Xenoblade Chronicles 3 – The Pros and Cons of Good Side Quests

October 17, 2022DaNamesX1 Comment

Warning! There will be spoilers for Xenoblade Chronicles 3* in this post! If you wish to avoid these spoilers, play and finish the game before proceeding. If you have already played the game or do not care for spoilers, then read ahead! I am not responsible for you getting spoiled after I warned you!!*

There was something that I noticed in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 that made it stand out more than its predecessors. The side quests in the game were actually worth a damn to care about. In the previous titles (not counting Xenoblade Chronicles X since I haven’t played that one yet), side quests were there to award you with small rewards and experience for helping out the denizens of the world. They were your typical JRPG side quests where you went to Point A to Point B to either gather something or beat up some monsters. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 isn’t any different really, but the way the side quests are presented made it more engaging and rewarding.

Side quests have their own story within the game. Every time you recruit a new hero or liberate a Colony, the side quests offer new insights on the Colony’s residents after they have to adjust to a new lifestyle, or you learn about a particular character from each region and their new found struggles. Unlike most optional quests, you are compelled to do them not just for the reward, but to continue to see how people and their relationships change from time to time. The game also rewards you just with new heroes, but doing them will also raise their class level once you are done with all of their quests. And you want to do that if you want to reap the benefits for your main characters.

While I like this new emphasis on making the side quests a part of the story, that also leads to some issues. In my playthrough, I had to make the choice of not completing every side quest that I came across since it was inflating my playthrough twofold. There would be play sessions where all I was doing were side quests just so I could learn and unlock new things that filled in gaps to the backstory. That should have been the red flag right there. Instead of playing through the main story to get all of the story content I needed, there was some great lore that was hidden behind these completely optional tasks that you can choose to do or ignore. The downside of not completing them is either missing out on a bigger reward at the end, or completely missing a resolution to a character’s arc or dilemma; and this does not exist only for the side characters.

Each of the six main characters have side quests that dive into their backstories and increase their class rank. Out of the six, Noah and Mio’s side stories are entwined with the main narrative, leaving Lanz, Sena, Eunie, and Taion’s side stories completely missable if you do not go back to key places to trigger them. Some of them like Lanz and Sena help improve their characters through the side story, but nothing that feels like a major story element to enhance the overall narrative. The one exception that I feel was a terrible mistake was Eunie’s side story.

In Chapter 3, Eunie finds a particular dead body on an old, abandoned battlefield; her body. She confirms this by examining the dog tag on the body, and then starts to get headaches and flashbacks to her previous death. She hides this from the rest of the party even though Taion knows something is wrong with her (and seeing that he can see her thoughts when they interlink). The conflict she has affects her in the rest of the chapter when she encounters Mobius D, the one who killed her previously. She does find the resolve to face him in battle during a later confrontation, but outside that, she never reveals to the rest of the party why she was so afraid of him in the first place. Not even when D is defeated for good do we see Eunie get the satisfaction of defeating her murderer (a different scene steals that spotlight). Enter Eunie’s side story.

To even initiate this quest, you have to go out of your way and find info fragments around the City. Only then will Eunie have the courage to tell everyone about the dog tag after learning about a Gold rank colony that has disappeared. Two chapters later and being completely optional, we start to work on Eunie’s resolve as a character. At the end she doesn’t even fight against the person who has been tormenting her for the last two chapters. You would think the main story would use Eunie’s dog tag to reveal to the other characters about this cycle that they are in. It’s brought up in the main story, but leads to no conclusion unless you go off the beaten path to find it. I was waiting for the dog tag to play a major part of the story since it was heavily implied that it would cause moral problems for the cast, but it never happens if you are only playing through the main story.

This is where I believe one of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 faults lie. Sure the side quests are better than they were in the previous games, but some great story elements are never revealed in the main story, but locked behind side quests that can be missed all together. There is a point towards the end of the game where you can upgrade everyone’s blade. In order to do so, you have to complete a side quest where you have to find seven noppon that only appear in other side quests. So if you missed one of these side quests, you will be spending more hours of your playtime just to unlock this feature. In my playthrough, I had to go back several side quests just to complete the one chain that I needed in order to get access to a locked area that I knew one of the noppon was hiding. Again, completely optional and has no bearing on the story whatsoever, but dangling this reward in front of your face and finally putting the shiny objects that you find all over the world to use at the very end of the game feels weightless. There is almost no point in unlocking the mechanic if you never took the time to do the optional quest up to that point.

Another game series that comes close to this problem that I’ve played is The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel saga. There is a similar approach to how side quests are handled in that game. In Cold Steel, side quests help explore and flesh out the side characters that are important to the world and main cast, but have no responsibility to the main story. They exist solely to give the player more understanding about each side character and help expand the world. Of course you have your normal monster extermination quests, but every quests feels like their own short and complete side story that doesn’t take away from what’s going on in the main story. Another side quest doesn’t pop up just because you finished the one before it. Once you finish that side quest, that short story ends and you can move on (outside a few that I’m probably not remembering). The side quests don’t take anything away from the story, but help put more background lore that you don’t really need unless you want it (and serves to build up a big reward at the end if you finish them all).

