Showing posts with label adventure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adventure. Show all posts

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Retro Game Review | Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (1999)

A long, long time ago I wrote an article about my favourite retro games to play around the holidays and one of the games I featured was Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. Why? Honestly, there’s no good reason other than the fact that I first played it around Christmas of 1999. I didn’t look for it under the tree or pine over it in gaming magazines that year or anything. I just went to the rental store for something to play on a random December weekend, snagged a copy of Soul Reaver for the PlayStation because the graphics looked cool, and that’s it!

Many years later I would finally pickup a copy of my very own, but for the PC, and since then I install it during my Christmas break and at least play a few hours, if only to try and relive those memories for a little while.

It occurred to me that I had never really reviewed or talked about the game except to say that I liked playing it by Christmas light every few years, so I thought that might be a fun article to post!

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is the sequel to Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, which released on the Sony PlayStation in 1996 and on the PC the following year. It was developed by Silicon Knights, who also did Eternal Darkness on the GameCube, and published by Crystal Dynamics, most notable for developing Tomb Raider.

Blood Omen was a top-down action RPG, which featured the titlular character Kain, a nobleman who has been killed and turned into a vampire. The story follows Kain as he seeks revenge for his affliction by destroying the nine pillars of Nosgoth – the fictional world the Legacy of Kain games are set in – only to find himself reveling in his new vampiric evolution.

The game was popular enough, mostly because of its adult theme and violence, all of which garnered it a sequel. Crystal Dynamics began development of “Legacy of Kain 2” immediately after the release of Blood Omen, but legal woes with Silicon Knights caused delays in the release and forced Crystal Dynamics to remove certain features and elements from the game. Ultimately, they broke through the legal issues and were able to publish Soul Reaver in the summer of ’99.

Despite having some of the game elements disabled, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is a fully-featured title set many years after the events of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. SPOILER ALERT! Kain, after defeating eight of the nine pillars’ guardians, came to the realization that he was the ninth guardian. In order to restore Nosgoth, Kain had to sacrifice himself, but would not. Instead Nosgoth began a slow decline into ruin, while Kain and his vampire brood continued to flourish and evolve. One of his most trusted lieutenants is Raziel, the main character of Soul Reaver.

In an amazing opening cutscene you get some of this backgroud story and witness Kain’s jealousy and aggression when Raziel evolves and grows wings – a gift Kain himself has not yet been given. In a fit of rage, Kain destroys Raziel’s wings and throws him into a swirling vortex to toil in agony for all eternity.

1500 years later, the Elder God of Nosgoth resurrects Raziel as a Wraith – a creature of the “spirit realm”, which can devour the souls of the dead. He gives Raziel the choice to hunt down and kill Kain, both out of vengeance and to restore the pillars of Nosgoth, ending the world’s decay. Thus, he names Raziel his Soul Reaver – which is a reference to the name of Kain’s sword – and sets him loose on the dying lands with his new purpose.

Sounds incredible, right! Well, it is. The story of the Legacy of Kain games is absolutely top tier. The gameplay would also become a very important part of what the series would become and that starts here, with Soul Reaver.

Unlike Blood Omen, which was top-down, Soul Reaver is in full 3D. It’s an action game with puzzle aspects. You can move Raziel through the 3D environment of both the spirit realm and Nosgoth, which adds extra depth to all the environments of the game as they can typically be navigated in both dimensions.

At its core, the game is really a Metroidvania. I can sense a lot of “gamers” just picked up their torches and took to the comment section to ream me out!

Metroidvania is a portmanteau of the titles Metroid and Castlevania, both known for their non-linear action adventure titles, where the player is placed in an “open world” of sorts – not just moving left to right through stages – but traversing back and forth through a sustained environment, unlocking new areas by getting new abilities or finding keys.

At first Raziel can really only shift between realms and devour souls, but soon gains abilities like phasing through gates that block his path or climbing certain walls. This allows him to find his way through the dying Nosgoth to hunt and kill Kain.

After encountering Kain for the first time, Raziel gains his main weapon – the soul reaver itself. Kain attempts to use his century old blade to kill Raziel again, but instead the weapon is destroyed and its essence becomes merged with Raziel as an ethereal extension of his arm. As the game progresses, you can gain new abilities to help in battling the vampire hordes that languish in the world, as well as upgrade the soul reaver.

The gameplay can honestly be a little repetitive and the environments, although mastered in beautiful 3D for their time, can feel a little too alike. That’s kind of typical for games of its time, but what makes Soul Reaver shine is pretty much everything else.

The voice acting and music are too good not to mention. If you’ve played video games, you know that the voice acting can be really abysmal, but that is not the case here. Many sites and magazines will list the Legacy of Kain series as the top 50 best voice acted games and it’s a worthy kudo.

