Astro's Playroom (PS5) Review

 

Astro's Playroom (PS5) Review

Date Released: 19 November 2020

Date Played: 25 February 2022

Astro's Playroom is the sequel to the magnificent Astro Bot that was released on Playstation VR. This time around the game is simply a glorified tech demo for the new Dual Sense controller that's included with the console.  Don't let that fool you though, this game was developed by Japan's Studio Team Asobi, and those guys know how to make a magical experience.   

At it's heart, Astro's Playroom is a 3D platformer with collectathon elements.  Normally, this is one of my least favorite genres in existence unless it's done spectacularly well; and luckily, that is most definitely the case here.  This game comes pre-loaded on every PS5, so if you're lucky enough to have one, you have no excuse not to give this game a try.  

You play as the adorable Astro as you jump, pull, punch, and platform your way through a short game that serves as a love letter to Playstation's history.  There are so many unbelievable details that reference not only the consoles and peripherals that Sony has released, but also a huge amount of beloved games that are certain to live fondly in the hearts and minds of almost any gamer out there.  The game's 4 worlds are themed around the previous console generations.  You'll grapple through jungle environments, ski over icebergs, blast in your lunar lander, and hang-glide as you collect 3D models of the PS1,2,3,and 4 consoles and their accessories.  Along the way, you'll see many vignettes of Astro's friends acting out scenes from storied franchises like Crash Bandicoot, Tekken, Devil May Cry, Bloodborne, Journey, Uncharted, Silent Hill, The Last of Us, and more.  There are even some pretty obscure references in there like Vib-Ribbon if you're part of the "deep cut" scene.  Trying to figure out what games these are referencing are almost as much fun as the game itself and I loved every one of them. Each world focuses on some different aspect of using the Dual Sense controller and it's new functions.  You'll get to climb as a monkey, bounce as a frog, steer a spaceship with, and fly around as you get the hang of all the new features your controller has.  Of course, the platforming segments are fantastic as well and play exactly like you would expect.  As you collect different coins, items, and puzzle pieces, you'll be able to view them all in the game's hub area called PS Labo which serves as a museum.  Jumping, punching, and climbing over all the awesome equipment you've collected will yield various secrets and Easter eggs.  So, if you're enjoying the experience, it's certainly something you'll want to do.

Being a PS5 game, everything looks unbelievable and the attention to detail is unlike anything I've ever seen before in any video game. You'll see that every inch of every surface has had a ton of thought and care applied to it.  For example, the grass on the ground is ribbon cable, and the leaves are PCBs. It really feels like you could spend hours just looking at the game's textures and and the interesting things hidden everywhere.  All of the characters and enemies are bursting with personality, as are the environments.  Everything is so friendly, colorful, and vibrant that it's a bit overwhelming in all the right ways.  Even the music is phenomenal.  It brings back familiar themes from the first Astro Bot game as well as incorporating those memorable Playstation console startup sounds from all the previous generations.  The soundtrack is catchy and has fantastic lyrics focused around the components of the PS5.  One stage will have lyrics about the GPU, another is CPU, but it think the instant classic, "SSD" takes the cake for best song in the game.  My daughter was walking around the house singing it for the rest of the day.  So, it definitely has the mark of approval. There isn't a wasted byte of information in this game and every aspect of it was put to good use.

Conclusion:

Even though this game wasn't as mind blowing and paradigm shifting as the VR Astro Bot game, it's still a fantastic, but short experience.  I was able to 100% complete the game and get all of the trophies in around 3 hours.  The game is stunningly beautiful, breaming with nostalgia, and really fun to boot.  It's probably the best tech demo ever made and if you have a PS5, you already own it and should give it a shot.  I really hope Sony continues to put out more Astro Bot games because they are kind of giving Mario a run for his money.  If that's not a good complement, I don't know what is.  

Final Status: Completed (100%)

Final Score: 9/10 (A perfect first game for PS5... but too short)

Thomas Was Alone (PS4) Review

 

Thomas Was Alone (PS4) Review

Date Released: 25 November 2014

Date Played: Summer 2017

Introduction:

There's a famous quote about the rock band, The Velvet Underground, that basically says, "The Velvet Underground only sold about 2000 albums, but every person that bought that album started their own band."  Thus, you end up having one of the most influential bands of all time despite a lackluster initial reception.  I feel like Thomas Was Alone is the Velvet Underground of the indie game scene.  The general population looks on the game with a general fondness and it received some good praise from the critics.  But, the people that loved this game... really loved it.  Several reviewers I watched online talked about how it changed their life and inspired them to become game developers. Others claimed it changed the way that they viewed video games and even personal relationships in their life.  Even Youtube megastar, PewDiePie, said it was his favorite indie game of all time in one video.  Regardless of how you feel about the game, there's certainly a certain mystique surrounding it that can be rather polarizing. It's an important entry in the indie game scene for sure and even gamers who have no desire to play it should at least be made aware of its existence and the ideas that it tries to address.

Thomas Was Alone was originally a Flash-based browser game that was later turned into a more complete package and ported to almost every platform out there.  Mike Bithell, the creator, wanted to create a game that was strikingly simple in its presentation but had both a compelling narrative and fun gameplay to round out the package. Danny Wallace, the humorist, was brought in to perform the game's important narration and to give the game an overall somber feel while still providing a healthy does of British dry wit. The whole package is designed to focus on the feelings and aspirations of the cast and is more of a character study over its other elements.

