Valkyria Chronicles 4 (PS4): Treading back to familiar ground.

So. Remember when I was all excited for Valkyria Revolution? Man, I do. Thought literally nothing of putting that one on preorder without a second thought and eagerly dove right in. Although I had seen a gameplay trailer and knew it wasn't the game I was hoping for, I was still going to give it a chance to live up to the lineage of the game I loved.

I shouldn't have. It was total dogshit and it got rightly panned by myself and every other reviewer who played it. Well, apparently the team at Sega must have seen this coming because not long after the release of Valkyria Revolution they released another trailer as if to say "uh hey, we are working on this too?" This one had design more like Valkyria I remember. Had tanks, similar art design. Looks like it played like it was supposed to. I was skeptical now, but still willing. So after waiting for what felt like forever, I finally sat down with.....

VALKRYIA CHRONICLES 4:(PS4)

Valkyria Chronicles 4 takes place within the same timeline as the original Valkyria timeline, but further south of the original nation of Gallia. The Empire of the east has been pushing westward against Federation territory in an attempt to claim more land and in doing so more Ragnite, the material that is used as a power source for the nations and their military equipment. 

We assume control Claude Wallace, a wet behind the ears but competent star military recruit who joined up with the federation army with his childhood friends Raz and Kai. After some initial friction as a unit, the team eventual gels and passes their training to join the Ranger Corps, which is an elite squad within the federation army, and Claude is awarded the rank of Captain of Squad E.

After some initial strong showings as a team, the Squad learns that the empire is taking ground from the federation, and that they are marching towards Gallia and their small hometown of Hafen. The federation makes the decision to put all their effort into Operation Northern Cross: a massive offensive push to the capital city of the empire, Schwartzgard. Squad E is to take part of this offensive as one of the federations stronger weapons.

I can thankfully say that this time around Sega has learned from their mistakes because this iteration of Valkyria Chronicles is once again built on the same gameplay framework as the original. The wonderfully unique combination of tactical RPG, JRPG, third person shooter, and first person shooter. There are a handful of little differences put into this version, but it otherwise is a stone for stone rebuild of what made the first one great.

As you did before, you start off by selecting your squad for a given mission. Then each turn you have a set number of actions to use. Once selecting a character, you zoom into a 3rd person mode and then get a limited amount to move them across the battlefield to your desired location. During your move opposing forces are able to take pot shots at you so move quick and use cover. Once there, you can zoom again to a first person angle to line up and take a shot of your own, if it doesn't kill your foe they get to counter attack. Once you have used all your actions you end the turn and then enemy gets their phase to do the same.

How the game differs this time is in addition to the order system that was in place, the special commands for stat buffs you could spend action points to use, you now also have series of support commands from the main forces you can use to open the map locations, bring in artillery fire, and other support actions. These are story based so you don't always have them, but there a nice bit of options to have.

There are handful of new squad mechanics too. In addition to having some tanks to control, you also have an APC unit to control. I foolishly ignored this for the first part of the game, but this little guy is incredibly useful in getting some initial moves on the map done safely. On his turn, he can pick up a number of troops and essentially move across the map without taking much in the way of damage from anything that isn't a tank or anti-tank artillery. Once in position you can dispatch units at the cost of their normal move. This is fantastic for troops like Shocktroopers or snipers who do not get a lot of initial movement. 

There are two big new aspects to the squad too.  One of them is the new troop class, the grenadier. Their job, as you might expect, is a slow moving portable artillery. They take a minute set up so they are risky to bring right into the lines of enemy fire, and they can be somewhat inaccurate. But they can provide big damage to turrets, tanks, heavy soldiers, as well as provide smoke cover. When used properly, they can be a very effective force. And one of them is a major character, which will provide you an additional action.

The other is now each turn, you get a single command point. By spending this point, some characters can basically take command of two other troops in a single move. This is incredibly useful for a number of reasons. For one, like the APC, it can be used to move two troops a significantly longer distance. But while they can take damage as if they were on a normal move, they aren't the targeted enemy. They also are just in range for to possibly join in for a joint attack. So for example: if I use a scout to use the CP command to pull two shock troopers, those troops basically get to move double the distance they could have by themselves without expending their own move yet, and if I take a shot at a nearby enemy, I essentially get a 3 man attack to mow down whoever I was aiming at. It is incredibly useful.

In that initial game summary I provided more of the overarching narrative for Valkyria 4 because while it does coincide with the original Valkyria Chronicles it really could be its own game if they had changed the names of the territories. I will say that the original Valkyria was more cut and dry because it was one army vs another army with a focus of smaller characters having a smaller side stories within them.

Valkyria 4 however feels more like the main story is there only to provide the framework for all the characters stories which are the much bigger focus of the plotline. Through out the game you the military is basically part of two major operations and if that ended up being the focus it would be very one note. By making the focus more about the characters in the squad themselves, I feel that the narrative is actually stronger for it because it allows for more faces to take the stage.

While the primary characters are the source of the main narrative, this story focus is best displayed on the brighter spotlight on the lesser members of the squad. As you might remember from the first game, they released some DLC packs where you got take control of Edy and a number of other squad members. It was a fun little aside and got to give you more depth to the rank and file troops you have been using. Before, you only got to read a little blurb about their history and that was all you got.

Now between chapters, you also get "squad stories" where a small number of the squad has some interaction with the main cast. These little asides give you some backstory to these character and completing them allows you to turn some of their negative quirks into positive bonuses, so it is more than worthwhile to do them. I feel that the story as a whole in this game is pretty good, but it does have a few anime cringe moments that feel are in there for the sake of being there.

The visual design for the original has come back as well and thankfully for it it this time around. It's a well proportioned anime style done in that washed out yet colorful watercolor look that the first one had that made me feel like I was watching a well produced anime (which was sorely missed after the video gamey look of Valkyria Revolution). Sound effects are accentuated by animated onomatopoeia such as the "ratta ratta" of guns. Even has some cool weather effects for some missions.  They have added some better transitions for when troops trigger their quirks and flaws. Generally better cleaned up this time around.

