Sometimes I just don’t know what I want to play, so I let a little backlog chooser I wrote pick for me. This is one of those times. I’ve got a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Crash series. I generally like the gameplay, but the PS1 games in particular always felt unnecessarily punishing to me. Crash 4 really felt like a change for me in terms of avoiding that punishment factor, though I hadn’t played the older post-Naughty Dog entries. As it turns out, some of the things I liked about Crash 4 and its small iterations to reduce punishment had already been started in this game.
It didn’t really dawn on me how much I was not getting angry at the game until I realized I had nearly completed it, and there’s a few things that really fed into that compared to the 2D sections of the PS1 game. The jumps are a little more forgiving, so you aren’t falling into gaps. Fruit and extra lives are a little more common, so you aren’t constantly fighting progression loss from game overs. Aku Aku is a little bit more present, so you’ve got a higher likelihood of second chances if you miss knocking out an enemy.
Like I said in the Crash 4 ramblings, it all leads to reduced user friction. It’s not that this game is mechanically that different. It’s bouncing off crates and sliding under low ceilings and spin jumping to take out enemies; there was plenty of that on the PS1 games. It’s not even necessarily that much easier in that I was still dying a lot. What it is is challenging in a way that lets the player get through based on their skill without progression loss, rather than the challenge being around trying not to get a game over. It lets the player be risky and working at a fast pace, rather than slowing to a crawl just to stay alive. It’s ultimately just a lot more fun.
The rest of this is pretty standard fare as far as Crash games go, so there’s not much else to add. It was nice just kind of falling into a game without expectations and enjoying it so much. It was even more nice seeing that the lessons from Crash 4 weren’t something that happened after years of down time, but were instead something that was starting to happen years ago. Given the platform this was on, it makes sense that the series would try to be a little more forgiving, but it worked out in a way that really made the game more fun, and that’s something that will always work out.
I had a bit of time to fill in between Dark Cloud 2 and the release of Final Fantasy VII Remake, so I took the opportunity to run through a whole slew of short games on my backlog. Below are some of the random notes about the ones I selected.
Gorogoa
Genre: Puzzle
Platform: Switch
Also Available On: Windows, iOS, PS4, Xbox One
Ultimately this is a really well crafted puzzle game that is meant for touch screens or mice, so I’m glad I played it on Switch. Originally released for Windows and iOS, the Switch version came over with full touch screen support, and that’s how I ended up playing it.
The core loop involves a 2×2 square board where interactive tiles can be moved around, layered on top of each other, pulled apart, and more. As a player, you end up interacting with multiple of these tiles at once to try and find the connections between them and move the story forward. This could be as simple as changing the zoom on a couple tiles until they can be placed next to each other, allowing a person to walk between tiles. This could be something like lining up two tiles with parts of a gear in order to rotate a third tile and find a new way to zoom into the interaction.
In practice, it’s incredible how much the game finds ways to just keep the interaction moving. At the start of the game you have one tile, and until the end of the game, you’ll never be at zero tiles. It sounds so simple to have a puzzle game of 2×2 tiles, but the amount of interactions that come out of it was astounding. This is all helped by a really vibrant art style that really pushes color as a helper for finding those puzzle connections. All of that made this a really enjoyable couple hour experience that I think is worth playing, particularly on a touch screen.
The Garden’s Between
Genre: Puzzle
Platform: Switch
Also Available On: Linux, macOS, Windows, PS4, Xbox One, iOS
This was another surprising puzzle game that I pulled out of the pile. The core idea is that you manipulate time to move the main characters through a linear level. The only other thing you really can do is interact with a handful of in-level objects that can move around, or pick up torches to clear away some obstacles.
The bulk of the puzzles involve generally passing the torch around in a fairly common pattern, moving time forward to grab the torch, backing up to get it to some important thing that is moving around or needs to be cleared, then moving time forward again through the new path. On the surface, it sounds simple but it’s an effective pattern that is used in surprisingly varied ways.
This was a pretty quick play through in about an hour and a half or so, but was an enjoyable experience that didn’t overstay its welcome.
Old Man’s Journey
Genre: Adventure
Platform: Switch
Also Available On: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, PS4, Xbox One
This was my complete relaxation game during this whole stretch. While it’s technically an adventure game, and technically has puzzles, the game is really best thought of as a relaxing visual journey. The only real mechanic at play is the ability to drag the landscape in different directions, opening up the path for the title’s old man to move around.
Beyond the core mechanic, this was just a really relaxing little adventure. It tells a light story about an old man travelling to see an ex before her passing, but really it’s a replay of his memories along the way. If you’ve got an hour to kill, and want something to hit on the same relaxation level of a book, this is a good place to end up.
Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX
Genre: Action/Platformer
Platform: Switch
Also Available On: PS4, Windows, Xbox One
Describing this as anything but Mega Man X would be a complete lie. The gameplay is the same, the pattern of killing bosses to unlock their powers is the same, the game’s structure is the same. Where it’s different though is in how it handles health, and it’s far more forgiving for it.
While there is a standard health pool there, if the player is playing well they won’t ever use it. Core to the experience is a reloadable energy store that powers both an impenetrable shield as well as things like an air dash. It can be reloaded quickly at any time with a quick double tap down, leaving it up to the player to manage it effectively. At its core, the real sway becomes less of a health management game and more of a choice of doing more damage quickly or staying safe.
While this may sound like it’s just making the experience easy, there’s still options for truly skilled players to show off. Avoiding being hit allows a score combo to grow, so truly good players are able to use the score and completion time as true measures, while less skilled players can still complete the game on their own terms. It’s one of the more interesting ways I’ve seen in this style game to open up the experience to more players, and I think it ends up working really well.
Jupiter & Mars
Genre: Adventure
Platform: PS4
In a lot of ways, this was a modern take on specifically the Dreamcast version of Ecco the Dolphin. You play a dolphin going around trying to save the planet from environmental catastrophe, either shutting down machines or rescuing other animals along the way.
This was ultimately a better experience than it is a game though. There’s nothing particularly offensive about it, but there’s nothing particularly standout either. Controls are alright, but weird since you control a dolphin in first-person. The AI companion that you command generally does what you want, but often gets stuck behind obstacles. Your goal is generally not that clear, but there’s not a ton of exploration to do so you generally end up finding your way. From a gameplay experience, I’d probably describe it as something akin to Flower, but with significantly less polish.
However, this is an absolute standout visually. The entire game takes on a sort of realistic, but also sort of Tron style and it’s generally a sight to behold. Things are already lit up in interesting ways, but then you activate sonar and the whole scene lights up in crazy colors. If there’s anything to point at as a reason to experience this one, it’s easily the visuals.
This is one that I picked up to scratch a bit of a city building itch. It’s got about everything that I loved in other city builders like My Life as a King, and it’s something that I’ll probably periodically poke at, but a time gate system on the main story is really pushing me into other directions.
Gotten a bunch of hours into Nelke and the Legendary Alchemists and I'm generally liking it. Definitely a solid town builder in the same vain of things like My Life as a King.
However, I _really_ don't like that the main story tasks are time gated. I'm never a fan of time gating in general, and in this case it feels like it's fighting against what I want to do in my town development.
Overall probably won't put a lot more time into the game because of that, but it definitely scratched an itch in terms of fantasy city building that I don't get a lot of chances to hit.