Story, Themes, Gameplay, and Presentation:

When you boil it all down, Thomas Was Alone is a puzzle platformer that is focused on the concept of loneliness.  You begin as Thomas, the titular protagonist of the game, and he is... alone.  Represented by nothing more than a simple rectangle, you control Thomas with the analog stick and only have the ability to jump in side-scrolling fashion. In each level, your objective is to get Thomas into a portal that is represented by a white outline of his body. The stages start out very simply in the beginning and become more and more complex and difficult as you progress through the game's chapters. All the while, you'll be listening to the fantastically delivered narration that describes Thomas' feelings, motivations, and objectives.  Despite only being a rectangle, Thomas has a pretty well developed personality for a video game character and it's very easy for the player to sympathize with his plight.

Along the way, you meet other characters represented by other quadrilaterals who have their own personalities, motivations, and weaknesses.  As they become Thomas' companions, you all begin to work together to solve the more and more increasingly complex puzzles and it won't be long until you're wracking your brain trying to figure out how to get each of these pieces into their respective portals to finish the stage.  Switching between the various characters is done with the simple press of a button and they will all usually have to assist each other by providing a height boost, serving as a floating platform, or by sneaking through at tight space where the other pieces are ill-suited for that particular task.  Over the course of the game's 3-5 hour length, you'll have many mechanics introduced to you to throw more and more complexity into the game's workings.  You'll encounter timing puzzles, deadly spikes, trampolines, and all other manner of hinderances to impede your progress.  Dying is common, but luckily, you respawn immediately so the game never becomes too tedious.  You will, however, need to bring your thinking cap and at least some modicum of platforming skills.  

The overall story involves the characters being escaped A.I. components that have escaped from a computer program or some other such nonsense. Everyone is trying reach something called the Emergence which is where they become actual entities rather than existing as only computer code. There are other AIs that act as antagonists and attempt to reach the Emergence before Thomas and his friends or to derail their progress.  It's honestly and overly convoluted plot for such a simple looking game and really only serves as a basis for the player to work through the emotional and conceptual themes surrounding the game.  Lonliness, friendship, betrayal, support, trust, and many other concepts are the real focus of the game and are what makes it stand out in my memory.

The visual style of the game is extremely basic with mostly dark blue, purple, and black backgrounds that have an austere presentation.  As mentioned earlier, the characters themselves are nothing more than colored geometric shapes (despite their much more developed personalities and desires).  The game doesn't really need fancy graphics and it was a very wise idea to intentionally tone down the visual presentation in order to make the concepts the game attempts to hammer home much more impactful.  A lot of flash isn't needed when your puzzles, mechanics, and themes are this well done.  

Another spot where this game truly shines is in its masterful use of music. Having a computer program represented by a rectangle as your main character and giving it a large host of human emotions that the gamer is supposed to empathize with is a difficult bridge to gap; and the perfectly blended artificial chip-tune sounds with actual instruments such as guitar, piano, and orchestral strings echo this sentiment extremely well.  Sometimes, the soundtrack is unobtrusive and minimalistic to give a relaxed mood and at other times it becomes heavy and pensive to accentuate the intensity that's building in the gameplay.  It encompasses a huge range of emotions and flows masterfully along with the narrative developments in the game. In my opinion, the game is carried by its soundtrack and would not have been able to convey it's ideas without it.

Conclusion:

Thomas Was Alone is a very important game that has continued to maintain its reputation as an indie darling for over a decade.  I feel that it succeeds in it's attempts to have a good puzzle game that deals with strong human emotions but presents everything in a very minimalistic manner.  It's a worthwhile journey to take, albeit a little sad and melancholy for large parts of its duration. The narration and characters are all very likeable and quite memorable.  Even several years, and a few hundred games played in interim before returning to this game, I had a good recollection of Thomas and his friends and looked back on them fondly.

Sadly, unlike many other puzzle based games, this one doesn't really have the addictive sort of gameplay that you are normally expecting and it instead serves as a sort of background task you're attempting to complete while you listen to the narration and try to put yourself into the mental mindset of Thomas and his companions. This is typically the modus operandi of any puzzle platformer that you will encounter, so it was to be expected. If I had to give you the too long, didn't read impression of this game I would say that Thomas Was Alone is very much a one-and-done sort of game, and I would highly recommend it to someone who is a fan of games that are more thought provoking rather than mechanically focused.  I had a good time with it, but once it was over, it isn't something I'm really craving coming back to visit anytime soon.

Final Status: Completed (game beaten and all trophies earned)

Final Score: 7/10 

Raiden III (PS2) Review

Raiden III (PS2) Review

Date Released: 17 April 2007

Date Played: 16 February 2022

Introduction:

Raiden III is actually the fourth game game in the legendary, but highly overrated, Raiden Series.  Developed by MOSS, a company formed from the remnants of Seibu Kaihatsu (the creator of the original Raiden) this was the first game from the series to make it to the Playstation 2 where it was published by modern shovelware peddlers, UFO Interactive Games. It is almost a direct port of the arcade version of the game but does have some additional content to fill out the package. While sporting higher quality graphics, it isn't much of a departure from the earlier entries in the series and fails to innovate or change the gameplay in any meaningful way.  It was met with mediocre reviews from both the critics and the fans alike, and while it may have a few people out there who praise it, it's generally seen as nothing special by today's standards.

Gameplay:

Raiden III is a vertical shmup just like all of the other games in the series.  This time around you can only play as one ship (the red one) through the games 7 stages.  Luckily, there are 7 different difficulties this time around ranging from Practice all the way to Very difficult (much harder than the arcade version of the game).  As is standard with the series, your ship is very slow and chunky and the enemy bullet patterns are lightning fast.  If you've ever played one of these games before, you'll know that it's not the sort of game where you're supposed to react to the enemies and bullets, but rather memorize where they're going to be so your ship can be somewhere else.  In a bit of a departure the game has incorporated some danmaku elements to give the game a bit of a bullet hell feel with large swarths of bullets that you have to weave your way through.  Unfortunately, it tries to live as both a simple throwback to the original Raiden while adding the thicker waves of bullets and it leaves the game as feeling as though it's serving two masters but failing at both.  It never really gains a sound footing in the aspect and it's very obvious.  Your ship just doesn't have the manuverabilty that's required to make quick tap dodges like the game wants you to do.  This might be slightly easier with an arcade stick, but on the standard PS2 controller, you're going to be having fits.

