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Jul 6, 2017
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s the start of another month, and we may be in late, but we still want to give you the heads up! So as usual, we’ll be listing any interesting or noteworthy games coming in the month of July. We obviously have a focus on Nintendo systems, however July game releases on other systems that we think are of interest to our audience may still make this list. With all that said, let’s look at these July game releases.
Downloadable Switch Games
Implosion – Flyhigh Works is bringing us another interesting title in the form of Implosion, a Sci-fi hack and slash for the Switch. Take the helm of a War Mech III and fight against aliens known as the XADA in what may be Earth’s last stand. This game will be downloadable for Switch on July 6th.
This game looks pretty sweet, but like most Flyhigh titles, it’s flown under the radar, thus far.
Vaccine – Survival Horror on a Nintendo system? Well, ok, that’s not at all unheard of. This one comes with a twist, though! That twist is that Vaccine takes place over the course of 30 minutes each time you play. You have 30 minutes to retrieve a vaccine for an infected team member and every time you enter the house, it’s been rebuilt in a new layout. A roguelike and survival horror in one package! Vaccine will be available to download on July 6th.
Death Squared – Step into a goofy little co-op puzzle game (the Switch seems to be good with those) about up to four cubes designed to go through a series of tests. Think Portal, but with far less involved physics and probably nowhere near as meme-infested. This one’s going to be really fun for larger groups. Death Squared will be available for the Switch on July 13th.
They’re so cute and disposable! Makes you just wanna fry them with a laser!
Also in Physical Format
Splatoon 2 – Of course, you had to know we’d put this one on here. Splatoon 2 is FINALLY launching after an extended period of hype and limited information. In fact, that info limit might be ending soon as Splatoon 2 is getting its own direct later today! More on that in another article, later. The fast-paced turf-based ink-slinging action is finally coming to the Switch in the form of a not-so-long-awaited sequel. It’s going to launch on July 21st. ( Get it here )
Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star – If you’re a fan of the Warriors Musou-type hack-and-slash games (like Hyrule Warriors or the upcoming Fire Emblem Warriors), then this game should be right up your alley at first glance. The game works well in this genre but differentiates itself with its colorful visuals. Of course, the gameplay won’t likely catch you off-guard, but be prepared for Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star to launch for the Nintendo Switch on July 25th. ( Get it here )
3DS Games
Kirby’s Blowout Blast – This title was first announced during the Arms and Splatoon Direct back in April. You play as Kirby in a pseudo-3D top-down adventure that centers around his ability to eat and spit out enemies. The reveal trailer can still be seen here. This game will be available for download on July 6th. ( Get it here )
Asdivine Cross – More JRPG goodness? You bet! Asdivine Cross this game’s been on the market for a little while now. It plays like you might expect a JRPG to play but with some emphasis on building a relationship with other characters in your party. There’s a cool trailer on Nintendo website that can also be seen here. Asdivine Cross will be available on Nintendo 3DS on July 13th.
Hey! Pikmin – Olimar and his microscopic helpers are setting out on their first handheld outing. This game plays a bit more like a 2D puzzle-platformer than the resource management simulator we know and love. That doesn’t make it bad, though, as Hey! Pikmin will have its own focus entirely separate from the main series. Get ready for this title to release on July 28th. ( Get it here )
Miitopia – Create your own Miis and send them on a JRPG adventure with a twist. Similar to other Mii titles, the Miis have a mind of their own and don’t necessarily do exactly what you want them to. They’ll grow bonds with one another and help to create their own story that’s unique to your playthrough of the game. Look forward to the Miis having a grand adventure on July 28th. ( Get it here )
Other July Game Releases
Revenant Saga – It’s rare we see games of any interest coming to the Wii U, but one is coming down the pipeline this week! It’s a JRPG by the name of Revenant Saga. Now, this game isn’t especially new. It’s already available on the PS4, but it still hasn’t been too long since then. This game has a lot of the aesthetic style of Namco’s Tales series of games, though the gameplay seems more akin to standard JRPGs. This game will be available for download on the Wii U eShop on July 6th.
Dragon Quest XI – So this is a bit of an odd entry. Dragon Quest XI is confirmed to be coming to the states and will also be available on the Switch. However, this month, we’ll see Dragon Quest XI releasing first on Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation 4 in Japan only. If you’re a fan of the series, you can look forward to that on July 29th. If you are waiting for the localized version or the Switch version, we’ll be sure to give an update whenever that’s announced.
So that wraps it up for July game releases. We thought these would be of particular interest, but don’t let us have the final say! Tell us in the comments what games you’re excited for this month.
- Jun 18, 2017
[dropcap]N[/dropcap]intendo has finally released Arms, the fighting game they’ve been touting since the January presentation that gave us our first look at what was coming to the Switch. It’s incredible to see that the game still plays as fluidly as it did during launch. However, now that all the features are available to us, it’s time we gave this game its full review. How does the game stack up against other fighting games? Do the game modes do what they need to do? Is Arms going to survive in the competitive scene or even in the party gaming scene? So let’s dive in and answer some of these questions!
Gameplay and Mechanics
The emblem on the top left is your current rank.
Diving right into the meatiest part of the game, we have the actual gameplay. Nintendo is known for games that make you want to play them more when you see someone else playing them. There’s no question that the same can be said for Arms. Like any fighting game, Arms can be fast and frantic, or slow and paced. How quickly the game moves depends on the players and by extension, their chosen characters.
Arms revolves heavily around a rock-paper-scissors mechanic seen in most fighting games. Grabs beat blocking. Blocking beats attacks. Attacks beat grabs. However, this isn’t as straightforward as it sounds, at first. Just because you punch doesn’t mean you won’t get grabbed, as blocking opponents can counter you by dashing with their guard up. Or perhaps an opponent in the air drops down just as you start to punch them, avoiding your fist and following with a grab.
