Flash - Glorg

Haiku-Review:

one button madness
disguised as an RPG
and one-eyed hero

Additional Comments:

Glorg! Glorg Glorg Glorg Glorg Glorg! Glorg!!

Now that that's out my system, it's time to complain about Flash games once again. Huzzah!

To be honest, unlike most of my endeavors into Flash games: boredom or a passing nudge from a friend saying, "Hey! Check this ridiculous game out," I stumbled upon Glorg in a rather unexpected way. I was trawling through the BCRecommender - a marvelous little site where you can randomly find great music on Bandcamp via other people's collective musical interests. It's all quite random, which I love, and helps dig up some stuff I'd likely never discover through Bandcamp's own rather limited search ability using arbitrary methods like tags and such.  Glad the function at least exists, but capping it annoys me to no end. Anyway, while indiscriminately rummaging through a flood music, I came across a mini EP by Danny Baranowsky: the soundtrack to something called Glorg. This immediately caught my interest because unlike the great wealth of music found on Bandcamp, this was a composer I recognized thanks his Binding of Isaac soundtrack. After a quick listen, I was more than satisfied with what I heard and downloaded it, but not only that, it struck enough of an interest to hunt down the curious, keytar-adorned, purple Cyclops and learn what his claim to fame is. Just who or what is this Glorg?

Didn't take long to track him down. Instantly, my curiosity was further piqued when I read Glorg was the hero of a game; the basic description of which described it as a one button RPG. Sold! The game stirred up memories of Super Press Space to Win Adventure RPG 2009. Despite that game being an extreme example of minimalism; to the point where it was downright silly, I loved the premise behind it. Minimalist games force developers to rethink common tropes and mechanics. Granted, Super Press Space to Win can be considered not only a satirical twist on gaming in general, but probably even on the single button genre as well. Single button games aren't new by any means - consider anything from the 2600. Though you could argue the technicality of it by pointing out most 2600 games made use of the joystick as well. Super Press Space to Win only used a single input - the space bar. Fair enough. And to help back the argument, Glorg makes, eh...mediocre use of a single button as well. I can only credit Glorg with caution as to the quality of gameplay when it comes to its use of a single input as at times it can be highly dubious and rather frustrating.

But what is Glorg? Glorg is a one-eyed warrior trying to make his way through a series of dungeons, clearing the path of evil denizens with anything he can find, quite possibly including the kitchen sink. Through his perilous quest, he can explore, fight, heal, collect treasure, and play a game of hot potato with some walking calculators. And he can do it all with the single press of a button. Well, that's not right, because sometimes you have to hold the button, or rapidly smash the button, or simply release the button. Ah! The downfall of a single button game rears its ugly head.

Here's the thing: Glorg really isn't that bad of a game. The difficulty is on the easier side, or at least technically it's on the easier side, and the game makes decent use of randomization. As an RPG, though an RPG that is stripped down to its core, it can be hard to come to terms with a single button format. Unlike Super Press Space to Win, where the game defined linearity to the point that it was obvious it was trolling you by having RPG in the title, Glorg is sincere. Super Press Space to Win's sense of RPGness and video game sensibility is totally blown out of proportion and results in something entirely jokey. Glorg tries to adhere to RPG canon in a more traditional sense as well as proper gaming values. You can improve your weapons as you quest, sell off weapons of lesser quality, heal when necessary, collect a bevy of loot, and level periodically. However, there's one caveat. The player has zero control over any of these elements. As such, any sense of Glorg being an RPG is nearly as vapid as Super Press Space to Win, except Glorg finds a way to present it in such a way that it attempts to give semblance to conventional RPG mechanics.

A lot of Glorg is out of the player's hands. In fact, the only thing the player really has control over is the fighting. The player has no say over which weapon he uses or when he can heal. If weapon B is greater in skill than weapon A, then Glorg will auto wield weapon B. Even if weapon A was previously better than a facsimile of weapon B two chests ago? Yes, because weapons are apparently assigned a randomized stat as opposed to every Witch Kettle being better than a Dead Mouse. I guess some dead mice are just more powerful than we're lead on to believe. Perhaps rigor mortis is creating some truly hardened rodents. But none of it really matters as I'm pretty sure each weapon is just assigned a randomized humorous name and the player has no control over the system anyway, so why nitpick? Same with healing, Glorg heals when the game has decided Glorg has lost enough health to initiate a heal sequence; if you have an available med kit.

But enough of the discriminating details. Let's discuss the one element where the player has some definitive input: combat. Combat is easy enough to understand. You can hold for a charge, release to hit or click to block. It's all quite simple really, except when clicks and releases start getting confused by the game and you accidentally try to hit the enemy when you're trying to block or vice versa. And straight up, blocking in this game sucks. Attempting to block a charged attack is tough because there's no indication of the type of charge the enemy is doing. If the enemy charges there's a very good chance you're going to fail the block. Typically, at least in my case, you either throw a block too early while they're performing a full charge, or you wait while it turns out their charge was just a ruse and instead they throw a weakly charged attack. And you can't just spam blocks because either there's an inherent cool down happening behind the scenes (which I'm fairly certain does exist) or you're falling victim to basic click/release tomfoolery. Sparring as a whole is quite easy, but I think most of my deaths came to misinterpreting charged attacks. And once you fail a block, you typically begin to spiral into defeat as the strikes suddenly keep coming and the game begins to misinterpret your mad frenzy of clicks and releases as a desperate means to stay alive. These are the times you wish a second button existed to help differentiate the basic mechanics of combat. Stay out of a death spiral, however, and the game's a breeze. Sounds logical - don't get hit, but a single hit can easily disrupt the flow of combat and bring you to your knees if you're not careful. Same can be said for the tennis matches with the walking TI-81s. I think I was on the second to last level before I realized you can mash yourself out of a daze. Was wondering what the mash function described in the intro was for. Neglect mashing the button and the TI-81s will get a free hit in every time they hit you, and they hit strong.

All in all, Glorg's rather enjoyable for what it offers. It pretty much delivers exactly what it advertises, nothing more, nothing less. The common complaint seems to me monotony, and I get it. Maybe the developer backed himself into a corner going the one button route, but is it really any more monotonous than a cheap copy pasta turn-based RPG? Not really. Attack, heal, loot, move on - rinse and repeat. Pretty much the formula of any turn-based RPG, and exactly that here. Besides, considering half the shit put out by the RPG Maker community; at least Glorg is trying something different, something, perhaps, a bit rash. But it should also be said, Glorg's a time killer - the natural result of being a Flash game. It's a game that can be beaten in roughly an hour tops and is best played as a coffee break distraction - five minutes here, five minutes there kind of thing. I'd recommend the game as something to try, or as an experience in gaming minimalism, or a chance to enjoy a fantastic soundtrack. Or you can just grab the soundtrack for free over on Danny Baranowsky's Bandcamp page...or for any amount of your choosing to help tell Danny B., "Please make more amazing music, kthxbai."

Nano-Rant:

Likely the best thing about Glorg is its music, however, the game appeared to be plagued by a nasty bug that kept preventing the music from playing every now and then. Only when you traveled to a new area that played a different track would the music start playing again. For those ranting about how monotonous the game already is, once you strip away the music, the game practically becomes a trivial act of repetitious mouse clicking equatable to banging your head against the wall. Explore. Explore. Explore. Explore. Bleh....

Nano-Win

There is some badass box art that exists for this game, though I'm uncertain of its legitimacy as I can only find one site that even refers to it. Ah well.

Rating: 2.5 hot potato playing TI-81s out of 5

PC - Dark Quest

Haiku-Review:

I've a grand idea!
blatantly rip a great game;
make it terrible

Additional Comments:

Here's the thing. I love HeroQuest. I originally bought the game new way back when and still own the base game plus whatever packs I managed to find at the time. The game fascinated me, and even to this day, I prefer it over all other dungeon crawlers, no matter how sophisticated or strategic they may become. HeroQuest had a certain simplicity that not only worked, but allowed for instant customization. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find myself in a situation where I can play the game anymore. I think the last time I genuinely played a round of HeroQuest was sometime around the turn of the millennium, though I have played some other stuff since - ahem, Descent.

Nevertheless, my want for nostalgia led me to bumbling around Steam's vast library of games until I came across a game that appeared to transfer the very nature of HeroQuest into the digital realm. Ok, it's not the first game to do so; in fact, I've played some of the old HeroQuest titles. Fun fact: HeroQuest for the NES is the first game I started playing for Beat All Games. I just never finished it because it's boring as hell, and one of the buggiest games I've ever seen. Of course, it was never released, or officially finished for that matter, so what do you expect? Despite the NES game suffering numerous issues, some of the other versions I tried were not all that better. In the end, I decided the magic of HeroQuest was never meant to be experienced in the digital world.

Fast forward to sometime last year when I stumbled upon Dark Quest. I didn't have much confidence in the game, given its mixed, or mostly negative reviews, and previous experience with HeroQuest attempts. Sure, this wasn't HeroQuest, but it sure looked like HeroQuest. Hell, even the nefarious warlock game master, Azkallor was a direct rip of Zargon himself, or airbrushed just enough to prevent copyright infringement. Thing is, I rarely, if ever, rely on reviews by others. I have a penchant for neglected and/or brushed aside titles. I may dislike them in the end myself, but I often enjoy the journey of learning just how bad a game might be, or pleasantly finding a surprising gem. Well, hear this, Dark Quest is without a doubt, not a surprising gem. Right from the get go, as I was dropped into a dungeon with zero direction, I could feel any sense of fun slither into the shadows as I embarked on a quest clearly negligent of quality assurance. Be it awful grammar, shitty UI, clumsy control, or just general misgivings, Dark Quest is a disappointment among disappointments. I'm genuinely saddened that the game suffered from so many issues, because I really wanted to like the game simply because it was, or at least appeared to be, a proper translation of the HeroQuest mechanics. For a game that's so simple in play, how can everything go so wrong?