Also missing is the Raiden series' ability to scroll the screen a little to the left and right as you're playing.  I know this is a much maligned feature because of the enemies that can hide right off screen and wait for you to scroll over towards them only for them to pop out of nowhere and blast you from behind with a bullet, thus ruining your run.  That means that this time you're confined to just the narrow vertical portion of the screen that you can see all of the time.  Not having any enemies hiding off the left or right of the screen is a blessing, but the space to which you're afforded feels very confined and claustrophobic.  Many of the enemy patterns push you to one side of the screen and make you feel like you don't really have the room you need to maneuver.  This also makes the game feel less like a Raiden game overall.  

You have 3 shot types that can be powered up or switched between by grabbing one of the 3 colored orbs that hover from fallen enemies around the screen.  The first is the red orb that's your spread shot, the blue orb which is a focused and powerful laser, and sadly the teal orb which is another laser that is hard to direct and control but is more powerful than the blue laser.  Missing is the the classic purple orb that gives the lock-on laser that is probably the most well known element of the entire franchise.  It's a total shame that it's not here and I feel like the remaining weapons are too boring and lack any sort of punch to make you feel like you have any real power in the game. Each orb will slowly cycle through the three colors as it floats around the screen, and if you pick up multiples of the same colored orb, your shot will become more powerful and pack a bigger punch. You also have 3 sub-weapons that continually fire with your normal shot while you hold down the button.  There are the missiles that are most powerful and fire straight ahead, the homing missiles that are weak but good about picking up straggler enemies you may have missed, and the new option, radar missiles, which are a combination of the two previous types and are a little stronger and home a little bit, but not completely.  Sadly, when any of these powerup orbs drop, they can be quite the challenge to collect because of the absurdly slow speed of your ship.  They also tend to hover towards the top part of the screen, enticing you to venture upwards to grab them and meet your certain doom.  To make matters worse, the orbs will also be stuck hovering on the screen where you don't want to collect them because you may not want to change your shot type, so you spend a lot of time avoiding the orbs until they cycle into the color that won't screw you over before you have to quickly collect them.  It's very frustrating and avoiding the powerups is sometimes as important as collecting them.  I rarely like this in any shmup, but it's far more grevious in Raiden because of the labor intense process of chasing down the orbs with your sluggish ship.  Finally, you're given a standard screen clearing, and life saving, bomb.  An extra one of these is usually dropped in each stage and knowing when to use them to save your hide from a lightning quick series of bullets from a boss is something you'll be dealing with constantly.

As you play through the games 7 levels, you'll encounter a dull and washed out city, and bland and brown ravine, a shipping port, an actually cool looking outer space level with a nice nebula in the background, and grey enemy fortress, another outer space level, and an enemy planet that's mainly just a field of brown grass.  It is all standard Raiden stuff, but feels especially bland in it's color choices and looks like a brown and grey mess most of the time. 

There are also score multipliers for chaining together kills in rapid succession, but they only go up to a 2X multiplier.  You can also collect various fairies and golden orbs for bonuses if you're playing for score.  In addition to this, you have the ability to do a score attack, boss rush, start from any level for practice, and even tackle the one and only new idea in the game.  This new idea is called Double Play and lets you play the game as 2 ships simultaneously.  You control the red ship with the left analog stick and fire with L1 and bomb with L2.  Likewise, you control the blue ship with the right side of the controller.  It's an interesting idea for sure, but not something your average gamer is going to be able to master without some serious practice.

Presentation:

Raiden III doesn't look very good and is the first in the series to begin the annoying trend of having chunky 3D rendered graphics instead of sprites.  In this PS2 version, the resolution seems strange no matter what you do in the display options.  Everything feels like it has too high contrast and is jammed in this strange and cramped vertical aspect ratio.  You have the ability to zoom in a bit, but it cuts off the top and bottom portions of the screen which you need to be able to see.  In the arcade, the game was displayed in tate mode with a proper vertically sized screen.  However, on the home port, it is put onto a 4:3 aspect ratio on a standard CRT tv and it is too squished with too much empty space on either side of the playfield.  All of this leads to the text in the game feeling too small and the bullets appearing very tiny and difficult to see.  If you're used to gaming on a modern tv, this game is going to feel like you're playing on a cellphone in portrait mode from about 4 feet away; and heaven forbid you try to plug your PS2 into a modern flat screen.  The game would probably look like a 3 inch wide strip going down the center of the screen with 90% of the rest of the screen acting as black bars on either side and enough input lag to make the game impossible.  Personally, I played the game on a 32" Sony Trinitron (the holy grail retro gaming CRTs) from a gaming chair just a few feet away and I was really struggling to make out what was happening on the screen.  Sadly, I don't know what the developers could have done to remedy this.  It's just the difference in sitting a foot away from an arcade monitor vs sitting much further away at home on your tv.  

The music in this game is absolutely terrible and some of the worst I can remember in any shmup that I've ever played.  It's just trance based techno that repeats the same phrases and beats over and over again.  It's completely devoid of any hooks or melody.  Heck, most of the songs don't even change chords and just hang out on the tonic chord the entire time.  There are lots of buzzes and whistle synth sounds that were cool at the time, but feel too much like you're hanging out in a laser tag place 20 years ago.  It's abysmal and brings nothing to the table to improving your gaming experience.  If it weren't so forgettable, I would almost describe it as "painful" to listen to.  

