Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 22
June 7, 2024
Not-E3 2024 Part 2: Summer Game Fest and Devolver Direct
Guerilla Collective
Summer Game Fest
Devolver Direct
Wholesome Direct
Future Games Show
Xbox Games Showcase
PC Gaming Show
Ubisoft Forward
Okay, I was really looking forward to the Summer Game Fest showcase. Capcom had promised announcements, and the time felt ripe for a new Ace Attorney announcement. On top of that, this is typically a big showcase, where we could expect some big announcements.
But… there wasn’t a lot here for me. So instead of a game-by-game account, I’ll just go through my personal highlights, and you can check the full stream if you’re interested in seeing the rest.
So, the first game that stood out to me is Neva, an indie game from the team behind Gris. Like Gris, it looks beautiful.
Black Myth Wukong looks nice, and I was happy to see another trailer for Metaphor: ReFantazio, too.
Then, Blumhouse Games had a montage of a whole bunch of indie horror games – Crisol: Theater of Idols, Grave Seasons, Sleep Awake, Fear the Spotlight, The Simulation, and Project C. They all look like they have potential, so that was a nice little segment.
There was a cute-looking game about a deer and a boy, with the extremely straightforward title Deer & Boy, and we eventually got to see a new trailer for Slitterhead.
Now, I’d somewhat lost interest in Slitterhead when I learned it was going to be an action game instead of a horror game, but I have to admit it looks pretty cool.
Wanderstop, Unknown 9: Awakening, and Enotria: The Last Song all look like they have potential, but there wasn’t anything that really caught my attention until Sam Lake took the stage to announce the upcoming Alan Wake 2 expansion and a physical edition! Yes, Alan Wake 2 is finally getting a physical Deluxe and Collector’s Edition, so I’ll definitely be looking into that.
Capcom showed some new trailer for Kunitsu-Gami, which I’m interested in, and Monster Hunter Wilds, which I’m not.
The final game of the show was Phantom Blade Zero, and although I was suffering from crushing disappointment over the lack of Ace Attorney, I have to admit this game looks pretty cool.
And that was that. Oh, there were a lot more announcements; it was a 2-hour showcase, after all. But as far as games that interested me, it was fairly light.
Summer Game Fest proper was followed by the Day of the Devs indie game showcase, which I didn’t include separately on the schedule. They showed some interesting games, although nothing that stood out to me too much.
Devolver DirectSoon it was time for the Devolver Direct, and if nothing else, you can always count on Devolver’s shows to be bizarre.
When the starting time came, the first 10 minutes or so were spent on music, during which time I kept checking to make sure I had the right link. A countdown to the show started after that, so I’m still not sure if that was intentional or not.
Instead of a satirical showcase, this year’s show was set in the context of Volvy’s birthday party. I don’t have the words to explain it, so I’ll just include it here for you to watch.
Anyway, through the context of that bizarre storyline, they showed off co-op for Cult of the Lamb, a weird-looking game called The Crush House, a new roguelike called Tenjutsu, DLC for the Talos Principle II, the utterly bizarre Anger Foot, and an intriguing title called Possessors.
It was a short show, but it was weird and entertaining. Overall, I had a lot more fun watching it than Summer Game Fest.
We’ve got more showcases to look forward to over the weekend, so stay tuned!
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June 6, 2024
Not-E3 2024 Part 1: Guerrilla Collective Highlights
Guerilla Collective
Summer Game Fest
Devolver Direct
Wholesome Direct
Future Games Show
Xbox Games Showcase
PC Gaming Show
Ubisoft Forward
First up in our Not-E3 sequence of showcases is the Guerrilla Collective live stream. Like last year, I’ll be focused on the games that stood out to me the most, so be sure to check out the full showcase if you’d like to see the rest.
I didn’t have to wait long to see a game that got my attention. A Yooka-Laylee remaster would have been pretty low on my list of predictions, but Yooka-Replaylee was announced. I still haven’t played my copy of Yooka-Laylee, so I can’t help but wonder if existing copies will have an upgrade path or if it’s an entirely new purchase only.
Neon Blood, a cyberpunk 2.5D turn-based RPG also seems like something I should keep an eye on.
