#781 Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

Posted: 4th June 2021 by Jeroen in Games
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964th played so far

Genre: Platform/Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Playstation 3
Year of Release: 2007
Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

We’ve got a nice minor landmark here. While I’ve been avoiding finishing genres, the Ratchet & Clank series is one of the later entries in the “character and sidekick” series of 3D platformers that Banjo Kazooie originated and also showed up with Jak & Daxter. Each has its own twist on it, and despite the writing being good I’m not sure the series got me as much as the others. With this being the more recent entry, I hope to see if it will grab me more this time.

Our Thoughts

Looking at my earlier notes, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction is the game that hit best. The platforming works pretty well here, and is one of the smoother experiences I’ve had in a 3D platformer. The shooting is decent, with enough help to get you through and although the levels are pretty linear, there are enough places to explore and keep you finding secrets. The worlds themselves are mostly futuristic areas – from a sleek cyberpunky futuristic city to a more urban sci fi fantasy area, so far mixed in with alien swamp areas and goo/acid factories. It’s partially quite standard, but the gameplay works quite well.

You have a lot of unlocks, both to buy new weapons and to upgrade them. While the game is quite generous with the bolts that are the basic currency, it’s got crystals and others that are rarer and restrict you further – initially just giving you the crystals from bosses, but later having a few other enemies give them as well. It’s a good drive to keep you going and try a bit more, as you can really feel the impact of playing earlier on.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed myself quite a lot playing through Tools of Destruction, even as it took me a few attempts to get through the first level – it took me a while to get used to the flow of these levels. Once I got there, though, it was fun – racing along rails, shooting what came across, and occasionally using Clank’s small size to get through some other places. The dialogue and story held up and made for a really good game on their own, something I enjoyed playing. These updated versions of these franchises are worth going back to.

#628 Battalion Wars

Posted: 1st June 2021 by Jeroen in Games
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963rd played so far

Genre: Action/Strategy
Platform: Gamecube
Year of Release: 2005
Developer: Kuju Entertainment
Publisher: Nintendo

For some reason I thought Battalion Wars was a prequel to Advance Wars: the big game version of it before it was adapted for the handheld. I was wrong – not only did this come later, it changed the format quite a bit to be a more 3D, on the ground series.

It’s something different, even if I haven’t always loved this type of strategy as much, as I recently discussed with Herzog Zwei. It’s hard to keep track of everything you need to do and the interface needs to be perfect to work. It wasn’t with Herzog Zwei, but Pikmin pulled it off, and I wonder how it works here.

Our Thoughts

Battalion Wars takes place in the same world as Advance Wars, but with quite a different feel: As I said, you’re a battlefield commander ordering your troops around. This includes you acting as your own strongest unit, but has you getting units in different positions and running around as you need to get them to the right place. Except for those places where I just want to get through an area and attack en masse while my opponents come in with different troops. The controls are just that bit too awkward in these situations.

That broke down further when I had to deal with the driving controls of the game. The fourth mission has a long driving section in it where you’re racing down while avoiding enemies as you’re up against a time limit. The time limit isn’t generous, but when you’re bouncing around the area it becomes really difficult to finish it. It was genuinely frustrating and I was close to giving up after a few tries. I know it’s possible, but it wasn’t fun to do so.

The story itself, despite using fictional countries, feels a lot like an aggressive Americans vs treacherous Russians story that felt a bit too over the top. It’s a bit unfortunate, but on the whole it suits the tone of the game – I guess it’s what it is.

Final Thoughts

I think that story defines how I feel about the game though. It’s solid enough, doing what it needs to do, but the gameplay isn’t entirely my thing, it doesn’t quite fit together, and I may try again, but want to try some different games like it.

#736 Virtua Tennis 3

Posted: 29th May 2021 by Jeroen in Games
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962nd played so far

Genre: Sports
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Sega AM3/Sumo Digital
Publisher: Sega

It feels like it’s only been weeks since I played Mario Power Tennis, the previous tennis (or tennis-inspired) game, even if it’s been over half a year. But as I approach the end of the entire list, this is one of the last sports games remaining.

This is a more serious tennis game though, using the real world and real players, and I suspect there will be a fair amount of references to real life and nods at simulation.

