Open World Generation

After two generations of open-world games, there is little left in the genre that hasn't been explored. That's why it's pretty remarkable that Nintendo is able to come into the open world genre with something as refreshing as Breath of the Wild. And to do that with an established IP like the Legend of Zelda is certainly no small feat here. There are conventions and standards to honor, and I can say that all expectations of the legendary series are met.

The magic of Nintendo games has always been the simplicity by design. The result of this simplistic design is a game that is easy to pick up and appeals to gamers and non-gamers alike. The less is more philosophy is not very popular in modern games but Nintendo is an expert at applying this to their games and the sheer elegance of its simplicity is really the envy of the game industry.

Much of the game world is populated only by wildlife and nature and while this may feel like barren, it actually creates a better sense of depth and exploration. Many other game will try and stuff as much events and things to do until the point where you need to stop and chat every 5 minutes. I can't tell you how many open world games I played where I'm not appreciating the details of the game world because my eyes are too focused on the mini-map to get to the next location. 

Breath of the Wild doesn't have a mini-map on-screen or even a map screen on the Wii U gamepad. While I initially loathe the idea of scrapping the Wii U Gamepad second screen for console parity with the switch version, I soon come to realise it made the game better and more immersive. In fact, I even made my Witcher 3 session more Zelda-like by removing the mini-map now and relying on my own sense of direction instead. It sounds like a crazy idea especially after relying on the mini-map for over 60 hours on The Witcher 3 but part of me realised I wasn't focusing on the game world as much as I should be even before playing Breath of the Wild. BOTW was just the final nudge that made me realised it and now this is how I would probably play all open-world game from here on. 

Another simplistic design element of this game is the musical score or lack of. There are no grand musical score except for the major cutscenes so for the most part, the game feels very lonely. I have seen divided opinions on the game musical score and so far, I don't really mind having less music in the game. It's certainly much better than hearing the battle score of Fallout 4 over and over again every time I play that game. I was a bit disappointed how little voice-overs are used in the game, there was simply too much text reading like the old Zelda games. 

The world of Breath of the Wild is pretty vast, I remember going from point A to point B without backtracking or fast-travel and it was days before I finally felt the need to go back to a village. If it's not about the destination it's the journey then that saying certainly rings true here. I always find that fast-travel detracts you from the open world immersion and would like to avoid using them as much as possible. What Rockstar did with GTA V when you switch characters is pretty cool where you don't see any loading screen, I only wished more open world games would do that. 

I could go on and on about the Breath of the Wild, I find the game so addictive without able to pinpoint what exactly it is that keeps me coming back. The intangible element that makes a game great, not the story or the characters, I guess you can say it's the heart. While I still don't believe any one game alone can justify the purchase of a system, Breath of the Wild make a pretty darn good case for that. 

Never On Time

A new Zelda game don't come around very often, that's why it's a pretty big event for the game industry and more specifically zelda fans.

I remembered the last few Zelda games launch very vividly, I remember the hype just as much as the games themselves.

I remember A Link Between Worlds getting released with a highly-sought after gold-plated 3DS. The timing of the release around Black Friday made it impossible to get one of those of gold 3DS locally without paying an arm and leg. I wanted both the system and the game as I have yet to own a Nintendo 3DS that time. I didn't managed to get the gold 3DS after all but I did managed to win a copy of the game, A Link Between Worlds shortly after buying a 3DS system. I finally played the game late last year and it was very bit as good as you would expect.

I remember the last Zelda console game the Skyward Sword was such a long wait coming that I actually bought a Wiimote Motionplus in advance. I didn't expect Nintendo to put out a rather affordable bundle of the game and gold-plated wii-mote that would quickly sold out. Once again, I missed out on another fan coveted Zelda piece.

Since the Wii was my first Nintendo home console, I had the grand ambitions of finishing both Wind Waker and Twilight Princess before the Skyward Sword came out. Somehow I could never decide when and which version of Twilight Princess to play and I felt no sense in playing Skyward Sword before TP. So eventually I ended up missing Skyward Sword at launch but the hype was very real and still vivid to this day.

I finally got around to playing Twilight Princess Wii version a few years ago when I already have Wii U system. I think I was also re-playing the HD version of the Wind Waker. Though long overdue, Twilight Princess didn't feel aged to me as the scope and scale of the game was far more than I was expecting. 

