Schlagwort: games

While some fans of the series were disappointed when Monster Hunter XX came to the Switch as a Japan-only exclusive, the good news is that we don’t have to suffer in region-imposed torture any longer. The latest big fish in the franchise’s pond, Monster Hunter World, is finally here, and it blows the previous western releases out of the water.

For seasoned players, the gameplay loop in Monster Hunter World is immediately recognisable. Your job is a cycle that involves crafting weapons, bulking up, killing monsters, and looting them for materials. However, a well-crafted narrative has not traditionally been a part of that gameplay loop, and that may have been a deterrent for those looking for a foothold into the franchise in the past. Luckily for them, the first major point of difference here from the previous mainline titles is the way that the plot and gameplay are grafted together. A spinoff, Monster Hunter Stories, stepped off the beaten track by introducing a simple yet satisfying narrative, and now Monster Hunter World solidifies that step by using the building blocks of previous narrative concepts to deliver a well-paced experience that spends more time focusing on the bigger picture.

While you spend a lot of time chasing an Elder Dragon that wouldn’t look out of place in the movie Pacific Rim, Monster Hunter World’s choice to integrate Guild and Village quests into one coherent story cuts out any confusion or ambiguity that new players may feel when it comes to figuring out which quests progress your journey. The fact that everything is tuned for a rewarding solo experience is a plus–it’s entirely possible to pump through 60 hours of quests without ever interacting with another player online. And when combined with more intelligent monster AI, facing off against a fire-breathing Tyrannosaurus-like creature on your own makes the stakes feel even higher.

On top of the story, which revolves around the mystery of why the aforementioned Elder Dragon has appeared in the game’s new region, there have been some quality-of-life changes that ease your transition into the world of monster hunting. Instead of frontloading a lot of text-based tutorials as in previous titles, you now have a Handler who doles out helpful information to you as you progress through zones of increasing complexity. It can feel a bit like having an annoying younger sibling tagging along on otherwise deadly adventures, but her vocal cues and vast knowledge about monster types are helpful when encountering new enemies for the first time. This assistance ceases when you start cutting your teeth on High Rank monsters, but hearing about new skills and immediately putting them into practice in the field is an excellent way to learn about the game from the ground up.

Monster Hunter World feels like an open-world game to some extent, with fantastically large maps of a scale that we haven’t seen before (both vertically and horizontally), no discernable game-pausing loading screens between zones in hunting areas, and a wealth of beautifully rendered environments to slaughter colossal monsters in. A helpful addition to this new world is the swarm of scoutflies that serve as a way to track monsters and other objectives.

Navigating the vastness of those areas without scoutflies would have been incredibly tedious. Once you’ve located a few traces of a monster’s path in a zone, your scoutflies automatically track it to its current location. Gather up enough clues over time and soon your insectoid minions will be able to predict where a certain monster is located based on past movements. This is very useful for investigation missions with tight time frames at higher ranks and sticks to your canon characterisation: a seasoned hunter who understands their prey. Except, perhaps, when said prey glitches through two stories‘ worth of foliage and can’t be attacked with any weapons that you’ve got on hand. Fortunately, those instances are few and far between.

Part of the ability to capitalise on a monster’s weakness is the smart use of all the tools in your hunting arsenal, with the most important being your weapon of choice. The Hunter Arts from Monster Hunter Generations have been removed, and the game’s focus is solely on your ability to dish out ridiculous amounts of damage using your respective weapon’s combo. Light weapons are still the most mobile while the technical weapons are still the most difficult to understand and master, but there are ample opportunities to get experience with whichever blade, bow, or lance you’ve decided on. Weapon upgrade trees are all viewable at a glance, and the ability to make a wishlist of parts for your next upgrade makes the process more convenient, and helps you decide which expeditions to focus on.

Bowguns in particular have received the most notable facelift: it appears that there has been an effort to mimic the kind of playstyle you’d have in a third-person shooter, and this is most apparent when you’re firing from the hip with the light bowgun. That doesn’t necessarily change the strategy needed; you’ll still have to make effective use of environmental hazards, traps, barrel bombs, and dung in order to chase down your quarry. There are now more ways to get a leg up on monsters, which make combat encounters more accessible to different playstyles. Elemental effects are all the rage once more, with weapons boasting essential new perks that have evolved alongside the enemies that you forge them from, and the benefits of bringing water to a firefight is a lesson you’ll learn early.

