DrBloodmoney's Super Scientific Ranking of Games!

[DrBloodmoney]

9 hours ago, ShinySpidey said:

I know this is an old message, but I'd like to share my experience. Bloodborne was my first Souls game. Some friends of mine gave it to me for my 22nd birthday. In that period I knew something about Dark Souls and I was fascinated by it, but I thought "too much effort for me". I couldn't say the same about Bloodborne, back then I barely knew it was FromSoftware's but I thought it was my time to play it. Well, I tried to play Bloodborne but I only felt frustration. I was stuck in Central Yarnham, I kept dying and I couldn't get the hang of it. I dropped it. "What a stupid game", I thought. Fast forward 1 month and I felt like I should have tried one more time. Nope, I reached Cleric Beast and I was stuck once again. Well, maybe it's a good game, but not my cup of tea.

Fast forward to August 2020 (7 months after my birthday) and I finally beat the game. I used save scumming to avoid the path to bosses every time I died, but I eventually understand the basics of the game and its unexplained mechanics. Then I beat Dark Souls Remastered, now Elden Ring and I think these are my favourite games ever, or at least, genre.

The learning curve is steep, but once you learn the basics, it's just a matter of try and repeat until you'll eventually "git gud".

 

Dude - I know that feeling actually!

 

My first one was Demon’s Souls - I hadn’t played, or even really heard of the Kingsfield games before it, and I didn’t know much about it as, like you, I got gifted it.

 

Man, I hadn’t played a game like it before, and I must have spent longer trying to get though the first area of Boletaria (level 1-1) than most games took me to complete at that point ?

There’s something about the pacing and rhythm of those games which is still unusual now, but was pretty much completely foreign to me then - and all the mechanics (bonfire / reapawning enemies/ soul-form etc.) were just alien!

 

I dropped it like 3 times, before finally biting the bullet, and just powering through… and ended up loving it, but it’s basically the same “WTF is this nonsense game?!?!” feeling first off. Guess that’s just the Souls-Christening we all go through ?

 

 

Quote

 

The only thing I really dislike about Bloodborne even now is the fact that when you die, blood vials aren't replenished. It's just stupid because the more you die the more you are punished and sometimes this forces you to farm blood echoes to buy the blood vials. Other than this, it's a masterpiece.

Totally agree. That mechanic was in Demons Souls, but they dropped it in Dark Souls, and aside from Bloodborne, it’s never really resurfaced. A silly concept, as all it does is dissuade people from doing the very thing the games encourage - repeating fights, and learning through attrition!

Edited April 12, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[DrBloodmoney]

 

!!SCIENCE UPDATE!!

 

 

The next 5 (somewhat) randomly selected games to be submitted for scientific analysis shall be:

 

Arcade Archives: City Connection
Mark of the Ninja: Remastered 
Midnight Deluxe
Rainbow Moon
The Swapper

 

 

 

With a minimum of 1 Bonus game this round, including:

 

Elden Ring

 

 

 

Subject(s) in RED marked for PRIORITY ASSIGNEMENT

[Care of @YaManSmevz & @rjkclarke ]

 

 

 

Can 'Current Most Awesome' game, Hitman 3, maintain the title again?

 

Is gaming skid-mark LA Cops going to be finally scraped off the Y-fronts of 'Least Awesome Game'?

 

 

Let's find out, Science Chums!

[Copanele]

4 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

With a minimum of 1 Bonus game this round, including:

 

Elden Ring

I am so ready for this one  been waiting for it!

[Yuber6969]

I'd been wanting to check out this list for a while now, but had been putting it off. I just read your Persona 4 Golden review and I agree with pretty much every point you made. It's criminal that game isn't more famous.

 

Did you end up playing Persona 3 since that post?

[DrBloodmoney]

4 hours ago, Yuber6969 said:

I'd been wanting to check out this list for a while now, but had been putting it off. I just read your Persona 4 Golden review and I agree with pretty much every point you made. It's criminal that game isn't more famous.

 

Thank you, sir!

 

4 hours ago, Yuber6969 said:

Did you end up playing Persona 3 since that post?

 

? No, not yet...

 

...I haven't played much on the Vita for over a year actually, not really sure why. I did play through the original Persona (good, but very dated now!) and some of the second one, but I think I held off on P3, as there were some rumblings a while back about a possible remaster.... not sure if anything ever came of that actually - I need to look into that to see if there was any nuggets for reality, or if it was just wishful thinking! ?

 

 

[Yuber6969]

1 minute ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 No, not yet...

 

...I haven't played much on the Vita for over a year actually, not really sure why. I did play through the original Persona (good, but very dated now!) and some of the second one, but I think I held off on P3, as there were some rumblings a while back about a possible remaster.... not sure if anything ever came of that actually - I need to look into that to see if there was any nuggets for reality, or if it was just wishful thinking! 

 

 

 

Not sure if you heard that Persona 4: Arena Ultimax getting ported to the PS4 was leaked before Atlus announced it. The same guy that leaked it claimed that Persona 3 Portable is coming to PS4 as well. I played that one on the Vita, and found it's gameplay to have balancing issues (though many disagreed with me). The story however, was on par with 4 and 5. I'll keep you updated if I find out more. In the unlikely event that we don't get a port/remaster, it's still totally worth your time though! Probably the most emotional of the later 3 games.

[DrBloodmoney]

5 minutes ago, Yuber6969 said:

 

Not sure if you heard that Persona 4: Arena Ultimax getting ported to the PS4 was leaked before Atlus announced it. The same guy that leaked it claimed that Persona 3 Portable is coming to PS4 as well. I played that one on the Vita, and found it's gameplay to have balancing issues (though many disagreed with me). The story however, was on par with 4 and 5. I'll keep you updated if I find out more. In the unlikely event that we don't get a port/remaster, it's still totally worth your time though! Probably the most emotional of the later 3 games.

 

You know, I don't often play the "wishing game" - since most of the games I've loved the most, have been the ones that snuck up on me, and I didn't see coming ....

...but Persona 3 in a nice, lavish remaster is high on that "I hope, I hope, fingers crossed" list!

[DrBloodmoney]

☢️☢️SCIENTIFIC NOTE☢️☢️

 

The Elden Ring Review and Ranking is getting a bit lengthly! ?

As such, I'm going to split this batch into two - "Batch 39" and "Batch 40", as it's going to get unmanageable as a single one, and probably break the forum limit (again) ?

 

So, Batch 39 will be soon, and comprise:

 

Arcade Archives: City Connection
Midnight Deluxe

Elden Ring

 

 

and Batch 40, in a little while, will be:

Mark of the Ninja: Remastered 
Rainbow Moon
The Swapper

 

...plus whatever Bonus Games get S-Ranked in the intervening time!

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[DrBloodmoney]

 

  NEW (PARTIAL) SCIENTIFIC RESULTS ARE IN! 

 

 

Hello Science-Chaps and Science-Chapesses, as promised (and in some cases requested), here are the (first part) of the latest results of our great scientific endeavour!

 

 

 

 

Arcade Archives: City Connection

 

Summary: 

Another of Hamster's Arcade Archives retro ports, 1985's City Connection - originally developed and released by Jelico - is a Neo Geo action game I was not personally familiar with prior to this release.

 

The concept is interesting - while the game might best be described on paper as an 'action driving' game, (it does, after all, give the player control of a car (in this case, a jaunty little orange hatchback,) its really has nothing in common with any kind of driving game seen over the years.
In fact, City Connection plays much more as something akin to an early progenitor of the autorunning-platformer,  requiring the player to platform a car that is in continual motion around stages, collecting points, and mixes in Pac-Man-style enemy avoidance / item collection-to-turn-the-tables mechanics. 

 

Drive across rotoscoping areas with multiple levels, the multi-level track changes colour as you drive it. The goal in each stage is to cover (and recolour) every inch of drivable track with your little orange hatchback, avoiding the cops, and their traps, whereupon a very excited, blue-haired girl gives you a victory sign, and you he'd off to the next location.

The cops are always on your tail, their own police vehicles constantly increasing in aggressiveness and in number. these must be avoided, though the collection of oil-can collectibles in each level allows the player his/her sole way of fighting back - throwing a can will momentarily stun an enemy vehicle, allowing it to be rammed to push it back.

 

The general presentation of the game is good. The music is bouncy and fun, the visuals bright and colourful, and the basic backgrounds of the different locations - Paris / London / Egypt etc, (basically anywhere with a recognisable landmark that can be recreated in pixel form and still be recognisable) are a nice touch, and while basic, add a recognisable at-a-glance indication of progress through the game.

These backgrounds can occasionally cause an issue with colour-blending, the bright colours can sometimes cross-over a little too much with the foreground palate, making traps harder to see, however, the issue is not constant, and far less egregious than some other games of similar era's had with the same concept... (looking at you, Nova-2001!)

 

The gameplay of City Connection is fluid and pretty fun - like the best arcade games, it is easy to understand, but difficult to master - however, the controls area bit of a problem.

While turning is fine, jumping isn't as responsive as it really should be. There is multiple types of jump - the standard hop for enemy avoidance, and longer, floatier jumps (achieved by holding up on the D-Pad while jumping,) used for moving up platforms in the vertical stages.  That floaty jump is very long and quite difficult to gauge distance in advance, and that can make accuracy of movement difficult. Because every part of every vertical level of track must be driven over, and because the jumping is odd-feeling and imprecise, levels can often be lit with just little 'tails' at the beginning / end of floating platforms. These are virtually impossible to complete without careful setting up of scenarios where the player is able to drive off the edge of a platform without plowing into an enemy on the lower levels.
That certainly adds a dimension of strategy to the game, however, it never quite feels like that was intentional. A strategic requirement born out of poor controls, rather than deliberate design, if you will.

 

City Connection is not, initially, as difficult as some arcade games of the era, though the difficulty does ramp up quite quickly around the 4th or 5th level, and the combination of the control issues and the increased chaos on screen can make traversing later levels successfully quite a long and fraught endeavour. 

 

The actual Hamster port is, like all their offerings, relatively bare-bones in the bells and whistles aspects - there are limited additional offerings beyond the port itself - some save-state options, and the standard Hamster wraparound menu set up, and it works fine. I still lament a little that Hamster - at this point undisputed as the kings of retro-arcade preservation on console - add little in the way of the information about the original game. A brief history of the game and the context in which it was released, even in simple text form, would be nice. The one thing Hamster do very well, however, is porting the games with a real eye on 1-to-1 game feel, and while I've never played the original City Connection, my experience with other Arcade Archives ports gives me little doubt this one is as well executed.

 

Overall, Arcade Archives: City Connection is a decent, pretty interesting historical timepiece, that still retains a good amount of frivolous fun.
It has some issues in controls, but the core concept remains sound, the whole experience is bright and breezy and while it is unlikely to hold a modern player's attention for terribly long, it does still offer some fun play. 
While City Connection is a world away from being considered an 'essential' on the level of Dig Dug / Pac-Man / Galaga etc, is it nowhere near as throw-a-way as say, Mat Mania, nor as limited by its old-school tendencies as something like Crazy Climber is.

 

 

The Ranking:

In terms of ranking, the first pass considerations are other retro games, and that generally means other Hamster Arcade Archives releases.

Looking at those, it becomes quite easy for me to narrow down the field quickly, as City Connection falls very neatly between two currently ranked Arcade Archives joints - Nova 2001, and Crazy Climber.

Crazy Climber is a game that I think is interesting to play from an historical preservation and curiosity standpoint, however, the antiquated nature of the game and the still controls (inherited, of course, from the original, and no fault of Hamster's,) make it difficult to really find lasting gameplay fun in 2022.

Nova 2001, on the other hand, while also genuinely interesting from the point of view of historical context - particularly in seeing the early stages of what would become the twin-stick genre - is also still genuinely good fun to play now, and chasing a high-score can still add a dimension of genuine gameplay excitement, despite the antiquated nature of the product in a modern context.

 

City Connection, I think, falls somewhere between. I do think there is still fun to be had, but not on the level of Nova 2001, but far more than Crazy Climber. With a cross between historical interest and gameplay excitement being the raison d'être of Hamster's entire Arcade Archives collection, t feels fitting that it has to fall between them in the ranking.

 

There are only three games between the two games - Lost Ember, Uncanny Valley, and Neverending Nightmares. I think the historical aspects of Arcade Archives: City Connection and the fun that can be had around the edges of the problematic controls are enough to elevate it above Neverending Nightmares - and interesting curiosity, but ultimately one that fails to engage for long, and looses it's steam before the end - but not quite enough to beat out the other two.

 

As such, Arcade Archives: City Connection finds its spot!

 

 

 

 

Midnight Deluxe

 

Summary: 

The second game in the Midnight series from Ratalaika staple Petite Games takes a curious path, in terms of sequelisation. 

Where most series games, (particularly series where plot and narrative are minimal, and gameplay is the dominant gameplay focus,) will maintain gameplay tropes from their predecessor, perhaps adding a few tertiary mechanics, and transposing these elements to a new or expanded setting, Midnight Deluxe does the inverse. Rather than making any real visual or stylistic changes fro the standard set by the original game - 36 Fragments of Midnight - Midnight Deluxe maintains the elements almost exactly, but instead, completely changes the fundamental mechanical elements of the gameplay instead.

 

36 Fragments of Midnight was a simple, minimalist puzzle platformer in the vein of Limbo or Trine, Midnight Deluxe is an arcade-adjacent action puzzler, more akin to an Angry Birds or, most notably, iOS sensation Desert Golfing. The player is once again in control of Midnight - the eponymous little white square, living in his rather trap-filled and mysterious geometric woodlands - this time, they have no ability directly move him. Instead, they are able to 'fling' him around, using a simple 2D sling-shooting mechanic. The aim this time is to land him in a designated 'hole' - a small area signified by a glowing aura.

 

Like the previous game, each level is fairy simple, and the player is scored on a 1-3 star scale, though this time, that scale is rather more simplistic, and based entirely on completing each level in the smallest amount of shots.