One of the biggest faults, and I found this to be a fault in the literal video game translations of HeroQuest that I've played as well, is that the game attempts to adhere to the board game as much as it can in all the wrong ways. The only real reason to play a digital incarnation of the game is because you can't manage to get a group of friends together to play the real thing. It allows for a single player experience in a game that just never allowed for that in board game format. Well, it can be done, but it's pretty boring. Trust me. I attempted such a feat many times as a kid as HeroQuest was a wee bit too nerdy for most of my friends. A drag.

So here we are, a way to play single player dungeon crawls, but the greatest thing of all is that the digital realm allows, or should allow for vast amounts of automation. But somehow, every interpretation of a dungeon crawl rooted in a board game, the mechanics come off as clunky. The automation feels half-assed. I'm not looking for a game to play itself, but there's a noticeable break in flow every time I have to swap characters. True, it allows for freedom of choice among character movement, but somehow I feel it could all be done far better. Honestly, I'd rather have assigned play than the current system. If anything, that would properly imitate traditional board game play.

Another annoyance is combat in general. The dice rolls are done behind the scenes, so we have no real inkling as to what's going on. Other than Thorin, the Dwarf, being able to block damn near every hit and Zerin, the Wizard, producing a guaranteed hit for one point of damage, it's all just a hodgepodge of shitty RNG that somehow benefits neither the player nor the computer. Nothing appeared to have any bearing on anything. Weapons offered differing abilities as opposed to increased stats, which is fine, but pretty much all of the alternate abilities are useless. There was a distinct lack of armor to help increase the odds. Yes, there is armor, but I question whether or not any of it has any purpose, other than maybe the boots, and that's a really questionable maybe. Thing is, as was the case with Thorin, I'd rather have no armor just so damage is happening somewhere. When facing a foe who can equally block everything, the long drawn out battles that can ensue are infuriating - rather, they're dreadfully boring.

That's the underlying theme: boredom. If the developers ever played any of the original HeroQuest video games, they'd realize board game dungeon crawls make for tough translations. They essentially made all of the same mistakes the various HeroQuest ports made. The only real improvement here is the dungeons defy the constraints imposed by the original HeroQuest board layout. Even on the rare occasion where they attempted to add some substance to some of the dungeons, such as having to obtain gems to unlock a door, the game feels hollow - it exists because it can, and nothing more. There is a genuine feeling of apathy running rampant throughout this game on the developers' part. Every single element of the game screams indifference, nothing more so than the town which feels like a cheap afterthought. Ok, it could be considered an improvement over the menus of the original game, I suppose, but it's merely eye candy. I'd rather have had them focus on a more robust store system than trying to entice us with what appears to be a town system where we can buy potions - only one of which has any viable use, weapons and armor, all of which are useless, and magic...um, nope, again, all entirely useless. Even the toolkit to disarm traps is questionable in its importance. Considering Zerin and Zantor, the Barbarian, can't even "search" for traps until they're sprung, ideally you need to have Thorin constantly leading the pack since he's the only one who can buy a toolkit - misappropriation of the original rule found in the HeroQuest rulebook if they were indeed trying to emulate the game to such a degree, which appears to be the case considering the evidence at hand: traps, toolkits, and dwarves. Whatever. The overall sum of traps in the game versus the cost and forced style of play to warrant the use of the toolkit in the first place is nil to none. Take the hits and be done with it. There is literally nothing in this game, as far as equipment is concerned, that has any value whatsoever, except for health potions. And those might as well not exist because there's a very good chance there's no benefit.

Then, to top it all off, there's a wonderful little fate mechanic. Now, the idea in itself isn't so bad. What is bad is the frequency in which it occurs. Now then, if there was some substance behind the fate rolls, I could probably accept their avid regularity. For instance, Zantor has dramatically been relieved of one point of health because he just fell into a hidden pitfall. I suppose we could use our imaginations for that, but come on, even HeroQuest, the board game, had wonderful flavor text in its hazardous treasure cards. Then again, given the atrocious grammar prevalent throughout the game, perhaps it's best the game skimped as much as it did on additional flavor. But again, it comes off as a general blasé by the developers. There's just enough material present to quantify it as a game, but anything beyond that - totally unnecessary.

Oh...oh...wait... Something else I nearly forgot. A time limit, or rather a turn limit. Why does this exist? I'm genuinely puzzled by the inclusion of a turn limit. First off, unless you have no clue how to play video games, not just this game, but video games in general, and even then make wasteful decisions for the first fifty turns purely out of spite because some awful friend is making you play this game, you will never even remotely come close to being a victim of the turn counter. So again, I have to ask why this exists. Timers of any sort are implemented to add fake difficulty because it creates a sense of stress on the player. No longer can the player relax and instead, they have to be quick-thinking. Timers work wonders in platformers as the player is constantly on their toes and therefore far more prone to making foolish mistakes. Here, despite fog of war existing in a sense, a timer of any kind has zero bearing. The player can take all the time in the world to strategize a plan of attack, which unfortunately for this game is nothing more than move in and attack. Not to mention, the player has freedom to view the entire board, or dungeon if you prefer, save those areas under fog of war. The only thing that could have any bearing on the player falling victim to the turn counter is the shitty RNG. That's it, and that's a rubbish reason to have to fear a timer. If combat is going to be broken to the point where Thorin and some hobgoblin are going to exchange hits for 50+ rounds because they both only have a...I'd say 1/6 at worst based on the original game, but it appears to be more like a 1.24 chance, or worse, to hit, then you can't include a timer mechanic. It's an unfair mechanic in which the player has no way to combat it through skill or what have you. If at least weapons and armor manipulated dice rolls, then maybe I could see at least a hint of argument for it, but as is it brings nothing to the table. 99.9% of the time, it's an ineffectual mechanic and the other 0.1% is bullshit because horrible use of RNG may steer you towards disaster; not because the game bested you, but because you've been stuck in a fucking stalemate. It's walking a thin line akin to soft-locking. I'd rather die to the hands of the enemy than volleying pointless attacks back and forth with no hope for gain until the turn counter reaches zero.

Of course, these examples are taken to the extreme as any sense of stalemate becomes moot as long as both Zantor and Zerin are hanging around; especially Zerin. But sadly, that only circles around to the original issue of a pointless timer mechanic. So...I'm at a loss.

Dark Quest brings nothing new to the table if you've ever played a HeroQuest adaptation. To be honest, I'd recommend those who might want to give Dark Quest a try, seek out one of the original HeroQuest ROMs for the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, or hell, even the unfinished NES port. While none of them are really any better, they're not any worse either, and if anything, they make use of all the original goodness bound to the HeroQuest world. But if I could make an even better recommendation, seek out an original HeroQuest board game. Sure, you might have to dish out a few hundred dollars these days, but you'll immediately understand why this game, along with all of the early HeroQuest digital adaptations, are utter crap, and you'll have one helluva blast in the process. Despite the reviews and even some of the initial shock of how clumsy this game is, I was determined to enjoy it, because I felt like many of the people behind many of those reviews missed the point of the game or misinterpreted how the mechanics should function. Nope. Everyone was pretty much on point in regards to this game being a badly done and unoriginal copy of something that was vastly superior in every way imaginable.

All that being said, there is a Dark Quest II which came out late last year. It does appear to be a marked improvement over the first game and although the first game is rubbish, I  am willing to let bygones be bygones and give Dark Quest II a try. But my brush up with the first game was enough warning to at least make me wait until the game receives a deep discount.

Nano-Rant:

Why does opening a door a picking up gold count as a move ending action? This is probably the most moronic decision in the game. First off, if the developers are going to try and adhere to original HeroQuest rules as much as possible, there should just be a collect all loot button to instantly pick up everything in a room. But then, perhaps that's where the idea of a turn counter comes into play. Do I dare risk a couple extra turns for some much needed (not so very needed) gold? Oh wait, I still have 70+ turns remaining and I'm nearly done with this dungeon. If this is the case, one idea steeped in stupidity - the timer - has effectively forced stupidity on other mechanics. And if picking up gold forces the player to end the turn, then sure, why not doors as well? It's a fantastic domino effect of ineptitude and misunderstanding the dependence of various game mechanics on each other.

And before I forget, I have come across an alternate box art mock-up that depicts the noticeably missing Elf. Um...? Elf? Where are you?

Rating: 1 incorrect usage of word division out of 5*

*Seriously? "F-
ear"?

Bravo, my friends! Bravo!

I'm not trying to be the notorious "Grammar Nazi" or some such epithet that people love to casually throw around, but that example of improper word division blew my mind when I saw it in game. That's something you have to go out of your way to create. But then, considering every piece of dialogue and backstory are obviously snippets quickly churned through Google Translate, should I really be that surprised by such an egregious use of the hyphen? Eh, yea, I am, because even Google Translate, or any word processor for that matter, knows not to divide one syllable words, never mind a single letter and then whatever remains.

Closing Out a Dismal Year

2016. A year to forget for so many reasons. Reasons beyond my own lack of effort within the written entity that is Beat All Games; reasons I wish not to discuss as this is not that sort of forum. I will, however, discuss my perceptibly poor output when it comes to finishing a wide variety of video games just so I can whinge over all the details. 2016 and only, what? Ten games? Pitiful. My most pitiful year to date. But only pitiful in the face of games conquered. It was still a productive year in games played and games thoroughly enjoyed. It's just, so few reached the finishing line creating the illusion I'm no longer the prolific player I once was. Though, to be fair, I don't think I've ever considered myself a prolific player. Otherwise, I'd probably jump on the Twitch train and that just isn't for me.