Our Thoughts

Given the experience I think I’ve had by now with tennis games, I think I can safely say that this is a good one where playing is concerned. The controls are pretty intuitive, something that feels mandatory with these games by now. You start off on the world map with mostly just practice modes open. As you go through them, increasing your skills both as a player and by having the numbers go up, what’s available on the worldmap changes and tournaments open and close. These are accessible, of course, based on your own ranking, so you can’t get into the big ones until you’re at a minimum rank, so you really start at the bottom with some smaller tournaments that, at the very least, seem straight forward enough to beat. It’s a neat way to gate your progress, even if it’s frustrating when you can’t do much but practice for the week when you want to play.

And the game is a lot of fun to plan. It’s mainly the tennis playing, which hit the right level of difficulty so far – hard, sure, but you’re still likely to beat it early on – while training helps enough as your numbers go up. There’s nothing innovative in the gameplay, but the numbers going up help, and the wide variety of mini games during your practice keep it from going stale.

Final Thoughts

It always feels like sports game don’t really find a way to innovate, but I think tennis games, together with golf games, are ones that have already managed that. Virtua Tennis 3 rightly avoids innovating on that, instead focusing on a realistic-feeling setup to the tournament and your way through the year (even as it’s obviously compressed from real life). The tutorial and practice sessions are far better integrated through the various mini games than a tutorial or separate mode would do, as it pushes you forward – and adds a nice bit of customization to your character, without that overwhelming the game.

#850 Ninja Gaiden II

Posted: 26th May 2021 by Jeroen in Games
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961st played so far

Genre: Adventure/Fighting
Platform: Xbox 360
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: Team Ninja
Publisher: Microsoft

One of the stranger and more frustrating features of the list are the near-duplicate games. I feel I have only played a single Ninja Gaiden game, but did it twice because of the Ninja Gaiden Black upgrade – same engine, same gameplay, just some tweaks and updates on a list that could always use more variety. It’s time for the second game now, where we’ll get a new story, new levels and generally an actually new game in the series. Time to play Ninja Gaiden II!

Our Thoughts

The start of Ninja Gaiden II is really appealing. Although only a few years newer, the world looks prettier. Even though it’s set in and around a Tokyo tower block, it has a number of high up natural features, including cherry blossom gardens and water features, that add to an area that does feel Japanese. It’s a stereotypical lens, sure, but that’s part of the whole game. It looks lovely even as the game goes on, a game that’s pushing itself further than the first installment.

All of this surrounds a highly violent game, heavily featuring cutting off limbs and such that culminate in big, bloody finishing moves, most satisfying after taking on a larger group. There are a lot of techniques that the game introduces you to early on, giving you instructions every few steps – it’s a good thing most of it flows naturally, as it’s a lot to absorb, and they do a good job training you after you get the instructions and reinforcing it a few times later on – giving you an achievement each time you pull something off for the first time helps a lot confirming that. That first level really feels like a good marriage of a decent, interesting level and a packed tutorial that’s doing okay.

The next level mostly lets go of that, instead taking you back to the village you started the first game in as you travel back to your dojo – under assault and on fire once you reach it. It felt familiar as I went up there, but at the same time it got an upgrade and a different path through as well. It was a neat way to get you back in while not immediately looking back and it works well enough.

Final Thoughts

I’ve obviously been soured on this series a bit thanks to the first game’s double inclusion on the list – it’s a good game, but not quite that good. This is a good sequel though, building on what came before, looking and playing better – it’s gorgeous in places – and the many different things in there work well. It’s a good game, fun to explore even if there aren’t that many secrets or different paths.

#752 Flatout: Ultimate Carnage

Posted: 23rd May 2021 by Jeroen in Games
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960th played so far

Genre: Racing
Platform: Xbox 360/PC
Year of Release: 2007
Developer: Bugbear Entertainment
Publisher: Empire Interactive

Racer 38. The only one of Bugbear Entertainment’s on the list, although we’ve seen Empire Interactive publish a couple of games so far in quite different genres. Beyond that, it’s a racing game, that’s about all I have.

Our Thoughts

It was odd playing this game while listening to a podcast discussing Teardown‘s destruction mechanics. While this doesn’t let you destroy everything, the game uses plenty of destructible scenery while also encouraging you to hit and destroy opponents where you can to help you get ahead. It’s quite physics-driven, with some ragdoll elements, and the game feels brutal because of that. It even encourages you by giving you nitro when you’re being destructive, which is a boost you really need to get ahead.

And you do need them – the game is happy to set you back real far when you get a crash in, and it’s normally hard to catch up without getting knocked about. The use of nitro to speed you up further helps make it far more reasonable to be able to catch up and win the race, a cheat button that’s needed after all the other tricks that are involved.

