March progress, going well but work gets in the way!

Hey everyone,

So, with my last weekend for March filled with work, I thought I may as well conclude my completions for March now.

It's been a decent month, I've managed four completions and two of them were very long games. For last month's progress check here

Again, my scoring system:

1. Worst Ever
2. Awful
3. Bad
4. Weak
5. So-So (Average)
6. Decent
7. Good
8. Very Good
9. Excellent
10. Masterpiece

Don't think I've hit any 10/10's yet, maybe one day!

So, there were no abandoned games in March, so straight onto the completions:

• Baldur's Gate: EE
• PC
• 35 hours / 7th March
• Score: 7/10 (good)
• Review:

One of the first PC games I ever played, I admittedly never got around to finishing it as I seldom stuck it out when I was young.

Some early issues: There’s a distinct lack of portraits in the game, which is disappointing as I’m positive the original game had more. I ended up using an unofficial mod to get around this…

Anyway, Baldur’s Gate is probably one of the most famous D+D based CRPG. It regularly makes the top ‘games’ lists historically even today, despite coming out in 1998, and was considered a title that ‘revived’ the RPG genre for PC at the time. I’d say, part of what allowed the game to be timeless is the fact that it doesn’t really break new ground in terms of graphics. It is isometric, and though the scenes are pretty, they show their age even today, but not enough to be off-putting as might be the case if it were a full-fledged 3D game.

The D+D system is antiqued, following 2nd edition rules, but if you’re content with taking a moment to understand the ins and outs of the statistics system then you’ll be fine. Counter-intuitively, 2nd edition preferred your numbers to be low when it came to things like THAC0 and AC (if that doesn’t make sense, in the modern era that’s just ‘to hit’ and ‘defence’ respectively), whereas every other stat like your physical attributes are preferably high. It takes some getting used to.

Still, this is a classic game, with plenty of text and lots of dialogue choices, this is an early pre-EA Bioware effort, before they quite nailed down the formula of ‘okay plot, brilliant characters’, so if you’re a fan of them, it is worth checking out for a trip down history lane. Be warned though, it is that early that there’s no party-banter here. It is huge as well; it was massive back in the day, rolling out on 8 CDs (take that, Final Fantasy >.>) and there are a ton of wilderness areas to explore. The downside though is the world is rather sparse, there’s probably one or two quests per area, but that’s okay as it doesn’t flood you with rubbish.

But I get ahead of myself: Baldur’s Gate stars you as the hero (or all-round dickhead, it’s your choice); ‘Gorion’s ward’. Gorion’s your foster-dad and he’s a powerful figure with great influence. Your character can be near enough anything, any race, any gender, any class, it’s all up to you. One day, you’re in danger, but Gorion won’t say why. You pack your stuff, head out and the predictable happens, thus starts your adventure into the world. Quickly you’re bundled along to investigate an iron shortage just for something to do. From there, off you pop on an epic quest.

As part of a series, Baldur’s Gate has an experience cap. You can’t progress higher than level 8-9 in most cases. There’s a DLC expansion: Siege of Dragonspear that raises another one or two levels and then you import your file into the sequel where the cap is removed completely and you can become godly. The EE also comes with the old expansion ‘Tales of the Sword Coast’ integrated within, which is an extra four or five areas plus a slew of quests to take on.

I don’t find the restrictions in levels that much of an issue, if anything, it’s nice not to become super-powered instantly. Levels are slow, experience is a commodity that is splashed on you via quests rather than stabbing things.

I liked the aspect of party building. I loved the little biographies acting as in-game conversations. That you can get named loot and such loot will have an interesting backstory to it, these things are missing from a lot of modern RPGs.

That said, there are some issues: Pathfinding was clearly not fixed and I encountered one potentially game breaking bug via resting in an area I clearly shouldn’t have been allowed to.

The expansion content, Tales of the Sword Coast has one okay dungeon, one rather interesting full-fledged naval expedition with some ridiculously difficult foes, and one fantastic dungeon that easily takes up 3-5 hours depending on your speed.

