Category Archives: Review

Palworld: Casual fun collecting monsters

Whaddaya know, there I was feeling the gaming blues all summer until I ended up getting Palworld and Once Human this September and finding myself enjoying both for different reasons. The last two weekends were mostly dedicated to monster catching however which is why Once Human has to wait its turn for a personal review.

First of all, I did not intend to ever try out Palworld. I am not a Pokémon fan (which is how the game was advertized in some corners) and I had marginal knowledge beyond this before it was gifted to me by my longterm gaming buddy. I knew it’s open world survival crafting which I generally enjoy…until I don’t, which is the inevitable fate of this genre. Once your base is functional and expanded and chest inventory management becomes unbearable, I tend to lose interest unless there’s a reason to keep exploring and/or doing quests. Valheim does this pretty well but many titles really don’t.

About 25 hours and 20 levels into Palworld there’s an undeniable charm and gameplay variety that’s very engaging. Maybe it helps that I never played Pokémon so there’s not the constant ingame comparisons to Nintendo’s giant IP, over which they’re now currently suing Pocket Pair Inc. because apparently only Nintendo are allowed to use monster catching mechanics that involve throwing round balls. As far as I’m concerned the corporate bullies can suck the aforementioned but that’s neither here nor there.

An early Palworld review

Palworld starts the player off without much bravado; as you leave the familiar MMO cave, a wide open world awaits that is ripe for the exploring. It’s up to you where to head to first and where to set up camp, although venturing off into higher level areas early is not recommended. The map is vast and biomed in all the familiar ways. All across the world monsters of different levels, magical schools and random skills await to be conquered, some friendlier than others. Add outdoor bosses as well as dungeons and special instanced challenges to the mix, plus a linear quest progression to offer a sense of direction.

The crafting and leveling process are solid. New recipes and skills are unlocked through tech tiers that require different levels and resources. Some upgrades revolve around base building features while others improve your character’s gear or add special skills to pals. The workstations look fine – overall building and decorating are functional and simple without offering nearly the depth of Valheim or similar titles. If you’re looking for landscaping and detailed custom architecture, Palworld ain’t for you.

A large chunk of the game revolves around micromanaging the different pals you collect around the world and how they are put to optimal use in your homebase and combat. Creatures come with different schools of magic, innate skills as well as synergies and thus your quest for optimal outcomes beginneth. Gathering and crafting are mostly automated by way of putting suitable pals to work and overseeing their well-being. And yes, there’s a ton of cuteness involved as you watch your pals’ distinct animations and goofy behavior as they go about their daily tasks. Palworld is a cute game in a good way, it has a sense of humor about it. Naturally there’s also pal breeding and a process called ‘pal distillation’ which create longterm incentives for players to gather multiple pals of the same kind and hunt for special “lucky pals”. As I’ve only just started playing, I’ve no idea how important all of this will be further down the road.

Then there’s the exploration and combat part of the game which keep things varied. A degree of preparation is required before bigger excursions as you have to take food and other materials for yourself and up to 5 pals you’re allowed to bring along. The pals will aid you in combat and add other perks like riding, flying or scanning for dungeons to your journey. Besides hunger mechanics, there’s also gear decay and special gear for certain weather conditions – all your usual survival game fare. Catching new pals involves timing and throwing corresponding spheres of a certain level of which 3 different varieties exist so far. I’ve a feeling the dev team will keep adding more content in this regard. Traversal is made easier by things like different rideable pals as well as grappling hooks and a glider which you receive early on. There’s also fast travel by way of unlocking new areas.

The game is very vertical in places and it’s fun to climb up towers and mountains of which there are many. As you explore the map, you keep running into new pals, special collectibles and the odd dungeon or special encounter. If there’s one criticism I have right now, it’s that soundtrack is non-existent but that’s a personal thing. It’s weird to me how silent the game is when you’re out there looking for treasure. Otherwise I’m quite happy with the casual gameplay it offers and the flexibility of customizing your own world client side. Few things need improvement but nothing major enough to get on my nerves just yet. There’s multiplayer too of course which is slightly less ideal in terms of how progress is managed (for example tech unlocks aren’t shared) but it still feels very early days so I’m happy to go solo or join my friend on his server when we manage to coordinate. Let’s see if the game can keep our interest the next 20 levels.

FFXIV: The much delayed Endwalker verdict

I finished the Endwalker questline sometime around Christmas so this post is laughably late, I know. I am terrible at keeping a schedule and should refrain from ever writing things like “more to come soon”. Alas, at least no one else is writing Endwalker reviews anymore, so I can leave my final impressions without haste. Needless to say at this point, this post contains all the spoilers in the known universe.