The music is also a standout. It has a very industrial feel to it, which seems off considering the fantasy aspects of the game, but it totally works. Each area of Nosgoth has a unique theme, but the music will naturally change to suit the current situation. In a battle, the music will be more epic and exciting, while it will be more muted and subdued as the player explores each region.

The story is just so engrossing. Soul Reaver builds on the already great world created in Blood Omen, but really takes everything to the next level. And, if you can believe it, things get even better in its direct sequel, Soul Reaver 2, which actually incorporates time travel!

All-in-all, Soul Reaver is an absolutely amazing game and a real triumph of its time. Yes, it can be a little repetitive, but all of the seamlessly integrated story elements and cutscenes will absolutely grab you and keep you motivated to continue on.

I’ve been playing the game on PC for many years. I can’t recall exactly how the PlayStation version looked – and I’m sure it’s serviceable – but I have to say that PC is probably the way to go, if you can. It was also released on the Sega Dreamcast in 2000, which I hear is the best console version by far. I have to say that the game still looks amazing on PC at its highest resolutions on my 720p TV.

It took a little finagling to get a new controller to work for it, but the time was worth it. The game supports Direct Input, which was the standard in the late-90s, but these days most controllers us XInput. A quick internet search allowed me to find a tool that will map a controller to Direct Input for you easily. I actually plugged in one of my PlayStation Classic controllers, which use USB, and it really helps to simulate those nostalgic vibes!

For me, there’s something special about replaying Soul Reaver with nothing but soft Christmas lights to brighten my darkened room, but as I’m sure no one else shares that attachment, trust me – you can enjoy Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver any time of the year. So go ahead and do that! It’s actually on sale as I write this for $1.09 CDN on GOG.com (Windows PC version) and runs for $5.99 as a PSOne Classic on the Sony PlayStation 3 or PSP systems (NOTE: PSOne Classics can only be purchased from a PS3 console), so you really have nothing to lose!

Is there anything tradition, movie, or game that you like to enjoy during the holidays, but it has nothing to do with the season? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Merry Christmas,
R

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Syphon Filter (1999) | Sony PlayStation | Game Review



By 1999, the year Syphon Filter was released on the Sony PlayStation, gaming was dominated by several trends. The first had actually evolved from a trend into the new standard for the vast majority of games going forward: 3D graphics and gameplay in partially 3D to fully 3D environments. 

The resounding success of Super Mario 64 in 1996 and many of the Nintendo 64 games that followed convinced publishers that 3D was not only the future of video games, it was the present. The PlayStation and Sega Saturn’s hardware weren’t as proficient as the 64’s when it came to 3D graphics but the pressure was on to produce 3D games. Both systems did go on to have some very good 3D games while 2D was seen as passé and games in that style dropped off significantly.

The other trend relevant to Syphon Filter was that of the stealth action genre. While 1997’s Goldeneye – the N64’s massively successful movie-based first person shooter – offered plenty of action and moments where the player must take on waves of enemies as is customary for the genre, the spy aspect did squeeze in a little sneaking around. It was to the player’s benefit to take out enemies quickly and quietly before the alarm was raised bringing reinforcements. The use of silencers was key as was good accuracy; often you only had one chance to silently take out an enemy and if you missed the heat would be on.



The following year saw the release of the game most responsible for the rise of stealth: Metal Gear Solid. Bringing in the elements that made its 8-bit predecessors in the series, Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, unique, as well as adding in some new ones to the 32-bit realm, Metal Gear Solid was a masterpiece of, in its own words “Tactical Espionage Action”. The game’s entire premise was that of infiltration and in most places, a strategy of avoiding enemies rather than engaging them was key. Not only was it still quite different from other games of the time, it was a lot of fun. As much as gamers had enjoyed titles with a “guns blazing” approach – blasting all enemies like a space marine – this sneaky alternative proved to be extremely enjoyable. Successfully passing through areas undetected forced the player to be more thoughtful and creative. The game was a success as big if not bigger than Goldeneye so a wave of imitators was inevitable. 

Metal Gear Solid: Often imitated, never duplicated.

Which brings us back to Syphon Filter. Possibly you forgot that’s what this article is about. You are forgiven.

Developed by the little-known Eidetic, whose only game to that point was one of the absolute worst of the aforementioned wave of fully 3D games, Bubsy 3D, Syphon Filter is no Metal Gear Solid clone, but it’s definitely strongly influenced by the Konami title. The player finds himself in control of a covert agent Gabriel Logan engaged in a series of missions. The agency is tracking terrorist Erich Rhoemer, who has acquired a deadly biological weapon called Syphon Filter (which, yes, is similar to Metal Gear Solid’s FOXDIE) and has just launched an attack on Washington, DC. Just like Goldeneye and most spy movies, Logan’s quest brings him to a variety of locations throughout the world. The story is fairly standard and it’s not necessary to relate it here. Logan himself is a fairly bland character and his voice actor makes him sound approximately seventy years old.