There also was another 3D platformer called Project Tides announced that looks… interesting? I don’t really understand what I saw in that trailer, but it’s intriguing at least.
The boss rush action game Light Odyssey also looks cool.
Soon it was time for a horror segment, with a look at Clock Tower: Rewind, a new trailer for Post Trauma (which we discussed a couple years ago when it was shown at the Game Awards), a new Five Nights at Freddy’s Game called Into the Pit, and a trailer for Hollowbody, which looks fantastic and is one I definitely want to keep an eye on.
Tactical RPG Demonschool continues to look intriguing, and Urban Myth Dissolution Center looks like a game for me.
An action platformer called Double Shake and a cute-looking platformer RPG called The Secret of Crystal Mountain also caught my attention, and so did a classic JRPG style game called Beloved Rapture.
New trailers were shown for Sky Oceans and Escape From Ever After, both of which we discussed yesterday. I’m also curious about Aethermancer, Slime Heroes, and Grifford Academy.
Overall, while there were several games that didn’t appeal to me as much, there were still a lot of gems in this first showcase of “Not-E3.” Stay tuned for tomorrow, when we’ve got the much-anticipated Summer Game Fest show!
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June 5, 2024
Not-E3 2024 Schedule and Hopes
It’s that time of year again – the time of year when, even if E3 isn’t actually a thing anymore, everyone pretends it is anyway and all the conferences and showcases happen at once. Technically it’s already started; we had two showcases last week and two indie showcases yesterday.
But the real “Not-E3” period will run over the next few days, so let’s take a look at what’s lined up for us this year.
Not-E3 2024 ScheduleJune 6
Guerrilla Collective 2024 – 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET
June 7
Summer Game Fest 2024 – 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET
Devolver Direct 2024 – 5 PM PT / 8 PM ET
June 8
Wholesome Direct 2024 – 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET
Future Games Show: Summer Showcase 2024 – 12 PM PT / 3 PM ET
June 9
Xbox Games Showcase 2024 – 10 AM ET / 1 PM PT
PC Gaming Show 2024 – 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET
June 10
Ubisoft Forward 2024 – 12 PM PT / 3 PM ET
There will also be a Nintendo Direct sometime this month, as they confirmed a June Direct, but its specific date hasn’t been revealed yet. If they announce it soon and it fits into the “Not-E3” period, I’ll add it to the list. (E3 tradition would suggest June 11, but who knows?) There are also some smaller presentations, which I’ll cover any highlights from in a miscellaneous section at the end.
Not-E3 2024 HopesCapcom might not have their own showcase this year, but they’ll have announcements during the Summer Game Fest presentation, and I’m on my hands and knees begging for a new Ace Attorney game. It’s been so long! At least it feels like we got a new game in 2021, since The Great Ace Attorney hadn’t been localized before, but as for an actual all-new release, it’s been 7 years.
But the series is selling like crazy, the release of the Apollo Justice Trilogy has bridged the gap for a new audience to play Ace Attorney 7, and we are long overdue for an announcement. I’d be more optimistic if Capcom was having its own showcase, but I’ve still got my hopes pinned on Ace Attorney.
Now, let’s take a look back and see which of my “pipe dream” hopes are still left standing. Since last year, we’ve knocked another one off the list – a Persona 3 remake. That leaves us with:
Ace Attorney Investigations 2 localizationTales of Symphonia prequelXenosaga HDA classic-style Paper Mario (a new one, so I’m not counting the Thousand-Year Door remake)World of Final Fantasy 2Mother 3 localizationUntranslated Tales gamesLike a Dragon Kenzan and KurohyoAnd I’m going to add one more, a Xenoblade Chronicles X remaster. I doubt we’ll ever get an X sequel if the original remains a Wii U exclusive, so I’m tossing that hope into the ring!
What games are you hoping to see at this year’s Not-E3 2024 showcases? And do you think we’ll get an Ace Attorney announcement, or will Van Zieks be toasting my future career in the circus?
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June 3, 2024
Let’s Talk About the State of Play and Marvelous Game Showcase
Why is the open world dress-up gacha(?) game so pretty??
