jrpg – Delfeir vs. the Backlog

Delfeir vs The Backlog General Update (Sept 2022)

Because the least I can do for my website is write stuff for it

Given that I’ve spent much of the year not updating this website, I figured I should rectify that.

Hi! I’m alive!

It’s been another one of those years that — while mercifully not spent in lockdown — has seen very little headway in any of the things I’d like to do or the projects I’ve begun. In addition to a status update on some of those, there’s a few games in particular I’ve played this year that I would like to write about, so I’ll put a spotlight on those in a mini-Backlog Report.

IGN Review of Galactic Civilizations IV

Let’s start off with the major positive news from the year: I got hired by IGN as a freelancer to review a game! If there was any doubt to myself (or others) that I’m not any good at what I do, that helped me dispel it significantly. Paid review work for one of the biggest games media sites on the internet? Regardless of your opinion of the website, that’s a big deal, and I was certainly thrilled. It was a good little opportunity to work with some very skilled, friendly, and communicative editors over there.

The only negatives about the experience were that the game in question (Galactic Civilizations IV) itself was not particularly good, but writing about it was nonetheless interesting. If you’ve not seen it yet, you can read the review over on IGN. I also wrote the script for the video version, which is slightly different and a lot more condensed due to word limits.

There’s more I’d like to write about GalCivs 4 that I didn’t touch on in the review, honestly. But the reason I elected to omit it from the review is that it’s a heavily political deep-dive into some of the systems and writing there, both as a political reading and as a kind of “eureka!” moment on why I always felt the series failed to meet my expectations. I think there’s plenty to say there, but it’s not what IGN is really about or particularly pertinent to the rest of the overall review. Hopefully I’ll get to put it up here at some point.

The Trouble With Critiquing Endwalker

This is not a critique of Endwalker, this is just a tribute.

This is a fairly unstructured and unfiltered blog post, like some of the earlier pieces on this site. I’ve mostly used it to sort through my mental processes and just touch on a few things to whoever cares to listen. As such, it’s not been closely edited and I’ve not put the usual formatting into it. In short, there’s a wall of text ahead.

Allow me to assuage this by providing a soundtrack for your reading, courtesy of the actual best thing to come out of Endwalker.

You’re welcome.

As I said repeatedly in covering the games I liked of 2021, Endwalker was not among them. While the gameplay and mechanical changes remain as solid and enjoyable to play as ever, the core of Final Fantasy 14’s appeal has long been its quality story. As such, even the strengths of its latest expansion were increasingly hard to just simply enjoy for me, built as they are on a foundation of sand and rot. There are better games that I’ll just play for the sake of play; what makes Final Fantasy 14 (and particularly the Shadowbringers expansion) one of my all time favourites is that it transcends the sum of its parts. I fully intend to go through and do a thorough breakdown of Endwalker’s narrative flaws in an article.

This is not that article. This is an article that I am largely using to get my thoughts in order and put a voice to why this process has been such a struggle for me.

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.

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.

Atelier Ayesha Review/Discussion: Atelier Hwhat, Bobby

An atelier is a workshop usually associated with artists or designers. Just putting that there for reference, because I’ve had to define it for at least one person before. Got it? Good.

The Atelier series is a long-running development project and the primary flagship series of Gust, one of the more prolific and constant mid-tier JRPG developers. The core concept behind them is that of alchemy; you gather materials either through exploration or combat, use that to craft items, and then utilise these in battles or for quests and such. While many RPGs contain some kind of crafting or material system as a secondary feature, the Atelier series focuses on it as the primary strength, with everything else being secondary.

With this slightly difference focus, one may wonder: just who is this kind of game for? It’s a question a friend has, in fact, asked off-handedly before. Atelier games lack or have reduced focus on the usual strengths and highlights of the more notable JRPGs; the battles are more about what you bring into them than how you execute strategies with the party on hand. The stories and characters don’t tend to stand out among the bigwigs of Persona or Legend of Heroes, often leaning to fairly plain designs and personalities highlighted from a stock standard list of anime tropes.

Yet the games continue to be made and continue to maintain a decent following. So it was that, during my never ending search, I dug up an Atelier game or two that I had picked it up mostly out of curiosity at the time but had never fully invested myself in: Atelier Ayesha most notably. I started it pretty much the moment the new year began, and then finished it in rapid succession, making it the first game I played to completion in 2019. Now I have quite a few thoughts about both Ayesha, and the series as a whole.