 

Mechanically, I think the game works well. 
The feel of the movement of the analogue 'slingshot' mechanic is quite satisfying, and the 'glow' of Midnight as he moves through his night-time woodland world, (inherited from the previous game,) actually serves to really help this game, as it provides a visual trail of his 'arc', allowing the player to view exactly where they went right or wrong in their aim. 

The one place this does break down a little though, is on Vita. Because the strength of the 'shot' is analogue, and determined by the throw on the analogue stick, when playing on Vita, with it's much shorted stick, it can get quite tricky to effectively control the shot strength. It is not insurmountable (I did platinum the game on Vita,) it can, on occasion, be a source of frustration. It leaves my recommendation i a curious place, as I think the game is most suited to the portable, bite-sized play the Vita offers, however, mechanically, it is a markedly better game on a full-sized controller.

 

The game begins quite simply, with simple shots, but quite quickly escalates the puzzle elements, requiring multi-shot levels with wall bounces, objects to be knocked out the way or doors to be opened, and tricky dangers to be avoided that keep the game on a fairly smooth gradient of difficulty. The game, it should be said, never gets overtly hard, however, it also does not feel as notably easy as 36 Fragments did. There are some levels here that can be quite tricky, and while the infinite restarting and quick loading of levels means no level is ever likely to hold a player up for more than a few minutes, there is a satisfaction to completing some of the trickier ones that was never really present in the previous game.

 

Reworking the entire gameplay of a series is fairly rare - and could be risky under some circumstances, but here, I think it's a really welcome change.
While I liked 36 Fragments of Midnight just fine for what it was, being an overtly simple, (and extremely easy,) game within a very crowded genre tended to lessen the impact the game could possible have. It was perfectly adequate, but the Puzzle Platform genre is an incredibly populous and well-served one - particularly within the indie sphere. While 36 Fragments of Midnight did have a nice visual style, (arguably it's strongest card,) even that could do little to make it stand out in the puzzle-platform genre, as there are significantly better examples within that genre that use similar art-styles, to better effect. (Limbo, being the most obvious example.)

As a 2D golf-adjacent Action Puzzler, however, Midnight Deluxe manages to stand out a little more. There are fewer games in that genre across the board - particularly on Sony consoles, the genre being far more of a pillar of the iOS and Android marketplaces - and so Midnight Deluxe does manage to make better use of it's signature visual style to stand out a little more from the crowd.

 

Visually, as said, the game makes use of the previously established art style, soundscape and artistic trappings... and when I say that, I really do mean exactly. The design, look and feel of Midnight Deluxe is absolutely 1-to-1 to the previous game, two the extent that two games could very well sit as two separate modes of the exact same game. 
That, of course, leaves very little to discuss in terms of the stylings, however, I did like that art-style and visuals in the first game, and think they serve this one well too. The blue, black and white palate and the crisp clean lines are very effective at presenting the necessary information about the puzzle elements, and combine to create a simple, yet evocative and quite pleasing signature style. Again, the UI elements and the presentation of the game is nice, and the whole game feels quite nicely put together.

There is still an odd dissonance between the rather creepy, ambient background audio and the unthreatening visuals, but given that this is a game most likely to be enjoyed while listening to something else - either television, if played on a Vita, or a podcast, it is hard to give that element too much weight.

Overall, Midnight Deluxe is  fairly fleeting little experience, unlikely to set the world on fire, or make anyones list of top gaming experiences, but it is a fun little game to pass the time, and in the small, bite-sized game space, one could do a lot worse. It looks nice, it sounds interesting, and the puzzle elements, while simple, are effective. Levels are well put together, and the whole game has a nice, well presented and well polished feel.
The very easy platinum list does mean that it, like its predecessor, is subject to being lumped in with the "shovel ware" label so wantonly thrown around by some on sites such as this one, however, it is a far better playing and feeling game than that moniker suggests.

 

 

The Ranking:

For ranking, the obvious starting point is 36 Fragments of Midnight, however, as is pretty clear from the summary, while Midnight Deluxe imports a lot of its stylistic and artistic trapping directly from it's predecessor, I think the gameplay changes make it a markedly better game.

 

It is still a small, bite-sized experience, and there isn't much depth to it however, and so the obvious comparisons beyond that, are in other games with similar scopes. 

 

The first one that springs to mind is Black & White Bushido. That game is also a small game which is mechanically very sound, doesn't have a huge amount of depth to it, but is fun to play for the time it takes up. There's fun to be had in both cases, and both games have simple, yet effective art styles, however, the fact that Black & White Bushido has a multi-player, party-play element lends it a longevity that Midnight Deluxe lacks, and a certain element of randomness that Midnight Deluxe can't compete with. 

 

A little below Black & White Bushido, is Bentley's Hackpack, however. Bentley's Hackpack is also a simple puzzle game - one with a fair amount more complexity than Midnight Deluxe offers - however, I struggle to think of any individual element Bentley's Hackpack does as well as Midnight Deluxe executes it's one primary mechanic. Yes, Bentley's Hackpack has more variety, but the game never feels as satisfying to control as Midnight Deluxe does - and there is little on the artistic side that comes close to Midnight Deluxe's simple, cohesive look.

As such, I think Midnight Deluxe has to fall between Bentley's Hackpack and Black & White Bushido.

The only game currently in there is reasonably good Artifex Mundi caper Modern Tales: Age of Invention - and in a one-to-one comparison, I think it still beats out Midnight Deluxe... and so Midnight Deluxe finds its spot!

 

 

 

 

 

⚛️⚛️BONUS GAMES⚛️⚛️

1 Additional eligible S-Rank included this round!:

 

 

 

 

Elden Ring

 

Summary: 

To describe Elden Ring as the simply the latest entry in FROM Software's loose 'Soulsborne' series seems a little odd. 

As a pedestrian description, it is broadly accurate - Elden Ring may, like Bloodborne and Sekiro before it, never feature the word "souls" in title, (or in game,) but it is absolutely of the gameplay and philosophical lineage set by the original Demon's Souls and cemented with the Dark Soul's games... yet the descriptor does little to convey real sentiment of what sets Elden Ring apart.

There is a certain expectation of iterative improvement that comes hand-in-hand with series or franchise entries, the shackles of which do a disservice to the magnitude of the advancement Elden Ring represents within its genre.

 

Is Elden Ring the next Soulsborne game? 
Yes.
Does Elden Ring feel like a step in the Soulsborne evolutionary journey?
...No, not really.

 

Let me explain.

There are, of course, a great swathe of elements contained within Elden Ring that are iterative from previous souls games. Truth be told, there are actually remarkable few elements of Elden Ring that feel wholly new aside from the scale and non-linearity of the world. Each individual component of Elden Ring does feel familiar to the Souls-enthusiast... however, the sheer scope, ambition and grandeur of Elden Ring as a product is such a exponential expansion of the previous games, as to somewhat dwarf the notion of iterative linearity. 

Elden Ring does not feel like the next incarnation of a progressive design concept, as much as the realisation of it. It does not feel like a point on a continuing line, in the way the majority of franchise entries, or spiritual successors generally do. It feels more like the destination they were pointing towards.
The final product at the end of a decade-long design workshop, if you will.

 

Elden Ring is, fundamentally, a souls game. As such, it is an exploratory mystery game, a challenging fantasy action game, a gothic horror survival game, a loot-based runner, a rogue-like dungeon crawler, and even a multiplayer fighting game at times. To varying extents, this was true of all previous souls games. 
However, Elden Ring also adds a new primary genre on top of all those elements: 
Elden Ring is also an open-world game. 

 

That change should, by rights, be the death of excellence in all other micro-genres in which Souls games dabble.

I say that not as a pejorative slight against the open-world genre - I am a great fan of many open world games, and I suffer far less from the general "Open-World-Malaise" that has become a consumer issue over the past five or ten years. I very much enjoy open-world games.

I do, however, have to admit, open-world, as a game category, has a gravitational force stronger than almost any other sub-genre. It's inclusion in a game, or introduction into a game franchise, has a traditionally had a more profound impact on all other sub-genres to which it is mixed than most, in that it tends to redefine the qualitative elements of all other sub-genres.

'Open World' generally means a vast increase in scale, but at a cost. Sometimes, quite a hefty cost. Whether that price is paid in a reduction of gameplay variety, (repeated, 'cookie-cutter missions',) a narrowing of design variability and specificity (modular use of repeated art assets, or a reduction in fidelity,), or a flattening of technical finesse - the price is almost always paid somewhere. 

Elden Ring though, seems to have found the loophole. It robbed that karmic bank, and gets away scot-free.
That Elden Ring seems able to expand its scope so dramatically from previous soulsborne games, apparently free of this trade of, is what makes it really remarkable... and virtually unique in the gaming landscape.

 

The level of detail Elden Ring manages to achieve, on the magnitude scale it does is, frankly, baffling. 
There are games that look amazing, and have enormous worlds - Assassin's Creed's modern incarnation, for example, or Guerrilla's Horizon games, but they sacrifice bespoke design and gameplay to achieve it. The same mission structure and mission types saturate the world map, and side-missions are generally of two or three distinct types. Completing 100% of the game almost always result in open-world-fatigue, as the same enemies and tasks, no matter how good they are initially, are required to be performed over and over - often far beyond their ability to truly engage the player. 

Conversely, there are other games where the design is bespoke and specific and individual across the game, but those game are either far smaller in scale and much more linear in structure, (The Last of Us or Uncharted, for example,) or games where the sole mechanic is exploration. Where simply seeing the game is the game, and there isn't a wealth of other genres mixed into the experience. (Outer Wilds, for example.)

 

Elden Ring is near unique, in that it remains all of those previously mentioned genres conjointly, and not only do all of those elements and genres coalesce in a way that feels complimentary and cohesive, and can seamlessly branch from one dominant genre to another without the player really noticing any hard-change, but it does so without losing any of the finesse its progenitors employed. 

To give an example of what I mean:

 

Are there are 'main-quests' and 'side-quests' in Elden Ring? 
Yes... but the difference is pretty much semantic, unless the player is has prior knowledge of the end results. The actual quests are virtually all bespoke and interesting, taking place in unique or interesting locations, or involving unique or interesting enemy types and bosses. There really aren't any mission 'types', as such. They are not categorised, because each is individual enough to feel separate from every other one. When that is the case, the delineation between 'side' content and 'main' content simply becomes a matter of what level of profundity the designers choose to have each quest affect a final narrative. The actual moment-to-moment is unaffected by the eventual level of influence.

Are there 'main' bosses and 'side' bosses?
You bet... but only in that some are required to advance, and others aren't. There is little indication in a first playthrough though, of which is which, and - crucially - there is little delta in quality between them to give the player clues as to their standing in the overall game structure.

Without the advice of peers, or guides, I'd wager the neophyte player would have virtually no indication of whether the boss they are facing, the quest they are walking, or the dungeon they are crawling is technically 'optional'... they simply have a high quality, intricately designed and fascinatingly lore-riddled challenge to overcome in front of them. One that not only did they discover organically, but that they can be confident that, even if it turns out to be optional, will almost always yield some material benefit upon completion, to go along with their own sense of pride in accomplishment.

 

In fact,I will say here, it's somewhat fascinating that Elden Ring - which, given its size, scope and juggernaut critical and commercial success, will likely be considered Miyazaki's magnum opus - seems, on a number of fronts, to have most in common with the only previous Souls game not directed by Miyazaki himself -Dark Souls II. 
As well as being similar in its more high-fantasy trappings, and more playful, occasionally ridiculous enemy designs, it follows the Dark Souls II gameplay design ethos, in having huge numbers of bosses, of multiple tiers and varying difficulty, and a more sprawling, less vertical and interweaving level design.

 

As said, the scope of Elden Ring humbles the scope of all previous Souls games. To such an extent, in fact, that Elden Ring feels capable of containing entire aspects of all its ancestral games within its sprawling spiders web. 
Indeed, to the Souls-aficionado, Elden Ring can almost feel like traversing a FROMSoft induced fever dream, where sections of all the previous games seep in and out of the cracks of the world - caught in curious parallel universe tracts. Little pools of gaming nostalgia hidden and blended into a vast, misty marshland. 

In one moment, while exploring the Capital of Leyndell, the player might be distinctly reminded of Dark Souls' and Dark Souls 3's Anor Londo, in another, while exploring the first main castle, aspects of Demon's Souls Boletaria will creep into Elden Ring's tapestry. 
If the player stumbles into the Midsommar-esque Windmill Village, they will be delivered curiously Bloodborne-flavoured memories of the Hemwick Charnel, yet when exploring some of the (numerous) poison swamp areas, Demon's Souls' Swamp of Sorrows is impossible to shake from one's mind.
There are lava-strewn areas around the volcanic north-western areas of Elden Ring's map, and snowy, foggy regions in the North East that transport the player back to iconic areas of Dark Souls II, yet a Dark Souls inspired crypt, or a Sekiro-style corridor village is only ever a single exploratory venture away. 

 

There is, in this respect, some interesting parallels to the much lauded Ringed City DLC - the final swan song of the Dark Souls franchise. The Ringed City also dabbled in multi-faceted hitting of nostalgic beats, harkening back to previous elements of the Souls lineage, however, the scope was vastly different. 
The Ringed City felt like a compressed greatest hits album by a favourite band. Elden Ring, on the other hand, feels like the entire back-catalogue of a band, covered by a new, often times superior artist, and blended into their own, unique repertoire, to form a body of work that is enormous, sprawling and varied. 
Some elements feel familiar, others feel wholly unique and new, but what is admirable in Elden Ring is the level to which it all feels a coherent tapestry. Warping from one area to another, the differences in visuals, gameplay style - and even tone - can be stark, however, these myriad changes are blended together so seamlessly when traversing the world directly that the player never really feels disconnected by it. 
A single evening of exploring might result in traversing a village, a ruin, a sewer, a windswept plain and a convoluted and intricately designed castle, but at no point in that evening does the player feel they are 'shifting' from one distinct area to another.