Flow of Gameplay
This kind of complexity can lead to some stress on the part of newer players. Perhaps someone tried to punch through a grab only to get grabbed, anyways. They might feel they were punished despite reacting properly. However, they were baited, which leads me to a key point about this game. Arms allows you to moderate the time you have to react to what your opponent does without directly altering their options. That is, when you play up close and personal, the game becomes about making reads and the usual fighting game fare. However, when you fight from a distance, it gets more reactionary.
I clearly didn’t do so hot in this match.
For this reason, many matches, when played defensively become a game of chicken. The first person to act will usually get hit. Then, with less health, they’re now pressured to get more aggressive or risk being timed out. This leads to them being reacted to some more, which ends poorly. The game is a slippery slope, in this way. Playing more aggressively against defensive opponents often ends poorly. However, if you play passively against a defensive opponent in the lead, they’ll happily run out the timer.
That’s not really a problem on its own, but it does mean that, at least for now, higher level play will be very defensive. This will inevitably rely on matches dragging on, which will push away a lot of competitive players. It’s hardly a death sentence, but will likely limit the game’s competitive appeal.
Controls
I honestly applaud Arms for using motion controls as its primary control scheme. This, more than anything, makes it stand apart from any other game out there. And as expected, Nintendo made sure you could play Arms with any controller available to the Switch. Since not everyone is fond of motion controls, this is nearly a necessity for the game to function for many.
On that note, however, the actual controls screen makes the game a little more confusing than necessary. That is, it doesn’t list what every button does. They only tell you to punch with A and B when honestly, the triggers feel more natural for this. Further, playing with two players, people are bound to notice that the second player has no control or options anywhere. In fact, throughout the entire game, the second player is always just an add-on. Nothing more.
Game Modes
Now, we already have an article giving the run down on a lot of this, which can be found here. It briefly goes over each of the basic gameplay modes. The main menu has the major categories set up: Grand Prix, Versus, Party Mode, Ranked Battles, play with Friends, and Local (LAN). Grand Prix is the closest this game has to a story. It’s somewhat bare bones, though, even for a fighting game. The main story is that your character has entered a tournament and you want to win. The only thing of interest that happens is at the end if you’re playing on a high enough level, but I won’t spoil that for you.
Grand Prix with two players makes every match a doubles round.
Suffice it to say, this game takes a lot of its direction from Super Smash Bros. The game modes kind of mirror what Smash on Wii U had available. A campaign, a For Fun mode, and some mini-games that could arguably feed into teaching the gameplay. However, while Smash was absolutely packed with content, Arms seems to give you what it thinks you NEED and not much more. It’s really a lot more like Splatoon, in that regard.
Also, there are currently ten characters available to play as and a secret character (not really a secret anymore) that will become playable whenever the first DLC drops. He even has three arms of his own, but we won’t get into that, here. Which yes, each character has three Arms that are particular to them, though you can use these Arms as any character, as long as you unlock them through the Get Arms mini-game. Pay in-game money to play a single player skill shot mini-game for a chance at some new weapons to play with.
Ranked Matches
So, this mode is actually locked when you first get the game. They want you to play through Grand Prix on level 4 or higher before you can start joining in on ranked matches. This is possibly one of my biggest gripes with the game. I understand that this is too keep ranked from being flooded with try-hards that don’t understand the core gameplay. However, I don’t think making them fight AI opponents is an elegant solution.
Any fighting game pro will tell you that AI is either a joke or unfair, and sometimes both. AI, no matter how well-programmed, never fights like a human being. There’s a level of unpredictability it just can’t reach without RNG, which just makes things unfair, at best. AI also has some ungodly reaction speed (think Lvl 9 Lucina counters in Smash). While you can artificially slow this reaction speed, it’s still going to feel very different from a real player.
Overall, I think a party mode quota or leveling system similar to Splatoon would have been a more reasonable solution. Build up to fighting good players by fighting anyone that joins in Party Mode.
A new challenger approaches!
Regardless, once Ranked Matches are unlocked, they work pretty well, I think. The game sets you up to search for a ranked match while you go on and do anything you want to do. If a challenger approaches, you’ll find yourself pulled from whatever you’re already doing to face them. This does seem a little unnecessary, as at least for now, you’ll almost never have trouble finding an opponent, but in the future, this could be very useful.
Overall Arms Gameplay Impressions
Overall, I think the game and controls work intuitively. It’s clear they tried to cover their bases, though as of launch, that seems to be all they did. I don’t have any problems with the core mechanics, though I could see competitive groups complaining that it’s too reactionary. Still, I think the game is a lot of fun and it can lean heavily on its core mechanics and the upcoming content. Free DLC will likely help out the content end of things, but for now, I can’t say there’s too much to do, yet.
Of course, Arms relies heavily on online multiplayer to keep players occupied, and thankfully, this works well. There’s party mode, which gives a more varied gameplay experience and ranked matches for competitive players. If nothing else, the game definitely covers its bases on the online gameplay.
Visuals and Soundtrack
I don’t think I can gush enough about this aspect of the game, however. For whatever flaws the UI and content (as of launch) might have, Arms looks and sounds incredible. From the intro theme, you already know you’re in for something unique. The soundtrack opts to use bongos and a choir as its main s0und. The whole thing is upbeat and really gets you pumped for the game, itself. Each character has a stage and theme song to themselves, and while they all use the same motif from the main theme, each one still sounds entirely unique.