Compared to Xeno 3 that follows a similar structure, side quests feel more like an investment where the payoff varies. Instead of just concluding and moving on to a different character, the quests just continue to build up and try to make you invested in the relationship of the characters, but that only works when the reward justifies the means. There is a series of side quests where you help these two assholes when they decide to go on an adventure by themselves. Every interaction with them is the exact same; they have a falling out with each other over something stupid, you help them, they become friends again. Rinse and repeat. I thought there would be some big payoff from helping these two characters whom I never learned their names with their stupid problem, but it never paid off at the end. It just wasted my time dealing with two characters that I (and the main casts) hated helping all the time. I thought for sure this was going to lead to me getting something similar to their vehicle for faster ground traversal, but silly me for believing something like that. At the end of the day, that is the best way for me to summarize Xeno 3’s side quests; an investment that never pays off unless it involves the main cast or a hero.

*This is just a fourth of the affinity chart. No one is important if everyone is.*

If there was a way to improve the side quests, I would tie the colony side quests to its respective hero (since each colony leader is added to your party). Having a lead character interact and work with the people they are most familiar with would help me care about the relationship building since it is the main characters assisting the colony leader in helping out the people that they are in charge of protecting. It helps build a better connection with the people who you will never remember their names and help with the character development of that hero. I would have a better time doing these side quests if the payout was seeing these characters actually evolve after completing each, and maybe even change the class rank to increase upon completing each side quest. And of course the obvious, do not lock important main character development behind optional tasks. Side quests feel better when you have the complete option to go out of your way to do them. Completing quests out of obligation leads to a false sense of accomplishment with no payout at the end.

That’s just my viewpoint on side quests. I don’t mean to take my aggression out on Xenoblade Chronicles 3, but it did get my brain a-thinking while I was playing it. Do you feel similar or think I’m viewing this in the wrong way? If you have examples of good and bad side quests in games, please share them as I’m now interested in observing how side quests are handled in different games.

Thanks for reading.

Backlog Report – September 2022

October 3, 2022October 12, 2022DaNamesX2 Comments

The only thing that has been keeping me going is that a new Theatrhythm game is coming out in February.

Hello. September is finally over and I couldn’t be happier. Jumping straight into things, let’s talk a little about what I’ve been up to personally. All month long, I have been in webinar trainings to understand this new system that we are moving to in January. They started off harmless, but some of the content does not apply to what I do or will be controlled by us in the end. Honestly, I’m just here to be a second set of eyes for my supervisor. I am a hands-on learner, so most of this stuff will come to me once I can play around in the system on my own. I just hate spending my entire morning glued to my computer and attempting to retain all of this.

This schedule has had some positive effects on me. To escape the icy cold dungeon of my office, I now find a nice bench to sit on outside and read a book. This has been one of the best changes to my routine since I am now getting a mental break from my work area instead of being around it all the time. I am currently reading Jason Schreier’s Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry, and it has been an interesting and depressing read. Hopefully this routine will help me get through the other books that I have bought over the years and have yet found the time or motivation to read through them.

Blog Posts This Month

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate – The Missing Piece to the Puzzle (Backlog Tale) – This game will come up two more times in this post. I went from hating this game to playing it almost every single day. This is a good and a bad thing since I have the Sunbreak expansion to Monster Hunter Rise and want to play through that at some point.

Games Finished This Month

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate

Not going to spend a lot of time on this. Read post above.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is not a long game if you stick to the main story. Unlocking additional heroes and doing side quests to build up classes and the world turns this 30-40 hour game into a 100+ hour game. That’s not bad, but it does leave a sour taste in my mouth when important resolutions in the game’s story are hidden behind optional side quests. I will have to write about it one day, but it is something that frustrated me with this game. Other than that, I really enjoyed the rest of the game. Gameplay felt so much better than the second game, though I think I still prefer the original’s battle system. The story is somewhat predictable, but the whole idea of living in the present where it is safe and avoiding the unknown future is a topic we all could relate. The ending even managed to get a tear out of me, so I would say that overall it left a good impression on me. Hopefully the story DLC will answer one of my burning questions about a certain fur ball.

New and Finished Games This Month

Trombone Champ

In the beginning, there was light. The light filled the world with its bliss, and gave birth to wondrous things. One of these brilliant gifts was the trombone. From the trombone, toots of various tones filled the world in harmony and made the world equally divine as the realm of the gods. But, where there is light, there is always darkness. With the rise of man emerging from the shadows, the brilliant light of the trombone was tainted. What was once a symbol of ultimate power was now treated as a fool’s humor for when people did silly things. To ensure that this gift was not wasted completely, the gods sealed most of the power of the trombone inside a vessel, waiting for the day a true master of the trombone to emerge and unleash its power once again. For millenium, the tootvessel has slept. Waiting for the new champ to rise and claim their rightful place amongst the gods.