Conclusion:

Raiden III is one of the worst in the series.  It's extremely boring and is missing some of the best features that the series usually offers and is known for.  Despite it having "modern" graphics for the time, it manages to look worse than the games that came before it and markedly awful soundtrack rounds out the whole mediocre experience.  MOSS, the developers, continue these trend in both Raiden IV and Raiden V, but at least in those games it they try to innovate somewhat with more features and new mechanics.  This time around, they just make the same game that they had already made, gave it 3d graphics, removed the scrolling left and right, and took away the coolest and most well known weapon in the game. The one and only feature that is the standout of this game is the Double Play one, but sadly, it's not something your average player is going to get much use out of.  

Overall, Raiden III doesn't really do anything to stand out and doesn't feel good enough to be worth your time.  If you're in the mood to play a vertical shmup, you have countless better and more inspired options.  These types of games are supposed to addictive so that you pump in another quarter in the arcade or you try to make it just a little further towards that 1 credit clear.  At no point playing this game, did I really have any emotions or feelings other than, "I want this music to go away."  

Final Status: Beaten

Final Score: 5/10 (very mediocre and boring.

 

Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda - Symphony of the Mask (DLC) (Switch) Review

Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda - Symphony of the Mask (DLC) (Switch) Review

Release Date: 23 September 2020

Date Played: 13 February 2022

Symphony of the Mask was the 3rd DLC expansion pack released for Cadence of Hyrule and introduces the beloved Skull Kid as a playable character.  Although he plays much like the other characters in the game, he has the ability to change masks to gain various powers like swimming, blocking attacks, and more that can help you make progress.  In addition to the new character, this DLC pack also contains a new story mode that consists of a future Hyrule where Ganon has conquered everything and turned the once bright and vibrant land into a muted brown and green wasteland.  While the map isn't as large as the base game, it is still a good size and is about half the size of the full game.  It is, of course, randomized just like the overworld map in Cadence of Hyrule but due to it's smaller size, there's really only so many ways it can be jumbled.  As you explore, you'll definitely get a darker and more sinister vibe similar to Majora's Mask (if you're familiar with it).  Everything feels bleak and desolate and is a nice juxtaposition to what you experienced before with the original game.  You can feel the despair in the air and you want to help fix this broken world.

As you explore around, you'll encounter the Gerudo and Deku civilizations and learn that they are still managing to survive after Ganon has taken power.  Also, Ganon's minions are fully thriving and out of blood.  Many screens you enter will be inundated with harder versions of enemies you've encountered before as well as a host of new bad guys to make you tear out your hair.  And, on that note, Symphony of the Mask is HARD. Not a little more difficult than the base game... but MUCH more difficult.  The enemy attack patterns are draconian and difficult to manage. In addition to that, there can be more than twice the number of enemies you're use to encountering if you've finished the base game.  You'll find yourself losing a huge chunk of your health on almost every single enemy encounter and you'll die repeatedly.  Although the game is about half the size of the standard game, I would say that I probably died about 5X more often in this DLC pack. So, if you're a pro at the original game, this expansion will be more than happy to smash in some of your teeth  if you're willing to give it a shot.

There are two new temples to complete this time around.  The first is the Garudo Village Arena which is just a gauntlet of clearing 5 rounds of attacks from the same bad guys you've encountered all over the overworld before facing off against a final boss.  It'll take some skill for sure, but doesn't really feel like a real dungeon to me and has more of a side quest feel to it.  If you've got enough heart containers and a few health potions, it shouldn't be too bothersome just to tank your way through it with a little skill. The second of the two temples is far more interesting.  The Temple of Brainstorms is by far the most difficult portion of the game and is a sprawling 3 story tall tower of difficult puzzles and combat encounters.  You'll have all of your weapons and collected items stripped away from you at the onset and you'll have to work your way through the procedurally generated dungeon and clear rooms to recollect them.  Along the way, you'll learn new mechanics and be forced to use them to defeat enemies in ways that are totally unique to the game (and a little obtuse, in my opinion).  Apparently, if you've played the original Crypt of the Necrodancer, you'll have a clue how these combat encounters work. But, as someone who hasn't had a chance to play it yet, I was totally lost and actually had to do a quick internet search to figure out what to do.  Unsurprisingly, a lot of other people out there had the same problems as me and were somewhat put off by the lack of direction and huge increase in difficulty of this DLC pack.  

 

Once you work your way through this temple, you'll encounter the most difficult boss fight of the entire game and if you have the skills to complete it you'll finally have access to fight Ganon.  It's the exact same fight as the base game of Cadence of Hyrule and is a bit of a let down because I was hoping for a different ending or at least different boss fight mechanics. I guess it does provide an alternate route to finish the game, but that doesn't help it feel like less of a cop-out.  With all the love and care the developers put into the base game, I was a little surprised by this lack of content.

Overall, I feel like this DLC pack is a good addition to the base game but it doesn't really elevate it in any ways other than the difficulty.  The Temple of Brainstorms was a really unique and interesting dungeon and certainly stands out as one of the best in the game, but the rest of the content doesn't live up to its standard and by the end of the experience, I was kind of relieved when the whole DLC content was over. Skull Kid is an interesting character, but none of the characters in Cadence of Hyrule play that differently to each other and this one is no exception.   While I did spend some time with him, I found Link's charge attack to be so essential for dispatching the difficult enemies that I ended up using him most of the time.  If you're a huge fan of the base game, give this one a shot.  If you bought the physical version of this game on the Nintendo Switch, it's already included on the cart and you have nothing to lose.

