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[I've got a ticket to the moon, I'll be leaving here any day soon]

1

TalkBack / Before the Green Moon (Switch) Review

« on: April 23, 2024, 08:00:00 AM »

I've got a ticket to the moon, I'll be leaving here any day soon

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/66996/before-the-green-moon-switch-review

I grew up in the era when 3D games were just starting to figure out what they were. I cut my teeth in gaming on the Nintendo 64 and the GameCube, and throughout that experience a lot of the most memorable games featured a sense of discovery, of not knowing what would happen next. Exploring games such as Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life felt exciting because it felt like part of it was set in reality while another part felt surreal–a path with rushing wind that you could never explore, a shed that doesn’t seem to do anything, Harvest Sprites that are seemingly just there to discover and sometimes talk to. All of this felt like I never knew what would happen next. Before the Green Moon really reminded me of that feeling, in a low-poly kind of weird farming game that brought me back to my younger days of playing A Wonderful Life.

Before the Green Moon starts with your character, which you create, moving into a small community that lies in the shadow of a space elevator bringing people to the moon. Your character has a past with farming, so you are set up as a farmer with a small plot of land and home that feels familiar to anyone who has played any sort of farming game. Your goal is to work your farm and make enough money so that you can buy a ticket to the moon, an incredibly expensive feat. Much like other such games, you go through a cycle of tilling soil, planting seeds, watering plants, and harvesting them to sell.

The mechanics of Before the Green Moon are fairly simple, especially if you’ve played Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley. At the start of the game you are provided with a small number of seeds per day and you start off in the rainy season, which waters plants. This leaves you ample time to explore and meet the characters that also inhabit your small community. At the start of my time with Before the Green Moon, I often felt like I didn’t have much to do, which led to me wandering around the neighborhood, meeting people, finding my way around, and making discoveries. However, things gradually become more comprehensive. Initially, seeds are provided to you in small increments, but soon you can buy seeds from a local who sets up shop in your unused greenhouse. You also get a fishing pole. The rainy season ends, which means you have to not only water your plants but haul water up to your farm. Everything feels manual and tiring, which might be a shock to the system for people used to the level of automation you can do in Stardew Valley but feels like a more realistic farming experience. You tire quickly, and doing your daily chores can sometimes take up most of the day.

Through exploration, you find out things that go unexplained but, in its own way, feel like a discovery. You have an enclosure to keep chickens on your farm, but no chickens. It’s up to you to wander the local area, find chickens, and pick them up to bring them back. There are a number of little discoveries for how your farm and this world work that aren’t explained outright. This might be frustrating to some, but I found it to be rewarding, slowly learning how the world works.

There are a small number of characters that you can meet and speak to in your local area, and while they’re relatively simple I did grow attached to them, eventually learning more about and befriending them. There’s no friendship meter or anything like in other games, but instead you just have to speak with them regularly and keep up a friendship, which feels more realistic than a lot of social sims. I grew to really like these people, even if there were so few of them and they didn’t have much to say to you. The setting starts feeling like a community, which is reinforced every time the space elevator was about to leave town. For a day or two before the space elevator leaves, your town becomes flooded with people who fill the local mess hall and leave garbage all over. At a certain point I began to long for the time when people who just wanted to go to the space elevator would leave. But, then I realized, isn’t that who I was, too? Even as I picked up garbage around town (with no discernable in-game rewards, just because I wanted my little town to be nicer), I was still working towards going on the space elevator, wasn’t I?

Near the start of the game, the ticket price for going to the moon feels insurmountable. Each of the base crops you get gives you the tiniest fraction of what you need, and it feels good to work towards. However, as I got closer and closer to my goal, every bit I inched closer to the goal started to feel worse and worse. Did I really want to leave this little community? Or did I want to linger, ignoring my real purpose in being there? I was amazed at how just a short amount of time made me hesitate, wanting to know just a bit more about the other people in this town.

Before the Green Moon isn’t for everyone. I don’t even know if I’d say it’s for me. The in-game days are incredibly short and punctuated by time cards that tell you when afternoon and evening start every day, which can be annoying. Half the time I felt like I didn’t have enough to do, while the other half I felt like I had far too much to do, and a lot of that was repetitive. That being said, it feels like Before the Green Moon is a fresh take on the farming game genre, and one I am glad I took the time to discover.

[Can this new game live up to Konami's rhythm game pedigree?]

2

TalkBack / Super Crazy Rhythm Castle (Switch) Review

« on: November 25, 2023, 05:00:00 PM »

Can this new game live up to Konami's rhythm game pedigree?

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/65606/super-crazy-rhythm-castle-switch-review

Super Crazy Rhythm Castle was one of the games I was most intrigued by out of the September 2023 Nintendo Direct. This looked like a fun, chaotic rhythm game experience, but most intriguing of all was this was a Konami-published game. While Konami has become a controversial publisher in AAA games, in terms of rhythm games Konami has a deep catalog of classics. Would Super Crazy Rhythm Castle join that pedigree?

Super Crazy Rhythm Castle takes place at the titular castle; you (and up to three other players) are challengers, looking to unseat King Ferdinand and become king of the castle. To do this, you need to play a number of rhythm-based challenges, though a lot of these have you juggling several different other tasks at once–think something like the chaos of Overcooked. You might need to move obstacles, collect items, or deal with enemies while also trying to keep playing the relatively simple three-button rhythm game. While things can be played solo (which I did in writing this review), it feels like it would be a game better served for people to play together, as these tasks can often feel overwhelming alone.

Rhythm game-wise, things are pretty basic. Each level has you pick up a controller in-game to play the rhythm sections, and then hit three keys to play. It feels decent, but in more difficult moments I felt like things weren’t as accurate as they could be, but also the maps ramp up significantly over the course of the game. I don’t think it’s compelling enough to play just as a rhythm game, but you can challenge each of the songs on their own in a separate section, so there is plenty for people who want just the rhythm game by itself. My biggest issue was the controls, which can’t be remapped. Two of the buttons are the L and R shoulder buttons, which feel way too small and awkward for some of the more intense rhythm gaming. The ZL and ZR buttons end up being used for other purposes, but I wish they had been used for the rhythm game instead; that would probably feel much more comfortable.