Celebrating All Things Mysterious 2024 is at an end, and the contest winners have been notified! Thank you for participating!It’s almost Not-E3 season, and while we were still talking about mystery games, May 30 saw a State of Play, a showcase from Marvelous, and a new Silent Hill presentation.
Frustratingly, the State of Play and Marvelous Game Showcase were at the exact same time, so I did what any reasonable person would do and opened them in two separate tabs to watch them simultaneously.
The State of Play made this easy at first, since they went on for over 10 minutes about a multiplayer shooter game called Concord that I couldn’t care less about, which gave me plenty of time to start with Marvelous’s show!
Marvelous began with a look at a game they’d announced last year called Project Magia, now revealed with the official title Farmagia. I’d guess this means it has farming elements, but I don’t actually know, because they showed the opening video and introduced the characters without saying anything about gameplay. So while Farmagia looks nice enough, I don’t even know what sort of game it is.
Then they showed the next Story of Seasons game and emphasized the improved graphics. I’ve seen a lot of fans criticizing their choice to focus on that aspect, but all I can say is that it’s really pretty. I especially like the fireworks.
They moved on to talk about mobile and arcade games, which worked out well for me since the State of Play had finally gotten past Concord.
…to announce that God of War Ragnarok is coming to PC, but then after that it was time for a new announcement, a new Dynasty Warriors game called Dynasty Warriors: Origins.
I’ve never played Dynasty Warriors, but it’s one of those series I have a mild passing interest in.
The next trailer was for Infinity Nikki, and I’ve never been more impressed and tempted by a game I might not enjoy at all. Just look at it! It’s gorgeous!
Infinity Nikki is an “open world dress-up game” in which you use costumes to get different skills that let you traverse the world and solve puzzles and stuff. That sounds so neat it’s almost enough to make me look past my open world aversion, but it’s actually the 5th game in a series and the others were gacha games, so there’s a good chance this one will be as well. Their information about signing up for the PS5 beta tests specifies that the beta test won’t have in-app purchases, so that likely means the full game will.
The next game in the State of Play was an action RPG called Ballad of Antara, which looks pretty cool. It’s apparently free-to-play, though, which also has me wondering if it will involve gacha or some other monetization scheme.
They moved on from there to VR games and a Marvel game I don’t care about, so it was back to the Marvelous Game Showcase for me! Marvelous showed some indie games, including the cute-looking Moonlight Peaks, a life sim / farming game where you play a vampire.
The State of Play went on to open world action RPG Where Winds Meet, the Until Dawn remake, and Path of Exile while Marvelous talked about Rune Factory, so I stayed with Marvelous to watch the new footage from the upcoming Rune Factory spin-off, Rune Factory: Project Dragon.
Now I could have sworn I blogged about this when it was announced, but I must be misremembering. Anyway, this new Rune Factory spin-off looks beautiful to me. Apparently you use the power of dance to connect with the Earth instead of the power of farming, so that’s an interesting change. I’m pretty excited to learn more about this one.
Marvelous closed its showcase with a new teaser for the upcoming Daemon x Machina sequel, Titanic Scion.
Next, from the State of Play, we got a new trailer for the Silent Hill 2 remake, as well as a release date – October 8. The Silent Hill Transmission live stream after the State of Play largely focused on Silent Hill 2 as well, with a lengthier gameplay video, so I’ll discuss both at once.
Discourse has gone absolutely crazy, with what appears to be people who haven’t even played the original getting on it (if you’re going to post comparison shots, at least make sure you get the right game), so I’ll just summarize my impressions by saying I think Angela looks fine, the gameplay has me cautiously optimistic, and I’m concerned about Maria’s redesign. Maria looking so different has me a little nervous about whether or not they grasped her role in the story. Also, I’m glad they improved James’s face from the first model we saw.
The State of Play didn’t end with Silent Hill, however, as they next showed off the upcoming Monster Hunter Wilds. I’ve never gotten into the Monster Hunter series, so I’m not especially interested in that one.
But they closed with a game that looks right up my alley! I know they’ve had a few shorter Astro Bot games, but now they’re making a full-length 3D platformer just called Astro Bot, and it looks great!