It has a pretty exceptional classical soundtrack. Much like before it feels very fitting of a military story that give a lot of the missions and scenes a feeling of "epicness" but they also fit in a number of rearrangements of tracks from the original game that sneakily felt iconic to it. I couldn't hum a few bars of the main theme right on command for you if you asked me too, but I'll be damned if I didn't notice that song immediately when it crept in on a major scene.

Unfortunately for Valkyria 4 by being a stone for stone build of the first game, a lot of the bad aspects of the series also make a return as well. First off, this game like its predecessors is notoriously talky.  Because of how the natural flow of the actual "game" element is, it doesn't allow for a lot of narrative to actually take place during missions, so much of it is crammed in between the missions of the game. Like you can with most modern games, you can always skip them but this is a narrative based game so I don't know why you would want to.  

But this does bring us back to the biggest complaint of the Valkyria games and it's something they should have fixed. But in between every single story segment, the game brings you back to the book menu. The book menu is what you can use to flip through all your various options of the game like skirmish missions, R&D to make new weapons, proceed with the story, adjust your squad, etc.  As a base framework, it's fine. But for some reason after every single story transition it brings you right back to the book and asks you if you are sure you want to proceed with this chapter.

Literally every time you want to advance the game, you have to select this.

I appreciate the need to confirm that I am making the decision, it's fine for almost any of these functions so I don't accidentally go into a menu I don't want to. But in the context of following the story it's an absolutely pace killing nightmare. If I start going through the story segments, what SHOULD have happened is it would play through all of the necessary story bits until I tell it to stop. Let me pause and either skip and go back to the book menu at MY whim so I can pick up were the story left off. Then after it completes the story it then would go back to the book on its own so I can prepare for the coming mission.

This is how it SHOULD have worked. This is how it should have been implemented from the second game onward. But it's not. So now after every couple minutes of cutscene (and sometimes even less than that) it just yanks me to a loading screen and then back to the book so it can ask me if I want to see the next part of it, and then wait for the loading to finish to continue the story I didn't ask to stop in the first place. It's arduous, completely unnecessary, and it makes a game that doesn't exactly move at a break neck pace go even slower.

The additional unit types do allow for more strategy, but at its heart this iteration of Valkyria can be won in the same fashion as the first game. That means with the right defensive buffs, and the right moves, almost every single mission can be won on your first turn. Yes, a handful of them do require some very specific strategies to survive, but there was a lot of times where I would use my raise all defense buff, command a pair of shocks with a scout to dash towards my goal, and then finish off to take base with my two troopers. Inside of a few missions I was "A" ranking all of the story missions and skirmishes.

That being said, Valkyria 4 did a better job of making all the ranks way more useful. In my last review I said that you shouldn't waste your time with medics, lancers, or snipers. Now the missions have a lot more different nuances to them so it is to your benefit to play around with it all and bring at least one of everything to the table. You have no idea when you might need a snipers long range accuracy or a lancer to bring out a frustratingly placed tank. The only class I ended using the least was actually new grenadiers. They had use but not as much as the other classes did, at least when I played it.

R&D can be a grind to do sometimes. Up to three tanks in the game and 3 branching trees of weapon means a lot of upgrades to do if you want everything. This too is muddled by the support character reacting every time you build a new weapon with one or two lines. This also should have been changed to only react as you were leaving R&D, so I could speed through my upgrades without having to stop to cancel this reaction. Instead, like the book, the progress is slowed for unnecessary pause

And like the first Valkyria a significant number of the upgrades are worthless. More damage is nice and all and so is clip size. But this is a game that rewards head shots so it doesn't make sense to use anything but the starting weapons because they have the best accuracy and that ultimately is the strongest stat in the game. They thankfully now show on our squad screens how accurate each solider is so now you can change things accordingly, and admittedly some of the weapons you find are indeed better than the base weapon. But so long as you keep upgrading center of the tree, you will have little issue progressing.

The last thing I want to bitch about is one enemy in particular, Klaus Walz. As a character, he is fine. He's a foil to Claude as being their big enemy tank captain. But he he specifically is bullshit because outside of having a fast and maneuverable tank that is next to impossible to bring down, he is one of two units that break one of the rules of the game. His tank is able to just have generic machine gun fire that triggers WHILE he moves. So if for some reason he is making a turn around where one of your guys are standing, he just completely obliterates their health bar without even taking his turn.

And one of the missions you fight him, he gets the first turn! So after you carefully set your troops up to start the level, he just blows through 1 to 3 of them before you even get to take an action. It's one of the few missions where you might have to restart it just because you got fucked before even take a turn. Even the final boss lets you get a goddamn move in first.

Ultimately the question is, is this good or better than the first Valkyria Chronicles? Well, that's a tough call because it's working against nostalgia. If I take them from a mechanics standpoint I do have to say that Valkyria 4 is better due to the additions to the games and minor improvements. I do love this cast and this story, and it had some great moments in it. But it does feel like there is a bunch of wasted potential because they had 3 previous games to fix some quality of life annoyances that could have made this game superb.

Instead, I have to lave with the somewhat unimpressive rating of "If you liked Valkyria Chronicles then you will like Valkyria Chronicles 4."  Which is true and by no means a mark against it. I frick'n loved this game and would certainly recommend it for its uniqueness. But it feels like it could have been so much more polished after all this time. But I am not looking a gift horse in the mouth. They messed up a series and I liked and then fixed it with a proper installment. If I get an Valkyria Chronicles 5 then I am more than happy to see it.

I will say that this one kind of messes up its own
lore about the Valkyria, but it was a nitpick at best.

The Witch and the Hundred Knight (PS4): A very Disgaea take on Zelda.

Since I no longer work at Gamestop (thank god), I don't have the luxury of getting to try things before I buy them anymore. I sometimes check redbox to see what they have on hand, but some of the things I spy on aren't available. As luck would have it, some of my my neighboring libraries have much better video game budget than the one I work at and have a pretty new and put to date selection of gamery to pick from.

This one I had seen for a while, but I never jumped on because Nippon Ichi software can be a real hit or miss for any game that isn't Disgaea. Sometimes I've gotten burned on them, sometimes I've found a gem that ended up being underrated. But I'm a sucker for anything kinda anime RPGish so since I had the ability to play this for weeks for free, I took a stab at....