One of the things I loved most about Super Crazy Rhythm Castle is the aesthetic. There is a surreal vibe to the entire castle, where there are walkways of pianos, escherian staircases, giant eyeballs, and an entire section made of meat. This is a game that revels in weirdness and oddities, which is one of the most fun things to continue to discover. I laughed at some of the item descriptions and some of King Ferdinand’s snarky dialogue, and a major aspect of my enjoyment was wanting to see what inventive visuals would come in next. The presentation here is really delightful.

However, where this game falters most is in its music choice. Most of the songs you play throughout are fairly generic songs purchased from various music libraries. That’s not to say the songs are bad–I found myself getting them stuck in my head at times. For one song, I actively looked up to see if there was an artist, which is how I found that it was from a Japanese music library that could be used for commercial purposes. The songs are solid, but they repeat far too much for a relatively short game. I wish they had either licensed some better music for this, or, ideally, use some of Konami’s wide back catalog of rhythm-game soundtracks. There are a few songs that you can find that are Konami songs, but these are just playable as a side activity. One prominent example is the song Smooooch, which has shown up in several rhythm games and was in the trailer (which is one of the things that drove my interest in this game). I think this is where my disappointment mainly lies in the music choice. Rather than being about the songs in the game, it’s the songs that aren’t in the game but could be.

Ultimately Super Crazy Rhythm Castle is a flawed but interesting game that is wildly creative yet doesn’t always live up to its ambitions or other Konami rhythm games. Still, this was a fun experience that I’m glad I was able to try. I’m hoping this game is only the first of more rhythm game experiments by Konami (or other developers!) because I’d love to see this Castle more polished or with a better tracklist.

[Is it a dream or a nightmare?]

3

TalkBack / Fashion Dreamer (Switch) Review

« on: November 09, 2023, 10:11:19 AM »

Is it a dream or a nightmare?

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/65432/fashion-dreamer-switch-review

When Fashion Dreamer was announced at the February 2023 Nintendo Direct, it felt like a dream come true for fans of the cult classic Style Savvy series, the DS and 3DS titles about fashion that were truly better than they had any right to be. Fashion Dreamer seemed to be a successor, also being a fashion centric game by the same developer, Syn Sophia. Would Fashion Dreamer be the spiritual successor to Style Savvy on the Switch that fans seemed to want?

Right off the bat, as a fan of the Style Savvy series, Fashion Dreamer is not Style Savvy. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, after all this is a new series, but fans who are looking for the classic experience of running a fashion boutique may be disappointed. So if what you’re looking to play is more Style Savvy, you might have to dust off your 3DS and play one of the pre-existing titles.

Instead, Fashion Dreamer is focused on a virtual world called Eve, where your goal is to be a fashion influencer. You walk around the world as your avatar (called a Muse), collect clothing, and work towards influencing by designing outfits both for NPC muses and (if you use the online mode) for other players of the game. You can also create your own brand and customize item patterns and create your own showroom to show off your home decor and fashion skills.

The online aspect of Fashion Dreamer is where things really shine. It’s satisfying to be able to create outfits based off of what other people say they want and send it over to them, and likewise get outfits made in return for you. For example, I indicated in my bio that my favorite color is yellow, that I like flower prints and that I like a cute style, so I’ve had some really fun outfits sent over to me based on that. Being able to share clothing items and create outfits for other players is fun and it’s almost shocking there hasn’t been a fashion-focused game like this before.

The biggest issue I have with Fashion Dreamer is that, as a game, any sort of tension or gameplay loop is completely lacking. Collecting clothing items is trivial, as you can collect any item you see on any character and there are areas where you can snag dozens of clothing options at a time. Once you are done with the tutorial, the gameplay largely centers around making new outfits, but there is rarely any challenge there either. You can attempt to make outfits that fit more with what the person is asking for and fit with the current trend, but it just gives you slightly more of the in-game currency you’ll likely be swimming in if you spend any amount of time in the online mode. With NPCs you get a ranking from one to three stars, but it also doesn’t seem to make much difference beyond leveling up an NPC slightly slower. Occasionally NPCs will ask you to style a specific thing (one really wanted me to center an outfit around her socks), but it doesn’t provide any specific challenge.

Ultimately, without the gameplay loop of buying and selling items at your boutique as found in the Style Savvy series, Fashion Dreamer ends up being more akin to playing dress up with dolls than actually playing a video game. And if that’s all you’re looking for, Fashion Dreamer is a great dress up game. There are thousands of different items and lots of customization options for character appearance. Being able to customize items by color also adds a level of freedom. However, despite all the freedom, there’s no real incentive to keep playing or to push forward.

Fashion Dreamer is, I’m sure, something that could appeal to a certain person. If all you’re looking for is the freedom to play dress up with thousands of items and create cute outfits, you might want to pick up Fashion Dreamer. However, if you’re looking for a satisfying gaming experience, you’ll need to keep dreaming.

[X marks the spot in this treasure hunting adventure!]

4

TalkBack / Bilkins' Folly (Switch) Review

« on: October 09, 2023, 10:00:00 AM »

X marks the spot in this treasure hunting adventure!

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/65166/bilkins-folly-switch-review

Bilkins’ Folly is a title that came out of nowhere to become one of my favorite indie experiences of 2023. As it’s an excellent modern adventure title with classic influences on its sleeve, I hope more people can experience Bilkins’ Folly and discover the buried treasure it is.

Bilkins’ Folly stars Percy Bilkins, a treasure hunter who is looking for his mother and grandfather, the former trying to stop the latter from seeking a fabled treasure and potentially ruining the family in the process. Things start as Percy gets caught in a storm and loses everything but his loyal dog Drayton. Now he needs to find a ship, a crew, and track down his lost family while seeking treasure along the way.

