Game #36: Sword Art Online Lost Song

Sword Art Online: Lost Song
Platform: PS4
Duration: 32 Hours

The Sword Art games have nailed one thing, they portray the characters very accurately. In the absence of the show, they're a great fix for my SAO addiction. Game wise though they are just decent. Nothing particularly revolutionary, but solid game play that stays faithful to the show's mechanics.

I don't think I can look at this objectively since I like the show so much, but I enjoyed my time.

Game #35: Fallout 4

Fallout 4
Platform: PC
Duration: 69 Hours

Fallout 4 is a good game. I think with a few more months of development and some further iteration on some systems it could have been a great game, but that just isn't what was presented with the final product. What we got was a story that ends an entire act before the game does, an abysmal UI, a serious hit to player choice, and the trivialization of a number of classic Fallout themes. In short, it felt like a simplification of something who's complexity used to bring me a lot of enjoyment.

But I still had fun.

I've been trying to distill down why I still enjoyed my time with the game. I think the core gameplay is so familiar to me at this point that it is hard not to enjoy getting progressively stronger and blowing the crap out of mutants with my laser rifle. V.A.T.S is a fun system, that gets more rewarding as you invest perks in it. Crafting was interesting too, and it was cool putting the junk items to use. I mean, I don't think there has ever been a video game that made me excited to find an aluminium tray factory before.

I think this is like when I watched Star Wars Episode 1 as a kid for the first time. I enjoyed it, but I felt something was off. It was only later that I sat down and pieced together everything that was bothering me. Fallout 4 is the same. Well, not as bad as Jar-Jar of course, but still.

I think what bugs me is how this just doesn't feel like a Fallout game to me anymore. There's no way to play an evil character, just a sarcastic asshole. Power Armor, which took a herculean effort to earn in previous games, is now just given to you before the two hour mark and is just a glorified vehicle. Even joining the Brotherhood of Steel, which again took a lot of effort in previous games is now accomplished after completing a single mission and you get fast tracked through promotions constantly. Skills are gone. Creative solutions to problems are gone. The whole game just feels...simple.

It feels as if it was designed peacemeal across numerous developers and then just thrown together into one whole right at the end without a lot of integration testing. I'm sure the designer working on the Railroad quests thought it would be awesome to add in the ability to modify your clothes and hat slots as a quest reward, but I don't think anyone stopped to think if it would be a good idea to gate an upgrade that effectively triples your defense behind doing two side quests for an optional faction.

I mentioned it earlier, but the story? Ugh. It resolves way too quickly, the individual faction stories are incredibly weak, and the ending is a huge letdown. It completely killed my desire to replay this game.

Game #34: Call of Duty Black Ops 3

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
Platform: PS4
Duration: 7 Hours

So some people still call me a masochist, but I continue to play through the campaign for every Call of Duty. It's a franchise I have worked personally on, so I feel it almost as an obligation to see how my kid has grown up. I touch base every year to see what sort of life choices it has been making for itself. Well if Black Ops 3 was my son, he would be a 19 year old wandering around Europe for a summer, trying to find itself. I hope my boy gains a sense of identity soon, because I had precisely zero fucking clue what was happening.

I don't know who I work for. I don't know who I am fighting. The game throws acronyms for organizations at me left and right without explaining what they mean or why I should care. It seriously got to the point where I was making up my own names and backstory. There was one group called the "Winslow Accord" that I was convinced was just a peace treaty brokered by the actor that played Carl Winslow in Family Matters.

One minute it's all future battlefields with robots and smart weapons, then I'm inside my own head, then someone else's head, then it's fucking World War 2 because we haven't done that in a while, then it's the original zombies level in the middle of a campaign mission. Like, please CoD, stop for a second. Breathe. Figure out what story you want to tell instead of vomiting visuals at me. This didn't even feel like a Black Ops campaign. I counted, there were precisely two connections to the previous games that I came across:

The badguy from BO2 was mentioned in passing once.
NOVA6 gas shows up and the threat is removed TWO MINUTES after it appears.

That's it. No Mason. No numbers. Just some snowy forest and robots.

Me ranting about the story aside (sorry, Black Ops 1 was my favorite campaign and I was disappointed to see it fall so hard) I did want to mention the gameplay itself. Gunplay is still top notch, and I enjoyed the addition of a custom character and the level up system in single player. The cybernetic abilities were overpowered to shit though. Those silly fire bees pretty much won me every encounter. It was by far the easiest Hardened playthrough I've done.

There is a lot of game in this box, and while MP isn't my thing, Zombies was still fun to dick around in and I did enjoy shooting things with my robot arms in campaign. I just might be the only person in the world who still hopes for a good CoD story. If you just want to fight off waves of enemies until you move forward to trigger the script to spawn the next wave, you will still have fun.