There is minimal voice acting as well, which I think is for the best. There are plenty of dialogue choices, and the written dialogue can be hammy, flowery or old-fashioned. With limited voice acting, you give the characters their own voice, and arguably your own character his/her own voice, which keeps things rolling nicely. If they were voiced, I’m sure some of it would have come across as annoying.

In fact, Beamdog created some new characters for this, four fully voiced characters, and oh my word are they hamming it up… Each of the ones I encountered came across as trying far too hard, though admittedly as a traditionalist I went with the old ‘canon’ party rather than experimenting with the newbies.

Anyhow, this was a game where effort was put into it, something I think a lot of modern RPGs dispense with. Perhaps I am, like Baldur’s Gate, a product of my time, but I think It’s a good game, a classic for all the right reasons, if a bit antiqued in today’s market. Plenty of games have tried to emulate it, very few ever come close, and for a first entry of a series, it holds up well even today.

• Tokyo Babel
• PC (Visual novel)
• 34 hours / 11th March (for first part)
• Rating: 5/10 for visual novel fans (meh)

• Rating: 4/10 for non-visual novel fans. (weak)

• Review:

This is a visual novel that has somewhat flown under the radar in most circles. It is an all-ages novel and it tries to be an epic-fantasy type of novel lasting in excess of 30 hours.

The premise is that all worlds, including all parallel universe type worlds have faced a mass-extinction event. At the same time, a ‘divine calamity’ occurs, flooding hell and closing the gates of heaven. As such, most demons and angels have been expelled into the dying worlds, with no way of returning home. Furthermore, this closure of heaven and hell also works on souls; so, if a demon or angel dies, instead of being resurrected in their respective ‘home’ of heaven or hell, they now die permanently. Such a frightening concept causes angels and demons to unite to work together in trying to solve the reason why God has all of a sudden abandoned all three realms. Humans of course, play a part, for it they who must make a pilgrimage across the levels of Purgatory (now re-christened Tokyo Babel) to reach the gates of heaven and… well, hopefully find answers.

Trouble is, all who have set out thus far, don’t get very far. Most succumb to madness, ergo becoming enemies of the last city in Tokyo Babel called, Pandora.

The story follows a superhuman Tendou Sestuna, who is sponsored by a Demoness Lilith, the angel Raziel and another human Sorami, as the four attempt their own pilgrimage across Tokyo Babel. There are three core storylines, each following Sestuna’s relationships with the trio of ladies, there’s a recommended order to play through in order to understand things clearly (angel – human – demon) and thus this novel necessitates a walkthrough unfortunately. (NB: Each route is around 10-11 hours in length, hence 30 hours to complete.)

I found this novel to be a frustrating experience because it tries too hard to be too many things at once. For example: It tries to be four different genres at once. It attempts to be a serious horror, super-heroic fantasy, romance and comedy all at once. It is very difficult for games and novels to blend two genres, never mind four at the same time.

As such, there can be serious mood whiplash, you set out to fight a powerful foe, only to do a short comedic detour to a strip club so the ladies can have a laugh at your expense by dressing up for you. It’s part unnecessary fan-service, and partly poorly thought out story planning.

The comedy parts are indeed funny though, don’t get me wrong, even the fanservice parts can be hilarious, but once they’re over it switches to a grim post-apocalypse sermon on religious, the reason for living and beings that can flay your mind and flesh within an instant. It is a severe mis-match of moods, and this continues because for some inexplicable reason each unique route has the protagonist building a romantic relationship with each of the girls, which could quite frankly be eliminated from the story completely, because all it serves to do is to continue to detract from the seriousness of heaven, hell and the world going to shit in a handbasket.

Additionally, whilst the translation is good, it is at the same time somewhat ‘off’. It is difficult to put my finger on what exactly is the issue, but it feels like it needs to go through another edit. There are sometimes throw-away lines that don’t match up with the mood, or the previous dialogue, or completely unnecessary lines that just make you go ‘what?’ For example; A girl smelling like cotton candy, and that line pops up after a very serious discussion, it was completely out of left-field, it doesn’t ‘belong’ there.