The gameplay takes place in third person with Logan going through 3D environments and the player can rotate the camera as needed. While the camera isn’t perfect and you can sometimes end up with some inconvenient angles, it’s usually not enough to truly hamper you. It’s not a platformer requiring precise jumps like Super Mario 64 after all.

That isn’t to say precision isn’t required, though. Aiming certain weapons shifts the perspective to first person and it can be tricky if you’re under pressure from enemies. While the game favours a stealthy approach, Gabe is still going to see plenty of combat as enemies sometimes come at him in waves. But the real challenge lies in entering new rooms or areas where enemies have already taken up firing positions. Cover isn’t always available and even when it is, it’s tenuous.

I haven’t watched videos of people playing Syphon Filter so I only really know how I chose to play it. My main strategy involves almost constant movement once I’m in a gun battle. This frantic style of play enables you to dodge bullets but makes aiming difficult and weapons do run out of ammo. So in some of the later levels it can take several attempts to figure out the best way to navigate a prolonged battle. A few years later, I’d apply a similar strategy to the Max Payne games but it was easier there because of that game’s feature of being able to slow down time.

While Syphon Filter falls well short of the standard set by Metal Gear Solid in terms of gameplay, story, voice acting and music, it still does add a few neat wrinkles of its own. For instance, in taking advantage of the game’s decent lighting effects, some areas are dark enough to require you to use a flashlight. In certain instances this can be a calculated risk as light can alert nearby enemies when you’re trying to sneak past them.


Syphon Filter was well received and spawned two sequels in quick succession. I’m fairly certain I’ve played both; I know for sure I did play Syphon Filter 2 but can’t really remember much about it beyond it playing exactly like the original game. Beyond that trilogy there came several more I never played: Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain in 2004, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror in 2006 and Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow in 2007. The latter three were all for the PlayStation 2 and were mostly lost in the shuffle during those years. But playing once more through the original has made me curious about them.

Syphon Filter may have been the byproduct of trends but it’s still a solid game that’s fairly fun to play and takes some skill to complete. I was even driven to frustration at some parts but I wouldn’t call the difficulty cheap or unforgiving. One just has to make the proper adjustments. In the end, Gabriel Logan never joined the upper echelon of classic video game characters but he sits somewhere comfortably in the middle as the protagonist of a pretty good series. That’s more than can be said for many others.

cole d'arc

Cole d'arc is a writer based out of Halifax, NS. He is a practiced blogeteer and professional lister at Five-O-Rama, is the man behind Cole Talks Comics on YouTube, and talks about movies and video games live from the Movie Discussion Pocket Dimension and The Final Dungeon

Friday, June 14, 2019

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) - 1989

Do you remember the very first video game you ever played? I know mine! It was Super Mario Bros. Do you know the second? Ooh, I do! It was Duck Hunt. But can you recall the third video game you ever played?

Mine was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!


It was Christmas 1989... but also possibly 1990? I'm a little nebulous on this. I know that my mother has a photo from the Christmas morning in question, but I haven't been able to find it to confirm. Either way, that Christmas I received a Nintendo Entertainment System Action Set, which came packed in with Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt, but I also got another game, which was TMNT.

Regardless of the year, at this point in my life nothing mattered more than the Ninja Turtles. I was the prime demographic for the show when it launched in '87. By the time '89/'90 rolled around I would've been watching the Turtles almost every day in syndication, had plastered my walls with TMNT memorabilia, and swam in a bucket full of Playmates Turtle action figures. The video game, however, couldn't have been further from my mind.

I was around 6 and I actually had no idea what a Nintendo was. I can still recall getting it for Christmas and having no idea what I was looking at. My parents actually had an Intellivision when I was really young, but it had stopped working, so they were familiar with the concept, but I was totally in the dark.

As I recall, the first game I booted up was, of course, Super Mario Bros. It took a while to get used to how to move - which included a lot of me jumping with my controller, like I was somehow tethered to Mario himself - but I eventually got the hang of it. The controls in SMB make it easy. They are so tight. Once you get used to the idea of pushing buttons at the same time and how gravity works in the Mushroom Kingdom, you're well on your way to mastering the game.

This is, unfortunately, not the case with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The controls were a little bit "floaty". It takes some getting used to, but I would argue that the controls for TMNT get a bad rap. They are a little off, but the same could be said for countless other video games at the time and not just on the NES.