 

Mechanically, the game does retain the feel of traditional Souls games. 
The animation-priority-heavy combat and unforgiving, nuanced combat remains virtually intact in this grander setting. 
The focus on unique weapons and armour, and the ability for the player to customise and play with a myriad of builds and types, combining the many different scaling and combat design elements to tackle the journey is, if anything, even more varied and complex as ever. 
The curious lack of disciplined, straight-laced narrative, and focus instead on deep and mysterious lore-based world, to be uncovered and dissected and parsed at the payers own pace and discretion, and the narrative rewards for doing so remain as they did in previous games, however, all of these elements are more impressive in Elden Ring, simply by not collapsing under the pressure of the new, massive scale.

That they are able to be expanded to the extent they have been to populate such a leap in game-scale, and, (almost more impressively,) that they do not simply fail under the increased weight of the game. Systems such as the upgrading mechanics of weapons still allow for a continual gradient of improvement over the length of the game, however here, they are expanded out to meet the much longer timeframe. The temptation would be to retain the same scaled levelling, and have it stagnate at points - with improvements so drawn out that the game drags, however, here the whole scope of expansion is extended and segmented further. regular weapons, for example, are given 25 levels of improvement, rather than 10, allowing the entire game to still follow a gradient of improvement at a similar clip to previous, shorter game experiences.  

 

 

There are other traditional Souls aspects that are altered by the simple increase in freedom and scale - for better in most cases, but some more curiously, or questionably. 

 

All FROM souls games have a curious take on narrative with regards to NPCs. Rather than the player providing the catalyst for all narrative story points, with non-player characters providing beats within that single player-focussed narrative, FROM games have always treated the player's quest as one of many, running in parallel, and occasionally intersecting or affecting a tapestry of other quests, being played out by the NPCs. The player feels like they are on their own journey, occasionally passing other non-player characters on theirs. These parallel quests are known to the player only to the extent that the NPC offers, or that the player investigates.
In traditional souls games, the more linear structure and smaller game scope always allowed these criss-crossing narratives of quixotic characters to be somewhat guided - while players could potentially miss a character, it was less likely, as the linear nature of the level layouts and primary player quest essentially "funnelled" them into the specific areas where NPCs could be interacted with, in the "correct" order and timeframe. 
Because Elden Ring allows the player to explore the world at their own leisure, however, and with far more scope for visiting areas "out-of-order" on in a scattershot, non-linear manner, the easing of that narrative burden is gone. If the player wishes to follow an NPC character's quest-line in full, they are not likely to simply stumble into each desired encounter by accident. The player is required to pay much closer attention to the individual lines of dialogue those NPCs speak, and look for clues as to their future actions, to have any chance of knowing where thier next crossing of paths might take place. 

 

This is a double edged sword, in terms of design. On the one hand, it makes the whole conceptual idea of multiple non-player characters doing their own quests feel far more organic - a player might miss a character, or stumble on them somewhere they didn't expect, and is required to surmise what their quest was up to that point, and piece together their motives and aspirations. On the other hand, if the thread of a narrative is lost, it can make these NPC encounters feel less coherent, and feel random in a way that they aren't, but without context, can seem. I tend to fall on the side of considering this to be a virtue, rather than a detriment - it certainly increases the likelihood of different playthroughs being distinct, as different NPCs will be encountered depending on player path, however, I acknowledge that it does make single playthroughs far more prone to confusion or simply losing the thread of different NPC narratives.

 

There is also distinct changes to the flow of the game, incurred by the open world design. The ability for the player to 'fast-travel' to grace points (the Elden Ring equivalent of bonfires) from any point on the map, and the ability of the player to simply abandon an area that feels too challenging at the time, in favour of further exploration, and a return when much more powerful, removes some of the "Git Gud"-ity of the series. The player is not likely to encounter the situation of having multiple paths available, all of which feel insurmountable, necessitating either a block-headed endurance test, or mindless level grinding. 

This does remove some factor of the older Soulsborne games, and the punishing nature of them, to some extent, though I see this as a step forward, rather than backwards. The fact is, Elden Ring is vast and open enough that no player ever needs to feel they are "grinding" purely for levels - that "grinding" can take place while enjoying the exploratory parts of the game. Simply leaving a tough boss until later, and going iff in a new direction will likely yield such a wealth of new, interesting lore and gameplay, that the player can easily forget about the part that was troubling them, only to stumble back onto that path some 20 hours later, and find it much more manageable - without ever feeling that they had to "grind" to achieve their newfound victory. They did, but not in any way that is dull, detrimental or exhausting. 

 

 

Visuals are not a marked contrast to previous games stylistically - the vibe is a gothic-adjacent High Fantasy - and the technical visuals and design ethos remains distinctly FROM. However, in terms of fidelity, Elden Ring is the latest in an iterative lineage, and does its fore-bearers proud in that regard. It is now applied to a world of a size and scale never even approached in previous Souls games, but does so without ever compromising the bespoke nature of individual areas, or attention to detail in one off, single location elements. 

 

Like all souls games, the technical artistry on show is perfectly serviceable, but not, it should be stated, bleeding edge. Certainly stacked up against some of the technical graphics powerhouses that are Elden Ring's peers - Horizon Forbidden West, for example - there is no question that Horizon is the more impressive visual spectacle, however, FROM's strongest suit has never been in it's graphical flair, but rather, in its design depth. The mere fact that souls games are able to tell their lore-heavy, narrative-light tales at all, is dependent on each and every element of their design - from environments, to enemy design, to weapons and armour - has a cohesive and specific design signature. In a game where lore is interpreted via player engagement with the clues they find, those clues need to work. The player has to be able to recognise that a particular item, or armour, for example, bears aesthetic similarities to another, indicating a connection. that has always been a strength of FROMs design, but never has it been more of a requirement than in Elden Ring, where the vast size of the world means the player genuinely relies on such clues not only to decipher the obscure story quests, but even simply to decipher the direction they should explore in.

That requires a specificity to every part of the game, and a density of detail to the world that is virtually unheard of in open world games. Truth be told, it was one of the main concerns I had, when first hearing about an open-world Souls game. If the world is to be huge, and vast, and not bound by guided direction, how could FROM possibly maintain their flair for bespoke and individualistic art-styles? 

That focus on unique and varied and individualistic design is not easily scalable, and the temptation is great for the developer to simply sacrifice fine detail in favour of modular design when dealing with the economies of scale a massive world incurs. Just ask Bethesda. Or Ubisoft. Or Bioware, even - (Dragon Age 2, for example, suffered greatly in this regard.)

Most  games deal with vast open worlds in this manner. The world is vast, but individual parts of design are seen repeated all over the land - the same building, the same ruin, the same set of walls in the same formation.  It may not be to the game's detriment necessarily, but is almost always noticeable. Here, I struggle to see it. While I am certain Elden Ring must use this trick in some capacity, over the course of over 150 hours of exploration, I became aware of re-use of level pieces a sum total of once. Several mine entrances appear to use the same Elevator shaft, with the same layout of platforms around the jagged rock face surrounds. 
That was it. That was the only part of a world so massive that I am fully aware I have missed countless locations even after 2 playthroughs, where I noticed the seams. That is virtually unheard of, in gaming.

 

 

In terms of the narrative - or to be specific, the world building and lore which provides the backdrop upon which the minimalist direct narrative is lent its grandeur - Elden Ring is interesting. Much hay was made of the involvement of A Song of Fire and Ice author, professional procrastinator and South-Park-Confirmed penis obsessive George RR Martin, in the crafting of the lore of The Lands Between in which Elden Ring takes place. The general set up of the world is genuinely interesting - alien and convoluted and strange, with a vast history to be uncovered in fractured splinters and curious fragments, though I have trouble genuinely seeing the influence Martin had. Having played the game, it feels far closer to the lore style Miyazaki displayed in previous Souls games than anything on display in A Song of Fire and Ice (or Game of Thrones.) While I'd hesitate to accuse FROM of "stunt casting", and simply involving RR Martin as a crowd-drawing name, I do suspect his involvement was more to the extend of providing Miyazaki and his team with a fresh set of jumping off points, to ensure they did not grow stale, or find themselves repeating themes, than as a genuine writing or creative lead. The FROM lineage is simply too strong and too apparent for his influence to be felt. 

 

This is no great loss, I might add. Whatever the machinations and delineations of the creative process, the final product here is fascinating and very strong. I hesitate to delve into specifics - what constitutes a spoiler in a Souls game is debatable - however, given that discovery of the lore elements forms a driving factor in the player engagement, I simple elect to discuss the game in a broad sense. There is lore, it is good, and - like previous souls games - virtually all detective work on the part of the player is rewarded. The lore has been worked out in such a way, that while little is directly handed to the player, each piece they uncover does fit into the grand jigsaw correctly - they only have to do the work to figure out how.

 

 

Okay, I need to wrap this up!
I am fully aware that this review touches less of the game specifics than I might have liked, or that a reader might have wanted. I guess those can be found easily elsewhere, but here, I'm pretty broad-strokes. The reasons are twofold. 

 

Firstly, I have reviewed every Soulsborne game so far. There are a huge number of factors that feed into the why I believe these games are excellent - and they are poured over in many of those previous reviews, and frankly, Elden Ring is not often doing specific, mechanical things wildly differently. That's a positive, rather than a negative - those elements are done brilliantly there, and brilliantly here. What makes the difference in Elden Ring is not that gameplay specifics are done differently, or even markedly better, but that they are done at such scale.

 

Secondly, it's because the game feels like the culmination of a design ethos, the iterative progression of which I already considered to be superlative. There is only so much hyperbole one review can contain, before it begins to pass through the barriers of obsequious, and enter the realms of "fawning"!

 

The game is, quite simply, sublime. It works on virtually every level, ties together the multiple strands of gameplay that all the previous FROM Soulsborne games weaved, and pulls them together in a way that is masterful... and on a scale that is truly epic. 
It is a really incredible achievement, and one I dare say, is unlikely to be repeated any time soon.

It is an open-world experience like no other - one that benefits from all the positives of a linear game, expands it writ-large, and fails to suffer any real drawbacks in doing so.

 

FROM has managed to do what really shouldn't be possible. 
Not only did they make a Soulsborne game at a scale so big it should, in theory, collapse... but in a single product, they made a thinking-man's action combat game, an action-fan's mystery game, a fantasy-fan's horror game and a narrative-fan's action game...
...and they did it all, while also making an open-world game for people who don't like open-world games. 

 

That's a hell of a thing.

 

 

 

The Ranking:

 

So, here we go...

 

Elden Ring is... better than Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin. 
It just is. 

Is there any single area of Elden Ring that quite reached the personal wonderment and love I have for some of the very best areas of Dark Souls II?

Maybe not...

....but they come very close.

Moreover though, Dark Souls II's entire game could easily be contained within Elden Ring, and that would constitute about a third of Elden Ring's sprawling monster of an experience. 

 

Scale is not everything, but scale without concession of quality... kind of is.
Scale without sacrifice of bespoke design, gameplay quality or individualism of content is not something seen often, and not something that can easily be contended with. While the absolute summits of some of the peaks of Dark Souls II might peek over the horizon of Elden Ring, the sheer magnitude and general qualitative supremacy of Elden Ring is not something that can be eclipsed by mere high-points.

Part of the principle escalating factor that elevated Dark Souls II above all other souls games, for me, was the incredible return value of it - more than any other Souls game, the spider-web design of the world, and the variety of biomes and eclectic mix of NPCs made Dark Souls II the souls game I returned to the most often... but that ends with Elden Ring. I can see myself loading up Elden Ring for a playthrough with a new build every year from now on, and not getting bored. The list of games for which that is true is already very slim for me (Chronotrigger, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario World,) and in none of them, do I feel like the experience will be markedly different each time. With Elden Ring, I suspect, it will be.
That means something.

 

We are looking at the games above Dark Souls II, then.

 

There are a few primary factors that really elevate games on this list. One is replayability. One is scope. Variability of approach, variability of gameplay, and variability of build all make for a high spot too...
...and Elden Ring stands out in every factor.

 

The games above it that dabble in these elements - Prey, Invisible Inc, even Persona 5 - these games stand out in all areas, however, I am forced to concede that they don't do it on the vast scale Elden Ring does, and while there are other factors - narrative / graphics etc. - which do beat out Elden Ring on their respective fronts - the final overall product simply doesn't compete in a 1-to-1 battle.
The highest ranked of these - Invisible Inc - has variety and replayability up the wazoo, but individual biomes and narrative simply don't compete, and on the elements where the two share common design ideals, Elden Ring pips it at the post. 

 

That leaves only Outer Wilds, and Hitman 3 above it.

 

Outer Wilds is a masterful, emotional and cerebral game - one that the initial playthrough of is virtually unique, and which does, I think, eclipse the experience Elden Ring offers at times (particularly emotionally,) however, it is not a game that can be repeated ad-infinitum. It's experience is singular, and not easily repeatable, without a full frontal lobotomy, or a Men In Black style memory eraser!

While I remain a staunch proponent of Outer Wilds, I simply cannot see Elden Ring not placing higher overall.

 

That leaves Hitman 3...

Hitman 3 is also massive.

Not massive in the same way Elden Ring is - it is not interconnected, but it is massive, with all the previous two games contained within it's shell. It is also the one game on this list that offers a level of variety of approach and gameplay that does eclipse Elden Ring. The variety of approach in Hitman 3 allows for a breadth of gameplay that even Elden Ring can't offer. 

While Elden Ring offers multiple builds, you cannot, for example, completely stealth Elden Ring. sooner or later, you are going to be killing enemies in some capacity.

While Elden Ring offers a huge world with multiple environments, there isn't quite the level of distinction that Hitman levels have from one another.

While Elden Ring has exploratory gameplay baked in, I've played Hitman levels I've played 20 times, where I suddenly find whole new areas or paths I didn't know about - so it competes on that front too.

 

I pondered for a long time, but in the end, Elden Ring - like all games before it - does fall at the feet of Agent 47. This is the closest shave Hitman 3 has had - but the bald assassin retains his crown once more. 