…at least that’s what I think the story is about. The in-game item descriptions make it hard to understand.

Trombone Champ knows exactly what it is and I appreciate it for that. As someone who has studied music and can play the trombone decently, this game comes very close to how it feels to play the trombone. Originally I thought that this would be a silly game with no depth to it, but the more I played, I found myself deep into mastering the mechanics to unlock everything and earning S ranks on all the songs. I don’t know what it is, but I find myself in a trance to discover all that the trombone has to offer to me. Also baboons for some reason?

New Games This Month

Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland

My last visit to the secondhand store resulted in my buying two games and one guide. The first was a physical copy of Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland. I know I bought this digitally during a PS sale last year, but finding this with the case and manual for around $10 was hard to ignore. I still need to test the disc since it does look a bit scratched up.

Splatoon

I was told to go to the store and pick up Splatoon, so I did. Maybe next time someone should clarify. Jokes aside, I was able to find a brand new copy of this game at the secondhand store for the same price as the other used copies. I mostly got it to complete the series set, but who knows. I may get around to playing through the single player content at some point.

Capcom Fighting Collection

I bought this solely for Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. Other than that, this is a neat collection to have with some of Capcom’s fighting games that have never been revisited. I don’t know if many of the games will get any playtime out of me, but the option is there in case I ever need them.

Monster Hunter Portable 3rd

“Will he please stop talking about Monster Hunter!” In my defense, this is a different game, so back off. Portable is the first “enhanced” version of Monster Hunter Tri that came out exclusively in Japan. It added new monsters and locations, but took the swimming mechanic out of the game. It would go on to be one of the best selling Monster Hunter games in Japan, but one year later we would all get Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. Despite the release of 3 Ultimate, Portable 3rd is still regarded as one of the best games on the PSP; and I am going to see if that is true. The Japanese-language barrier be damned!

Tales of Rebirth

Speaking of the Japanese-language barrier, I finally got a copy of Tales of Rebirth since Bamco has no interest in bringing these games over ever. I have decided to stop wondering if a remaster collection of the older titles will ever be rereleased for the overseas audience. While it is nice to have this game in my collection, I may have to find other means to enjoy this game fully in a language I can read. And don’t get me started on how they are butchering Tales of Symphonia with their lazy remake (even though I love Symphoina and will get it eventually on sale).

Live A Live

I know absolutely nothing about this game. And that is a good thing. It’s rare for me to not know much about a game with the internet these days. I know it is a classic from the SNES days, but outside of that I have no idea what the story is about or how the combat works. It will be a new discovery for me and that feels refreshing to me. Plus, my older brother has been playing it and he hardly plays JRPGs these days. It will give us a nice conversation topic when we have the time.

Splatoon 3

Do you know how hard it was to find a physical copy of this game days after it came out? Kat really wanted to play it, so we went to the store to get a copy, but the local game store and others around were all out. We didn’t think it would be that difficult to find a physical, but we did eventually and she bought me a copy as well. I like the game despite being bad at it. I can only play in short burst before I get frustrated by either the people who play these games for thousands of hours, or when I constantly get kicked out of games due to connection errors. One day Nintendo. One day.

Gundam Evolution

It’s Overwatch but with Gundams! I have only played a little bit of this game, but it is a learning curve that I’m still learning. Each Gundam plays differently, so understanding their strengths and weaknesses along with how well they go with the rest of your squad is a lot to consider. I know there are huge complaints about the progression system in it and I find them scummy as well. For now, it will be a casual experience until I get bored of it or the skill level starts to kick my ass.

Toukiden 2

I forget exactly what day it was last week, but I remember scrolling the tweet tweet app and seeing this countdown for a new game by EA and Koei Tecmo. I looked at the image and I was like “that looks like Toukiden.” After watching the trailer, I was like “yep that Toukiden.” If you don’t know what Toukiden is, it is Koei Tecmo’s Monster Hunter but with Oni. It reminded me that I have the first game on the Vita, but I never got around to getting the second game. I decided to get it now before the interest of the series starts to build again. This game was released with very limited quality, so I assume the price for this game is going to skyrocket soon (the Vita version already has).

Currently Playing

Third time mentioning it, but yeah Monster Hunter. In Generations Ultimate, I am currently working on finding G Rank armor that 1) I like, and 2) I can obtain on my own without dying. I have several targets in mind, but of course they would be some of the most annoying monsters to hunt. On the Monster Hunter Rise side of things, I need to finish most things on the PC version. I’ve decided that I want to play through Sunbreak on PC just to change things up. Just need to beat up Thunder Serpent Narwa and I’ll be all good. I did return to World briefly to try and work on achievements, but I found the camera in that game makes me dizzy now. I greatly prefer the snap camera focus over the constant tracking camera of World.

After finishing Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I decided that I needed to take a break from long RPGs and focus on a more chilled experience. With the announcement of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, I decided to finally give Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town a go. My first impressions so far is that it is a Story of Seasons game. I know I could play Stardew Valley again for the tenth time, but it’s sometimes nice to go to a familiar game with a different aesthetic. Hopefully the Wonderful Life remake will be as good as this one and not like the PS2/PS4 version (which I need to start working on…).

