game, which was a particularly nice improvement over some of the more complex bosses on the PS2.  While the controls for painting were sometimes a bit awkward, the shape recognition is forgiving enough to allow for a lot of flex room in getting your symbols close enough.  If there’s anything with controls that did translate awkwardly, it’s that Start/Select from the PS2 were moved to the PS4’s touchpad, which also doubled as a secondary way to move the camera.  It didn’t cause issues in general, but every time I went to pause I ended up accidentally moving the camera completely in a place that I didn’t want to.

There’s a lot of bosses to defeat, all with their own tricks and fantastic designs.

Going back to this one 10+ years later was a nice treat.  Its visual style was always its selling feature, but only translated so well in 480i.  Luckily, the move up to 4k only helped the visuals, and the great combat system built around the Celestial Brush has aged extremely well.  If you’ve played this before, I could see an argument for not coming back again, but anyone that missed this the first go around would be well recommended in taking a whirl.