 

We do have, however, a new No.2 game!
Take your throne, Elden Ring!

 

 

 

So there we have it folks!

 

Split batch this time, so the two requests from @Platinum_Vice and @rjkclarke will feature in the second part!

 

 

 Hitman 3 remains as 'Current Most Awesome Game'!

LA Cops stays as the worst-of-the-worst, with the title of 'Least Awesome Game'

 

 

What games will be coming along next time to challenge for the top spot... or the bottom rung?

That's up to randomness, me.... and YOU!

 

Remember:

 

SPECIAL NOTE

 

If there are any specific games anyone wants to see get ranked sooner rather than later - drop a message, and I'll mark them for 'Priority Ranking'! 

 

The only stipulation is that they must be on my profile, at 100% (S-Rank)....

 and aren't already on the Rankings! 

 

 

 

Catch y'all later my Scientific Brothers and Sisters! 

Edited April 14, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[Destructor-8]

Nice review.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Destructor-8

[Copanele]

Damn good sir, that Elden Ring review really hit all the high notes  to find its place as the 2nd best game in the list too, that's no small feat! So, SO glad that Miyazaki nailed it again with this game.

And yes, I have to say as well...in terms of "open world-ness", Elden Ring just sent the competition to shame. Not only speaking as a fan, but...considering the alternatives, the only time I got so invested in an open world was the first time I played Skyrim (until I unlocked all cities) and the first island of Kephallonia in AC Odyssey. After that, the games started to drag on, while Elden Ring remained fresh (and only pissed me off in the Haligtree section, but that's on me!). So yeah, game deserves all the accolades.

 

For me, I think Elden Ring will be the best game I will play this year, solely because we compared notes through that status update while discovering stuff, as intended. Just how many other games can get you in that particular state nowadays?  

[DrBloodmoney]

18 hours ago, Destructor-8 said:

 

What a brilliant review dude! The amount of effort you put into this was fantastic especially as you brought up many details that contribute to a game that offers an amazing amount of enjoyment & satisfaction.

 

Thank you mate, I really appreciate that!

 

Truth be told, I was a bit iffy on that one, as the scope of the game is so big, talking specifics was a bit difficult, so it's all kinda broad-brush overview... but then, I'm scared to spoil anything in a game that could easily be the best one people play this year, so was leery about saying anything too detailed!

 

Quote

 

It really is amazing knowing how far From Software has come especially when you go back before the Souls games, plus the part where you mentioned about it being a destination was very true. I think having played many From Software games before the Souls games makes you realise that point even more so especially since the series brought in many new players to From Software games. The game being open world was something that I was definitely interested in & considering the fact that I was very close to starting Bloodborne very recently, I just had to play Elden Ring instead & it's definitely one of the best games I've ever played. The other thing that you mentioned about the open world never feeling like it repeated itself is exactly what I thought as well. It didn't at any point feel like that & I would say at times it was as if I was in a different game almost. The world design is amazing & done so well.

 

It's weird thay managed to do that - must have taken such an effort - and I'll bet all other developers of open-world games are weeping in their beer now - with the numbers Elden Ring sold, they must be thinking "Shit... thanks for raising the bar, asshole! now we gotta compete with this?!"

 

Quote

The quests in Elden Ring at times were a little similar to the ones in 3D Dot Game Heroes although in that game it was a lot easier to completely miss something since you had to do certain things in a particular order before you cleared each temple in the game. I think Zelda had stuff like this at times. I'm not sure if you remember it but there was even a quest in 3D Dot Game Heroes where you had to talk to a developer team between each temple so that you would eventually make a new From Software game within the game lol.

 

I do remember that - that was cool!

 

Quote

That was really well done but it was very easy to miss if you played it naturally. I'm glad you compare it to Zelda also since both of these games offer you that experience that you can get a lot of replay ability from it. I'm glad you rate this game so highly & I also look forward to trying out Bloodborne very soon.

 

I actually think Bloodborne is probably the best one to try right after Elden Ring - it's different enough in style, that the smaller area and more linearity won't feel ike a downgrade - just a different experience! Hell of a game, Bloodborne, I'm confident if you dug Elden Ring, you will more than like Bloodborne too!

 

 

22 minutes ago, Copanele said:

Damn good sir, that Elden Ring review really hit all the high notes  to find its place as the 2nd best game in the list too, that's no small feat! So, SO glad that Miyazaki nailed it again with this game.

 

Thank you sir!

 

Quote

And yes, I have to say as well...in terms of "open world-ness", Elden Ring just sent the competition to shame. Not only speaking as a fan, but...considering the alternatives, the only time I got so invested in an open world was the first time I played Skyrim (until I unlocked all cities) and the first island of Kephallonia in AC Odyssey. After that, the games started to drag on, while Elden Ring remained fresh (and only pissed me off in the Haligtree section, but that's on me!). So yeah, game deserves all the accolades.

 

You know - I've hesitated to recommend it to you specifically, given it's not necessarily in your wheelhouse, given the lack of combat etc., but post Elden Ring, you might want to think about having a look at Outer Wilds. Yes, it's a pure exploration / mystery game, but I think it warrents more attention in a post-Elden Ring world, as it's maybe the only big open world where I think the depth of mystery, the attention to detail, and the really fascinating level of "You get out what you put in" to the exploration really competes!

 

Totally different style of game, and doesn't have any of the Souls-ian stuff to draw you in... but maybe...?

 

Quote

For me, I think Elden Ring will be the best game I will play this year, solely because we compared notes through that status update while discovering stuff, as intended. Just how many other games can get you in that particular state nowadays?  

 

Haha - it's true  - I looked at that thread we had going, and it's like 135 posts long, mostly with some variation of "Holy shit, what was this thing?!"

 

Takes a special kind of massive to support that kind of confusion, and still be awesome at the same time! ?

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[RoastedPeanut]

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Rainbow Moon! I've had an up and down experience with it myself, but I've pretty much wrapped up the 100%. All I've got left is hitting level 500 and racking up 100 hours of game time

[DrBloodmoney]

2 minutes ago, RoastedPeanut said:

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Rainbow Moon! I've had an up and down experience with it myself, but I've pretty much wrapped up the 100%. All I've got left is hitting level 500 and racking up 100 hours of game time

 

That one is in the next batch, so hopefully (work busyness notwithstanding) should be up some point next week! ?

[Copanele]

On 4/15/2022 at 10:05 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

 

You know - I've hesitated to recommend it to you specifically, given it's not necessarily in your wheelhouse, given the lack of combat etc., but post Elden Ring, you might want to think about having a look at Outer Wilds. Yes, it's a pure exploration / mystery game, but I think it warrents more attention in a post-Elden Ring world, as it's maybe the only big open world where I think the depth of mystery, the attention to detail, and the really fascinating level of "You get out what you put in" to the exploration really competes!

 

I might be the millionth person who was thinking "hmm I don't think I have the energy for Outer Worlds right now".

But then I re-read and saw OUTER WILDS. Nice reading skills Copanele, 19/5 would Math again.

Now that I checked some footage WITH THE PROPER NAME on youtube... I have to say I am intrigued. I am not going to buy it right now (sudden irl game called Outer Apartment Furniture occupies my mind...and wallet  ), but it's on the "totally gonna buy this one in the future" list. 

[DrBloodmoney]

Tight!

 

I look forward to your eventual review, after you turn into this:

 

 

Best advice I have - don't worry about anything but simply figuring out what is going on. Everything else will come naturally after that - the advantage to a game that is on a 22 minute time loop, is you never need to worry about any trophy... since every single one can, by necessity, be gotten in under 22 minutes, at any time!

 

Just settle in with your explorer's hat jauntily balanced atop your detective hat (double hats yo! Like Alekhine's Gun ?) and begin peeling that universe like the fascinating artichoke of confusion that it is!

 

Also, make sure to get the version with the Echoes of the Eye in it - I believe it's a good bit cheaper to get them bundled!

[Shrooba]

G'day Doc! Man, it's been a hot minute since I've perused the forums. Congrats on hitting the 1,000 comment milestone, not many threads on this site make it that far, but that's a heck of a lot of documentation of your experiences for sure! I saw your post a month back, and don't worry, your effort on here hasn't gone unnoticed! I can definitely relate to the feeling that writing can be a bit of a slog sometimes, especially since I've been dealing with assignments, but it's great to see you're back at it!

Top notch work with Elden Ring mate, that's a mighty completion right there. I've seen memes of people being paranoid from trickery that they'd even hit chests several times to ensure they wouldn't get baited. Reminds me of the Reaper in Persona 4 Golden! If I'm correct, I believe even that thing randomly popped out of chests as well! ?.......... Still debating getting a Vita just for it, but knowing my luck Atlus is gonna port the damn thing the moment I put a good chunk of money into it!

But in any case, it would seem that Agent 47 rises triumphant evermore... that sly spy truly can take care of any foe!

Edited April 19, 2022 by Shrooba

[rjkclarke]

I thought I'd better jump in and post something before you end up posting the next batch, and I have to write a gargantuan post about all the awesome reviews that you will have dropped all at once, thankfully I have three to mention this time, so for me it might be relatively short.

 

BUT FIRST....... It's awesome to have you back writing more regular reviews, it really is!  I can totally get why you'd give yourself a break for a bit though, you more than deserved a rest and recharge after the absolute truckload of awesome reviews you've given us in the last year. 

 

Nice to have three more!

 

On 14/04/2022 at 10:34 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

 

Midnight Deluxe

 

I really enjoyed reading this!

 

I know this might seem like an odd thing to single out for some people, as a lot of people tend to just see one thing with this game. A review like this, is absolutely the upside to not talking about trophies all too much in your reviews. Purely because you reviewed this for what it is, a game. I appreciate that, because outside of the fact I know it has pretty simple trophies, I've never really had all that much inkling as to what exactly was going on in it.

 

I think you're one of the only people I've seen on this site to take a crack at actually fairly reviewing this without the whole "LOL EZPZ PLATINUM" thing getting in the way, like it does for some. Nice to see that it has a slight build in difficulty, that's pretty important in a puzzle game I find, even if it isn't a particularly complicated or difficult one like this. 

 

It's interesting that both this and 36 Fragments of Midnight seem to have a bit of uniformity to them from a design standpoint, in a multitude of areas. I'm assuming you'll be covering Birthday of Midnight at some point, so it'll be interesting to see if that bleeds into that games design too.

 

Great to read about City Connection - one of these days I really feel as if I need to pick some of those up, so many of those games I've never played, and it seems fascinating to be able to delve into them on a modern console. Especially when as you've mentioned in previous ones too, that the games themselves usually remain fairly intact, when being ported to modern consoles. I like that, as it'd essentially feel like playing a bit of history, or one of those interactive museum exhibits!

 

 

On 14/04/2022 at 10:34 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

 

Elden Ring

 

 

Absolutely fantastic love letter to this game man!

 

This is one that I've pretty much always been sure that I'd play in the future, and to read what a wonderful experience you had with it, definitely tells me that I've got something really awesome to look forward to, whenever it is I actually get around to playing this!

 

This oddly makes me even more excited for Hitman 3, as this awesome game failed to dethrone it, so that game must be something truly very special. Judging by both your time with it and Smevz, I think that's going to be a real fun one!

 

I'm so tempted to just pull loads of bits of that review out and comment on specific areas, but I feel like if I did, I'd be here all night, but I'll do a couple, because I can't resist! .

 

On 14/04/2022 at 10:34 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

Most  games deal with vast open worlds in this manner. The world is vast, but individual parts of design are seen repeated all over the land - the same building, the same ruin, the same set of walls in the same formation.  It may not be to the game's detriment necessarily, but is almost always noticeable. Here, I struggle to see it. While I am certain Elden Ring must use this trick in some capacity, over the course of over 150 hours of exploration, I became aware of re-use of level pieces a sum total of once. Several mine entrances appear to use the same Elevator shaft, with the same layout of platforms around the jagged rock face surrounds. 
That was it. That was the only part of a world so massive that I am fully aware I have missed countless locations even after 2 playthroughs, where I noticed the seams. That is virtually unheard of, in gaming.

 

Bloody hell man! That is some impressive feat, for a game that big, to have so few noticeably reused assets. I don't personally mind that too much anyway, it's just part and parcel with open world games sometimes. But wow, that is so impressive for them to create a world so varied, that an Elevator shaft is the glaring thing you notice of a reused asset.

 

That is a painstaking attention to detail that must have gone into that, and it almost gives me a MIND= BLOWN type of expression just thinking about that haha! MUST RESIST URGE TO BUY! 

 

On 14/04/2022 at 10:34 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

n terms of the narrative - or to be specific, the world building and lore which provides the backdrop upon which the minimalist direct narrative is lent its grandeur - Elden Ring is interesting. Much hay was made of the involvement of A Song of Fire and Ice author, professional procrastinator and South-Park-Confirmed penis obsessive George RR Martin, in the crafting of the lore of The Lands Between in which Elden Ring takes place. The general set up of the world is genuinely interesting - alien and convoluted and strange, with a vast history to be uncovered in fractured splinters and curious fragments, though I have trouble genuinely seeing the influence Martin had. Having played the game, it feels far closer to the lore style Miyazaki displayed in previous Souls games than anything on display in A Song of Fire and Ice (or Game of Thrones.) While I'd hesitate to accuse FROM of "stunt casting", and simply involving RR Martin as a crowd-drawing name, I do suspect his involvement was more to the extend of providing Miyazaki and his team with a fresh set of jumping off points, to ensure they did not grow stale, or find themselves repeating themes, than as a genuine writing or creative lead. The FROM lineage is simply too strong and too apparent for his influence to be felt. 

 

This is no great loss, I might add. Whatever the machinations and delineations of the creative process, the final product here is fascinating and very strong. I hesitate to delve into specifics - what constitutes a spoiler in a Souls game is debatable - however, given that discovery of the lore elements forms a driving factor in the player engagement, I simple elect to discuss the game in a broad sense. There is lore, it is good, and - like previous souls games - virtually all detective work on the part of the player is rewarded. The lore has been worked out in such a way, that while little is directly handed to the player, each piece they uncover does fit into the grand jigsaw correctly - they only have to do the work to figure out how.

