Tag: PS4

Posted on

Game Ramblings #76 – Dragon Quest 11: Echoes of an Elusive Age

More Info from Square-Enix

  • Genre: JRPG
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Windows, 3DS (Japan Only)

TL;DR

  • Pretty traditional turn-based JRPG typical of the series, with a few nice modern features brought in
  • Fantastically gorgeous game thanks to using UE4
  • Solid story that kept me pushing forward, even if the “true ending” path got unnecessarily grindy

I’m pretty sure  I’ve made note of the fact that I’m a sucker for JRPGs in the past, and Dragon Quest 11 is about as JRPG as it gets.  The story is nonsense, the battles are strictly turn based, the grind is real, and the characters are still default Akira Toriyama.  Despite it all, this is clearly a modernized entry in the series from the visuals to some of the little gameplay elements that improve the overall experience, and it ends up going a long way to finally bringing the series into the current generation.

Combat is definitely familiar to traditional JRPG fans, but there’s a few nice things to minimize the tedious nature of this style.

Since this is a JRPG, I’d be remiss if I didn’t start with combat.  This is definitely a very traditional experience, even within the Dragon Quest series.  Turn order is based loosely on an effective speed stat.  Player characters have their basic attacks, skills, and magic attacks.  The general class archetypes of warrior, thief, mage, healer, etc are all present and each character definitely has their strong suit.  Behind it all is a skill tree for each character that the player can customize via skill points earned at each level.  Basically, it’s what you’d expect from a JRPG.

However, it’s the little things that this game brings that make this game an obviously more modern approach.  Auto battle makes its return from DQ9 to keep the pace of individual fights moving along.  It allows for setting priorities on how AI react, or can be turned off entirely on a per-character basis if more decision making detail is needed.  The party line up AND equipment can be changed at any time from within battle, allowing for very detailed strategies on harder content if a party or equipment setup isn’t working well.  Even more importantly, characters not in the active party gain 100% of XP from a fight, allowing the player to focus on the style that makes sense at the time without severely penalizing them for not using all characters at once.  In general, this is following a pattern of traditional but modern that is seen in a lot of other areas of the game.

I think most importantly though, this game has auto saves at pretty much every door and cutscene.  I couldn’t tell you if this was a technical or gameplay consideration, but simply knowing that I wasn’t going to lose a ton of progress to a boss death was a huge improvement to my overall play.  Rather than worrying about finding a save spot before a boss or worrying about my level, I simply always did boss fights.  Generally speaking this was fine and I would get through fights.  For a good portion of them, it also meant that I was going into fights at a challenging level, rather than grinding a bit more just to  be safe.  Overall it resulted in two really important changes to my usual JRPG game style; I did a lot less grinding so the game didn’t drag, and because of my level I was able to enjoy the challenge of level-appropriate or even underleveled fights without caring about whether I was going to die.  It may sound weird, but it just made the game more enjoyable knowing I was going to play this way.

Visuals are definitely distinctly modern. It’s obviously Dragon Quest, but it’s gorgeous.

The non-gameplay elements also fit well into the traditional but modern approach.  Visually, this is probably the best looking JRPG I’ve played, hands down.  Games like Final Fantasy 15 brought the flash in an open world setting, but definitely stretched the definition of what a JRPG really is.  Dragon Quest 11 doesn’t sacrifice visuals at all while still maintaining the JRPG gameplay.  Even better, the modern style allows for all enemies to be seen in the field in ways that make sense, so there are no random battles to be seen.  On the other hand, the music side of things is very traditional Dragon Quest.  Simply put, the game uses entirely MIDI audio instead of a fully orchestrated soundtrack.  Admittedly I enjoyed the hell out of it, but I can see why it’s been rubbing some people the wrong way compared to a lot of expectations of modern games.

It wouldn’t be a JRPG if all bosses were serious. Sometimes you just have to fight a mural.