This year the hype is back as the new Zelda game is coming out in less than a months' time. I finally have a copy of Skyward Sword now and I'm just starting the adventure despite knowing I wouldn't finish it in time for Breath of the Wild. I have already pre-ordered the regular (and only) version of the game for the Wii U system. No more fancy bundle or special editions, not that there are any available for me to buy on the Wii U system. I just want to play the game and have a copy on my shelf as part of my Zelda game collection. 

This time, I will be on time for the hero of time.

Prep Me Up For More

I was expecting ZombiU to be mediocre and at best, a generic zombie game . The one thing I didn't expect was how addictive the game is.

ZombiU creates tension by obscuring your view in first person mode and giving you a third person view of your character and surrounding in key moments. This creates a sense of dread as you are unable to pause the action whenever you are stationary.

It's as close as you will get to feeling like you are in a zombie movie. It's never an easy choice between running away or staying to fight. Using a melee weapon or using a firearm. You are constantly making split second decision and living or dying by your choice.

When you finally fall victim to a fatal zombie attack, you will think about what went wrong and can't wait to get back to where you died (in normal mode). You see you will get one try with your survivor, die and you either re-spawn in your safe house as the next survivor or worse, come to a complete end if you are playing the merciless Survival mode. That's the world of  Zombi U where no one is truly safe except the guy speaking to you over the radio.

It's a testament to the developer's craft that the game is able to sustain its level of tension throughout the duration. You never get the feeling of being too powerful even when you get better firearms. This game is truly underrated because it was released exclusively on an under-performing platform.

Often times in this generation, exclusive games tend to feel short and unfulfilling because of how expensive it is to make games solely for one system. Zombi U doesn't give the impression of any cut corners and remarkably looks really good for a launch game. It's a shame that even when released on other systems, it continues to fly under the radar as opposed to more recognizable zombie games like (yep you guessed it) Resident Evil 7.

Walking Tall Among Giants

A while back I talked about how I never really played much RPG up until the last generation or so. Even then I tend to stick mostly to tactical SRPG as it suits my style of play.

Xenoblade is one of the few RPG I'm currently playing that isn't a SRPG. I also played a good ten hours of The Last Story but ultimately decided to focus on Xenoblade first. This game shows me what I'm missing from the RPG genre that I simply don't get on SRPG games : the sense of adventure.

SPRG gameplay and map are always plotted out on a grid. In a way, it makes things easier to learn for a novice of the genre like me. At the same time, it's also restrictive because you can never wander off the grid.

Xenoblade gives you the freedom to explore the world like a good RPG should. The sense of adventure in this game is truly epic to the point I cannot fathom how it plays on the N3DS port. The N3DS port will definitlely lose some of its epicness feel no matter how close it matches the Wii game's visual.

The world of Xenoblade is truly beautiful with real-time weather and daylight change. It's inhabited by a complete ecosystem that Monolith designed for this world. Playing on the TV screen gives you a nice vibe of adventure a bit like Red Dead Redemption except this isn't a barren wastelands. It's a beautiful world that will sometimes make you stop and appreciate the landscape. You can travel to anywhere you see in a distance and all that walking always feels rewarding rather than tedious.

Monster Hunter Tri is a good example of how good this game looks on the Wii but without the annoying loading screen thaat plagues each MH game. You can say I'm biased against handheld system but Nintendo should have remaster Xenoblade for a home console instead of the 3DS system. This game definitely deserves to be played on a big TV screen.

Pad to the Basics

 

Fatal Frame Maiden of Black Water marks a return to the numbered series for the Fatal Frame franchise after a long period of soul-searching. Since the last numbered Fatal Frame game (FF3), the series has gone exclusive to Nintendo systems, put out a Remake of it's most popular game and even did a joint collaboration with Grasshopper Manufacture.

FF Maiden of Black Water feels like a follow-up to FF3 because it uses a safe house hub that you frequently go back to. It also features returning character Miu from the very first Fatal Frame game. FF3 is widely considered to be the weakest game of the series so it's pretty gutsy that KT decided to follow up on that game's premise. While I don't remember much of FF3, I find Maiden of Black Maiden to be a worthy entry to the FF series.

One of the new elements introduced in this game is the Fatal Glance where you have a limited time to reach out to the defeated ghost to "touch" them. Doing so will reveal their past life and how they came to their demise in a flashback video sequence. This is a very good extension of the ghost photos that are hidden in the previous games. In the past when you successfuly capture a candid ghost photo of a random ghost, you usually get a description of that ghost and their backstory. I was a bit disappointed to learnt that not every ghost have a backstory even when you managed to Fatal Glance.