So while the events might not have been stacked with must-play games for me, there were still some great ones in there. Which games from the State of Play and Marvelous Game Showcase stood out to you the most?
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May 31, 2024
Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy
It’s the final day of Celebrating All Things Mysterious 2024 (and your last chance to participate in the contest).
Last year, we closed out the month by talking about Ace Attorney Investigations 2, so why not end the event with Ace Attorney again?
Earlier this year, Capcom finally brought Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice (the 4th, 5th, and 6th mainline games) to modern platforms as the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, which even got a physical release for the Switch in North America. Since Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice were digital-only here before, it’s great to finally have them in physical form.
While I ultimately decided against playing through all three games again, I did spend some time with the Apollo Justice Trilogy nevertheless.
I love that these newer collections include concept art and similar bonuses. Looking through the concept art is always fun, especially when you get to see earlier character designs.
It also includes an extensive soundtrack selection (all the songs from the three games, minus the ones that only play for a few seconds, plus some additional tracks as well), and you can set a song to play in the background while you look through other parts of the gallery.
Then there’s the Animation Studio, which might be the best bonus feature I’ve ever seen.
The Animation Studio lets you pick any background, character, pose/animation, and voice clip (ex. “Objection!”) to create your own scenes. It’s restricted based on game, so no taking a character exclusive to one game and putting them in a background from a different game, but it still has a ton of options. One annoying part is that some poses/animations are exclusive to the courtroom, so if you select that option while on a different background, it automatically changes to the courtroom. I’d have preferred it if courtroom-specific options only showed up on the list while you had a courtroom background set, or if it asked first.
Still, after a bit of fiddling, I managed to make some fun what-if scenes with Blackquill, since he’s one of my favorite prosecutors. I like to think he’s there to see the bird.
…and a scene with my least favorite prosecutor, to imagine what could have been (out-of-court encounters with Nahyuta might have done wonders for him).
Playing around with the Animation Studio makes me wish The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles had this feature, because I’d go crazy if I could make my own Great Ace Attorney scenes.
Anyway, another nice feature added to the Apollo Justice Trilogy is that you can not only select which game to play, but even a specific section of a specific case. I revisited some of my favorite moments from the trilogy this way, and it reminded me just how much I love this series.
The Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy is a fantastic collection of the later three Ace Attorney games, with some really nice bonus features, and a perfect collection to end Celebrating All Things Mysterious 2024 with. So let me know your thoughts on the Apollo Justice Trilogy, and join me in hoping that this is the year a new Ace Attorney game will finally be announced!
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May 29, 2024
Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Mato Anomalies
A couple months ago, I saw the physical Switch copy of Mato Anomalies was on sale for such a good price that I decided to take a chance on it despite its mixed reviews.
Mato Anomalies is a turn-based RPG about a private detective named Doe who is called upon to investigate a mysterious substance being sold on the black market.
His investigation, however, leads him into an alternate dimension, where he comes under attack by monsters. A mysterious man named Gram saves him and says it’s his mission to destroy those monsters. Since Doe’s case appears to be linked to them, the two form a reluctant partnership.
That sets up the core gameplay of Mato Anomalies. You’ll explore the futuristic, cyberpunk city as Doe, with some areas being full 3D environments to explore (including cats and dogs you can pet) while others are 2D backgrounds used just for storytelling purposes. Once the main quest or a side quest reveals the presence of supernatural involvement, you head into the dungeon and play as Gram and other party members who join you along the way.
Dungeons are fairly straightforward, with occasional simple puzzles and side paths to follow to find items. Combat can be tough and required me to think about strategy instead of just attacking. Health is a shared pool, while other stats are individual, which took a little getting used to. Each party member has two different weapon types, as well as a skill tree, so there’s decent room for customization.
And if you really like the combat, there are also random dungeons to explore for extra rewards, as well as a challenge area for tougher battles.
While this gives Gram the bulk of the gameplay, Doe actually has a unique gameplay mechanic as well. Certain quests will require you to get information from a character’s mind, at which point Doe can perform a Mind/Hack.