Ten games isn't enough to allow for any sort of traditional year end list with any real substance so I'm unsure which direction to take this post. Suppose I can just top five it and be done with it. Eh, sounds good since I really don't have much else to say.

5. Evoland
-Not a great game by any means, but does exactly what it set out to do. Unfortunately, the game loses it's way in the second half where the "evolution" factor takes more and more of a back seat.

4. Comix Zone
-Long a favorite on the Genesis, but also, long a notoriously difficult beat 'em up. A unique classic, really.

3. Earthlock: Festival of Magic
-There's so much that angered me, but there's also so much that I loved. It was a tricky balance: was there enough of the good to outweigh the bad? Yes. Yes there was.

2. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
-I almost feel like this one's getting the spot by default. Don't get me wrong, TTYD is a fantastic game, and far far superior to its predecessor. At the same time, it's not that different form the original and faces a lot of the same issues. The number two spot comes simply because of this year's low count in games beaten I fear.

1. 12 Labours of Herucles: The Cretan Bull
-It's great fun. It's wildly addictive. It's bright and colorful. It's easy to learn but can be tricky to master. It simply understands the fundamentals of what makes a great game and keeps all the unnecessary fluff out of the picture. More to the point: I want to play more of these games.

And with that, this mess of a year is done, or at least it will be in a few hours. Good riddance.

SNES - Super Mario All-Stars

Haiku-Review:

and so the story begins,
the birth of remakes -
how I hate remakes

Additional Comments:

First things first, I seriously did not expect another Mario Christmas, but here it is - another Christmas Mario. I decided, very last minute mind you, to clutch out some sort of Mario game. Not exactly my first pick but for the sake of traditions, I knew Super Mario All-Stars was something I could pound through relatively quick, until I realized what I was dealing with and then I began second guessing myself. As Christmas Eve entered the wee hours of the night and I was still pushing through Super Mario Bros. 2, I wondered if I could seriously manage to complete the game while still dealing with, you know, holiday related nonsense - though fortunately for me, and for the sake of Beat All Games, I have very little holiday nonsense I have to deal with these days.

Now on to more serious stuff. Super Mario All-Stars more or less birthed the now shitty tradition of Nintendo and countless other companies rehashing the same material over and over again in the form of remakes instead of coming up with an original thought. Doesn't even have to be an original thought outside of the franchise - keep pumping out Mario games. However, back in the 16-bit era, Super Mario All-Stars was a thing of wonder. We suddenly got to see our 8-bit favorites jump from four color mediocrity to brilliant flash. I remember the first time I beheld Super Mario Bros. with cool new backgrounds, but it turned out to be a passing fad.

To this day, I still like the 16-bit backgrounds that breathed new life into all the levels, but the games lost their charm. Both Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2j lost their originality and now feel like bad hacks even though they're the original games. Of course, the physics tweaks don't help, but I'll touch on that a bit later. At the time, for sure, the games felt fresh in their new clothes, but over time, I've come to realize Super Mario All-Stars is a poor recreation of the original games. It's the same problem every remake faces, be it games, movies, whatever. Remakes fail no matter what. There are few if any remakes that I have ever felt worked. As far as games go, I don't believe there's a single remake that works. Every remake I've ever played has either been trash or completely unnecessary. They're proof positive that they exist simply for cash. The whole concept depresses me just thinking about it.

But the thing is, when Super Mario All-Stars first came out, I believed in the game, probably not as much as others because I still felt very attached to the NES originals save SMB2j since the game was practically an unknown up until that point in the west. Of course, I was a kid at the time, but I think part of my buy in to the game was because everyone else was bought into it as well, and why like bland 8-bit scenes when we could appreciate these vibrant new palettes? Except, deep inside, I felt like the game was a swindle. Apart from SMB2j, I quickly saw that the game had little to no merit.

Granted, I never owned the game as a kid, but I distinctly remember renting it one time, checking out the updates in each game, spouting child-like rage at SMB2j and then never having the desire to play it again. To me, Super Mario Bros 2j was interesting, but total garbage, not to mention ridiculously difficult, and the rest of the game? Well, I preferred my good old NES carts hands down. To this day, I still prefer my NES carts. If ever I wish to play an NES Mario game, Super Mario All-Stars isn't even remotely an option, because it's nothing more than designer fad.

It's disappointing to talk down about a set of Mario games; the original quartet of Mario games at that. Albeit, SMB2j is a shit game, and SMB2 is questionable at best in terms of Mario-ness, it's still a great platfomer, but SMB and SMB3 are fantastic classics. SMB3 especially, for me, is a top game that can easily outclass most any video game. Fortunately, the SMB3 remake is steeped in relative sameness and only endures graphical enhancements. Though I will say, the king transformations, while cool to see nods to other SMB titles, are a total disappointment. The original transformations are so superior. I mean, come on, a seal flipping his crown around on his nose, and now we have...what? A random SMB2 nobody, a discolored Dino Rhino or a Yoshi with a fat lip? It's the same issue all over again - the utter removal of everything that made the original so quaint and endearing. It's bullshit!

A lot of that, I admit, can be argued as personal qualms over artwork and general distaste towards remakes. Ok. But let's dig a little deeper. Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2j are a total joke. It's been a few years since I played the original SMB, so perhaps I'm a little rusty, though I played SMB2j a year ago so.... Plus, I've been spending a good amount of time on Super Mario Maker where the general physics have been tightened up across the board so there's a good chance my baseline for Mario physics is greatly skewed in error. However, these two games feel completely wrong. There's a strange meshing of loose physics with stiff rigidity. I can't fully explain it. The much hated ice like physics of Mario is there, but somehow Mario's become prone to wooden awkwardness. I've never felt more uncomfortable controlling Mario. It's like playing a third rate platformer that never garnered any popularity thanks to how awful it plays. I don't get it either. Why did they fiddle with the physics? Thing is, I don't recall this ever being an issue when I was young, and perhaps it was because as a kid, I could easily be fooled. We had no internet to verify our suspicions. Without A/B'ing a game on the spot, shady physics doctoring was all just hearsay. I had both an NES and an SNES, so I suppose I could have tried way back when, but there was no suspicion to begin with because we were so entranced by the new beauty of the Mushroom Kingdom. Dirty tricks were the only thing at play, and we missed it.

Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario Bros. 3 don't really suffer the same effect. In fact, I'd go out on a limb and say the physics are pretty much dead on, except SMB2 did feel a tad sloppy. I don't think such was the case, and it may have been my negative impressions from the first two games playing tricks on me, but it is a possibility. SMB3, however, did show off a bit of the darker side when it came to question blocks, bricks, and the like. Much like SMB/SMB2j, SMB3 suffered from this weird block repulsion that appeared to affect general momentum. As a result, I played most of the game as small Mario - placing precedence on momentum over power-ups. Honestly, the levels played faster and easier this way. The repulsion effect, which basically repels Mario at an incredible downward speed after hitting a block, would completely break my rhythm. This isn't the first time I've seen the effect as I'm familiar with it from my SMW hacking days. I remember coding custom blocks and dealing with this exact issue if I forgot to insert a bit of code that would affect Mario's y speed.

All in all, the game is a joke. I recall enjoying it for what it was as a kid, but always having reservations about it over the years. Even when friends would bring it up in conversation as a great collection that existed on the SNES and how it improved the original games, I'd nod in agreement and offer my praises for including SMB2j, despite hating that game, and the wonderful graphical overhaul each game received - namely Super Mario Bros. It felt wrong to criticize the game not only because it's Mario, but because it was a statement by Nintendo saying they not only respect their roots, but wished to give them a dazzling new set of clothes and set 'em loose upon the 16-bit generation in style. But now, I'll criticize the hell out of the game. It's something that should have never existed. They should have sat on the games and then released them as a collection - not as remakes, but as a collection somewhere down the road, like on the GameCube, like they did with the Zelda games. It's the only acceptable form. Instead, they fucked up four perfectly good games, well, three good games.

And with the SNES sound font, the music is not even worth looking into despite it all being classic video game tunes. I especially hated the sound effects used in these games as it made the whole game sound artificial, almost plastic. Everything has a solid thonk instead of a nice squish. It's wrong. It's more than wrong. This whole game is an egregious mess and Nintendo should be fucking ashamed they ever released it and tricked all of us gullible nitwits into thinking they vastly improved the original gems which were fucking perfect as they were. Fuck you, Nintendo, and fuck remakes!!! What a shitty Christmas....

Rating: 1 giant Bowser portrait out of 5

XB1 - Earthlock: Festival of Magic

Haiku-Review:

O, silly rabbit,
don't you know Trix are for kids?
Oh! wait, wrong rabbit

Additional Comments:

Here's to hoping I can recall everything I wished to discuss, but considering how much time has elapsed since I finished this game, the details are anyone's guess.

Acquired through Games with Gold, I pounced on this game immediately since there are so few RPGs on the XBox One. There are a couple that came out over a year ago that piqued my interest but just never got around to picking them up. Certainly, making a game free makes it so much easier to nab a game. And though I initially had doubts based on a few pics, after a few quick minutes of  in-game footage, I was sold. Old school RPGs seem to be such a rare thing outside of PCs. Why is that? When did console users choose to scorn turn-based RPGs other than the miserable pieces of crap starring the same old emotionally abused androgynous jerk-offs that Squaresoft keeps passing off as Final Fantasy?