Saying all that, the art is very good – though I often wanted more and I wanted more 18+ gruesome shit to be seeing. Remember: This is a world where demons and angels can succumb to madness, so seeing their handiwork when it came to torturing sane people was actually quite nice (in a bizarre way), but the game has to remember it is rated for all-ages (officially it is 15+), so it tones things down massively. If this had gone full adult-only (or 18+) I genuinely think the artists would have had complete freedom to hammer home the visual aspects of the horror elements of the story and it would have been all the better for it.

Did I enjoy Tokyo Babel? Yes. Even though choices were sparse and the story tries too hard to be ‘epic’ that it drags on too much, I genuinely did find the ideas presented in the novel to be interesting. It just needed to nail down what genre it wanted to embrace and it needed to not cater to being 15+ and I think it would have gone from beyond ‘decent’ to something in the realms of exceptional.

As it is, it is far too flawed for me to rate objectively any higher than a 6 and even so I can only give a 5 purely for serious visual novel fans. For anyone else, it’s a 4 for the muddled execution.

• Machinarium
• PC
• 2 hours / 19th March
• Rating: 4/10 (Weak)
• Review:

Point and click adventure game about a tiny robot off to save his girlfriend from a gang of bad robots. It is minimalistic, in the sense that there’s seldom any dialogue. You’re here to churn through the puzzles, but I feel that these puzzles aren’t really obvious and there’s really nothing more to the game.

I bought this due to overwhelmingly positive reviews over Christmas, but it seems yet again that I’m going against the consensus. For me, this was an uninspiring effort that didn’t really keep me interested. (I note that apparently this started out as a flash game, which might go some way to explaining the reviews, but I still maintain it isn’t that good. >_>)

• Hard Reset Redux
• PC
• 3 hours / 22nd March (Base game content)
• Rating: 5/10 (So-So/Average)
• Review:

I got this as part of the 12in12 giveaway. I needed a short game to play after the marathons of Baldur’s Gate and Tokyo Babel, but also because I felt unsatisfied regarding Machinarium.

So, Hard Reset supposedly aspires to be like the shooters of the past. No reloading, no regenerating health bar, just you, a big effing gun and tons of enemies. It is bright, colourful and there’s plenty to shoot at. You can score environmental kills as well, because wherever this game takes place, everything seems to be explosive.

What little story there is, is told in a haphazard manner. The intro starts with a guy finishing his patrol and heading to a bar, only for robots to emerge and butcher people. Supposedly, most people have been uploaded into a matrix, and the last humans out in the real world are defenders of this matrix. The robots wish to take control of it, because apparently, it’ll increase their AI. It’s not an easy story to follow, but they do come with hand drawn cut-scenes.

Really, it’s just window-dressing. The meat of the game is in its gameplay and gunplay. I spewed out a billion bullets taking down various mechanical foes, it was fun, it gave me eye-strain as I refused to blink due to the sheer number of enemies at times. But it lacks something and it is difficult to say what. It is flashy but it doesn’t do much more than that. The upgrades and alternative weapons are neat, but you can get by without most of them.

Having said that, full disclosure: I generally detest FPS games; I don’t really find them that interesting, so take my somewhat lukewarm reception to the game with a hefty plate of salt. If you’re after an FPS game, do check it out, it isn’t bad, it just doesn’t really break new ground either.

The first 7 levels are the base game, with what turned out to be a rather abrupt ending. I stopped there as I didn’t feel like continuing further into the free DLC levels: “Exile” offers 5 more levels and another ‘final boss’, and what I presume to be a more complete ending, but there wasn’t much more on offer in terms of weapon unlocks and whatever, so since I hit the base game’s ‘end’ I’ll consider that finished.

• Future plans:

And, that's it really, 4 complete for the month, but the main thing is two huge titles are out of the way with.

For next month I'm aiming to finish the expansion: Baldur's Gate Dragonspear, which I started recently before work got in the way.

Once that is complete, I'm hoping it will align with the full release of Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark, which is an indie effort at a game similar to Final Fantasy Tactics that has been in Early Access for a while but should be released in April - they only need to add the endings apparently. I picked it up a few weeks ago as it was discounted for the final time before a price rise.

If I can finish these two, I'll be more than happy.

Hope everyone else is having good progress, and best of luck! :D

Submitted March 29, 2019 at 01:19AM by OdaNova https://ift.tt/2FH6Bvd