Endwalker is a great expansion. I wouldn’t go as far as some and call it the best ever, but it is another wild example of Square doing what they do best which is telling stories. Nobody, and I mean nobody in the world of MMO gaming comes close to their at times Simarillion-level epic storytelling. And oh, does Endwalker lay it on thick! Where Shadowbringers themes were already complex and timelines and parallel worlds would wreck player’s brains at times, Endwalker takes everything up a few notches. Each of the new main characters have at least three different names and as many lives. In fact, no one ever seems to be truly dead in this game as re-incarnation is a thing and we aren’t quite sure what spirits can still do from the forever lifestream. Once more, the warrior of light (WoL) manages to save the world, nay the universe, from ultimate destruction. Square really love the player hero trope but at least they’re going all in. Much to my delight, we also got to meet our old pal Ehmet-Selch much sooner than I ever expected. A special shout-out also to my new homie Hythlodaeus who was another greatly written character this expansion. There’s some fabulous dialogue in Endwalker, beautiful zones and epic battles. All in all, it was a very worthy conclusion to the past 7 years.

That said, the expansion is not without hiccups, some of which I already mentioned in my last post. Pacing is a big one and so are the onerous new ‘follow me quests’ but I am also left with some chagrin about Endwalker’s antagonists. Color me surprised when we already faced and then finished the much hyped Zodiark at level 84. The whole Fandaniel and Zenos exchange was pretty bleh at that point and then Zenos just disappeared until the very end of the expansion, when the game suddenly shoves him back into the player’s face. Rather late into Endwalker we learn about this expansion’s real antagonist: an Entelechi called Meteion who later on becomes a hive mind which culminates in the ultimate destroyer of the universe, the Endsinger. This character goes from annoying and enigmatic to detached alien force and never makes for nearly as compelling a villain as some of the other FFXIV personas. There’s simply not enough time to develop this new character and make players feel either way about him/her/it. It doesn’t feel personal, maybe because it isn’t.

What I did enjoy a lot was the Hydaelin prep encounter which featured a fantastic musical track. The Endsinger showdown also made for one of the most visually impressive encounters in the entire game at least. Unfortunately, they had to bring back Zenos after that and things went downhill from there. What would cause such a decision I cannot say but it was mind-boggling that Endwalker would force me into a cartoonish arena-battle with Zenos, not once but twice in a row, shortly after having been through the epic one-hour-or-so Endsinger finale. At this point I felt so deflated, I hated every minute of it. There was no satisfaction in watching Zenos finally get his silly ‘anime death’ – which was probably no death at all again. (I have this theory about Zenos being another shard of Hydaelin’s which would explain why the WoL can never really defeat him as they’re equally matched. I guess time will tell how wrong I am about that!)

So that was more or less the Endwalker MSQ before the game went back to its usual pace of tomes and token grinds. Square have been busy releasing updates and holiday events since December and I feel comfortable with the usual tune of things. I love the improvements to Bard and Black Mage and look forward to more 6.1 news soon. I need more bagspace badly and a house, surely I deserve as much after saving the entire universe!

FFXIV: Endwalker First Impressions (no MSQ spoilers)

As I am sitting in another queue at the FFXIV login screen, I decided I may as well put the time to some use and post. Endwalker has been out for a week now for us early access subscribers and it’s not been smooth sailing. Queues have been horrendous which puts a damper on a ton of people’s excitement. I don’t know how it is for US or JAP players but on my high-pop EU server, I either login at noon to be able to play 4-5 hours later or it’s not gonna happen. SE’s queuing tech is incredibly frustrating and you better not get an error during those four hours or chances are you can go re-queue from scratch.

And yes I know, the devs are doing what they can and the hardware shortages due to Covid have basically kicked us in the shins this year – it’s still soulcrushing to sit in fickle queues or get disconnected and have your planned playtime ruined for the rest of the day. I’m no FFXIV late adopter, I’ve been playing this game for 7 years and I really looked forward to Endwalker. Now it sounds like this situation may not be resolved for months. At least SE are communicating with the player base which goes a long way.

My VERY early Endwalker impressions

I’ve been able to get to level 84 on my BLM which is not far at all but has introduced me to the first three zones as well as the first two dungeons and first trial in Endwalker. I’m not going to spoil anything about the main storyline here but leave my overall first impressions which so far, are very mixed.

What struck me is how long this expansion takes to get going. There’s a great number of walking and talking quests before you ever get to see any action and there are pacing issues early on. There’s also an abundance of very long cutscenes that feel more self-indulgent than necessary. It’s clear the devs were having fun with the main cast but I got really tired listening to them exchange pleasantries and juvenile chatter after a while. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me getting impatient to get going after four hours of sitting in queues but I remember Shadowbringers feeling a lot more tight from the get-go.

