Game EXP: Severed (3DS)

 

Severed on the Nintendo 3DS is a dungeon crawl-styled game with a mandatory touch-screen mechanic developed by DrinkBox Studios, the same company that created the Guacamelee series.  For the gist of the game, you can check out the First Impressions article I wrote back in January.  The game is broken up into three areas introducing more complicated game mechanics along the way that, looking back at least, have a steady and fair increase in difficulty and complexity.  My own learning curve seemed to jump during the first large area, the Domain of the Crows, and I finally felt that I had learned how to actually operate the fighting mechanic half-way through the second area, the Mountain Ghost Town.

Because Severed is only available on devices that utilize touch screens (PS Vita, 3DS, iOS, Switch) knowing how to attack and defend is an integral part of the game that I apparently did not fully grasp during the opening tutorial.  During the tutorial battle with your mother, I thought that you had to have the stylus on the screen leading up to block incoming attacks or even touching the screen the whole time during the battle, which turned out not to be the case.  Secondly, there are several enemies that will attack using their right or left hands (for the enemies that have actual hands) and those attacks come in a diagonal direction.  It was not until a few hours in that I realized you have to swipe in the direction that the attack is coming in.  This means, being right-handed, swiping from bottom right to upper left felt very awkward when I had been swiping bottom left to the upper right for the majority of the game. 

This realization hit me probably around the time that you learn the charge attack, where you tap the screen, hold the attack to charge, and then attack when your meter is flashing.  Around this time, some enemies develop a charge attack too and the only way to block it is with a charge attack of your own.  Sometimes I am very slow.

The leveling up system in the game was fun, but I could see it being either confusing or cumbersome if you are not the kind of person that likes budgeting items and saving up to purchase either skills or status upgrades.  Throughout the game, you either find or scavenge body parts from enemies (when you build up a meter and make the killing blow, time slows down and you can sever specific body parts that you use to purchase upgrades) and once you gain the ability to convert Hands (the most common monster body part) to other rarer body parts like Jaws and Wings, then you have to weigh if you want to make the conversion of a lot of common items for much fewer rarer items.  Then you also have essentially heart container pieces but for your brain/mana/magic abilities as well.  The semi-tongue-in-cheekiness in these heart and brain container pieces I did greatly appreciate.

Without going too much into story elements, I kinda think that is about it as far as describing the game.  You would gain access to new areas by way of an equipment upgrade, then you could backtrack to open up previously locked areas, usually resulting in finding heart/brain container pieces or a large jar containing a lot of body parts.  Like a lot of games that use skill trees, I did reach the point near the end-game where I had purchased everything and was still racking up the number of body parts with nothing left to spend them on.  I do not know if this was an oversight or just something that Drink Box thought, "Well, they've made it this far and have a lot of parts, oh well."  Maybe having a skill that lets you convert X number of body parts to an in-battle health potion or mana potion (or fruit in the case of this game) would have been an interesting mechanic.

After talking quite a bit about the battle mechanic, I should mention that I impressed myself, or DrinkBox just did a great job with the final boss fight.  Unlike the three previous main bosses, the final boss I only had to attempt once, and while somewhat stressful, I found it to be a lot of fun, utilizing skills and tactics that I had learned over the course of the game.  Recognizing tells that the boss would give, visual design clues to attack certain parts of the boss first, as well as magic management and keeping my eyes on the multiple enemies that would spawn at various times of the battle.  Also finding three family keepsakes that would give specific buffs was probably also very helpful.

The game ended in a way that felt appropriate, which I will not spoil here because it is definitely worth playing through.  DrinkBox did a great job telling a story through a silent protagonist through an alien and unfamiliar world that did fit within the theme of their previous game Guacamelee without feeling like you were playing another version of the same game.  I did impress myself though that I completed as much of the game as I did, finding almost all of the items, hidden areas without the use of a guide or out-of-game maps.  There were a couple of times I felt lost, but those were in areas that deliberately did not have maps in-game and they only felt large at first, but once stepping back, you realize that the area is not as big as it is made out to be.  The biggest hold-up I could see for people is if they genuinely do not like first-person perspective dungeon crawls, but for me, I enjoyed the experience and would recommend the game if you have a touch screen device...