THE WITCH AND THE HUNDRED KNIGHT:(PS4)

(Played in 2016)

In this adventure we are set in the world of Medea, your prototypical fantasy realm that is just on the verge of some technological advancement. In this realm exists a large, but incredibly toxic swampland that is surrounded by forested area. Within this swamp resides Metallia, and arrogant, cocky, and downright mean woman with her robotic servant Arlecchino. 

Metallia is a self proclaimed Swamp Witch and although she is not recognized in any official capacity by the realm's other witches, she is fiercely powerful and practically bursting with magical potential. She has been at war with the forest witch at her borders, but Metallia has one major weakness in that she physically cannot leave her swamp without becoming severely weakened. So to combat this, she summons a small familiar she believes to be the Legendary Hundred Knight (you) to swing the battle in her favor. Despite being smaller and weaker than she believed, she sets him out upon the world to find a series a pillars that will allow her to spread her swamp, and thus her ability extend her reach and power upon the world.

So I'm not gonna lie. Despite being a protagonist? Holy shit Metallia might be one of the villainous characters in a game. Now I know that Nippon Ichi does a pretty good job of weaving a tale despite managing to be pretty tongue and cheek with its story, but it was incredibly hard to get into the role of working for Metallia because she quite literally has zero emotional compass. She lashes out with vulgarity, violence, and unfiltered fury, (a girl after my own heart really.).

But you don't actually ever really play as Metallia. You control the Hundred Knight, You are given the option to give your character a name in the onset of the game, but Metallia promptly ignores it. Throughout the story you get the choice to make a couple of decisions to either agree, disagree, ignore or question something you've been told, but from what I understand there are only a few crucial decisions that can really effect the ending of the game. So in my playthrough of the game, I found myself questioning everything I was told because despite being on Metallia's side, I found her reasoning for things questionable.

The visual novel story elements are in place, as is standard for most NIS titles.
From what I know, we never get this question answered.

So I expected this game to be a JRPG or some kind of tactical RPG because that tends to be Nippon Ichi's entire wheelhouse, but surprisingly it ended up being a top down action adventure game. As cheekily described by article title, The gameplay of this game feels reminiscent of the classic of the traditional Legend of Zelda series or the original Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. Top down, hero center, slash baddies. Generally the objectives are a simple get to the other end of the level. You don't have to do it in one go but the end mission rewards tend to be better if you do. But as you travel you will continually bust open pillars that allow you to return to base and cash in on the XP you've earned to that point.

Now it wouldn't be very Nippon Ichi if they didn't take a relatively simple system and over-complicate it. So generally your weapons follow a kind of rock paper scissors system to them. They vary between slashing weapons, smashing weapons, and magic weapons. Typically these fall swords, hammers, and staves, but the thing to really make a note of while you play is what type of damage the weapons do. For example you might find axes instead of hammers which are still super slow and damaging, but do slashing damage instead of smashing. So if an enemy is completely immune to slashing damage, your shiny new axe amounts to jack shit.

You can equip up to three different weapon sets so you basically get a 5 combo attack based on your varied weapons so you can focus one type of damage, or mix and match if you like. But from my experience most of the baddies of an area usually all have similar damage resistances per area so I found it most effective to set each set to a specific damage type. In addition to this, most items are marked with a 1-5, so as long as you have your weapons placed in numerical order, you will get an increasing damage buff per swing. You are going to be flooded with gear often, so make sure you go through and makes sure you have the best stuff equipped at all times.

But because of the nature of the Hundred Knight's summon, you only get so much time away from Metallia, so every level is timed more or less by this Giga calorie system. How it works is you have a counter on the top of the screen counting down from 100. It decreases faster as you recharge your stamina, use specials, run, or take excessive damage. It constantly depletes to heal you so you have to pay attention to it because if it drops to zero you have significantly reduced stats. There are multiple ways to restore it such as using your bonuses received from smashing baddies to restore it at pillars along the map you uncover, eating food items, or eating baddies on the screen (yes, you can eat enemies).

There is a limited amount of space for the rewards you get, since Hundred Knight isn't the smartest thing in the world, he eats them to keep them safe till he gets back to Metallia. So the loot you collect is stored in his stomach. You only get so much space in your stomach and you lose it even faster if you eat enemies, so when your stomach gets full you have to use a Bowel Dump to get the garbage out of your stomach. (I am not making this up, god I wish I was. -_-)

NIS's knack for hilarious flavor text is prevalent in this game as well.

You also as you play along the game start to gather various familiar summons for you to use in the levels. These vary in use to helping you in battle, destroying obstacles to allow you to continue, triggering far away switches, or utterly decimating bosses. Most of these I found myself not using unless the level required me to use one to proceed. The main exception was the trapper which sometimes net some interesting items of upgrade or sale. It wasn't till the end where I got this massive Tower summon that I could drop two off that fired off homing magic shots. Since magic is the hardest attack attribute to deal damage with, these were game breaking.

There is also a job class system sort of. Hundred knight will unlock about 8 different attack styles or classes that will affect your base stats and also provide different effects. Honestly the one your start off with is your most basic and balanced so I found little reason to switch off of it at any point. You can also set two sub categories for additional boosts at reduced experience, so its always good to have multiple set. I tended to prefer the Ninja class because it basically let me continue to run at incredibly reduced stamina and Gcal depletion. Cap it off with another attack or defense for your 3rd and you have a pretty solid build for most of the game. If it stops working switch them up or go to an older level land grind some of the others.

Ninja and Wonder Knight were staples, The third can fluctuate as needed.

These might have been more effective than I gave credit for, but I rarely used them.

Following its Disgaea lineage, TW&THK also features its own Item world of sorts in some kind of alternate reality rouge-like tower. It features a story of the characters you've met so far but in some form of alternate timeline/reality version of them. It's the only place where you actually get to play as Metallia as some kind of last ditch summon for big damage, but given the item I sacrificed to get in there all of the baddies in there for like 50 floors were completely piss weak. The main reason to go in here is this is the location where you can get materials to upgrade your items and weapons at the shops outside the tower. I literally didn't figure out this out until near the end of the game, and it doesn't really do a whole lot to explain it to you. It would have really come in handy for some of the later stages.

