Bastion

And here we are with my second ever review. If you’ve read my last one, welcome back. If you haven’t, then have a seat and make yourself comfortable. Yes, that does mean that if you read the last one, you aren’t allowed to be comfortable. Deal with it.

This time around, I’ll be looking at the game Bastion. This game was released last year on Steam and Xbox Live Arcade, and earlier this year on the Mac App Store. Bastion tells the story of The Kid, a survivor of The Calamity in his home of Caelondia. The Kid then begins a journey to find pieces of Core, a substance that is keeping the remaining few parts of land in existence. He brings these pieces of Core back to The Bastion, which he then uses in order to expand it. But as he learns more about what caused the Calamity, the lines of who's right and wrong being to blur, and an army seeking retribution begins to rise...

Gameplay-wise, this game is pretty easy to play. You move with the arrow keys, and have two weapons, one assigned to each of the mouse buttons. You can change which weapons you have equipped at Arsenals, scattered infrequently across the levels, as well as in the Bastion, the game’s hub. By the end of the game, you’ll have eleven different weapons from which to choose, ranging from the basic Cael Hammer to the insanely destructive (and fun) Galleon Mortar, which, for those of you who can’t or won’t do the math, gives you a total of fifty-five different potential weapon combinations to fight off your foes.  As you gain experience from fighting enemies, you gain new slots in the Distillery in the Bastion, allowing you to equip drinks with groan-inducing pun names, like Stabsinthe, which damages enemies when they damage you, or Hearty Punch, which gives you another chance to continue should you run out of health. Should you run out of health without any continues remaining, you’ll be sent back to the Bastion, and have to repeat the entire level. However, this only happened to me one or two times, and the levels aren’t ridiculously long, so it isn’t overall that annoying. As far as gameplay goes, this game doesn’t really do anything particularly innovative. In all honesty, it’s the story where this game shines.

This story is certainly different from the standard game. Nowhere in this game is there anything resembling the basic ’stop the Big Bad from destroying/taking over the world,’ because in Bastion, the world has already been destroyed. You’re not trying to save the world, you’re trying to build a new one from the scraps of the original. There’s no real antagonist in this game, just other groups trying to survive, just like you. There’s this one point in the game where you find a piece of Core that has been claimed by a group of monsters. These monsters have banded together, using the Core to form their own Bastion of sorts. It becomes a bit of conflict for the player as to whether or not its right to take this piece of Core and destroy their home just to improve yours.

At this point I’d like to go off on a slight tangent and talk about the narrator. Rucks, played by Logan Cunningham, a man who has not had nearly enough roles if you ask me, narrates about everything. No, seriously, everything. Every event, he’ll be giving a play-by-play. You remember how I mentioned earlier that the game gives fifty-five different weapon combinations to use? Yeah, Rucks  has a different comment for each and every one of them. Any item you find in the game? Take it to him in the Bastion, he’ll have something to say about it. Any building you build, achievement you gain, challenge you overcome, he’ll say something. Say you fall to your death, (which will happen, apparently the Cataclysm was especially unkind to walls) he’ll give you snark about it. Just the sheer amount of recording this man did is impressive, and the quality of the lines is a credit to both the actor and the writer.

Something else that strongly deserves mentioning in this game is the music. This wasn’t something I went over  last week in Kingdom Hearts 3D, but I need to talk about it here. The music in this game, simply put, is great. I was lucky enough to decide to get the Soundtrack Edition of the game, which, as it sounds, is both the game itself and a copy of the soundtrack. This is not a decision I regret. Darren Korb did a great job composing the songs, writing the lyrics for a few tracks, and even recording vocals for two songs. So, if you are a music lover, I would recommend getting the soundtrack with the game. And even if you don’t, as long as you have the game, you can still get the soundtrack later. It’s just that Steam, for whatever reason, won’t let you get the soundtrack unless you have the game. Seems strange to me, but there you go.

Now, my last word. Do I recommend this game or not? Well, really, this should seem like a fairly obvious answer: Yes. Yes I do. Immensely. Seriously, why are you still reading this? You obviously have a computer with an internet connection. Go onto Steam, find this game’s page, hit the ‘Add to Cart’ button, pay for the game, download it, and then play it. Unless you’re some kind of crazy bizarro-person, you will almost certainly enjoy this game.

As a final side note, if you do get this game on Steam, once you’ve beaten the game, be sure to start a New Game Plus and play through until you build the Arsenal for a special treat.

So, this concludes my second review. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and be sure to come back next week, when I review something very different, a bit more mainstream, and from a series just a little bit closer to my heart: Pokemon Conquest.