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Hi Everyone

MIDI Week Singles: "Escape" - Thomas Was Alone (NS)

 

"Escape" from Thomas Was Alone on the PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Linux, iOS, Android, Xbox One, Wii U, & Switch (2013 - 2021)
Composer: David Housden
Album: Thomas Was Alone Original Soundtrack (Deluxe Edition)
Label: Bandcamp
Publisher: Ant Workshop
Developer: Mike Bithell

I was tempted to use the opening track from Thomas Was Alone, but after playing through the game for a second time, I realized I wanted instead to use "Escape."  As I found out while listening to Mike Bithell's commentary during the game, the score that David Housden wrote for each scenario (a block of 10 stages) is played at different times based on an algorithm so you may not hear the song in the order from beginning to end in the game as it was written, theoretically, over the course of the 10 stages, you will likely hear the song in its entirety.  Maybe the algorithm happened to select the right parts of the song to play at the right time, anticipating how I was playing to have the music line up with the narration and where I was in the stage.  That might be asking a bit much, but whatever it was, having "Escape" play during the Generation scenario (8.1 - 8.10) was a wonderful experience. Playing as different AI quadrilaterals making use of the different abilities from the original AIs from the beginning of the game and making their way to escape was... moving?  Heartfelt?  Powerful?

I would like to think that there is some lingering effect that the music has if you are listening to this track (or even the album) if you have not played the game, but I know for me, listening to it out of context, outside of the game, "Escape" still very much has all of the impact as it does while playing as Grey, Jo, and Sam.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
My Head is in the Stars, My Feet are in the Sky

Game EXP: Thomas Was Alone [Third Impressions] (NS)

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of  Thomas Was Alone for the Nintendo Switch by Mike Bithell Games from their Operations Director after responding to a Tweet from Mike Bithell.  The game was given and received without promise, voiced or expressed expectation of a positive review and faithfully observed the established review embargo until the allotted time of 09:00 GMT on Friday, February 19, 2021.  All of the words and pictures used in this article, unless stated otherwise, are from my own experience playing on the Nintendo Switch console.

I did take/use/modify this image from the Thomas Was Alone press packet.

I will be 100% honest with you.  Thomas Was Alone is one of my favorite games across all platforms.  I first played it back in 2014 on my laptop through Steam before I had a controller, so I was using keyboard controls, which sounds horrible to play a platformer with WASD & Spacebar, but Thomas Was Alone was forgiving enough that I was able to look past these sub-par controls, a fault of my own and not of the game.  Oddly enough though, I only played through the game that one time in 2014, playing through the main 90 levels and then through the 20 "Benjamin's Flight" DLC chapters.  This time around, I played through the game a whopping two times because a commentary was included as a secondary audio channel, but more on that later.

Thomas Was Alone is a narrated story-driven platformer where you go from Point A to Point B using quadrilaterals of varying sizes each with a different ability.  What I have always loved about this game is that it is not trying to be a punishing pixel-perfect platformer like Super Meat Boy.  The point of Thomas Was Alone is the telling of a story about an AI named Thomas who becomes self-aware, meets up with other AI on their search for the fabled "Fountain."  Each quadrilateral has their own unique abilities like Thomas can jump pretty high, but not as high as the tall yellow John, but is out jumped by the small purple Sara who is able to jump (nearly) as high as John, but is capable of performing a double jump.  All of these characters are introduced steadily throughout the 100 levels so it never feels overwhelming having to deal with so many characters on screen at the same time.  And you are not always playing with the same characters all the time.  For instance, on one level you might have Thomas, Chris, and Sarah, and on another level, you have Chris, John, Sarah, and Claire.  The individual levels are never overly long either, some can be completed in fewer than 15 seconds, often before the narration is completed.

And that I feel is a way that developer Mike Bithell gets across to the player the tone and pacing for the game.  You could just speed your way through without paying attention to or letting the narration finish in each level, but that is not what the game is about (you can see my developing thoughts on speedrunning here).  There were a number of levels where I hovered around the exit portal for a couple of seconds because I wanted to hear the rest of the narration and on more than one occasion, I accidentally finished a stage before the narration finished so I went back and redid the previous stage.  The narration of the story by Danny Wallace instills the perfect amount of life and feeling into all of the 2D monochrome quadrilaterals that before you finish the game, you almost forget that you are dealing with shapes instead of humanoid characters.  And it is not like some of the narration directly has to do with the actions being performed by the characters, some of it comes across as background information and exposition, further developing the quadrilaterals and deeper characters.  It is just a testament to the perfect combination of amazing writing, perfect vocal delivery, and heartfelt music.