The other glaring thing for me is the lack of remarkable music tracks so far. The last expansion greeted us almost instantly with the fantastic themes of Lakeland and the Crystarium, yet I’ve heard nothing remotely as gripping in early Endwalker. I like the new combat tracks and there are some sweet, quieter tracks but nothing that gets the heart beating faster. Alas, I hope there’s a lot more to come and soon! Soundtrack is everything to me in this game.

Another thing that the devs seem to have had fun with is the whole new questing mechanic with NPCs following you around or alternatively you having to follow them and better not lose them. There are added stealth elements sometimes and I’ve had quests fail on me because I missed a cue or then the NPCs aren’t smart enough to join you in battle during the escort. While that can be dealt with, it throws me out of immersion having to do these ‘console gamey intersections’. This is a strong departure from classic MMORPG questing and it’s been used multiple times already in every zone I’ve been to. Clearly, this is a matter of taste but I don’t care for it personally, at all. I hate to think how much more of this is to come ’til level 90.

Now this might sound like I’m being mostly negative about the expansion so far. The truth is, I expect things to get a lot better and I’m confident SE will deliver. I do however also think that after the successes of Shadowbringers, this new expansion has an almost insurmountable amount of expectations riding on it. Add to this the somewhat ungrateful job of wrapping up the entire story-line since the beginning and dealing with all the lose ends. Not an easy task, so I will cut them some slack for having to cover that much ground.

And that’s it, my very brief first report – several more to come. Above is one of my highlights for now, the moon vista in Endwalker which is truly stunning! This expansion has a darker theme overall which makes beautiful moments like that all the more magical.

Valheim is good

Valheim by unknown Swedish developer Iron Gate Studio has landed on the ‘open world sandbox builder’ scene with a bang and while it’s still in early access, more and more MMO bloggers have started writing about the title. I had no intention on getting this game – first and foremost because it’s early access and I’ve been burnt by titles like ARK and many of its kind before. Sandbox builders / survival / crafting games are a generic dime a dozen and I’ve completely shut off to new releases appearing on my Steam queue. So when bloggers like Bhagpuss began posting more and more reviews with some praise recently, I stayed skeptical despite knowing myself to be closely aligned with Bhag’s idea of exploration greatness.

Then there were also the absolutely hideous character models and character animations, which I couldn’t stand watching Valheim footage. Your character’s walking and running animation is the single most important animation in the entire game; there is nothing you watch more than this one. Uhhh.

So, why would I possibly end up playing Valheim, anyway? Well, for one I was gifted the title because I kept refusing to buy it (the peer pressure was great with this one). From there, it didn’t take long however for me to enjoy myself to the point of clocking in at 35 hours of playtime and looking forward to seeing a lot more. I obviously owe it to the game now to leave my much improved impressions, so here we go!

Valheim second impressions

To get straight to the point: Valheim’s world is gorgeous. I’m not talking about highend resolution here, in fact the game takes only 1GB of disk space and is doing some masterful trickery with low res textures under shrubbery, the way WoW has been doing for some years. Where Valheim excels is how everything works together in harmony, the color changes of the light, the dramatic weather changes, the impressive water effects, the immersive sounds. In short, it’s the overall atmosphere and design of the world that is beautiful. The transition of weather and the day-night cycle are probably the best I have seen to date in comparable games while never putting a strain on my average PC setup. When there is a wall of fog coming up in Valheim, it’s actually FOG and navigating becomes hard and scary (especially at night on sea).

Forest Lights

Stormy weather

The world map is huge and procedurally generated like in Minecraft but there’s ways to pick particular seeds if you’re looking for that sort of optimization. There is also the handy fact that in Valheim, your character is not world-bound; this means you can always go visit another seed or find resources there and then carry them back to your home world. This is just one of the many things this developer is doing right. Playing together, my partner and I kept commenting on how this studio is clearly made up of actual gamers; many mechanics and details are just done right here that tend to be grating in big money titles. That’s not to say that Valheim doesn’t require further polish, it does – but much of the important ground work is done and bugs are absolutely minor.

Valheim’s exploration is very rewarding. I am obviously biased because I am an explorer at heart and can spend hours just walking through beautiful forest scenery and watch the sunlight change through the trees. If that is your thing, look no further than Valheim! Still, exploration has much more to offer already at this early stage of the game. Quite often you will find abandoned farms or small enemy footholds which can hold particular crafting materials and can be marked down on your map. Many small dungeons and caves can be found from the second biome onward. There’s a few rarer, stronger enemies too as well as a questline that leads to named bosses in linear progression. Fairly early into the game, you can sail a boat anywhere you like, ever so slowly on that vast world map. Fair warning though: stuff is going to kill you dead fast!