Kingdom Hearts 3D

So, if you’re reading this, I guess the first thing I should say is ‘Hello.’ I’m Flitterbie, and this is From One Nerd to Another. A few weeks ago I decided that wanted to try doing video game reviews. I'm not sure that I'm going to be any good at it, and I'm not even sure that this is the best place to even be doing it, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyway. My basic plan is to have a new review of a different game up every week. Now, most of the games I'm going to be reviewing are probably going to be a little bit older, simply because I don't have the budget to keep buying new games. However, my first game is a new one, having just come out three weeks ago: Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.

Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance  is the eighth title in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, which just celebrated its tenth anniversary in March. For the five or so people on the internet not already at least vaguely familiar with this series, it is a creation of both Square Enix and Disney, featuring an original character traveling across numerous worlds, usually based off of Disney movies, and fighting monsters in these worlds with a Keyblade, a weapon in the shape of a, well, key which can be used to open any lock, even if that lock is really more metaphorical, like the lock on a person‘s heart. Kinda cheesy at times, but an all-around fun series, especially when you get to have boss fights against Disney villains you especially loved to hate. This time around, the player controls both Sora, the main protagonist of the series, as well as Riku, childhood friend and one-time antagonist of Sora.

At the beginning of this game, Sora and Riku are told by Master Yen Sid (of ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ in the 1940 film Fantasia) that they must undergo a Mark of Mastery Exam in order to be considered true Keyblade Masters. In this case, their exam in to visit seven ‘sleeping’ worlds, worlds that were at one time lost to the darkness and have yet to return. In these worlds, they must find and unlock the seven Sleeping Keyholes, and therefore allow the worlds to re-awaken. As they journey through these worlds, however, they encounter past foes they had thought defeated, as well as a new face: a young man in a dark coat who seems to have ill intent for both. It looks as though Sora and Riku will have a much harder time passing this exam than Master Yen Sid ever intended…

Now then, on to gameplay. 3D has a fairly similar control scheme to Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, the last title in the series. Some new additions, however, lie in the Flowmotion, Reality Shift, and Dream Eater mechanics. Flowmotion is a new means of both getting around and fighting. You dash into, or in some cases, jump onto, various objects, such as walls, poles, or railings, and it allows the player to gain a huge burst of speed. In addition to this, you can also use it for special attacks, doing much more damage than your normal attacks would.

Reality Shift is a special kind of attack that changes depending on the world you’re in. It can be activated occasionally on enemies as you do damage to them, and can also be used on certain objects found in the game. All of these abilities use the touch screen. For example, in Traverse Town, you can use the Sling Shot to aim and catapult enemies at each other. In Country of the Musketeers, the world based of 2004’s Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, you can use Wonder Comic to follow instructions to cause your enemy to launch out of the bottom screen, causing damage to all surrounding foes. When done properly, all Reality Shifts will eliminate the enemy directly attacked, and will likely deal a good bit of damage to enemies around them as well.

The Dream Eaters are both enemies and allies in the game. The first kind of Dream Eater you encounter are Nightmares, dark Dream Eaters that are explicitly stated to be the sleeping worlds’ equivalent of the Heartless. However, as you fight the Nightmares, you find Dream Pieces, which you can then combine to create Spirits, friendly Dream Eaters that will help you fight the Nightmares. Each Spirit has an Ability Grid, which contains various Commands and Abilities for you to use. This can be anything from a basic Fire spell to the incredibly useful Once More ability. You start at one spot in the ability grid, and work your way outwards towards better abilities by spending Link Points, which you gain by fighting and bonding with your Spirits. As your Spirits fight with you, their Link Gauges also fill up. When the Link Gauge is full, you can activate it to combine the Spirit’s power with Sora/Riku. For Sora, this manifests as a powerful combination attack, whereas for Riku, the Spirit adds its strength to his own, increasing his damage output as well as adding an element to the damage he deals.

