January 2016

There were 2 posts published in January (this is page 1 of 1).

Going Backwards – 2D Platformers

I was watching a video talking about Super Mario 64 today and thinking about how revolutionary it was at the time of its release. Consider just how many decisions had to be made in that game’s development that involved making it easy for the players to know how to play – since this was the first 3D platformer, they had to look at things an entirely different way. And what came out of that was something that will go down in the history of video games forever – a truly revolutionary title.
Now, sure, where do you expand in that area beyond 3D? Revolutionary game development had to happen in other areas. But that’s not what I’m writing about right now. I started thinking about this today, and eventually came to thinking about how many 2D platformers we’ve had in recent years. It’s no secret that 3D platformers have been absent for a long time (with exceptions), while 2D platformers came roaring back a little while ago.

I’m fine with that, of course – I don’t think genres should be abandoned if more can be done with them. I think you’ll agree that plenty HAS been done with 2D platforming following its revival. Great games like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, recent Shantae games, Shovel Knight, and Yoshi’s Wooly World are just a few examples of some solid 2D platformers we’ve had in recent years. I still played these, of course, because they’re solid games.

But I think we’re past the point of exhaustion now. That said, 2D platformers don’t need to go away. If that were the case, we wouldn’t get such great games as the ones I mentioned above. I guess my actual realization isn’t so much “why are we getting so many 2D platformers?” as much as it is “why is Nintendo putting out so many 2D platformers?”.

Take a look at what we’ve received recently from them: New Super Mario Bros. U, Yoshi’s Wooly World, and Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash are 3 examples I can come up with immediately. I know we’ve had entries in the 3D platformer genre recently (Super Mario 3D World being the best example), but I just hope Nintendo will focus a bit more on the genre they started. Indies are doing some great 3D platformers now (Yooka-Laylee is on the way this year, not to mention A Hat in Time, and others), so I would like to see Nintendo jump back into that a bit more than they are.

Games I Played in 2015 – Part 2

Time for some brief thoughts on the rest of the games I played in 2015! This part will focus on games I played over the holidays. As such, I haven’t necessarily finished all of them yet, but I’m not really doing full reviews in these posts anyway.

REMINDER: These are in no particular order.

Yoshi’s Wooly World (Wii U)

This game was announced with a quick screenshot, followed by radio silence for awhile. When it resurfaced, it looked great, and then took longer still to finally get released. Never mind the whole thing where Europe got it months before North America did…

That all said, this game was totally worth the wait. The game is adorable, a huge step up from the last yarn game (Kirby’s Epic Yarn), and it’s a lot more challenging as well. It’s a beautiful game to look at and there’s a ton of great gameplay ideas. I’d call this game one of the best of 2015.

Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U)

This is one I’ve played for a bit, but I’ve barely scratched the surface. This game is huge. It’s clear that there was a ton of work put into this, and it’s understandable why it took quite awhile to get released. I find that the game can be a bit over complicated in some respects, but a lot of the complexities are optional.

One thing I’ll say about this game is that I wish it didn’t have a silent protagonist. I’m going to write another post on this topic, but I’m growing a little tired of silent protagonists in games, especially when there’s no real reason for it. More on that another time, though.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon (3DS)

I’m not done this one yet either, but I loved it almost right from the get-go. The game mechanics have seen vast improvements over the Explorers games (Explorers of Time being the only other one I’ve played). The first noticeable thing (aside from the obvious graphical improvements) is the attack menu, which no longer requires entering the menu first and selecting a move. Simply holding R and selecting your attack is a much more user-friendly experience. The story so far seems to be lighter material than Explorers of Time, but it’s still good.

I really like how the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games convey themes of friendship, and that’s present in this game as well. From what I know of the series, it seems Super Mystery Dungeon is a clear step up for the series. YMMV.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (3DS)

The first spinoff Animal Crossing game to be announced for 2015, Home Designer steps away from the focus of the main series to focus solely on designing homes. The usual humour in dialogue is present as always in this game, making it a pleasant experience to read lines and lines of text (the series excels at this, even if I still sometimes get tired of some of the repeating text whenever you enter a public building).

Where this game really shines, however, is in how it revamps the item management system. Everything can be placed with the touchscreen, making it far easier to design the interior of your home. There’s more too – designing yards, something the series doesn’t even have, makes me hope for yards and such in the main series.

Part of me thinks they worked on Happy Home Designer as a project to develop updated design tools for the main series. As such, I can’t help but hope that the next main series game sees these improvements carried over. Better design tools (interior and exterior), yards, etc. could hugely benefit the main series. I hope to see that happen.

Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival (Wii U)

Speaking of Animal Crossing spin offs, I forgot to mention this in my last part. Think about what that says about the game itself…

Now before I mislead you, I didn’t strongly dislike this game like so many other reviewers did. I actually played and enjoyed a few board games the first night I had the game (right about when it came out). Also, this game served to bring us the beautiful Animal Crossing amiibo series, so we can be thankful for that.

The problem with this game is what I hinted at 2 paragraphs ago – it’s not extremely memorable. That comes from it being light on content. It lacks the mini games during the board games that Mario Party has, so the only thing really going on is the board game. That would be fine – most real life board games don’t have mini games – if there was enough else going on. Something usually happens on each turn to affect the spaces you land on, but it just affects whether you get more or less happy points or bells. The turnip trading adds a twist for each week of the board game, so that’s something to keep you thinking at least.

All-in-all, I enjoy the game because it’s a relaxing one to sit down and play. It has a good amount of the Animal Crossing charm to it, and it’s fun to play while spending time with a loved one, but I do think the concept of an Animal Crossing board game has more potential that this game didn’t quite make use of completely. I’m curious if we’ll see another board game in the Animal Crossing series.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai (PS2)

I played a PlayStation 2 game! I’ve always loved Dragon Ball Z, but I’d only played Budokai in passing at a friend’s house before (and maybe it was Budokai 2 or 3, it was too long ago to recall for sure).

I like this game as a start to the Budokai series, but I can definitely agree with the criticism of the combo system. Combos require basically standing still to execute, since a directional input counts as a valid combo input for several moves. Most of the time I’m trying to keep close to the opponent, so I would accidentally mess up a combo because I’m holding a directional button. I can chalk that up to me just not being good at that type of game, but I look forward to trying Budokai 3 with the better combo system it has (I think?).

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That’s all for 2015! I most likely forgot a game or two that I played this year, so I’m going to try to keep better track of the games I play this year for a similar post next December – January.

I’m already looking forward to a few games for 2016, namely The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD, Star Fox Zero, Yooka-Laylee, and, the big one, The Legend of Zelda for Wii U. I’m also betting we’ll see Nintendo’s NX this year, so I’m really interested to see how Nintendo approaches their next platform.