Game #33: Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Game #33

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Platform: PS4

Duration: 68 Hours

(SPOILER FREE, as I would never take the joy of experiencing this game away from anyone)

Let me paint you a picture.

This is a game where I was able to do something as stupid as this:
https://www.facebook.com/trevor.page.90/videos/1128693890493326/
...and then turn around and bawl like a child 10 hours later and one of the saddest things I have ever seen.

A game where I can literally suck a donkey through a wormhole...

...and be absolutely terrified and on the edge of my seat as the world crashes down around me during the same play session.

This game is beautiful. Not in the visual sense (though it is a beauty in that department) but in the sense that it gives me great pleasure to see, hear, think about, and experience. This is what I hope for every time I launch a title, the thing that drives me to be a part of this industry. Let me come right out and say it. This is the best game I played all year, and is one of my top five games of all time.

I have played dozens of games this year which have felt somehow incomplete to me. Games that could have used more time to really refine and close the loop on some systems, or maybe clean up the UI just a tad (or at all, Fallout 4). Metal Gear felt FINISHED. Complete. Polished to a level I have scarcely seen. Everything you did in this game had a purpose and resulted in an increase in player power or was just plain fun. It presented a world where every situation was a puzzle and it was up to me to figure out the correct tool for the job. If I failed, I knew it was my fault and I just had to approach the scenario a different way. I learned from every mistake, every incorrect loadout, every triggered alarm. I got better because the game challenged me to do so without ever feeling unfair.

Success felt wonderful, and was incredibly rewarding. I still don't know how they managed to pull off providing such an amazing sense of increasing your player power while making sure I never felt overpowered. The game was just as balanced if I tried to complete Mission 2 after only a few hours of play as it was if I did side quests for 40 hours before starting it, yet in both scenarios I felt powerful in different ways. I can look back at the start of the game and think "Man, I am a badass." and have that same thought loading up my save now. Every system in this game feeds into a perfect progression loop, hell even the goddamn MAIN THEME of the game has different meanings depending on how far through the story you are.

Through the gameplay and your management of Mother Base, I essentially felt like I had created my own world. This was MY base. These were MY recruits. MY Snake was silent and brutal. MY helicopter played MY theme when I deployed. The whole game felt personal, which I think just served to pull me in even deeper to this experience.

Speaking of pulling me in, the story was incredibly satisfying to me, hitting some great highs and some incredibly saddening lows. I don't think I have ever experienced a game that tied the story in so well to game systems either. Sure some games may unlock new systems after progressing, but Metal Gear intertwines them so much that they never feel separate. I wish I could go into detail, but explaining it any more would give things away. Gameplay was not sacrificed for story, and story was not sacrificed for gameplay. They were both part of the same whole.

Look, if you're reading this you probably know me pretty well. I am a hard person to please with games and I really don't like riding hype trains. This is genuine, unbiased respect and admiration for the game. If it was shit, I would call it out, and being popular wouldn't save it (just wait for the Fallout 4 post.) If you have a love for games, you need to play this. It's that simple.

After beating this game, I felt a number of things. Pride in myself for finishing the journey. Satisfaction with what the last moments presented. But more than anything, I was sad. Like, REALLY sad, because I knew this was the end and I wouldn't get to experience anything like this again. I will miss Metal Gear terribly, but even through the sadness I was glad I went along for the ride.

Thank you, Snake.
https://gifsound.com/?gif=i.imgur.com/yUlM6WD.jpg&v=QiPon8lr48U&s=161

Game #26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32 MEGA Ketchup Post

Holy crap am I behind on updating! Don't worry though, because I've been busy! Instead of doing 7 individual posts, I think I will just do one big ass update, though I will break off MGS5 into it's own post. So here's the quick and dirty for the past few gaming months for Trevor.

Game #26
Fairy Fencer F
Platform: PC
Duration: 17 Hours

Never heard of this series before, but I saw the OT on NeoGAF for it and thought it looked interesting. Plus it was a JRPG for $15 bucks so I figured I would get my money's worth out of it. Honestly, it wasn't all that bad. The game didn't take itself too seriously, combat was decent enough, and the story wasn't the worst. The game did cut a LOT of corners though that probably saved development time and padded out the story significantly. Example: Halfway through the game you travel back in time and go through all the same locations again. There is also only one hub town that is all menu based and cutscenes are all 2D. Recycling!

Game only has 2 waifus though.

Game #27
Croixleur Sigma
Platform: PC
Duration: 2 Hours

Japanese indy game. Basically you climb a tower and kill monsters in arcade combat. Has come combos. Not a lot here but they want you to keep replaying to chase down better times and combos. Kinda fun. Again, 2 waifus.

