The Den – 13/01/2020

I’m gonna have to get used to writing 2020 now.

It’s that time of year again. The time where I make my Top 10s of the previous year. But before we get to that, I want to chat about a couple of games and such.

Star Wars – Episode IX: Rise Of The Skywalker

OK, this isn’t a video game; but I do need to say something about this pile of trash movie. You won’t find spoilers here, just to get that out of the way.

Disney’s sequel trilogy is a complete mess of rushed out, homogenised, convoluted crap. It doesn’t really know where it’s going, it isn’t differentiating itself from the previous movies, and is trying hard to push it’s new badly written and unlikable characters, while still trying to pander to “the fans”.

Episode IX is more or less a melting pot of everything wrong with this series. It goes from place to place without any real reason, the character writing is insufferable, the new characters they add don’t really have anything to contribute to the story (Babu Frik is kind of entertaining though, so I’ll give them that), and the actual plot is just a blatant excuse to bring back old characters because they couldn’t write better ones.

It sucks. I wish I could go into more detail, but with every passing day my brain systematically tries to remove the memories of this god awful trilogy. I think I preferred the prequels.

Shenmue III

I want to talk about Shenmue for a bit. My opinions on this game are “mixed” to say the least.

It still does things I like. Having all the NPCs be individuals with a certain look, name, and schedules; is still a very welcome feature. It definitely brings a little bit of life into the towns. The variety and quantity of food stalls and shops is also something I enjoy, especially when the store owners disrespect each other in order to try and sell you their goods. Finally, the minigames and gambling are still somewhat enjoyable, even if the classic SEGA arcade games are nowhere to be found.

Getting on to what I don’t like, there’s a lot.

The voice acting is bad, even in Japanese. The characters often talk with long pauses inbetween sentences, and Ryo going “Souka” (“I see” for those playing in English) at damn near everything has progressed from a meme to just being downright annoying. Ryo himself still has little to no character of his own and it’s starting to wear thin. Shenhua isn’t much better, this should have been the time when the questions relating to her appearing in Ryo’s dreams and her actual importance to the overall plot should be explained; the but game doesn’t bother. Most interactions with her involve either stories of her growing up, asking Ryo about his life in Japan, or telling you about things within town that you likely already know about.

The character animation is stiff to say the least. The wonky wax-like character models don’t help either. It’s a very unappealing look. The world on the other hand has decent enough texture work and modelling though; all the houses, markets, shops, and various other things have a surprising level of detail to them.

The fighting system is both dumbed down and indisputably worse than the previous games. Shenmue I & II were made on a fighting game engine, therefore the timings for the combat and QTE sequences were extremely responsive, providing you knew the inputs for the moves. With III, moving to Unreal, an engine known for its input lag in fighting games; there is a significant delay in every single input. I’m talking at least a good second from input to on-screen action. It is dreadful. Thankfully, once you obtain the move “Tiger Thigh”, every fight in the game becomes a joke. All the fights are extremely similar too, no real diversity in terms of fighting styles during these sequences.

Did I mention the QTEs are trash? Because they’re fucking trash.

To top it off, this isn’t even the last game. There’s still more. And considering this game goes absolutely fucking nowhere in terms of plot, I sincerely hope the development team is planning on picking up the pace a little for IV.

As an original Kickstarter backer, I’m not particularly satisfied with what they’ve done, but I won’t say I’m unhappy either. If they actually bother fixing the shortcomings of not just this game, but the series as a whole, and relearn the improvements that made Shenmue II such a appreciably better game than the first; maybe it can be better.

Game Pass and Forza Horizon 4

I don’t have too much to say about this so far, I’ve only had it for a few days. But being able to access a few dozen PC games for £1 is pretty neat. As I don’t use my Xbox One much these days though, I don’t know if I’ll be renewing it, but we’ll see.