Another thing that jumped out at me while playing TMNT NES for the first time was how batshit crazy it is! The first enemies you encounter have some familiarity. There are Mousers and Foot Soldiers, but also killer bees? After a few moments, however, one of the game's weirdest features will rear it's ugly head. The enemies in the game will swap randomly. The other sets of baddies you face are out of some crazy nightmare.

Do you remember when the Turtles faced off against the Human Torch? Or a chainsaw wielding maniac in a hockey mask? Yeah, me either, but they're in there! There are also giant mutant frog men, robots with flying heads, a creepy hunchback that turns into smaller creepy hunchbacks, and these Lovecraftian jumping leg things that cling to the ceiling, just to name a few.

Honestly, I appreciate the creativity with the bad guys in the video game. Sure, the programmers had a lot to work with, having access to already established comic and cartoon universes, but there's no reason the monsters and enemies they created couldn't have existed in any other TMNT canon. I mean, there's a character in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comics that is literally a flying, talking cow's head that slurps up/spits out its passengers and can cross whole dimensions of time and space.


You're my boy, Cudley!

I thought for years that the game must have been in development before the cartoon launched and that explained all the crazy bad guys that didn't marry up with the show, but that wasn't the case. The video game was certainly put into motion because of the fervor the cartoon stirred up and wouldn't have existed without it.

The game was developed by none-other than Japan's video game powerhouse, Konami. It was published by Konami in Japan, but under the Ultra Games imprint in North America and PALCOM in Europe, which was just a super hinky way for Konami to release more games in other regions than Nintendo would allow for at the time.

A quick note that the game was so popular in the PAL regions it actually got it's own NES bundle. Everything you needed to play Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles! Yeah, apparently ninjas are frowned upon overseas.


The game was released in Japan ahead of the Japanese dubs of the cartoon show, so maybe my theory about the progammers having to make up their own ideas holds some weight, but I'd say its just another case of Japanese developers doin' they thang.

The story is basically ripped from the cartoon: The Turtles find out that the Shredder has a "life transformer gun" (uh-huh...) and that they can use it to turn their master Splinter back into a human, so they're seeking out the Shred-dude to find it. Along the way they have to save April O'Neil from Bebop and Rocksteady, stop the Foot Clan from blowing up a dam on the Hudson River, save Splinter from Mecha-Turtle, find the Turtle Blimp at JFK Airport, chase Shredder to a hidden base, and finally face off against their enemy in the Technodrome. And eat lots of pizza along the way!


I think the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES is the box art. It was incredible. I had no idea at the time that it was ripped from the cover of the comic book! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Volume 1 Issue #4 featured cover art by the original artists/creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird (I honestly don't know who drew the cover). When it was re-issued years later, Michael Dooney re-imagined the artwork and took it to the next level. It was this artwork that was lifted for the game's box and label art and it's just so iconic.


If nothing else, the cover art confused every child that saw it. "Why are all the Turtles wearing red!?" Considering the wave caused by the TV series it is certainly surprising that they went with a comic book cover depicting the brothers in all red face masks, but that was how things were in the early comic books.

The player takes control of all four Turtles, each armed with their weapon of choice. This will lead you to a team hierarchy, whether you like it or not. Leonardo uses the katana, which are a great mid-range weapon that deal decent damage. Michaelangelo uses the nunchaku, which I would say makes him arguably the exact same as Leonardo, but sacrificing some range for speed. Donatello uses the bo staff, which while it is the most powerful of the stock ninja weapons is a little trickier to aim. Finally, Raphael uses the sai, which seem to be the least powerful and have almost no range. For Raphael fans, like myself, this sucks as Raph basically gets relegated to the "Turtle you're okay with sacrificing". I personally try to reserve Don for boss fights where his bo can get a few extra powerful hits in and for the most part I play as Leonardo or Mikey interchangeably, leaning on Leo since he's the first Turtle on the pause menu.


You can also collect sub-weapons. Most of them appear is random drops from enemies, like shuriken, triple shuriken, and the boomerang. You can select and de-select them with the... wait for it... select button. The most coveted sub-weapon is the Kiai - or as everyone else knows it - the scroll weapon, made famous by the greatest Nintendo commercial ever created, The Wizard! This bad boy was the most powerful and took up a lot of pixels for maximum effectiveness. You couldn't get this one from a drop, however. It was hidden somewhere in the game!


Another handy item you'll find along the way are the missiles, which you can launch from the Turtle Van. That's right, you get to drive the van! In the third stage you'll find it waiting for you on the overworld map. It protects you from Foot Soldiers roaming around the streets of NYC (just run them over!) and the missiles can break through roadblocks that keep you from finding Master Splinter. The last item that comes to mind is the rope, which you'll need to cross from rooftop to rooftop in a few places.