Plans for Next Month

My schedule is more open this month, but as always I am not going to make any promises.

At one point, I was going to write a post about all the announcements from a few weeks ago, but I started to lose interest when I realized that most things I was excited for were remakes. I don’t know what that says about me as a person, but I may return to it soon if nothing but a reminder for when things are coming out (seriously I can’t keep track of anything). I also need to put something together for Xenoblade Chronicles 3. I already have a topic in mind. Just need to find the best way to articulate my words.

It’s October! This means I get to continue my journey through different Castlevania titles. This might be the year that I play through the PS2 titles, but I also have the Lord of Shadows games to knock out as well. I’m holding off on the DS titles since I still need to get Portrait of Ruin and I’m kinda holding out that Konami will re-release them in a DS collection. There is definitely one game that I want to play, but I want to step outside my comfort zone a bit while playing it. My hope is that I can live stream myself playing through Castlevania 64 from beginning to end. It would be the first time that I start a game on stream and end it, and I think this game will help me through it. After playing the first 30 minutes of the game, I can tell that I’m going to have a fun time.

Thanks for reading!

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate – The Missing Piece to the Puzzle (Backlog Tale)

September 12, 2022DaNamesX1 Comment

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate was the black sheep of the series to me. Generations was a celebration of the Monster Hunter series up to the point before Monster Hunter World came along and made the whole experience better. From revisiting old locations, both village and hunting grounds, old monsters returning, and familiar faces interacting and giving you quests, this should have easily been one of the best Monster Hunter games to play. I tried. I really tried when it came out. I could not find any enjoyment out of the game. For some reason, it took six years (starting from Generations on the 3DS) for me to appreciate this game for what it is. I now hold this game in a positive light from the dark corner I once casted it into.

Let’s travel back to 2016. Young adult me has been enjoying Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, when he hears that a new Monster Hunter is coming out that summer. Natural reaction, excited for it! I preorder not only the game, but the New 3DS model that was releasing along with it (I was in the market for a New 3DS anyway). July 15, 2016 comes around and the game…feels mediocre. Monster Hunter Generations starts off incredibly slow. There is a lot of information presented to you about the new mechanics of the game and how you can travel to different locations from previous games. The quests that you go on at the beginning all consist of gathering and slaying small groups of monsters. It isn’t until Village Quest Level 2 that you start to hunt the large monsters; which consist of the beginning large monsters like the Great Maccao, the Gendrome, and Cephadrome. These are good beginner monsters, but it slows the momentum of the game when you want to get to the good stuff. For a game that is a celebration of the Monster Hunter series up to that point, it felt more geared to players who were new to the series.

That was the point where I felt disconnected with the game. I had spent hours in 3U and 4U that being forced to start from square one again felt restrictive. I could have just ignored the village quests and head straight for the Hub quest, but I am the type of person who likes to do all of the quests if I can; and going back to the Village quest after doing the Hub would have been rough.* At that time of my life I was impatient. I knew what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t stand how slow the game felt. To damper my spirits even more, Monster Hunter Generations did not include G Rank in the game. Not only was the game moving slowly, but the challenge I was looking for at the end was not included in the game. This isn’t the first time a Monster Hunter game was designed like this, but after 3U and 4U were released to the West, we would get the definitive version of the game.

*In Monster Hunter, you have a set of quests that you work on solo (Village) or with others (Hub). Village quests are designed to let new players become familiar with locals and monsters that you hunt. Village quests start on low rank and end at high rank. Hub quests are similar to village quests, but have some differences. The most noticeable difference is that the stats of the monster will adjust for the number of participants for the hunt. There are also certain monsters that only appear in the Hub area. In earlier games, the Hub was the only way to access G Rank hunts. This was changed in Monster Hunter World and Rise where an expansion would grant access to Master Rank.

The definitive version of Generations did come out, but not here in the States. Monster Hunter XX (Double Cross) was released on March 18, 2017 in Japan only and would get a Nintendo Switch release later that year on August 28, 2017. With Capcom originally stating that Monster Hunter XX was not coming to the states, my enthusiasm to play Generations quickly faded. It didn’t help that on June 12, 2017, we learned that Monster Hunter World was in development and was releasing early 2018. You could take one look at World and then Generations and decide on which game you would want to spend time playing. For all intents and purposes, my interest in Generations should have died then and there, but it didn’t.

Out of nowhere, Capcom announced on May 10, 2018 (four months after World released) that Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate was coming worldwide on August 28, 2018. To legacy Monster Hunter players, this is what they were waiting for. For me, I was almost done with most things in World. I had no interest in returning to Generations in any shape or form, so I bought the game day one in order to give it another try. My interest in Monster Hunter was at an all time high after playing through World. Surely the momentum would help me see this game in a new light. Can you guess what happened next?