Once you get used to that, you race through some quite nice, natural environments – the sort of older rural areas where you race wouldn’t get in the way of too many (even if you destroy their sheds, fences and patio furniture). There are quite a few of them, with a bunch of different types of races on the tracks, which gives you a lot to do. Unfortunately that also means time trials and the like – modes that avoid the destruction and physics based stuff in favour of pure driving, at which point it all seems timed too tightly and it loses the fun the proper races have.

Final Thoughts

The Ultimate Carnage subtitle really applies here, with that being the best element of the game that’s notable in its absence in various places. It makes for a good hook, one we saw games like Burnout take on as well, but this is one more place where it works.

#404 Chrono Cross

Posted: 20th May 2021 by Jeroen in Games
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959th played so far

Genre: Role-Playing
Platform: Playstation 1
Year of Release: 1999
Developer: Square Product Development Division 3
Publisher: Square

Chrono Trigger was one of the biggest RPGs of the 16-bit era and probably rivals only Final Fantasy VI in its focus on JRPG character building and story telling, even outshining it as it could focus on a smaller cast. It’s no wonder then that Square decided to create a sequel. It’s meant to be more closely linked to its base game than the Final Fantasy series is, though mostly through cameos and appearances rather than more direct references – I believe the way later Dragon Quest games handle it.

I’ve seen it criticized a lot, although mostly from the comparison. It’s a good game, but not as good as Chrono Trigger‘s heights are. Based on the fan reaction, this might not be on here, but all I know is that it’s meant to have its own charm. With that said, I don’t know what to actually expect as I’ve only heard about this game second hand. Will it work that well?

Our Thoughts

What makes Chrono Cross that bit less compelling is its central conceit. Where Chrono Trigger focused, in its stories, on time travel, having the past influence the future and with a main villain who goes back in time, Chrono Cross works across parallel worlds. There’s two of them – one in which the main character survived into adulthood and the other where he didn’t – and aside from switching between them you can influence them somehow. I’m not quite sure why you can do the latter (wouldn’t it deviate?), but it’s how the game works. Beyond that, it’s a neat way of exploring the butterfly effect in a game in a way that you can rarely see done. It’s not as intuitive as time travel though, which is where I got a bit confused on how it could all work out.

Even so, there’s another place where I feel it leans into it, although I can’t say I’ve fully experienced it. While Chrono Trigger already did a lot with its New Game Plus mode, Chrono Cross takes it further. Not only are there loads of endings, most only accessible by replaying, but the immense cast (not as big as the Suikoden series, but it seems close) can’t all join your party in a single playthrough. Unlocked characters seem to carry through between plays, but there are several splits in the path where you are limited in who you can collect when you go through. Even early on you want to deny some people joining you so others can join you first. It even impacts how the rest of the game plays: The second town you visit has three different ways to get into a castle, with different characters and gameplay. It’s an interesting choice that, again, hits that collector’s nerve in my brain.

The battle system’s flexibility ties into that. Each character and enemy is tied into an element and one of the things you do during battles is to use your techniques, attacks and even items to change the colour of the battlefield to match your preferred elements and increase your own damage while diminishing the enemies’. You also assign certain abilities to your character based on the grids that they’ve unlocked, so you can customize each one to focus on the abilities and elements you need for each. There’s some character-specific stuff in there as well – double and triple techs make a combat – meaning that there’s a lot of depth here even when you can just let the game figure it out. One other thing that helps with this many characters is that you don’t have to worry about grinding as much: Your maximum level is determined by the number of bosses you’ve defeated, with that mostly giving you some extra stats, after which your characters don’t get stronger. It both means that you can be focused on playing through the game rather than leveling, while you know you’re never too far behind. It works nicely to make the game that much more playable: it’s not as if they needed to inflate the playtime with grinding anyway.

Final Thoughts

It feels like sometimes Chrono Cross tries to get ahead of itself: Spending too much on being better and bigger than Chrono Trigger, while trying not to resemble it too much. Had it been named anything else it probably would have been one of the great PS1 RPGs, but it suffers in the comparison. It would’ve been an exploration of complex story telling that I would have liked to have seen more of.

#483 Ikaruga

Posted: 17th May 2021 by Jeroen in Games
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958th played so far

Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Arcade/Dreamcast/Gamecube
Year of Release: 2001
Developer: Treasure
Publisher: Treasure

I think I’m going to end up getting this wrong and come across it, but if I’m right this is the last Treasure game on the list. From their early start with Gunstar Heroes to their last listed Sin and Punishment: Successor of Skies, we’ve seen them as one of the giants of the shoot ’em up genre. We’ve also seen them take on a bunch of other genres, with the bizarre Stretch Panic and 3D platformer Wario World. It’s weird, then, how they seem to have disappeared, focusing on re-releases and sequels since around the time of the list’s original release.