Ok, Earthlock technically isn't an old school RPG, but it appears to have far more kinship with RPGs of yore than today's overblown trash. Despite separating itself from its ancestors, especially through the use of 3D maps and environments, Earthlock kept stirring memories of Chrono Trigger. Perhaps it was the same cliché tropes used over and over again, and true, those same old tropes become tiring, but at the same time, they help to invigorate the game through lapses of nostalgia. Unlike numerous other titles that attempt to reap the benefits of creating Chrono Trigger 2.0 or Final Fantasy IV reimagined, Earthlock distanced itself by creating an entirely alien environment. It still rehashed the same old kernels of the old world sowing the way for the new world through magical destruction - here the case being eternal day/eternal night and the same characteristic party sporting the same conventional traits saving the fate of the world by using the tools of the past. It's all been done before, and quite possibly, to death. But there was enough of a rift among the pedestrian RPG outline through imaginative details elsewhere in the world to make it feel different enough.

Unfortunately, Earthlock nearly shot itself in the foot right out of the gate. The beginning of the game felt laborious enough to warrant it undeserving of my time. The initial character we're introduced to, Ive, is a such an eye-rolling, self centered, twat that I nearly put the game down for good before I even made it five minutes in. Throughout the whole of the game, I loathed anytime a cutscene popped or I had to make use of her because of how despicably arrogant she was. Of course, she's the king's daughter, so what can you expect, but still, there's no getting around how off putting a character of this caliber is and having to deal with her the entire game absolutely killed much of the praise the game could have gotten. Ive is easily one of the worst characters I've come across in any game, equatable to Kara from Illusion of Gaia. Given the game's introduction, I had to seriously question the game's intentions when they wished me to rescue her from the wreckage. Fuck her! I don't want that contemptuous bitch in my party. It's moments like these that make me hanker for freedom of choice and lend me to admire many of today's western RPGs. I don't have to suffer through bullshit because of lack of choice. If the choice existed to help Ive or to simply walk away, I would have walked away in a second. Up until that point, or even throughout the rest of the game, there was never a moment that nudged me into accepting her despite her personality deficiencies. And it's hard to invest oneself into a game that has such a disagreeable character. Some level of empathy must exist, especially in story rich or character heavy games, to agree to or accept the circumstances as presented, but when a character like Ive exists, much like Kara, it's hard to overlook and can inevitable affect the enjoyment factor of the game. Although you do get Taika out of the deal, so....

Earthlock was lucky to win me over with a variety of mechanics, namely the talent board and bond system, but characters continued to be a stumbling block for the game. Each one of them felt vapid, and despite all efforts to differentiate themselves from RPG stereotypes, still fell subject to their cliché personalities. Gnart, who may have been the most dynamic characters was also one of the most tiring only because he followed the typical goofball sidekick trope thrown in for comedic effect - sure, he had some knowledge and an intriguing past, but he's liable to open mouth insert foot for a non-quality laugh to help lighten the mood and make us say, "Oh, you silly rabbit. You and your silly stories." It's stale, and it's unfortunate since out of the whole lot, Gnart's histroy, as well as that of his people would easily be the most interesting to read up on.

Olia, on the other hand, comes off as a waste. She brings brute muscle, which from a gameplay aspect is greatly welcomed, but her story is done to death. Squaresoft has given us enough of the brooding heroes who'd rather keep their past to themselves while we as players struggle to connect with these detached individuals. You're giving me nothing to work with here outside of strong-arming the competition. Eh, I suppose that's enough.

But enough of weak character portrayal. Let's delve into actual gameplay. Upon first glance, Earthlock feels a bit too rigid and leans far too much on traditional RPG values. Nothing exactly wrong with that, but it certainly did little to help sell the game. Sure, I started out by whining how so few traditional turn-based RPGs exist these days on consoles, but at the same time, I don't wish to play the same old tiring mechanics. Developers need to integrate new ideas to help invigorate old traditions and Earthlock failed to do that upon initial inspection. But once you get into the game and some of the more interesting mechanics open up, Earthlock begins to set itself apart. True, likenesses of the talent board or bond system have shown up in past titles, but they felt fresh, locked into a combination that helped us to look past the tried and true mechanics of the RPGs of yesteryear.

However, Earthlock definitely made some missteps in its hopes to individualize itself. Crafting was likely the biggest misstep of all as it completely nullified the use of the shop system. Despite my natural tendency to steer clear of shops in RPGs simply to increase the difficulty, I found the shop system in Earthlock to be completely unnecessary. If I can craft anything and everything and I can easily obtain any of the crafting materials from the various denizens of the world, why would I ever stop at the local market? Something few games have ever managed to properly balance is the coexistence of crafting and shop systems. More often than not, one negates the other and Earthlock may have been the greatest example of this problem.

Not only did crafting bring down the world market, but crafting befell its own niggles. At first, I kind of liked the idea of growing a garden from which I could craft various ammos or potions - all items of which I pretty much never used throughout the entire game, but I'll come to that later. It gave the game a tiny slice of a Harvest Moon feel. I hate to admit it, but Harvest Moon, or similar games have a joyfully addicting quality to them, so to see Earthlock integrate this, even on a bare minimum level, was cool. Turns out, I used the garden for nothing more than an achievement hunter effect. When that's the case, it should be blatantly obvious the mechanic was added without much forethought. Honestly, it was boring as hell to sit there clicking on plants for close to an hour or more trying to mutate a certain species only to find out after turning to GameFAQs to see if I was victim of a bug, that for one single mutation, they completely deviated from the norm in that you had to kill an optional boss. What the fuck? If Ive didn't annoy the piss out of me enough, shit like this happens - counter-intuitive garbage that suddenly diverges from everything we've learned up until that point.

What's more, the game suffered from various other counter-intuitive faults. Another one that nearly sent me over the edge was figuring out how to use my fifth through eighth abilities. The tutorials describe, fairly well, how to use the various menus and actions but failed to mention how to reach your next page of abilities. With my abilities tab grayed out, I wouldn't have guessed in a million years that I could still press the tab to find more abilities. Grayed out means the operation has come to an end; there's no more forward momentum here. It's the fucking clock in Where's Waldo? all over again. They're going against everything we've ever learned in gaming over the past 30 years. I only realized how to use those abilities by sheer accident after having left the room for a couple minutes and upon returning, picked up the controller and accidentally nudged the joystick in the right direction. That then led me to spend the next several minutes trying to replicate my accident. All be told, this event didn't happen until well over halfway through the game, so yea, I spent well over half the game believing the tutorial lied to me - that it was written for the PC version and they neglected to translate this one section for the Xbox.

And it doesn't end there! Figuring out how to upgrade Pat to Pat 2,0 was a total nightmare. I have all the necessary ingredients but...I can't craft the fucking token!? Oh! I've got to remove the original tokens. Well, that's real fucking obvious!

It's sad. There's many aspects of the game I loved, but far too often the game hit me out of left field with some half-assedness. And it's simple things they managed to botch. Fortunately, nothing's game breaking, but the annoyance level some of this stuff managed to induce is astronomical. Many of these faults so nearly made me shelve the game, but many of these things happened so late in the game that the time invested would prove nothing but waste and I hated the prospect of walking away from it when I was that far into the game - like I had reached a point of no return and was relegated to accepting my fate. Besides, the good qualities continued to coax me on - qualities like making best strategic use of the various bond configurations or the fact that I was playing a turn-based RPG that didn't rely on cyclical healing. Sure, healing was critical in certain battles, but it wasn't an absolute that I had to rely on throughout the entire game unlike most turn-based RPGs. And while most battles were nothing more than tests to dole out damage as fast as possible, a number of battles popped up that allowed me to make use of some of my other abilities thus forcing some underlying strategy throughout.

However, that being said, many abilities came off as superfluous. As mentioned before, how crafting ammo was a complete waste, I found few battles where a reliance on ammunition was a thing. The trade off for job swaps forcing me to lose a turn typically wasn't worth it, nor was the time spent crafting the ammo to begin with. Same can be said for the other characters. I pretty much ran all the characters on the one job I was comfortable with and stuck with it. The mere fact that that can be done makes the whole system moot. But then, without relying on cyclical healing or some sort of deeper element system, there was never really hope for such a system. If I can dole out enough damage with a sword just as quickly or more so than a gun, so be it. Of course, the argument can me made that it's all there for personalized customization. Fair enough. But I think with the job, or stance, system, the intent was for a more robust strategy allowance, which in my opinion backfired. They could have handled everything just as easily if everything was simply a single set of abilities allowed by a given character. I suppose it can be thought of as an offense/defense stance used in older RPGs, but at least there, you didn't have to waste a turn choosing your stance before you can make use of your allowed abilities. Instead, it seems to help fill out a common theme of implemented mechanics without much forethought.

Finally, on a personal note, I found the graphical style irksome. I loved the locale design and enemy design, but found the character design unnerving. It reminded me of the character design in Twilight Princess. Something about their looks is so off putting, and sadly with a number of characters already annoying me for one reason or another, the art direction made everything all the more tougher to digest.

I'm sure at the time of play a number of other details existed that I could have easily harangued over, but I doubt I'll remember them. They were likely minor anyways, at least compared to what I've covered here. Besides, I know what I have gone over were the major talking points I wished to hit up anyway. Perhaps I should keep a running log as I play, but alas, that would make all of this feel too much like work instead of a hobby with no return.

Suppose the last thing I can hit up is the soundtrack, but honestly, I can't remember a lick of music. I recall the music being sweet on the ears, but nothing really stood out. I know there were a couple tunes in the game I enjoyed but they obviously didn't leave a lasting mark. After refreshing myself with the soundtrack on Eiko's channel, it's sad that that's the case as there are certainly some nice gems stuck in there such as Vast Canyons, Sweltering Desert, or Dreamless Grotto, which after hearing it again I recall this being my favorite track in the game. Ah well, typical RPG fare.