 

It's great to see that the lore still maintains a very rich high quality to it, doubly impressive when you consider the sheer scope of the game...... The George RR Martin thing, I'm personally not too bothered about, the minute I saw people going nuts that he was involved my intitial reaction was *cough* stunt casting *cough* or the writing equivalent of that, so it's funny you specifically mentioned that specific phrase ?!

 

It felt like something that was done just to give a bit more publicity and shine to the game. There's nothing wrong with that, and certainly if more people jumped in who wouldn't have done otherwise, then in the end that's no bad thing, to use Martin's name to get more eyes on the game.

 

I'll try really hard when I play it not to message you out of the blue like a fanny, saying things like "WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THIS PART" or something equally inane probably ?! It should be fun to be able to have a more open discussion about it in future though.

[Destructor-8]

That's cool.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Destructor-8

[DrBloodmoney]

On 26/04/2022 at 0:30 PM, Destructor-8 said:

Yeah I really don't know many people who know about 3D Dot Game Heroes & even less who have even played it. I saw you also have Moonlighter to play which seems quite similar too. I always like any game that is similar to Zelda & that's one of the reasons why I even did 3D Dot Game Heroes since that's based on it. I'm not sure when I will play Moonlighter so I'm sure you will get around to it first. I'll definitely be interested in knowing what it's like & how it compares as a Zelda kind of game.

 

You know, Moonlighter has been sitting right at the top of my Indie pile for ages - it just keeps getting pipped at the post by single games that come along and jump the queue!

First it was Death's Door, then Dead Cells had all it's DLC, then Slay the Spire stole me away... too many games!

I will get to Moonlighter eventually... but there's just not enough hours in the day!

 

On 26/04/2022 at 0:30 PM, Destructor-8 said:

Yeah I'll definitely be playing Bloodborne soon as it's the one that seems the most similar. I really did like it a lot when I tried it out so when I get around to Bloodborne then I will let you know how I find it.

 

Awesome - I look forward to it!

 

 

 

 

☢️☢️SCIENCE NOTE☢️☢️

 

Sorry Science Chums - I know I said:

 

On 15/04/2022 at 8:30 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

 next batch, so hopefully (work busyness notwithstanding) should be up some point next week! 

 

...well, that work busyness came a-calling, and then some! 

 

Due to various... disasters crises clusterfucks catastrophes challenges.... my free time has dwindled to sweet F-all recently!

I've managed to write up my time with Weird West, but that's about it - I'm not abandoning anything, but I really need to stop promising reviews, as real life keeps making a liar outta me!

Will come when it comes, I'm afraid!

 

 

[DrBloodmoney]

 

  NEW SCIENTIFIC RESULTS ARE IN! 

 

 

Hello Science-Sams and Science-Dianes, as promised (and in some cases requested), here (finally!) are the latest results of our great scientific endeavour!

 

 

 

 

Mark of the Ninja: Remastered

 

Summary: 

The remastered release of Klei's 2012 Xbox / Windows exclusive Mark of the Ninja across all platforms in 2018 - like its original incarnation - met with near universal acclaim and critical adoration. Indeed, across the small handful of Xbox exclusive indies that had subsequent releases on Playstation, it is hard to find a single example more critically lauded - with the possible exception of MDHR's boss-rush bullet-hell art-splosion Cuphead. 

 

That Mark of the Ninja is developed by Klei almost certainly gives away enough of my own opinion on the game to any long-term science chum, without even going into the specifics of the game. As mentioned in the review of one-time No.1 spot holder, and current No.4 on this list, Invisible Inc - Klei are something of a gaming oddity. The Unicorn of game development houses.
There are few enough developers who are able to create games with a level of competency and mastery that borders on perfect, and those who do generally do so by specialising in a single genre. Their ability to craft masterful games generally comes from years of iteration and compounding improvement within their chosen genre. It's greatness, born of extreme specialisation.
Developers who do what Klei does - jumping from genre to genre with each game - very rarely ever hit the level of quality genre-specialist developers do. Mastery rarely comes in a single step.
Klei, however, are the anomaly. With the exception of Shank, which did get a direct sequel, all of their games tackle a different genre, yet each one is of such supreme quality as to compete - and often out-and-out best - similar offerings from long-time genre staples.

 

Shank/ Shank 2 are the only brawlers they have made, and they are great examples of the genre.
Don't Starve is a survival game, and it's sales and long-term support speak for themselves.

Invisible Inc is their only turn-based strategy game, and not only is it is one of the best I've played in that genre, it's also one of the best games I've played across any genre. 

 

Mark of the Ninja is an important pillar in that argument too. 
It is Klei's only action-stealth game to my knowledge... yet within the 2D stealth space, I'm unable to recall any game that even competes with it in terms of competency, style, class, artistry, or simple good fun.

 

Taking the role of an unnamed ninja after his clan is savagely attacked by the armed PMC forces of Hessian, an Eastern European conglomerate, for reasons unbeknown to him, his fellow surviving clan members, his sensei, or the player. Across a 13-level, 10-15 hour journey, the player slices and dices his stealthy way through enemies, seeking both revenge, and understanding of why the attack took place.

The story in the game is simple, but well told. In-mission dialogue will happen, for example, when fellow ninja Ori accompanies the protagonist on several occasions, however, the bulk of the pulpy, blade-noire tale is told in animated cut-scenes. These use Klei's flair for stylish art-design to great effect, pairing the well-acted voice-work with the Saturday-morning-cartoon style visuals. The actual animation style is a Klei staple - some variation of which has been seen in both Shank games, Invisible Inc, and in their latest game, Griftlands - and it works every time, though I'd wager that the cut-scenes in Mark of the Ninja are arguably the most successful version of them. (For those unfamiliar with Klei games, think Johnny Bravo / Samurai Jack style, crossed with the Batman Animated Series.)

 

The whole game, in fact, uses this signature style, and it really looks gorgeous. Like Invisible Inc, Mark of the Ninja requires a lot of information to be presented to the player at all times, and since the difference between success and failure is a knife-edge, the player must never be in doubt about what they are trying to achieve, what obstacles they face, and what tools are at their disposal. Also like in Invisible Inc, Klei not only manage to present all this information effectively, but they do so so cohesively within their own artistic style, that the qualitative level of the art can almost gloss over what a great job they do technically. The game looks so darned good - both static and in motion - that the amount of technical information it is conveying becomes simply innate. The player doesn't feel like they are being overwhelmed, because even the elements that are there to guide them and present information, look cool and appropriate within the artistic palate. 

 

Mark of the Ninja really does look great - across the board. Many developers make stylish games, but the list is shorter when you include all aspects of their products - not just the game itself, but the UI, the menus, the visual stings and camera work. Arkane, Supergiant, Atlus... there are a few who boast that whole package consistently, and Klei is certainly one of them.

 

The audio is, as said, is high quality - if curiously sparse at times.  There isn't much music in the general gameplay, with the levels tending towards mostly ambient, brooding tones or environmental sounds, but voice work is very good - moody, self-serious and course, in a style befitting the grindhouse, exploitation-cinema tone the game aims for perfectly. The use of audio stings when taking actions is brilliant - both adding to the incredible style of the game, and giving the player plenty of necessary feedback as the moves are executed, or when there is a change in their visibility status or danger.

 

All of this is great stuff, of course, however, where Mark of the Ninja really shines brightest is in its mechanical gameplay. Make no mistake, not only do I believe Mark of the Ninja to be the single best example of a 2D stealth game I have played... if it were not for the efforts of IO Interactive in crafting the current Hitman Trilogy, or Arkane creating their Dishonoured series, I would almost assuredly be holding Mark of the Ninja up as the best stealth game, period.

 

Klei demonstrate - at virtually every turn - their knack for making the player be simultaneously weak enough to be under constant threat, yet strong and versatile enough that they can deal with anything. Not to go off on too much of a tangent, but I believe this is arguably the optimum position for any game - and the perfect splitting-the-difference between old-style games and new-style ones.
 
To explain: 
In older games (Pre-PSOne, I would argue,) the tendency was for the player to be underpowered. Gameplay tended to come from the feeling of oppressive danger, and the fun was in the avoidance of that danger, and the overcoming of it. This was mostly born out of arcade-design, where continual desire to pull in more quarters led developers to favour crushing difficulty. 

In newer games though (Post PSOne,) the tendency was for overpowered characters - gameplay was about dominating the game, and feeling like the player was destroying everything / saving the whole world / becoming virtually invincible as they climb a skill tree or level up a character. Games went from a danger-fantasy, to a power-fantasy. That allowed more people into gaming, but left behind some of the original, more 'hardcore' players, who felt games had softened.

 

That's a black-and-white, unannounced statement of course -  and there are games that come along to serve both camps now.  
The simultaneous popularity of FROMSoft's souls games, precision platformers, and the meteoric rise of rogue-likes, all happening in parallel with the general softening of "Triple A" difficulties and the introduction of more assist modes etc., and the rise of less challenging, more "experiential games" clearly attests to both camps being served...
...but games are often one or the other. 

Rarely does a game manage to split the difference - be both punishing of failure, making the player feel weak, yet give them all the tools to overwhelm the game, making them feel strong - and balance those two elements correctly.

Invisible Inc does it. The Arkham games, to some extent do it - particularly in the "Predator" sections. Hitman does it...

....and Mark of the Ninja does it.

 

The player is not overly robust - a few mistakes will see them slaughtered pretty quickly, however, with smart play, the player is able to absolutely dominate the game. Enemies are both to be feared, and pitied. If they catch you off guard, they will make short work of you... but give you the upper hand, and they'll never know what hit them!

 

Movement and control feel blisteringly good - there's a staccato rhythm to the movement, where the ninja protagonist moves slowly and methodically when walking or creeping, but each action - be it jumping, flipping or slicing up an enemy - happens lightning quick, meaning the player has ample time to review the environment when planning, yet retain confidence in their ability to suddenly spring into action as required. It's fitting for the genre, of course, and the subject material - a Ninja should be methodical and careful, yet strike like lightning - and combining that with the beautiful hand-animated style of the game, and the smooth, brutal moves of the eponymous Ninja never fails to make the player feel like a complete bad-ass!

 

If Mark of the Ninja has a failing, it is simply this:
The game is fairly short. At 13 levels (some fairly long, but still,) it doesn't last terribly long, and unlike Invisible Inc, there is no variable, rogue-like element. The levels do not change, so once mastered, tend to be done and dusted. However, while the game does not necessarily have the baked-in replayability of a rogue-like, it does feature scores based on the style and finesse with which the player completes each level, meaning repetition of levels does offer some room for improvement, giving some excuse for the player to re-engage with the game post-completion, (as if the sheer fun and cool factor of the game was not enough!

 

Overall, Mark of the Ninja Remastered is pretty fantastic. Not a game likely to be replayed and replayed with the fervour and intensity of a rogue-like, but in the 15-20 hours it takes to master, it leaves such an impression - stylistically, mechanically, and artistically - that it not only never wears out its welcome... it leaves the player hungry for more. 

 

 

The Ranking:

Well, looks like I've done some of the ranking work already!

I've already said that I think Mark of the Ninja is the best 2D stealth game I've played, but that as supreme as it is, I do not quite think its overall package is on the level of the current Hitman games, or Dishonoured. While it certainly competes, (and arguably surpasses both,) in terms of raw style and fidelity of controls, the sheer volume of variability in those games is simply undeniable, and allows for far more variety than even Mark of the Ninja can offer.

 

That places it below Dishonoured (the lowest ranked of those games,) and with me looking down the list at some other stealth or stealth-adjacent games.

 

The first one to pop out is actually the current highest ranked Assassin's Creed game - Assassin's Creed Revelations. That is a much grander, much more sweeping and longer game but, despite my personal love for it, it does have numerous flaws. While I think it does a lot of things very well, I struggle to think of any element it does with quite the style, flair and pure mechanical finesse Mark of the Ninja has across the board. That means the only things Revelations is competing with are its length, and its multiplayer... and while both are welcome, neither is justification for it out-ranking Mark of the Ninja.

 

That puts us in-between then, and in the absence of direct genre peers, looking instead at shorter, high-quality indie games of comparable length and quality. Two come immediately to mind, both from Supergiant: Pyre and Bastion.
I actually found this one relatively easy - Pyre is so wildly original in premise, and has so much unique about it, that it trumps Mark of the Ninja, which is simply a superlative version of a game genre that already existed elsewhere. 
Bastion, on the other hand, is difficult. It is also a superlative version of an existing genre, and both it and Mark of the Ninja represent some of the best of their respective styles. 

 

It comes down to points - Bastion takes it on music, voice work and artistic visuals (just,) however, Mark of the Ninja takes it on variability, mechanics, technical artistry and sound design.

It's an absolute photo finish between these two (if ever I wanted to give a joint placement, this is it!) - however, there can be only one victor, and so by a hair...

...Mark of the Ninja takes it for me!
No slight on The Kid... but The Ninja just came at you from the shadows!

 

 

 

 

 

Rainbow Moon

 

Summary: 

A retro-in-mechanics, modern-in-visuals tactical RPG from (the aptly named) Sidequest Studios, 2012's Rainbow Moon is something of a love-letter to the 16-bit glory days of the JRPG - attempting to recapture some of the good, (and some of the not-so-good,) elements of that era - and wrapping them together in a visual style that is clean, crisp and entirely modern.

 

The plot is simple in premise: Baldren, the primary protagonist, finds himself stranded on the eponymous (and once peaceful) moon by some cosmic happenstance. The same event that dropped him there also manifested (or transported) a veritable menagerie of monsters for him to fight alongside with the friends he makes along the way, as he sets out to find his way back home.

