Delfeir vs. the Backlog

Backlog Battle Report (May-July 2021)

Who needs in-depth coverage when you can have a lightning round?!

Writing’s been slow again, compounded by the usual suspects but also by a keyboard malfunction. This necessitated a new one: a Logitech G512 with brown tactile switches since I enjoy blasting people over Discord with my fast typing. Nothing special, but it does the job and it’s holding up so far. The malfunction happened while I was about halfway through writing this, though! That stalled me even further, but it also let me add new games to the list in the interim. If some of these entries seem like they were written separately, that’s why.

I’m still in between a bunch of articles and projects, but still have plenty of games played and things to talk about in general. Some of these will get a full piece eventually, should I manage to actually pull something together that I’m satisfied with. But until then, here’s what I’ve been playing for the last while.

The usual drill: two or three paragraphs tops (Future Delfeir here just to laugh at that statement…), focused more on quantity and general impressions than anything too detailed. It’s also not a completely exhaustive list, but mostly just the highlights and things that are worth talking about. Trust me, I won’t be short of things to talk about… this one clocks in at about six thousand words, so be warned. ‘ere we go!

Subnautica: Below Zero (PC)

I had to double check when I started writing this that I hadn’t talked about this one already here. Shows how much time has passed, I suppose. Either way, the Subnautica spinoff/sequel came out of Early Access a couple months back. I really enjoyed the original, so I was quick to “dive back in” to this one, hurr hurr. Regardless, it didn’t disappoint, and it was a good time all around. There’s still something about these two games and their alien environments that really stand out amidst the crowd of other survival games out there.

Below Zero is a shorter affair than its predecessor, and I wrapped it up in maybe half the time. It can be described as condensed in both good and bad ways. I don’t think there’s quite as many interesting or varied biomes to explore or materials to find. However, the technology progression and story pacing is much smoother, so Below Zero just seemed to flow better in general. I enjoyed the story better overall too, so there’s that. It’s an easy recommend for anyone who finds the concept intriguing, no matter your familiarity with the first.

I Will Now Proceed to Hype About Metroid Dread

It’s been 84 years… or feels like it, anyway.

Fuck. Yes.

New Pokemon Snap Review

Everyone else already subtitled their reviews with “Picture Perfect”, so I’m not gonna. It’s accurate though.

I half joked with friends when this game was about to come out that “2021’s GOTY will be out soon” and we all had a laugh. My desire to play the game was genuine and everything I’d seen of it in Nintendo Directs prior to launch seemed promising. Even so, I’m very much at odds with the Pokemon franchise these days. I liked seventh gen well enough, but didn’t touch Sword/Shield. It seemed that games like Temtem were delivering on the Pokemon concept in ways that actually reflected the twenty plus years of game design since the first two generations were released. By contrast, Pokemon games just seemed stale, not to mention going down a path of being “child friendly” to the point that it felt patronising to said children.

With all this in mind, I didn’t necessarily think that New Pokemon Snap would really be able to capture the magic again. Well, the joke’s on me. I’m no longer kidding when I say that New Pokemon Snap will almost certainly be in the short list of my games of the year.

Mortal Kombat: The Game: The Movie (2021) Quick Review

Like a regular, not flawless victory where someone messed up the fatality input so the round just kind of ends. Yeah. That’s a comparison.

This’ll be a relatively quick one, since I neither have much to say on the topic, nor is there honestly that much worth dissecting here. I also have no images or screenshots because, well, it’s a movie I watched and not a game. Best I can offer is a trailer. For those who don’t care for anything resembling a wall of text, you’ve been warned.

In short: the new Mortal Kombat movie was garbage and I loved it.

This is a film for a very specific demographic. If you’re familiar with Mortal Kombat games, whether casual or hardcore, then you’ll probably find something to like here. Everyone else? Don’t even bother. It won’t make you a game fan, it won’t introduce a world or characters that you particularly care for, and it probably won’t even impress with strong action scenes and choreography. It’s not a plea to be taken seriously, no matter what the opening scene might have you believe.

Backlog Battle Report (March/April 2021)

Because sometimes I play a lot of games but don’t have a lot to say.

Yep, I’m doing this again.