Game #28
Freedom Wars
Platform: PS Vita
Duration: 22 Hours

Freedom Wars kicks ass. Seriously. It's a third person shooter for the vita where you play a prisoner with no memory in a post apocalyptic setting and a sentence of 1,000,000 years. To reduce your sentence and work off your debt to society like a good person, you go do missions against other cities that are given to you by a teddy bear by shooting robots, cutting off their arms, grappling around, and carrying scientists to drop pods.

You aren't even allowed to sleep laying down until you earn the right and doing so without the correct entitlement adds 50 years to your sentence. 10/10.

Game #29
Destiny: The Taken King
Platform: PS4
Duration: 10 Hours

I am counting this one because god damn it I got a credits screen and that counts. I enjoyed a version of Destiny with an actual story. Itemization definitely feels better, the new Hunter class is fun, and the raid has some very great mechanics for a shooter. Their ability to deliver unique encounters continues to impress me. I will probably stick with it until I clear the raid on Heroic (one boss to go!)

Game #30
Rock Band 4
Platform: XB1
Duration: 20 Hours

There were two ways to return to the music game genre: Keep everything the same (Rock Band) or completely reinvent yourself (Guitar Hero). Erika and I have so much invested in Rock Band that we went this route. This game is straight up a blast from the last gen and still as fun as ever. Our Band, Giant Enemy Crab, reached Rank 9 in the world on the launch weekend. That's something I'm gonna be proud of for a long time.

Game isn't without it's flaws though. The legacy adapter took an extra week to arrive and doesn't work very well. A number of features have been cut from the game including online and practice, though they plan to support the game with free updates instead of coming out with a sequel so we'll see. And finally not all of the DLC is available in the store. Large track packs like Rock Band 1, 2, and 3 are missing as well as Green Day and Lego plus hundreds of stand alone songs. There were also licensing issues at launch which prevented the game from recognizing that I owned specific songs. It's getting sorted, but is still a bummer.

Game #31
Persona 4: Dancing All Night
Platform: PS Vita
Duration: 6 Hours

Fun little rhythm game. I was actually impressed how much work they placed on the story to justify dancing to kill enemies. Game forced me to play through the campaign on Easy though, which is bullshit.

Game #32
Tales of Zestiria
Platform: PC
Duration: 30 Hours

A "Tales" game that is only 30 hours long?! I was as surprised as you are! Tales of Graces took me about 80 hours from start to finish and even Xillia was about 50. When I reached the point where all the characters started talking about the final battle I was like "Yeah okay guys. Now go ahead and reveal the second planet we have to explore." but it never happened. Stabbed the big bad with a sword and disappeared after touching a dragon, the end.

While the story wasn't too awful, it was a bit weak. Combat was fun though, but that's part for the course with Tales games. What WASN'T fun though was the most convoluted item system of any JRPG I have ever played. All items have base stats and affixes, the affixes fall on a gird, forming lines with affixes adds bonuses, you can merge the items to transfer affixes and make new ones, but you have to do it 10 times in an area where you have fought enough monsters to get a blessed item that you then have to merge another 99 times, but stores only sell one item at a time. It's a nightmare.

Well that's everything except Metal Gear. That game deserves it's own post! Planning out the rest of my year though, that 52 game mark is starting to look kinda scary. Planning it out a bit...
33 was Metal Gear 5.
34 will be Black Ops 3.
35 will be Fallout 4.
36 will probably be Tomb Raider.
37 will be Sword Art: Lost Song
38 will be Xenoblade Chronicles X

...and that's all the big titles I can remember right now that I am planning on playing. That's 14 more I need to figure out and beat and it is already November! Well, shit.

Game #25: Hatoful Boyfriend

Hatoful Boyfriend
Platform: PC
Duration: 1 Hour

So in this game, you play a Human girl who lives in a cave and goes to a Pigeon School and has to date one of them. I found the fanciest one I could find and helped him realize his dreams of being a musician even though his high society Father would never allow it. Pretty standard as far as dating sim plots go.

There was also some stat mechanic that I never really understood. Honestly once you get over the whole "you're dating birds" gimmick. there isn't a whole lot here. I guess I learned I am not sexually attracted to birds, which is good news I guess.

Game #24: BattleToads Arcade

BattleToads Arcade
Platform: XB1
Duration: 1 Hour

Erika and I blitzed through this a few weeks ago on a whim. I had no idea you grabbed wolfmen and then dick punched them. This game is brutal and still pretty hard. A lesser man than I would make a dick punching joke about that "hard" comment, but I'm better than that.

Penis.