Speaking of unique, between the eleven characters currently in the game (including the new character coming in the DLC), none of them could every really be mistaken for one another. Each character has a central theme that defines them and guides their design, which is then accented with bright colors. Everyone’s looks tell you a lot about their personality. You can tell a lot of love and care went into the character design and original soundtrack. This part of the game is nearly flawless as almost every aspect oozes appeal. Even if I decided I didn’t like the game and wanted to spot playing, I’d likely keep my eyes on it just to see what new characters, stages, arms, and music they roll out with.
Final Thoughts on Arms
Arms is a game with lots of appeal covering up it’s light content. Customizing your character and arm choices is a great feature but the game modes still just cover their bases. It’s just enough to let you decide whether to take the game seriously or play for fun. It’s enough to let you play on your own, with friends at home, or with anyone online. Arms does what it needs to do and not much else.
Of course, this will be fixed via free updates, offering more content. Splatoon had a similar issue at launch, so it’s hard to argue that really hurts the game overall. The competitive mechanics are in play to make sure that Arms takes some skill, but the randomness exists to ensure no one gets shut out. That may make some matches feel really unfair. However, ranked battles exist solely to scratch that itch for a fair fight.
To top it off, the game looks and sounds amazing. The only issues I really have are a few things it fails to mention and a couple decisions that don’t really feel like they hit the nail on the head. Player two has no control or options in the main menu. The controls aren’t fully explained. Ranked Battles being locked behind Grand Prix seems questionable. Arms was clearly intend for a single player to go online, but at least it offers options just in case.
Overall, I think Arms is a decent game with good potential and not enough content, yet, to see it through. My opinion will likely improve over time, but it’s going to be a very interesting game to keep track of for the future.
–Special thanks to Nintendo for sending us a review copy of Arms for Nintendo Switch.
- May 19, 2017
[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ust recently, Nintendo gave us a heaping helping of Arms details in the form of the Arms Direct. It was a general rundown, but the information we were given revealed plenty about how the game will play. So we felt it would be a good idea to run through some of the choices players will be faced with. This may give us some insight into what may happen early in the competitive scene. If not, it will at least give us an idea of what setups we’ll be seeing most often.
With that in mind, this post is going to focus on the characters that were covered in the Direct. Specifically, we’ll be analyzing the five characters that were revealed when the game was first announced. This includes both new and old characters since the presentation talked about every character’s abilities. Because the signature arms mentioned in the Direct appear to only be what each character starts with and we know there will be more for each character to use, it seems unnecessary to talk in detail about the signature arms in this context. However, they will likely say a lot about the character that uses them. As such, they may come up when discussing the niche a character may fill.
Spring Man
Naturally, it only seemed right we started with the two faces of the series. One of these two, Spring Man, appears to be a very basic character, as you might expect. Even his signature arms support this role. The three arms Nintendo showed off with him cover three very basic options. One for direct punches, one for heavily curved punches, and one for multi-hits. Aside from that, he has two main abilities. When his health is low, he gets stronger, allowing for comebacks for players that can keep a level head. On top of that, when he charges up his arms Spring Man can deflect attacks by dashing to create a shockwave.
What these likely mean is that Spring Man will be a very aggressive character.With his abilities, it may be a good strategy to approach with a charge, deflect an attack, and counter with whatever you like. Spring Man players might hold back a rush attack until they’re low on health, then use this dodge-counter strategy with a rush in order to deal absurd amounts of damage fast. Needless to say, Spring Man will not be a character to sleep on, especially when he’s low on health.
All in all, Spring Man appears to be a character that’s well suited for teaching newcomers how to play. In that sense, he’s this game’s Ryu (Street Fighter), Jago (Killer Instinct), or Mario/Kirby (Super Smash Bros). We might suggest everyone learn the basics with this guy before getting acquainted with a more difficult character pick. However, that decision is entirely up to the player.
Come on, admit it. You totally want Spring Man in Smash.
Ribbon Girl
Ribbon Girl is actually a far more interesting character than most likely gave her credit for. Most likely, people wrote her off as another basic fighter like Spring Man, but that doesn’t seem to be entirely true. Sure, her signature arms are a reasonable variety, similar those of to the other face of the game. However, they don’t vary the direction far less and the style of punishment far more.On top of that, her abilities double down on her aerial mobility, making her really hard to hit.
On top of that, her abilities double down on her aerial mobility, making her really hard to hit. Ribbon Girl’s multiple mid-air jumps and her ability to drop immediately to the ground will create some heavy mix-ups. Smart players will be able to bait opponents into a bad punish, which will give Ribbon Girl a chance to push back.
Most likely, Ribbon Girl will be popular among Smash players and other fighting game veterans who already understand how mind games work. Her aerial mix-ups and decent punish game will very likely result in a lot of newer players getting crushed. Since mobility is her middle name, it definitely seems like she’ll at least be a difficult character to hit reliably, so long as the player in question actually avoids flow charting their aerial movements.
This pop star won’t sit still!
Unlike Spring Man, Ribbon Girl does NOT seem like she’s going to be a good pick-up-and-play character for newcomers. Ribbon Girl will be difficult to use properly until you get the hand of the game’s mechanics, so try to really learn the game before you jump into the ring with her.
Ninjara
It should come as no surprise that Ninjara is going to be a fast-and-light sort of character. None of his signature arms are very heavy, and one of his abilities is his sheer speed. Ninjara’s active ability is his warp technique. When dodging in the air or out of a block, Ninjara disappears for a second. This could very well thwart homing attacks or horizontal strikes that were intended to cover horizontal options. Without a doubt, this character fits into the fighting game niche of rush-down character. This means he wants to get in your face and keep you from doing much of anything.