 

That about sums up the overarching narrative. There is a fairly heavy amount of dialogue in the game (written, rather than voice acted,) which does give the feel of something like a Chronotrigger or a SNES-era Final Fantasy, however, narrative is very much secondary to mechanical gameplay here. For all the text back-and-forth between the characters - ranged rogue character Trisha, plate-armoured tank Dozeru, glass-cannon Gorodo and mystical mage Serena - there is remarkably little real meat to any of it. Character backgrounds are relatively limited and broadly archetypal, and the basic premise means there really isn't much in the way of character development or character arcs beyond Baldren's basic one.

Missions too, tend to be quite simplistic in nature. It's possible this is entirely deliberate - the developer looking to ape the more basic design of 16-bit era JRPGs by keeping the missions to a fairly simple "fetch quest" / "kill all enemies" / "collect all X" style, as those kind of side missions did tend to permeate those games, however, the great JRPGs of that era did a much better job of dressing those quests up with flavour dialogue, and with more varied locations. In Rainbow Moon, the desire to ape those old games seems to have resulted in a game that follows the old basic shapes, but failed to colour them in. From a mechanical point of view, it feels like a tracing over of a great painting - it's recognisably the thing it is supposed to be, but lacks the heart and soul that made the original great.

 

That is not necessarily a huge negative in shorter games (I would argue there is some of the same issues in retro RPGs like I Am Setsuna, or Cosmic Star Heroine, both of which are superiors games to Rainbow Moon,) however, those games have more interesting overall plots, and clock in around the 15-25 hour mark. Rainbow Moon, on the other hand, runs closer to the 70-100 hour mark. In a game as long as that, I do think the lack of meaningful narrative beats or emotive content can add to the feeling of mindlessness that the grinding-heavy mechanics already invite. 

Even games like the Disgaea Series, which traffic in the extreme end of the lengthly grind-a-thon find ways to elevate their narrative elements above the pedestrian, to keep the game feeling cohesive and maintain some sense of momentum. They are also more comedic in nature, and prone to be fairly funny. Rainbow Moon is not really - despite occasional goofy jokes, the general tone is relatively self-serious, and the thinness of the plot, coupled with that means the game is simply not able to sustain interest for the absurd amount of time it asks of the player.

 

Where the game does make up for this lack of narrative engagement to some extent, however, is in its combat mechanics. Fighting enemies will happen a lot in the game, (both at random, Final Fantasy-style, and via encounters with on-map enemies, a-la Chronotrigger,) and here, the game is a pretty resounding success. The game splits the difference between extreme tactical games like Disgaea and Final Fantasy Tactics, and the pure turn-based combat of a Chronotrigger / main-line Final Fantasy.

Operating on a grid system, each character has different strengths and weaknesses, and different attacks with different areas of effect, and the balance struck between tactical play and flashy, fun super-moves is slick, neat and a tonne of fun. (It's a very different game, but I actually think the combat here is reminiscent in style and difficulty to the second South Park RPG, The Fractured But Whole, albeit with a little more variety and scale.

The combat feels good, and is the one area of the game that, to some extent, justifies and sustains its length. It remains fun long after the player has all but given up on caring about the plot or fate of the characters, beyond their use as a damage delivery device to be unleashed upon the monsters of the world.

 

Visually, Rainbow Moon is an interesting case, as I think its a very nice looking game, but one whose style I just never really gelled with in this context. The bright, crisp, clean lines of everything - including the text and in-combat damage numbers - has a modern, iOS-style, that makes the game look very nice in motion, however, I think that same art-style tends to work against the RPG mechanics. RPGs are about grandiosity and adventure - about seeing new things, and encountering terrifying beasts. Because all enemies work on the grid system, they tend to be a little underwhelming looking, even when the designs are interesting. The world, because it is rendered with the same sheen, and is all of broadly the same terrain style, tends to look more like a strategy game, (think Civilisation / Age of Empires,) and so there is little scope for any real "Wow factor" when seeing a new area for the first time. 

 

It's a hard thing to articulate, but I feel like RPGs rely on some measure of cinematic splendour to convey the grandness of the tales they tell. Because Rainbow Moon's story is rather rote and its characters fairly one-note, and because its art-style tends to limit that grandness of scope to fit the iOS-style they go for, the result is a broadly good looking looking game that never manages to really engage the player.

Nothing ever looks less than "nice"... but nothing ever looks more than that either.

 

Audio is similarly hamstrung. The up-beat, "adventure-in-your-pocket" type tunes that make up the score are all quite pleasant, but not much more than that, and over the length of the game, can tend to become a little stale. It's understandable - I'd argue no amount of music can remain awesome after 100 hours - however, it's a little more egregious here than in most cases, simply because the composer seems to have had the same issue I did. With few emotional narrative hooks to work with, the score ends up being rather milquetoast - an impersonation of the JRPGs it owes its allegiance to, rather than a great new example of them.

 

One final element I will touch on is the micro-transactional nature of the game. There are two different upgrade / purchase currencies in the game, and both are for sale for real money.

Now... I am generally unaffected and unperturbed by micro-transactions in games. I've seen examples of games where such real-life purchasing of in-game currency was possible (Assassin's Creed Unity, for example,) yet I never felt the game was pushing them hard, and the game felt balanced without them. They were there for people who wanted them, but the game didn't feel artificially lengthened or requiring overly long stretches of grinding to achieve the same result that buying them would.

In Rainbow Moon, I also did not purchase any micro-transactional stuff... but I did feel that push. Part of that might simply be a smoke-screen - I my have simply felt that the game was too long by design, and there just happened to also be micro-transactions available - but in this case, I do think the narratively barren parts of the game - particularly in the end game - felt almost absurdly long and grindy. That may not have been done explicitly to encourage micro-transactional purchases... but I'm sceptical.

Overall, Rainbow Moon is a good, light tactical combat game, wrapped in an over long, not particularly engaging RPG, with an art-style that looks nice, but seems to work against the genre it plays in. It's not a terrible game - there is merit to the combat, and at times the grinding and upgrading of weapons and skills can be satisfying, particularly to those who remember doing so in the JRPGs of my childhood era... but the issue is, those games that Rainbow Moon throws back to were just fundamentally better across the board.

Good combat can sustain a game alone, but not really a game of this length. That length feels misguided in a variety of ways, not least of which being that the games Rainbow Moon aims to evoke were never that long - even with their more engaging narratives. 

 

Fundamentally, Rainbow Moon wants to remind you of those older JRPGs. The problem is, it succeeds. 
It does just enough to remind you of those old games... then lets you spend 100 hours remembering why they were so much better than the one you're playing.

 

 

 

The Ranking:

The first point of comparison is clear on the ranking: equally "thowback-but-not-quite-getting-it" RPG, Adventure of Mana. 

 

Adventure of Mana was pretty rote and uninteresting however, and didn't really have any great elements in its favour. Rainbow Moon does have its combat, which is something. Also, I would argue that as much as I don't think Rainbow Moon's visuals help it, they are significantly more interesting and cool looking than Adventure of Mana's. 

 

That places Rainbow Moon comfortably above the low-ranked Adventure of Mana, however, the next RPG game is quite a bit further up the list, in the form of Deathspank.

Deathspank is a comedic game in nature - poking a little fun at the genre, rather than plucking at the nostalgia strings, however, even as a straight RPG, I think it is more successful than Rainbow Moon. Deathspank's weakest element is its combat, in opposition to Rainbow Moon, however, every other element outclasses Rainbow Moon. It is successfully funny, whereas Rainbow Moon is unsuccessfully serious, and its very basic mission structure is done as parody, rather than earnest attempt at nostalgia. 

 

That puts Rainbow Moon somewhere in between those two games, and in the age-old quandary of having no real direct peers to go against. It has to come down to "which is more awesome?" to games in that bracket, based on gut feel.

I do feel like Rainbow Moon is in the upper end of that collection of games, so I worked down from Deathspank, and the first game to which the answer was "Yes, Rainbow Moon is more awesome,"...
...was curious, but ultimately unsuccessful PS Vita 3rd person shooter Unit 13.

 

As such, Rainbow Moon finds its spot!

 

 

 

 

 

The Swapper

 

Summary: 

An independently developed puzzle platformer released for Windows in 2013, subsequently ported to PS3 in 2014, The Swapper has all the hallmarks of a blistering debut game from a soon-to-be-a-household-name indie developer. It's a short, extremely polished, highly original and interesting game boasting a plethora of ideas and showcasing a lot of talent and promise...

...which makes it all the more bizarre that it was the only game made by its creators under the banner of that development house - Helsinki-based Facepalm Games.  

 

While some of the names attached have worked elsewhere, (most notably, the writer, Tom Jubert, also wrote for FTL: Faster than Light and The Talos Principle,) it seems The Swapper was Facepalm Games' only project working together as a team... which is a shame, given the game it resulted in!

 

In terms of gameplay, as said, The Swapper is a puzzle-platformer - in this case, with a capital "P" Puzzle, and a small-case "platformer."

Mechanically, the game is simple - almost jarringly so - the entire game relies on continually compounding, smart use of single mechanic. Create clones of yourself, and swap your consciousness into it, leaving your previous self 'empty'. 

That might seem sparse as a mechanic for an entire game on paper, however, I would only remind anyone thinking in those terms to remember Portal / Portal 2... as The Swapper has more than a few similarities in terms of design. Like Portal, the sole interactive puzzle solving mechanism is available right from the beginning, and the puzzles increase in complexity by requiring the player to think of new ways to use that single mechanic, as opposed to the more Braid / Superliminal approach, of adding new mechanics for different areas as the game progresses.

Neither is preferable necessarily - there are, of course, excellent examples on both camps - though I do suspect that the Portal / The Swapper design is the more difficult version to craft. That method requires the sole input mechanic to be so versatile and interesting as to both keep the player engaged for the full game, and also to allow for many different applications, to different situational effects.

 

The puzzles in The Swapper are very well made, and surprisingly varied. In another similarity to the Portal series, the puzzles can take a while to figure out, but once realised, the solutions come like a eureka moment - feeling so simple and obvious that the player is baffled they took so long to realise. That's a hard thing to achieve - the very best puzzle games skirt a thin line between too easy and too hard - making the player feel smart when they solving a puzzle, but not making them feel stupid for struggling on one. Portal, The Witness, Braid, Superliminal - these games all achieve that balance... and The Swapper should absolutely be considered in the same breath.

 

In fact, The Swapper is one of the very few games I have played that has at least one genuine "Oh my God Moment" - that most ethereal and rare of gaming highs, that I am always impressed by! (See my The Witness review, for a longer explanation!)

Because the puzzles at various stages require the player to make use of their clone-swapping mechanic to new and interesting results, it is virtually impossible for the player to complete the game without at least one or two moments of crystal-clear, bolt-from-the-blue understanding of the possibilities open to them - recontextualising their previous gameplay and refocussing their own relationship with the mechanics of the game at large. 

 

Narrative in The Swapper is sparsely delivered, told primarily through environmental clues, with only the occasional text log or piece of written lore, and some minimal voice work, however, the story it tells is a genuinely good, and rather poignant one. 
Set in the far future, when humanity has exhausted its resources, one explorer science vessel discovers a race of telepathic beings known as Watchers, whose dominance over the power of consciousness allows them to create "swapping" technology - the ability for a persons consciousness to be swapped into another clone body. The colony fell into ruin as proximity to the telepathic Watchers destroys the minds and bodies of the crew, however, a few scientists remain alive and trapped. When the player character - a scavenger - docks on the ship by happenstance via an escape pod, (and comes into possession of a the technology the scientists developed,) they are spoken with by a scientist with (seemingly) multiple personality disorder, and guided towards either rescuing them, or killing the Watchers... depending on which personality is to be believed.

 

Without delving into spoilers, the narrative is clever, well thought out, and playing in the kind of hard-sci-fi realms that SOMA played in. There is clear, heavy inspiration from the likes of Solaris and Moon and the novels of Philip K Dick and Richard K Morgan. Narrative isn't the true focus here - the mechanics and puzzles take centre stage, and so it would be forgivable for the story to be rather throwaway. The fact that The Swapper's is genuinely compelling, thought-provoking, wistful, scary and deeply sad at times - and as well told as it is - is a pleasant and very welcome bonus.

 

Something that really must be addressed in The Swapper is the visuals. They are both outstanding, and blisteringly different and original. While the basic game is relatively simple - platforms and corridors on a flat 2D plane - there is one element that really set it apart from virtually all other games... and that element is clay.
Everything in The Swapper's environments, from the terrain, to the alien objects, to the interactive elements were first created in real-life as clay scale-models, then scanned in 3D, to create the in-game objects. The result, combined with the darkness of the general environments and the excellent lighting model used in game, is a very strange, truly unique art-style - peculiarly tactile and close, yet alien and unusual. It's not a visual style I could really have imagined working on paper, and probably not one replicable in a larger, brighter or more earth-based game, however, here, the oddness of the art combined with the sombre tone and hard-sci-fi narrative works to create an overall pastiche of gloomy, alien dissonance that works shockingly well.

 

Audio is interesting, if arguably the weakest element of a strong game. 

Like Mark of the Ninja, The Swapper also elects not to have much in the way of scoring during the gameplay, instead favouring ambient environmental sounds, though the effect is a little different here. In Mark of the Ninja, that decision was purely stylistic. In The Swapper, it is tonal - the echoey, hollow silence in which the players actions, or drips from stalactites above... or the crumple of a discarded clone body falling to its death... feeds the lonely, isolated tone of the narrative. There is some occasional scoring using ominous, brooding tones, and it works well, though that element is never a particular stand-out.

The actual sound design of objects and interactions all work fine, and contracted to the sombre silence, they echo and reverberate nicely, helping the tone, but never really elevating it on their own.

Voice work is decent, though the minimal amount of it and the nature of it as militaristic or scientific tends to keep it tonally steady, and doesn't allow for a huge amount of range or scope for dramatics by the cast of voice actors.

Overall, The Swapper is a great indie puzzler, a fantastic example of the "single-mechanic puzzler" generally.
A mechanically solid, artistically interesting, narratively intriguing and generally great fun game, which while short and sweet, and lacking in repeatability, is virtually guaranteed to hold the players attention for the duration of a playthrough.