Of particular necessity is the ability to mount monsters through aerial combos, or through the slightly less coordinated mad scramble off a cliff onto a creature’s back; you’re given the opportunity to knock a monster down, which will buy you time to slice off a tail or a claw. While the game will reward you no matter what strategies you take, knowing a monster’s weak points is still a must if you strive to upgrade your gear. It’s best to nail down your favourite weapon in the Arena–a mode where you test your mettle with specific gear against a monster that you’ve fought before.

Multiplayer integration is, for the most part, seamless. As mentioned above, there’s no distinction between Village and Guild quests anymore, so missions can be done alone or with a friend, and you’ll both only have to do it once to complete it. You can start a quest alone in an online session and wait for more hunters to pop in to assist. Alternatively, you can seek out an online session for people of a certain hunter rank, and just go along for the ride if they need a hand with anything. The only qualifier is that some story-focused missions require the leader to either watch a cutscene or discover a monster before others can join.

You can be in the same online session as someone else without having to do the quests that they’re doing, which is useful for those who might want to keep an eye on a friend who’s new to the franchise. Players who are struggling solo can also send out an SOS flare that lets their friends put together a little rescue party to save the day. In the downtime between adventures, you can do anything from arm wrestling to challenging each other’s times on the killing leaderboards.

Getting together with your mates takes a couple of extra steps compared to loading into a multiplayer session on the fly with a stranger. To play with friends alone, you’ll have to join in on their fun via the friends list on the console dashboard, or by sharing a 12-digit session ID. In a game that’s all about momentum and sprinting off into the horizon at the next challenge, getting your hunting posse together is manageable but slightly tedious. That being said, a few minutes to specifically set up a multiplayer session doesn’t necessarily make or break the game.

As expected, Monster Hunter World scales the difficulty up if you’re not the only one embarking on the quest. Up to four people can go out into the wilderness at once, and the beta experience has already demonstrated to many how exhilarating group combat can be. The more targets available for monsters, the more unpredictable their movements. This means that while you may have more firepower, it can be harder to lock down a monster that’s particularly prone to relentless charging or rapid aggression. Luckily, playing with others gives you the opportunity to try out different weapon compositions, and while unusual weapons like the hunting horn might see minimal use in the solo campaign, its sweet, party-buffing tunes and your teamwork abilities will become crucial to helping your friends take down the most savage of beasts.

While it may seem like quite a bit has changed, there’s a hell of a lot in Monster Hunter World that’s stayed the same. Whether it’s the appearance of draconic series regulars like the Rathalos and the Rathian or the presence of tried and true weapons, the roots of the Monster Hunter franchise are strong with its latest release. Apart from the overall sprucing up of graphics and the cutscenes with full voice-over, the standout improvements really come from the simplification of the existing systems in a way that welcomes newcomers without alienating existing fans. A lack of loading screens makes exploration a pleasure, and tracking new and improved monsters through areas as they rank up means that you’ve got plenty to conquer once the story quests are complete. There may not be any new weapons, and there may be a Hunter Arts-sized hole left in the hearts of players who spent hours getting good at the various Styles. However, the removal of those old mechanics feels less like a funeral and more like a necessary streamlining.

Ever since the title was first announced last year, it was clear that Capcom was gunning for something grander than Monster Hunter Generations. It has succeeded, and this is likely the biggest and best that the franchise has ever been. It’s not just the comparative depth of the narrative; it also boasts almost seamless integration between combat systems that were previously incomprehensible for amateurs. The Monster Hunter formula has definitely honed its claws, and all the above factors play their part in making Monster Hunter World a meaningful evolution for the series at large.

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Spoilers for Celeste are contained in this review. While no specific plot details are mentioned, overall themes and mechanics that you may not be aware of are discussed. Celeste is a wonderful, surprising game, and I think it’s best experienced without prior knowledge of its themes. Hence, if you want to go in completely fresh, go and play Celeste before reading this review. Otherwise, carry on to find out why this game is worth your time.

Despite appearances, Celeste is much more than a game about climbing a mountain. Celeste is a game framed around a challenging platformer but containing a powerful tale of recognizing, dealing with, and attempting to overcome mental illness. Parts of Celeste are challenging to play–in both its gameplay difficulty and its subject matter–but it is a memorable experience worth seeing through.

Playing as a nervous young explorer named Madeline, you’re on a self-imposed mission centered around climbing the titular mountain, Celeste. You’re warned from the outset that the mountain is a strange place, that you might see things you’re not ready to see, but that it will show you who you really are. While the adventure starts relatively simply–jump this gap, grab this ledge, gather this collectible–the mountain soon lives up to its otherworldly billing by realizing Madeline’s mental health issues.