We’ll likely see Ninjara become a favorite counter-pick character for arms that strike multiple places at once or slow characters that prefer to keep enemies at a distance. If different characters have different amounts of health, Ninjara’s will likely be low, but considering the game’s tank character can heal, we think it’s unlikely that he’d have that AND a larger health bar.
Ninjara is going to be best for players who want all-out aggression. Defensively, he’s going to struggle, but if he can keep the opponent from locking him down, he may be able to gain the advantage.
It’s kinda like Lucio from Overwatch fell into a Splatoon game and became a ninja.
Master Mummy
Slow and heavy are the words to describe this character. Master Mummy is definitively a tank. This guy’s big and slow and based on his signature arms, so are his attacks. It seems that the mummy’s main combat strategy is going to be playing defensive until he has a chance to get in close and completely overpower the opponent.
He’s big. He’s mean. He’ll wrap this up and go home before you know what happened!
Master Mummy has two abilities, like anyone else. His passive ability makes him ignore knockback from regular attacks, meaning you’ll need to charge your arms to keep him at bay. Secondly, he heals whenever he’s blocking. Naturally, this means that character that can’t keep up the aggression or have slow attacks will likely find themselves at a disadvantage.
We think this big lug is gonna be one of the early favorites online. That’s because his ability to completely overwhelm the opponent by getting in close and directly negating their attacks will inevitably cause newer players some pain. However, more skilled players will start to get into the online, soon after. When a Master Mummy user joins them in the upper ranks, they’ll likely start to get zoned out or pressured. Remember to play patiently with this guy.
Mechanica
Mechanica seems like a much more complex fighter, at first. He’s bigger and bulkier, making her an easier target, but she’s not especially slow. Her signature arms, unlike Spring Man’s for instance, have a more focused application and may require a bit more strategy. Note that the arms Nintendo showed off all have a focus on negating movement and general counterplay.
Aside from this, Mechanica has two abilities, although, they were almost presented as just one in the Direct. Most notably, she can hover for some period of time and can seemingly land whenever she chooses. That’ll be good for some landing mix-ups. On top of that, the Direct said that her handmade combat suit has high durability. Now, it’s not 100% clear what this means, based on the Direct alone. Thankfully, the original character overview trailer helps us with this. It turns out that Mechanica doesn’t get stunned by regular punches, allowing her to counter. This is different from Master Mummy, though, as she still takes knockback.
Sometimes, she doesn’t seem so in control of her mech as she’d like.
All of this comes together to suggest that Mechanica will be a more difficult character to use and will likely be based heavily on zoning opponents out and staying defensive. (Spoiler alert: she won’t be the only one.) Her signature arms work well against high mobility opponents, by either locking them in place or chasing them. Also, her abilities allow her to play more defensively. Her hover makes it harder to punish landings while her durability means that punishes don’t get as much mileage on her.
With that in mind, it’s suggested that players who choose Mechanica try to play patiently and block enemy movement. It’s best that players fighting a Mechanica try not to get too aggressive. She’ll capitalize on that painfully.
More to Come
With so much to cover, we didn’t want this article getting too lengthy. So there will be a part 2 to this article, which will be linked here as soon as it’s up. Please check back for it, as we’ll be posting it very soon! For info on battle modes and the global testpunch, try these articles.
ARMS Character Discussion – Part 2 right here.
- May 16, 2017
[dropcap]S[/dropcap]o we recently got the opportunity to play a Strategy RPG on the Nintendo Switch. Disgaea 5 Complete is a re-release (enhanced port with DLC content) of Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance for the PS4. As you might guess, it’s been very different from anything else we’ve reviewed recently. That is, Disgaea 5 Complete isn’t a game that you binge for a week and move on. It’s more of a commitment and time sink than your average casual title.
The basics of the game are simple, although they can be a bit clunky for newcomers. However, Disgaea’s strategy gets deep early on, expecting a lot of players. On top of that, the story and presentation is a bit niche, appealing heavily to the anime crowd. As if that weren’t enough, the content can feel schizophrenic at times, as it expects players to do a little bit of everything to get the most out the game.
As if the art style wasn’t enough of a clue, to begin with!
Originally, I wasn’t too sure I was going to enjoy Disgaea 5 Complete. I thought it was being unreasonable by expecting me to do busy work to make even the tiniest bit of progress. However, I eventually learned otherwise when the game finally clicked for me. Disgaea 5 is a very deep strategy game that will let you tackle things head on only so you can learn the hard way that this rarely works. So let’s dive into some of what this game has to offer.
Story and Presentation
Without a doubt, this game appeals mostly to the anime crowd. It’s full of the tropes that are well-known throughout the medium (genre?) and seems to revel in that fact. In particular, it shares a lot with many modern shonen action anime (think Naruto, Bleach, or One Piece). If you’re familiar with that subgenre of anime, then you likely know what to expect. Thankfully, this hardly works against the game’s presentation.
Here, you can see the brooding male lead, the exploitative female lead, the brainless beefcake, the cunning genius, the adorable little girl, and the try-hard idiot standing in the typical anime intro panning shot. So many anime stereotypes! So little time!
You see, this isn’t all that important to Disgaea 5 Complete. Instead, it actually sets a reasonably strong backdrop for the characters to travel from one netherworld to another. Each of the main characters shares one theme in common: revenge. They all have some reason to seek revenge against the Lost army. Their pursuit of the all-powerful demon emperor leads players through a great variety of locations, which are then used for a variety of gameplay quirks. More on that, later.
So if it isn’t that important, why would I bring this up first? Well, this will almost undoubtedly be the thing that drives you to keep playing, at first. The story and characters are just interesting enough to keep you going while you unlock some of the game’s depth.