At the end of the day, even if you can master the controls and know where all the best weapons and items are hidden, this game is still so friggin' hard. If you've beaten Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES then you've earned a badge of Nintendo Honour, my friend. Most people I talk to can't get past the Hudson Dam.

Now, the NES wasn't the only place you could play this TMNT game. In addition to being available on Playchoice-10 arcade machines (essentially just arcade units with an NES in them), in anticipation for its popularity the game was ported to just about every PC platform available at the time. There were ports for the Amiga, Amstrad, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS DOS, MSX, and ZX Spectrum. There is a lot of varying quality here, as some of these were written by one or two coders at most and under strict timelines.

I haven't played any of the PC ports of the game, but the MS DOS port was one of my most coveted games when I was a kid. Back in the early-90s my local K-Mart had a really cool video game section, which none of the other stores around me had at the time. In it, behind glass, was a copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for MS DOS in this beautiful big box and, boy, did I want it.

And, boy, am I lucky I never got it. From what I can tell it's easily the worst port of the game. The Amiga, Amstrad, and Atari ST versions seem to be the best graphically, and the C64 and ZX versions appear to be somewhat playable, but the MS DOS version just looks like hot garbage. The Pause Screen images are some of the most hilarious I've ever seen. April looks like some kind of insect woman.


Even better is that the QA behind the North American DOS version wasn't up-to-snuff and there is an impossible jump in the game. Some people have discovered a "no clip" code that allows you to bypass the jump, and some even more industrious individuals have written files from the European releases, which contain a fix for the issue, onto their NA copies of the game, but at the end of the day I doubt most people had enough patience to play the DOS version enough to give a damn.

So, like I said in the beginning, I think that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES gets a bit of a bad rap, because its fairly difficult and has slightly wonky controls, but it is without a doubt one of my favourite video games. It's probably the nostalgia talking, but only a handful of games can really take me back in time and this is one of them. I think, just like with many NES games, with a little practice and patience it's just as playable as most games on the system. It's a bright, colourful, and interesting take on the Turtle Universe and I love it.

But, there's more! In the near future we'll be talking about the sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game!

Stay tuned,
R

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Kamiko (2017) - Nintendo Switch

As a palette cleanser between The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, I decided I wanted to play something quick and simple on my Nintendo Switch. After a little searching around the web I came across Kamiko, which was just what I was looking for.

At $6.99 CAD ($4.99 USD), Kamiko is a perfectly priced, bite-sized adventure that is ideal for killing a few hours and having some fun.

You play as one of three priestesses (known as Kamiko), who have been bestowed weapons from the gods in order to smite an evil that has befallen the land. In each of the four stages, you will have to activate several Torii gates in order to open the final door and face the boss. Each stage plays out like a bit of a puzzle. There are different switches, obstacles, etc. that you have to solve in order to find your way to the Torii gates.

Yamato squaring off against one of Kamiko's devilish bosses

The game plays similar to the original Legend of Zelda games, with a top-down view of your character. There are several enemy types you'll face along the way, including long-range attackers, and enemies that just try to run into you. The bosses are almost like something from a bullet hell shooter with multiple blasts and patterns you'll have to learn and dodge.

Each of the three priestesses change the way you play the game distinctly. In a way its like having a difficulty level setting. The first Kamiko - Yamato - is given a basic sword, which slashes in an arc in front of the her making this character the easiest to use. It's pretty difficult to miss an enemy with this weapon.

The second is Uzume, who has a bow and arrow, which is slightly more difficult to use and get used to. If you fire three shots in succession, Uzume will actually fire multiple arrows for each shot which fan out in front of her, giving you a larger area of attack. It's a little tricky to alter your brain into firing at your emeny after you've completed the game as Yamato, which adds a little bit of welcome challenge.

Uzume is preparing to find the Torii gates in another stage

The third is Hinome, who has a short sword and shield. This is sort of like a medium difficulty. You don't use the shield for defence, but rather you throw it in front of you. It's quick to release so it's easier to fire than Uzume's bow, but it doesn't reach across the entire screen. It does, however, return to you so there's some added playability there using the return arc of the shield to your advantage. Also, when the shield is released you can continue to attack enemies with a stab of your short sword. This causes Himome to briefly jet forward. The combination of these weapons is destructive. I think I may have enjoyed playing as her more than Yamato and Uzume.

The gameplay is pretty straight-forward and dead simple for Kamiko. Once you've played through the game once the challenge of the puzzles is diminished, because you'll remember all the item locations making finding the Torii gates easier and easier through each run. The change of the characters weapons and play-styles adds a slight challenge, but you'll probably get used to them in the first stage. This doesn't diminish the fun, however. The game is still a great arcade action title which you'll enjoy playing with each of the priestesses.