Darkness & Light

Dangerous fog

Generally, there is a slower pace in Valheim that feels just right. Progressing to the challenges of the second biome (where I am still at) takes time, wandering off where you should not is punishing. The boat takes ages to get anywhere which makes it all the more rewarding when you find a place of interest. Upgrading your gear isn’t quick and some gathering resources, such as certain minerals or portal components, are rare and do not respawn. At the same time, the game handles sustenance in a manner that isn’t overwhelming: plain food is easily gathered and needs to be mixed up for best effect.

Crafting is of course its own chapter in Valheim. Learning new recipes happens by discovering new materials. Generally, everything is learning by doing in this game which goes for all your skills. Progressing the crafting stations with various cosmetic enhancements is rather fun and despite the limited set of building tools and components right now, players are already creating the most amazing Viking structures and forts. Trophy hunting is another great thing that goes with the theme and adorns many a cabin or mead hall. Since this topic is always big with players, the next Hearth and Homes update is already set to deal with home improvements. I would love to see livestock added to the game too, such as chicken, sheep or pigs. Right now, my chicken pen looks rather sad and lonely!

Hearth & Home

Sunset

That leaves the topic of combat, as far as beginner reviews go. Even in this department, I have no complaints for now. So many early access games fail in this regard but Valheim’s combat feels good and varied, with noticeable differences between weapons and a distinct learning curve for each (bows for example depend on factors like wind, direction etc.). What I appreciate especially is enemy AI which can be very clever with types of mobs engaging in different ways. Packs of strafing Greydwarves attacking you from all sides can be a pest and wild boars charging and then chasing off again is challenging when you’re trying to skill up archery. Hilarious moments are guaranteed.

And that’s it for now, my Valheim early access review! I will definitely keep playing and look forward to additional content and progressing to the next two biomes that are currently in the game. Iron Gate Studio have started off really well, fingers crossed their quick and early success will not prove overwhelming and detrimental in the longer run.

Games I’ve Played: Cloudpunk

Cloudpunk is a more recent title that I acquired on Steam and that got some glowing reviews for its retro design and cyberpunk world building. Not similar in any other way to Cyberpunk 2077, it’s basically a chill Fedex game where you’re delivering parcels of more or less dubious origin across the city of Nivalis. Every now and then you get to make a choice none of which ever feel particularly meaningful.

I really enjoyed exploring in Cloudpunk for the first two or so hours. The vertical city is superbly made and oozes cyberpunk atmosphere in a dark yet glam way which reminded me of a darker version of the 5th Element. Exploring the different maps is interesting at first and gets better once your HOVA vehicle is somewhat upgraded for smoother navigation. The HOVA is capable of landing on different parking hubs from which you get to continue on foot in either 1st or 3rd person. Besides the fetch and delivery quests, there’s a ton of talking to NPCs and looting involved too. Every now and then a side quest is triggered but they seem rare and mostly repetitive. Nothing really stands out in a good way.

Putting another 4 hours into the game, things started to go downhill fast. You keep delivering parcels to different city blocks and listening to the often unnatural or inconsequential dialogues that are peppered across the city. At some point you unlock a companion AI that insists on presenting and acting like a dog who is an old friend of your character Rania. He is called Camus which is almost insulting considering what a dull character he turns out to be. The dialogue and jokes between them are horribly written at times and the twist of an AI acting like a pet isn’t nearly half as clever as it sounds. The fact that Rania’s voice acting is fairly bad too doesn’t improve matters. There’s an underlying background story to her character that gets unfolded ever so slowly and made me care exactly zero about her for this reason.

After almost 8 hours of monotonous delivery quests, the final nail in the coffin were dialogues between Rania and various NPCs which insisted on randomly introducing politics. There’s a quest in which you escort a male prostitute android to his next client. The game makes clear to point out that androids are lesser citizens and property of the real humans despite their sentient capacity. On the road, the android insists on educating you that he has chosen to become somebody’s sex property out of his own free will and that sex work is work, as you go through a series of cringey dialogue choices which feel like the game is trying to trap you on some non-existent bias.

Another random quest has Rania talking to a singer/songwriter who really likes the style of a family heirloom (a flower) she’s carrying. When he proposes to purchase it off her, she starts lecturing him about cultural appropriation and then scams him out of a bit of cash, selling him a fake version of the heirloom.

Why these topics needed to be awkwardly thrown into random side-quests in a game that otherwise has no narrative ambition beats me. They felt disconnected and poorly executed like so many things in Cloudpunk once you take the time to dig a little deeper. It’s a crying shame because from the outset, the game had the potential to become a 10/10 indie title thanks to the immersive city and atmosphere. The synthwave soundtrack is pretty good too, although you end up listening to the same tame themes for most of it.

There’s much that could’ve been done with the gameplay, had there been any stakes to it and an existing, engaging story. Alas, it’s repetitive gameplay, poor writing and unlikable characters that bring the game down so much I decided to quit. Cloudpunk is boring and that is really one of the worst verdicts I could give a game such as this!