The gameplay is pretty solid adventure game fare, where you need to accomplish a task or find an item to keep pushing the story forward. A lot of these include some form of navigation, using your map and tools - Percy is a treasure hunter, after all. You are also aided by Drayton who you train throughout the game to help find treasures and follow your command. This all leads to several fun puzzles while you unravel the story, as well as a number of optional challenges you can pursue. For the most part, the puzzles are solid and the most difficult ones are optional challenges. However, occasionally there are a few puzzles and navigation challenges that are on the obtuse end of things that are in the main questline. I occasionally asked friends for help and at one point jumped into the game’s Discord to ask for advice there. This feels par for the course for adventure titles, which are often known to have obscure puzzle solutions, and while none of these solutions rival classic adventure game moon logic I did struggle with some of these solutions. That said, figuring out these puzzles gave me a great sense of achievement.

Bilkins’ Folly has charming graphics and music, but the writing is where it shines most. There’s lots of genuinely funny moments throughout, and I was excited to meet so many funny, quirky characters. The influence of things like Monkey Island is clear but Bilkins’ Folly does its own thing in making for an enjoyable adventure game experience. There are also some moments of surprising emotionality and I found myself moved, much more than I thought I would be. In particular, I got very attached to Drayton, who is just the sweetest dog. Bilkins’ Folly threads the needle of being silly while also having the stakes be genuine.

Other than some solutions being obtuse, my other main complaint is that occasionally performance suffers. Frame rates drop significantly when lots of characters are on the screen and I noticed a handful of glitches including a game crash. For the most part this doesn’t affect gameplay or my enjoyment of Bilkins’ Folly, but it was noticeable.

Ultimately, Bilkins’ Folly is a game you should definitely pick up if you are an adventure game fan or want to dip your toes into that genre. This is a fun puzzle game with charming writing and great mechanics that feel very satisfying when you figure out. Some solutions may be difficult, so if you don’t want to feel frustration you might want to sit this one out. However, if you enjoy puzzle games and are looking for a charming adventure game, I’d recommend Bilkins’ Folly.

[A breezy and cozy game that struggles with performance issues.]

5

TalkBack / Mineko's Night Market (Switch) Review-in-Progress

« on: September 25, 2023, 08:00:00 AM »

A breezy and cozy game that struggles with performance issues.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/65007/minekos-night-market-switch-review-in-progress

For many people who enjoy games on the cozy side, Mineko’s Night Market has been on their radar for years - myself included. Ever since I caught a glimpse of the game at the Nintendo “Nindies” stream in 2018, I have had this game in the back of my head as one of my most anticipated games. Now, after several years of development, Mineko’s Night Market is finally coming out and I had one question in mind - is it worth the wait?

Mineko’s Night Market centers around a young girl named Mineko, who moves to an island with her father. The island and house they reside in have seen better days, and quickly Mineko takes on the task of revitalizing her home and town, especially through the Night Market, a weekly event on Saturday that at one point was a highlight but now is rundown and  sparsely attended. There are also many secrets on this island, including agents from some outside entity capturing cats, and a large mythical cat named Nikko that is seen as just a legend to most but some children swear it’s real.

The aesthetic of Mineko’s Night Market is what drew me in at first. The art style is beautiful, with a warm palette that feels appropriate to play this autumn. Every element of the game looks like a picture book painted with gouache, and it is very appropriate to the focus on folklore. Everything  is charming and intentional with the art style, and I just wanted to see more. I also ended up loving the music, which matches the environment perfectly. The music for the Night Market is upbeat and quirky, while the day to day music is calm and relaxing. Every aspect of the presentation seems like it was done with a lot of care, and I love spending time in this world.

The gameplay is a life simulation where each week is set up preparing for the Saturday Night Market. Throughout the week you collect materials, do quests for people, and unlock new areas and items so that you can craft things to sell at the Night Market. Once the Night Market comes you present several items and haggle with villagers as they check your wares. Once you are done you can explore the Night Market, which upgrades through multiple levels after you reach various sales milestones. The Night Market has always been a highlight of my playthrough, as I love seeing it expand and grow as a result of my labor. There are also some small puzzle and stealth sections, usually as a part of opening up new areas to explore, but the bulk of the game is in collecting materials, crafting items, and selling them.

The crafting is especially fun, as the system is focused on actual arts and crafts as the base. You start with a workbench that allows for flower arranging but you can buy more workbenches for things like papercraft, sewing, and woodwork as you progress. You also collect recipes for crafting by completing side quests and fishing them up, so it’s fun to unlock more quests. The actual action of crafting is usually a timing-based minigame, though each craft works differently. Since so much of Mineko’s Night Market is focused on upgrading the town, crafting fits in nicely as a mechanic. While I love a good farming game, I hope Mineko’s Night Market and its crafting mechanic shows people that there can be creativity in the mechanics of cozy, non-violent games!

The downside of my time so far with Mineko’s Night Market is that, unfortunately, performance on the Switch has been frustrating. While performance issues rarely impact gameplay, they are present on an almost constant basis. Load times are long and frequent, which make progress frustrating. Entering a shop or home, for example, might take over ten seconds. This might not sound like much, but this happens every time you enter or leave a building. Traveling home after collecting materials regularly takes about 25-30 seconds. Certain crafts (like sewing and art) might have a delay of 20 seconds after finishing the item before doing anything else. All of this adds up to a lot of time waiting for things to load. There are also some visual glitches, such as items loading later as you run through the town or shadows appearing as large blocks while in a cave. These don’t affect how you play, but they do make progressing through the game much more tedious than one that's do thoroughly pleasant deserves. It's possible that the performance issues are limited to the Switch hardware, but it’s frustrating when so much of Mineko’s Night Market feels geared towards being played on this platform. It’s hard not to be disappointed that the game was launched in this kind of a state when it’s been delayed for four to five years.

I also wish that there was a bit more for dialogue with the townspeople. Each sidequest involves fetching items for each person in the town, based off their own wants and desires. But beyond that there’s no real dialogue with anyone. I noticed this with Mineko’s father, as well, where he has a couple canned responses but nothing much of substance once you finish all your tasks for the house. There’s some good characterization in cutscenes and main story beats, but I wish there was more to these people than just being vessels for quests.