Final Status: Beaten

Final Score: 6/10 (worse than the base game and much more difficult)

Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda (Switch) Review

 

Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda (Switch) Review

Release Date: 23 October 2020

Date Played: 13 February 2022

Introduction:

Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda is not only the longest title I've ever seen for a video game, it's also one of the biggest disappointments for any game that I've played in the last few years. 

If you've ever read any of my other reviews, you would know that I try to be pretty objective with my critiques of the games I play.  I'll go over a brief history of the game, talk about its mechanics, detail the aesthetic choices of the game, before finally giving my opinions in the end.  Well... this time I'm not going to do that. I'm going to give my feelings right up here at the top of the review because I'm having a difficult time objectively discerning just exactly what it is that rubs me the wrong way about this game... because on paper, it's seems like it should be magnificent.  My only option is to just spew my feelings in some pseudo-stream of consciousness method as I point out all the things the developer did well and why I don't like them for no good reason.  

So what exactly is this game?  The absurdly protracted title seems to try to answer this. It's Crypt of the Necrodancer featuring characters from the Legend of Zelda, obviously (please insert sarcastic eye-roll).  Which means we've got a mash-up game on our hands.  Crypt of the Necrodancer was a popular rhythm-based rogue lite game developed by Brace Yourself Games that was released in 2015.  While I haven't personally played it, I watched a lot of streamers who did, and it seems like a really fun game.  You work your way through procedurally generated dungeons and fight enemies using a music mechanic.  You and the enemies all move on the beat and if you can attack them with good rhythm, you get attack bonuses and become more powerful.  You collect items to help you build a good run and gain meta progression to make your character more powerful in future attempts.  So, pretty standard rogue-lite stuff with a rhythm element.  Sounds awesome, sign me up!

So, the title of this game leads you to believe that you are playing Crypt of the Necrodancer with Legend of Zelda characters in it.  Right?  It literally says Crypt of the Necrodancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda, after all. But what we were given was a straight up lie if you're to go by the title.  This game isn't Crypt of the Necrodancer with Zelda characters in it.  Instead, it's The Legend of Zelda featuring Crypt of the Necrodancer combat.  I'm nonplussed by the whole situation and actually feel a little cheated.  There's nothing wrong with what they did with this game, but it's not what I wanted, nor is it what I thought I was getting.  I feel the title is specifically misleading despite its verbosity and I don't know why they chose to lead with Crypt of the Necrodancer instead of Zelda as that would have been a much more fitting description.  Let me invent and example to further illustrate my point.  Say I made a game with this title,  Fatality in the Mushroom Kingdom: Mortal Kombat Featuring Super Mario Bros., anyone with a head on their shoulders would think this game was a gory and violent 2D fighting game like Mortal Kombat with Mario characters in it.  How could you not?  It's clear as day what this game is supposed to be just from the title alone.  Now imagine that you're a complete idiot, like I am, and when you pop in the game instead of seeing Yoshi tear out and swallow Peach's heart with his bulbous tongue when he does a fatality,  you're instead given a standard side-scrolling Mario game but with Mortal Kombat characters in it. It's just Raiden running to the right across the screen while collecting coins, breaking blocks,  and stomping on goombas, koopas, and the occasional miniature Baraka.  Still awesome... but not at all what was advertised. Still, I think there might be a little bit of confusion and more than a few upset kids on Christmas morning.

So, enough talking about 2 hypothetical games that would probably be incredibly radicle and fantastic.... and should totally be made someday (you should get right on that), let's get back to the game that actually exists by reiterating  my question from earlier, "So what exactly is this game?"  Sadly, Cadence of Hyrule is just a bog standard 2D Zelda game with the combat system from Crypt of the Necrodancer.

Note*** Brace Yourself Games must have had some big fans over at Nintendo, because by some actual miracle, they were allowed to use the Zelda license to make this game and I can only remember a handful of times that was ever allowed (looking at you CD-i Zelda games).  This must speak volumes for the actual Crypt of the Necrodancer game.

Gameplay:

I hate that I have to explain how a Zelda game works, but I guess I have no choice.  You wander around an overworld that's broken up into a grid.  Each screen is one block on the grid and as you explore around, you slowly fill in the empty blocks on your map.  You're trying to collect some handful of objects (this time it's instruments to go with the music theme of the game) to unlock the barrier to Hyrule Castle so you can go inside and beat the final boss.  Each of the instruments is located in it's own dungeon that has it's own theme like water, fire, ice, etc. They can usually be tackled in any order, and in the case of this game, the overworld is sort of randomly generated so you never know where they'll be once you start a new game. Once you locate one of them by exploring around the overworld map, you get to go inside and do the other half of the Zelda gameplay loop.  You kill enemies and solve puzzles (sometimes quite obtuse, mind you) as you wonder around the dungeon until you find the map that shows you all of the rooms.  Then you find the compass that reveals where all the important locations are on the dungeon map.  After that, you find an item that helps you complete the dungeon (like a grappling hook, raft,  power glove, etc.).  Then, you find the key to unlock the door that leads to the dungeon's final boss.  After you vanquish it (usually using the item you found in the dungeon), you'll get a heart container to increase your maximum health as well as one of the key items in the game (musical instruments in this case).  You'll often have to use the items you find in the dungeon to help you traverse the overworld and reach a secret location, or make it across a ravine, or a lake, etc.  But, you essentially just repeat this same process over and over until you clear all of the dungeons (4 in the case of this game) and then you go fight the final boss.

It's a classic formula and has passed the test of time because it's still as popular today as ever.  Heck I can remember seeing 4 different 
Zelda games listed as the "Best Game of All Time" during my life.  The original Legend of Zelda on the NES, A Link to the Past on the SNES, The Ocarina of Time on the N64, and Breath of the Wild on the Switch have all carried the honor.  And while I don't agree with any of them, I can certainly see why people feel that way and acknowledge their avid fandom.