There is also a karma mechanic in the game as well that primarily comes from trying to take over NPCs homes for bonus items. If the karma meter gets too high NPCs will get hostile and try to kill you. They never do much damage, but you can't harm them so you'll need to go back to base to reduce your karma. It's not really a difficult thing to manage so there is little real effect to it that I found.

At the level of difficulty the tower I was in, I never really needed to summon Lia.

That is more or less of the core mechanics of the game. Despite all the additional mechanics this game tends to throw at you, its play tends to be pretty straight forward for the most part and the mild confusion at new controls are worked through relatively quickly. There is one level where you can smash baddies in groups of 6, so grinding for levels never really ended up being a problem, and the game as a meaty play to time to it. For most of its primary functions it has solid mechanics.

Graphically, and this comes as somewhat of a surprise to me, TW&THK is rendered with 3d models which I've found Nippon Ichi to rarely do. They aren't really fantastically rendered models and this was PS3 game so I'm willing to give somewhat of a pass on it, but they still don't look too great. usually though the camera is so far away from the models that you really don't get a sense of the level of detail for them anyways.  Story segments are done in the traditional visual novel style of gameplay this producer has stuck to for most of their games.

Sad this is, this isn't even as close to as bad as this game can get.

Speaking of, MAN some of the story segments of this game can get fucking wordy. Because of the very tongue and cheek nature of the writing, some of it can be pretty hilarious but some of the exposition seems to drag on for what feels like forever. This is exceptionally bad at the onset of new chapters. I have had live streams where if I let the dialogue run until it was completely spoken no joke some of these segments can go up to 30 minutes.

Another ridiculous thing TW&THK does is for some stupid reason, the game rolls the credits after you complete each individual chapter of the game. Thankfully its skippable, but for the life of me I cannot understand whey the developers felt that I needed to see it between each chapter. Perhaps they felt that this game was going to bomb so they wanted to make sure the credits got seen at least once before the player eventually quit. Or perhaps they felt they did such a great job with that text roll they thought it was the most enjoyable experience of the game. It's completely stupid and I have no idea why they did it this way.

The cast of characters for the most part generally likable. Although admittedly it might take a little warming up to some of them, I don't think there was a character I liked from the moment they were introduced in the game but as I played through a chapter or two I needed up liking them a little more as I understood them. The only character who I really struggled to like through a good portion of the game was Metallia herself because she's such a rotten bitch. For an early spoiler, in the 2nd chapter f the game she does defeat the forest witch, but as she's weakened the forest witch exclaims not to kill her because she is actually Metallia's mother.

Metallia's response to this basically equivalates to a "So fucking what? Who cares?" and places a hex on her. Not just a normal hex though, she felt the best way to curse her mother was to turn her into a mouse, jack up her pheromone production to 11 and the summon 3 large horny rats so her mother can give her "lots of brothers and sisters." God fucking damn, Metallia, jeeze... To be fair, the game does have that moment where it boomerangs and I suddenly wanted Metallia to get her way and fucking kill everyone, and I felt it does an adequate job of explaining her selfish nature. I give Nippon Ichi this, they are always good at weaving a tale.

Remember kids, this is the story's "heroine". Not the villain... maybe.

The hands down biggest complaint I have with this game is that the camera and its controls suck an entire bushel of weewees. The camera spin is incredibly slow, and you can only raise and lower the angle of it so much, so it always feels like the camera is too close to the action and is never really positioned in a way that you can easily see what is coming. On top of that, the fucking environments are always in the fucking way. So if you are going to be exploring a set of forest or a town with really tight alleyways? You get to eat shit. Enjoy looking at the tops of trees or buildings as enemies you can't see wail on you. Its retarded. There should be no reason I can't pan the camera higher up to get a better lay of the land in this style of play.

One last niggling complaint that I have is this game is very unclear about the process of getting the proper endings. There are 3 possible ones. One of them is Meh and its made by a very simple decision near the end of the game, where you basically have deny a mission 3 times to which you get a pretty shitty monologue. I youtube'd that one. The next ending is the "true ending" which might have been one of the shittest unfulfilling things I've ever seen. I was legitimately pissed because while it is an ending epilogue, its a real "Ha ha, fuck you". To get the best experience, you have to get the "bad ending" which is done by finding and defeating 3 optional bosses in levels you have previously gone through. The game does little to indicate this so I ended up missing them completely. There is a surprisingly little amount of online guide for this game.

That being said, after I was done with initial checkout of this game, I looked around to see that it was dropped to 20 bucks new at some stores. This is because its out of print so I had a agent further out into the state get me a copy of the game because I prefer the physical. I enjoyed it that much that I felt I needed to own it so I can finish it at my leisure. I still haven't completed the bad ending yet but I do intend to. I could absolutely sit down with this game for another 20 hours or so, but it is possible to get all 3 endings if you saved in the right places on a single run. It's not a very difficult game.

Every so often, one of these prolific companies that pump out games will release an underrated nugget that is worth playing. I definitely feel that The Witch and the Hundred Knight falls under that category. It's certainly not a game without its flaws and I wouldn't blame anyone who put this game down because of the tone of the narrative or wonkiness of some of the mechanics. It doesn't do anything to break the mold but it was a enjoyable game to play and it did enough to make me feel I needed to own it. From what I've heard there is a sequel in the works so perhaps they can polish this up somewhat. This one is hard to find physically but is still available digitally so if you are looking for something that's a little different yet familiar with a story that doesn't take itself too seriously, I would say its worth a play.

Seriously, Metallia should have killed everyone at Walpurgis. 

Overwatch (PS4): A Competent Confusion.

Sometimes hype gets so big that you can't ignore it. Even I heard the words Call of Duty so much that even I had to break down and try one of them to see what all the fuss was about. Now, I've never been a huge follower of Blizzard properties, so I only heard so much about this title during its coming release. Heard the name mentioned a few times, heard it was shooter. Didn't grab me.