The biggest endorsement of Mineko’s Night Market I can give is that despite the issues I have with it so far, I really do want to spend more time with this game. I am very invested with the ongoing story; I love spending time in this world. I adore so many elements of this game, and I really hope that a future patch can address some of the technical issues with it. At its core, Mineko’s Night Market is an endearing life sim that deserves attention, but for the moment, technical issues make it difficult to fully endorse this game on Switch.

This is a review-in-progress due to some technical errors that were fixed prior to launch. At this point I believe I’m about halfway through the story and wanted to fully progress through the story before making my final, scored review.

[An entertaining party affair, but the controls leave something to be desired.]

6

TalkBack / Samba de Amigo: Party Central (Switch) Review

« on: September 16, 2023, 08:13:28 PM »

An entertaining party affair, but the controls leave something to be desired.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/64878/samba-de-amigo-party-central-switch-review

When I was in high school, I made fond memories of going to sleepovers and school lock-ins and playing video games with friends. At the time, this was the peak of the popularity of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, so I have great memories of enjoying rhythm games with friends in a collaborative, party setting. This is what I think Samba de Amigo’s latest title, aptly subtitled Party Central, is made for. It’s not a game that is necessarily aimed at rhythm game fans or people who want to hone their rhythm game skills, but it is meant to bring out at a party.

Samba de Amigo: Party Central is the latest entry in Sega’s rhythm game series that got its start on the Dreamcast, and it stars a monkey named Amigo shaking maracas. I don’t have much history with the series prior to this entry (I desperately wanted a Dreamcast as a child but was very much a Nintendo Kid) so I’m not sure if anything is explained, but at the same time I don’t need it to be. This is a monkey who plays maracas, and according to the intro to this game, the maracas-shaking will somehow save the world. It’s a silly premise that I find charming and that works in the game’s favor; I never seemed to tire of watching Amigo dance around wildly.

The rhythm gameplay is centered around using your Joy-Con as maracas, hitting notes that are either up, to the side, or down and often shaking them wildly. This is intercut with the game asking you to pose or slide things around in a pattern. It’s fun and a pretty good workout; the first night I played Samba de Amigo: Party Central I got pretty sweaty. The biggest issue is that I felt like the accuracy was not always there. Part of that might have been user error–the game asks you told your controllers in a specific way–but it didn’t feel intuitive at all if that was the case. I tried my best to move in exactly the perfect way to get accurate results and it was still a struggle. Accuracy is better if you play the game with button inputs rather than motion, but considering the posing it’s very clear that this is not the way Samba de Amigo is meant to be played.

The game is centered around the standard rhythm game mode, which allows you to go through the entire list of songs and play them at any difficulty, which is likely to be the bulk of your time with the game. This largely works well; however, I would have liked more methods to sort through the music; it’s either the entire list at once or what you’ve listed as favorite songs. It also very bizarrely doesn’t list the actual artist or any information beyond the song’s title, which feels like a misstep. A greater number of options around knowing who the artists are and sorting through the tracklist seems like it would make more sense to me.

In terms of the music, the tracklist has highs and lows. It focuses a lot more on music that’s popular in the United States than either Latin music (as you might expect for a game titled “Samba de Amigo”) or Japanese music. The tracklist is largely inoffensive but consists mostly of songs that were popular about 10 years ago, such as “Tik Tok” by Kesha or “Break Free” by Ariana Grande. There are some Sega songs included in the base tracklist (“Escape from the City” from Sonic Adventure 2 is always a good pull for something like this) that add to the flavor, but I wish there would be a bit more game music or overall variety. While there are some song choices I particularly approve of (as a big Carly Rae Jepsen fan, I appreciate the inclusion of “I Really Like You”), for the most part it’s not a very exciting tracklist. Sega is, of course, releasing multiple DLC packs, so depending on that the music available is going to change if you’re willing to pay for it. As part of this review I had access to the Japanese music pack and the Sega Music Pack, which each added three new tracks. I particularly enjoyed just how ridiculous it was to play around to the song “Baka Mitai” from the Yakuza franchise, as I ended up pumping my fist to a relatively somber song.

There are additional modes to Party Central that add variety. One is Streamigo, which situates you as a streamer looking to complete challenges to gain viewers. This is a clever idea for a challenge mode and it’s themed very well, complete with a simulated chat talking about just how cool you are. Some of the challenges, however, get difficult and fast, and if you are looking to skip that you need to grind out levels to get further. I don’t mind difficulty, but combining that with the inaccurate controls makes things not as fun as they could be. For example, a challenge early on might be to get a large combo of only perfect notes, but that could easily be interrupted by a minigame that needs to be played perfectly to keep that combo. These could be nice challenges for players to work through, but the difficulty curve feels a bit uneven when considering the input issues.

World Party is an online mode that puts you in a lobby with several other players–there are 20 total people in each room, but I’m not sure if any of them are bots–and makes you play against one another, with the lowest performers getting kicked out after each song over the course of three rounds. It’s a fun conceit to add this sort of direct competition with several other players. However, it comes with a few caveats. First, part of the goal is to gain experience to move up tiers of play, but progress is remarkably slow. To get out of the first level you need 500 experience, but I only gained 50 for a first place victory. The other caveat, which makes the first even worse, is just how long it takes to get into one of these rooms. I’m not sure if I had bad luck, if the install base of this game is currently limited, or if I’m picking bad times, but it usually takes me a full two minutes to get into a room with 20 people. It feels particularly long when there’s nothing to do in the lobby; adding one of the mini games while waiting would have been a nice touch.

There are other multiplayer modes you can choose, both in person and online and including some mini games and special modes for multiplayer. This is part of why I think this game is particularly made for this kind of a party atmosphere, and while I didn’t get a chance to play with other people it made me want to keep an eye out for friends picking this up so we can enjoy these together.