Hinome with her short sword and shield

The game features a beautiful, bright pseudo 8-bit aesthetic, which is very eye-catching. The images are crisp and look great in both handheld and TV mode. The colours are very vibrant and everything is easy to distinguish on-screen.

One of the best parts of Kamiko is the music. It has a very small, but well-crafted soundtrack. I found some of the stages soothing and others exciting. It's all presented in a chip-tune style that perfectly suits the pseudo 8-bit look and feel of the game, pulling the whole package together.

Once you get used to the stages each run through of Kamiko can be quick, but satisfying
Kamiko is a quick hit game that you can play in a couple of hours and is well-worth the small price to play. For me, it was a nice break after the many months I spent playing Breath of the Wild, before I buckled down to complete Super Mario Odyssey. I highly recommend you give Kamiko a try.

Hope you enjoyed,
R

Friday, January 5, 2018

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) - Nintendo Switch


The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the latest release in the Legend of Zelda series, which was simultaneously the final Wii U game from Nintendo and one of the launch titles on the Nintendo Switch, and hit store shelves on March 3rd, 2017 worldwide. The game was produced by mainline Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma and developed by Nintendo EPD.

Breath of the Wild is a break from the usual Zelda formula and features a massive open-world environment and a bevy of new equipment for Link to procure and use throughout his adventure. Taking a page from the original NES game, Link is simply dropped into the world and given very little direction. The player can tackle the game in any fashion they want, trying to figure out the correct path to victory as they go.

The game was first announced to be in development as far back as 2013 and was meant to be the mainline Zelda title released on the Wii U. It had a slotted release date of 2015. This was initially bumped out to 2016, but was ultimately pushed out again to coincide with the launch of the Nintendo Switch to give the new console a heavy-hitter on release.

This decision, of course, ruffled a lot of feathers in the gaming community. There were many people who claimed they purchased a Wii U simply to get the next Legend of Zelda title that had been promised and felt burned that it would release two years later and on Nintendo's next system.

Any issues with the release of Breath of the Wild seemed to quiet instantly on March 3rd. The game has been universally touted as a wild success (pun intended), selling approximately 5 million copies as of September of this year across both platforms and taking home full marks from many of the biggest reviewing publications. As of writing this, the game has taken Game of the Year at the 2017 Game Awards.

Now with that out of the way, it's time for me to gush about how much I loved Breath of the Wild.

For years the debate of whether Zelda was an RPG or an action adventure title has raged across message boards on the Internet. Whichever side of the fence you're on in that fight, I find these games to be adventure titles and no game has allowed me to experience true adventure like Breath of the Wild.

The open world is both massive and breath-taking (again with the puns). I can remember in the opening moments of the game I actually felt daunted by the sheer breadth of it. The game opens in an area called the Great Plateau and - to put things into context - this area alone is larger than the entirety of Hyrule in Ocarina of Time! Then when I finally broke free of the Great Plateau and had the fullness of Hyrule to my disposal to explore, I felt completely overawed.

The beauty of Hyrule

The only thing I can suggest is that you just shed the old mentality of "do x, get y, beat bad guy, move to next area". This game has been made completely non-linear. You're given a loose idea of where to go next, but there's no reason you should follow that. Let the open road take you. See that strange object in the distance? Go there! What's up there on top of that mountain? Climb and find out! Just let the land lead you and you'll get so much more out of the experience than just trying to get to the end.

By the time I decided to finally finish Breath of the Wild I had clocked 115+ hours. For me, that is absolute madness. I haven't cracked 80 hours in a game in years, let alone over 100. I would just turn this game on and travel around from place to place for hours aimlessly. You're often rewarded for doing this, either by new items or Shrines, which act as the games puzzles. There are 120 Shrines hidden all over Hyrule and the only way you're going to find them all is to check every nook and cranny the map has to offer. That's what took me so long to finish the game, honestly. I had to have them all! Finally, I found all 120 and that's when I decided it was time to face the final boss.

My 120th shrine

If you find I'm being vague and explaining very little about how the game plays, you're right. I'm being intentionally nebulous, because I don't want to ruin anything for someone that may not have played the title.

In fact, I think I'm going to leave it there. This is my third full draft of this article. I've tried explaining every facet of the gameplay. I've tried gushing about my personal experiences. I've tried being over-analytical and pointed.

The hero of  Hyrule

The fact is that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a game changer. Or at least it was for me. I haven't done so yet, but I think I need to re-order my Top 10 favourite games of all time, that's how much this game meant to me. I can say this, without a doubt: Breath of the Wild is my favourite Legend of Zelda title of all time, ousting Ocarina of Time. And I've played a lot of them (except A Link to the Past - maybe we'll talk about that some other time).