But closer to release, Blizzard started putting out these amazing Pixar-esq cinematics to promote the game and I watched one of them. And holy shit, from that point I slowly started to become obsessed with this game. Learning about the characters, the lore. It had me genuinely interested, but as a game I worried because it's not the usual type of game I play. But the hype machine was so strong I had to ask a friend to borrow it just so I can see what the fuss was all about...

OVERWATCH:(PS4)

The story to Overwatch is both plentiful and nonexistent. The main crux of the story is that it takes place in a fictionalized future version of earth. Human society has evolved technologically and produced a golden age of advanced robotics with artificial intelligence. But as all robotic AI stories go, the machines begin to question their creators and robot uprising begins to battle humans. Enter the Overwatch team, a unit of people with specialized abilities who were able to quell the robot uprising.

But there was a schism between the Overwatch's frontline and black op teams. Reports of wrong doings started getting placed on Overwatch and an explosion leveled the Overwatch HQ allegedly killing the two leading members of the squad. Ultimately this caused the world governments to investigate the situation and eventually passed an act that basically made the actions of the team illegal forcing the team to disband to spare themselves of any criminal repercussion. 

But years after this act has been placed corporations have taken control, acts of terrorism are happening throughout the world, and the possibility of another robotic uprising is starting to stir. Unable to continue to sit back and watch this happen one of  Overwatch's members, Winston, initiates the call to reassemble the team despite the ban to try to do something to stem this wave of terror sweeping the world.

I seriously love these trailers. If they made this an animated series or movie I would totally watch it.

Honestly though, the game doesn't even tell you that much when you first fire it up. They released a a couple of cinematics that feature a number of the characters that give a little bit of the story surrounding the world its creating, but as far as the game play goes you only will get little snippets of conversation between characters that fill in the blanks a little bit. Which is surprising considering how deep and interested the lore of this game actually goes. I will touch on this more later in the review.

Overwatch as a game can best be akin to a team based objective style first person shooter that borrows heavily from MOBA elements. When someone asks what kind of game Overwatch is, the first thing almost everybody says in response is: "It's kind of like Team Fortress 2". I personally didn't play a lot of TF2 but I feel that is probably the most fair comparison to make when discussing this game.

Essentially at its core, Overwatch is a 6v6 FPS. How your game typically starts is you press a button to start where you immediately have to wait to connect to Blizzard server (because god forbid having any offline capability). Then once you are into the game decide if you want to jump into quick play or training. When you select, the game offers you a tiny little counter with how long you have waited and how long they think it will take for you to be connected to a game. If the wait is too long it will drop you into a tiny skirmish where you can run around a shoot while you wait. It's a nice little distraction.

Once you are in a room, you are taken back to your character selection screen. Characters are broken up into four major archetypes. Your offensive characters who are meant to push the pace, your defensive characters who are meant to create choke points to slow the opposing team, the Tanks who are meant to soak up damage for your offensive users, and your supports who are meant to die immediately (or if you are good at the game buff your team and weaken the opposing, I guess.).

One of Overwatch's biggest selling points is that the boasts a diverse set 21 different playable characters. Each character is unique in their design and have their own specific skill sets about them. For example there are 4 or 5 different support characters, but none of them play the same way: Mercy is a full blown healer, but she is nimble, fast, can buff strength on top of heal, and has a suprisingly damaging pistol. Symmetra however is also a support, but she doesn't heal. She is able to create turrets to shoot enemies that you can hide on walls and in cover, and make shields to keep people alive.

Because of the diverse nature of all the of the characters even within their roles, team composition will be an important factor when assembling your team. Depending on the game type, your go to player might not be available or necessary for the mission at hand. So if you are the 3rd fucking Hanzo on your team, it might be wise to try somebody else because a bad composition will doom your team from the start. Seriously, a team should never have 3 fucking snipers.

It's easy to see why Tracer is the unofficial mascot of the game. She's so cheery and cute
that it's just impossible not to love her. I don't even play Tracer and I love the character.

Speaking of the characters, I have to say that I absolutely love the character design and art direction of this game. I keep using the term "Pixar-esq" when describing it and if you've watched any of the animations you know that's an apt comparison. Each of the characters have a unique and interesting design about them, all the characters hail for different nationalities so they all have different quirks and accents. The design of the world around them is bright and colorful in all its different locations which severely goes against the grain of the Grey/Brown shooters we see these days. It is just an incredibly appealing looking game.

A big point of contention in this game for me is somewhat lack of options. When you jump into quick play the games will always be 6v6 but the objective isn't always the same. Sometimes you need to take and hold an area. sometimes it will be a 2 out of 3 king of the hill style game. Sometimes you will need to capture a payload and escort it to the finish. While you can argue that there are multiple game "types" it essentially boils down to the same game in my eyes. Six people shooting at Six other people. Only thing that changes is where you do it.

A feature that I love about this game though is that you are not locked into the character you selected at the start of the game. Let's say for example I start the game by picking D.Va, the mech riding tank character with close range damage, and we have a mission where we are pushing forward. On this mission I am getting blown up and put down one almost every surge, and so are some of our allies.

While respawing I can see that say our team has a lack of support characters, so on the fly as long as I am in the home base or respawning I can switch my character without interrupting the flow of the game. So now I can switch to Mercy to provide healing to another tank or offensive character to keep our pushes sustained. That's one of the games biggest perks that if you are playing a match and this team or your character isn't working then you aren't stuck with it. It forces you to be more versatile for the benefit of your team. (or you can keep taking unnecessary snipers like an asshole.)

Something else that I liked, is that the thing to remember is this is an objective focused game. So this means all you shitdicks who are still overly concerned about your Kill/Death ratio means you are playing the game fucking wrong. Since the main objective of each game is never "Kill as many as you can", it somewhat tries to steer you into playing your role on the team. It doesn't stop everyone from running off and trying to do their own thing, but most of the time the team knows exactly what their job is when the game starts.

Mei is fantastic for blocking paths and is devastating when used properly.
So naturally, I don't use Mei.

Although, there is a new bit of dick waving when a match finishes. It's a small little highlight at the end of a match that is deemed the "Play of the Game." As it sounds, a player is highlighted for having a spectacular play during the game, typically if they landed multiple kills in one move, a very well sustained assault, or if you're Torbjorn standing next to a turret doing fucking nothing {those infuriate me}. In a rare instance, you can do it with a support, but that is incredibly hard to pull off. Since people seem obsessed with getting this, too often actual objectives fall to the wayside.