The gamepad is put to good use in this game and isn't a complete nightmare experience. You can use a combination of the analog stick and gyrosensor to expertly position the camera. Having the camera view on the gamepad helps you keep track of the character position in the game. One of the problems with Fatal Frame games is it's easy to lost track of the character position when you moved into camera view. Here it is less of an issue because you still have a view of the area on the TV when you go to camera view.

It's really a shame that Nintendo doomed this game to the digital market and many have refused to buy it as a result. The sales expectations were never enough to justify Nintendo's faith on a retail release so it's a chicken or egg situation when this game fails commercially. Fortunately Nintendo probably got quite a few of fans to pick up the system already before finally pouring cold water with a digital release.

Cold Feet, Wet Decision

I finally put my money where my mouth is and bought Fatal Frame V on the Wii U last month. The truth is I have always allocated the money for the full game in my Eshop wallet but get cold feet whenever I'm about to purchase it.

$50 is an awful lot for a digital game especially when you consider RE0 HD costs $20 and that is already a tough sell for some people. This is the story of how I ended up buying the game roughly four months after its release on Eshop.

I realised that all of the Wii U games I owned never came with a printed manual. It's just a box with a shiny disc inside. What's the point of insisting on a retail copy anymore when all you get is a shallow box with a disc inside? Of course, the main reason why most gamers prefer retail is they intend to sell the game back which is also the same reason publishers are pushing for a digital future. These issues are of little concern to me as I never intend to sell off any of my games.

The other thing was I still have plenty of unfinished Wii U games when Fatal Frame V came out last October. Sure I could drop everything on a dime and play FFV but finishing those games and waiting for a potential price drop felt like a better idea. I ended up spending the month of December and January finishing those games. By February, there was still no sign of any discount forthcoming for FFV and my Wii U was starting to gather dust.

I'm a big believer of timing these days, if I have the time and money to play these games now I should make the most of it. After all, what's the point of getting a game cheap like peanuts but you have better and newer games to play by then? Now FFV has my undivided attention and I was fully comfortable with paying the full price for it. A review of this game will follow shortly, or maybe I will start rambling next about how I came to buying Kiwami.

The Wonderful One

On the dawn of Platinum 10th Aniversary, let's talk about The Wonderful 101 which I just finished recently.

Even after getting the U, I was lukewarm about this game as it seems more 'viewtiful' than 'stylish hard action'. H.Kamiya has made many great games but it's his Devil May Cry style which appeals to me the most. Fortunately Club Nintendo rewarded me this game so I didn't have to make the choice of buying.

This is a hard game to describe, it has a realistic cartoon visual style but a less than friendly learning curve. The heroes looked like old-fashioned superheroes and they have a lot more personality than the average hero. This is probably H.Kamiya best writing work so far. I laughed a lot at the banter between the heroes because it's just so sharply written. The localisation team did a great job on this one, it reminded me of the Ace Attorney humour. Apparently S.Takumi from the Ace Attorney series is close friends with H.Kamiya during their Capcom days.

It's easy to say this now but this game was doomed for commercial failure and I don't think releasing it on a more popular system would have made a difference. Like most Japanese games, it gives you all the tools you need and expect you to learn everything on your own. At times, I feel like I need 4 extra mechanical arms from Doc Ock to play this. I struggled with when to block and when to dodge, apparently you need a bit of cartoon logic which I certainly lacked. 

Things eventually clicked and I started to enjoy it a bit more. There is certainly no other games out there like this. Some games try to be different for the sake of being different however this one feels genuinely unique. It's probably Platinum games best game so far and that is not an easy feat considering the competition. It's an amalgamation of everything H.Kamiya has done. There is a bit Okami (formation attack), a bit of Devil May Cry (Wonder-Blue) and a lot of Viewtiful Joe (Wonder-Red).

If you love video games, it's hard not to like The Wonderful 101 at all. Well unless you are some kid who grew up on mobile games that requires only one finger to play and minimum amount of attention.

2015 recap: Wii U

I was lucky enough to pick up the white Wii U seeing how obscure the console has become. This was my first full year of owning the Wii U so I was happy there were many quality games already available. I do hope there are more coming. That being said, I bought the system based on what I already knew what was coming to the console so my expectations are somewhat met.