 

 

The Ranking:

The first game that came to mind as a comparison point was via narrative and themes - probably The Swapper's closest cousin on the current ranking - is SOMA.

The crossover points are more than skin deep there too: while SOMA is 3D first person, and The Swapper is 2D platformer, both are indie puzzle games, of similar length and sold at similar price points.

In terms of pure puzzles, The Swapper absolutely takes the win, however, as good as the story is in The Swapper, it isn't quite on the same level, or works quite as well as SOMA's did. The Swapper looks super cool - it's a wild aesthetic - however, SOMA is no slouch in the visuals department, and even though it never does anything as original with the visuals as The Swapper does, I don't recall ever feeling anything in SOMA looked anything less than great. Add the better voice work and sound in SOMA, and it takes the overall win. 

 

Looking down the list then, I started looking just a puzzle games generally, and rather quickly the field was able to be narrowed by one: Quantum Conundrum.

While Quantum Conundrum has to take it on pure puzzle goodness - there are many more, and with more variety - The Swapper outclasses it on narrative, visuals and audio. Quantum Conundrum is the longer game of course, but the narrative really is throwaway there, (deliberately so,) and the visuals are fine, but relatively pedestrian.

 

That leaves us somewhere in between Quantum Conundrum and SOMA, with little direct comparison. Once again, it comes down to looking at random games within that field, and asking "Would I replay The Swapper before replaying this game?"

 

For Observation, the answer was no... 
...for Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, it was yes.

For Beyond Good and Evil HD, it was a hesitant no... 
...for Afterparty, a difficult yes.

 

In the small gulf between, the breaking point seemed to be between LA Noire, and Darksiders II.

As such, The Swapper finds its spot!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

⚛️⚛️BONUS GAMES⚛️⚛️

2 Additional eligible S-Rank included this round!:

 

 

 

 

Weird West

 

Summary: 

When, in 2017, Raphael Colantonio - 18 year president of Arkane Studios - departed the company he founded, citing creative anxiety and burnout due to the pressures of delivering in the "Triple A" space, I took keen notice. Arkane, (as any science chum probably knows by now,) is one of my most admired studios - one of the last still proudly carrying the torch for the Immersive Sim genre (arguably the most risky, most complex genre of game design out there.) Colantonio had shepherded four of my favourite games of the past decade to fruition - the Dishonoured trilogy and Prey - and the direction the studio would take, post-Colantonio was unclear.

As it turned out, studio direction was not the issue I had to fear, (Arkane's Immersive Sim / time-loop hybrid Deathloop released last year, to my considerable enjoyment,) however, what was to be feared was Microsoft's gargantuan wallet. Their purchase of Bethesda - including all subsidiary studios, of which Arkane is one - meant that Deathloop is likely the last Arkane game to be seen on a Sony console.
The interesting silver lining to that particular cloud though, is the newfound independence of Colantonio, in the form of his new studio, founded alongside Arkane veteran producer Julien Roby and a small cadre of ex-Arcane designers: Wolfeye Studios. 

Their first game: Weird West.

 

As it turns out, it's quite aptly named.
Weird West is... well... weird. 
Not just in terms of narrative, but in virtually all gameplay design elements.

It plays as a curious hybrid of Isometric Dungeon Crawler, Twin-Stick Shooter, CRPG and Oregon Trail-style resource management sim. 

The player takes the roles of five different characters, one after another, across 5 separate vignette-style short stories of around 4-6 hours in length. Each playable character comes with their own distinct skill tree, working in tandem with an over-arching "common" skill tree, and so each plays a little differently. Narratively, each is also of progressively more occult, secretive origins, in this pulpy, strange take on the old west. 

This is a version of alternate history where occult elements are simply known parts of the world - witches exist, common folks carry poultices and talismans to ward off evil, people get turned into Pig-Men, there are cults such as the Werewolves and the "Onerists" around (magic users that are known and feared,) and where the citizenry seem fully aware that at any moment, zombies or ghosts might burst forth from the graveyard on the edge of town, and they will have to fight or flee.
It makes for distinct and original tales, of the 50's "adventure comic" variety, and ones which are executed very well. The player will change from playing as one 'side' of warring factions to the other - at the start, you play as Jane Bell, a human woman, who's knowledge of the occult elements is not much more than the general townsfolk of the various steadings. However, each new character is more and more involved with the more occult elements, culminating with actually playing as a member of the most secretive of the cults. 
This gives an overall narrative a feeling of journeying into the unknown, but with a more curious slant to it that the traditional "normal protagonist delves ever deeper into the bizarre" style more often employed in games.

 

Mechanically, the multiple character, short story style it employs is a neat trick, almost evoking a rogue-like feeling, where the player is required to see five interconnected and interweaving narratives to their conclusion, one after the other, with each outcome affecting the next, and being affected by the previous ones.

The story also ties the five distinct stories together well - more and more as the narratives play out, interactions or scenarios that felt curious or out-of-place or just downright odd in early narratives are expanded upon or tied up in later ones, and the way the narratives criss-cross, (for example, allowing previous playable characters to be recruited as NPC helpers by subsequent characters, and having cross-narrative through-threads, such as the tale of Essex Mast, (a human obsessed with studying immortality, who is mysteriously and intrinsically bound to all five playable characters,) or The Children - (two ethereal little girls who allude to being immortal themselves, and seem to know more of the player than they do of the characters they are controlling,) is really cool - and works in a way that really could have been a mess in lesser hands.
(I won't give spoilers, but in the end, the over-arching narrative reminded me very much of 1998's wildly underrated sci-fi noire film Dark City... in a good way!)

 

Gameplay-wise, when playing Weird West, it becomes pretty clear which elements of Arkane's signature style was most driven by the stewardship of Colantonio himself. Weird West is not really similar to any of the Immersive Sims Arkane released during his time there - Arkane output was exclusively first person, high-polish stealth / action powers-shooters in the mould of Bioshock or Deus Ex - however, the major crossover element between Arkane and Wolfeye is clear - the variety of execution of in-game tasks, and the focus on malleable narrative to fit that.

There is a huge amount of interaction with the world that is possible, and multiple ways to achieve almost everything in the game. Like the Dishonoured games, Weird West gives the player multiple explicit options for the completion of missions, but more than that, like Prey (Arkane's most "immersive sim-y" of their immersive sims,) it also has a narrative that is crafted in such a way as to take a pounding from the player, and still keep up.

In one playthrough, a character's final boss might be killed. In the next character's playthrough, that location that was his hideout might be abandoned. If however, the first character's playthrough is completed without killing that boss, then he still exists in the world, and continues to have an effect. He might appear as a bounty to be hunted in a subsequent playthrough, or simply be able to be encountered, if that players goes to the same location.

If, during a bounty or mission, a gang leader is killed, but one of his men flees, a vendetta may be started, where that person will return to hunt you, with a newly recruited posse of mercenaries. 

This even extends to interesting relationships with the narrator of the game - in one playthrough, I tried killing both characters in what is ostensibly set up as a "choose one path or the other" moment. 
Rather than simply failing a quest, or refusing to let me do this, both died, and the narrator simply said "Well, both dead by your hands... you got a different plan, Hoss?"... 
...and sure enough, I was able to pick up a new path through the narrative, with the story beats moulding accordingly to fit my actions.

 

Oddly though, all these elements - narrative malleability, signature style, variability, emergent storytelling - these are all the areas most unusual, and most difficult to nail in games, and they are the areas Weird West does best. The parts that are more common to games in general, (and arguably the "easier" parts to get right,) are where Weird West falls down a bit.

 

Combat can be finicky and difficult to control. Gunplay works like a twin stick shooter, however, unlike most twin stick shooters, the world of Weird West has multiple elevations, and so a shooting scheme that would work in simple "flat-plan" tends to get confused. Essentially, the player aims like a twin stick shooter, but has to keep an eye on a reticle, which will show on the enemy being targeted. In the fray of battle, this can be tricky to do and to see - and in a game where NPC helpers act on their own in battle (and friendly fire is deadly,) it can be all too easy to shoot the wrong person, or whiff entirely. 
The combat powers, also, are awkward to use, with the actual executions being tied to multiple button presses while aiming, and so the fast-pace of combat tends to work against the variability of powers-based combat. Truth be told, I found the game more enjoyable when simply ignoring powers in combat, and concentrating on upgrading weaponry to the point I no longer needed to rely on powers. (It's worth noting - Weird West feels very much a game designed for PC primarily. I suspect all these issues would melt away when using a mouse to am, and keyboard hotkeys for powers - but in the console controller, it is a real issue.)

Stealth works relatively well, however, the same issues occur in terms of visual cues and gauging of distance / elevation / sight-lines. Stealth tends to work as good way to get an advantage before a fire-fight, but actually full-stealthing a long section or dungeon is made very difficult by these issues, and necessitates numerous quick-save / quick-loads. (The game seems to understand this, as there is a dedicated quick-save save-slot, and using it is made very quick and easy.)

 

These issues might all feel separate, however, I think they are symptoms of the same fundamental design flaw in Weird West - it is a game that utilises a top-down isometric viewpoint... a perspective wholly unsuited to virtually all aspects of the game it is utilised for. Because the camera is pulled quite far back, the player does not have the "character's perspective" when playing.

Immersive Sims have certain staples - interactivity, huge amounts of loot, secret and alternate paths etc, and these require the player to scour the environment for clues, and to inspect every detail. That cannot be done from the isometric point of view very easily. Missing important loot is a constant issue, as the item required may be tiny on the screen, and mixed in with lots of other tiny, unimportant items. 
Powers-Shooters require a confidence of position and sight-line that this perspective does not provide, and so it's often very difficult to gauge whether a power is appropriate to use or not, given the player's position relative to the enemy.  

 

It's a shame, as the Isometric perspective does have some good aspects - the game actually looks very nice - a stylised sketch-book style, with simple character designs in engine, backed up with portrait sketches during conversations that retain the Arkane flair for cool, signature UI design, however, it just doesn't work terribly well for the gameplay as designed. 

 

The game sounds cool - in-world character dialogue is purely written, with the characters speaking in a simlish - though this is not like any simlish I've ever heard! It's odd and grotesque and creepy - a sort of old-world growling mixed with screechy, tinny drawls that wouldn't sound out of place in a horror film, or in the background of a Nick Cave song. 
The only voice heard is the Narrator, who has the perfect Sam Elliot-style old-west drawl and laid-back musicality to his vocals - the game feels like your playing, with later-years Johnny Cash sitting by your side.

Music is generally good across the game - a stylish mix of southern gothic and grimy electric synth, with occasional trips into greatness - particularly in the later, more occult storylines, or during climax sections of each story, where original songs, (often with  appropriate lyrics,) are employed.

 

I will take a brief moment to mention the trophies in this one. They are fun, and like Arkane games, serve a duel purpose, of both encouraging variety, and actually teaching the player some of the mechanics that are available to them. That said, I do think it's worth noting that the trophy-hunter-mentality, (which we all have, to some degree,) where we naturally try to unlock as many trophies as possible in a single playthrough, actively works against the enjoyment of Weird West.

Because the truly impressive element of the game is in how reactive and variable its narrative is, and the fun is often in seeing how that narrative changes based on previous decisions / execution, the player loses a lot of the best fun the game has to offer by simply milking as many trophies as possible in one go.
I did 90% of the trophies in one long playthrough of around 30-40 hours... but it was only in running through the second time for clean-up that the breadth of variation to the narrative made itself known to me.

I realised, (too late,) that I would have had a much better time doing 4 or 5 short, (6-8 hour,) playthroughs, and doing a few trophies each time, than one long one, as that would have shown me far more in the way of interesting twists and changes in requirements etc. I would advise anyone going into the platinum now, to do just that. The actual total time with the game is unlikely to be much longer, however, the best elements of the game will be displayed, and they would likely have a much better time.

Overall, Weird West is game that works sometimes - and when it works, it really, really works, and really impresses - but continually trips over itself. It's an odd one, because the parts that it gets right are the really tough things to nail - the parts most games don't even attempt. The parts where it falls short are ten-a-penny in other games, and so presumably easier to implement.  It's a strange case of the more common elements tending to step on the feet of the more original ones.

The game ends up sliding into that odd category of games that are cool, fun, stylish and original... and broadly recommended... but the strongest elements are those that are around the edges. The core mechanics and moment-to-moment gameplay just don't live up to the game in which they are housed.

 

 

The Ranking:

An odd one to rank this - it doesn't have any really direct peers in terms of genre or gameplay on the current list, and the obvious games for comparison from a developer standpoint - the Arkane games - are not particularly helpful, as while Weird West is a cool game, it has too many flaws to be in contention with those (very highly ranked) games.

 

Scouring the list then, I find myself looking for games that are full of great ideas, and have reasonable variability, but are held back from greatness by their drawbacks. Two obvious ones jump out: Void Bastards, and  Fallout: New Vegas. 

 

Void Bastards is a game with a great number of good elements, but what really drags it down is its trophy list, and to some extent, the simplicity of its base mechanics. While not nothing, those elements are still relatively minor as compared to the flawed elements of Weird West though, and so - despite Weird West being, I think, the superior game on paper - Void Bastards has to rank above it. If both games executed their vision perfectly, Weird West would come out above it, but Weird West is dragged down much further by its drawbacks than Void Bastards is.

 

Fallout: New Vegas, on the other hand, is playing in some more similar areas. While it is a massive open-world, as opposed to Weird West's smaller, more emergent one, they both focus on variability of narrative, and emergent story-telling based on player choice. In this case, the same thing happens, but Weird West is on the flip-side of the coin. If both games executed their vision perfectly, New Vegas would come out comfortably on top, but it is dragged down much further by its drawbacks - in this case incredibly severe ones, that border on unplayable at times.

 

That puts Weird West in between those... and it's a big gulf, with little to go on. Almost nothing in that list is remotely comparable to Weird West, and so it comes down to feeling and instinct... and the simple question "Which game would I replay, if given the choice of that, or Weird West?"