As for Forza Horizon 4, well it’s just more Horizon really. I still don’t really like Forza. Sim-Cade as a genre is not something I enjoy and the lack of options for making the cars be as arcade-like as possible is extremely limited. The options are limited to “Hard realism” or “Really loose, but still very sluggish realism”. It’s no Burnout Paradise.

Have this picture of a Ferrari Italia.

It is nice to be playing a game set in the Highlands though. Beautiful part of the UK.

Alright, we both know what you’re here for.

Top 10s of 2019

2019 hasn’t been super stand out year for either games or anime to be honest, but it wasn’t completely boring either. The prevalence Japanese games this year that were either of a relatively high budget or just generally stand out as compared to the run-of-the-mill trash that Western companies put out was rather alarming. The amount of Japan-made games I played this year is probably the highest it’s ever been.

My Top 10 Games of 2019

Before we begin, some additional categories.

Honourable Mentions:

  • Puyo Puyo Champions – It’s a fun, barebones Puyo Puyo game. I’m not very good at Puyo Puyo, but I still think this game is a blast.

Released Games I Wanted To Play Or Play More Of:

  • Onimusha Warlords – A remaster of the first Onimusha game. I actually got gifted this but never got around to it.
  • Jump King – Played a little bit of this. Reminds me of Super Meat Boy. In that I got so frustrated that I rage quit.
  • Death end re;Quest – Started this and originally thought of it as another “kusoge” Idea Factory game, but it started getting interesting. Unfortunately my PC broke and I haven’t gotten back to it yet.
  • Samurai Shodown (2019) – Still waiting on the PC release.
  • Super Mario Maker 2 – Held off on buying it because I heard it wasn’t that much different to the first game, and I didn’t play much of the first game to begin with and didn’t want to waste my money.
  • Control – Waiting on the Steam release.
  • Crystar – I was torn between getting this or Death end re;Quest. I think I chose poorly.
  • The Outer Worlds – I got this on Game Pass, and it only just finished installing as I’m writing this post. I’ll get to it soon I guess.

Best HD Remaster:

  • Metal Wolf Chaos XD – Finally, I can play this game. And you know what? It’s actually really fun.

Additional shoutouts to Catherine: Full Body and Blood: Fresh Supply.

Worst Game I Played:

  • Super Neptunia RPG – Speaking of Idea Factory “kusoge”. This game feels like shit to play, and it’s version of active time battle is stupidly slow and makes fights more drawn out than they need to be. Plus, if you buy the DLC, you become an overpowered God, which then makes the early fights stupidly easy and long.

There’s one more thing I need to say before getting to this year’s list. And it’s regarding last year’s ranking.

I very mistakenly put Dragon Quest XI at number 8 last year. Having played more of it since making that list, I must make a correction. It should be number 4.

And with all that out of the way, here is the numbered list.

10. One Finger Death Punch 2

A decently challenging and fun game, in a simple to understand package. Lots of hilarity to be had in it’s animations and special items.

9. Ion Fury

A real throwback to mid-to-late-90s FPS games. Even using the Build Engine for added authenticity. I’ve only played the first episode or so, but it’s fast paced action and harsh difficulty really has me hooked.

8. AI: The Somnium Files

I have my gripes with the localization work on this game, but the investigative sequences and character interactions are so endearing that it still made its way on to my list. Particularly the intros to the investigative scenes featuring Aiba, like this one.

It’s not perfect, but I had a good time with it.

7. Death Stranding

As someone who loves Euro Truck and American Truck Simulators; the idea of spending the whole time delivering things from one place to another doesn’t sound all to bad. And it’s not, that aspect of the game is actually alarmingly addicting for me. The black goo monsters known as BTs are both terrifying as well as annoying. Particularly later in the game where fighting them isn’t really necessary. The boss fights are rather lacking though, considering this is a Kojima game and the Metal Gear Solid series had some of the best boss fights ever.

The licensed soundtrack is fantastic though, providing you like Low Roar.