The port to the Nintendo Switch by Ant Workshop is something that I have been hoping for since I first got the Switch, always feeling that this type of game would be perfect for the hand-held format, that it was not at all hardware intensive and selfishly because I wanted to be able to play it while lying in bed.  I did play the entirety of the game in handheld mode so I cannot speak to playing it on the Switch through the TV, but there were zero latency issues, no milliseconds of dead space after pressing a button.  One of my two complaints about the entirety of the game had to do with the volume of the commentary versus the rest of the game once the commentary stopped.  I felt that the volume of Mike Bithell's voice, even with the separate commentary volume turned up to 100 was pretty quiet so that I had the Switch volume cranked higher than I usually do for any other game, but then when he stopped talking, the regular in-game music, narration and sound effects would return to their regular pre-set volume (not that these were were completely muted when the commentary track was playing, but just played at about 20% volume), which often forced me to decrease the Switch volume manually.  I did eventually adjust the music and narration volume down to 60-70, which seemed like a happy medium so that I could listen to the commentary and when it stopped, not scramble for another volume control.

But the commentary.  The commentary!  I personally love film commentaries and will often wait for a release of a film if the first release does not contain a commentary, or buy a specific version of a film I already want because there is a commentary.  Commentaries in video games is something that I would definitely love to see more of although I have played a few that did manage to incorporate commentaries well like Portal through Steam, and the Amnesia Collection which is also available on the Switch.  Now, there are great commentaries, like on Cube and El Mariachi, and then there are not so great commentaries like on Lethal Weapon 4, but Mike Bithell's solo commentary for each stage is pretty amazing.  

He talks a lot about design choices for various stages, often focusing on the specific stage you are playing as well as developmental challenges with creating the game.  As was the sometimes the case with the story narration, there were several stages where I was ready to complete it and move on, but the commentary continued, so I just milled around a bit listening to Mike Bithell talk about fan reactions or level design, which I was 100% okay with, again because I love audio commentaries.  I do not know what I was expecting out of Mr. Bithell's voice, but he does have a very soothing voice and his delivery would not be been out of place as the narrator in a sequel.  Or he could do another commentary, really for any game out there, I do not think I care.

One sad note, not directly pertaining to the Switch port, there was no audio commentary for the Benjamin's Flight DLC stages, included in this (and I think most?) versions of Thomas Was Alone.  I did replay through the last 20 levels just in case there was an audio hidden somewhere in one of the stages (say, for 2o seconds in 11.3), but it was all just the original audio.  The first 90 stages in the game were what Thomas Was Alone originally was, and the final 20 stages (10.1 - 11.10) were part of a prequel story that is a very similar game to the first 90 stages, but different enough for me to want to listen to Mike Bithell talk for another 30 minutes about these changes.  For one, I found the Benjamin's Flight stages to be a little more traditional as far as platformer levels go with more challenging obstacles and moments that required you to switch to a different character on the fly to have them perform an action and then immediately switch back to the first.  Was this because of criticism of Thomas Was Alone being too easy?  Why decide on a jetpack as a mode of jumping for the extra levels?  What happened to Benjamin's father?  Why does Benjamin have a father?  I'm sure I could read interviews about these, but after hearing the commentary track for the first 90 stages, I want to hear it from the Mouth of Bithell, preferably while I'm playing those stages.

If you happen to never have played Thomas Was Alone on any of the platforms it was released on over the last 11 years, and you have a Nintendo Switch, I would recommend this game.  If you have played Thomas Was Alone but it has been more than five years since you played this game on a different platform with a different control method and you have a Nintendo Switch, I would recommend this game.  If you are like me and played this game six years ago and happened to receive a review copy of the game, you can buy an eShop card for someone else who has a Nintendo Switch for the sole purpose of buying this game because as I mentioned way up at the top, Thomas Was Alone is one of my favorite games.  The writing, the emotional impact of the characters, the narration, the music all fit perfectly together to create this amazing gaming experience that does not hinder you if you are just starting out with video games or have been playing pretty consistently for the last 35 years.  I am also just a sucker for a game about friendship and loss through adventure and adversity.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
We Swore Blood Brothers Against The Wind

P.S.  I used "[Third Impressions]" in the title and an inside joke with myself because when I wrote my First Impressions article back in 2014, it was a year after Dr. Potts had reviewed the game in his First Impressions of Thomas Was Alone and at the time, I thought I was being clever by writing Second Impressions, being the second time we had a First Impressions article for the same game.

MIDI Week Singles: "Good Luck" - Emerald Dragon (SFC)

"Good Luck" from Emerald Dragon on the Super Famicom (1995)
Composer: Yasuhiko Fukuda
Album: Dengeki CD Bunko EX: Emerald Dragon SFC Game Music Album
Label: Dengeki CD Bunko EX
Publisher: MediaWorks
Developer: Alfa System

Before this game came up while participating in my own #AllTheSNESMusic, I had never heard of this game or any of the music or even of composer Yasuhiko Fukuda.  Knowing me, it is no surprise that the track from the game that starts out with a pipe organ is going to catch my immediate interest.