One major aspect of the progression for the game is with customization in terms of avatars, outfits, maraca types and even sound effects. There’s a large amount of customization for all of these, which is a good incentive to keep going. If you get the digital deluxe version, there are some particularly fun Sega-themed options surrounding Sonic the Hedgehog, Space Channel Five and Puyo Puyo, among others, but there’s a lot of variety in terms of how you can tailor the experience that I enjoyed messing around with.

Samba de Amigo: Party Central isn’t a particularly necessary addition for rhythm gamers on the Switch, but it’s a solid party game if that’s something you’re looking for. While the controls aren’t as accurate as I’d like, the core gameplay is still enjoyable. The song list is largely inoffensive, and it’s likely you’ll find at least a handful of songs you might like. There are some fun additional modes and options to try that, while imperfect, add more playability to this game. I’m eager to see future song packs added, because the ones that exist are already pretty entertaining. I can only dream that Sega will release a maracas peripheral like they had for the Dreamcast.

[This remaster of a Nintendo DS title shines brightly on Switch.]

7

TalkBack / Rune Factory 3 Special (Switch) Review

« on: September 04, 2023, 11:01:00 PM »

This remaster of a Nintendo DS title shines brightly on Switch.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/64708/rune-factory-3-special-switch-review

The September 2022 Nintendo Direct solidified the rise of an unlikely genre of game: the farming simulator. While of course there had been games in the past that had tackled farming or had allowed for growing crops to be a mechanic, such as with my childhood favorite Harvest Moon (now localized as Story of Seasons) and the incredibly popular Stardew Valley, this direct showed that developers were betting on farming. One of the many games announced was Rune Factory 3 Special, a remaster of the Nintendo DS title and the third game in a series which originally spun off from Harvest Moon.

Rune Factory is an unsung hero in the development of the farming sim as a mainstream genre, adding combat and dungeon crawling to the laid-back feel of running a farm and building up relationships in town. It still provides the appeal of these farming games but also added depth with combat. The setting is also much more fantastical and this makes for a fun twist on the genre.

Rune Factory 3 Special starts off in a similar place to other games in the series, in that your character has amnesia and comes to a new town. You quickly move into your new home (charmingly built into a tree), get acquainted with the townspeople, and start farming. The twist here is that you can transform into a monster (an adorable sheeplike wooly) and are exploring the dungeons surrounding the town (each corresponding to a season) to learn more about why you can transform into a monster and what happened with your memories.

While the plot I described is pretty basic, what really shines in Rune Factory 3 is the characters. The character writing is some of my favorite that I’ve seen in a life sim or farming game, and I found myself drawn to learning more. Interpersonal relationships are a big part of the progression of Rune Factory 3, and I found myself actively looking forward to spending more time with townsfolk or doing requests that moved their stories forward. Requests also take inspiration from the characters mechanically. For example, if you accept a request from Karina, who is notably lazy, don’t expect much for a reward; she can’t be bothered for much more than pocket change. Every character is also intertwined in what feels like organic ways. There are existing friendships, parent-child relationships, mentorships, and rivalries that all were written with care. None of this feels superficial; the people you meet are at the core of Rune Factory 3 and drew me in in a way that none of the other games in this series have done.

Clearly the development of this remaster thought that relationships were important, because the biggest piece of additional content is Newlywed Mode. This mode adds a short additional story with each of the bachelorettes you could potentially marry in the main game, set after marriage (and with a save file with mostly maxed out stats). I personally married Raven, the taciturn blacksmith assistant who takes a long time to open up, so having a short story focused on her was a nice addition to the main game. It’s not particularly long or mechanically deep, but is a nice stinger. I’m interested to see just how the other stories go, as this one felt just right for Raven.

The elephant in the room for any discussion of a farming game is Stardew Valley, which, for better or worse, has defined a lot of the discussion around farming games in the Western market. Rune Factory 3 Special doesn’t have the level of depth for farming or customization that Stardew Valley has - you can’t create a completely automated, tricked out farm with an orchard and greenhouse, for example. However, there are a few benefits to Rune Factory 3. First off, in many ways Rune Factory 3 feels like a more relaxed experience. New systems and options are provided to you at a slow pace, so you don’t feel overwhelmed. Farming and fishing can also be done in the four seasonal dungeons, so if you need a vegetable that’s grown only in Spring but you’re in Autumn, you don’t have to wait until spring rolls back around. Rune Factory 3 also has more in the way of combat–specifically the titular runes (these can be used for magic or other special abilities), a number of different weapon types, and customization through the crafting system. Any weapon, armor, or accessory can be upgraded with a wide variety of items, this upgrade system leading to some interesting combinations. I upgraded my favorite weapons with some of the poison grass, which added a chance to poison enemies. There’s a lot to play around with here, and this is a featureI’m sure is going to be fun for people looking to enjoy the game’s new harder mode added to the Special version: Hell difficulty.

For my money, I do wish there was a bit more to do later in game for either upgrading your farm or house. You can upgrade storage and buy decorative items, but I hit a point where making money required little effort. By the end of my time with Rune Factory 3 Special, I was able to afford anything I wanted with no issue, so I ended up neglecting parts of my farm to push forward through the character stories. I’m sure this may not happen with everyone, but I just wish there was a bit more to actually do with your money, as I hit this point pretty quickly.

The presentation of Rune Factory 3 Special is quite good. Much of the attention has been brought to making character portraits look nicer, and they do look gorgeous on Switch. The opening animation is particularly nice (and the accompanying song goes harder than it needed to). The music isn’t very memorable but is largely serviceable, if repetitive. While there wasn’t a large graphics overhaul for the main gameplay, what’s there is charming enough that the developers didn’t have to; as someone who chose to stop playing Rune Factory 5 pretty early on due to performance issues, I’m relieved the game maintained its original art style and ran flawlessly.

Rune Factory 3 Special isn’t going to be for every farming game fan and won’t dethrone Stardew Valley as the most popular farming game, but its charming characters and setting make for a very enjoyable experience. I was surprisingly pleased at the quality of the writing and the depth of some of the crafting systems, and those propelled Rune Factory 3 Special forward to make it both relaxing and engaging. This is a worthy addition to the Switch library, and one I might return to in the future, if only to spend some time with some of my new favorite characters.

