Tag: action

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Game Ramblings #77 – Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

More Info from Ubisoft

  • Genre: Action RPG
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Windows, Xbox One

TL;DR

  • Another great entry in the series that iterates on the new AC style established in Origins
  • Stealth was still the most fun way to play, but both melee and bow combat were not detriments
  • Ancient Greek environment is a lot of fun to run through, especially for history nerds
Sailing is back, and it’s gorgeous.

While it would be easy to look at this game and assume it’s simply a mashup of Origins and the sailing from Black Flag, there’s a lot more going on under the hood here.  Where last year’s Origins explored the starting point of the assassins, this year’s Odyssey explores where some of the series artifacts come from.  In doing so, the game leans way into the supernatural/alien elements that have been hinted at for so long in the series’ back story, and really give us a game that fans of Greek mythology can dig into.

The place to start really is to just point at my ramblings about Origins last year as it covers a lot of what I normally would have said about combat.  That’s not to say that Odyssey is a straight copy, but really this is a solid iteration on the ideas from last year.  What this does differently is brings back the large scale sailing of Black Flag and really leans into the RPG side of things through skill trees, even more emphasis on gearing, and a lot less hand holding if you decide to go with the developer’s recommended options.

The game generally gives you an idea of where to go, but it’s up to you to find the goal.

It’s going to sound weird that such a simple change drastically changes the game, but the default style of this game doesn’t really give you goal locations.  Because of story reasons, you’ll often have a rough idea of where to, but if something isn’t in the dialog options presented to you, it’s often up to you to find the location.  What this ends up doing is really encouraging the thing that Origins started; the push to simply explore.  On your way towards a general area, you’ll run into any number of areas that can be cleared out of enemies and treasure, and it’s generally worth going through them.  One of the systems that was added to this game to also encourage exploration is a series of hunts against the Cult of Kosmos, which is basically a precursor to the series’ templars.

These cult leaders are the driving force behind the game’s story, and a number of them simply show up as targets during the story.  However, the rest have to be found.  They might simply be leaders of the various cities.  They may be out living on their own, taking care of a fort or a farm.  They may also be mercenaries sent to try and kill you.  However, behind all of it are clues that you can find by completing the small invasion areas; clues that lead you to the cultists location so you can take them out.

War is active, and it’s up to you to fight in it.

There’s also a large emphasis on war in this game, and you can generally get yourself directly involved in the battles.  This game takes place a few decades after the events of the movie 300, and Athens and Sparta are nipping at each other’s heels.  One of the consequences of you taking soldiers out is that the regions you’re in become weaker, exposing their leaders to be killed, and eventually the region for invasion.  In doing so, you can open up battles like the above screenshot for extra rewards, as well as to potentially turn over the region to the opposite side.  It’s a neat system that exists effectively as a distraction, but offers up something to do as a result of all the sneaking around you’re doing.

Mythology comes to life here, including a really fun fight against Medusa.

However, the lore behind the world is also a huge driving factor in exploring.  There’s fights against creatures like Medusa or Theseus’ minotaur.  There’s an entire segment of lore around the city of Atlantis and how it ties into the greater Assassin’s story.  There’s also the historic locations to see like the Parthenon in Athens or the famous people you meet like Sokrates or Hippokrates.  Basically, the entire game is a historian buff’s dream, and you’ll consistently be seeing things that you’d only ever seen in books.

All said, this is another great entry in the series.  It takes everything that worked about Origins and iterates in great ways.  The game has really leaned further into RPG territory than ever before, but it’s working out well for the series.  The fact that I can sit here having played it for 80 hours and still want to do more is a testament to them having really perfected their formula.  I guess I’m basically recommending this, especially if you liked Origins or Black Flag.

Also for what it’s worth, sync points are still great.

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Game Ramblings #36.1 – Horizon: Zero Dawn – The Frozen Wilds

More Info from Guerrilla Games

Original Ramblings

  • Genre: Open World Action/Adventure
  • Platform: PS4

Horizon: Zero Dawn – The Frozen Wilds does do a lot to generally continue what was great about the first one.  The setting is still fanastic and drop dead gorgeous.  The moment to moment combat is still a lot of fun with a lot of variety in ranged weapons.  Exploration is still always worth it, with things to find all over the place.  Basically, they didn’t screw up what was good.  Luckily, they also fixed my two biggest gripes with the base game, and that’s what I’ll talk about here.

This time around you’re running around Yellowstone and the surrounding areas. It’s definitely seen better days.

The end of HZD really annoyed the hell out of me, and it was because of two reasons.  The first was the lack of progression with the main melee weapon leaving the end hours of the game focused on much stronger ranged attacks, and the second was the design of many of the boss fights being an effective circular arena fight where you could generally stay safely at range the entire time.  While neither of these problems really ended up being a killer in the game’s overall result, they were definitely annoying problems that left me scratching my head a bit.

The melee weapon itself is definitely helped this time around by having an end game upgrade path.  One of the first side quests you come upon when entering the new area of the game ends with you upgrading your spear to support the modification system that the ranged weapons all had.  While I could definitely gripe about this being hidden behind a side quest, and I could gripe about the spear still not having inherent stat upgrades, this change alone is huge in changing how late game melee combat worked for me against higher level enemies.  Now I could build the staff to my play style, whether that’s a pure damage build, one focused on debuffs, or one focused on getting some ticking damage out on enemies.  While this was simply using a system that already existed for the ranged weaponry, gaining this system for melee was a huge change for the better.