6. Devil May Cry 5

I’m gonna be honest here, I’ve only finished DMC2. I’ve played a lot of DMC1 and a bit of DMC3, haven’t played 4 yet. That other one isn’t related as far as I’m concerned. So coming into DMC5, I was expecting to have a more difficult time than I did. Now I wasn’t playing on the hardest difficulties or anything, but they’ve made substantial strides in demonstrating each character’s movesets. Due to that, I actually knew what I was doing moreso than the previous games I played. Dante is my favourite to play as though, the different styles and his character specific weapons are my preference.

V is pretty entertaining though.

5. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

I’m still playing this one. However it is very clear to me that this is a very special game. Not only is it a Kickstarter game that is actually good, but it actually takes what made the post-SOTN Castlevanias fun, and puts them all together in one game. The Shards are more or less Souls from the Sorrow games, the hub with all the NPCs is akin to Portrait of Ruin, and some of the larger boss fights remind me of Order of Ecclesia (Which I really want to play).

Throw in a ton of Easter Eggs, references, and real goofy fun to use items; it becomes clear how much effort went into this. There are some drawbacks; I don’t like how easy it is to get stunlocked, the hitboxes are a bit wonky, and I think the character and world art clash a bit; but the journey through has been so engrossing that I can overlook these shortcomings.

4. Resident Evil 2 (2019)

I once saw the original RE2 being played back in the late 90s. It fucking terrified me so much that I feared sleeping in the dark till I was a teenager.

Other than that traumatising experience, I’ve never played a Resident Evil game to any significant degree. I think I might have tried playing the demo to RE5, but that’s about it.

This game. This Goddamn game is expertly designed from start to finish. The placement of items, the atmosphere of each area, Mr. X chasing you round for half the game in a fashion that can only be described brutally intimidating; incredible.

And it’s one Hell of a cure for constipation.

3. Tetris 99

In 2018, I found myself enjoying the PC version of Puyo Puyo Tetris more than Tetris Effect. And in 2019, this game makes the precise point as to why. Competitive Tetris doesn’t get much purer than this. You VS 98 others. Good luck.

I was playing this every night for probably about 2-3 months before getting a win. I don’t play it as much now, but it’s my go-to Tetris game on Switch. Especially with the additional modes they added.

2. Judge Eyes/Judgment

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios ends up on my list again with Judgment. Focusing on being a detective, it provides a slew of new gameplay experiences that gives some additional life to the now overused city of Kamurocho.

It might not have a ton of mini-games, but the inclusion of VF5 and Motor Raid more than make up for it.

Throw in the usual whacky sub stories, intriguing main plot, and probably the most favourable cast of characters this team has made; no self-respecting Yakuza fan could say no to this game.

That said, this series could probably do with going on a break for a bit.

1. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

This is my favourite From Software game, and my favourite game from last year.

I have never felt more intune with a game’s combat system more than this game. It takes the aspect of Dark Souls where you need to learn bosses attack patterns and movements and extrapolates that onto every enemy in the game with a core set of patterns.

Initially this starts off very difficult, but as you start to learn, obtain new moves and equipment, and move on to harder and harder fights; you almost gain an attachment to the character’s limbs, as if it’s an extension of you. After understanding the movesets of harder enemies, weaker enemies become such a cakewalk, that it resembles Samurai films where a character would defeat someone and then quip about how they aren’t worth the effort to fight.

By the time I got to end I had such an understanding of the game’s mechanics that fighting the very difficult late-game bosses almost put into a zen-like state of automation.

The boss fights on to themselves are a way and above that of the Souls games in my opinion. There’s just something a lot more intimate about them. Possibly because of the amount of man against man fights, as compared to large monsters. Genichiro Ashina is a noteworthy highlight.

Throw in the addition of more verticality to the level design, and absolutely stunning art direction that just flaunts Japanese artistry; it became very clear to me that this game is my jam.

