Category: PS4

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Game Ramblings #53 – Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana

More Info from Falcom

  • Genre: Action RPG
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Vita, Steam (Windows)

TL;DR

  • Great continuation of the Ys series, and one of the best RPGs of the year
  • Fantastically fun action combat
  • Serviceable story, but island systems that come out of it are great motivators for forward progress

The Ys series has routinely been a lot of fun, even if the actual releases have been extremely sporadic.  In the past decade we’ve only seen Ys 7 and Memories of Celceta, and internationally speaking the release of Origin.  However, the gameplay has continued to improve in quality, getting us to the point we’re at now.  While this is still definitely a game that feels like it was made for the Vita, it moves up to the console quite well, keeping fast paced combat, a great soundtrack to back it, and some really good systems involving the growth and maintenance of a town.  As usual, we’re left with Adol Christin being left in a bad situation, but this one works out as well as any game in the series before it.

Despite targeting the Vita, the visual style holds up well when scaled up to the big screen.

Going into an Ys game, the combat is obviously going to be the core focus.  The last few releases in particular have really strengthened their action RPG core, and VIII is no different.  The basic combat system is a main melee button, four mappable skills on a regenerating resource, a dodge, and a jump.  However, this simplicity hides a lot of depth.  One of the biggest pieces of the core combat is the timing of dodges.  When executed close to the point of taking damage, the game slows down the enemy combat, giving the player a period of time where they can lay into the enemy they’re facing with little risk of damage.  On the other hand, if they time this with their skill activation button, they gain a damage blocking shield and increased critical damage for a short period.  In addition, there’s a small weapon weakness system in place, giving the player an incentive to swap between characters to maximize damage, which can be done at any time with the press of a button.

Overall the system works really well to keep up the pace.  When taking on trash enemies, I often found myself dancing around spamming abilities to hit packs at a time.  When I moved up to larger enemies, it became a bit more of a tense chess match, where I’d lay off watching for reads on the enemy attack, then dodge and lay into the enemy while I had my small advantage window.  This was particularly evident during boss fights, where damage tended to be pretty fair, but could very quickly stack up into trouble if I started getting sloppy with my dodges.  There is a small wrinkle here where flashback sequences involving the title character Dana leave her to fight on her own.  However, as the flashbacks progress, she gains the ability to change forms, giving her the effective weapon triangle in the past without having to worry about the lack of party members.

Some bosses are impressive, others are just a good way to let dinosaur fans get a laugh.

On the story front, things aren’t as great, but they’re serviceable.  In general the story is pretty by the book.  Adol and the ship he’s on run aground, get stranded on an island, and adventuring hijinks ensue.  The cast all have their own motivations to getting off the island, but generally speaking they aren’t explored too much.  The story around the title character Dana, and why Adol was having dreams about her goes a bit further, but mostly only to provide a bit of reason to move forward.  However, because the story is so focused on survival and getting off the island, it forces the use of one of my favorite parts of the game, Castaway Island.

While you’re busy exploring the island of Seiren, you’re looking for a couple things; people and resources.  Finding the members of the ship you were on allows the village to grow.  Each person has their own little role to play.  Some people join your party as combat members while others open up shops for gear and potions.  Because the island is deserted there’s also no money system, so everything is received through a bartering system.  This heavy use of resources found in the environment enforces a really strong need to explore every little corner of the world, finding points in the environment where resources can be gathered, or that specific monster you need to kill to get one last piece of hide to upgrade your armor.  This system works fantastically well in practice, and provides a much more interactive system of gearing than your typical pattern of new town; new gear that so many RPGs fall into.

Side activities like fishing provide a nice distraction, as well as further resources to put back into the village.

In any normal year Ys 8 would have been the type of game that would push to the top of my list of favorite games, and as it stands it’s easily one of the better RPGs I’ve played this year.  The combat is fantastic, the story does well enough and pushes some great side systems, and the soundtrack really drives the game when it’s needed.  While this definitely won’t appeal to the Final Fantasy audience, anyone who’s a fan of the Tales game is going to find a lot to like here.

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Game Ramblings #51 – Knack II

More Info from Sony

  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Platform: PS4

TL;DR

  • Much deeper combat system than the original that significantly improves the overall experience
  • Use of size changing is clever, and done in a much more controlled fashion than the original
  • Still too many quick time events, and the game might as well not be a platformer for how little it takes advantage of the capabilities

I’ll be perfectly honest here; I bought this game simply because I didn’t believe the decent reviews coming in for this game.  The original was a curious release from a tech-demo point of view, but calling it an unforgettable game is being pretty nice to it.  At one point early in Knack II, they joke that the main character only knows three punches and a kick, and that really was the depth of the original game.  This one adds significant depth to the combat systems, while smoothing out some of the more obnoxious difficulty problems with the original game, and makes the overall experience a lot of fun to play.  It’s not perfect, but I’ll be damned if I’m not surprised with the end result.

Even if the environments are simple, seeing Knack full of pieces is still an impressive sight.

The core idea behind Knack is essentially the idea of a controlled power curve based on finding relic pieces and adding them to Knack’s body.  You can instantly transform between tiny and full grown variants, leading to puzzle and platforming opportunities.  As Knack grows, he gets stronger, typically leading to fights against increasingly strong enemies and generally speaking a boss or similarly large scale puzzle element to end most chapters.

Where the first game really failed to take advantage of this is that it really just kind of pushed the growth, took it all away mid-game, and never really reestablished a good feel to the growth curve.  Knack 2 significantly improved that curve.  Rather than being a more game-wide growth curve, each chapter typically had its own growth curve.  Most chapters started you off in the 4-6 foot range, with various amounts of growth by the end of the chapter.  This was also typically paired with a similar power curve in the enemies so there was always a feeling of progress in each area.