 

Working up from Fallout: New Vegas, the first one that gives me pause is God of War... but in the end, Weird West's variability helps push it over the top there. Those elements help it creep past a few more entries... but  where it reaches a hard block, is Superliminal. 
That's a game which never really varies - the solutions are the solutions - however, I do think the originality and smartness of that puzzle game gives Weird West a run for its money in terms of pure enjoyment, and with Weird West's flaws, it has to come out on top.

 

As such, Weird West finds its spot!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Longest Road on Earth

 

Summary: 

A genuine curiosity from Spanish developer Brainwash Gang, The Longest Road on Earth couples a series of shot vignettes of the daily lives of various lonely characters rendered in simplistic greyscale pixel-art, with a stultifyingly good alt/indie original soundtrack, to result in a game experience quite unlike virtually any I have previously come across.

 

The Longest Road on Earth is a short game, focussed on music primarily, but that's not to say there isn't emotional beats that get hit. Far from it in fact. While actual physical input to the game is shockingly minimal - pretty much exclusively walking from one thing to another or clicking to look at things - the player who engages with the game is likely to feel drained by the end. The tole taken here is not physical, but emotional, and I think it does a really great job exercising the player's heartstrings, even as their thumbs are taking it easy.
The characters in the game are anthropomorphised animals, but their emotions, lives and wistful loneliness are all too human. Loneliness is not a subject tackled too often in games, and so when it is tackled here - and so well - it cuts quite deeply.

 

The basic bones of the narrative are 4 short pastiches of life at different stages and the various ways loneliness can be experienced. These are loosely strung together via a wraparound container narrative of an old man (well, an old crocodile actually,) seemingly working in some kind of second hand store, who sparks the catalyst for each story by touching different items in the store.

Each vignette touches on loneliness in its own way. Whether it's the small country mouse, who's life is idyllic, yet she has no one to share her quiet moments with, the city rat who loves the piano, but is all but invisible in his day job, the bear who works and office job for a shipping company, and the pigeon who works the freighters, living parallel lives of quiet loneliness toiling for the same company, or the young moose, being cared for by his protective, but emotionally inattentive parents... each looks at how life can seemingly churn all around some people, yet never quite touch upon them in a meaningful way.

 

These vignettes are rendered in fairly simplistic pixel-art style, in shades of grey, though it's surprising how much of the tone of the game is worked through this simple art-style. The game is not going to win any graphical competition, but the sweet-yet-wistful tone actually benefits a fair bit from the lack of realistic graphics - plenty of detail is able to be discerned, and the developer does a lot with a limited tool set. That the game is in greyscale really helps the tone too - it's rare that I would argue for a greyscale colour palette being more effective, but here, I think the game would lose some of its impact in colour.

 

The music is really centre stage in The Longest Road on Earth. So much so, in fact, that I genuinely think the game is not getting enough credit for what it represents. Generally, the game seems to have a favourable critical response as an art-house-indie narrative game, but actually, I think what it does is more fundamental. 
Essentially, The Longest Road on Earth has created a new genre within gaming. 

 

We've had "Games as Games" obviously, and on the more emotive side of gaming, the past two decades have seen "Games as novels", (visual novels,) "Games as Choose-Your-Own-Adventure", (Telltale etc.,) "Games as Experiences" (Gone Home, Dear Esther etc,) and we've even had "Games as Meditation", (Everything, Proteus etc.) 
I don't think we've ever had "Game as Music Video," though... until now.
That is the feeling evoked here. 

 

Because the narrative is told in un-dialogued, text-free vignettes, and because all emotional context is implied, and shown via more rudimentary pixel-art on the anthropomorphic characters, the visuals tend to work as tone pieces more than anything. They convey little direct narrative, but evoke emotion very strongly - much like a music video will. 
The result flips the usual videogame dichotomy between audio and visual on its head - rather than the visual and interactive elements being the driving force, and the audio supporting them, here Beícoli's music is very much in the driver's seat, and the visual and minimal interactive elements work in service to that.

 

That is something quite unique in The Longest Road on Earth, and it works very well - simply because the music is so good. Make no mistake, more than virtually any other game, this one would fall apart if that were not true. 

That music - all by Beícoli, is beautiful, varied, emotive and incredibly powerful at times. 
Beícoli appears to identify exclusively as a videogame music creator - a part of Brainwash Gang, rather than an independent musical artist in her own right - which is somewhat baffling to me, considering the quality of the soundtrack can easily sit alongside the albums of Cat Power, Ex:Re, Lovers, Lanterns on the Lake etc. 
I personally paused The Longest Road on Earth after only a few songs to add the album to my Spotify rotation, and with each track that played after that, it only cemented my decision to to so!
I'm actually in something of a quandary in terms of recommendations actually - part of me wants to encourage readers to check out the album on Spotify, as I'm confident anyone who does so will want to play the game... 
...but I also think that experiencing the album as it appears in game, with the visuals associated is likely to be most impactful if the music is brand new to the player. 

 

Overall, The Longest Road on Earth is a peculiar experience, virtually unique in the gaming landscape. It's a game about a subject rarely broached, yet universally felt, and its medium is used in a very unusual way.

The game is short, and lacking any real replay value beyond re-experiencing the emotional journey and the excellent music, but as a singular experience, (and one best consumed in a single session,) it achieves its goals and then some.

Of course, with such a high reliance on its musical score, a lot of the game's impact will be contingent on musical taste, however, as someone who very much likes that strain of thoughtful, deep-dark, female-led alt/indie music, I can attest that Beícoli's soundtrack works brilliantly - both in and out of the game, and will be a staple of my Spotify rotation from here on out.

 

 

The Ranking:

This is going to be a difficult one, and most likely result in a placement that feels low, considering the positivity found in the above review. That is a fate suffered by a few smaller, more "experiential" games on this ranking, and it is kind of inevitable in a way. Because the actual interactivity and "gameplay" element is so slight, on a ranking of videogames, it is rather hamstrung. I will say - I thoroughly recommend playing The Longest Road on Earth - despite where it might find itself sitting on this ranking!

 

That said, there is one game on the current list that stood out to me for a starting point, (a game equally sold short by its placement): Proteus.

The parallels with Proteus are obvious - both are experiential pixel-art games with minimal explicit narrative, that rely on the player slowing their pace, and drinking in the feeling and tone, more than actively "engaging" with them. 
On that level, while I liked Proteus quite a bit, I feel like The Longest Road on Earth surpasses it on a few different levels. Firstly, the music. That is The Longest Road on Earth's strongest suit, and it easily outdoes Proteus' minimalist score, however, there are other elements too. I think the emotive journey of The Longest Road on Earth is more direct and poignant than Proteus' more ethereal one, and while I like the look of Proteus, I actually think The Longest Road on Earth's greyscale pixel-art is more interesting, and more cleverly used. That places The Longest Road on Earth squarely above Proteus in my eyes.

 

A little above Proteus, we have similarly minimalist One Night Stand. That's a game about emotions too, albeit rather different ones, and also a game that is short and uses an unusual art style. Again, a lot of similar arguments to Proteus - and a similar result: The Longest Road on Earth fairly comfortably moves up past One Night Stand, primarily on its soundtrack, and ability to convey its tone so pointedly.

 

Further up though, is Maquette. Maquette is a game that also features an excellent soundtrack (that one curated, as opposed to original,) and tells a story that I think is similarly poignant and universal - in its case, about the giddy rise and painful fall of a loving relationship. While I'd argue Maquette's soundtrack isn't quite on the level of The Longest Road on Earth's, nor are its visuals, both are still very good. When coupled with Maquette's much more "gamified" gameplay (puzzles, and far more interactivity,) the fact that Maquette occasionally falters does still take it well past The Longest Road on Earth on that front.

I think that while The Longest Road on Earth does some things slightly better than Maquette, Maquette's overall package is more substantial, and more open to replay. I would consider replaying Maquette for its gameplay and its narrative. With The Longest Road on Earth, I can get a fair bit of the best of the experience simply by listening to the soundtrack album.
As such, Maquette holds its place.

 

That places The Longest Road on Earth somewhere between One Night Stand and Maquette, and coming down to gut feel. I pondered, and in that small crop of games, I think the breaking point is Hoa. I could see myself replaying Hoa before replaying The Longest Road on Earth, but I cannot say the same for the next game down - Apotheon. 

As such, The Longest Road on Earth finds its spot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there we have it folks!

 

Thanks to @Platinum_Vice and @rjkclarke for making requests!

 

 

 Hitman 3 remains as 'Current Most Awesome Game'!

LA Cops stays as the worst-of-the-worst, with the title of 'Least Awesome Game'

 

 

What games will be coming along next time to challenge for the top spot... or the bottom rung?

That's up to randomness, me.... and YOU!

 

Remember:

 

SPECIAL NOTE

 

If there are any specific games anyone wants to see get ranked sooner rather than later - drop a message, and I'll mark them for 'Priority Ranking'! 

 

The only stipulation is that they must be on my profile, at 100% (S-Rank)....

 and aren't already on the Rankings! 

 

 

 

Catch y'all later my Scientific Brothers and Sisters! 

[Durandart]

I started to watch your list and i would fulfill Point 3 on your list and start Yelling at you ???
Seeing DkS2 so high in your list of awesomness feels like a betray ?

But its your 100% Accurate Scientific list ?

 

A nice idea though, with much effort so my respect for the hard work ?

 

 

[DrBloodmoney]

Just now, Durandart said:

I started to watch your list and i would fulfill Point 3 on your list and start Yelling at you
Seeing DkS2 so high in your list of awesomness feels like a betray

 

Haha - you mean... Best Souls? ?

 

What can I say, DS2 is my favourite of the whole series... Twin-Blades for the win! ??

 

Just now, Durandart said:

But its your 100% Accurate Scientific list

 

A nice idea though, with much effort so my respect for the hard work

 

Thank you sir, I really appreciate that ?

[Durandart]

7 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

Haha - you mean... Best Souls? 

 

What can I say, DS2 is my favourite of the whole series... Twin-Blades for the win! 

 

 

Thank you sir, I really appreciate that 

Beast Souls? ?
Yeah, everyone has his favourite, i read your full articel for DkS2 and it is exactly like you said ": is almost immediately followed with a hasty "they're all great though!"  ?

i played so much souls but cant even remember the DlC The Crown of the old Iron king Exept Fume Knight, the bastard ?

 

I'm looking forward for more New Scientific Works

Keep up the good work ?

[Platinum_Vice]

It’s been a while since I left a decent comment behind – I have been saving up some thoughts that are nearly finished cooki- oho! Here they are!

 

Apotheon (yeah we’re going back a few... just coz I haven’t commented doesn’t mean I’m not reading ?).

Doc, you are added to what is becoming quite a long list of Checklisters that have played this game and regaled at length in support of Apotheon. Surely you can’t all be wrong – I’ve just got to add it to The List now.

 

The artstyle truly does leap off the screen and as a fellow fan of the Greek mythos, there’s more than enough there in that game for me to pick it up, I think.

 

 

Control

This baby is burning a hole in my dashboard.

 

To play ASAP or to play when I get a PS5... nah I can’t wait that long. 

You point out that the map system is woeful but juuuust adequate enough that you would keep attempting to use it instead of following the environmental directions; I will try to remember this when I play it.

Don’t. Use. The Map. 
Ok I think I got it.

I am very much excited to see the visual strengths and the depth of the lore that Control received praise for. 

I’ve actually seen VERY little of this game (maybe a forgotten trailer here or there), so most of what I imagine Control will look like is based on a quick scouting of the PSNP trophy guide with extrapolated imagery based in your own review, and I have to say, I am excited. It has a lot of ingredients to be a sleeper-hit for myself.

 

 

Dead Cells’ DLC

On the flip side of you getting me hyped for most games, occasionally it backfires! ?

Your Dead Cells DLC compares it to Dishonoured 2, Transistor and Dark Souls. I am looking forward to ALL OF THAT except for the Dishonored games. I am a little worried about em. I’ve got them but they don’t look so much like something that is in my wheelhouse. I’ll start Dishonored 1 in about a month’s time – no matter what – but my hype metre is petering out a bit. Can you help me moisten the appetite if you have the time?

 

 

Elden Ring

That’s quite the opus (x2!! FromSoftware leaving a mark and you leaving such a chunk of heart behind on the thread for it).

The bit that really stood out to me was that this is like a Greatest Hits for FromSoft and not so much like a brand new album. That sounds PERFECT for exactly what I want to get out of Elden Ring when I get to playing it myself as I’ve only played Bloodborne. 

Better still I am intrigued how one can go from a fleshed-out castle to an icey blizzard to a desert oasis to something else in one sitting and have all of those biomes blend together in a natural way, but if you say it is so, then bring it on.

It is a shame that there is no overt narrative though (a shame for me, that is, because FromSoft fans don’t seem to care/they seem to enjoy the communal acts of piecing the lore together in these games). I was a believer in the GRR Martin hype and to see that I won’t get much out of that is a letdown.

 

 

Mark of the Ninja

...are you praising another Klei game? ?

Yeah, I’ll buy it now. Convinced! I needed a review from a trusted source. I’ve had it recommended a few times by people that I do not consider to be good judges of games and the trailer is a bit sub-par, but yet, an old (definitely “pre-Science Checklist” old) post from yourself about hidden gems mentioned it so, well, as review requests are your specialty... why not?

Thank you ?

 

 

The Swapper

Seriously, this has to stop. You add games to The List literally at a 2:1 rate relating to how fast I can get through them. I have neither the time nor the money. You are tearing my family apart!

 

 

The Longest Road on Earth

Will you use this for the MHA Community Event? The trophy rarity (98+%) just makes me shudder a little bit... I will order colourful cocktails, I will point out shirtless dudes for my wife if they run by, and I will publically admit that I will pre-order a game if I truly trust the developer, but I don’t think that I am secure enough in myself and how I may be perceived by the world if I was to have a 98 percenter on my PSN profile. Am I iNsAnE ? Put me on the couch again Doc, I'm ranting in public again.