So long, cupcake! It was fun while it lasted

The recent announcement of NCsoft pulling the plug on Wildstar has sent the MMORPG sphere reeling ever since the news broke last Thursday. Veterans of the game have come out of hibernation to voice their disappointment and generally, the tune on social media has been one of regret if not surprise. As so many have stated, it’s particularly sad to see Wildstar go considering all of Carbine’s efforts to save the game over the past two years. From subscription to free to play to ingame tokens, shops and meta-currencies, Carbine kept optimizing their economics to ease new players into their MMO.

But those of us who followed the game and have played it for a reasonable amount of time, know that Wildstar never had the player base so many think it deserved and that was hardly a payment model issue. The numbers just never came until NCsoft dropped the title from quarterly reports in 2017 altogether. The recent player petition to save Wildstar from sunset has only reached 2500 signatures thus far. As much as I appreciate the sentiment, I don’t see what a petition could do in Wildstar’s case.

„Wildstar did so many things right, but it lacked players“ is the general consensus and it’s one that does not satisfy. When Gordon Ramsay visits broke restauranteurs in his TV show, they all tell him that their restaurant’s issue is „not enough guests“. He rightfully pulls a face.

Recalling the launch days

Wildstar will go down as the smoothest MMORPG launch ever witnessed in my personal memory. From day one, the servers were stable, quests and grouping worked easily and the leveling process was solid. Players got a tutorial to teach them the basics and the bottomless well that is its famed player housing already unlocked at level 14. It launched with a standard monthly subscription model like WoW’s, it brought the polish, it brought a unique setting and game world, a roster of cool races like the Chua, two factions and decent character creation. There was group content, solo adventures, endgame raiding and the overarching storyline of Drusera and the Strain – really, there is nothing on the standard MMO buffet that Carbine didnt check off the list, while also surpassing rivals in the housing, cosmetics and soundtrack section.

Yet none of that helps to understand why this MMO didnt become a greater success. What I can do however is go back and scan every Wildstar post I wrote on this blog because like other early adopters, I stopped playing Wildstar after the server merges. So here are just a few excerpts I picked from different 2014 posts to give you a general idea:

“After seeing Carbine’s excessive 12-step attunement to raid entry in Wildstar which makes a 100 jailbreaks look decent, I am trying very hard to stay cool and understand what they were thinking and cui bono? […]it’s hard to stay positive when reading through the same old vitriolic forum discussions of “casual versus hardcore” that 12-step attunement infographic has sparked in Wildstar’s early community.” [source]

“There is no hiding in Wildstar’s raids – addons are seriously recommended, cooldowns must be juggled and adjusting your tragically limited actionbar for every encounter is a given. Execution demands a high level of focus because the fights are so mobile.[…]Considering how 40mans must feel in comparison, which are no less unforgivable, it becomes apparent why raiders have been crying out for Carbine to critically consider their endgame.[…]With subscription numbers dwindling and complaints both from the casual and hardcore (see the rest of the Q&A), Carbine cannot afford not to act. New content dumps may appease some non-raiding players but the fact remains that Wildstar endgame is tuned to a difficulty level that not enough people enjoy longterm.”

“Alas, for me the merges can’t come soon enough. Lightspire’s Dominion side has quickly turned into a graveyard, with probably 60% of its active members hosted by my guild and only one single other, competing guild in terms of raiding. The AH is dreadful, with entire subsections entirely empty or then, most likely offering an item or two by guildies (keeps the money in the family!). The costs for much coveted items such as runes amount to a subscription’s worth of platinum, just to get a basic gear set kitted out.” [source]

I gave Wildstar a very serious shot in 2014. I committed to a regular raid guild in order to do 5mans and try the raid content because there was no way in hell to get even that attunement done by yourself pugging. Pugging generally was never a real option – not because there weren’t enough players on day one, but because the dungeons were too frustrating to pug without voice comm levels of coordination and raid-like prep. If dungeons were hard even on “silver” mode, raids were….something else. There were maybe 3 raid guilds total on my server which doesnt make for happy competition. The long and tough attunement seriously affected recruitment efforts.

I consider myself a very experienced raider; I have cleared all of WoW’s classic content with my own guilds when it came out, all the way up to Sartharion 3D and Arthas 25. But when I took a group of my most seasoned WoW buddies to Wildstar’s standard 5man dungeons, lobotomy sounded appealing after hours of unforgiving twitchy telegraph combat. If this is how we felt, you bet others felt worse. And sadly, this never really changed.

How it ends

I don’t want to sound cynical when a game of such quality and promise gets shelved – I think Carbine are one of the greater studios out there and they did some unique things with Wildstar that I wish more people had experienced. Wildstar was often unjustly compared to WoW when it really did its own thing. However, no MMO shuts down because it “didn’t have enough players”.

