Nintendo – 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.

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.

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.

Some Games I Liked From 2018’s Second Half

For the games I liked from the first half, here’s a link to the post. Assuming you don’t want to scroll down a screen’s length, anyway. Don’t say I don’t look out for you~

Just as I am somehow delivering another (hopefully) great post within a week of the last one, so too did it seem that the second half of 2018 was dropping an intriguing title in our laps at much the same pace. This breakneck schedule seemed to continue pretty much until the first week of December, whereupon it took a quite breather for the holiday season and then is slated to get right back to it in just a few days.

Looking at you, Tales of Vesperia. Can’t even give me time to fully digest the FF14 patch updating as I write, can you?

So let’s get right back to it then. First, a couple of footnotes of sorts that I could have included from the first half, then right back to the second half of 2018, culminating in a quick talk about my favourite game of the year at the end. I’ll have plenty more to say about Yakuza Kiwami 2 than what’s here, but keeping to the 2-3 paragraphs trend for this article seems to suit me well.

Continue reading “Some Games I Liked From 2018’s Second Half”

Backlog Battle Report (6th Nov 2017)

Couple of things before we go into this week’s update. Firstly, you might notice that there’s been a new Right Click to Zoom at long last in the post below this one, so if you didn’t know about that I’d strongly suggest checking it out. I spoke at length about Morrowind, one of my favourite games, not to mention one of the most influential on me when growing up.

Second, I’m giving a quick plug to a new website called Switch Indie Reviews which, well… is a website for Nintendo Switch indie reviews. Go figure, right? It’s brand new, it looks really shiny, and I just so happen to have applied for and been accepted to be a staff writer for it. So if you like my work and want to see more of it, there’ll be articles there in the coming days. I’ll be sure to link all those reviews back to this blog for conciseness, so please look forward to that.

On to the games, then!

DOOM 2016 (PC) — I’m a man of my word

Last week I was in the mood to play some DOOM and listening to the soundtrack, so this week I followed suit with that and played a bit more. I rarely invest a lot of time into it, but it’s fantastic for just picking up and playing another level or two of the campaign every so often. Shouldn’t take me much longer to finish it I’d imagine, but no big if it does; it’s just a very satisfying and visceral experience that’s great to just pick up, play, and put down without commitment.

The game does occasionally get a little bit of criticism that it just falls into the pattern of “find an obvious arena, trigger it filling with demons, kill the demons to proceed”. Personally, while this is obviously a big part of it, I haven’t found it nearly as obnoxious or as one-dimensional as some claim. There is a small chunk of downtime in between each of these encounters, where you’re given a chance to explore, find secrets, and wind the tempo down a little before building back up explosively.

Perhaps this changes as the levels get later, but regardless, I find that I’m often in a fairly good rhythm with it. All that said, I did immediately dump my upgrades into having secrets and collectables appear on my map so I can hunt them all down and get back to the shooting quickly. My completionist tendencies are likely to get the better of me if I keep wandering too long.

Damn, even thinking about this game makes me want to play some more. What a great shooter DOOM is.

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Right Click to Zoom — Fans vs. Funds; A Comparison of Project AM2R and Metroid: Samus Returns

Welcome to this week’s iteration of Right Click to Zoom, the more in-depth article side of this blog. Today, I’ll be looking into both Project AM2R and the newly released Metroid: Samus Returns, and comparing their different game design choices.

As far as I can tell, this is quite possibly a unique situation to have occurred in video game history. The original Metroid 2 was released on the Game Boy in 1991, and now decades later it has received two full remakes within a year of each other. It’s a rare opportunity to study how different developers and game design decisions can impact the delivery of what is effectively the same game, not to mention what elements of the original source material they keep or discard. Let’s give a brief synopsis of the two first for those not familiar.

Project AM2R (short for Another Metroid 2 Remake) was first begun in 2007 and released in August 2016, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Metroid franchise. The game was largely the work of Milton “DoctorM64” Guasti, who maintained the AM2R site with a blog of his development updates and design choices. Over the years, he was very thorough in explaining his decisions, ambition, and scope of the game, showing a remarkable amount of professionalism. The process was understandably ongoing, but the end result was an incredibly high quality fan-game incorporating features and updates from the entire Metroid series to that point.

You can still read this development blog on the AM2R website. Sadly, a DMCA claim by Nintendo means the game is no longer officially supported or available for download on the site, but is nonetheless on the internet and easy to find. In fact, just this month an update was released by a dedicated team of fans using the game’s source code, implementing both a New Game+ and Randomizer modes that I will likely try out in the near future.

Metroid: Samus Returns, on the other hand, is the first official “true” Metroid game in the series since Other M in 2010 (the exception being Federation Force, which takes place in the same universe but is a Metroid game in name only). Back in 2015, developers MercurySteam pitched a remake of 2002’s Metroid Fusion to Nintendo for the Wii U/3DS. While the pitch failed, the prototype impressed series creator Yoshio Sakamoto enough to see the team hired to develop their own official Metroid 2 remake instead, and Samus Returns for the 3DS is the result.

Having just played through Samus Returns and completing it the weekend it came out, I believe that MercurySteam did a fantastic job in delivering their vision of the series. At the same time, so did AM2R, so now it’s time to look at what they both did.

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Dawn of Another Day – A Second Opinion

While I have many games to talk about in the coming days, I’ve been neglecting to post one important thing. Following up on my write-up regarding Majora’s Mask and how I felt about it, the friend that I played the game with chose to write his own thoughts on the matter as well. This turned into a rather lengthy but interesting discourse about the key differences between Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, including what each does best.

Since it’s such an interesting read and in keeping with the general spirit of this blog, he’s requested that it be posted here and I am only too happy to do so. He’s chosen to remain anonymous, but nonetheless, the rest of the post beneath the cut is all his writing.

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