A List of Games Attempted: January 2021

 

Herein is a list of games I tried or am trying, and had thoughts upon, despite not beating them - if they can be beaten at all. 

Dead Rising (PS4)

A classic they said! I liked so much about the premise, and every video (link Spicy Chicken God) made it seem like my exact shit. A game with mashy controls, a necessarily repeatable timeline (not unlike Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter), and a high degree of cheese. Yet, I found myself sputtering out quickly with this one. Perhaps it was the controls, which are simple yet kinda obtuse - how you hold right trigger to aim a weapon, then square to throw, or how the inventory is fidgety and limiting to a pain at first, or how the menus are a low res nightmare to navigate and find what you need to know. Or perhaps it was the visual hollering the game bleats at you, demanding you do this or that, right now or soon, and how the map resists you the w
hole time. Or perhaps it was the absence of a feeling of any ability, your HP (visualized as blocks a la Super Metroid, yet they have degrees of damage?) ticking down at the slightest offense. I wanted to like it, and perhaps I'll return to it or its sequel, but for now - no thanks.

Crown Trick (Switch)

A roguelite roguelike proper, with a grid and turns and rotating to face your enemies. It has all the permadeath and random loot & levels of more classic roguelikes, with the persistent upgrades and gear simplicity of modern games (Crypt of the NecroDancer, Hades, Enter the Gungeon). I like the having those modern conveniences with the traditional grid movement and turns, enemies moving when you do. That sort is rare these days, with its abovementioned peers adding some extra element - rhythm or action combat - whereas Crown Trick is happy to ride off its small gimmicks (teleporting to reposition, familiars to add spells) and its ADORABLE art, which is so distinct. I'm having some difficulty beating the second boss of the second floor, but that's the fun of such games! There are some performance problems like hitching, and I worry about the depth of the loot and items (I've filled the compendium too far in a few hours). But still, I like it, and I'd like some more. 

 

Synthetik (Switch)

I loved this on PC, but since the PC room is also the cat litter box room, I take any chance to play a game on my Switch. And here it is! A roguelite run structure, yes, but the action! You choose one of eight fully upgradable classes, with specific game-changing abilities, as you stick and shoot androids across procedurally generated levels. But the guns are the highlight here, with a Call of Duty like dedication to variety and depth to each firearm, from machine pistols to single shot rifles to flamethrower to poisonous assault rifles to sawed off shotguns to incoherent machine God monstrosities that can call down Akira lasers or fire salvos of unspeakable damage. 

Yet even then, you can upgrade weapons to change their whole function, or swap ammo types. All of this atop rapid action, moving between cover, dashing to snap a heads hot, and active reloading - yes, you gotta properly eject and reload, or risk losing precious ammo or worse, time if you flub the reload timing. Ah, there's so much to gush over, like the randomness within levels - quests and unique enemies and choosing the difficulty of the next level. Synthetik is tense, fast, and demands you get better, go deeper, become an avatar of death and death and death.

 

But, and here's the big fat but, it's currently busted on Switch. Aside from performance issues, there's a bug which crashes the game after a boss, losing all your progress for that run in the process. And it's not even consistent! The crashes happen like 75% of the time, so I tried to not be dissuaded, but then I found the crashes happening in other utterly random spots after the first two levels. It is the most unfortunate of bugs, which can discourage while also seeming inconsistent. They're working on it, but christ, it's a bummer. Still, until it's fixed, this is saved for later. 

 

Tales of Vesperia (Switch)

After finishing a hefty visual novel, and a few thick and serious RPGs the last few months, I wanted a more chill time. Based on what I heard (link to Thor video) and its low price, here seemed a relaxing adventure, full of party chatter and cute writing and lacking all the edginess of its peers. I haven't played a Tales game since Star Ocean 2, and hey, maybe it was time. But it wasn't! I liked the premise, characters, visuals, music, and the meager, lower stakes story. But two things hold me back. 

 

First, there's not much ability to skip some dialogue or move things along faster. I read quick and I can leap through those familiar text boxes, so this slows me. But second, and more paramount, I uh don't like the combat. At all! Yes, you see enemies on the field and can choose if and when to begin a battle, but once I was in there, I felt only irritation. See, it's real time action in combat, with varying levels of control available for your main character and other party members. Though I know it'll get more complex and interesting as the game goes along, the combat, five hours in, felt sluggish, unresponsive, and stodgy. 

 

As in, without flow, which is what you want from real-time action. Like, I hit regular attack 3 times, then forward+A to use one of my three abilities - OK, that's fine - but I get interrupted by enemies, who must be watched along a horizontal 3D plane for their cues, as they move in and out of focus and range. I knew some guys, a decade ago, who would play it multi-player, skipping the cutscenes and dialogue to get to the next encounter, each dude to a party member, each dude doing their own teamwork effort. Maybe that's what I'd be into, but those dudes are gone from my life, split by my being on the losing end of a breakup, gone they are now into the darknesses of mortgages, marriage, and childrearing. Such is living, and I am not entirely disgusted by this game, so it is saved for later.