I still disliked the game. Playing World and then going back to the old school style of Monster Hunter did not help at all! I had gotten used to the bounty of quality of life changes in World that most things just irritated me. It also didn’t help Capcom didn’t bother doing anything with the visuals since it looks like a 3DS game with a sprinkle of improvement (3U on the Wii U looked better than this). I managed to get to High Rank in the Village quests, but I couldn’t find a playstyle that felt good to me. I hated the feeling of being slow and constantly forgetting items that I needed for hunts. There was nothing that I could do to make the game enjoyable for me, so I placed it on my shelf and left it as one of the many unfinished games on my backlog. There it sat for the next four years, waiting and binding its time for the right moment. Which brings us to a few weeks ago this year.

At an event where I was able to see some of my old college buddies, I was able to reconnect with my old hunting buddy (for the rest of the story I will call him Knivitor). Knivitor loves Monster Hunter as much as I do, but he is definitely more experienced than I am. His go to Monster Hunter game right now is Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate. To him, it is one of the best Monster Hunter games even though he really liked World and Rise. When I mentioned that we should hunt more often, he asked if I wanted to play Generations Ultimate. I agreed with the pretense that this is what I might have been missing this whole time. I warned him that I was at Hunter Rank 1 and that it would take some time before I reached his level. All he did was flex his Hunter Rank 163 badge at me and said “Don’t worry. We got this.”

The coolest character in any Monster Hunter game.

In one week, I went from doing Low Hunter Rank 1 quest to G Rank level 2 quest. Was this from Knivitor carrying me all the way to this point? Most definitely. However, something along this journey awakened in me. All of my past experience with Monster Hunter came flowing back into me, and suddenly I was holding my own in most fights. While I switched around deciding on the Sword and Shield and the Switch Axe, I finally went back to my roots and picked up the Great Sword again. Once I did that, all the fun I had while playing Tri, 3U, and 4U all came back to me. I was trying so hard to adapt to the new, different ways to play the game that I never adapted back to playing the way I used to. Even though I was rocking the low rank Rathalos armor set during the final fights in High Rank, I was having fun using my skills and experience to become this glass cannon with a big sword. Even when we ended our group sessions for the night, I found myself wanting to play more of it and get some things done on my own just so we could press on through G Rank (he really wants me to fight the White Fatalis). The game has been on my mind constantly and most of my free time now is spent playing this and Rise (just started the Sunbreak expansion on Switch and blazing through the quests on PC).

So what happened? How did this game go from one of my least favorite games in the series to one of my all time highs? I guess the simple answer is that I started to play the game in a different way. I have been a very solo hunter these past years and I can definitely say that playing with others completely changes things. The strategy, the banter, the laughing and reacting to things that happen during the hunt turned the game into a completely different experience. I’m no longer playing the game just to get through the hunts and make it to the end. I’m now eagerly awaiting the next hunt with friends on my quest to regain my lost power. When I’m hunting solo, it is no longer about just checking off quests that I need to do; it’s now about getting the materials that I need to craft better things so that I’m ready for the next hunting session. My mind is all about making myself better just so I can enjoy hunting with my friends without being the one who gets carted the most. A simple change in perspectives helped me realize why a lot of veteran hunters still prefer this game over World and Rise.

The good times will not last forever. Eventually we might drift apart again or another game will come out that takes up our time. I think the best thing this revisit to Generations Ultimate did was help me revisit my glory days of playing Monster Hunter. With a game that celebrates the series as a whole up to that point, the one thing that I was missing with the experience was playing with other people. Now that the package feels complete, I feel like Generations Ultimate is one of the best Monster Hunter experiences that I’ve had after World. It’s too bad that the game feels out of date for anyone who started with World and the phrase “Monster Hunter on Nintendo Switch” makes people want to vomit for some reason. It is hard for me to recommend this game to others since Monster Hunter has become more accessible to people thanks to World and Rise. Believe me, I will not stop playing those games just because I found a new obsession with this game. If anything, I want to enjoy playing this game before the next Monster Hunter completely shadows it and becomes the next definitive Monster Hunter experience. From this point on, I won’t be afraid to open my hub up to random players who just want to hang out and hunt monsters with other players who enjoy doing the same thing. It can help turn a lackluster experience into one of the best times that you can have.

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate Statistics

Release Date: August 28, 2018
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch

Date First Started: August 28, 2018
Date Finished: September 4, 2022
Platform Played On: Nintendo Switch
Total Playtime: 90 Hours

Number of Quest Completed: 270 (At the time of this writing)
Weapon(s) of Choice: Great Sword, Sword and Shield, Switch Axe
Skills Used: Handicraft, Light Eater, Unscathed
Style: Guild
Hunter Arts Used: Absolute Evasion, Lion’s Maw II, Shoryugeki II
Palicos: Nico and Moonlight
Favorite Hunting Ground: Deserted Island (Where it all started)
Favorite Monsters to Hunt: Rathlos, Malfestio, Lagiacrus, Astalos, Gore Magala, Shagaru Magala, Valstrax