[Soup du jour. Hot hors d'oeuvres. Why, we only live to eat brains!]

8

TalkBack / Zombie Soup (Switch) Review

« on: August 10, 2023, 02:09:53 PM »

Soup du jour. Hot hors d'oeuvres. Why, we only live to eat brains!

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/64498/zombie-soup-switch-review

Starting up twin-stick shooter Zombie Soup, I was immediately hit with a sense of nostalgia, despite this being a new game by a newer developer I wasn’t previously aware of. This game evokes a style and nostalgia for early 2000s 3D cartoons, reminiscent of the somewhat off putting style of shows like Jimmy Neutron, where the models aren’t really appealing but that contributes to the overall feel. Zombie Soup feels kind of like that early 3D animation:  it has charm and parts of it are compelling, but ultimately it’s a bit rough around the edges.

Zombie Soup has a fairly straightforward premise. You play as Ricky, a backpacker who gets caught up in a zombie infestation and needs to save the girl. It’s pretty bare bones as far as stories go, and while there are some funny moments, a lot of the humor seems to get lost in this game. Certain plot beats fall far flatter than they ought to, as well. Early on, you run into a skeleton known as MC Skull, who then travels with you as a skull and provides the back and forth with Ricky. It feels pretty clear that AeonSparks Interactive wanted to make MC Skull a kind of mascot but nothing he says is particularly funny or stands out.

The gameplay is very solid: it’s an isometric twin-stick shooter with a variety of weapon classes to play around with. The main classes are pretty standard shooter fare, with pistols, shotguns and sniper rifles among the weapon types, but there are also special weapons you can find with fun effects and limited ammo. My personal favorite was the Basezooka, which lobs a volley of baseballs that bounce around your environment, but I had fun with most of the arsenal. There’s no consistent way to get these weapons so they’re less of a strategy and more of a novelty, but they do a good job of shaking things up and making the moment to moment gameplay more fun.

The actual gameplay involves moving through several different environments (a club, a hospital, a cemetery, etc.) while looking for the next boss to defeat so that you can move forward. Occasionally there are side missions, like finding an item for someone else, but they’re mostly backtracking through previous areas. The layout of these vary from either unobtrusive to annoying, but are for the most part solid. There seems to be very little incentive to fight the average mob of zombies, unless you’re hunting for a particular special weapon or need the currency for upgrades (which I rarely didn’t have enough of) so at a certain point I started dodging enemies rather than fighting my way through them. I just wish there was maybe more incentive to fighting the average zombies. The upgrade system is very basic (a handful of tiers you can choose one perk from) so maybe supplementing or augmenting that could be a way to make the grind feel worth it. There are some challenges you can approach, such as replaying boss fights with different items and timed challenges to get different weapons, but nothing in particular that personally interested me to keep playing beyond the 10 or so hour runtime.

Part of the reason I suggest tweaking the upgrade system is that Zombie Soup gets hard, fast. The difficulty curve shoots straight up at the third major boss, which feels like it comes out of nowhere. After that, I definitely had to take a few tries to defeat any of the bosses, once I got the timing down. While there are certain aspects of the mechanics I found frustrating, such as how slowly the stamina meter recharged and how unforgiving the invincibility frames could be, I loved that feeling of satisfaction when taking down a particularly tricky boss. I think your enjoyment of Zombie Soup is going to be based completely on how you feel with difficult encounters like this.

Unfortunately, the difficulty spike in boss fights leads to more frustration with certain aspects of Zombie Soup. Occasionally there are some glitches, and while they’re rare they can be quite annoying. I was particularly frustrated by a fight against two bosses at the same time where one somehow despawned mid-fight, which forced me to reload even though that had been my best attempt so far. Another glitch was in the pre-fight cutscene, which showed Ricky running into a door and not through it for several seconds before loading in the fight. Boss fights with any sort of animated cutscene can be skipped but if it’s done in the game engine, it can’t be skipped, which makes trying a difficult encounter over and over even more grating. The music for Zombie Soup is decent, but each boss fight has the same music which got monotonous fast with how repetitive it could be.

Zombie Soup is a flawed but interesting twin-stick shooter. I certainly enjoyed my time with it but there were a number of frustrations that made it hard to be an instant recommendation. It doesn’t add anything particularly new to the genre while also not being polished enough to perfect the genre. That said, it’s a solid game that makes me want to see more from this studio, and one I would recommend to fans of these shooters who want that welcome satisfaction of triumphing over a stiff challenge.

[A beautiful look back at childhood in the French countryside.]

9

TalkBack / Dordogne (Switch) Review

« on: July 31, 2023, 06:11:26 PM »

A beautiful look back at childhood in the French countryside.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/64436/dordogne-switch-review

One of my earliest memories of childhood is going to a nearby art museum with my mom. She was an art student in school, and throughout my childhood she loved to share her passion for art with my brother and me, so I spent many moments as a youth taking art classes and walking through galleries, looking at beautiful pieces of art. My mom especially loves watercolors, so playing through Dordogne felt, very appropriately, like a trip back to my own childhood.

Dordogne is a story of remembrance, of revisiting the good and bad of childhood. The game follows Mimi, a French woman in her early 30s, visiting her recently passed grandmother’s home to look for a box of items left behind for her. In doing so, she is piecing together her fragmented memories of a summer 20 years before that they spent together in this house in the French countryside, along the Dordogne river. The game takes place over eight chapters, going back and forth in time as you experience young Mimi’s summer and adult Mimi connecting the dots about a past she had forgotten.

The most immediately stunning aspect is the art style, which is a loose watercolor aesthetic that makes this an incredibly beautiful game to play through. Wandering through this depiction of the French countryside is a joy, with every piece of scenery a visual treat. Early on you get a camera to take photos with as young Mimi, and I could have played and enjoyed a game of just capturing these moments. I’m especially fond of any moments near the river, which involves some gorgeous reflections, but this entire game is aesthetically pleasing from start to finish. Beyond that, though, the presentation of the entire game is wonderful. The music is understated but fits every scene perfectly, and the audio effects are sublime.