I won’t be operating to any set schedule of releases, but I’m aspiring to at least have an editorial style post up here every week. If I’m falling short, I might revert to the more blog-esque Battle Reports that I did previously and just talk about everything I played this week in brief.
Delfeir, February 27th 2021

There’s at least two articles that I’ve started but haven’t been able to get to a place I’m happy with since the Gnosia review. I can largely attribute this to terrible sleep for the last week and change. Even so, I want to at least try and write something (even if it’s rambling and low quality). The rate at which I’m able to play games now is exceeding the pace at which I’m writing, so they’re starting to queue up. As such, I’m going to just write really short impressions and comments on some of the highlight games I’ve played from the last two months. Two to three paragraphs on each, tops.

Vs. The Backlog is supposed to refer to my gaming backlog, not my editorial writing backlog. Having one is eternal enough. So let’s go.

Gnosia Review — Come For the Mafia, Stay For the Story

Taking a multiplayer game and making it a solo experience is interesting; weaving in a really strong narrative and characters in the process? That’s remarkable.

I originally set out to do a full review and breakdown of Gnosia in my usual fashion. As soon as I was done with the Bravely Default novels, it was next up on the hit list. That didn’t pan out as I’d hoped. There’s a disjointed, fragmented and ultimately unfinished attempt at a review draft in my files; I simply wasn’t able to write up something I was happy with in that style.

As such, this isn’t going to be a very structured piece. But I owe it to Gnosia to at least cover it and talk about it in some fashion, even if I’m mostly rambling. After all, I loved Gnosia and was genuinely surprised and impressed by it. So once again, I wish to use my platform to shine a light on something that will likely go unnoticed but really doesn’t deserve to. Go check out Gnosia if it at all sounds interesting to you by the time I’m done here.

Gnosia is a social deception party game like Mafia, Werewolf, Among Us and any such spinoff or variant. The crew and passengers of a refugee spaceship have been infiltrated by the titular Gnosia, who possess and masquerade as individuals and have to be sniffed out. Every night they’ll eliminate someone, so every day the crew has to discuss and vote on who is most sus. The unlucky target gets placed in cold sleep, and the process repeats until the Gnosia are all contained or they outnumber the remaining crew and take over.

The catch? It’s a single player story-driven RPG in addition to all of those things.

Bravely Default 2 Review — Default, But Brave About It

Less flawed, but also less ambitious… on the surface, at least. Dig deeper, and you’ll find Bravely Default 2 has something special.

Editor Delfeir here to preface this piece with a simple statement: There’s no content padding or looping in Bravely Default 2. That’s the question I’ve been asked the most by people, so let’s put that front and centre. Now on with the show!

Bravely Default 2 is pretty great. I’ve said this at the end of the original’s retrospective and hinted at it a few other times. Quantifying that statement is the best place to start this look at the newly released sequel. I think Bravely Default 2 is pretty great. I do not think it’s excellent, or groundbreaking, or exceptional. It’s also been released at a time when strong JRPGs are numerous again, unlike the original’s release window.

I am far less starved for my turn-based JRPG fix in 2021 than I was in 2013. Let’s not forget that in the last twelve months, Trails of Cold Steel 4 was released. That game was the exceptional culmination of nine games of consistently strong character writing and worldbuilding. Yakuza’s latest entry barged into the turn-based JRPG genre in a tremendous way. Persona 5 is still fresh in people’s hearts and minds thanks to the release of Royal and Persona 5: Strikers.

Real-time or hybrid JRPGs are likewise prevalent at this point in history, particularly within the series that inspired Bravely Default‘s existence. Final Fantasy 7 Remake brought the Final Fantasy series back in a big way; so much so that the non-MMORPG entries could now contemplate approaching the fucking pedestal of quality that Shadowbringers planted Final Fantasy 14 on.

All of the above titles are still fresh in the JRPG zeitgeist for the release of Bravely Default 2. This is the kind of competition and, dare I say, elevation of the genre that was largely absent in the PS3/360 generation. Bravely Default could get away with being a mostly strong return to form with a few creative twists. Bravely Default 2 doesn’t have that luxury.

Yes, it’s pretty great. But that’s not really the same kind of benchmark we’re used to getting anymore, and so I worry that Bravely Default 2 will largely pass unnoticed by history. It seems to have garnered a lot less discussion, has a few more middling reviews, and I only know a handful of people who are even playing it. Practically none of those people have gotten much further than the halfway point at the time of writing, even.