And now for the anime list, which is just going to be a standard list because writing prose for all of them really isn’t worth it.

My Top 10 Anime Of 2019

Special Mentions:

  • Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai
  • Tejina-senpai
  • Nande Koko ni Sensei ga!?
  • Midara na Ao-chan wa Benkyou ga Dekinai

Worst Anime I Watched:

  • Egao no Daika
  • Tsurune: Kazemai Koukou Kyuudoubu

Top 10:

  1. Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo
  2. Miru Tights
  3. Africa no Salaryman
  4. Sarazanmai
  5. Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san
  6. Bungou Stray Dogs 3rd Season
  7. Promare
  8. Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru?
  9. Joshikousei no Mudazukai
  10. Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen

Before I head off, I want to talk about one more thing really quick.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

I got the Blu-Ray for this using my Christmas money, and I quite enjoyed it. That said, it also makes me think maybe Tarantino should do more movies that don’t have violence in them. I won’t spoil why, but let’s just say that the difference between the character focused scenes and what little violence there was; stood out more than some of his other movies.

It’s pretty damn good though. Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio do a fantastic job as the main characters. And the movie’s visuals and soundtrack are top notch.

Right, well that was a long blog post. Till the next one.

ADMAN

The Den – 01/01/2019

And so, here are my Top 10 lists for 2018. As per usual, these are my own opinions. Not gospel.

My Top 10 Games of 2018:

10. Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth – Hacker’s Memory
9. Dragon Quest XI
8. Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon
7. Tetris Effect
6. Detroit: Become Human
5. Valkyria Chronicles 4
4. God Of War (2018)
3. Soulcalibur VI
2. Red Dead Redemption 2
1. Yakuza 6

Honourable Mentions:

  • Monster Hunter World
  • Yakuza Kiwami 2

Released Games I Wanted To Play or Play More Of:

  • Monster Hunter World – Didn’t get very far.
  • Dragon Quest XI – Still playing it.
  • Taiko no Tatsujin – I don’t own it, but I want to play it.

Best HD Remaster/Remake:

  • Shenmue I & II HD
    (Burnout Paradise is still pretty fucking excellent though)

Worst Game I Played:

  • Ni No Kuni II

My Top 10 Anime of 2018

10. Harukana Receive
9. Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii
8. Asobi Asobase & Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro
7. Back Street Girls
6. Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san
5. Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san
4. Uma Musume: Pretty Derby
3. Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori
2. Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa
1. 3-gatsu no Lion 2nd Season

Special Mentions:

  • Conception
  • Kishuku Gakkou no Juliet
  • Takunomi
  • Grand Blue

(I liked FranXX and SSSS.Gridman, but I didn’t feel like they should be on my list.)

There will be a regular blog post within the month, probably.

The Den – 01/01/2018

This is gonna be short.

My Top 10 Games of 2017:

  1. Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash
  2. Gravity Rush 2
  3. Tekken 7
  4. Super Mario Odyssey
  5. Puyo Puyo Tetris
  6. Everybody’s Golf
  7. Yakuza Zero
  8. Persona 5
  9. Nier: Automata
  10. Nioh

Honourable Mentions: Wipeout Omega Collection
Released Games I Wanted To Play or Play More Of: Disc Jam, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, RIME, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Everything
Most Hated: Wolfenstein II, Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

My Top 10 Anime Of The Year:

  1. Koe no Katachi
  2. Yoru wa Mijikashi Arukeyo Otome
  3. Tsurezure Children
  4. Owarimonogatari Season 2
  5. Saekano S2
  6. Gabriel Dropout
  7. Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou
  8. New Game S2
  9. 3-gatsu no Lion
  10. Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen

Special Mentions: 18if, Akiba’s Trip, Shokugeki no Souma S3
Worst Anime: Long Riders!, ClassicaLoid, Hajimete no Gal, Koi to Uso

Expect a new post in the near future. And by that I mean morning.