Nano-Win:

One thing I did like about the game was the usage of Kickstarter funders' appellations for the ghost tag side quest. If was always interesting to see what quirky named individuals I'd come across next and a handful of them gave me a good laugh.

Nano-Rant:

Fix your fucking bestiary, and while you're at it, get some decent QA to proofread your text. There's nothing that will drag down the integrity and professionalism of a given game more than spelling and grammar mistakes. *Proofreads above editorial and hides* Eep!

Rating: 3 hogbunnies out of 5

PC - 12 Labours of Hercules: The Cretan Bull

Haiku-Review:

work is never done
so says the adage of yore;
no thanks to yon bull

Additional Comments:

First, it should be noted that I've been miserably slow at updating Beat All Games. Thanks to my tardiness, my exact memories of these games are fleeting. This game, along with Wheely and the next title that I'm going to try and wrangle out of my procrastination and general lack of passion towards writing such long winded tirades other than using it as an outlet to write something, were all completed two or three months ago. Only for the approaching end of the year I realized I should at least try and slap some sort of structured anger or appeasement. I doubt I'll even manage a Christmas Mario this year. Such tragedy. Though, admittedly, in addition to my growing apathy, my neglect has been spoon fed by the fact that I've been playing games as of late that are either entirely open ended and/or have a good many hours of gameplay present before any sign of an end is near. And anyone who's familiar with my particular way of playing games, a 40 hour game, for example, can easily be dragged out to 120+ hours over weeks and weeks of game time. No wonder attention to Beat All Games has dropped.

But enough of that. I present another in a series of fast growing favorites: 12 Labours of Hercules: The Cretan Bull. If it wasn't for a room full of games that I wish to play, and my desire to mix things up from title to title, I'd probably play every 12 Labours titles in a row. Sure, they're all essentially the same, but they're all so damn fun and addicting. As much as the first game enticed me with simple gameplay, the sequel cemented my love for the series. I feel foolish to say as such, but the games are executed so well. Perhaps because they still have an air of guilty pleasure wrapped around them. It's that hard to explain mobile gaming polish that coats the presentation that makes me ashamed to admit how wonderful the game is, but gameplay and execution shall always trump all and the devs seem to know a thing or two about gameplay.

Other than a new story, Hercules trying to capture the rambunctious Cretan Bull that's terrorizing the lands wherever he goes, there's very little in terms of new gameplay here. But that's fine. Why fix what isn't broke? Sometimes we genuinely do want more of the same. Hell, just look at some of the classics like Mega Man or Sonic - very little changed over the course of the first few games. When things finally began to change in dramatic fashion, hoping to freshen what the developers considered old hat, well the series, in my opinion, took a massive nose dive into a heaping pile of cow dung. If it works, let it be, and 12 Labours is doing exactly that. What is changed is small, but clearly impactful. New and interesting minigame boss fights, the ability to build outposts to advance your workers further into a stage, or even the new puzzle piece extraction to add a dash of collection mechanic. Nothing here is major, but it's all enough to make the game feel fresh despite being nothing more than additional levels that could have easily been tacked onto the first game as DLC. Too much change and surely the game would have taken on too much of a different feel; losing that special quality that makes 12 Labours what it is. For anyone who's ever wondered why Capcom created Mega Man 9/10 or Sega created Sonic 4, it's exactly for those reason, I should suspect. Of course, I don't have the inside scoop, so I could be talking out my ass, but still. There was a quality to the original games that people loved and desired more of just as they do with 12 Labours, again, so I would suspect. Either that or the developer is stuck in a developmental rut, but you know what? If that's the case, I say thank goodness for ruts.

Unfortunately, because of the striking similarities between games, there's very little else to talk about that I haven't already talked about previously. Perhaps I can groan over the puzzle piece mechanic insomuch that for the first two worlds, despite knowing puzzle pieces existed and somehow collected a couple by sheer happenstance along the way, I had no idea what I was truly seeking. For a while, I expected the various sparkles or targeted animations to be a clue as to their whereabouts but I was wrong. Eventually, I had to enter a stage and simply take in the detail. There I sat scanning the landscape for I don't know what. Once I realized what the pieces looked like, they turned out to be quite easy to pick up over the course of the game. Still, I wish there was some sort of device in place that introduced us to the concept. Everything else within the game is very intuitive, however that was the one mechanic that felt like a missed opportunity.

The only other thing worth noting, perhaps, is the difficulty when it came to expert mode. Compared to the first game, this one felt a lot easier. Could be that I knew what to expect and how to handle the game; that I had a better understanding of the necessary strategy to overcome situational obstacles. But then, it's also been over a year since I played the first title, and if other games have taught me anything, is that I easily become rusty after mere months of absenteeism. Maybe time strategy games don't befall the ills of prolonged absence. Makes sense since the game is devised around strategy and not skill. Still, with some of the additional elements in The Cretan Bull, there's enough to throw me off my game. Poke and prod at any number of hypotheses, but I can't help but feel the true state of the matter is that the sequel is simply easier. Unlike the first game where a number of levels tested my problem solving skills as well as my patience while under the constraints of a demanding clock, only a small handful of levels proved to be of the same caliber. Be aware I use comparison lightly here as even the difficult stages proved easy compared to the difficult stages in the original game. I believe there was only one that was truly comparable to the original game in the number of replays attempted. Perhaps some of the new elements not only added to the complexity and depth of strategy, but counterbalanced the difficulty as an unforeseen side effect. Who knows?

Whether the game built on the original, which it did, or simply stalemated the franchise, which it didn't, The Cretan Bull validated the franchise and its future, which at this point, I believe consists of four more titles. I know I have the third and fourth already in my Steam library and honestly can't wait to play them, even if they are more of the same old same old. As long as the same old same old keeps up the same level of fun and excitement, than more power to them. Hell, I'm not even mad that most of the soundtrack is the same - it's a fantastic soundtrack. More 12 Labours as is, with minimal but poignant alterations and/or additions and I'm all over it.

Rating: 4.5 waterslides out of 5

Flash - Wheely

Haiku-Review:

don't fret little car,
consumers are all just bums...
racing - there's a thrill!

Additional Comments:

I always feel I must predicate any lengthy flash-related essay with a myriad of justifications. Why do I always feel guilty of playing flash games? Because they're juvenile? Simplified? Typically representative of low quality output by bedroom developers? Perhaps, but perhaps juvenile or simplified games can be enjoyed for what they are. Low quality output on the other hand - eh...

One day, mixed among my recommended videos on YouTube was a video for an LP of one of the Wheely games - it might have been the fourth one, but I'm not entirely certain. Out of curiosity, I clicked on it. It was a short four or five minute playthrough of a cutesy point and click game that some how sold me enough on the idea to seek out the series and give the first game a go. Maybe it was just because it was a simple point and click series that embodied the absolute definition of casual game. Whatever the case, there was something about it that made me believe it was a worthy flash game, even if it appeared to be directed at an audience of four-year-olds. If anything, the one thing that stuck out is that it appeared as though the developer went out of his way for all the little details - that he chose to make something bespoken of quality, even if he's popped one or two of these games out every year for the past few years. It didn't immediately scream shitty Microsoft Paint drawings quickly embedded into some javascript in 48 hours so I can pop off my 145th game of the year. This is how the vast majority of flash games come off and Wheely took the effort to prevent itself from crossing that line and proved that simplicity doesn't necessarily equate to crap.

I remember reading a fantastic article several years back articulating the complexities of the hows and whys a given movie review is presented as it is, i.e. how some blowhard B-movie cheese can actually garner a decent review. The article's writer expressed his (or her) opinion that reviews should take into account whether or not the product accomplished exactly what it set out to do. If it was meant to be nothing but cornball camp, did it at least pull out all the stops to be the best damn camp it can be? Other than being of the opinion that all reviews should be argued as such, no more so than here. To the average gamer, and probably a wide spectrum of people beyond, Wheely is likely a pointless endeavor either meant purely for pre-Kindergarteners or simple drivel to plaster on Newgrounds, Kongregate, or other such Flash sites where it can further contribute to a plague of over saturation. Except, Wheely, in my book, hits all the marks it set out to, and perfectly at that.

Wheely, an obvious nod to Lightning McQueen, consist of (mostly) one screen puzzles - move the eponymous car from point A to point B while maneuvering around simple obstacles so he can make his way from a tired showroom floor to the day of the big race. Wheely's aspirations are admirable considering he's become last year's model - a victim of price reduction time and time again, proving he's no longer the chic auto he once believed himself to be. But forget materialism or consumerism. Instead, Wheely turns to ambition, to prove to himself as Red would come to learn in Shawshank Redemption - get busy living, or get busy dying. Who wishes to rust away as they're put on year end manager closeout special buy 99% off dealer's choice everything must go extravaganza only to watch everyone turn their heads towards other, more appealing buys?

The difficulty is hit and miss as the levels seem to progress more in favor of continuity between levels. I respect and appreciate that, but it does manage to fracture the gameplay a bit. There are a couple balance puzzles that are interesting, and at least a step up in difficulty compared to some of the earlier levels, but there's no solid progression. Granted, given the size of the sprites and the fact that most everything is confined to a single screen, it can prove restricting on what can be done. However, for the most part, I think the developer did a fair job with the levels at hand.

Honestly, it's hard to criticize the game only because the game is exactly as advertised...at least in the general presentation. Dig a little deeper, and it's a different story. My experiences with the game were unfortunately bitter as I had to shuffle through a few different sites before I finally found a version that I could get through without bogging my laptop down to an absolute standstill. The issue seemed reminiscent of a memory leak, eating up gargantuan amounts or RAM at an exponential rate once I got to about the seventh level. First attempt, I made it to Level 9 before my computer became frozen in time. Next two attempts - each on differing sites - I made it as far as Level 7 and began chucking F-bombs at a children's game as the lag became utterly disgusting. Using the air pump before the giant saw blade tore Wheely asunder was a venture in total futility.