But I do think Bravely Default 2 is pretty great, and so I want to make sure a positive (albeit critical) spotlight is shone on it. There is something here that’s worth acknowledging at the very least. In fact, there’s a point in the game which genuinely made me grin like an idiot at the sheer audacity of what the developers pulled off in one shining creative flourish. That’s the kind of stuff I’ll be highlighting after the meat of the review. With all that in mind, let’s dig in deeper.

Bravely Default Retrospective — Loop Hero(es of Light)

Forever flawed, but oh so captivating in its potential. Bravely Default was a reasonably strong revisit to classic JRPG concepts, but with enough to keep it fresh.

Advance warning: This ran longer than I was expecting, so it’s a big read. Further, Bravely Default is a game I haven’t replayed in a while, so my memories might be a little off in places despite my best efforts. This also means that I don’t have any screenshots of my own, so there’ll be less visual breaks than ideal. I’ll try to keep it nice to look at though!

It’s the year 2003. Squaresoft and Enix merge together into the massive game development and publishing studio that is Square Enix. Previously, these two were once the most beloved and prolific JRPG developers in Japan, responsible for almost every major JRPG series that Nihon Falcom wasn’t involved with. Even so, financial losses forced them to band together in order to keep up with the global development scene. A much younger Delfeir saw this news in a gaming magazine — which alone dates the story — and thought that this was great! Surely, the two combined would be able to produce even more amazing JRPGs than they had individually!

God, I was so stupid back then. Or maybe I’m just cynical and exhausted now. Either way, it wasn’t long before young Delfeir grew up and was repeatedly proven wrong.

Loop Hero Impressions — Brother, May I Have the Loops

Just one more loop… hmm, okay, just one more…

Hello. I’m Delfeir, and on Friday I played a new game. My intention was to sample it for about an hour before writing something unrelated. I did no writing, played for about four hours, delayed my sleep so I could play yet another, and then had dreams about the damn thing. Once I woke up and told people about it somewhat, I intended to write this impressions piece that you’re now reading. Instead, I played more of the game in question for the better part of the whole weekend. I’ve almost completely finished it with 30 hours under my belt in that time. Even now, however, the siren song to finish the tail of the game still calls.

Loop Hero might be the most addictive game I have ever played, ye gods. So let’s talk about it.

Loop Hero is a weird blend of genres right out the gate. The best way to describe it would honestly be to call it an idle game, the genre that Cookie Clicker birthed. It also takes cues from auto battlers like the Dota Auto Chess mod. Wrap that framework with a roguelite deck building game and resource gathering, and you have the bones of Loop Hero.

Outriders Demo Impressions — [Screen Shake Intensifies]

Surprising no-one except games industry management, looter/shooters are better when you actually make a complete product from the start.

This week has seen me playing a staggering amount of Bravely Default 2. Releasing in the same week as Persona 5 Strikers is always a ballsy proposition, yet my Bravely playtime is something like triple that of Strikers right now. And I don’t even think it’s as good as Persona! It just… has its hooks in me. I’m fully intending to do bigger write ups on both these games and my opinions on them, but I’m probably going to save it until I’ve progressed further in both.

So instead, let’s talk about the three hour break I took to play the Outriders demo.

Outriders is an upcoming third person looter/shooter by People Can Fly. It can be played with up to four people in co-op, has four different classes, and- hey, hold on a second, don’t leave. Yes, it sounds like the now officially dead Anthem, not to mention every other looter shooter on the planet. This one is showing signs of being different though. By different, I mean actually completed, functional, and competent. It’s got a story, it’s got good systems and progression, it’s got interesting loot, and it promises to be a reasonably sized game that happens to have endgame and co-op support.

There’s a demo on Steam right now, and it comes out in April. You can blow through most of the content they have there in a couple hours, but it’s the full start of the game and progress does carry over to the final release. It’s a good chance to try out the different classes and abilities to see what gels. Currently there’s mixed opinions, but early consensus on Outriders seems to be leaning towards more positive than anything. I’m definitely more positive about it.

I will not be buying Outriders — despite liking it — until a specific change is made.