Characters
Each of the characters is solidly fleshed out, as you might expect from an SRPG. Each one has a goal, personality quirks, different methods of tackling their problems, and different developments that will occur over the course of the game. They’re mostly likable enough to draw you in, despite their flaws being apparent right off the bat.
With that, however, comes one of the better points about Disgaea 5. The character relations are the driving force for most of the character development and humor. Particularly, many of the jokes are derived from their many personality quirks. For instance, it’s a running joke that Killia eats before every battle. This comes up fairly often, usually popping up at least once in a chapter. Later, this plays off of another character, Usalia, who needs to eat curry all the time to avoid going berserk and getting herself killed.
Seraphina: What are you doing? Killia: …Uh, eating, obviously.
Progression
Story progression is one of my biggest hang-ups with Disgaea 5 Complete. Depending on how quickly you advance through story missions, it can move reasonably fast or just stop entirely. With a game this deep, it’s very difficult to keep story progression at a regular pace. That’s because some players can rush through, skillfully handling every encounter. Meanwhile, others will need to stop and do the hub-world tango between every mission to make sure they can handle whatever comes next.
The game takes almost the entire first half to unlock the majority of its functions. Comparatively, you gain allies like Red Magnus, pictured above, relatively early on.
Thankfully, the Cheat Shop allows you to control how quickly your characters progress in certain ways. It’s possible to crank up the EXP flow to double, triple, or higher in order to keep your characters strong enough to rush ahead. Be careful, though, as this will cost you in other areas. Pacing is up to the player and to a lesser extent, their skill. However, this isn’t really spelled out for you. It’s actually locked behind a strategy assembly meeting, which just means you have to do even more ridiculous faffing about.
Gameplay Mechanics
Now we get to the meat of this topic. This is where the game really expects players to dig their heels in and pay close attention. Everything starts off simple enough, with the game teaching you basic UI functions and how combat flows. It lets you make the first move and the enemy team will react to what you do. Next, the game will give you the general idea of how evilities (passive abilities each character has) can affect the battle. Then it’ll teach you that there can be benefits to arranging your characters a certain way.
Everything runs smoothly for the first few chapters. The game will teach you about hiring basic class characters to fill out your team and introduce new characters. You’ll learn about super moves and deal with neutral parties. You’ll learn about weapon-type weaknesses on enemy characters and how some netherworlds have certain effects that can cause some real trouble for you or even help dictate how you can deal with enemies.
However, alongside this, the game expects you to be experimenting on your own. Sure you can tower one character on another and have a stronger attack ready. But why not tower even MORE characters and deal an insane amount of damage on top of that? Then you find out that this limits you to attacking only one opponent at a time and focuses enemy attacks on just one fighter at a time. Disgaea does a lot of this risk-reward setup. Most moves work in your favor and against you at the same time. So with that in mind, let me share with you the moment my opinion on this game drastically improved:
Personal Experience
So while I was playing the game, as I said, I was having trouble. Even with the 1 million Hel gift packaged in the special content section, I found myself running short on funds, dealing with enemies only a few of my characters could handle because no one was properly equipped and grinding was starting to become a serious chore. This was just past the halfway mark in the story mode, and I really just wanted to push to the end. That’s when everything suddenly clicked.
I realized that my troops were underequipped, but the enemy troops had some very nice weapons, and one item in the game happens to allow you to steal stuff from enemy fighters. So with that in mind, I began pilfering weapons and armor as I went and stocked up my team properly with no more need to go shopping for better gear.
Grouping characters like this will leave them vulnerable to large attacks that can hit everyone at once, but it also makes it a lot harder for these sword fighters to hit Usalia and Izuna in the back.
This would allow me to save money for other things, like consumables and the Strategic Assembly (which I’ll explain later). From there, with help from the Cheat Shop, I began to progress much, much faster. I even began to notice enemy patterns and learned some ways to keep them at bay while my team skirted around problems and lead enemies into disadvantageous positions.
Gameplay Depth
Disgaea 5 Complete truly expects a lot of players on a strategic front. You CAN brute force missions with higher levels than those of your enemies. However, you’d be best off weighing your options. Bunching up in a group can help you travel around more safely and gives you more attacking power, at times. However, doing so also leaves you open for powerful skills that can hit multiple characters at once. If you aren’t careful about this, your team could get wiped out fast.
Maps also vary greatly, forcing you to look around and assess advantages and disadvantages. This could be areas enemies can’t easily reach, natural choke points, effects on the battlefield itself, or even the way enemies are placed. Sometimes a good strategy can overcome even immense level gaps. This is when Disgaea truly shines. The game almost feels like a big puzzle book, at times. That seems to be one of the game’s strongest points of appeal.
In this sense, Disgaea 5 Complete is at least solid. However, this is far from accessible, and you’ll see that’s a theme with this game. The game really does expect players to understand intricately how it plays.
Disgaea 5 Complete’s Seemingly Endless Content
So as I’ve mentioned, this game has a great variety of content. This is because, in addition to the SRPG-style story missions and the JRPG-style quest board, stores, and skill progressions, there’s a myriad of extra things to pay attention to. Near the halfway point, you can also call an assembly to afford more services or affect future missions, capture and interrogate prisoners to help you gain evilities and new recruits, set up squads to help you run the home base and give you neat bonuses in combat, redesign and build the entire hub world as you sink more time into it than you might sink into rearranging your house in Animal Crossing. You can cook curry, alter basic game attributes, set everything, even background music, to your liking. You can even send crew members out to explore other worlds and bring back goodies for you later. There’s an endless dungeon to help you upgrade items. A Mario-Party-style minigame to help you improve your characters, and even that really feels like just the beginning.