I believe I finished the game on Kongregate, thanks to their cookies autosaving whatever level I was on, though I initially sought the game elsewhere due to the lag being so awful there, though it was no different anywhere else. Through personal tyranny of will, I decided to push through best I could, even if it meant restarting Level 7 multiple times until the lag was tolerable enough to work with. Once I pushed through Level 9, the issue disappeared, so I'm not entirely certain what was going on and based on a couple of LPs and some comments here and there, no one else seems to have experienced this awfulness. Thing is, I've never experienced this with any other Flash game, and Wheely brought my laptop to its pitiful knees no matter where I tried it. So whether it was a memory leak or some sort of malware piggybacking the game, it completely ruined my experience - an experience I'm quite certain would have been favorable in the game's lighthearted simplicity as I fully respected the game for what it was. But with all the trouble I had to deal with just to play a ten minute time waster built in the Flash medium, it's hard to heap praise of any kind. Instead, I find the game flawed and egregious and the developer should be ashamed if it truly exists in this condition. If, however, it was merely a fluke between the game and my own hardware, well, it's a shame. Although, I did run one attempt on a desktop; suffering the same deplorable conditions, so...for the moment, all signs seem to point to bullshit on the developer's end. Ah well.

Nevertheless, I probably would try out another Wheely title simply out of curiosity. Consider it personal interest in seeing how the developer grew the series - if any sense of complexity ever enters the equation or he simply stuck to his guns with one screen puzzles. I've seen some screen shots of the other games, and like I said, I learned about the series by watching an LP of the fourth(?) installment, and from what I saw - no change. If anything, I hope the bullshit lag is rectified.

Nano-What?:

Seriously, there's a level that is literally nothing but changing your paint, tint, and wheels? Why wasn't this simply an optional customization menu at the beginning of the game so we can all choose our personalized Wheelys from the get-go? I felt any attachment to Wheely as a character was lost since it happened in such an arbitrary way at such an arbitrary time - like an afterthought shoehorned in without any real thought.

Rating: 2 sunglasses adorned lorries out of 5

GB - Nail 'N Scale

Haiku-Review:

occupation Q:
I've a pocket full of nails;
carpenter, I'm...not?

Additional Comments:

Along with Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2, and Tetris, Nail 'N Scale is one of my all time favorite Game Boy games. Part of my original collection as a kid, I remember long car trips giving these four games intensive play time - far, far more than the other few games I had, although I recall putting my fair share of time into NBA All-Star Challenge as well. I always enjoyed early era Basketball games. But that's another story, though if I ever get around to commenting on David Robinson's Supreme Court, I may just get a chance to tell it. Ah, memories.

Unlike either of the SML titles, I never made the headway in Nail 'N Scale that I did in the other two as a kid, at least nothing to boast about. Although, gaining access to Wario's castle but failing to finish it was never anything to boast about, so touché. Nevertheless, I never let the daunting task of facing Nail 'N Scale's harsh realism of one life to live do me in. Never give up! Never surrender! (Wait. Why do I know that quote from a lame, lame Tim "the Toolman" Allen movie? Ugh.) Still, the man does speak the truth. Except, eventually after having to repeat the first few levels for the nth time as you continue to try and figure out the best route in one of the later levels only to die from a combination of frustration, exhaustion, and stupidity, such sentiment is meaningless. I'll damn well give up if I choose. Hold the boat. There's a stage select ability? Why am I only just now realizing this some twenty-something years later? And of all places, I find out about it in the manual, something I know I looked at time and again years' past as I was one of those humdrum types that always found delight in leafing through the manuals. Chalk that one up to gross oversight. Sheesh.

Two larger than life railroad spikes and an affinity for high jumps (or frustratingly close but no cigar jumps in 1P Hard) is all our hero needs to scale these impossible towers. In many ways, Nail 'N Scale reminds me of Milon's Secret Castle - a good deal of navigating simplified, yet difficult block puzzles littered with one hit beasties that resurrect after a few short seconds. I've never liked the concept of enemies that can resurrect on screen like that. It's always felt like a lazy approach to difficulty, especially when you're trying to line up a jump or javelin throw only to die from an enemy suddenly coming back to life. It's annoying. I wouldn't say it's unfair, as it's never exactly unfair, but there is definitely aggravation under certain situations lest you keep moving.

Also like Milon's Secret Castle, Nail 'N Scale has a large focus on destroying blocks in order to advance, although often is the case in this game, you don't want to destroy the blocks. This calls for either clever hoarding and usage of white spikes or incredible fleet of foot. In 1P Easy, this isn't so much the case as you can afford to take your time and strategize. 1P Hard doesn't allow for such luxuries with a 3 minute timer and, especially in the late game stages, the timer really hammers on the pressure to make quality jumps on your initial attempts. Stages that specifically call for climbing inverted slopes or staircases are pure misery. That 3 minute timer isn't helping anybody as you really need to be on your A game with button presses to make those impossible jumps in quick succession. Oh, and as I mentioned before, your jump height has been nerfed in 1P Hard, so yea.

Point was, destroying blocks, and there's a lot of puzzles built specifically around this gimmick. Some involve creating staircases out of solid walls. One particular late stage has a number of hard blocks interspersed throughout the wall which makes overall wall destruction a true test. I still have no idea what the proper solution is and relied on hoarding exploding spikes from previous stages. Other stages consist of puzzles where you carefully have to navigate mimic-like blocks and figure out the proper pattern of block to destroy in order to advance. I found these stages to be the most devious, yet the most enjoyable.

Overall, the game is a typical action/puzzle game with a very bouncy, and if it wasn't limited to Game Boy's gray-scale color scheme, I'd imagine beautifully vibrant feel. It's also a lost gem, in my opinion at least. I rarely, if ever, see the game brought up in Game Boy game discussions and it's a shame. For me, it's up there with the best of the best as far as Game Boy titles are concerned and a definite recommended play for anyone who's into action/puzzle games. If anything, it damn near exemplifies the block puzzle/platforming genre. But it's not without its faults. It is, however, accompanied by an expected bouncy soundtrack. with tunes like Stages 1-9 or Stages 21-29. Looking back on my youth, I must have had that first tune ingrained in my head given how many time's I'd have to restart the game from the very beginning. And that is the game's true flaw, except for that damnable stage select that managed to escape me all these years.

Nano-Rant:

There is, however, one other flaw that really got on my nerves - something I never experienced as a kid because, well, I just never made it far enough into the game to know. The latter bosses have some really questionable hitboxes. A couple of them, namely the final boss, Lore, left me confused during my initial playthrough on 1P Easy. Apparently, I was taking the wrong approach to the boss despite it working...technically. Though painfully slow, my plan of action was entirely based on hitting a collision box from the wrong angle that apparently appeared on certain frames as nothing more than a pixel or two in width. It wasn't until 1P Hard, several battles in, when I finally realized how you're actually supposed to defeat him - that my directional focus was entirely incorrect. I only learned the proper way because the 3 minute timer forced me to try alternate methods.

But the bosses alone don't suffer from questionable hitboxes. There are a couple enemies here and there that also felt cheap or slightly off when it came to perceivable hit compared to actual hitbox. This mostly involved movement and may have been more a limitation of the Game Boy itself in regards to rotational figures where the hitbox appeared to be slightly ahead of the sprite by a few frames. Regardless, I never found it aggravating, just unfortunate on a few occasions. The hitboxes on a couple select bosses though...that's a different story.

Nano-Win:

Finally getting past the beginning section of Stage 39 after which seemed countless attempts. That's win enough.

Relying on a strategy that is used literally nowhere else in the game. Ugh.

Rating: 4 Mojo Jumps out of 5

NES - Marble Madness

Haiku-Review:

Forty-five degrees?
Ninety? What's the difference?
Controller nightmare!

Additional Comments:

For the record, no, this was not one of the "select" titles I've been putting around with for the past few months. Honestly, that'd be right sad; then again, given the madness of Marble Madness...maybe not. End game disappearing block bridge... Holy cow! Does the madness ever end!?

Marble Madness was another one of those game I often picked up as a rental when I was young, as I thoroughly enjoyed the premise, however failed to make any decent headway in the game. Maybe because I only had a rare weekend to give it my best, only to be daunted by the frustrating cohesion, or lack thereof, between an isometric view and an x/y axis joypad. Playing the game now, I found 90° instantly comfortable, or at least the more tolerable of the two. I wouldn't exactly term it "comfortable" since my left hand began to suffer from some serious carpal tunnel like symptoms - something of which I've rarely, if ever, experienced in any other game. Maybe some slight cramping over extended play sessions, but the severity of which I was creaming the diagonal axes trying to maneuver a solitary marble over single width zigzags was pure torture.

I don't remember suffering that much when I was a kid. Reasonable explanation would simply be: I was a kid, but I vaguely remember preferring the 45° setup and holding the controller at an angle back then as well. Maybe that's why I sucked so bad at the game back in the day. Using 45° is a mindfuck. Trying to constantly remember if down is indicative of down or left, or is it right, is a total nightmare. I jumped right into 90° this time around and played it through to the end before I tried to give 45° a solid effort again. Nope. Forget it. My solid effort lasted all of a single stage. I'll take shooting nerve pain and a more sensible controller layout, thank you.