Mind/Hack is a card game in which you must pick a deck, each of which has unique properties, and use it to defeat your opponent. I found it difficult at first, but it was a lot of fun once I got used to it. However, it feels somewhat underutilized. There’s no actual deckbuilding, and side quests lead to dungeons far more often than Mind/Hack sequences, so it feels almost like an afterthought.
At a glance, Mato Anomalies looks impressive for a game from a small team. However, the Switch version at least suffers from major performance issues. I came to expect a slight delay any time I opened a menu or talked to an NPC, and the game crashed frequently enough that I learned to save as often as possible.
I also have to admit I had trouble following the story. This is partly because the game throws a ton of terminology at you, and it’s not always clear if it’s something new to the characters or if they already know what it means. The plot is also somewhat… esoteric. It has a high concept story it wants to tell, and so while the moment-to-moment beats might be clear enough, it’s difficult to keep a good grasp on the overarching mystery.
(Speaking of which, I felt like the “detective” aspect of the story was increasingly diminished as the stakes got higher, but I was committed to playing it for mystery month by that point.)
Despite my confusion about what exactly was going on, it has some genuinely great moments and cool ideas, especially near the end. The party members are likeable, and each has some good personal scenes that you can see if you talk to them in the city, as well.
Mato Anomalies is not a game for everyone. It’s not especially polished, it has some frustrating parts, and it’s easy to get lost in the story. At the same time, it’s much better than I expected for the bargain bin price I found it for. This is one of those games where it left me interested to see what the developer might do with a similar game in the future.
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May 27, 2024
Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind
Last time, we talked about the remake of the first Famicom Detective Club game, The Missing Heir.
Now let’s continue on and talk about the second.
Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind is actually a prequel, and they’re set up so that you can play them in either order. (If you play one, you can carry over the name you used for the protagonist to the other, too.) I went with release order and played The Missing Heir first, but I can see how playing the prequel first might increase the tension at times. It’s up to you.
From the beginning, The Girl Who Stands Behind is the creepier of the two games. While The Missing Heir had slight hints of potentially supernatural occurrences, they’re much stronger in its prequel.
The case begins with the discovery of a murdered high school girl, and it isn’t long before you learn that before her death, she was investigating the school’s urban legend about a ghost that will appear standing behind you. With that as your one lead, you begin digging deeper into the origins of the legend and what the victim might have learned about it.
For the most part, the gameplay is identical to that of the first game. You’ll still be picking commands from the menu, inspecting backgrounds for clues, and running through a list of dialogue options and other actions to figure out how to progress. Progression didn’t feel quite as opaque in this one, although there were still a few times when I was stumped until I found the action I needed to try or re-try to make things happen.
Sadly, there aren’t any parts where you have to type your answer. Instead, there are a couple parts where you’re asked questions and have to choose the correct answer from a list.
The story was interesting, and I loved the creepier tone, although it lacked some of the excitement of The Missing Heir’s story. It also didn’t feel quite as tight, with more loose ends and aspects that should have been explored in more detail, plus the odd choice to add ambiguity right at the very end.
Click for The Girl Who Stands Behind spoilersThe implication at the very end that the girl died from being hit by the car and therefore might have been a ghost after all when she was seen at the window was interesting… but if they wanted to take it in that direction, I think they should have explored the supernatural aspect a bit more thoroughly so it felt earned.I also feel like we should have learned the connection between Hibino and Urabe during the investigation, instead of just having it told to us at the end.
But while I’d say I enjoyed The Missing Heir more overall, The Girl Who Stands Behind was still a good mystery with a lot of excellent points. If you like one of the Famicom Detective Club remakes, you’ll probably like the other.
Now, when can we have a third Famicom Detective Club game…?
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May 24, 2024
Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir
I’ve been curious about the Famicom Detective Club Switch remakes ever since they were announced.
Remakes of two visual novel adventure games developed and published by Nintendo back in 1988 and 1989 respectively, they were quite unexpected and also resulted in the games being available in English for the first time.
Sadly, there’s no physical version with English, so you can only get them digitally (and they never go on sale). This year, I decided to finally stop waiting and pick them up. So let’s talk about the first game in the series, Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir.