Seriously, why a board-game-styled minigame of all things?
Honestly, it really starts to feel like a lot to swallow, and at some points, it almost feels like Disgaea 5 Complete wants you to try absolutely everything between every mission.
Special Content
Disgaea 5 Complete also comes with a slew of bonus content that mostly represents the DLC from the PS4 version. There are new characters like Metallia, Leharl, and even NIS’s mascot, Nisa. Also, there are bonus scenarios involving characters from past games. Even then, some things are just there to help like the helper Prinnies and the 1mil Hel gift.
Of course, the bonus scenarios are the highlight, here. Fan favorite characters will fight against and alongside you in various situations before you can unlock them as playable allies in the main campaign. The levels seem to scale based on your own levels, or at least the bonuses for these missions do. Though there seem to be some tricky situations in play. It may be best to avoid this until you have a hang of the core mechanics.
Final Thoughts
Disgaea 5 Complete is a deep game with a lot of content for those looking for something they need to sink time into. This game really isn’t for everyone, especially pushing out newer players, but it also seems like an effort has been made to help ease this with some of the special content. Don’t get into this game unless you want to solve countless combat scenarios and spend weeks building up your army. This game definitely favors those with the time to kill.
With that said, the game is enjoyable, if you can get sucked into the narrative or the deeper gameplay mechanics. I’d definitely recommend this game to anyone that’s already a fan of SRPGs. Otherwise, this may not be the most enticing title of the year.
With all that being said, Disgaea 5 Complete comes out on Tuesday, May 23rd. However, there is already a demo up on the eShop. You can read more about that, right here.
–Special thanks to Nippon Ichi Software America for supplying us with a review copy of the game in advance.
- May 7, 2017
[dropcap]S[/dropcap]taxel was developed by Indie Studio Plukit. Staxel is a sandbox farming game. In this game you can tend to crops, raise cute animals, and build a village. The game is currently in development as the developer will be adding more features in the months to come. This preview was played exclusively in single mode, however you can also team up with your friends in the multiplayer part of the game.
Staxel Character Creation
Before you begin the game, you must create your character. You choose the gender, race (human or elf currently), and personality on the first step. The next step is to choose the hair style. From the screenshot above, you can see that I chose the steampunk top hat. The customization of the head piece is neat and gives you other options such as a Jack’O’Lantern, a wolf, and Egyptian themed hair and more. The next step is to choose the face of your character. The face determines the shape and the eyes. This is also the step where you change your eye color as well. The last step consists of you choosing the color of the top, pants, and shoes. You do not currently have a huge selection in clothing styles but this might be added upon later in development.
Staxel Gameplay
After you create your character, you begin the tutorial. The tutorial starts off in your home. It is recommended that you first go to your bed so that your “home” is saved (you will see why this is important later). The first character you meet is Farm Fan. She helps guide you through the tutorial and the basic mechanics of the game. She asks if you are a dog or cat person which determines what pet you will receive. The look of the animal is randomly generated. For the first time I played, I had a Dalmatian and the second time I had a Beagle looking dog, so cute!
The next part of the tutorial is to explore town and the various buildings. The first building you explore is the tavern. Then the tutorial recommends you go visit the various Merchants in the town square. The town square is also where festivals are held (similiar to Animal Crossing). The first merchant you will be visiting is Morgan as she sells seeds. The Supermarket also sells seeds as well as a variety of goods. In a later tutorial quest, you will be visiting the supermarket so that you can buy a pet bowl and pet food. One feature that I find is nice is that no matter what you select it will tell you the cost in petals (currency of the game) as well as what the object is. You get a decent amount of money fulfilling tutorial quests so it’s recommended you do them.
In the top left of the screen, you can see where there is an indicator that lists the date (Season, number) as well as what time of day it is. There are two cycles to the typical Staxel day: Day and Night. However, what I find is neat about Staxel days is that the Day and Night cycles are split into smaller proportions. This gives you a better indicator of the time passing and how close you are to nighttime. A typical Staxel day is about ten minutes.
The controls for Staxel are fluid using keyboard and mouse as well as a game controller (I used an Xbox One controller). The controls are listed clearly in the controls menu and there is no lag when switching between various items. I noticed that occasionally the game camera would move upwards when speaking with a villager but it was a minor annoyance. A neat feature that the developers added in was that by holding the default action button, you can increase the till size. For example, instead of tilling a field square by square, you can do a 3 x 5 field instead. It helps save time when wanting to plant a lot of crops.
Exploration
I took the liberty of exploring the world of Staxel instead of doing the quests. I found that Staxel is quite rich in pixellated detail but it was the vivid colors that really made it pop. It wasn’t before long that I found myself standing on a beach.
It is not clear yet whether standing on the water is intentional. Like other farming games, Staxel has weather as well. As you can see from the above screenshot, it is currently raining. Rain is neat since you don’t have to water your crops and you can devote yourself to exploring instead.
If you have played any open sandbox game, then you will know the importance of being able to fast travel back to your home base. As long as you get inside your bed, you will be able to “return to home” in the menu, no matter how far away you are. I went quite far into the ocean and instantly appeared back into my house.
Different playthroughs will not give you different areas to explore. This is subject to change as the Developers could add in a feature where the world you create is randomly generated each and every time.
Conclusion
Staxel is a neat mash up of Minecraft, Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing. The developers have started off with a good platform to build off of. This game requires a lot of time but not a lot of effort. If you are looking for a game where you can have a lot of control and relax while doing it, Staxel would be the perfect fit.