Of course, any chiding of the controls must be accompanied by a proper caveat. After all, Rare did the best they could considering the game is meant to be played with a trackball. Credit must be given for at least offering a 45° option to counter the stages' isometric builds. Besides, Rare did a, pardon the pun, rare thing with Marble Madness. They successfully made a brilliant NES port of an arcade game, even if the arcade game slightly predates the system entirely so you have to wonder if praise is really warranted. With a five year time span, you would think a flawless port should exist without question. I don't know, but thankfully, trackball or not, this one is damn near flawless.

Despite any grumbles I may have regarding the controls, or the fact that long ago, I just sucked at this game, I still love this game. Hell, I loved this game as a kid, even if I never made it past the fourth stage, and that was when I was lucky enough to even make it to the fourth stage. There's something wholly fascinating about Marble Madness. It's almost like there's a kinship with miniature golf, and in many respects, reminds me of another game I loved playing a few short years later on the Apple IIGS: Will Harvey's Zany Golf. These are two classic games where the main mechanic is moving a ball around wildly absurd layouts, be it Marble Madness's nod to M.C. Escher or Zany Golf's anything goes motif. Except, unlike a presumed mini-golf emulation, Marble Madness allows for total control of the ball throughout the entire stage.

I'd love to see a proper update to this game. I know there are a number of games in the marble genre that are fairly recent; most come off as shovelware titles and lack that endearing impact that the original marble contraption game had. Plus, most of the one's I've come across seem to take a smidgen of inspiration from Super Monkey Ball. While I understand it's a fantastic series, I've yet to play it, but I've watched enough footage of the games to notice a considerable gap in how the games are approached and for me it feels...off. Looks fun, but feels off. At least nothing out there today is attempting to emulate the ZX Specturm port of Marble Madness. *shudders*

Don't have much else to say. It's a short game, tough as nails insomuch that you're fighting the controls more than anything, and a fantastic reminder of sometimes the simplest games can be the most entertaining. It's not a game for everyone, but for anyone who has even the vaguest interest in puzzle games, though I certainly wouldn't label it as such, it's a highly recommended play. And to cap it off, it comes with a fantastic soundtrack; again, surprisingly faithful to the arcade original, though in my opinion this particular version is the best of the whole bunch. To be fair, I've only heard snippets from the other ports, mostly of the catchy Beginner Race, although, there's something wholly intriguing about the NES version of Practice Race. Something about it just pops that doesn't come across in any of the other versions and it's a tune that's stood the test of time, at least for me, despite its almost mind numbing simplicity.

A quick aside: I do wish there was a mode that allowed you to run the stages without a timer. Consider it an easy mode v. hard mode with timer. Never mind that I personally find most of the difficulty in the controls, but I can't help but feel the game is bloated with classic early video game era artificial difficulty via an unnecessary timer. Some may consider this a baseless gripe - me simply whinging that the game is too hard. On the contrary, I think the game can easily survive on the difficulty offered in the levels themselves. The stupid disappearing bridges at the end of the Ultimate Race are proof enough. But then again, the game is kind enough to start you back at the point of impact should you explode your marble. Without a timer, a lives system would perhaps need to be questioned though, which would only reinforce the idea of artificial difficulty concepts, so...I don't know. Perhaps a timer is the best way to handle the situation without allowing the game to be too easy. But would it be too easy? Eh...maybe.

Rating: 4 nihilistic black marbles with a death wish out of 5*

*And over the edge he goes...

A Big Ol' Five!

Go away...I'm busy!

Yea, it's been quiet leading into a fifth year anniversary. So what? I'm having too much fun playing a few select titles with no real end in sight. So it goes.

XB1 - Pneuma: Breath of Life

Haiku-Review:

a self dialogue
to ascertain existence:
je pense, donc je suis?

Additional Comments:

It's funny. Upon playing Myst, I found the game massively underwhelming and generally lacking as far as gameplay is concerned. Still, there were certain qualities that were hard to ignore or deny as anything but exemplary. Unfortunately, those elements didn't exactly factor into the fun department.

I've found, however, as time drags on, I often find my thoughts returning to Myst. Maybe because I've had a urge to play Riven for the past couple of years but for some unknown reason, keep putting it off. Maybe because in the back of my mind, I keep telling myself that exploratory puzzle games are indeed of a fascinating breed of video games that I actually do enjoy; disparaging thoughts on Myst be damned. Maybe because games like Pneuma: Breath of Life come out and I think to myself, "How could I ever dislike something like that - something that appears to be steeped in esoteric mystery and unnerving loneliness? Both setting and mood styles that I wholeheartedly love yet somehow find myself disappointed time and time again by most games that graciously embrace it. But... But looking at a couple brief teasers of Pneuma and I can only believe my opinions are occluded with sheer nonsense. Myst wasn't a terrible game, and by no means will Pneuma be either. After all, it's bathed in fantastic emptiness and clever puzzle solving. Right?

Pneuma is certainly beautiful; perhaps one of the most beautiful games I'm ever come across. It might even be tempting to say it's too beautiful - the whole thing glossed over in an extra coating of sheen that treads on the outer bounds of graphical overkill. It reminds me of Forza Motorsport 6 where beautifully realistic graphics have been replaced with models that look like they're encased in Saran Wrap reflecting everything and anything under the sun with prominence, giving everything an off putting plastic look. I hate the look of Forza 6, and very nearly hate the graphics of Pneuma, but fortunately, this game only looked over the precipice instead of making a leap of faith into the idea that maximum gloss, flare, and reflection shall rule all when it comes to digital beauty. Still, the amount of reflection is a bit on the obnoxious side. But then, I suppose were supposed to accept Pneuma's world as brand spanking new and we need to witness as much sparkle and glitter to verify the idea. But the question begs, is the world the latest figments of Pneuma's mind made real mere seconds before you witness them as appears the case in the opening segments? Are we exploring something that's centuries old, or more? Doubt it as the idea of a weathered look is obviously foreign. Is it simply an anomaly of space and time similar in respects to the world of Myst?

But graphics are merely dressing and should only mildly affect the game as long as everything else is in order. Unfortunately, like Myst, Pneuma falls short in the game play department, perhaps even more so. For starters, I'd hesitate to say there's any sense of exploration. Unlike Myst, Pneuma is extremely linear, be it advancing from point A to point B in each of the stages or overcoming the next obstacle that stands in your way. If anything, exploration is limited to the idea of viewing an arcane Greco-Roman world with no backstory besides that questioned by the invisible protagonist, or anything you, the player, may wish to inject or possibly infer from the various paintings throughout the stages, pass by as you continually advance forward. Essentially, exploration is as prevalent as it is in a linear walking simulator. If it wasn't for an occasional puzzle to break the monotony, I'd swear Pneuma is no better than a walking simulator to begin with.

Except the puzzles are a total mixed bag. There's never anything that's going to force you to put on your thinking cap, but there are a few that are indeed clever nonetheless. Not exactly in how they're executed, but within their mechanics. I think this is one area where Pneuma really falls flat. Instead of fleshing out some of the more interesting mechanics, the game instead attempts to throw out fresh concepts for each puzzle. Ok, the main sight mechanic is tackled in various ways, but sadly, I think it stumbles as each eye puzzle becomes more of a test of inconvenience since the game's camera is tied to the protagonist. Having to walk around without being able to see where you're going isn't enjoyable, even if there's no inherent danger to be found. It's just annoying. But still, like the various eye puzzles, I'd like to have seen an evolution of depth in some of the more interesting puzzles or gimmicks like the Rubik's room, the binary gates, the flipping steeple, or the tetromino bridge. When it comes to complexity, I feel as though there's only one puzzle that accomplished this successfully: the four rotating towers. Unlike most of the puzzles in the game, that's one of the only ones where it felt like a lot of thought went into it without relying on the increasingly annoying line of sight gimmick or slapdash obstacles like the moving bookshelves that seem completely devoid of ingenuity. Speaking of lack of ingenuity, the sundial puzzle left me scratching my head. It came across as a checklist item - something simply existing because it was desired with no thought as to the why or how.

While a couple puzzles took a little longer to complete than I'd like to confess, very few felt comparative to the more involved puzzles found in Myst. Looking back on Myst, one thing I liked about that game is that puzzles or objects in one location affected objects in another location which gave everything a feeling of dependence. It helped make the world feel like a complex web as opposed to a series of singular events, each of which opens the gate to the next event. As such, Pneuma didn't have the same persistent feel that Myst had which hampered much of its immersive effect. Again, this all traces back to the idea that Pneuma is no better than a walking simulator.

What I found to be the most interesting thing about this game is that it appeared to make all the same inroads as Myst while also making the same missteps as Myst. It makes me wonder if this is simply a result of the genre but then you consider stuff like the 3D Zelda games and have to wonder how they can make puzzles not only fun but carry substantial weight. Why do these esoteric first person puzzle games fall short? Only theory I have is that the limited gameplay forces higher expectations. Perhaps it's just that - I'm expecting too much from these games. But Pneuma left me feeling hollow so it obviously failed somewhere.

One place it didn't fail though is the music. Extremely atmospheric, the music is phenomenal. Again, like Myst, it helps drive home proper mood of solitude, secrecy, and inquisition. It plays off Pneuma's chatty self examination questioning not only his existence, but the world's existence, and what it means to exist. Too bad the game doesn't quite play into the hand of Cartesian philosophy as much as Pneuma's incessant ramblings would lead you to believe. Instead, it plays as a distraction for an alternative to Philosophy 101 with a couple interesting puzzles, one fantastic puzzle, and a whole lot of freshly polished marble reflections.

Nano-Rant(s):

Again, similar to Myst, I found myself faced with a puzzle that I guess is simply beyond my reasoning. Much like a puzzle in Myst that I happened to solve via dumb luck, here too, I solved a certain puzzle by total happenstance and haven't the slightest clue how to actually solve it. I must have spent close to an hour trying to figure out how to manipulate the solution until I eventually forced the answer by unknown means. I still have no idea how to solve the puzzle, but at least the developers had the sense to make it one of the optional puzzles.