Cadence of Hyrule follows this exact same formula with very few differences, which is really disappointing to me.  I've been playing Zelda games since 1987, and I'm kind of burned out on the formula.  Even going back and playing the ones I never finished have been less than stellar experiences and I can rarely push myself to beat them because I get so bored with the process and it's insistence on rehashing the same ideas over and over.  So, it's obvious I was frustrated to have to do it all again with this game.  Sadly, this game does things even worse than the standard Zelda games.  Yes, there are lots of items to collect that are supposed to help you on your journey, but the vast majority of them I never even had to use and really seemed to have no purpose.  You might have to use the hookshot to grab a heart piece, or grab and push the occasional block to clear a path.  But, in general, most of the items seem pointless.  The item locations are all randomized in a lame and half-hearted attempt to shoehorn in some rogue-lite elements, so you never know what it's actually going to be in that purple chest you're so desperately trying to reach.  You hope it's the item that will allow you to reach that heart container you saw earlier, but sadly it was just some stupid leaf that pushes away enemies and serves no other purpose in the game.  What a waste of 10 minutes.

You have your standard Zelda weapon assortment that you can collect and use throughout the game such as bombs, a boomerang, shields, and your bow and arrow.  In addition to this, you have different weapons that have various attack attributes.  There's the shortrange dagger, a sword that slashes in front of you, a spear that reaches further, and a flail that attacks to the side. These weapons are a departure from the traditional Zelda games and are a nice touch. You still upgrade your heart containers, gather bottles, uncover secrets, and buy items, like in all Zelda games but there isn't really any meta progression outside of unlocking new characters to use in subsequent playthroughs.  Dying in this game really only causes you to lose your rupees and a few assorted consumables and isn't much of a hinderance as you can usually restart pretty close to where you left off and regain any of the temporary items you lost rather quickly.

As for the Crypt of the Necrodancer portion of the game, everything hops around to the beat flashing along with the music and displayed at the bottom of the screen and are set to a tile based grid where every unit occupies once space. You attack enemies by walking into them and striking them right on the beat gives you an attack bonus (especially if you can chain them together).  The various weapons attack in different patterns that can allow you to take on multiple enemies at once or keep your distance if need be.  They are a nice addition to the game and being able to switch between them at will is very beneficial.  All of the standard Zelda enemies are here and they have specific attack patterns that coincide with the music, so you'll have to memorize their attack patterns and lean to counter them while also keeping the beat yourself. There are a lot of enemies on every screen and keeping track of all of their behaviors when you're in a tight situation can be difficult.  It's a good combat system and I think it works well even in the Zelda framework but can get a little tedious in some circumstances.  After you've cleared the same area for the 20th time, having to sit there and repeatedly tap buttons along with the rhythm can start to feel a little monotonous and like it's wasting your time. To counteract this, you have the Sheikah stones from Breath of the Wild this time around and touching one will turn it into a waypoint on your map that you can then warp to to have to save yourself from walking back and forth across the map.  

You'll initially only be able to play as either Link or Zelda, but you'll unlock more characters as you continue to progress and you can switch between them at any of the aforementioned Sheikah stones.  They each have their own special abilities that you can take advantage of, however, I found Link's charge slash to be the most powerful attack in the game, so I mainly stuck with him.

Story:

The story is pretty basic. A villain named Octavo has lulled Link and Zelda to sleep and stolen the Tri-force.  Cadence, the heroine from Crypt of the Necrodancer is teleported to Hyrule by the Tri-force at the last second for her to save the kingdom.  She has to awaken Link and Zelda to help stop Octavo before they can help her find a way to teleport back to her own world. It's a very basic plot and falls right in line with all of the other Zelda games, so that's to be expected.  Most people don't play these games for the story anyway.

Presentation:

This is the area of the game where Cadence of Hyrule excels.  The game is absolutely beautiful and and is my favorite looking Zelda game of all time.  It has a nice A Link to the Past look that has been rounded off and made more pleasantly cartoony.  Everything is bright and colorful and and has a real pop to it that is quite endearing.  The enemy models are well done and have a nice spin on the traditional Zelda baddies that we've all seen countless times.  The protagonists are absolutely precious and are unbelievably cute.  My 8 year old daughter is in love with them and just can't get enough.  This is cuteness is only intensified by the high pitched but serious grunts, hi-yahs, and yells that they all make.  Link's sounds, in particular, have always been appealing, but in this game they are really, really appealing and would be a treasure to have on your smart phone as a text notification.

Finally, we get to the best part of this game... it's music.  Danny Baranowsky knocked the music on Crypt of the Necrodancer out of the park and he was brought back for this mash-up.  He has provided 25 songs for the soundtrack and every single one of them is magnificent.  Many of the songs are remixes of classic Zelda songs (such as the overworld theme) and they sound just as fresh and catchy as ever.  It's really remarkable what he has done and he is by far my favorite composer working in the gaming industry today.  In case you didn't know, he did the music for Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac as well, two of the best video game soundtracks of all time. 

What we're left with is the best looking, best sounding, and most endearing Zelda game of all time.  If you're into aesthetics, don't sleep on Cadence of Hyrule because it's really something quite special.

Conclusion:

I know, I know I spent the first half of this review ranting about how disappointed I was by this game and you don't need me to rehash all of that again.  But, just because I was disappointed and felt misled by the title of the game, don't think that Cadence of Hyrule is bad.  Because it's not.  It's actually a pretty good game that packs a fair amount of content and a decent challenge.  I just wish it had been more rogue-lite focused and not such a back-to-basics Zelda game like we've seen countless times already.  If you are a huge Zelda fan and can't get enough of that same gameplay style, you should play this game because you won't be disappointed. If, however, you were looking for something fresh and unique with a Zelda spin on it, you ARE going to be disappointed like I was.