I have probably spent between 300-400$ on Wildstar counting subs and later buying some ingame currency. But that is hardly the point. MMORPGs that don’t create enough traction within the first 3 months enter a dangerous vicious cycle: core players leave because of low population issues (raiding, economy, queues etc.) and new players won’t join when they hear about “dead servers”. If developers cannot or don’t act before the cycle starts, they are usually doomed.

In the end it’s many things that make MMOs successful, some less tangible than others. As players we are left to speculation and our personal experiences. Wildstar’s idea of group content difficulty remains its most baffling and confused feature to me to this day and it’s why I stopped playing it.

The game looked like fluffy bunnies, destined to appeal to a wide range of average raiders and casual “for the fun” players – yet catered to a hardcore crowd I’m not sure even exists in this segment of mainstream AAA-MMOs. Designing progression and core content for the few rather than the many may work for niche MMOs but otherwise, it is an unaffordable concept, well proven by WoW, FFXIV or GW2. It’s not the vocal minority that pays the bills.

Goodbye Wildstar! I thoroughly enjoyed your humor and whimsy, my wonderful house and Jeff’s soundtrack! To part, here’s my old Wildstar panoramas and of course, obligatory puppy pic!

Games I’ve played (and didn’t hate): King’s Quest

There is a new 2018 resolution on this blog that every new post will include a random Monty picture. I believe this is a fine decision in the public’s interest!

So I announced in my previous post rant that I would be back talking about games I actually enjoyed playing lately. They were moments of brief relief between MMO malaise and Steam anger that impressed me enough to write about it. This is a first such short review with more to come!

King’s Quest 2015

The King’s Quest reboot from 2015 by The Odd Gentlemen is a sight for sore eyes. Oldschool players may recall the old Sierra adventure games, personally I’ve never played them but I am very glad I discovered the reboot. Planned out as a 5-chapter release telling the tales of Graham from his early youth to older years, I have only played the first (and apparently best) chapter thus far which took me about 6 hours total. They were probably the 6 most enjoyable hours I’ve spent in a graphic adventure ever, including several Telltale titles.

King’s Quest

First of all, King’s Quest is absolutely gorgeous with beautifully detailed, handpainted environments, strong warm colors and magical light. The art direction creates the perfect synergy to the whimsical fantasy world the tale is set in – knights, dragons and bridge trolls abound. The voice acting includes such masterful actors as Christopher LLoyd as Graham who is an absolute delight here as he guides the player through the earlier parts of Graham’s life, commenting on funny details and mishaps as you step right into them with a steady dose of punny grandpa humor.

Dialogues are well written, charming, hilarious and do offer a few meaningful choices without being make or break. The order of solving challenges or finding items for puzzles is often random and there’s a no-pressure approach to it all as you can’t critically fail or lose. The first adventure played smoothly on keyboard controls with just a few camera hiccups.

Final verdict: The first chapter of King’s Quest is a graphical and narrative treat that keeps a perfect balance between guided experience and open path exploration. I’ve heard that chapters 2-5 increasingly get worse but even if you do not get a season pass, you can just enjoy the first chapter, which is more of a finished story anyway, for free on Steam zomg! I could not recommend this enough to fans of whimsical fairy tales with great writing, so go get this gem if you haven’t yet!

Cuphead is fantastic and quite possibly for you too

Over the past two days I’ve spent approximately 8 hours in the highly anticipated and much discussed Cuphead. Having arrived at the not-so-pearly gates of the final stage last night, I can safely say two things: Cuphead is every bit the GOTY material I expected it would be. And also, most of the press reviews on this game are hyperbolic garbage. I wasn’t gonna mock that one journalist who so famously failed at Cuphead’s tutorial and I won’t – but wow is this game being failed by current mainstream gaming media.

It’s getting serious for me in Cuphead

Due to the public hype before launch, I fully expected Cuphead to be an unforgiving, bust-my-balls shooter platformer that may well leave me sobbing already at the first boss. It’s been called everything from bullet hell to elitist niche game, so I envisioned something in terms of Dark Souls that I was still gonna get because music and graphics, but ultimately would have to put aside in frustration.

Turns out this is far from true. Cuphead is actually a game with an excellent learning curve, tight well-balanced mechanics and a ton of fun, creative and very beatable encounters. It is harsh but fair and built in a way that makes it more accessible than one would think. Every boss fight or stage is generally split into 3-5 parts you will need to learn counter individually. After that, it’s just rinse and repeat, reload quickly after every death and keep your nerves steady most of all. Thanks to the somewhat randomized order of events every time, the game keeps you on your toes and victories are immensely satisfying. SO SO GOOD!