Buying the Wii U wasn't as easy a decision as some of my past systems.I knew the shaky situation Nintendo is facing as the system was not the hit that they expected.

I finished quite a number of Wii U games this year and have more to go next year.

1. Bayonetta 2
2. Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze
3. Captain Toad
4. The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
5. Super Mario Maker
6. Bayonetta

Ok I cheated a little with Bayonetta.

2015 Recap: Don't Look Back in Anger

As 2015 is drawing to an end, I'm going to start recounting the games I finished on each systems. It's safe to say that my two most played systems remains the PS3 and 3DS, which is probably the same as last year's. If this generation were to end today I still think the Nintendo 3DS is the best system of this generation. While it's not really fair to pit a portable handheld against home consoles, the current gen systems are still in a pretty sorry state of affairs.

I remained baffled as to why so many people are buying a PS4 right now. To play what? If this was the PS2 era, exclusive games like Bloodborne and Until Dawn are nothing but B-level games. Instead, they received an enormous amount of attention and hype by simply being exclusive on the best-selling console of this generation.

Looking back, getting a Nintendo Wii U instead of PS4 was a pretty sound decision. Nintendo is doing as much as they can to support the system but still there is only so much you can handle as both the publisher/developer. Of course I might have made a completely different decision if my first PS3 didn't YLOD in the first place. I won't have lose faith in the durability of Sony systems and I probably won't feel burnt to get another Sony machine as I do right now.

Playing the Wii U is a complete different cycle with what I went through on the Wii. I didn't really play any first-party Nintendo games until late in the Wii era. This time on the Wii U, I have playing mostly first-party games with the exception of Bayonetta 2. Nintendo does a great job of rewarding customers on the Club Nintendo program. I got a number of these games free through Club Nintendo and they are full-priced games unlike the crap PSN Plus throws out.

OK, that's enough hating for now.

Camera Obscurity

When Nintendo got the rights to Fatal Frame series, some would say they doomed the horror series to obscurity. I think the series is always going to be a niche series compared with the mainstream success of Resident Evil or Silent Hill. Sure Nintendo didn't help the cause by refusing to localized some of the newer games on their system. But under the big N care, the series innovated in ways that simply wasn't possible if it remained on Sony consoles. It's kind of a two steps forward two steps back kind of evolution.

The two games on the Wii system used motion controls  to allow your Wiimote to mimic the flashlight. It didn't place the flashlight in your hands quite like Shattered Memories but that was never the key component of the game anyway. The camera obscura will always be the main feature of the game and the motion controls made it easier to capture the perfect shot.

Tecmo took it up a notch on the Nintendo 3DS by transforming the handheld into the camera obscura, thanks to the gyro sensor function. As funny as it was to wave the 3DS around like a camera, it wasn't very practical to alternate between the light and the dark as you needed to use the AR function to scan pages from the booklet.

Now the latest Fatal Frame on the Wii U is finally getting localised and I'm eager to play it. Eager enough that I simply don't care if there isn't a retail release. I love the Gamepad concept and frankly there isn't enough games on the system that properly utilized the Pad. Fatal Frame took the obvious concept of using the Gamepad as the camera but without the AR function of the 3DS game. Plus it has HD graphics and officially undub for the very first time.

It's going to be a great Halloween this year.

Greatness in Half

Bayonetta 2 is a game that nearly never got made and you have to wonder why Sega felt lukewarm about publishing the sequel. It does feel like a lower budget game than the first game for sure, clocking in about two-thirds the length of the first Bayonetta. You could make the case that the first game was a little too long but the way Bayonetta 2 ended left me feeling like THAT WAS IT? Ok the ending was nice and wrapped the story up nicely leading to the events of the first game even if it's way too similar to DMC3 ending.

The story of Bayonetta 2 does not revolved around Cereza, her story arc was done in the first game and here she is just dragged into the thick of things. A bit like how Kiryu story was completed in the first Yakuza and every installment of Yakuza games is not really about Kiryu. I was playing Max Payne 3 recently and I didn't like how the story narrative shifts from the wealthy family Payne was protecting to human trafficking. Bayonetta 2 has the same type of narrative shift, first the story is about Cereza trying to rescue her friend Jeanne and then suddenly, it's about time travelling and trying to get to Fimbulventr. I supposed you can't expect much of a story when the game starts and ends with Bayonetta shopping in a high end district.