Not all of the combat is on the ground. Sometimes you just accidentally steal a giant robot.

Where this change would have fallen apart in the original game, the introduction of significantly deeper combat meant that there was a higher metagame to combat skill that was entirely separate from the growth mechanics.  Just from a base skill perspective, there were grabs, shield break maneuvers, smooth dodging mechanics, ranged boomerangs that trap enemies, and the ability to parry projectiles back at their shooter.  Add in a skill tree to augment skills, as well as add new optional skills, and the tool set available to the player is significantly better than the original’s three punches and a kick.

This all comes together with a significantly improved difficulty curve to make a system that was quite a lot of fun in general, let alone a significant improvement over the first game.  Different strategies had to be made on the fly based on Knack’s current size, as well as the enemy count.  Bunch of enemies that can be one shot? Try to round them up and do a jump smash to kill them all at once.  Handful of larger enemies that require a few hits?  Lock one down with the boomerang while you concentrate on the others.  Boss that can very easily chunk your health away?  Dodge as you move towards it, or parry back projectiles to do ongoing damage as you move closer.  Basically, there’s a ton of options here, and the way they’ve set it up in conjunction with the character’s physical growth has gone a long way to making this a very fun game to play.

Platforming segments are there, such as this stealth segment with a tiny glass Knack, but they’re rare and don’t typically take advantage of potential.

Outside of combat is where the game still shows its biggest weaknesses.  It’s pretty typical for there to be a big cutscene extravaganza in each chapter with a series of quick time events.  These are just kind of boring, and I’d much rather they just play the cutscene back as intended.  The platforming is also fairly non-present.  While the tools are there, with the ability to double jump and hover, most platforming areas are basically small 30 second puzzles in between combat encounters.  Once you’re in a combat area, it’s flat and the platforming gives way to pure action.  There’s just kind of a lot of missed potential there, even if the focus of the game has leaned significantly more into the action side of things.

The end result here really is surprising.  You still get the big wow moments of a significantly large Knack against giant bosses that the original game had.  The improvement is that the time between those big wow moments is no longer terrible.  The combat is fun, the moves you get are varied and cool to see, the enemies have a lot of variety to match the moves you learn.  Now, this game isn’t going to make a run at game of the year or anything like that; it just doesn’t have the depth in its non-combat to really do that.  However, what came out with this game is a sequel that is good in its own right, and even more so a shockingly large improvement over the original game that could best be described as a great tech demo with bad gameplay.

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Game Ramblings #50 – Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

More Info from Sony

  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Platform: PS4

TL;DR

  • Same ol Uncharted gameplay, over the top action sequences, and beautiful visuals
  • Short length meant the story didn’t drag out, which felt like a plus
  • First half showed some growth in their design w/ an almost Tomb Raider semi open world.

I’m not going to sit here and say that this is a hugely original title for the series.  I’m also going to be straight here and say that the changes in The Lost Legacy feel a lot like copping some features from Tomb Raider.  However, this very well might be the best Uncharted title I’ve yet played.  It being a condensed experience certainly helped (about 6-8 hours I’d assume will be typical first play through), but a nice use of a large non-linear area to start the game went a long way to providing a fresh look at the series, and may just prove there’s life to be had in this universe.

Like previous Uncharted titles, this is another visual masterpiece.

There’s a lot to be familiar with here. The gunplay is still good, but nothing mind blowing, going for solid feel without too much difference between core weapon types.  Combat sequences in the more linear segments are still at obvious points when you turn a corner and have a ton of crates around.  Enemies are still decent but basic in their approach to flanking behaviors.  The game’s finale (and a couple points in between) is still a wildly bombastic experience that would feel at home in any big budget Hollywood film.  End of the day, this is still Uncharted at its core, but with a big difference in the first half that showed some progress.

Roughly the first half of the game takes place in a large open area, with a set of non-linear objectives to drive to, and a bunch of hidden collectibles to find in the area.  This alone felt like a fantastic change to the series, even if it felt right out of the recent Tomb Raider games.  Because of the layout of this opening area, combat also felt much improved relative to the standard single direction combat of the linear exploration areas typical of the series.  Combat segments felt very free form, since you could approach from basically any direction, and enemies could do the same.  In a lot of these areas, I’d be stealthing around to find a good entry point, then doing what I could to pick off enemies one by one without revealing my location.  If things started to go awry, many of the areas also had a lot of swing points, so I could easily move around to find new hiding spots if enemies started to get a drop on me.  In general, this was the best I’ve ever seen combat in the series, although it unfortunately went away once the more linear segments of the game started.

While not as complex as the Tomb Raider series, the side exploration in the opening area was a welcome addition to Uncharted.

The unfortunate thing though is that the opening area gave way to more traditional Uncharted linear mechanics.  While this works fine in the general sense, it feels like they missed an opportunity to really make a special full entry in the series based around the gameplay changes of the first half.  The puzzle areas of the linear temple portions worked great, but it was back to the more boring combat style and tiresome climbing areas.  Realistically I can only do the same pattern of climb, jump to crumbling wall hold, fall down to conveniently placed grab spot, then finish climbing up so many times.  On the other hand, the fact that this is a much shorter expansion-style game meant that the experience was fantastically condensed before I really wanted to just get through.

End of the day you kind of know what you’re getting into here when buying an Uncharted game, and this one doesn’t differ much. It shows some promising changes in the first half should Naughty Dog decide to continue with the series, but never really expands on the changes for the full length of this game, let alone makes a full game out of it.  However, treated as an end of summer blockbuster experience, this is still just as worth playing as the previous entries and definitely left me entertained, and that’s about all I can ask for.