TAKE THIS suckers!

If I had to make comparisons, Cuphead is a mixture of old platformers like Yoshi’s Island and Mario (especially Super Mario on Gameboy or Mario 3) as well as Metal Slug and Parodius, all among my favorite titles of all time. If you ever beat older games like that or heck, if you’ve been a raider in WoW who knows all about learning strategies for bosses, Cuphead’s challenges will delight rather than frustrate you once you accept dying as a necessary part of the learning process.

Despite how it’s been represented in the press, Cuphead DOES in fact have two levels of difficulty: simple and regular. That goes for all the boss fights which it largely consists of, not it’s “run & gun” levels which everyone has to beat on regular. While it’s true that you won’t be able to access the finale without collecting all souls on regular, this means you can play through the game on simple mode and enjoy the majority of its brilliant content. Cuphead also features a very effective upgrade system adding important tactical choices to your gameplay. Encounters that seemed difficult at first become trivial once you switch weapons or special abilities (pro tip: if you struggle, hug that Smoke Bomb and Chaser combo!).

Cuphead secrets: The clowns sang for me once I found their missing buddy

Now that I’ve picked up all the coins and upgrades in the game, it’s time to work on more regular modes before I can enter the final stage. It made sense to me to first play through all the simple modes and I’ve methodically started to pick up the regulars since. It gets a lot easier once you have all weapons and extra hearts to beat the more difficult encounters. So I can only recommend this game to anyone who looked at it and thought “this looks like a lot fun” – Cuphead is a remarkably well-made game with outstanding visuals and music that’s also way more accessible than it’s made out to be. There is no easy/god mode as of now (which I got nothing against, more options are cool!) but there’s local co-op too in case you missed it. Here goes my usual motto: give it a go and see for yourself!

Which MMOs to look forward to in 2017 and beyond?

I mentioned in my recent New Year’s post that I no longer look forward to any upcoming MMORPGs in 2017 and beyond. In fact, I have a hard time remembering many titles and the ones I do know, aren’t exactly my cup of tea. Judging from the reactions within my twitter verse, I am far from alone in this sentiment.

I just realised 2017 is the first year in over 15y where I am not hyped / looking forward to a single upcoming MMORPG anymore… 🙁

— ~Syl (@MMOsyl) January 7, 2017

Now others have pointed out of course that gaming has never been more diverse and better than today and that is completely true. I can return to established MMORPGs and still find a lot of content to play through and get busy with. But with way fewer new projects on the horizon, I will still miss the excitement of looking forward to something new, diving into unknown worlds with other people. That’s just something I have always loved, that newcomer feel and collective excitement.

This encouraged me to actually go and do some research on upcoming MMORPGs for 2017 – 2018. As expected, it’s a different world from few years ago but I still managed to identify a few titles that may pique my interest in time:

Chronicles of Elyria

There’s been some buzz around this title for a while now and I admit some of the developer’s ideas, such as aging and living through several lifespans with your characters, sound interesting. As a kickstarted project it’s got a lot to prove but there’s no harm in following what already looks like a fairly promising indie project. Release date estimated at Dez 2017 earliest, so double that probably.

Pantheon, Rise of the Fallen

I know next to nothing about the great Everquest legacy and its associated heroes but I’m reading “high fantasy open world” and “focus on social and group play” and yeah you got me, I’m desperate! Bhagpuss has recently brought this title to my attention again and I’ve always trusted his savvy on the classics such as EQ and Vanguard, so color me mildly interested in Pantheon (once I got over the graphics, anyway)! Alpha/beta testing to be commenced in 2017 – release date who knows!

BLESS

BLESS is a Korean title set in a medieval fantasy world, composed for by legend Hans Zimmer which has caught my attention in the past. While the game inhabits the crowded space of “very pretty looking, grindy Asian MMOs with ingame shops” together with upcoming Revelation Online, its overall aesthetic is significantly more mature (no colorful wings either which is good news). Like Revelation Online, BLESS is another F2P title, so I may or may not find myself downloading the client at a very weak moment of MMO desperation. That is, if it’s actually available sometime – a somewhat curious topic of late!

….Aaaand that’s it! This is already the end of my list for 2017 – 2018 MMOs and this summary frankly hasn’t done much to lift my spirits. Granted, I am a fantasy MMORPG traditionalist, so PvP titles like Camelot Unchained or Crowfall are missing. These are no doubt interesting titles to a select audience but they ain’t mine. Are there any other upcoming games I should know of – and if so, where are they hiding??? :halp:

A Year in Review: Top 2016 Games and Soundtrack!