The fighting mechanic is very much the same as the first game except now you can use a widespread climax attack instead of one torture attack on a single enemy. It's useful when you are fighting in a big crowd especially if you don't want to waste the torture on the wrong enemy in the midst of the chaos.

Platinum Games are learning from their western counterparts, you can see them trying to create these cinematic interactive experience like the Uncharted games. When you fighting a boss sometimes the background shifts and your summoned is fighting the other summoned in the background. It's frantic and looks really good but having to juggle combos while being distracted by all this is sometimes a bit too much. Go back to the first game that is included in the packaging and you can appreciate some definite graphical improvement.

In the end this doesn't feel like a full fledged sequel to me more like, Bayonetta 1.5. All the players that made the first game great are back but constraints held this one back a bit.

The Art of Remastering

Bayonetta Wii U and Resident Evil HD are two recent high-profile ports that really show you the different philosophy adopted by its publishers/developers.

Nintendo could have easily slap a Definitive Edition label to Bayonetta and charge $30 for the port but instead they decided to bundle the game free with every purchase of the sequel.

Of course, Capcom is infamous for making a quick buck off everything they can find in their vault so no one was expecting them to give RE HD away for free. 

The issue here is the level of effort put into the port and despite charging for RE HD, Capcom's effort on RE HD remains subpar as usual. Early on Capcom announced that Chris and Jill BSAA costumes will be new additions to the HD Remaster. The logical assumption would be to have the young Chris and Jill wearing the BSAA costumes of their older counterparts. That would be the ideal case except it required a lot more work than simply pulling the BSAA models from the RE5 DLC and sticking it in HD remaster. Which of course, Capcom did so in the end. 

I wasn't very surprised with Capcom's efforts on RE HD Remaster but I was surprised with what Nintendo and Platinum Games did on Bayonetta Wii U. Now when the Bayonetta port was announced, the Nintendo costume were highly publicized and were directly supervised by original director, Hideki Kamiya. Recently, the concept artist revealed sketches of the costumes on Platinum Games blog and divulged that Kamiya insisted small details like the Samus suit had to be the classic original from the NES Metroid. 

Nintendo and Platinum games did a fine job on the Nintendo themed costumes. If they had delivered just a steady port with no additional costumes, a lot of gamers would have been more than satisfied. What I didn't expect was that these concept drawings also made their way into the bonus gallery after you completed the game. Clearly one publisher went the extra mile with the small details while the other was quick to call it a day. 

Labels like Remaster really don't mean all that much anymore and in the end, you got to walk the talk or risk becoming easy target for obsessive fanboys. Sure Capcom are patting themselves on the back because RE HD broke all sorts of digital sale records while Bayonetta 2 probably sold a criminally obscene amount. But passionate gamers care and so do passionate developers, some of which used to work in Capcom and are now working in Platinum Games.

The Big White Elephant

With the next-gen consoles just days from release, I thought it would be nice to address some issues which only the biggest of geeks would be interested in -backward compatibility. Yes I know this topic has be discussed and dissected apart to the point where the conclusion is always remains the same; everyone wants backward compatibility but nobody ever really makes use of it.

The trend I am noticing these days is how backward compatibility also affects the second hand game market especially in the early days of the console launch. Try looking up second hand prices of Wii games and you will notice that most are fetching high prices. Not so much for PS3 games, in fact from what little I gathered most gamers are actually letting go of their PS3 games because they know the PS4 will not be able to play them anyway. So this creates an abundant supply of unwanted PS3 games on the second hand market as opposed to the Wii.

Now the Nintendo Wii U has not be generating brisk sales as its predecessor but the "hardcore" gamers that refused to support a non-HD console during last generation are among the early adopters. Naturally they would have missed out on the Wii software and thus, are now generating high demand for exclusive games such as Xenoblade, Metroid Prime Trilogy and even The Last Story. In fact I would say demand for Wii games are even higher than when the console was still active because of the rampart piracy of Wii games so Wii users weren't buying the software either during that time. Now getting the legitimate disc might be the only option to play them  upscaled on the new Nintendo Wii U console, assuming that the Wii U console have not been cracked open for piracy (I'm not too up to date on this matter). Therefore the demand for old Wii games are pretty high these days compared with the PS3 or even XBOX 360 games.

How about you, are you buying or selling old games these days?