As for me, I loved the way the game looked and sounded.  The Crypt of the Necrodancer style combat was just... ok, and wasn't nearly as fun as I thought it would be.  Maybe it's because I'm a musician, but I found it to be a little underwhelming in its execution.  Perhaps I would like the original Crypt of the Necrodancer better because I hear it focuses more on the combat and that there are a few more mechanics to flesh it all out.  Sadly, the Zelda gameplay loop has completely burned itself out in my eyes.  I've seen it done over, and over, and over during the course of my life and it just feels so stale.  It's been 35 years that I have been playing the same kind of Zelda game and if that were an old fashioned union job, I would have been retired... almost twice now.  I feel like Zelda owes me two pensions for my time put in.  Keep that in mind before you chase me into the nearest tower with your pitch forks.

This physical release of the game contains all of the current DLC and is the definitive way to play the game, so if you want to grab a copy, this is the one to get.

Final Status: Beaten 

Final Score: 7/10 (good, but not groundbreaking like I wanted) 

The Monkey King: The Legend Beings (Wii) Review

 

The Monkey King: The Legend Begins (Wii) Review

Date Released: 30 May 2008

Date Played: 7 February 2022

Introduction:

The Monkey King: The Legend Begins is a horizontally scrolling shmup that retells the Journey to the West story that has been used countless times since its inception over 500 years ago.  It's a sort of sequel to Taito's Cloud Master and was developed by StarFish and published by UFO.  While it is certainly buried in the hallowed halls of mediocrity among the massive troves of other Wii shovelware games, it isn't such a blatant crash grab as many of them and you can detect just the slightest hint of care by the developers. The same can't be said for the game they created shortly after this. StarFish created a cash-in game called Saint that tells the exact same story, uses the same engine, many of the same graphics, and is basically just a reskin of this game.  It's also one of the worst games I've ever played and I am hard pressed to even remember any other game that was as terrible as it was.  Luckily, The Monkey King, while very simple and budget oriented, isn't nearly as bad as that one and feels more like "baby's first shmup" rather than an attempt to defraud the consumer of their hard earned cash. Don't get me wrong, it's bad.  It's just more of a failure on part of its creator's shortcomings rather than them trying to cheat you.  It's like scoring a 30% on a test when you hadn't studied but actually tried a little on test day versus not studying, not trying, but telling everyone that you were going to ace the exam.

Gameplay:

You play as either Wukong, the titular adolescent monkey king or his female friend, Mai Mai.  Both are training to become martial arts masters and have to shoot their way through 6 levels to gain the approval of their teacher. They play almost identically (other than their access to specific spells) and are really nothing more than a cosmetic choice. As mentioned earlier, the game is a horizontal shmup just like we're all quite familiar with.  You have access to a standard shot that is little more than a pea shooter but can be leveled up 6 times by collecting powerups.  This will turn your pea shooter into a much wider and more powerful spread of bullets the will ravage the enemies coming your way.  In addition to this, you can collect the standard speed upgrades as well as occasionally enter a door to grab a magic spell.  You are able to bank two of these spells simultaneously and switch between them at will by using the A button.  They range from simple bombs that you drop, fire shields to protect you, dragon fireballs, and even almost full screen laser beams. There are slight variances between which spell each of the two characters can collect, but they are mostly identical and only a couple of spells are unique to whomever you chose.  These spells are very powerful and oddly have unlimited uses.  You can just spam the magic button constantly and feel almost impossible to kill. There is also a pretty generous life bar that allows you to take several hits before dying. The enemy placement in the game isn't well thought out and seems almost random at best and your character's sprite is very large and there will be blankets of bullets fired at you with no way to avoid them.  This forces you to have to take the damage since there's nothing you can do about it. This makes the health bar a requirement for a game this poorly thought out and is a hallmark of a poorly designed game.  As I've sarcastically stated many times, why make tight and well designed game that will allow you to learn to rout the stages while avoiding even a single hit when you can just throw a bunch of random junk at the player to increase the difficulty and let the health bar take up the slack? If you see a health bar in a shmup, be forewarned; the developers probably didn't know how to design good bullet patterns or enemy placement.  Then, when they played the game, found it to be almost impossible, so they just slapped a life bar on there and pushed the game out of the door. This is almost certainly what happened with this game as well, and if that weren't enough, you can replenish your health by collecting the commonly occurring health potions from fallen enemies or by finishing a stage. You're given so much health, lives, and healing items that you don't even have to bother to dodge most of the time. If you do die, you respawn right where you were without having to worry about going back to a checkpoint. Making things even easier, there are plenty of extra lives that drop from enemies as well.  Too many, in fact.  I actually had 16 extra lives by the end of my first playthrough and never died once. 