They do balance it a little bit at the end of the match by nominating up to 4 players for commendations. Basically if a support healed a lot, a tank really stuck with an objective and soaked up a lot of damage, or someone really was just a one man killing machine all match, things like that. The players then basically can like which of the ones they thought deserved it like a facebook post. Typically, this is the best that I hope for and you usually see the other players give credit where its due to the less sexy grunt work characters.

It's hard to do, but not impossible. I was super proud of myself for this performance even though we lost.
Wish I had waited the few more seconds to get all 4 revived on that play though. That would have been clutch.

Once you complete a game you are awarded experience for completing the match and you also receive bonuses for the highest medal you achieved for specific match actions like healing, tanking, or objective, a bonus if you win, and bonus for not quitting the game. Once you gain a level you are awarded a loot crate which gives you up to 4 various unlockables from costumes, colors, sprays, and dialog. This is essentially all you can earn from playing the game (or just micropay for it if you are lazy, which you shouldn't do).

At the time of writing, I returned the game to my friend just as the competitive mode was released. Essentially a mode for level 25 and above where you go through 10 "qualifier" games to determine your skill level. Then you can player longer games for better cosmetic rewards. Personally, I dislike the idea of a competitive mode because it immediately places a divide between the hyper competitive high level player, and the casual player who likes the game just wants to have fun. (See: Any fucking Moba).

There really isn't much else to the game. There is a small little training area with random bots around where you can test out characters and get a feel for their moves, but strangely if you stay in that game mode too long the game will punt you back to the main menu. There is a small little bit of tutorial to learn the game, a VS. AI mode for someone looking to practice without the tense nature of being against other players, and Match of the week kinda thing with goofy rules. It really is all the elements of a Moba.

Here is my biggest beef with the game, and honestly something Blizzard does in general: they have the ability to make these incredibly fantastic looking cinematics for their games and most specifically this one. There are pages upon pages of character backstory and design that go into carefully crafting these unique and interesting characters. And once you fire the game up you get less than .0075% of it. It's a complete and utter travesty.

Look Blizzard, I'm going to level with you here. You are are sitting on a fucking transmedia empire here and doing dick all with it. Inside of one single video you turned a guy who doesn't play Blizzard games, first person shooters, or online multiplayer games into somebody who is completely entranced by the property you've brought to the table. I said right out the gate before I even tried the game that if you didn't make this game and made Overwatch an animated series, graphic novel, or a 2 hour Pixar style movie I would be first in line to consume the shit out of this.

You built this fantastic world filled with interesting characters and backstory. It is practically a travesty that there isn't even some kind of meager campaign to go with it. I'm not asking for a lot since I know this was always intended to be a multiplayer game. But god if you could give me some small 2-6 hour campaign to get even more engrossed in this universe, it would completely justify a 60 dollar price tag.

True Fact: This review took forever to post because I couldn't stop watching these awesome videos.

They are just too fucking cool. Make this a goddamn show or movie already!

Which brings me to my 2nd issue: Full price for this game just is not worth it in my opinion. Yes, I discussed that there are variants to what the match objective is every time you play but ultimately to the unseasoned shooter player such as myself, every single match feels like the match before it. Either run to the location and shoot all the players, follow the location and shoot all the players, or shoot all the players to stop them from getting to your location. Call them whatever you want, but its all essentially one game mode. You just get to decide if you want bots or humans to play against.

Now some people will throw out "Neeehhh! But its only 40 on PC!" This is true, it is 40 if you lose out on some DLC skins and such. Which sadly is still more than I would be willing to pay for a single game mode. Now apparently all updates aren't going to be charged as DLC from what I understand which I appreciate, but then we sort of fall into the Street Fighter V scenario where I feel you basically have put out an incomplete product under the guise of giving it all to you later when you have time to complete it. Eff you, you still charged the full price for an unfinished product.

I would bitch about how I hate playing games with other people online, but I've gone on that rant a billion times and thankfully I have the option to mute all the mics. So I can party up and chat with friends if I want to, but have blissful silence while I play the game with randoms. They have quick emotes in the game to use for basic commands and as a Smite player I appreciate that, and are more than sufficient. Call out a "Need Healing" and I know where to be.

One of these pictures caused a huge problem for some people. One is the picture that replaced it.
Can you guess which? Hint: If you can, get over yourself.

Also, I am not going to comment on the whole "butt controversy" because that was the biggest non-issue I've ever heard in a video game. I don't like using the term Social Justice Warrior because I feel its whole purpose is to invalidate anyone who might have a legitimate complaint or criticism {that's what it does, and if you don't think so you are totally full of shit.}. But people getting mad because Tracer has a pose that showed her butt was literally people getting mad at something for the sake of getting mad at something. Blizzard changed the pose to a new butt showing pose and inside a week nobody fucking cared anymore. Look it up if you want more detail on that.

When I returned the game, my initial review of it was "I don't know if it I like it or not". But now that I have had a few weeks to stew on it, I am coming to realize that I did enjoy my time with the game and honestly still have to urge to play it a little bit. More than likely, I will end up caving and purchasing the game because it works perfectly well to pop in an out of a game or two real quick without having to devote too much time to it. More importantly, its an FPS game that doesn't require me to actually be a good shot to pick a character and play well.

Which is pretty fucking unprecedented considering who is doing the review here. It is not often that I buy into the hype surrounding a game, especially if its a genre or style that I generally don't play. But in Overwatch's case they pretty much nailed exactly what it was they were trying to do. Many of my gripes are things that are becoming the norm in the gaming industry despite my older video game sensibilities.

Most importantly to this whole review and much to the credit of Blizzard, they thoroughly deconstructed a previous game in production to produce a brand new game. They meticulously took their time to make sure everything was interestingly designed, through out, and built to play well with minimal issue. Yes there were a number of things about the game that I had to complain about, but despite most of them, there isn't a whole lot on a technical or a mechanic standpoint that this game did wrong. Perhaps a little balancing issues on some character but those will be worked in patches no doubt.