So, since I have never played this RPG, I have zero context for this song.  Something interesting though, is that while the song is titled "Good Luck" on the official soundtrack, all of the YouTube videos (the one that is currently linked as well) have the title as "Magic" and I am not really sure why.  It would probably help with a bit of context and if I had played the game.  But until it is released on the SNES Online App with an English localization, I will just have to either speculate (that this track takes place in a church where you are granted holy magical powers to further help you along your quest), or just wait and see.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
We Found Nothing

MIDI Week Singles: "Gourmet Race" - Kirby's Dream Land 3 (SNES)

"Gourmet Race" from Kirby's Dream Land 3 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1997)
Composer: Jun Ishikawa
Album: No Official Release
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: HAL Laboratory

"Gourment Race" is the name of the song which was taken from the Gourmet Race mini-game in Kirby Super Star released on the SNES a year earlier in 1996.  In Kirby's Dream Land 3 also on the SNES and released in 1997, it is used as the theme in two of the levels, Sand Canyon 2, and Cloudy Park 4.  While the song remains super catchy regardless of where it is used in a Kirby game, it never seemed to be fitting in either of these stages.  The Gourmet Race game in Kirby's Super Star is a manic race between Kirby and King Dedede, whereas Sand Caynon 2 and Cloudy Park 4 are standard platforming levels in a Kirby game.

All of that being said, I think I prefer this version of "Gourmet Race" compared to the original from Kirby Super Star, which is really just be a matter of taste and I am not saying that this version is better.  For me, there is just something to this arrangement, a little more energy and slightly different instrumentation.  It just clicks.

I also cannot talk about this song without bringing up how well it syncs up with several sections of Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it)."

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
To Walk the Skies in a State Neither Flight or Falling

Monthly Update: February 2021

Damn.

You know, I didn't even register that it was February until late in the afternoon on Monday.  Well, I knew it was February in that it was a new month, but not in that I hadn't written a Monthly Update article yet.  And I will probably come to a similar realization in about 24 days when we're on March 1st.

The biggest news, at least for me (and really what else matters?) was that I decided to (temporarily) drop out of our Dungeons & Dragons group that was running Curse of Strahd (the Ravenloft campaign).  This was obviously not something that I decided one day but had been thinking about for some time as Goblino was then seven months old and whose schedule was changing little-by-little.  Goblino also firmly had two teeth and was increasingly able to eat different types of solid food which meant that we were now feeding him increasingly more solid foods around 6:30 - 7:00 PM then a bottle before bed around 7:45 PM and if we were "lucky" he would be asleep by 8:00 PM and I would be able to join our group over on Roll 20.  For part of December and January, falling asleep was more difficult for Goblino, often with Conklederp and I tag-teaming to comfort Goblino to sleep, some nights until 9:30 PM.  Our DM was wonderfully accommodating and pushed the start time back to 8:00 PM a few times, but again, I did pull myself away to help with Goblino.  Oddly enough, in the last session I played, there was a power outage at our DM's house just after our group had entered a portal but before we emerged.  The DM and I decided that this would be a perfect spot for me as Lurien (the Halfling Wild Mage Sorcerer) to disappear, probably as a result of a magic surge while going through the portal.  I would love to return to our group as we had been able to play in-person for six months, then on Roll 20 for the next nine months (because none of us are selfish enough to believe that we could gather seven people from five households under one roof for three-to-four hours every other week) and this was a great D&D group.  I might try to pop in the nights they gather to play just to say "hi" on occasion and see how everyone is doing.

For other games, I did pick up a number of expansions for Elder Sign over Christmas and Conklederp and I have tried a couple of times to get a game going, but the set up took about 30 minutes and because it was an expansion with all sorts of new additions and rules, we started off slow and by 10:00 PM, both of us were already very tired.  So, we put the game on hold, which ended up being put away a couple of days later when the week started and we knew we would not be getting back to it until possibly the following week and it was taking up room on our kitchen table.  We haven't gotten back to it yet, but hopefully in the coming weeks?  

But earlier in the week, I saw an article talking about the release of Arkham Horror: Mother's Embrace which was first announced as a Mansions of Madness spin-off video game from Asmodee Digital.  What I love about the trailer is that it just looks like a 3D version of Mansions of Madness down to the spells, the look of the rooms in the mansion, the turn-based combat.  It does not look like a super up 4K 1080p 120fps game, but that is perfectly fine with me.  As long as there is some creepy cosmic horror story going on and that there are either multiple cases/scenarios to play or some level of replayability, then I will be all in when it releases on the Nintendo Switch sometime in the next month or two.  I do not see it getting physical release though, which w0uld be expected but still a bit of a disappointment; it is Asmodee Digital after all.