Overall this was a pretty enjoyable romp.  On the story front there wasn’t much new; this is still the story of a convenient hero creating a gang to take out the big world destroying baddy.  On the gameplay front it was mostly tweaks to the existing formula.  On the artistic side, it was a blend of the old and new.  However, the total package is one that really hasn’t been seen at this quality for what has been a genre moving into much different territory at the AAA level.  This may be the best example we’re going to see for a long time of a strictly turn-based JRPG, so I can’t do anything but strongly recommend it if that’s what you’re looking for.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Game Ramblings #73 – South Park: The Fractured but Hole

More Info from Ubisoft

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

TL;DR

  • Battle system is a phenomenal grid-based strategy system that heavily encourages the use of forced movement, ticking damage, and CC to eliminate enemies.
  • Like The Stick of Truth, does a fantastic job of integrating the player into the South Park universe, from the visual design to the way the story is written, especially when they straight up go at things they know will offend a lot of people.

I’m not kidding when I say they are not being shy about offending people, especially those worth offending.  For example:

This is a perfect example of why South Park as a multimedia franchise exists.  They’re crass, they don’t care about poking at things that others will shy away from, and they do it all with their own unique style.  Is it for everyone?  Not really.  However, if you’re a fan of this universe, The Fractured But Hole is another great entry that does more than just stand on its name for quality.

The visual style of characters is key to this universe, and this game absolutely nailed it.

South Park can be a lot of things, but one of the keys to the entire experience is the visual style that has existed since the first season of the show.  While past generations of games went with somewhat strange 3D representations of the world, the recent RPGs have gone all-in on making the unique style of the series work in real time in games.  Just the world alone is impressive, but the flexibility of the character creation system while fitting into this universe is a technical marvel.

The player character itself can be composed of a ton of different pieces: hair, facial hair, makeup add ons, multiple outfit pieces, etc.  They can all be mixed and matched with each other without limitation to create something that may or may not look good, but definitely is all your own, and definitely looks right out of the show.  Even more impressive is that all of this is done in a way that preserves the character’s appearance in all cutscenes.  You will always be seeing the character you wanted, and there’s no smoke and mirrors to keep it hidden in places where it would be inconvenient in a lot of games.  It’s phenomenally impressive to see in action, and a testament to how much the tech around this game was built to BE South Park.

While a lot different than the previous game, this game’s grid battles are a lot of fun.

None of the visuals would matter if the game’s core battle system wasn’t fun, and they definitely also nailed that.  While there’s some variety in size and obstacles, the core battle system is a turn-based system typically taking place on roughly a 5×10 play space.  Player turns are individually ordered, and that comes into play in some of the abilities at your disposal.  Abilities all have some grid space they can cover, whether it’s a 1×1 melee attack, a line ranged attack, or AoE grids that can be placed anywhere.  In a lot of ways it feels like placing magic attacks in the Disgaea series, and the strategy of where units are on the board is hugely important to maximizing each turn’s damage potential.

This is all backed up by some great effects beyond just simple damage.  You’ve definitely got your typical DoT type effects like poison, burn, bleed, etc.  However, this game places a heavy emphasis on relocation of enemies.  Knockbacks, pulls, location switches, and more are available to let you line up enemies for your future unit turns to really turn up the damage potential.  The turn ordering also comes in to play with some abilities causing turn loss or turn delay, allowing you to really lock down the enemy into not being able to take any actions.  It’s a fantastic set of functionality that all combines to add a ton of depth to what could have been a really simple battle system.  Despite all the depth, it’s also really easy to understand what’s going on, which allows the quick hitting battles to flow in a way that’s not typically of SRPG-style games.

Bosses play in the same battle system, but often have their own rules to throw things out of whack.

It’s also worth mentioning how much fun the bosses are in this game.  Generally speaking they live under the same rule set as normal battles, but throw their own curves.  Some of them are multi-space units that really change how the player has to position themselves both offensively and defensively.  One boss had you not actively attacking it, but instead using knockbacks to throw smaller enemy units into the boss’ eating range to cause damage.  Basically, while the core abilities are still there, the bosses throw enough curves to keep the player’s skill fresh in unique ways that aren’t just doing a battle with bigger numbers.

I’ll be the first to admit that the South Park wrapping on this game will definitely make this game a fairly niche product.  It is full of completely inappropriate humor that will make you burst out in laughter if you don’t take it too seriously.  Once you dig into it though, this game has a tremendously deep battle system that fans of RPGs in general will find a lot to love.  The rest of the wrapping on this, from the side quests to gearing to environment exploration provide the rest of the trappings that RPG fans expect, and give this game a level of quality that we’re thankfully starting to see common in many licensed games.