The Den – 20/08/2017-28/08/2017

It’s been over a year and half since I last did this. I’m not going to talk about every game I’ve played since then. I’m also going to expand it beyond games and anime a bit.

Valkyria Chronicles Remastered

The last time I played Valkyria Chronicles, I got myself stuck two missions before the end, fighting a tank boss. And biggest problem I was finding was that I had basically screwed myself. You see, when I played it on PS3 I didn’t know quite a few things, like; You can replay Skirmish missions, what a lot of the different characters potentials were, and the fact that the old guy at the cemetery is RNG based and has a 1-in-10 chance of actually giving you anything (More on that in a bit).

So when I started the remastered version, I decided to do some research and properly figure out the game’s mechanics. But also figure out how to play the game more efficiently so that I could take less time getting back to the point I was previously at. Unfortunately it’s made me hate the game more because I’ve started to rely to heavily on the RNG in it. Missing shots, taking more damage than I would like, and so on; would pretty much lead to me reloading my last save.

On the subject of RNG, I never that old git was on a RNG. So back when I looked up walkthroughs for the game, I would wonder how people got certain skills I didn’t have. Turns out you have to save at the start of every chapter and reload that save until he gives you what you want. It’s stupid as tedious.

The game is great still, but horribly balanced. It’s either too easy or bullshit hard. Worth a look into though.

Castlevania Aria of Sorrow / Dawn of Sorrow

So I played Dawn of Sorrow first. It’s a fantastic game, touchscreen gimmicks notwithstanding. The soul system is an interesting mechanic that lets the player mess around with various powers and gives them a variety with combat encounters. Although like anything that lets players build their own setup, there are a certain combination of souls that will be the most effective.

The movement, which is similar to Symphony Of The Night, continues to be extremely tight, although the platforming can be a little dodgy at times. The game also manages to stay surprisingly challenging all the way to the end, providing you don’t cheese the crap out of everything.

Speaking of cheesing, when I got the Claimh Solais, EVERYTHING DIED VERY QUICKLY AND IT WAS GREAT.

Aria of Sorrow by comparison is significantly easier. There were only two bosses that gave me even a bit of trouble (Death and Julius), and one gameplay section (The Trials). Even then, it’s probably easier than even SOTN is. Shorter too, I completed it in over 6 hours. The Soul system technically originated from this game, but frankly it’s used rather poorly. Also, locking out the true ending unless you grind for specific souls is pretty daft.

I started Circle Of The Moon, but found it rather unforgiving. It throws quite a lot at you considering it’s the beginning of the game and you can only use the whip. I’ll try to get back to it, but I might end up skipping it for Harmony of Dissonance.

UPDATE: I found COTM too slow, so I started Dissonance.

Owning a Gameboy Micro

This thing is freaking tiny!

So I bought one of these things so I could play those Castlevania games, and because the idea of a tiny portable game device seemed fun.

It’s better to hold than a 3DS at least, but it’s tiny size doesn’t really do much for me in terms of comfort. My fingers start to cramp and the sweat on my hands starts to cause my hands to burn (Fun Fact: Your hands are slightly acidic). Additionally, the tiny screen makes it really difficult for me to read.

Now you maybe wondering why I didn’t buy an SP. Two reasons.

  1. SP doesn’t solve the issue I have with the 3DS which is that it’s uncomfortable to hold.
  2. No headphone jack

As for specific problems with the one I bought, there’s only one. The screen plates (It came with two) are a bit scratched up, and I need to either replace them, or find someway of cleaning them.

Anyway, I think it’s neat, but it hurts my hands still.

DOOM I & II

After reading Masters Of DOOM (Which I highly recommend), I got a craving for DOOM. Unfortunately the DOSBox version kept giving me graphical errors, so I ended up switching to the Chocolate DOOM source port.