2016 has come and gone and if my social channels are any indication, most people people are glad to leave this arbitrary number behind. I don’t personally believe 2016 was the awful year it’s made out to be in the media but it’s certainly been exhausting on a personal level, despite some successes on the writing and day-job front. I’ve pushed myself to leave the safety (and lull) of a stable workplace for more flexible and lucrative work that doesn’t come with the security of a permanent contract. While I am content with my progress thus far, it’s also a stressful situation to be in at times and my constant struggle to find peace of mind inside our daily grind remains one of life’s great challenges. Alas!

2016 wasn’t a rocking year for me gaming wise, either. I arrived with humble expectations and browsing through my blog and steam library, I realize I’ve played much less than in years before. This was also definitely not a year of MMORPGs and I find myself in that strange position now where I am no longer looking forward to a single upcoming MMO title in 2017 and beyond. It’s a weird and melancholic feeling because MMOs have been a big part of my life for the past 15 years. With the exception of Black Desert Online, I’ve barely played anything besides some brief visits to Eorzea in the first half of the year. MMORPG players have seen this coming for a while and it certainly feels like our favorite genre has come to somewhat of a halt; that is, if you’re not still a follower of well-established titles such as WoW or GW2.

My Top Video Games of 2016

For reasons explained above, my past year in gaming wasn’t all about the MMOs. While I still haven’t gone back to GW2 for the expansion, two of last year’s expectations did hold true and then, it’s also been a year of small, unexpected delights. Without further ado, here are my top 5 titles of 2016:

5. Owlboy
Owlboy by developer D-Pad Studio only came out in November 2016 and while I haven’t finished playing it, it’s already fulfilled all my expectations in terms of being a fun adventure with beautiful visuals and music. There are some unforgettable moments and quirky characters in Owlboy that make it a safe choice for anyone into whimsical and charming adventure platformers that aren’t overly complex. Only minor gripe: no keymapping for gamepads!

4. Portal Knights
I’ve praised the concept, visuals and soundtrack of Portal Knights on MMOGames and if you ever wondered how a minecraft sandbox meets level-based gameplay would play, this is the title to grab! The game is especially fun for short-session gameplay together with up to 3 other players (also great for kids), while you can still put those solo hours to good use, base-building, gathering and crafting. Controls and GUI management aren’t perfect in Portal Knights but definitely manageable.

3. The Witcher 3 (DLC)
The Witcher 3 was my GOTY in 2015 and remains my most beloved RPG title of this year – and possibly all eternity. I’ve lived and breathed the Wild Hunt again over the Xmas holidays and I am still so impressed and delighted by this title, I got no words! Not surprisingly, the Hearts of Stone and Blood&Wine expansions have been nominated for great honors again in 2016. I’ve only started to catch up now and intend to make the most of what CD Projekt Red have stated will be their only Witcher 3 expansions! :sadface:

2. Black Desert Online
I’ve spent copious amounts of time in BDO between spring 2016 and summer, exploring its fantastic persistent world, writing guides for its complicated subsystems, joining a guild and decorating my house. While the game has had its issues and share of monetization scandals, it is still one hell of an experience for anyone looking to explore and travel a magnificent MMO world solo! I never reached PVP “endgame” in BDO and didn’t care to, but I had fun with almost everything else including its different approach to combat. The game remains an “alone together” experience for anyone not looking to join competitive PVP which is good or bad, depending on your personal viewpoint!

1. GOTY: Overwatch!
There is no way around giving Blizzard the credit that is their due: they knocked it out of the park with Overwatch in 2016. As far as impressive comebacks go, only Square-Enix have managed a similar feat with a Realm Reborn – a persistence we rarely get to see in the video game industry. From the ashes of Titan, Blizzard have salvaged not just an incredibly accessible and fun hero shooter but one that’s so full of charming characters and iconic lines and gameplay moments, the Overwatch roster is already as popular as any other Blizzard IP heroes. I gave this game a 9/10 and there’s nothing else to add here, Overwatch was one hell of a successful release in 2016!

Best Soundtrack of the Year

As far as great VGM went in 2016, I’m sticking with the tradition of my annual youtube recap which you can find below! It’s been a good year for video game soundtrack and the Battle Bards podcast keeps going strong, counting its 4th anniversary soon. There’s been an official twitter account now for a while, too. I am still having as much fun as ever talking MMO music with fellow bards Syp and Steff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc5eTG453XU

Top VGM of 2016 list:

12. Civilization VI
11. Destiny: Rise of Iron
10. Overwatch
9. Enter the Gungeon
8. Hyper Light Drifter
7. Stardew Valley
6. Owlboy
5. Portal Knights
4. The Last Guardian
3. Revelation Online
2. WoW Legion
1. Black Desert Online

Let me know what your favorite video game soundtrack has been of late and another Happy New Year to all of you! Let’s see what 2017 will bring in terms of digital delights and virtual world travel – it’s all a blank open space for me from this point forward!