So I am left confused. By my usual standards this should be a game I don't care for. But somehow its managed to defy the odds and ended up being a game than I actually kinda liked. If I can get it at more fair price then I think I would absolutely do that. Overwatch has the possibility to really become the new standard for the team based FPS genre and if they continue to develop their baby it could really be something. Overwatch has earned my recommendation.

You "Mei is Bae" folk are idiots. Mercy will always be my love.

Undertale (PC): This Game Broke my Soul

So I had heard a little bit about this game when it came out at the end of last year. I saw a lot of let's players playing it and glanced it a few times when FunHaus' Lawrence Sonntag streamed it, or when it Ross and Barry played it on Steam Train. Then Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame quickly did a review of it so he could squeeze it into his top and bottom games of the year.

It looked OK from a retro standpoint. I dig JRPGs and I heard a number of comparisons to the SNES game Earthbound (or Mother 2 for your elitist types). But it wasn't until I tried to watch MatPat's new Game Theory about it, and at the start of the video he straight up said "Pause this video, go buy and play the game, I promise you it will be worth it". Game Theory has been a staple of my youtube watching lately, so that was the last push I needed. I fired up steam, downloaded, and started.....

UNDERTALE (PC)

Let me start with a disclosure that will spoil my entire review: If you were thinking of, even considering in a passing thought of playing this game? Close my review immediately and do so. Its one of those games that give you the best experience the less you know about it. Seriously. Stop reading and play it. You will thank me. For the rest of you, I will TRY to keep it as spoiler free as possible.

Undertale begins with a short cut scene explaining that at some point long ago, humans and monsters used to live together on the surface as equals. But as is with all things in human history, war eventually broke out between the humans and monsters. The monsters were eventually pushed back and forced down underground. The humans then banished the monsters there and sealed them in a barrier. But the barrier was imperfect, as the cut scene continues to see a small child climbing Mt. Ebott. The child trips on a vine and plummets through an open pit down to the ruins underground. 

When the child comes to, they are greeted by a Flower called Flowey. Flowey explains that when you encounter monsters, you can strengthen your Soul (a heart) by raising your LV (or Love) by gaining EXP. He offers to share his love with "Friendship Pellets." He tells you to move your heart to collect them, but if you miss Flowey starts to grow hostile. Exclaiming you are only doing this to hurt his feelings. If you continue to avoid them, he becomes unhinged, violent, and threatens to kill you.

Just before he makes his attempt, he is punted off by a motherly monster called Toriel. She expresses regret for the flower's actions, and offers to guide you through the ruins explaining how puzzles were set up to stop  humans from entering and guides you to her home. She prepares a room for the child's protection and tells them they can be happy here together. Eventually though despite her good intentions, the child wishes to leave and go home.

Undertale can best be described as a JRPG at its core, since a number of the big JRPG core mechanics are in place. However, its not a traditional JRPG in the vein of say a Final Fantasy or a Dragon Quest.  It tends to be more of a hybrid of a turn based style of RPG with a mix of action based sequences for the battles. Its actually pretty interesting and different or at least uncommon.

If you chose to fight, you are presented with a quick time event where you need to press the button when a line passes through a target area. If you have played any kind of arcade style golf game like Hot Shots it should feel familiar. Or an another example would be Squall's Renzokuken from Final Fantasy 8. It will catch you off guard once but after that its breeze if you have decent timing.

When they attempt to make an attack at you, the game turns into a bullet hell minigame. Like a tiny Gradius or Ikaruga. Your little heart will be in a play area and you will have to move it around like you did against Flowey to avoid getting it hit. Every single monster has a different method of doing this and bosses sometimes have multiple ways of doing it. If you are up against more than one enemy, you have to deal with more than one of these at the same time, making it a lot harder to avoid projectiles.

It's pretty much impossible to not-love Toriel from the get go.

But the beauty of Undertale is that you don't have to fight. Some monsters don't want to. There are ways to show compassion during the fight sequences were you can reason with your opponents, compliments, cheer them, flirt and so on. You will still have to avoid attacks, but they might lighten up, or give projectiles that heal you. If you pick the right combination of actions, you can show mercy and spare them. You get no EXP and won't gain LVs, but you still earn gold. It is a pretty interesting mechanic and really gives Undertale an originality to it.

I wouldn't consider Undertale to be a very difficult game but I did play with an analog controller which makes the bullet hell sequences easier to control. I didn't get through the entirety of the game without dying, so I wouldn't say it was a breeze either. I guess its difficulty is based more along the lines of your tendency to play video games. My only real advice for this game is if you can afford to buy healing items, do so. Healing save points appear often, but it's always good to have a few items on you for hairier fights.   

Graphically, it hearkens back to the retro roots of old. Much of the battles and conversations are delivered in a monochromatic style featuring just black and white. The world maps are all done in a simple color pallet in a classic 8 bit style. Everything about Undertale's design choices make it feel like it was designed to be on home an original NES. That said, many of the sprites are very well designed and somehow show an incredible level of detail to the characters while at the same time feel incredibly minimalist. Simply put: World maps are on NES, Fights and Conversations are on Game Boy.

Undertale is engaging because of the duality of its complexity. On the surface of the game, everything for the most part seems straight forward. Go through the maps, complete the puzzles, deal with fights and progress to the end. But a lot of games brag about every choice you make in the game matters but what that really means are you good or evil. Undertale feels like it actually does matter with every little decision you make, because choosing to fight or spare certain things does effect battles later on.

Most of the maps have some kind of puzzle you need to do to unlock the next room and proceed along. Most of these are not truly mind bending, so you won't need an advanced degree to get through them. I wouldn't consider them too easy, but they won't bring your game to stop either. Some of them can be completed in a hilarious fashion. It does just enough to keep each room interesting without it needing to resort to a JRPG random encounter grindfest. On top of that there area handful of hidden and missable areas so its not a linear slog forward either.

Just one of Undertale's may puzzles just breaking my brain.

The music in this game is absolutely exceptional. As you would expect from its visual style, the music features and an impressive arrangement of chiptune style retro music. Each of them clearly designed for their specific locations and characters. I've rambled about this before but one of the best selling experiences for me is a well executed musical score, and not a single song in this whole game feels out of place.