So who is this game for? Turns out it might just be me.

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Xenoblade Chronicles 2: A Focused Look at the Systems and Flaws of the Combat

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 came out in December, and I played about ten hours of the game in that month before putting it down for other titles. I did enjoy those few hours, but there were a lot of issues with it that kept it from gripping me at the time.

Eventually, I did come back to it about six months later, and did power through it to completion. That took an additional 100 hours of playtime, give or take, with a lot more content that I could still go and do; that should give you an idea of the size and scope of the game. It did improve considerably as it went, but there were times even dozens of hours in when I found myself saying “I’m not sure if I love this game or hate it.”

But still, results speak for themselves. I got through the game and overall quite enjoyed my time. The conclusion was satisfying, and some of the plot developments and twists were quite enjoyable. There were nice and unexpected tie-ins to the first game that made it worthy of being called Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in ways that X was not. And then I ended up binging the sizeable expansion that released shortly after I finished it, enjoying that also.

Now, as much as I like the game, plenty of those flaws do stick with me. There’s a lot of questionable game design in there that I wanted to deep dive into, going over what works and what doesn’t. That was originally the purpose of this article; alas, like many of my writing projects of late, it didn’t pan out as intended. It’s been about two months since the first draft of this article was written, which probably comes as a surprise to absolutely no-one. That said, I want to put something out there, so I’m repurposing what I wrote into a more focused article.

I could talk about the Xenoblade series as a whole quite a bit on many levels, and perhaps I shall do so at some point. For now, this article is taking a good look at the fairly interesting combat system that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 offers, and why it ends up being so flawed and clunky despite the promise.

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Backlog Battle Report (15th Jan 2018)

This week’s report is sponsored by sleep; appreciate what you get of it, because you probably are more rested and feel better for it than I do presently. In conjunction with a big sleep deficit, I’ve also been very fickle and have jumped from game to game pretty rapidly, meaning we’re back to having a wide assortment of titles listed today. So here’s what I’ve been up to this week.

Heroes of the Storm (PC)

I’ve eased up a little bit on the relentless Heroes games over the last week, but it’s still seeing at least a game or two from me on most days. As suggested, the latest patch went through last week and attempted a few balances to keep the games from being snowbally stomps. It also introduced the newest hero: Blaze, a Firebat from Starcraft. Betcha that name took a while to come up with. There’s also been a handful of buffs/nerfs and another rework for Malfurion.

I haven’t played Malfurion just yet so I can’t speak on how that treated him, but I can talk about Blaze and the other changes. So, did the changes make the game less early game centric? A little bit. Towers and keeps hurt a bit more so minions won’t completely bulldoze them if a specialist walks up to them with a wave and a funny look, but they’re still not the threats of yore. Things are a little slower and late-game is a thing, but it’s certainly possible to keep rolling through and win fairly easily. Probably could use more tweaks, but we’ll see. As I said last week, I don’t really mind the faster pace of the games.

So, Blaze. At long last, the long awaited and anticipated Firebat enters the field. With his release, every leaked hero from a credible source has now hit the Nexus, which means anything further from here is new ground. No idea who’s next, which is always a fun place for speculation… but even if the next release is a way off, I’ll probably need that long to fully acquaint myself with Blaze.

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Backlog Battle Report (11th Dec 2017)

Yep, okay, this one’s late. It’s been a week, and I’ve got no excuse. Doesn’t matter, it’s here now, so let’s get into it. Not a lot of games this week but here’s what’s been there nonetheless.

Realm Grinder (PC)

Need to bring this one up first again because, quite frankly, it’s becoming a problem. Addiction to the notion or sensation of progress isn’t uncommon for me, and I’ve bounced around between a few idle games offering similar stuff, but something about this one is keeping me checking on it to the point that it’s actually inhibiting my other gaming or writing.

It’s seriously gotten to the point where I will set up things or do what seems like a maximised build for this run, then sit and see it through. I’m not spam clicking the entire time or anything, but I’ll be watching Youtube or chatting on Discord in between managing that when I should be doing other things. It’s not entirely to blame for my hold-ups and delays, but it is a factor and I need to start really limiting how I go about maintaining this.

All that said, I’m a way into Reincarnation 6. More upgrades and challenges are right around the corner of unlocking, I think. Seems like more aspects of the game go quite a way back if you keep running it… which I will probably do, but in the background. Or offline.

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