Looks like it's time to face the final boss

So for me, this is a must-play. Whether you snag it on the Wii U or pick up a shiny new Nintendo Switch, I think you owe it to yourself to try this game. There's a lot of content here, so book out your calendar. And remember, let the adventure take you and enjoy.

Cheers,
R



P.S. I still have not played any of the DLC, but I plan to pick it up later this year, once I've played something else for a bit. I'll update on that when the time comes!

Friday, September 16, 2016

RyHo Vs The Legend of Zelda - Part II

All ready for my quest!

So, if you've somehow stumbled upon this blog and don't know what's up, get yourself caught up here!

Over the past few months I've had a real bug to play The Legend of Zelda series after seeing footage for the next installment, Breath of the Wild, releasing in March of 2017 on the Wii U and Nintendo's next console, codenamed "NX".

In my last post I mentioned that the next game I'd be tackling was Majora's Mask, the Cartridge Club Game of the Month for July 2016. That didn't really go as planned. I booted the game up a few times, but didn't get nearly enough time with it. I definitely want to play through it again. I think I'd rather play through Ocarina of Time first, though. My wife got it for me on the 3DS last Christmas and I've been dying to replay it. Maybe I'll pick up the 3DS version of Majora's Mask after that and give it a whirl, who knows!?

That said, I did continue on with my quest to complete Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and I was successful! If you're ever going to call a video game "Nintendo Hard", Zelda II is the one to pick.

Barba or Volvagia of the Hidden Palace

What I would say about the difficulty of the game is this: it starts out pretty difficult, because you don't know exactly how to handle certain enemies and you need to level up. Once you start figuring out the tricks for taking out your foes, getting new spells, leveling up, and learning new attacks the game simply gets more and more fun. It can still be very hard at times, but it's never completely out of control.

Another thing to note is that if you die and hit continue, you may have to back-track quite a way to where you expired, especially once you get to the second continent, but you always keep your levels and items so you can pick up right where you left off. I've heard horror stories of people saving their game and losing levels, but that didn't happen to me.

A knight teaching you a cool new move!

My one major complaint about Zelda II is that there are a few parts in the game where you basically have to find something totally secret to advance. Like, a false wall in a dungeon or a hidden town tucked away in a forest. I had to consult walkthroughs to find these secrets and that's annoying. If you're trying to play the game without "cheating" I don't know how you'd ever figure these things out on your own. I think it must've been a dirty trick by Nintendo to sell Nintendo Power magazines back in the day! Maybe if I was 10 again I'd have no problem searching Hyrule over and over until I found these secrets on my own or heard about them from someone at school during recess.

This is what I'm talking about...

Regardless, my opinions on Zelda II have changed completely since getting to actually play through the whole game. I think it's definitely a difficult game at times, but well worth playing. Once you get a hang of fighting in the game it can be really exciting and fun.

Yeah, I know. I'm pretty awesome, right?.

So, the question now is, what should I tackle next? Logically the next game would be A Link to the Past, another game that I've ashamedly never finished and I've always wanted to play. I think I'm going to take a little break from The Legend of Zelda for a bit, though. My wife is days away from having our second child and I don't want to start up A Link to the Past only to put it down for a few months.

I'll definitely continue on in my quest to complete A Link to the Past, though! And when I do the best places to follow are right here on Retro-Def, on Twitter with the hash-tag #RyHoVsLoZ, and on Miiverse.

Talk soon,
R

Friday, July 8, 2016

RyHo Vs. The Legend of Zelda


A few weeks ago at E3 2016 Nintendo debuted gameplay footage of the next installment in The Legend of Zelda series, Breath of the Wild. They pretty much staked their entire E3 presence around the game, and it has been exalted as the Game of the Show by just about all the video game news sites that were in attendance.

The crux of Breath of the Wild is that it is a massive open world which players can explore anyway they want. For a while now astute gamers have been comparing images from previously shared clips of the game and stating how it appeared to have some similarities with older LoZ titles and it looks like they were right on the money.

BotW takes a lot of cues from the first games in the Zelda series, like the original The Legend of Zelda or Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. These games, although remembered fondly, are incredible difficult and players are basically given no instruction on what to do. You're presented with an open world and you have to try and figure out what steps to take next.


This was refined in later entries in the series, like A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening, where although you're presented with a fairly open world, you're give a defined path to walk through and aren't left completely on your own trying to figure out what to do next.

Watching the Nintendo Treehouse - Nintendo's in-house North American product development team - play through BotW at E3 hearkened me back to those old 8-bit Zelda titles and I found myself wanting to revisit them. So I did!