Bonus Gallery

Backlog Tale – Kirby and the Forgotten Abilities

July 14, 2022DaNamesX1 Comment

When you think of Kirby, what is the first thing that comes to mind? If you said Kirby’s Avalanche, me too. If you are a normal person, you probably think about the copy ability. This has been a staple concept since Kirby’s introduction in Kirby’s Adventure on the NES. While basic at the time, we have seen Kirby’s copy ability evolve over the years to see them pull off some devastating damage. We have even seen them go so far as to have a copy ability called Black Hole (in Japan). Without the various copy abilities at their disposal, I don’t think Kirby would have as much appeal outside their cozy inhale/exhale gameplay.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land continues this crazy experiment on what Kirby can and cannot copy. The new Mouthful Mode gave us plenty of nightmare fuel, but at the same time felt like watered-down copy abilities. At most, they felt like a gimmick only meant to be used to solve puzzles or traversal. The actual copy abilities themselves saw a better improvement from other games. I got Kirby 64 vibes when I saw that you could upgrade abilities to different forms. Not quite similar to 64’s mix and match abilities, but it was something different than having the same ability do the same thing without any variants. Seeing this mechanic excited me more than Kirby turning into a car and making DaBaby look like a poser.

Something still felt missing though. Every ability was fun to use, but I felt like some copy staples were missing. Where was the plasma ability? The beam ability was also missing due to the fact that the developers wanted to give Kirby a gun instead. I like the wheelie ability and understood why that was missing, but it would have been cool to have outside the car segments. Even the umbrella ability was missing, and you don’t take Kirby’s fucking parasol away from them! This got me to examine the available copy abilities and try to understand why certain abilities were chosen over others. My observation led to an interesting discovery.

All of Kirby’s abilities in Forgotten Land can be grouped into three categories: Attack, Traversal, and Sleep. Abilities like Sword, Hammer, and Gunner are mostly used for attacking and solving puzzles. These are the abilities that you will mostly stick with in fights unless you are working on a mission objective. Traversal abilities would include Tornado, Ice, Needle, and Drill. These abilities can be used in fights, but their overall design leads more toward progressing through stages quickly due to their forward momentum. Sleep is an unfair ability that restores Kirby’s health after a good night’s sleep (which we all wish we could have). The selection of abilities is diverse enough to encourage using whichever ability tickles your fancy, but that is not how Forgotten Land wants you to play the game.

Forgotten Land’s level design can be explained simply as “hand-holdy.” It likes to give you the illusion of choice, but the game constantly hints at you which ability you should be using and how long you will be using it for. This is done in several ways throughout each stage. If the game introduces a new mechanic with an ability, it is safe to guess that you will be relying on that ability for the rest of the stage. Even when you need to switch abilities to solve a simple puzzle, the game will “hint” at an ability you need by having it readily available or have an enemy constantly spawn so that you don’t miss out on secrets or puzzles that you need to solve. At least from my opinion from the other (limited) Kirby games that I’ve played, this game seems the most determined to make all the answers simple enough for the player to understand and solve.

I think back to other Kirby games that I’ve played. In Kirby 64, you have to find crystal shards throughout the level. Some would be easy to get, but some were stuck behind walls or other obstacles that would require one ability or the right combination to obtain. It required the player to understand the different combinations available in the level in order to complete the game and access the true final boss. Another example comes from The Great Cave Offensive in Super Star. For being a game about collecting treasure, you would expect some backtracking and puzzle solving. To get that 100% completion rating, you have to go out of your way and use the right abilities to find secrets that the game doesn’t point out in an obvious way. While that sense of challenge is still present in Forgotten Land, it is not as nearly as difficult to figure out when the game highlights it so clearly.

I haven’t mentioned Mouthful Mode abilities yet, but they also feel like a limited ability. They can also be divided into their own categories of Traversal, Puzzle Solving, or Dumb. I will give credit to some of the Mouthful puzzles since a small few of them require some fast thinking on what you need to do. The traversal modes (Car, Arch, Coaster) are fun since they change the gameplay up a bit and provide their own challenges. Car mode would have these time trials that made you observe the track and find hidden shortcuts that you might have missed the first go round. The roller coaster mode would have you dodging and collecting items, but also on the lookout for switches that would be easy or hard to see depending on the speed that you are going. While I appreciated some of those, Mouthful Mode was also scripted to be used for certain points. If the stage did not purposely prevent you from taking an ability with you to a new screen, then it was obvious that you would need it for another section. But what is worse than that is when you just use them for a small section and nothing else. I’m talking about the Light Bulb, Roller, and Dome. These are just used for quick situational moments that could be ignored if you were allowed to. They don’t add any gameplay variety or fun minigames to go along with them. Overall, I would have just preferred old or new, unique copy abilities that I could use outside of the given situation.