For some Staxel Gameplay Footage, check out our article here. A special thank you to the developer for providing us with a copy to preview.
- May 2, 2017
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]oday, a new game by the name of Tumbleseed graces the Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Steam. This downloadable title was made by a small dev team and they seem to have made something unique. This game is a roguelike and really prides in that arcadey feel that comes with it. The path to the top is randomly generated every time you play. This combined with the abnormal controls made for a real challenging experience. The question is if the game really has the substance to back up that difficulty or if it’s just a shameless rage fest. Let’s take a look at the game’s elements to help us decide.
Tumbleseed Gameplay
At the core of any great roguelike, the gameplay needs to really work on its own. If the gameplay isn’t any fun, the game will fall apart. Thankfully, we can attest that Tumbleseed’s gameplay really does hold up. The controls are somewhat awkward, which can make getting around a real challenge, even without hazards! As you play, you get used to that until you can even navigate some pretty crazy terrain without needing to worry about falling into holes, most of the time.
This is only level 2.
On the flipside, as roguelikes are, this game randomizes everything, including enemy placement. Most of the time, enemies stay stratified into their main biomes. Some, like the green serpents, won’t ever leave certain areas. Unfortunately, others can and will show up just about anywhere they please. This can occasionally lead to some really frustrating circumstances where it feels like we only lost because we got a really bad seed. Sometimes a purple flying monster will chase us and others, a red spider decides he liked the look of the forest. So he leaves the jungle in order to try and kill us before we can even really build up any defenses.
RNG was not on my side, that day.
Or that one…
In other words, yeah, this game is really hard. So hard that as of the time of this review, we still have yet to finish it! But no excuses, of course. It’s worth noting that despite the difficulty, we’re still playing and enjoying the game. It’s frustrating, and at times feels completely unfair, but it’s addictive. You tell yourself “I bet the next round, RNG will be in my favor” or “if I could’ve just made it a liiiittle farther…” While I think the crazy difficulty does work against the game, in some ways, I also think it helps solidify what the game does best. It keeps you playing.
Progression
This is where the game gets interesting for most players. So every time you die, you get returned to the starting village. That makes it seem too difficult to get anywhere, as you’ll always have to start over. Well, there’s a character in the starting village that gives you quests. These give you simple goals you can complete while you play the game. Eventually, these goals will ramp up until you reach the end of the game. As you complete them, you gain access to a teleporter, which will let you start higher up the mountain. Beware using this, though, as your score becomes invalid and you won’t get the benefits from the previous biome.
Aside from that, progression is very natural. It’s just a measure of how good you get at the game, and how unlucky you can be in one run. As you go, there will be power-ups you can gather, but there are four that you’ll always have. These are called seeds and they allow you to do all kinds of things. One of the four main abilities is planting checkpoints, in case you fall in a hole. Another allows you to sprout thorns that hover around you and hurt enemies they touch. A third allows you to sprout crystals from the ground to power your abilities. And the last one lets you regain one health for every four patches you plant it in.
These seeds use crystals, which are scattered on the ground, drop from killed enemies, and can be grown by one of your main abilities. Other seeds may be bought or found, as there are various secrets to be found all over.
You must choose…
Audio and Visuals
So the game uses a variety of colors, depending on what biome you’re in. In our experience, this has caused some problems when trying to play in tabletop mode or with a friend. Though, co-op in this game is probably unintentional and is honestly just making the game far more frustrating than it ever needed to be. Aside from that, the art style is cute and fairly unique and the visuals have never given me trouble in handheld mode or playing on a big screen.
The music in the game is cute and kind of accentuates the feeling of a small mountain tribe. The music, as far as we’ve seen, has very well matched the scenery anywhere we go. Honestly, for what it is and what it’s trying to do, the sound design in this game seems to be very much on point.
Conclusion
The content in Tumbleseed, while heavily varied, isn’t that expansive. A single playthrough could take a matter of minutes, rather than hours, but the game’s biggest strength is by far its replayability. You typically won’t get anywhere near the top, but even if you do, the main response is to yell in frustration and start over.
Maybe this game won’t appeal to the less-masochist members of our audience, but if you want a challenge, Tumbleseed will be more than happy to supply that challenge. The game’s design appears to be spot-on and the replayability puts it over the limit of what’s expected of most indie titles. While it may not be the greatest roguelike every or even a favorite, there’s no denying that it’s unique.
–Thanks to the developers for providing a review copy of Tumbleseed on the Nintendo Switch.
- May 1, 2017
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ith the release of a new Nintendo system, a new Mario Kart was bound to follow shortly after. Nintendo didn’t disappoint at all, though, with the short lifespan of the Wii U, it was unlikely we’d see a brand new one. Instead, we received an enhanced port of Mario Kart 8 for the Switch. While many may argue that this was a questionable move for Nintendo, the game is being well received. So with that, let’s dive into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to see how it really holds up in the series.
Slightly jarring, isn’t it?
Mario Kart Racing Content
Before even starting up the game, it’s clear that Mario Kart was never really geared toward single-player experiences. The game does alright on this front, but it can only really do so by substituting in computers for you to play with. This is a game that’s always preferable with more players. Thankfully, we do have an online mode to help with that, but we’ll get back to that in a bit.
So in Grand Prix mode, Nintendo gave us five difficulty modes and 12 cups with 4 courses each to play with. The difficulties affect the speed of the karts, the viciousness of the CPUs and can even flip the course like a mirror image. The courses have a lot of variety to them, ranging from a subway to a deep and mysterious forest. Some courses are mostly underwater, some are in outer space, and at least one is inside an active volcano. There’s even a number of courses that reference other games, like Zelda, Animal Crossing, Excitebike, and even F-Zero! All of this content is also available for Versus races, but instead of playing full cups, you play individual tracks. You can also play in team races or time trials, but series veterans will already know that.