I honestly cant think of an RPG I've played where every single boss got their own specific boss fight music, but that happens in Undertale and the game is better off for it. Each one of them makes each boss fight feel special. Each location's song feels appropriate for the setting and scene its being presented. It all just feels... I dunno, right? I would love to go into it more, but to be fair to you I really shouldn't. I will just say that the music completely nails it on all fronts from introduction to final boss.

Even better is on top of the soundtrack being exceptionally good, people have wasted no time at all picking up their instruments and making equally good covers of the Undertale soundtrack. I would like to give special mention of Youtuber RichaadEB. I recently discovered him for his amazing metal covers of songs from Chrono Trigger and around this time, he was producing a number of covers from Undertale. Which ultimately got produced in collaboration album with Ace Waters in an Undertale cover album called Determination. It's a fantastic album and has been on loop in my car for days.

I fucking love these characters. Almost every single one of them has some hilarious trait that makes them a fantastic character. Toriel paints herself as a sweet motherly type right from the onset. Papyrus is such an innocently goofy tryhard its impossible not to laugh when he talks. Alphys really hits close to home as a socially awkward anime loving shut in. I can go on. Even all of the monsters have a unique charm to them which is what makes actions you take in fights so much more satisfying.

But its strongest selling point, is Undertale's storytelling. Literally from the very first fight of the game, its already got you emotionally invested. From the moment Flowey starts to lose his cool to your initial conversations with Toriel, you become attached. It paints a clear picture that this is character that wants to care for you, wants you to be safe, and happy. I would be lying if I said I didn't hesitate leaving, even though it's what has to happen for the game to progress.

And the game doesn't throw that option to not fight in there for no reason. They couldn't have. So when I started the game I opted to see if I could get through the game without actually fighting. This is certainly not an easy thing to do, and it is kinda cheeky and funny for all the random battles you come across. Some of the reactions of the monsters are downright silly.

You and me both, Moldbugg.

But then there are boss fights. A lot of these characters make multiple appearances as you play through the game. And as you progress through the story you learn about some of their dreams, their conflicts, and how you as a human relate to the story. And as the fights shake out many of them will try to rationalize why you have to fight, and become confused and distraught about having to do so. It's these moments in the game where the game really shines.

During the earlier moments of the game you get into a conflict with a character. They insist that you have to fight to prove you are ready, but if you continue to abstain they being to plead with you about how it isn't the right course of action, begging you to stop making things so difficult. It was heart wrenching and the game had barely started yet.

Some characters know they have to fight you, but have come to find out that they'd rather be your friend, so as you battle them they continue to monologue their conflict about their relationship with you vs the dream they aspire to have, and with each line they spout they just affirm to me that they really aren't bad or evil at all. Which just makes me want to figure out the correct pattern to spare them.

The game can shift from cheeky fun to intense in a flash.

By the end of the game, when all the stakes were at their highest, I was playing the game on a livestream with a couple of very cool random people. And they watched me, trying to laugh off the incredible tense situation of two people very much not wanting to fight one another, and not so subtly wiping tears forming in the corners of my eyes. It was utterly soul cleaving and amazing at the same time. I was constantly being twisted and pulled, and it took real effort to commit to the path I chosen to take.

I don't like to use this Tumblr-esq term that a few people in my chat used, but this is a game that is designed to make you experience "the feels". I did. BOY did I. For nearly 6 hours I streamed that game, unable to put it down. Shifting from hysterical laughter to near open weeping sadness. Playing Undertale was easily the hands down most emotionally exhausting experiences I have ever had playing a video game, and I honestly mean that. I usually reserve that for the endings of big stories like the tragic ending of Final Fantasy X or the satisfyingly happy ending of Infinite Undiscovery. MatPat from Game Theory was right. It is just something you have to experience for yourself.

But if there is anything to seal my opinion on this game its this: when I do a review, just before I close out with my final thoughts I go over the aspects of the game that I didn't like. As I have said a million times, there is no such thing as a perfect game.. But after wracking over it for days, I am incredibly hard pressed to find any major faults with this game. Hell, the best I can do are nitpicks at best.

I didn't care for the sprite of the main character. Striped shirt and bobbed hair looks goofy in 8 bit format, sadly this was the main factor for me taking so long to try it and that is hypocritical of me because I tend to be a huge advocate that graphics don't make a game. As I said above, outside of the main character sprite, I pretty much love the design of everything else.

Perhaps maybe the game length, but I played it for almost 12 hours and I know that there is are two major endings and a bunch of neutral endings to get. It's only 10 dollars AND I got it on sale, so I can't complain about the price to time difference. Maybe there are too few fight encounters, but honestly it felt like the right amount to me for the length of the story. It never felt like a grind.

And maybe some more efficient fast travel system in the game would have been nice, but ultimately unnecessary since the only time I needed to was at the end of the game where you have the option backtrack.

That's it. That is quite literally all I can think of to possibly gripe about with Undertale. It is a practically flawless gaming experience, and that is not something I say lightly. Even the games I froth over ravenously like Dark Souls, Persona 4, or Disgaea I still have no shortage of complaints to make. Undertale just doesn't have them. I went into Undertale not knowing what to expect, and got completely and utterly rocked in the process.

I don't know what else I can say about it. It quite literally delivered to me on any front of gaming critique I could possible make. After 12 hours of play I laughed hysterically, got angry, cried (yes, cried. Fuck you.), was shocked, stunned, and as I've said before was left completely emotionally exhausted yet satisfied. If I had reviewed Undertale closer to when the game came out, I would be hard pressed to not give it the award for game of the year. It was that good.

If you don't like to game on PC? Sack up and fucking deal with it. Download steam, make an account, purchase Undertale for 10 bucks or less, clear some time and play Undertale. It  has the full force of the hype machine completely around it and it deserves every bit of it. If you enjoy video games in any capacity at all, you fucking OWE IT TO YOURSELF to play Undertale. It is absolutely an experience that you shouldn't pass up. You will not regret it. Trust me.

And when you finish it, you can be sure to let me know how right I was.

Undyne, you were killing me at the end of the game.