The first LoZ game I ever finished was the first one I played, Ocarina of Time. It's still my favourite, but admittedly I've never gone back and completely finished the titles that came before it. I've put several hours into most of them, but never made it to the end.

The other day I finished, for the first time, the original The Legend of Zelda and it was a blast! I had some help - I used a map someone on the Web stitched together with screenshots of the Overworld, and consulted a walkthrough a few times - but for the most part I tried to just play the game as it was intended. I could remember a few things I'd muscled through in the past; I quickly finished off the first dungeon - Level-1 aka The Eagle - and picked up some essential items, like Heart Containers, the White Sword, Magical Shield, and Blue Ring. After that, though, things got serious as I'd never played much further than that before. It took a little while, but I managed to get to the final dungeon, defeat Ganon, and save Princess Zelda!


I haven't made up my mind on whether or not I'm going to keep this train rolling and play through all the games I've missed in the series or not, but I pretty much instantly booted up The Adventure of Link and am slogging through that game now.

I've been posting my adventures to Miiverse and Twitter and you can follow along, if you'd like! On Twitter I've been hastagging the whole thing with #RyHoVsLoZ, so you can find it easily enough. Although I do own the original games on cartridge, I've been playing on my 3DS out of convenience, so I won't be livestreaming anything just yet, but maybe down the line I'll stream some Legend of Zelda goodness on my Twitch channel, as well. Who knows!


The game of the month for the Cartridge Club is actually Majora's Mask, a game I haven't played since it first came out, so I think I'm going to change gears soon and try to complete that game. I have played that one, as it came out after OoT, but it's been a long time and I'm anxious to give it another try.


So join me as I fight and puzzle my way through the many incarnations of The Legend of Zelda! I'm more than okay with a few tips as I play. Just keep the spoilers to a minimum!

Hope you enjoy,
R

Friday, April 24, 2015

Xeodrifter (2014) - Nintendo 3DS

I've had my eye on Xeodrifter ever since I first heard of its release months ago, but I was on the fence about picking it up. I love "Metroid-vania" games, so I figured it would be right up my alley, but I have a bad habit of buying eShop games on my 3DS and leaving them un-played (an issue I'm currently trying to rectify).

8-bit glory.
Recently there was an eShop sale for Renegade Kid titles, however, and at about $5 I decided to take the plunge, put everything else aside, and finally play Xeodrifter.

Xeodrifter, as I've already mentioned, is an action platforming title that takes a great deal of inspiration from the NES classic Metroid. It boasts a pseudo 8-bit aesthetic, retro music, and non-linear gameplay, which all comes together in a wonderful nostalgia-fueled package.

The game, following its old school roots, is light on story, but follows an interstellar drifter who is exploring a cluster of planets when the warp core on his ship is damaged. You can only travel to the four planets in this tiny corner of the cosmos, but must find a way to repair your warp core to carry on your mission of discovery.

Bring it on, Boss Man!
You can travel to any of the four planets when you begin the game, but you will quickly realize that you require certain power-ups to access many of the areas in these alien landscapes. You can acquire these abilities by facing off with giant alien bosses located on one of the four mysterious worlds.

The drifter is equipped with a simple gun and the ability to jump when you begin playing, but as you battle your way and explore the four planets you'll find many power-ups that will give you more health and allow you to upgrade your weapon to take on the alien creatures you'll encounter.

The game is short, but sweet. I finished it in around three hours on my first playthrough. The pacing is great and keeps you enticed to play, but you can easily put the game down whenever you please. One problem I have with "Metroid-vania" titles is that I often lose my place. I legitimately keep a book where I record my steps as I play games in this subgenre so I know where I'm going between gaming sessions. In Xeodrifter, more than likely due to its simplistic nature, I never had an issue remembering what I was up to and having to backtrack significantly to figure it out.

My finished game file.
The controls are tight, the colours and retro-themed art style pop beautifully, and the music - although
at times a little repetitive - all come together to make for a really fun, accessible indie title. The only issue some people might have would be the length, as the game is a little on the short side. For a guy like myself, I enjoyed the short play time, but I can see where a title that's three hours long could be a problem for some. There is some inherent replay value to search out all of the health and gun upgrades, but I would say that I found most of them on my first playthrough, so that might not really flesh out the game enough for those looking for more bang for their buck.

All in all I can recommend Xeodrifter to anyone that likes a fun, retro-style indie game that doesn't break the bank and also won't take weeks to finish. You can pick it up on the Nintendo 3DS eShop as well as Steam for around $10.99 at full price, as well as a Special Edition on Steam for $16.99, which includes a download of the soundtrack and a development diary for the game. Xeodrifter is also slotted to be released on Xbox One, PS4, and Playstation Vita later this spring.

Hope you enjoyed,
R


No, thank you!