You play a young man with amnesia who soon learns he’s a private detective and was investigating a suspicious death before the accident that led to his memory loss. And so, without even knowing all the details he should have known, he resumes his investigation into a case that soon spirals into something much larger.
It’s a type of game I generally describe as a visual novel / adventure game hybrid, where you’ll spend a majority of your time reading but have adventure game gameplay as well.
In this case, most of the gameplay is handled through a menu that lets you choose to move between locations, call out to someone, talk (which then brings up a list of available topics to ask about), examine things by inspecting the background or picking key things to look at from a list, and a few other commands that show up depending on the situation. In general, your goal is to question witnesses and look for clues as you progress through the story.
That might sound simple, but it’s not always clear what you need to do to progress. I wouldn’t call it hard, since there’s no fail state, but it often comes down to a tedious process of trying every option and then trying every option again.
For example, you might need to exhaust a character’s dialogue, then look around, then talk to another character and exhaust all of their dialogue, then look at the first character, and then choose one of the dialogue options again to finally get new dialogue.
The “skip read” option makes it a bit less annoying, although it took me a while to figure out how to use it. Not to be confused with the force skip option, you can skip read dialogue only if you’ve both turned it on from the options menu and have the dialogue set to auto-advance. That speeds things up to make those trial-and-error conversations faster to get through, but it still started to wear on me after a while.
On the other hand, there are also a few sections near the end where you have to type in your answer, which I thought was pretty neat! It made sure I was actually paying attention to what was going on and understood the clues.
Now let’s talk about the story. The story is what kept me invested despite the occasional tedium of the gameplay. It’s a murder mystery that gets more complicated as it goes on (with hints of the paranormal as the local villagers insist a curse is responsible), and while at first I was just mildly curious about it, it had my full attention by the end. There were several points where I intended to take a break, only for the chapter cliffhanger to keep me reading through to the next one.
A few parts felt underutilized, without a clear explanation, but the majority of the mystery came together in a satisfactory way in the end. I really enjoyed it, and I’m glad I finally played Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir.
I’ve already moved on to the second game, and – if all goes as planned – we’ll be closing out this mystery month celebration with three mystery reviews next week instead of just one on Friday! Don’t forget, you have until the end of May to leave comments on any Celebrating All Things Mysterious and earn points toward a prize at the end!
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May 22, 2024
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles Has Crossed 1 Million Sales
I finished The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles with a glowing review of the second game over two years ago, and I’ve been talking about it ever since.
Ace Attorney is my favorite series, and The Great Ace Attorney 2 rose up above the rest to become my favorite game. I love it.
So I’ve been thrilled to see The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles receive the praise and success that it deserves, especially since that should mean a bright future for the series overall.
Now it’s crossed another milestone that shows just how popular it is.
Capcom keeps track of what they refer to as “Platinum Titles,” releases that have sold at least 1 million copies. Well, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles just got onto the list.
While 1 million sales might not seem huge compared to Capcom’s bigger series, it’s incredible for a series like Ace Attorney. For reference, the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy (the 2019 collection, specifically) is at 3.3 million sales. The series as a whole (which includes every Ace Attorney release, re-release, and collection) has seen a total of 11 million sales.
So for The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles to cross 1 million within 3 years, that means it’s really doing well.
As we discussed last year when I explained why I have high hopes for Ace Attorney’s future, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles was allegedly only projected to sell 300k copies by 2025. Now it’s crossed 1 million and we’re still only in 2024. It’s amazing (and well-deserved).
(Other claims say it was projected to hit 650k sales by 2025, but even if that’s true, it’s still beaten that by a wide margin.)
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Ace Attorney is doing better than ever. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a new game announcement this year, but even if that doesn’t happen, I’m confident that it’s coming.
While I believe Ace Attorney 7 will be the next game in the series, and probably an Investigations duology bundle next after that, news like this makes me think our chances of getting another Great Ace Attorney game are rising as well. Capcom asked in a survey if fans would want another Great Ace Attorney game, and it’s clearly a success. Personally, I want a Great Ace Attorney Investigations more than anything, but I’d be delighted by any announcement!
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May 20, 2024
God of War Ragnarok: Highs and Lows With Valhalla as a Perfect Capstone
February’s contest ended with two first place winners, who both picked games for me to review since tied winners can select the same prize.