Gameplay is a bit harder to give full-throated praise, with certain aspects I enjoyed and certain aspects that I wish had gone back to the drawing board. One of the best parts of the game was making a scrapbook binder as young Mimi, ending most days with making a page of a photo, a sticker (picked up either while walking around or during events), and some poetry based off of words you encounter during your day. This leads to a great feeling of connection, allowing for some form of self-expression and making you connect directly to Mimi’s feelings and thoughts. However, throughout the rest of the gameplay there are a number of point-and-click elements that often felt more like a chore than anything else. At its worst it felt like Octodad, where you’re manipulating Mimi’s limbs to do a task (for example brushing her teeth), which doesn't have a narrative or emotional weight but isn’t engaging on a technical level either. While I appreciate certain elements of this interactivity, I wish there was a bit more thought to which scenes were shown and which parts were interactive, since certain elements work very well (not to spoil the story, but something came back late game that made me genuinely emotional).

While I did enjoy the story a lot, this also came with some caveats. The characters were very well written, with Mimi in particular being a great point of view character. The family conflict is also interesting, and I found myself propelled like Mimi to discover more. At times, however, I wish there was more to discover. The house you’re staying at and surrounding areas are beautiful and feel like there should be more to discover than there is. At the core there is this question of why Mimi lost her memory and why the family is estranged, the answer was so rushed that I was left wondering “is that it?” when the game came to a close. Other elements are more implied and not fully answered, which would be fine if there were more pieces to the story to put together. The pieces we had were great; the story as a whole just felt somewhat incomplete. I also should mention that throughout these various scenes the load times were much longer than they should be, which added to the flawed pacing.

Dordogne is an interesting, imperfect game with some phenomenal design and visuals. The watercolor graphics make for one of the most stunning games I’ve seen for a while, and some of the interactive choices worked incredibly well, such as the activity of putting photos and poems together to make the binder Mimi longs to rediscover. While there are certain areas of frustration, I ultimately enjoyed my time in exploring Mimi’s childhood memories (and my own) through art.

[An SRPG roguelike dish in need of more seasoning.]

10

TalkBack / Monster Menu: The Scavenger's Cookbook

« on: July 21, 2023, 08:43:47 AM »

An SRPG roguelike dish in need of more seasoning.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/64328/monster-menu-the-scavengers-cookbook

Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook is a game made up of many appealing ingredients. It’s a roguelike strategy RPG dungeon-crawler with an anime art style and crafting mechanics. If you asked me to build a game out of buzzwords that appeal to me, Monster Menu would come close. However, it came out not quite matching the promise of its winning concept, a bit half-baked if you will (I apologize for any and all food puns in this review).

Made by Nippon Ichi Software (NIS), makers of games like the Disgaea series, Monster Menu takes place in a fantasy setting where your character has gone to explore a dungeon. However, through poor planning and getting lost, your character is at death’s door at the start of the game, with no food or supplies. Eventually, you come across a dead monster, whose arm you chow down on, despite clearly being disgusting. The name of the game here is survival using the materials at hand, which in this case are monster parts.

Shortly after this intro, you build out the rest of your party using standard fantasy character classes, set up a base camp, and explore a procedurally generated dungeon. The dungeon is made up of individual floors that you can rest between, and on the 10th floor there is a boss fight. The next floor after that starts a new biome. Exploration takes place in roguelike fashion - you go through floors, fighting enemies for as long as you can, and once you die you go back to floor one and start over at level one, keeping your equipment with you. You then start from scratch.

The combat is that of a grid-based SRPG that forms when you run into a monster on the map, and then contains all the monsters that are in the vicinity. This leads to some strategy before you even join a fight, because you determine how many enemies you want to fight and can attempt to get the advantage by sneaking up on them. If you run into an enemy from behind to sneak up on them all the members in your party can move first (however, the enemies can do the same to you). Without any advantage, the turn order is based off of speed. The rest of combat involves turn-based attacks and skills, using your positioning to your advantage. The one unusual menu option during a fight is Devour. When you defeat an enemy, its body will still be in the grid, and if a character chooses the Devour option, it will consume that enemy, gain back some health, and also gain some skills for the particular battle it’s in. It’s a neat idea, but since it takes a turn, the health recovery could be marginal, and because the skills wouldn’t carry over, I found myself not using this as much, especially since this would consume any of the items you would be able to loot from the enemy.

The food mechanic doesn’t stop there. The only healing items are food and water, which you can eat or drink in the field for a basic boost if need be. However, it’s almost always a better option to save your items for your rest areas between levels, where you can rest to heal at the expense of your hunger and thirst meters, which are also constantly draining. While at camp, you can cook items based on a variety of recipes, which not only make you less hungry or thirsty but also give you stat boosts and passive skills for the rest of the run. Ingredients also have a freshness meter before they go bad and since all of your ingredients are things you looted from monsters, different food items can actually affect your happiness meter, which temporarily lowers your stats. Ultimately, the cooking mechanic becomes a constant balancing act where you are trying to make sure all of your characters survive, while also improving your stats and handling all these meters. There’s also a simple crafting mechanic as well where you can improve and repair your items. Monster Menu is all about balancing several different meters and stats which ends up becoming a true juggling act, where if things are going well you can optimize your characters based off of strategy, but if you are having a difficult run you might be struggling just to keep your characters fed.

The presentation is solid - the art style is a cute chibi anime art style that allows for customization while you create your characters, and the music is repetitive but good. The biggest issue with the presentation were the repetitive voice lines. When each floor has several different points where you can loot monsters or gather items but only a small handful of lines for that, it gets borderline annoying to the point where I often played the game on mute, if only to not hear my character go “could this be?” every time I opened a chest. That said, I do like the art style, and the presentation of some of the more disgusting menu items; there’s even an option to censor particularly gross items, which is a nice touch.