Now, since this is supposed to be a review, I suppose I should be giving my opinions, rather than just summarizing. Overall, I like this game. Gameplay-wise, it’s fairly simple to learn, and the mechanics make the game a fair bit more enjoyable than other titles in the series. When it comes to my opinion on the story, well, that gets a little more complicated. As far as adapting the Disney movies into worlds goes, I’m a little conflicted. I’ve never seen The Three Musketeers, so I can’t comment on how well that gets adapted into this game. On a similar note, Fantasia didn’t really have much of a story to translate into the game, at least in my memory, so that world gets a pass too. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, on the other hand, is probably my favorite Disney movie, and so I’m a little less lenient on how its story is told in the game. Honestly, I felt like it wasn’t the best adaptation. Having seen the movie, I understood what was happening in the cut scenes, but I got the feeling that if someone hadn’t seen Hunchback, they likely would’ve had a harder time with it. There are a couple of scenes towards the end of the world that seems to come out of nowhere in this game, though it made sense when seen in the movie. I thought that The Grid, based off of Tron: Legacy, however, did a good job of adapting that movie in Riku’s story. And anyone who’s seen Legacy and played Kingdom Hearts II can probably make a guess as to what happens in Sora’s story, and I thought that was done well also. The overarching story is rather complex, taking in a lot of elements from earlier titles, likely in an attempt to show how everything is wrapping up in time for the Grand Finale in Kingdom Hearts III. However, the game does include a ’Chronicles’ feature, providing summaries of the other Kingdom Hearts games as they become relevant to the plot. For that reason as well as the quality of the gameplay, I’d say that, though this is one of the more complicated stories in the series, it’s also probably a good jumping-in point for anyone interested in checking out this series.

One other thing I should mention is the Flick Rush minigame. In this game, you take the three Spirits that currently form your party and have them compete against three other Spirits either controlled by the AI or by another player over local wireless. Each Spirit has 15 cards, which can be used to heal, attack, etc. by flicking them upwards on the touch screen, or to defend against enemy attacks by flicking them downwards. Each card has a numeric value. You can add card values together by quickly flicking multiple cards, adding their value to the first card flicked. If your card has a higher value than your opponent’s, and their attack hits you, then they are stunned, leaving them vulnerable to another attack. The goal is to defeat all three of your opponent’s Spirits, and based on your performance, you are awarded some number of medals, which can be redeemed for items. This game is really addictive. On multiple occasions, I found myself having to say “Okay, keep playing until you lose, but then get back to the actual game.”

Now, I know I’ve said a lot of good things about this game, but I did have one problem with it: the Drop mechanic. As you play through the game, you have the option of switching between Sora and Riku at any time as they go through their independent stories. However, if you play as one character for a certain amount of time, the game will automatically switch you over to the other character. You can then immediately switch back to the character you were playing as, but as you fight Nightmares, you gain Dream Points, which you can spend upon Dropping to gain power-ups, like increases to your stats, making it easier to bond with your Spirits, and even making it take longer before you Drop again. These power-ups last until the next time you Drop, so if you keep switching back to the same character over and over, you’ll never be able to take advantage of this. I like this mechanic in the context of the story, since it encourages playing as both characters at roughly the same rate, but in terms of gameplay, I hate it. The Drop can happen at any time, so on multiple occasions, I had my character Drop IN THE MIDDLE OF A BOSS FIGHT. And then when I’d get back to that character, the boss would be back at full health, and I‘ve have to start all over again. Now, Square, I like you guys, you've made some great games, and if you want to have two protagonists in the same game, that’s fine. If you want their stories to be played simultaneously, that’s fine too. But if you want to force the player to switch characters at fixed intervals, DON’T ALLOW THE CHARACTERS TO SWITCH DURING BATTLES. Before this, I thought that nothing was more irritating than having to re-start a boss fight because the boss got off a cheap shot. Now, I realize this isn’t true; what’s more irritating is having to re-start a boss fight because the game decided ‘Oops, sorry, you took too long!’ Here's a crazy idea: maybe instead of having the characters switch after playing for a certain amount of time, how about having them switch based on how far they get in the story? So, you play as Riku for a while, get to cutscene, maybe have a little plot twist or cliff-hanger, and THEN switch to Sora until he gets to a good place in his story to stop for a while. That way, you have the characters proceeding through their stories at the same rate, and you don't have me needing to repeat boss fights because of a stupid mechanic.

But, in all honesty, the Drop mechanic was probably my only real problem with the game overall. Pretty much everything else that comes to mind, I either didn’t mind, or actively enjoyed.  So, all in all, I would say that Kingdom Hearts 3D is definitely worth picking up if you’ve enjoyed the other games in the series. If you’ve never played Kingdom Hearts before, then I would say that this would probably be a good place to start playing, as the Chronicles will fill you in on anything you’ve missed. However, if you have played Kingdom Hearts before, and just didn’t enjoy it, I doubt that this game will change your opinion of it.

So, this wraps up my first review. If you didn’t enjoy it, well, doesn’t matter to me all that much. However, if you did like it, feel free to leave a comment. Maybe an idea of what you think I could do better, maybe a suggestion for another game to review, maybe just praise of my glory, whatever. And be sure to keep an eye out for my next review, which should be up next week, where I'll be talking about Bastion.