I think that is my biggest complaint about this game. Outside of boss fights where I can choose which ability I want to use (as long as it’s not tied to a mission), the game is too busy trying to get me to play the way it wants me to play. There’s hardly any desire to experiment with things unless you want to go out of your way to do it. In more recent 3D platformers (that I’ve played), it seems that the developers openly welcome experimentation with abilities that they give the player. In Forgotten Land’s case, it felt like the developers were too afraid to give players complete freedom in fear of missing out on something. That is not a bad thing, but it does restrict my enjoyment when I’m not allowed to play things the way I want to play them.

Does this make Kirby and the Forgotten Land a bad game? It depends on the player. I still had a good time playing through the game. Some of the later challenges were fun to do and the overall presentation of the game is charming from start to finish. I won’t spoil the final boss, but if you have ever played a Kirby game it is very much a Kirby final boss. What holds me back from saying that it is one of the best in the series are the items mentioned above. All I’m saying is that if you take the parasol away from Kirby then you have not only nerfed them but the game as well.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus Works (Backlog Tale)

February 14, 2022DaNamesX3 Comments

I can’t help but to enjoy Pokémon games. Pokémon Red and Blue helped me discover RPGs and the one genre that I could enjoy while platformers, action adventure, and shooters felt like too much pressure for me. While there have been some games in the series that rubbed me the wrong way (Gen 4 & 7), I have given each new game a try and test to see how the appeal of Pokémon grows to keep me interested. As I reach my thirties, I understand full well that Pokémon is not designed to target my age group, but the developers try to tap into that nostalgia while remaining focused on their young demographic.

Enter Pokémon Legends: Arceus. This is the type of game that we wished we had back on the GameCube (no offense to Colosseum and Gale of Darkness). An “open-world” Pokémon game where you explore the wild and catch Pokémon. It is a bit agonizing that Game Freak has never made a game like this before, but they must have been waiting for when gaming devices got more advance to realize their visions. Right? Right!?

Synopsis

The game opens up with something I wasn’t expecting. Your character is shown floating in between time and space. Since you play as a Gen Z child, your phone is there with you. Suddenly a shining figure appears and tells you to seek all Pokémon to meet it again. After that, you wash up on the shores of Prelude Beach in the Hisui region (later known as the Sinnoh region). A Pokémon researcher named Professor Laventon finds you and escorts you to Jubilife Village and takes you to the Galaxy Team Headquarters. To reassure the villagers that you are not a spaghetti monster in disguise, you agree to join the Survey Corp to help the Galaxy Team and gain the trust of the villagers. From there, you explore Hisui and learn about the native locals and the reason why the sky is falling.

As I played the game, I tried to understand what I liked about the gameplay the most. Some people were quick to describe it like Breath of the Wild or Monster Hunter. I think Arceus takes ideas from both games to create its own experience while leaning more into being a survival (slight horror) game at the beginning and transforming into one of the familiar formats. In Breath of the Wild, you are given every tool that you need at the beginning of the game and it is up to you to decide on how to use those tools to get through the game’s challenges. Monster Hunter is different where you have a main weapon, resources that you pack in preparation, and your wits and reflexes. Arceus gives you a starter Pokémon, a portable craft table, and a dodge button. The rest is up to you to manage. When I compare these three games, I honestly have to say that Arceus may be more difficult than the other two when starting out.

Let me explain. Arceus and Monster Hunter have the common ground of crafting resources to assist you on quests. If you run out of items like potions, antidotes, flash bombs, ect., you can still defend yourself with your weapon until you have time to either gather materials or fly back to camp. Arceus takes the same concept, but your main weapon has a weakness and can break in a hit or two. Arceus almost demands that you prepare well in advance before leaving camp to ensure that you have a strong team of Pokémon that can meet the unknown challenges that you may encounter. You also need to manage your resources since you can only carry a small amount of materials with you in case you need to craft more pokéballs or potions while you are out. This makes certain situations tense when you enter a new area and have no idea if something is going to annoy you or flat out kill you.

The name of the game is catching them all. Since you are creating one of the world’s first Pokédex, it makes sense that you will need to study them. Unlike other Pokémon games where you unlock the Pokedéx entry for catching a Pokémon for the first time, you need to catch them multiple times, battle, evolve, and do other tasks in order to complete your research. You only need to reach a research level of ten to finish each entry, but if you want the satisfaction of 100 percent completion, be prepared for a long grind. This incentive is something that the mainline games lacked to me. I had no desire to catch every Pokémon since there was nothing satisfying about it outside your participation trophy for doing it all. My goal in those games is to become the Pokémon Champion, and the Pokédex is just a tool to help me learn about different Pokémon. In this game, I got excited when finding a new Pokémon because as a researcher it was my main job. The simple roleplay mindset allowed me to enjoy the gameplay since not a lot of battles happen in this game, thus I don’t need to focus on that aspect until the time comes for it (which is a good and bad thing that I will explain later).