Changes
In fact, the new additions to the racing aspects of the game are fairly minimal. They mostly take the form of changes in mechanics and the items available to racers. Among these changes are the tweaks made to certain car parts, adding more variety to the builds players can craft. There’s also the purple drift sparks, which allow you to get a third and even more powerful drift boost as you come around corners. It’s especially interesting because the changes are difficult to notice for some of the less-skilled players. Higher level players will likely appreciate the changes to the gameplay, though.
Dry Bowser showing off those purple drift sparks.
Accessibility
On the note of skill, this games actually introduces a couple of safety nets for newer or less able players. These come in the form of smart steering and auto-acceleration. This means you don’t have to press the A-button to go and you don’t have to be a great player to avoid falling off the track. You can basically play without even touching the controller! This has some great side effects, meaning that nearly anyone can play. (We have an article here showing exactly that.)
Of course, you don’t have to worry about that making the game more unbalanced for the more skilled players. As it turns out, if you have smart steering on, you can’t get the third-tier drift boost. And of course, if you’re not pressing the A-button with auto-accelerate on, you’ll still go slower than you would’ve, otherwise. It reminds us of Mario Kart Wii. You could choose to have the game automatically drift whenever you turned, making your turns sharper, but this meant you wouldn’t get the drift boost.
With that said, it’s somewhat annoying that these options are automatically turned on, whenever you first play. You have to manually turn these options off in the vehicle select when looking at your stats. (You can also turn these off in the in-game pause menu, but that’ll probably annoy the other players more.) Of course, we realize that the players more likely to find these options will be the ones that want to turn them off, so it’s an understandable design choice.
Mario Kart Battle Content
This is where Mario Kart 8 Deluxe really stands apart from the Wii U version. In the original, battle mode was a selection of courses from the racing side of things. In the Switch version, the developers gave this game the battle courses it deserved. There are eight in total, and it’s clear they were designed as arenas. On top of that, they added a new battle mode called Renegade Roundup.
In Renegade Roundup, players are split into two teams. One team chases the others with piranha plants while the other must avoid them. It’s basically cops and robbers. When caught, players will be placed in cages, which other renegades can unlock by driving under them. The law wins if all renegades are caught, and the renegades win if time runs out, first. This happens to be one of my favorite modes, though it may help that I played this on the Dragon-Driftway-inspired battle course. It seemed to work very well on that stage.
Renegade Roundup from both sides of the field.
Other stages include Luigi’s Mansion, a block-based arena like in Super Mario Kart, Sweet Sweet Castle, a moon base, Urchin Underpass (from Splatoon), Wuhu Town (think Wii Sports), and the Battle Stadium (which isn’t really based on anything). Each one clearly has strengths and weaknesses. Shine Thief, for instance, seems to work very well in Urchin Underpass and Wuhu Town, but leads to a lot of cheese on Battle Stadium.
Online
That’s right, online is also a big part of this game. There’s once again little that is truly new, here. It works very much as it did on the Wii U, though perhaps a little more stable. The online does its job, to be sure, but one change to the system allows you to switch your kart setup while in the lobby. This allows players to be a little more strategic about their setup based on the stages available. If players wanted to do this in the Wii U version, they would have to leave the lobby to change your setup. That’s a certainly an improvement!
Conclusion
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a remake of Mario Kart 8, but with many of the major glaring flaws fixed. Characters that were clearly missing have been returned and the online is less of a pain to deal with. The game is at once more accessible and yet more competitive. The graphics are just as good and the soundtrack is as amazing as ever (with bonus points for adding “Splattack!” from Splatoon). Most importantly, battle mode is back and better than ever with new stages and new modes. Our gripes with this title are relatively few. If you didn’t have a Wii U or Mario Kart 8 before, this is a big recommendation.
- May 1, 2017
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]nimal Crossing New leaf has been released more than 5 years ago. Fans of the village simulation game are eagerly waiting for a new title in the franchise. With the exception of Welcome Amiibo, and spin off games like Happy Home Designer and Amiibo Festival, fans didn’t get any new Animal Crossing game or content in many years. There are many reasons we might see Animal Crossing Switch sooner rather than later.
Animal Crossing Plaza was a social experiment released on the Nintendo Wii U. The game was a time limited event, and has since been shut down. Even though it was only supposed last for a few months, Nintendo has put a huge amount of work into creating high resolution art for Animal Crossing Plaza. Every villager, buildings, trees and more have been designed for the social game. It is to question if Nintendo would have gone this far, for a game that was never meant to be sold, or to stick around. These assets were possibly designed and intended to be used for a full Animal Crossing game on the Nintendo Wii U later on. However, the console was discontinued, and a main series Animal Crossing has never seen the light on the system.
Later on Mario Kart 8 was released, with it came a DLC that brought an Animal Crossing themed track. All the high resolution assets seen in the Wii U plaza game – made it into the racing video game. Now the next big step for Nintendo will be to release a new installment of the beloved simulation video game on Nintendo Switch. While Nintendo has been pretty vague about the games future, Reggie, President of Nintendo North America has made some pretty clear hints at an upcoming Animal Crossing Game, outlined in an interview here.
With Mario Kart 8 Deluxe being released on the Nintendo Switch just days ago, we are taking a look at what Animal Crossing Switch could look like. We can’t help but think it would be most adorable, and the best looking game in the franchise. So lets have a look at what Isabelle and friends look like on Nintendos latest hybrid console!
Would you like the next Animal Crossing to look like this? Let us know in the comments below!