The biggest issue with Monster Menu is just how repetitive every run can be. Each floor’s map might have a different layout but roughly the same enemies. Because you are running the same characters you created at the start, you can’t experiment with different classes without starting a new game, so the gameplay constantly feels the same - there isn’t the joy of experimenting with different builds that makes me love roguelikes. There isn’t much you can do to play with builds, and rarely did I lose feeling like I at least learned something new, understanding a way to improve my strategy or gameplay and get just a little bit further. Ultimately, it felt like the only thing driving progress in Monster Menu was getting marginally better loot, and it’s not a particularly compelling hook.

Storywise, there is very little beyond the intro as I described earlier and some notes you can pick up about another party that aren’t particularly interesting, certainly not enough to entice players to push ahead. The game also had a few crashes on Switch, which was frustrating. This only happened a handful of times throughout my time with Monster Menu, so it wasn’t a pervasive issue–and the game does have an autosave feature–but it was demoralizing for a game I was already not enjoying very much.

Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook is frustrating because I feel like there could be a good game in here. In fact, if NIS decided to put out a sequel, I might be inclined to check it out because they have made a number of excellent RPGs in the past. It just feels like they threw in so many systems, meters, and mechanics that they forgot to put in something to compel you to keep playing. There are many better games out there in all of the genres that this one borrows from that despite interesting ideas, Monster Menu can’t come together to provide a satisfying meal.

[A blast from the crafting-focused past.]

11

TalkBack / Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg (Switch) Review

« on: July 12, 2023, 02:00:00 AM »

A blast from the crafting-focused past.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/64254/atelier-marie-remake-the-alchemist-of-salburg-switch-review

The Atelier series of games is having a surge of popularity, with the recent release of the third game in the Ryza/Secret subseries of games and the release of the anime adaptation of the first game in that series, Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness and the Secret Hideout. With that momentum, developer Gust is returning to the series’ roots with a remake of the first game in the Atelier series, Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg. As a fan of the Atelier series, I was excited to give this game a shot, as this is the first time this entry is releasing overseas. And while I personally really enjoyed my time with Atelier Marie, this might not be the game fans are expecting if they have only played the more recent entries.

In Atelier Marie, you play the titular Marie (shortened from Marlone) who is told, due to her poor performance at the alchemy academy, that she has five years to become a skilled alchemist in a small workshop she’s been provided. This starts the core gameplay loop, where you spend the next five years exploring the world, gathering materials for alchemy, going back to the atelier to craft items–which can be used to complete quests or used in combat to allow for gathering in more dangerous areas–rinse and repeat. The game’s combat is fairly basic, consisting of a simple turn-based system, and the alchemy system is similarly approachable. Where the game’s difficulty lies is in resource management. Much like other early Atelier games, such as the Arland subseries, Atelier Marie puts you on a time limit. While five years sounds like a long time, almost every action takes an inordinate amount of in-game time; traveling, gathering materials, and alchemy all take time. So throughout this game you are balancing your time, money, and materials, making decisions to try and optimize this process. Do you go out and gather all your materials, or do you hire a helpful elf who will do so for a monthly fee? Do you hire a strong mercenary who can help you handle battles with ease (for a higher fee) or try to make combat work with your best friend, who is weak but goes out fighting for free?

While this time management system has long been a subject of debate among Atelier fans (the discussion of which game is best to start with often revolves around it), I think it lends a unique quality to these early games that I personally enjoy. However, it might not be to every player’s liking. The other aspect that this lends itself to is replayability, because it’s impossible to see and do everything in one playthrough. In my first playthrough, it says I completed 64% of the game’s events that can be seen in game. So while a single playthrough took me about 10 hours, I could easily do a new game plus run to see more. I plan to do so (though perhaps after a break), because the setting and characters were enjoyable enough that I’d like to see the end of each individual storyline. While I think the Atelier series’ character writing and storytelling has improved over the years, the characters in Marie aren’t as likable to me as the characters in the Arland subseries, and the world building/storytelling isn’t as strong as in the Dusk subseries. Still, Atelier Marie Remake oozes with charm and makes you love these characters and this tiny town you’re based in.

The game also includes a list of all the cutscenes and events and some of the details to trigger them, which will make accessing them easier. I’d personally recommend doing a playthrough without keeping that in mind, interacting with characters you want to interact with, and then using that as a guide to get the events you wanted to see most. It’s easy to miss certain events and days on the calendar (I didn’t experience an annual event until year 5, and there are characters I never met), but the game’s event log lets me know what events I can aim for or plan to hit next time.

Visually, Atelier Marie is hit or miss. The chibi art style is likely to be divisive, though it makes sense coming from a PS1-era JRPG. That said, the 2D art for the cutscenes is really stunning and makes me wish there were more excuses to see that art style. The aspect that bothers me the most with the visuals is a fog/blur effect when moving around the town and exploring. It’s distracting and doesn’t add anything visually; part of me wonders if this is attempting for a stylized effect–along the lines of the Link’s Awakening remake–but not doing a good job with it. It makes me wish there was more of a stylized approach to the 3D chibi visuals.

The one gameplay aspect that did not work were the minigames. Throughout the course of the experience, game there are several instances where the standard flow of gameplay will be interrupted; for example, after you make cheese a mouse will steal it. Then you will get into a related minigame (in this particular case, chasing the mouse in a maze while being able to push objects in its path to trap it), with good results leaving you with more of the item. Passing the game leaves you with the normal amounts of the item, and failure leads you to lose the item. These minigames are all dull at best and unfun at worst. They happen very infrequently, so this shouldn’t be a deal breaker, but it seems pretty clear why these minigames (which were in the original PS1 release) did not become a mainstay of the series.

Atelier Marie isn’t the Atelier series at its peak, but I wouldn’t expect it to be: it is the first game in the series, after all. As such, I likely wouldn’t recommend this game to a newcomer to the series. Each subseries (i.e. Arland, Dusk, Mysterious, Ryza/Secret) is self-contained, so it’s not necessary to play Marie before those other games. However, for fans of the series it’s fun to see where it all started and how much Gust got right from the start, considering this is still a very fun, breezy JRPG to play. It makes me hope that other games in the series can be brought to modern platforms and that the Atelier series can continue to thrive!