Her anxiety and depression are personified into an alternate version of her, simply named Part of Me, that exists purely to place doubt in her mind, to confuse her, and to tell her she cannot succeed. This occurs both in dialogue and in gameplay, where Part of Me often acts as the primary antagonist. However, Part of Me isn’t doing this out of spite; she argues she’s trying to save Madeline from what she perceives as certain death–Madeline is not a mountain climber, after all.

Madeline meets other characters along the way whose own issues manifest themselves in-game as physical prisons from which you must escape or enemies you must defeat. Rarely do games tie themes and mechanics together so well; combined with a sometimes crippling difficulty level, they accentuate the feeling that you, the player, are on a struggle of your own, as well as enhancing your level of empathy towards Madeline. Seeing her suffer is difficult to handle, and it’s impossible to watch it happen without thinking of your own problems, but that–plus the brilliant merging of gameplay and narrative–is what makes Celeste so emotionally powerful.

Parts of Celeste are challenging to play–in both its gameplay difficulty and its subject matter–but it is a memorable experience worth seeing through.

The only disappointing aspect of this translation of mental struggle into play is a clumsy addition of a new movement mechanic towards the story’s end. The new mechanic itself is utilized intelligently for the remainder of the campaign, but the way in which it’s added–at a key moment in the plot–somewhat weakens one of the story’s most powerful elements. The finale itself, however, is a wonderfully understated and fitting conclusion that I won’t spoil here.

Save for that heavy-handed development, Celeste grows graciously over the course of the roughly seven-hour campaign. It starts off as a slow, traditional platformer, but as new mechanics are added and as your own skills develop, it becomes an intricate, breakneck dance. You might have to jump around one set of spikes, dash over a pit, bounce off the back wall, leap through a warp panel, and fly to the next platform, all without a safe spot to land. But even though each step is tricky, checkpoints are frequent enough (and restarts instant enough) that failure never becomes too frustrating, all while the difficulty is sufficiently high to make success satisfying. I died 975 times, but none of those casualties felt unfair, and almost every one taught me something new. Even though Celeste doesn’t introduce any mechanics that haven’t been seen in other games, its platforming is wonderfully refined and inventive–often leaving me puzzled as to how I’ll ever succeed, only for the solution to suddenly enter my head–and it’s all contained within a campaign unlike anything else.

After the credits roll, Celeste offers more for those who want to relive the journey. Aside from the usual collectibles scattered in various hidden or hard-to-reach locations, there are also a set of unlockable reworked levels, dubbed B-Sides. Be warned, however: these offer some of the most difficult sequences in the game, and like an unfathomable post-game that offers a locked door with seemingly no way in, they lie unfinished on my level select screen.

Finally, Celeste’s sheer beauty is worth mentioning. Its colorful 8-bit style will be familiar to those who played developer Matt Makes Games‘ previous platforming title, TowerFall: Ascension, but in Celeste that is joined by a cleaner, more modern look that elegantly adorns the game’s menus, overworld, and end-of-chapter artwork. In-game, as Madeline’s world becomes more twisted and horrific, so do the game’s art style and environments: bright blue ice and golden skies turn to blood-red monsters and greying surroundings. The piano and chiptune-heavy soundtrack adapts in a similar fashion, moving from the serene to the spooky at the perfect moment, all while remaining forever catchy.

It’s a testament to convincing writing and ingenious design that after playing Celeste I felt like I’d been on the same journey as Madeline. Her struggle is one made easy to empathize with, her low points painful to watch, and her high notes exhilarating to experience. Her tale is delicately told and beautifully illustrated, confidently coalescing with the satisfying, empowering game it lies within. Not bad for a game about climbing a mountain.

Website: LINK

Prequels run the risk of diminishing the magic of the stories they lead into, but The Inpatient is a rare exception that entirely manages to avoid that. As opposed to its jumpscare-obsessed peers on PSVR–even in opposition to the game from which it spun off, Until Dawn–The Inpatient relies less on the element of surprise, instead utilizing the far more diabolical and harder-won asset of dread.