While boss fights are still in relatively obvious arenas, they are much more varied landscapes, and the bosses themselves are significantly more aggressive against the player.

The handful of bosses in the expansion are also much improved over the base game.  While they still take place in relatively obvious arenas, there’s a much better variety in how the arenas are laid out.  In the example above, the player is sort of ducking in and around little outcroppings, giving a lot of line of sight breaking when fighting the boss.  In general, that is pretty common, allowing the player to fight in a much more stealth-based way.  This is really important based on a change in overall design of the boss AI.

The original game suffered from bosses that could generally be kept at range, letting the player just kind of tick away at them with the bow with very little danger.  The bosses here feel a lot more like large versions of the world machines instead.  They move around a lot to keep the player from being grounded.  They do a lot more melee and charge attacks, keeping the player’s dodging finger ready.  Even when the bosses are doing ranged projectile attacks, the danger of being hit and knocked down is a lot higher due to the ability of the bosses to close the gap and melee the player while they are down.  Overall the fights just feel a lot more dynamic, rather than the circle strafe grinds that the original game suffered from.

Since this is Yellowstone, lava is the name of the game. It looks even better in motion than it does in screenshots.

Overall this was really just a solid expansion.  It took what was great about the original and gave you more, and fixed a few of the larger problems while it was at it.  The new content was a lot of fun, the new weapons felt impactful and slid naturally into my arsenal (super bonus mention to the energy projectile cannon you get about half way through the expansion), and the handful of new enemies fit into the existing roster really well while giving some new mechanics to watch out for.  In general, this one leaves me wanting more of the series than the original game even did, and that leaves me excited for the future of the series going forward.

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Game Ramblings #74 – Shantae: Half-Genie Hero

More Info from WayForward

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: Switch
  • Also Available On: Windows, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One

TL;DR

  • Strong continuation of the Shantae series.
  • Action/platformer gameplay is as strong as ever, and the DLC brings in interesting new gameplay styles in smaller segments.

The Shantae series has been one that’s always focused more on the action side of platformers, and this one is no different.  While it has little bits that read of Metroidvanias, its focus is still tightly constructed levels, use of different powers to traverse obstacles, and really big three cycle boss fights to cap a level.  Its all here like past games, but the quality is better than ever.  The introduction of DLC campaigns for other characters only enhances the total package, giving new gameplay styles within the framework of the Shantae universe to enjoy.

Powerups are definitely out in force in this game, once again tied to Shantae’s ability to use genie dances.

While the last game got rid of dances for story reasons, the core of the Shantae games has always been the use of power ups to get through levels.  The core platforming elements have always been there, but powerups are the driving force behind getting through the world.  In Half-Genie Hero, we’re back to using the genie belly dancing to activate these power ups.  These can range from the bat power above to fly over gaps to an elephant that can charge through walls to a spider that can walk on ceilings.  As you gain these powers, new areas in old levels become traverseable, and you go back through levels multiple times to both find story items, as well as find additional power ups.

If this is reading a lot like a Metroidvania, it’s because it definitely is to some extent.  Previous games in the series have definitely been fully open Metroidvanias, but Pirate’s Curse and this one both followed a more linear single-level experience, with the ability to go back to levels through a world map for quicker access.  What this really gains for the game over a typical Metroidvania experience is really speed of access.  You can hop into any unlocked level at any time, get to the power up or item you need, then immediately hop back into the world map to go to the next place.  There’s no slog of going back and forth through the same areas repeatedly to get to a specific area of the world.  It also means that the first-time entry into a level is really tailored to the story.  You get cutscenes about what’s going on, mini boss fights as a way to slow progress, and ultimately a big story boss at the end of each level.

The bosses are all universally a lot of fun, and generally speaking also huge.

The boss fights are also where some of the more interesting gameplay mechanics end up happening.  While there’s definitely simple bosses (it wouldn’t be Shantae without an appearance by the Squid Baron), you get a lot more experimental stuff going on in these fights.  The one above takes place in a circular arena that the player will wrap around, lobbing cannonballs back at the boss.  Another one of the bosses involves fighting against a giant mermaid, using hooks to make your way towards the boss’ face to land hits, a lot like old Donkey Kong Country gameplay.  By and large it is these segments that show some of the best growth in the core gameplay of the series.

The DLCs really start to change the gameplay in interesting ways, even if the level themes are shared.

The biggest change with Half-Genie Hero though has to be the inclusion of support for DLC campaigns, which are all now included in the ultimate edition release of the game.  These are fun mini-campaigns using other characters from the series.  One has you running around doing the Risky Boots story in a very tight platforming-focused campaign.  One has you playing as the three friends Sky, Bolo, and Rottytops using their unique abilities to get through heavy puzzle-focused levels.  There are even a few mini aracde campaigns with things like a gun-based police campaign or a stealth-based ninja campaign.

The end result of all this DLC is that you have a really solid main campaign that is really less than half of the experience at this point.  While you then go through and play through the same core level themes, the experience is always completely unique in each of the DLC packs, so you’re always learning fun new ways to replay the same content.  From a sheer value standpoint, the ultimate edition released recently with all DLC really can’t be beat.

There’s a lot to enjoy in this release, particularly if you wanted more variety than previous games.

The previous Shantae games were always really high quality examples of action platformer gameplay, and this one is no different.  The biggest difference here is that they simply went with the motto of “more”.   There’s more powers to use, more gameplay variety due to DLC, and more total overall time to spend in the game.  Despite all of the variety, the core gameplay hasn’t suffered at all.  This is still a really mechanically tight game, and one that fans of the genre really shouldn’t miss.