One of the winners picked God of War Ragnarok.
Now, you might wonder why it took someone picking it as a contest prize for me to finally play Ragnarok, as it was one of my most-anticipated games of 2022, so here’s my tragic tale.
I started playing God of War Ragnarok right away when it came out. Determined to avoid spoilers, I used a wonderful Chrome plug-in called BlockTube that lets you block Youtube videos that contain certain keywords in the title. So with my spoiler filter in place, I visited Youtube one day – and what did I see on my front page but a recommended video that did not include the title of the game or anything else I’d considered to be a relevant keyword, but nevertheless had enough context to let me know that the video title was a potentially major Ragnarok spoiler.
That took some of the wind out of my sails, and then some things happened in my personal life that made me want to play the sort of game that would cheer me up, so I switched over to Yakuza 5 instead. Well between going on a Yakuza kick and being disappointed in seeing that spoiler, I just kept putting off Ragnarok.
But with it chosen as a contest prize, I finally returned. For the record, the spoiler that crept past my filters was indeed a huge spoiler, arguably the biggest twist. I was 45 hours into the game before I saw it.
Anyway, enough of that. Let’s talk about God of War Ragnarok.
I absolutely loved God of War (2018), but I’m afraid my feelings on Ragnarok are a bit more mixed. At its heart, it’s a similar experience, with similar combat and gameplay. Whenever the game let me loose to explore, I was having a great time.
Sometimes, though, the game decided to do something different. And nearly every time, I thought, “Neat, this is a nice change of pace,” only for the change of pace to outstay its welcome.
Click for God of War Ragnarok spoilersThe worst offender is the section where you meet Angrboda. At first I liked it, but then it just went on and on and on… every time I thought it was almost over, it kept going. That section of the game nearly killed my interest, and I think it would have greatly benefited from being split up into smaller sections instead of happening all at once.Some of the dialogue also felt odd, particularly with the gods coming across as so normal that it felt strange.
At the same time, it has some incredible story moments. Several moments really shook me, and even the spoiler I’d seen ended up being a huge moment despite me anticipating it. Moments like that had me feeling that Ragnarok was an amazing game despite its occasional missteps.
Yet the final part of the game felt… anticlimactic. Everything had been building and building, only for it to end all at once. It didn’t feel earned. It didn’t feel epic enough for what let up to it. I’d worried that concluding the Norse arc in Ragnarok instead of having a third game would make it feel rushed, and maybe that was it. All I know is that instead of the excitement I’d expected to feel at the end, I was left with a vague sense of disappointment.
But it didn’t end there! Free DLC came out last year for Ragnarok, and although I wasn’t very enthusiastic at the time, I decided to give it a try anyway.
God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla is post-game DLC set in Valhalla. It has roguelite elements, which is what initially turned me away, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. It actually reminded me a lot of Hades, with upgrades to choose after defeating each room of enemies, different paths to take depending on the rewards you want, permanent upgrades to unlock after dying or completing a run, and (most importantly to me) enough story content to keep me interested despite the repetitive nature.
While Valhalla is an epilogue to Ragnarok’s story, it also calls back to the original God of War games. In fact, playing Valhalla made me happier than ever that I’d played the previous games first.
It feels like a love letter to the whole series, and it erased that lingering sense of disappointment that the main game left me with. When I reached the ending of Valhalla, it felt so perfect that I realized I’d be content if the series ended right there.
Click for God of War Ragnarok Valhalla spoilersI also loved the repeated message that Kratos in the original games was more than anger and vengeance, because I feel like I’ve been saying that all along. Too many people, whether they love the new games or hate them, tend to reduce the original portrayal of Kratos as an angry man who just kills and has nothing in common with the new games’ Kratos, and that’s just not true. Valhalla delving into the more sympathetic sides of Kratos in the older games made me so happy.In short, although I have mixed feelings about God of War Ragnarok, my overall impression ended up being a positive one. While it doesn’t live up to its predecessor, it has enough great moments to be worth playing nevertheless. Just make sure you give Valhalla a chance at the end – especially if you’re a fan of the whole series.
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