But anyway, DOOM is still one of the best damn video games ever Goddamn made. The Chocolate DOOM version pretty much retains everything and adds better mouse support, which is great. Also, the last few levels are real fucking hard. Shit like “The floor is lava, and you need to walk through it to go to teleporters to get some keys to open doors to use more teleporters over more lava, so you can activate the bridge that gets you to the exit”. Fun stuff.

But DOOM II. Holy shit. It’s like they took the difficulty of the last few missions of the first game, and then ramped it up to 11. It’s been a while since I played the game, and I must have been playing it on a easier difficulty before now, because there have been multiple times where I enter a room full of really bad things that have a really bad day. But man, the Super Shotgun is still the greatest damn thing.

BLOOD: One Unit Whole Blood

I haven’t played a ton of BLOOD, but it seems even more unforgiving than DOOM. I need to give this more time, it seems neat though.

Dunkirk

It’s a good movie, but not entirely historically accurate. Particularly the way the Spitfires manoeuvre. I won’t go into extreme detail, but Spitfires were often associated with large sweeping movements due to the way the fuel was fed into the engine, traditional manoeuvres would cause the engine to stall.

I haven’t done a ton of research to really rip the film apart, but overall, I thought it was worth a watch.

Anime Roundup

Alright, quickfire opinions.

Tsurezure Children

Heart Attacks: The Anime. It’s a really good romance anime and all the character interactions are so damn cute.

18if

Not the best anime, but it’s so weird that I can’t help but recommend it. Each episode has a wildly different story that focuses on different problems, and the art style sometimes drastically changes to represent a whole different perception of the world. Give it a look.

Koi To Uso

KANASHII KANASHII KANASHII, URESHII URESHII URESHII
The anime is OK, but I think it only makes me get increasingly more angry at government intervention into individual rights. Opening song is awesome though.

New Game

I didn’t think an anime about cute girls doing game development things would resonate with me as heavily as it has. And now the second season is out and really fleshing out more of the characters and really digging into the realities of game development. I wish it had more programming focus though.

GJ-bu

This has been on my list for a while, and man, it’s great. It’s a slice of life anime with great characters and a comforting atmosphere. It’ll probably engross anyone that watches it, and make them hate the fact that it ends.

OK, so this post ended up getting put on hold for a week, so if it comes off as half-rushed, that would be the reason. Sorry about that. It’ll be a while till the next one.

-ADMAN

ADMAN’s Gaming Den – 22/11/2015

Time for video games.

I’ve been playing stuff on and off recently. I occasionally hop back into Destiny to do my Dailies and whatever quests I feel like doing, and trying to grind to a high enough level so I can do the hard mode version of the King’s Fall raid.

I recently started Ryu ga Gotoku Zero (AKA, Yakuza Zero) and I’ve been enjoying it for the most part. Although it being completely in Japanese doesn’t help. At the same time, I’m not quite as drawn to the side material like gambling or pool like I previously have.

Kiryu’s new fighting styles are welcoming though, especially Rush which is an extremely fast paced fighting style, which is what I’ve been wanting more of since I played Akiyama in Yakuza 4.

Yakuza 5 should be out SOON (I hope).

Finally, I played Danganronpa Another Episode, which is a pretty damn cool game. As a shooter it works fine, the enemy variety and weapon mechanics make it worthwhile. The story is pretty weird. Unfortunately Junko doesn’t take over an AI or become some kind of transentient god; she’s not really in it at all. Instead, it’s just Komaru and Touko fighting their way through the city to make children stop killing adults. Which… Makes sense.

A friend of mine considers the story in those games to be nonsensical, and to some extent I agree with him. On the other hand, it doesn’t bother me that much. The amount of mind-fuckery is amusing, and the style the games have is just kinda awesome.

The ending cutscene was long though, holy fucking shit. I had to pause it at 2am after watching it unfold for the last hour, go to bed, wake up, and I still had about 40 more minutes to sit through plus an end boss. The game is still good though, worth playing.

That’s all. There’ll be a regular blog post within a week or so.