And speaking of optional puzzles, the scavenger hunt isn't exactly intuitive. At least every other puzzle in the game, even the aforementioned crap that I solved by total chance, had a degree of intuitiveness to it. Sure, it can be argued that the Roman numerals hint at the solution, but if you happen to miss the other plaques on your initial playthrough, the puzzle's going to go right over your head especially since there's no other puzzle that has any sense of world connection and Pneuma spouts off some nonsense about the solution being in the belly of the beast as soon as you enter the room. Again, I must have spent a good hour in that room trying to do every conceivable button combination on each of the paintings throughout the room because I fully expected the solution to be in that room. Too bad the load times in the game are fucking miserable and turn the puzzle into a complete chore to accomplish.

Also love the fact that there's a collectible trinket in each stage that serves no purpose whatsoever because Xbox didn't get the relative achievement that PlayStation and Steam got. There's not even a story tie-in. Way to make the game feel like it has even less purpose than it already has.

Rating: 2 forbidden fruits out of 5

PC - Evoland

Haiku-Review:

not so much a game
but a nostalgic voyage
down memory lane

Additional Comments:

"...despite my criticisms toward digital purchases, this "teaser" more or less convinced me it may be worth purchasing after all. We'll see though. We'll see...." 

  -Lifted from my remarks on Evoland Classic

Well then...huzzah! My selfish material ways have, at least temporarily, subsided enough for me to venture further into the realm of digital purchases so that I could finally advance beyond the mere demonstration of Evoland into the full blown game. But the gnawing question on everyone's mind - well, maybe not everyone's mind, but for sure, my mind: was it worth it?

Knowing I'm just repeating myself, it's worth noting that I love the concept behind Evoland. After playing Classic and now the full game, I still love the concept, except...I'm not sure Evoland delivered the concept in the best possible way. Evoland Classic, essentially a short play demonstration of the full game, introduces the concept of RPG evolution by steering the player from a primitive Game Boy-esque action/adventure game through to a 16-bit top down RPG. Despite a couple minor personal grievances concerning extraneous material, Classic managed the evolutionary trope perfectly. It accomplished exactly what it set out to do. Enter Evoland proper.

Obviously, Evoland follows Classic to a T - after all, it's the same game, up until the latter half of Classic at least. Here, Classic deviates from what eventually became the official play route of the full game. Besides, Classic had to explore an ending of it's own. The full game takes the reins and further ventures into the RPG genre, introducing 3D models, side quests and mini games, complex boss fights, and its own take on the tried and true Diablo formula. Unfortunately, as the game ventures further along the RPG evolutionary timescale, the game begins to feel more and more hollow.

It's hard to pinpoint this empty feeling as the game's sole focus is about the development of the RPG genre over time as opposed to an actual story. However, there is a story embedded into the game. I can only assume this was done in hopes of deterring the game from becoming a pure abstraction of itself. Players need a hook to keep themselves invested in a game, at least in an RPG. Otherwise, the whole experience becomes droll at best. Not much is to be expected as far as story, considering the game opens up with offering our hero the ability to walk right and then to walk left. Where do you go from there? Especially when the game continually breaks the fourth wall with each graphical upgrade or other such historical innovation. Perhaps that's part of the reason while the game feels so hollow at times. There's no true investment in the world as the game feels less of a game as opposed to more of a study on gaming history in general. But the question prevails, is that a proper definition of the game as well? It should be, but it isn't.

But I could overlook the entire meta aspect of the game and focus my attention on what plot does exist within the constantly developing architecture of the game world. Whether I'm fighting monsters in a turn-based battle system across the overworld, administering wounds in the action/adventure segments, or slicing up eyeballs in the Diablo cave, I'll appreciate the story for what it is as the game wishes to express it at that given moment. In many respects, this is my big problem with the game. There's times where the game seems to hit its stride as certain play styles relate better to the game or story at hand while at other times, certain game styles seem to exist just because the developer likely had a list of things from the evolutionary chart of RPG games that he wanted to hit up, or deemed important to the cause. Whether or not he could relate them to the story made little difference. The result is a disjointed structure that instills apathy in the player. Other than seeing how the developer implemented certain key aspects of the ever evolving RPG genre, I have no incentive to accomplish anything, and never is this more true than in the Ruins of Sarudnahk.

Obviously, Diablo was an important presence in the grand scheme of RPG styles and I think Evoland pays a nice tribute to it, but in a microcosmic contextual view, as per the good of Evoland, it fails. That's not to say it shouldn't exist, it should, but it should also relate to the story as much as every other element relates to the story if the game is indeed attempting to put any merit into the story. The Ruins of Sarudnahk was nothing more than an empty playing experience because nothing meant anything other than some quirky, nerdy jokes and a necessary ingredient to achieve 100% status in the end credits. Of course, any other part of Evoland could be argued to befall the same pointless existence, but most every other locale or style seemed to have at least a drop of substance.

In the end, Evoland becomes a tale of two premises at loggerheads fighting over the intended point of the game. Are we, the players, playing a conceptual, piecemeal stroll through the early years of RPG goodness or are we playing a terribly cliché, good vs. evil parable that happens to be swaddled in a perpetually amorphous shroud of key RPG likenesses from throughout the years? I would play either. Sure, each option would inherit obvious flaws depending on how you hoped to perceive the game yourself, but at least each option would be stable. Instead, the game is an odd mix of the two; never quite sure how it wants to approach the next evolutionary element - story enriched or merely a surface element to tick off a developer's check box.

I still enjoyed a majority of the game, even if it felt vacuous at times. All of the pre-3D elements were well done as was the Sacred Grove - likely the best area in the game. While the rest of the game slowly evolved from one element to the next or awkwardly flopped from one element to the next - turn-based overworld vs. action/adventure dungeons and the clumsy usage of inventories, or rather faux inventories, the Sacred Grove took advantage of properly meshing two elements into a unique dimensional shift puzzle. I would have loved to see further implementation of this throughout the rest of the game between some of the other styles. If anything, I could imagine it giving the game a much needed shot of innovation above and beyond history repeating.

Perhaps I'm attempting to read too much into Evoland, or I expected far too much out of it. Perhaps the game is meant to be nothing more than a hollow affair accompanying our trek through 20 years of RPG evolution. If that's the case, I can only apologize for my own interpretation. In many ways, I'd rather that be the case than having just played a disappointment in comparison to the free demo. I tend to imagine my enjoyment of the game is fictitious, based on what I imagined the game was going to be as opposed to what it is in reality. My willingness to like the game boiled with such intensity that I overlooked all of the glaring flaws voluntarily. Perhaps there was truth to all those mediocre reviews I read some years back and intentionally disregarded them because I wanted to believe that they just didn't "get" the game. It's disheartening because Evoland Classic gave me such high hopes and gave me reason to ignore many of the more dismal reviews.

However, I must make it clear that most of my general disillusion occurred upon finishing the game when I realized I somehow missed out on a proper gaming experience somewhere along the way. It wasn't readily apparent and only upon reflection it hit me how devoid of actual substance it is. Until that point, fantastic game, as long as you accept the fact that you're shallow. Guess my advice is don't finish the game or else fall prey to how artificial the whole experience is. Maybe the best way to sum it up is that on the whole, Evoland lacks that certain soul that appears lacking in so many of the games crafted in RPG Maker - an intangible quality that's terribly difficult to describe but noticeably absent when such is the case.

The music is typical RPG fare, but to play into the hands of an ever evolving style, uses multiple versions of each song befitting to each stylistic cue, be it 8-bit, 16-bit or one of the more modern incarnations. Generic or not, I enjoyed the approach and appreciate the soundtrack for what it is. And honestly, when done well, I enjoy generic RPG fluff. A personal favorite would probably be Overworld [16 Bit]. Airship is fairly pleasant as well.

Interestingly, a sequel came last year and much like I was with this game initially, I'm intrigued. Even after my disappointment in Evoland, I'm strangely positive about the sequel. It looks promising, but then, I could be just as naïve as I was going into this game; under the influence of grand illusion invoked by my own personal hopes and desires for an "evolutionary" style gaming experience. I suppose as I already said after having played Evoland Classic; musing on whether or not I'll buy the full game, here too it's only appropriate to say, "We'll see..."

Nano-Rant:

Previously discussed within my comments for Evoland Classic, I feel I must touch on this again as I find it to be an incredibly poor design choice. Secret passages hidden behind nondescript walls. There's a reason why all the great RPGs place tiny tell-tale signs of where a secret passage may lurk. Nobody wants to spend endless amounts of time attempting to enter every 16x16 tile hoping a secret may exist beyond. Except, the full game kicked it up a notch over the demonstration with one particularly nasty example.

While not a spot on definition of what I'm already driving at, it essentially falls under the same category. I spent forever trying to figure out how to get to a particular chest in Noria Mines, fully expecting it to fall victim to more invisible passageway bullshit that's already rampant throughout the rest of that particular dungeon. Nope. Turns out I had to fall down a hole, which I would have never expected because upon accidentally being swept into one of the holes by a menacing whirlwind, I quickly learned to tread carefully and beware the gaps in the floor. This harkens back to one of my biggest issues with Where's Waldo? where once the player learns that something is inherently bad the player will ignore it from there on out. You can't teach the player one thing and then suddenly play the old switcheroo. Sure, the game just places my character back at the beginning of the room - there's no real punishment from falling in one of these holes, but it's still equatable with failure. Why am I going to voluntarily place myself into a situation of failure? It makes no sense, even for the purpose of exploration. It's simply dickish design and nothing else.

Rating: 2.5 DVD Players out of 5