Arceus likes to make one thing clear to you; Pokémon are not your friends and will not hesitate to kill you. Some Pokémon are docile and will just try to vibe with you. Others will act like law enforcement and attack you on site with no questions asked. Something that has been missing in Pokémon lately is the understanding that creatures capable of destroying civilizations and worlds are just freely roaming around and have no moral code to be pals with you. These are dangerous creatures! I have a whole new theory now that parents send their children out to be Pokémon Masters just for the off chance they don’t survive out there and thus help with population control (it would explain why there are a lot of single moms in your local Pokémon area). I have never been on edge while playing a Pokémon game, but the overpowered alpha Pokémon that you can encounter plus the almost mystic air of the region just made me cautious until I got the lay of the land. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I enjoyed having the constant air of danger looming over me until I had a tough squad who could protect my fragile ass.

Okay, I’m going to say it now. The moment you have all been waiting for. The comment of the year that has had you on the edge of your set since you started reading this. Brace yourself. This is your moment to shine!

The game doesn’t look that great.

Photo by Cedric Fauntleroy on Pexels.com

Photo by RODNAE Productions on Pexels.com

Yes. The visuals in this game are not the greatest. I however do not like the comments that this game looks like a PS2 game. That is an insult to the PS2 and you need to say sorry. If there was one thing that we all knew was going to happen it would be that the game would look subpar. However, it is not game breaking. Some areas look better than others, and I have to give credit to Game Freak for at least providing a stable framerate throughout the game. It just…misses that wow factor that they were trying to go for. You see games like Xenoblade and The Witcher 3 that look great on the Switch, and you wonder why they didn’t get Monolith or Bandai Namco to help them bloom things up. It is not bad to the point of unplayable, but it is something I would like to see them work on in the next Legends game.

While others were complaining about the graphics, no one points out the other bad mechanics that I noticed (too busy bitching about trees again). One mechanic that I find irritating at times is a Pokémon staple; battling. There are indeed times where you need to battle Pokémon and other people in the story. What’s bad about this is that no matter what level your Pokémon are at, they feel weak compared to your opponents. At times you may get lucky with a one-shot, but it feels completely unbalanced how your opponent can wipe your team without breaking a sweat. This is more prominent towards the end and post game where the toughest battles are held and suddenly you are scrambling to create a decent team that isn’t weak to ground (there are a lot of Pokémon who are weak to ground in this game for some reason). Some of these fights can get straight unfair when you are pit three against one in some battles and the game acts like you can handle it no problem. I understand from a lore perspective that the concept of training Pokémon does not exist in this world, and I like that detail. However, from a gameplay standpoint it does not work.

Another thing that pisses me off is when you accidently hit the boundaries of the map. If you unknowingly reach a part of the map where Game Freak is hiding the better graphics, Jimi Hendrix pops out of nowhere and surrounds you in purple haze. It is frustrating when you are just searching the area and you accidentally walk out of bounds and have to find your way out of it. A simple invisible wall would be so much better than this weird fog.

My favorite thing about this game is the level of detail (outside of visuals) that Game Freak fleshed out. It is a nice tough to watch the village grow with new buildings and villagers as you progress. I like that your prior knowledge of the Gen 4 games can come in handy when it comes to the lore. There are a ton of easter eggs that Poke Maniacs will notice and it provides a fun treat for exploring. While those details are good, there are also some bad details that could have been easily fixed. There would be times where my character would just hover above the ground. These sections look like the ground was altered, but the collision was never fixed. There is also this weird sheen that your character gets when it rains, or sometimes you can see the outline of your character clash with dark surfaces. Again, graphical hiccups that could have easily been smoothed out, but Game Freak hasn’t finished that online class yet.

Speaking of online, there are some online functions in this game. You are able to trade with people locally and somehow online. Sadly, local and online battles do not exist in this game (since Pokémon Trainers don’t exist). There is a social mechanic in the game where you can recover dropped items by other players. Whenever you black out for being bad at the game, you drop some items from your pouch that other players can retrieve for you. The reward for doing this is earning merit points that you can use to buy good items like evolution stones. This mechanic is unfair for anyone playing offline, since there is no way to recover lost items yourself.

Let’s start to wrap up with my overall thoughts about this game. I think it’s also good to clarify that I played this game side-by-side with Kat. The extra benefit of playing this alongside someone else is a contributing factor to my enjoyment of the game. We would discover things together and help each other out and it made collecting all the Pokédex entries even more fun since we were kinda going against each other (until the final stretch when we started trading Pokémon that the other one hadn’t found yet). If you are able to play this with someone else, give it a try and see how it goes.

I found this game fun, addictive up to the end, and a true testament that Game Freak can make a good game. They just can’t make a pretty game on current hardware. I honestly feel that the only thing that holds this game back for most people is that the graphics are not “up-to-par” with current standards (whatever that is). For a person like me where graphics don’t make or break a game for me automatically, I’m glad that it didn’t put me off from playing this game. If you are the type who prioritizes graphics and visuals, then you will not have a good time with this game; and there is nothing wrong with that. Is not perfect by all means and could be so much better if it utilized a different engine. As modern gaming continues to evolve, I’m worried that the “fun” factor of a game won’t matter unless it has near perfect reviews and is near flawless in every aspect (almost like it is today). With that, enjoy playing the games you like to play and don’t let someone like me convince you otherwise.