You play as an amnesiac–the gender and skin color of whom you can choose at the outset–at the illustrious Blackwood Sanitorium and Hotel. You wake in a wheelchair on a snowy February day in 1952, a doctor gently but ominously grilling you about your fleeting scraps of memory. After the first session leaves your curiosity hanging with more questions than answers, you’re carted off to your room. There, nothing but your paranoid roommate, a hard-looking bed, and a steady supply of flimsy sandwiches awaits you each day, and vicious, gory, absinthe green-tinted nightmares await every night.

You’ll be shuffling your way through The Inpatient’s various unpleasantries using either a DualShock 4 or two Playstation Move controllers. Unlike playing with a DualShock, Move controllers enhance your immersion–giving you two functional onscreen hands to use–but collision detection is on the buggy side, where the hands can get very easily stuck on random objects while trying to interact with them and twist in weird ways. In addition, movement is a bit clunky; the quick-turning radius makes it far too easy to get stuck in a doorway because your virtual shoulder happens to be at a strange angle, which is especially awkward when you’re not able to step out of the way of a scripted event in time. Lastly, no matter which control scheme you pick, the game is in desperate need of the ability to walk backwards.

You have ample time to pace around your dingy room getting used to the controls, but just as you begin to settle into your new routine, the day comes when the nurse stops paying a visit, the food stops arriving, and a chilling daily chorus of ungodly shrieks and screams from deep in the sanitorium starts taking the place of actual human conversations.

Survivors of Until Dawn can already take a wild guess at what’s happening outside the door, but The Inpatient isn’t so quick to jump to that conclusion. Instead of introducing its antagonist upfront, half the game is spent dealing with a far more human monster: starvation. The slow decay of sanity is executed with a steady hand; every time you wake up from an extended slumber brings a new level of deterioration to the room and your roommate. Add in the amnesia, and you’re trapped in your own personal hell long before the physical devils actually start showing up.

Eventually, of course, they do, and The Inpatient’s second half settles into a familiar, exploratory groove of wandering the pitch black hallways of an asylum, waiting for just about anything to come for your blood. The game loses some of its intrigue around this point, but certainly not all. A more deep-seated terror gives way to external horror, as The Inpatient’s incredible, all-encompassing soundscape echoes all sorts of grisly happenings from god-knows-where in the sanitorium. It’s chilling enough until you realize the sounds are happening closer than you thought, and then it’s maddening. It all culminates in a specific setpiece involving a careful, pins-and-needles walk from the sanitorium to a nearby chapel. A certain red-light-green-light challenge from Until Dawn gets a retread here, but the addition of VR to the mix makes an already pulse-raising situation even more frightening.

The game does lose a bit of steam as it glides towards the ending, but its short length–around two hours if you’re not thoroughly looking for secrets–means the less interesting bits don’t overstay their welcome. Where The Inpatient gains depth isn’t necessarily from the endgame, but the replayability. It’s possible to plow through the entire game, get a perfectly satisfactory ending, and have multiple questions still dangling in the air by the end, answered only by the second or third go round. Until Dawn’s Butterfly Effect branching path system makes a return here, with the added bonus of an option to use voice recognition, to literally speak for your in-game character. It comes off at the outset as a neat gimmick, but it’s hard not to find yourself getting deep into character, following the onscreen emotional cues, bitterly spitting dialogue at NPCs, and making deeply personal choices. By proxy, much of what you get from the game stems less from „what does this choice do?“ than „how do I play this role to get the answers I want?“

The Inpatient doesn’t just do right by Until Dawn, but stands right alongside it as one of the strongest horror experiences on PlayStation 4. It’s a game far less concerned with pushing you towards what’s lurking down every corridor than feeding you the worst ideas of what could be.

Website: LINK

Iconoclasts‚ Metroidvania-inspired style and structure is deceptively simple at first. The vibrant 2D-pixelated world you inhabit is alluring and the action is quick and snappy. But if you’ve played games like this before, it’d be easy to dismiss Iconoclasts as trite and rudimentary considering the number of similar experiences available nowadays. Yet as you push through the game’s myriad twists and turns, it matures before your very eyes, unfurling to reveal complex puzzles and a heart wrenching narrative.

Iconoclasts is a fantastic looking game with an impressive level of detail on display, a prime example being the unique animations and sounds each character exhibits. The presentation and catchy retro music elevates the personality of the world, making the game more captivating as a whole. However, judging Iconoclasts simply on the visuals undersells what’s buried under the surface. There’s much to love about this adventure: it’s brimming with nuanced characters, riveting drama, sharp wit, and a host of well-crafted action set-pieces. Iconoclasts leverages its storytelling and presentation to pull you in. These elements distinguish the game from the old-school adventures it recalls, making the experience worth checking out even if you’re not traditionally a fan of retro games.