However, on the hardest difficulty, I did die a couple of times and discovered the game suffers from some pretty serious Gradius syndrome where if you die, you lose your powerups and the game can be extremely difficult to make any progress with.  The Monkey King is no different, but since powerups are so abundant, you really only need to survive long enough to grab a magic spell and you'll be all set to return to your normal boring method of just holding down the fire button and spamming magic. The few seconds I had to spend surviving with none of my powerups was quite difficult and practically impossible to sustain for more than a short period.  This leaves the game in a situation where if you're not fully powered up, you have no chance... and if you are fully powered up, the game has no chance.  By the middle of stage 2, you'll be fully powered up and can mostly just sit in the middle of the back portion of the screen while holding the fire button and spamming your magic attacks. Even on the hardest difficulty, you'll pretty much just shred through the levels by doing this and it won't take long for boredom to set in.  To make matters worse, the boss fights are the easiest I've ever seen in a game.  Almost all of them will be eliminated in just a matter of seconds and they won't even have the opportunity to fire off a single shot.  This is a big disappointment since the boring levels could have used something to break up the monotony. The bosses look cool and I found myself not attacking them in an attempt to see them do something. They have very limited attack patterns that usually consist of either a telegraphed laser beam or a rain of bullets from the sky.  If you decide to not bother firing on them, they won't do much and seem to be copied and pasted from one to the next.  It really makes all of these fights feel like an afterthought rather than a feature of the game.

The gimmick of this shmup, as with almost all games on the Wii, is the addition of motion controls (sigh....). In this game, you can tilt the controller to the right to speed up the scrolling of the stage (and I guess add a little more difficulty) or tilt it to the left to slow down the scrolling and make the already insanely easy game even more so.  It doesn't really serve any true purpose in the game and feels completely shoehorned into the whole experience.  I did find myself using it to try to get through the boring stages a little more quickly, but outside of using it like a fast forward button, it doesn't do much to add to the enjoyment you're trying to find.  

You'll play through 6 stages as you progress through the game.  You'll start at Mt. Gogyu before traveling over a river, the Great Wall, another mountain, the sky, and finally Hell.  These all have the same basic enemies of pigs, foxes, clouds, chickens, etc. that are reused over and over during each of the stages with only a handful of unique enemies seen elsewhere in the game.  Most enemies die in a single hit and serve as nothing more than cannon fodder.  After you play through the boss rush of the final stage and dispatch the last boss, you're rewarded by having to play all the way through the game again.... in reverse.   Apparently, it isn't enough to have to journey all the way to hell to slay the great evil, you also need to make your way back by killing each boss for a third time in a single playthrough (on the way there, boss rush, and on the way back).  You get to play by facing left this time around, but other than that, the game is exactly the same and poses no more of a challenge than before.  This does nothing but waste your time and make the game feel even more padded.  

Once you finish the game on normal difficulty (I'm not sure if you need to do it on 1 credit because I never died) you'll unlock Race mode.  This is where you just fly through all 6 levels of the game without shooting.  There are tons of speed upgrades and health potions around as you dodge through tons of enemies in an attempt to reach the finish line before the stage's mid-boss.  You will need to make use of the tilt motion controls to fly through the levels as fast as possible as you attempt to dodge enemies while grabbing those essential healing items.  While I do like this idea, it's very poorly implemented and requires almost no skill.  When you die, you have a recovery period where you're invulnerable.  During this time, you can just slam on gas at full speed and fly straight through all of the enemies and pass the boss with little to no effort.  I beat the whole game in race mode on the hardest difficulty in 3 minutes and 8 seconds only dying 2 times on my very first try.

Presentation:

The Monkey King definitely falls into the cute 'em up category as all of the character models and enemies are adorable and colorful.  They are all interesting to look at and I feel like the artists on the game did a pretty good job.  The backgrounds of the various stages as very muted in their color pallet, but it's very clear that they were aiming for the subtle stylings of east Asian artwork from that period.  It's simple and well done, and while it won't dazzle you, it does help the cute sprites on the screen pop out a little more.  

The music is fine and goes for a traditional Eastern style that is really the only fitting genre for a game like this.  It does have some anachronistic pumping percussion parts that attempt to add a little intensity to the game, but it's well done and I feel that it adds a nice component to the soundtrack.  As for the sound effects, they are extremely terrible.  The sound of your powered up shot is shrill, ear piercing, and constant.  It's so distracting that I had to turn off all of the sound effects in the options menu to try to escape it. Once gone, the whole experience became much less painful. There aren't too many other memorable sound effects in the game and they are mostly benign, so I'll take that as a positive.

The game does have that trademark blurriness and washed out color pallet that was so characteristic of the Wii.  To me, it hasn't really reached the nostalgically charming level yet and just appears to be a little outdated.  However, it isn't a terrible looking game for what it is.  There are some nice animations that give the characters life like Mai Mai's flowing dress, but it does have bit of that early 2000s Flash based browser game look to it.  Perhaps in 10 years, we'll all look back on this style fondly, but I don't think we're quite there yet.

Conclusion:

The Monkey King is a budget title that certainly does feel cheap.  They recycle assets, pad out the stages, and even make you retrace your steps all the way back through the game. There's even a typo on the back of the game's case where, "Fight Larger Then Life Bosses" is proudly displayed. I would be more forgiving if there was at least some engaging gameplay. But it is completely lacking in difficulty that you could probably beat the entire game just by spamming the shot and magic button with your eyes closed.  I played through the game 4 times in a row; first on easy and normal where I never died a single time.  Then, on hard, where I only died 2 times and it was little more than a slight nuisance to recover.  Finally, I plowed through the race mode in about 3 minutes.  This doesn't leave a lot of content or enjoyment to be found for your average gamer and makes the game nothing more than a mindless time killer.

It does have some cute characters but they aren't enough to make up for the severely lacking gameplay.  That being said, this game doesn't feel like a malicious cash grab to me and has more of a game for young children sort of vibe to it.  It's kind of like if an adult played a Sesame Street game about spelling simple words or something.  You can recognize the basics of of a genre that you like, but there really isn't much gameplay there for an adult.  I wouldn't hesitate to let a 3 year old play this game, and they might actually have a good time with it.  However, if you're older than 3, there really isn't much here for you.

Final Status: Completed (did everything the game had to offer in a couple of hours)

Final Score: 3/10 (barely any gameplay... far too easy)