Yesterday I sent in my final project to earn my masters degree in education. I had to make some priorities in May and June, but I was still playing stuff!
I took the plunge and started playing Skyrim. I've harbored a prejudice to western-developed RPGs because of the large amount of stability issues that I just don't find in the more thoroughly-tested JRPGs. I remember playing Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and moving so slowly I thought I was swimming. Also, everything was brown and lifeless. Fallout 3 and Dishonored look like that, too. Skyrim definitely has the stiffness to it, but the world is more interesting, and as everyone knows, is absolutely massive in content. I am having a blast. I'm used to the stiffness, though magic use has been extraordinarily disappointing. I can look past that, as the questlines are interesting. I also figure that this was my last time to give this type of game a go before moving onto the much-more-fluid Witcher and eventually Cyberpunk. I've probably put in 100 hours so far.
During one of the summer flash sales, I scooped up some smaller titles:
Knightin+ is an action dungeon-crawler that's very much like the first Zelda. It was ported and published by Ratalaika Games. There are 4 dungeons with multiple rooms in a maze-like setting. I got turned around a LOT. The trophies can all be earned without beating the game, in less than an hour with a video. Beating the game isn't that much more of a stretch, but the writer incorporates humor by making fun of the player for not caring about the story. So, I played the additional hour after the platinum to beat the game, but won't be back for seconds. Worth the $2 I paid, though.
The same studio put out MetaGal, which is an easier version of Megaman. There's not much story and the game doesn't try and kill you at every turn like #name your Megaman. If you're in it for the trophies, I did it all in an hour without any sort of guide. Another 30min and you beat the game. The interesting part is that you unlock all of the bosses you fight as playable characters, so you can replay the game 7 times and get a different story. Also worth the $2.
The other title on this list is the famous indie, Undertale. One of the main things to know about this game was made primarily by one person (Toby Fox), with the pixelly 16-bit art by another (Temmie Chang). The other two things are influenced by Fox reacting to JRPG-style combat. The first is that you avoid killing enemies by choosing from some very creative combat options. The story outcome changes based on these actions, which is cool. The other option is combat itself is a series of very short minigames that are different for each enemy you face. It's much more active than just hitting the confirm button (I'm not hating, I still love JRPG combat) and watching damage numbers appear.
The other half of my gaming time was spent in Apex Legends, Mortal Kombat 11 ranked, and Overwatch, hanging out with friends and shit-talking.
Comments