I have, on the other hand, been playing quite a bit of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity on the Nintendo Switch, a game which I pre-ordered back in November and started back in the end of December.  I have been continuing to sink hours into Mario's Super Picross on the SNES Nintendo Switch Online app (Currently working on stages 7 in Wario and 8 in Mario), and Conklederp recently asked if I could start playing Kirby's Dreamland 3 since Age of Calamity is a bit too high energy right before going to bed; I might have a review up for KD3 later in the month.  I have also been playing Fortnite.  Still.  But in my defense, you have to reach Battle Tier 100 to unlock The Child/The Asset/Baby Yoda/Grogu and I was able to use my stockpile of V-Bucks earned from previous seasons (I've currently only paid for the Season 5 Battle Pass back in 2019) to purchase this season.  I think I'll step back from Fortnite for a while after this season is over, and I of course say that now unless they release a Fox Mulder or Samus Aran skin next season as part of the Battle Pass. 

I am also working through my backlog of DS and 3DS games, recently finishing Severed by DrinkBox Studios and now I am working through The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.  I had thought about Dragon Quest IX as per my previous post about JRPGs, but the 31 hours to beat Spirit Tracks was a little more enticing than the 86.5 - 752 hours to beat Dragon Quest IX; not that I am a completionist, but I do like to do as many side quests as possible until the urge to just finish the damn game overcomes my desire to play the same game.  And I am on the third stage of Wiley's Castle (is it still Dr. Wiley?) in Mega Man 5 on my 3DS; and yes, I am using save states because there is a lot of cheap shots that the game takes and I do not have the time/patience to no-hit my way through the game; but no, I am not spamming save states, so there is still a lot of challenge involved.  Maybe next, if it is not the middle of spring/summer I will take up Spirit Camera, which I briefly started before my previous 3DS became maimed; I thought it would be a great game to play in the 100-year-old house we had recently bought.

Let's end it here for now.  That seems like a decent amount to show forth in this shortened month.  A little January, a little February with a hint of possible March. 

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
I Could Stay There For A Lifetime

P.S.  Wear a mask when inside and near people!

P.P.S. I was going to say "wear a mask when you're out in public," but I forgot my mask at home yesterday so I had to walk the 275 ft from the parking lot to inside our building without a mask, and I'm definitely not the kind of person who doesn't wear a mask.  And I definitely had the look of shame as I quickly walked to the office where I know I could grab a disposable mask and wear that for the rest of the day.

P.P.P.S. Black History started before slaves were brought to the Americas in 1619.  Celebrate Black History more than just once a month.

MIDI Week Singles: "Overworld Adventure" - The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (NDS)

 

"Overworld Adventure" from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks on the Nintendo DS (2009)

Composer(s)*: Koji Kondo, Tōru Minegishi, Asuka Ōta, & Manaka Tominaga

Album: No Album Release

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Nintendo EAD

I have been playing The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks a lot over the last week, and while it is not shaping up to be one of my favorite Legend of Zelda experiences, I am enjoying some of the music, which does fit in with the Legend of Zelda worlds/timelines/games.  

Because apparently everything in Spirit Tracks has to be based around trains or some aspect of trains, "Overworld Adventure" does fit the bill quite nicely.  The strumming/picking (I don't play guitar) is in a style that is very much "Hey, I'm a train!" which is perfect for when you are on the train traveling from one location to another trying to avoid the enemy-shadow-possessed trains that hunt you along the tracks.  The melody is played on a panflute-type instrument that comes across as more obvious in this recording than it does over the DS/3DS speakers.  Here you can very clearly hear the puff of air being blown into the flute before each note, which does not sound as clear in-game.

On a side note, I would love to hear this melody actually be played on a set of panpipes, but all I could find on the Tubes was it being played on an ocarina, which makes me wonder if it is even possible.  But I am sure it is because people who are wonderfully proficient with an instrument have amazing skill.  So I will keep looking for that performance, but in the meantime, the in-game version of "Overworld Adventure" it will be for me while I head into the northern snow-filled lands.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
The Ruins Are About To Crumble Down

*P.S.  I am not 100% certain who composed this track as there are four composers credited for the music in the game, but since there appears to not be an official soundtrack (outside of compilation albums) and none of those albums I could find specifically had any one composer credited with this particular song.