TWO PSAs! The first is to get into the habit of Adding to Library the free PS+ titles on the 7th of every month. There's no reason to miss out on free games. The second is that today (April 16th) for the next two weeks, Uncharted Collection and Journey are free to PS4 owners, even without PSN subscriptions! Get your free games now and come back!
Sephirothic Stories (spoilers in pictures, but no one's going to play this game)
Death Stranding aged me by about 500 years. There was a lot to experience going through that, but I just wasn't quite ready for another long modern game, especially less than a month before Final Fantasy VII. So, every once in a while, KEMCO RPGs go on sale for cheap. These games run the generational gamut and tend to look like NES-style (like Dragon Sinker), SNES-style (like Bonds of the Skies) to PSP-style, like Sephirothic Stories. I call these 'Bubblegum RPGs' because the mechanics are simplistic, the writing is elementary, and there's a steady stream of cliches. Sephirothic Stories features a boring protagonist named Harold who can see monsters. The monsters turn out to be people who were corrupted as a byproduct of a life-sustaining tree called Sephiroth. As per mandate of all things Japanese, the end boss is an ugly conglomeration of things that look powerful, but completely impractical. At least the game doesn't get clumsily religious! I got the platinum in 5 easy, chill days, and it was nice to pace through something light.
Apex Legends and Overwatch are starting to feel stale, so I reinstalled Mortal Kombat 11.I was greeted to a free week to try the latest character Spawn. He's made even awesomer by the fact that he's voiced by Keith David. The game still looks amazing, sounds amazing, plays wonderfully, and I can still bring it with Sub Z and Baraka. I'll have to satiate my need for violence and gore since it'll be a while before I get Doom Eternal.
Amazon update my expected delivery of Final Fantasy VII Remake, so I wanted to squeeze in another platinum. That lead me to March's free game:
Sonic Forces
I figured I wanted to give Sonic Forces a try and I am sure glad I did! This game is more akin to Sonic Generations, which goes between classic 2d platforming Sonic and super hyper holy shit rock music in-your-face Blue-Blur Sonic in modern...cities with humans...and...Egg man...and...other talking animals and...okay, it sounds stupid as hell. Thankfully, the gameplay is fun. Sonic Forces really wants to tell a story about trying to save Sonic during a Egg Man's takeover of the world. Sonic is being tortured and things in the world are going to shit, so Tails leads a rescue after recruiting YOU. Sonic Forces has you build an avatar to control in half the game's levels.
Weirdly enough, you first choose a race with benefits: wolves have a magnify effect to bring closeby rings to you, dogs keep a few rings after being hit, and rabbits have double jumps, to name a few. Then you can choose from something ridiculous like 500 pieces of apparel and several dozen weapons to blast through the levels. Sonic meets...Skyrim?
We all know modern Sonic games, sparing Sonic Mania, have been desperate reaches to make the brand relevant while completely ignoring what fans like about Sonic, but one of the things most of these games have done was made you feel like you were CRUISING. A combination of rock music and lyrics, camera blurring effects, sound distortion and simplified-controls-so-you-don't-die makes you truly peel ass. Sonic Forces does has some cool 'hold forward' sections that let you enjoy the visuals for a few seconds after going back to beating the parts out of robots and zipping through the air. With the exception of the last boss, all of the 30 (!) levels are less than 3 minutes, but if you're going for trophies, you'll replay these at least 5 times each. The bosses still have unskippable cutscenes because apparently this is the year 1998, but otherwise the game gets most of the Sonic things right. Graphics, controls, music appropriateness, low difficulty for high enjoyment.
Hollow Knight
This game dipped below $10 and it was the right time to get it. My 10 hours in impression of this sidescrolling exploratory adventure game (I refuse to call the genre "m--------nia") The game takes place in some kind of insect kingdom and drips darkness, gloom, and personality. It is not easy at all. It plays a little more slowly than Dead Cells and has more challenging platforming. There isn't a whole lot of overt direction, and you'll have to establish the habit of finding maps shortly after entering a new area. The combat is fair, and the challenge to me is that I rush things: enemies have discernible patterns and nothing feels cheap at all. I really like the experience so far, but the platinum is rated at 9/10 for difficulty. There is a significant portion of gamers who completed the platinum because they liked the game so much as opposed to the dogged completionists.
One touch that I really like is that the music layers as you explore. You might start out in an area with only the melody in one area, and you're rewarded with the percussion deeper in. There are a lot of breakable walls that lead to secrets, and the music jazzes up for those areas, and it just adds a layer of satisfaction to the accomplishments. My first experience with music that responded to gameplay is the extra layer of percussion you get riding Yoshi in Super Mario World, and this mechanic to games is always a pleasant surprise when pulled off.
Update: I'm closing in on the final trophies and have had a blast. Even with collectible guides and youtube videos, I'm at 40+ hours, 5 of which was doing one particular arena. Done successfully, the Trial of Fools takes over 10 minutes to complete. The hardest portion being one that removes the floor in the arena, and you have to air dodge, sword-pogo-jump, and there are no opportunities to heal. This is the 4th hardest thing to do in the game, but there are multiple strategies to persevere. The time I won was during a lunch break, with a poorly-conceived build, but with a solid 50 or so tries behind me, muscle memory got me through this more than the build did. Out of the remaining challenges that will keep me from the platinum, one is a single boss fight, and the other involves platforming. I will probably get through these, but the single hardest thing to do is something ridiculous like a 40-boss gauntlet run with no saving. This would likely take dozens of hours to master and I will probably be moving on without that.
All in all, Hollow Knight has been one of my favorite experiences from a small developer. I can easily recommend a playthrough, but stay the hell away from the platinum trophy.
Get your free games, and my next post will be about Final Fantasy VII Remake, as it JUST CAME. THE WAIT IS OVER!!!!
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