The adventure begins with little fanfare, putting you in control of mute protagonist Robin, an unlicensed mechanic in a world where technology is considered sacred due to its link to a dwindling magical resource that powers all things. This effectively renders her chosen profession illegal in the eyes of One Concern, a corrupt theocracy that rules the world with an iron fist. When Robin’s actions inevitably provoke One Concern to hunt down everyone she loves, she becomes embroiled in a conflict that threatens not only the safety of her family but the entire world.

The strength of Iconoclasts‘ narrative isn’t in the broader story beats, but the smaller emotional arcs of its characters. While the people you meet in your journey are inherently charming and likable, they’re also broken individuals, consumed by their own inadequacies and traumatized by the crimes One Concern has inflicted upon them. Iconoclasts‘ depiction of grief is realistic and powerful; it doesn’t hesitate to explore the cast’s emotional issues, often resulting in moments that fundamentally alter their identities in unexpected ways. There’s a real sense of growth, with each character transcending their wit-laced dialogue and evolving into people with affecting, relatable plights.

Unsettling events occur throughout, so it helps that Robin is such an uplifting presence. Her unspoken optimism and willingness to help those in need makes her an incredibly endearing hero. Robin’s endless strength and kindness in the face of a world permeated with religious and political corruption–not to mention her own emotional issues–serve as rays of hope in an otherwise dark journey. In the multitude of disasters that befall your allies, you’re always compelled to keep pushing further, if only to see how Robin may hope to fix the world’s atrocities.

As Robin, it’s a joy to move and engage in combat. With her trusty stun gun and wrench, you’ll navigate various biomes and industrial complexes where all manner of foes await, from rampaging deer and purple slimes to One Concern guards and deformed mutants. Combat is primarily focused on running ’n gunning, but there’s some added nuance thanks to an upgrade system driven by collecting materials to craft Tweaks, which are special items that alter Robin’s abilities. The effect of Tweaks are subtle, mostly altering physical characteristics such as running speed, the strength of your wrench attack, or how long you can hold your breath underwater.

While tweaks are handy, they feel underutilized as there’s rarely any urgency to rely on them to succeed. Their effects aren’t all that noticeable, so they do little to change combat and exploration, which is disappointing. This can be somewhat remedied by crafting three of the same tweak to maximize their effects as opposed to diversifying the types you have equipped. Still, combat remains gratifying even with the less-than-impactful tweaks as the game relies on skill and precision over an excessively complicated upgrade system.

Rather than emulate Metroidvania games that favor open-ended exploration, Iconoclasts focuses on environmental puzzle solving. Areas are packed with brain-teaser-like trials where you’re often pushed to think critically about how you can use your arsenal to clear a path towards the objective. For example, there are puzzles that involve moving platforms using a concussive bomb launcher. This sounds simple in theory, but it’s far more involved when you have to consider how a bomb can only move a platform when the concussive force hits from a specific direction. This is further complicated by the fact that when you charge up the launcher, it fires a missile that can only push platforms after picking up enough speed. Iconoclasts‘ puzzle design encourages you to consider the smallest details, which can occasionally be overwhelming. But when you put in the time to work out a difficult solution, it’s incredibly satisfying.

The emphasis on puzzle-solving even bleeds into boss fights, which are intense screen-filling battles that test your intellect as much as your reflexes. One boss has you switching between Robin and another playable character in order to work through a series of specific steps to reveal its weak point. While the game is quick to surprise you (and even make you laugh) with its bombastic boss fights, there’s surprisingly more tactical complexity than simply shooting at them until they’re dead. As a result, you’re often challenged to completely revise your strategy at a moment’s notice in case a boss becomes invulnerable to your attacks.

Iconoclasts is a sincere and compelling adventure that anyone with respect for fantastic storytelling and 2D-action can enjoy.

When Iconoclasts‘ end credits begin to roll, it’s bittersweet to see the journey come to a close. After solving every puzzle and witnessing the finale of its poignant narrative, you can’t help but reflect on the growth of its characters and your impact onto the world. The game will shock and surprise you with how gripping its story is, and it’s likely to do so again in subsequent playthroughs of New Game+ with your expanded knowledge of character histories and events. Iconoclasts may be a callback to the style and mechanics of old-school games, but it’s also a sincere and compelling adventure that anyone with respect for fantastic storytelling and 2D-action can enjoy.

Website: LINK