Today’s Ikaruga is one of their shoot ’em ups, although with some inspiration of Silhouette Mirage…

Our Thoughts

It seems quite an inspired take to use their Silhouette Mirage colour swapping gimmick to a top down shooter. Enemies are either black or white and you can swap between them. You absorb all shots from your own colour to power up big attacks while you do double damage to the opposing colour. It means that you’re constantly swapping between the two, mostly to avoid damage during big waves but also to maximize the damage you do. With the standard shooter standard of enemies in formations that you try to avoid, it becomes interesting enough, but when you get to the big boss fights it really takes advantage of this. While normally you wouldn’t be able to avoid the constant waves of fire, the fact that you can absorb damage from one colour without being hurt by it means that you can avoid a bunch of it and try to work tactically to defeat them.

It actually builds on that until you get to the final boss, where you not only make a lot of use of avoiding bullets, but your weapons are disabled and the only option you have is to avoid everything that’s fired at you until the time runs out. It’s a great twist on a shooter and with the PC version having enough options to make you more or less immortal, it’s possible for anyone to see it (I doubt I would have without them). It feels like it makes the game that much more accessible, tweaking it to create the challenge you can handle.

Final Thoughts

It’s not often that I finish a shooter like this, but the game makes it straight forward enough. There’s a lot of fun and skill in weaving through bullets and timing your swaps just right. It may be a bit shorter than most (but I’m not sure I could tell), but it felt quite addictive to get through and figure out.

#309 Nights Into Dreams

Posted: 14th May 2021 by Jeroen in Games
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957th played so far

Genre: Action
Platform: Saturn
Year of Release: 1996
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega

I think I only know Nights into Dreams from ancillary materials, based on the main character of Nights appearing in other games and places. I’ve heard some of it described on a podcast once – although mostly the messy Christmas version – but even that hasn’t given me much more than that this is somewhere between a platformer, flying game and relates to you transforming. I’m not quite sure how all of that fits together and it sounds like one of the draws here is that it is that bit different, with its own style.

Our Thoughts

In Nights Into Dreams you go into the dreams of two characters, Claris and Elliott, and transform them into Nights. You start each level with this jester-like creature flying around one of the dream world, gathering blue spheres so you can defeat an enemy and gain a gem to advance. This is pretty on rails – while each level is a 3D world, you have a single course through each of them and the game feels a lot more like a 2D platformer during these sections: you only go up and down and left and right, but don’t get a free choice where you go. Instead you see the other course elements fly past in the background or the two intersect.

It’s a pretty fun first half where you can have a lot of fun flying around, beating your previous times and so on. It’s a neat game and I enjoyed exploring these areas and perfecting my time.

The other half is the boss level. In these you have to beat them within a time limit, damaging them often enough to get through. I don’t think I managed to beat any of these – it was always unclear to me how I had to beat them while the time limits were incredibly tight. At least twice I died from a lack of time when their health bar seemed empty and the difficulty seemed arbitrarily hard – untuned and unexplained. It meant there was a hard blocker there, even as I banged my head against it several times. It’s a real shame, as the first half is a lot of fun and the designs and gameplay in the second half looks really interesting, I just couldn’t get to the right place with it.

Final Thoughts

I believe Nights Into Dreams‘ difficulty has been mentioned elsewhere. While obviously the graphics have dated, the clear cartoon art style works well and flying around these levels felt like a treat – I kept wishing each level had more paths through it. The boss battles were a hard blocker though, which was a real shame as I wanted to see more worlds and learn more of how the critters walking around it were meant to develop.

#876 Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Posted: 11th May 2021 by Jeroen in Games
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956th played so far

Genre: Action/Fighting
Platform: Wii
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: Sora Ltd.
Publisher: Nintendo

I believe Super Smash Bros Ultimate, the currently latest in the series, hadn’t been released the last time I played a Super Smash Bros. game. I sunk a fair amount of time into that – not as much as Peter, but the single player campaign really appealed to me and starting as Kirby helped cement that even if I mained Link through a lot of it.

While I know there are differences – to the point that the professional scene only wants to play Super Smash Bros. Melee because of their preferences – but it’s not something I notice quite as much. I’m more looking forward to seeing how well the single player experience holds up compared, something that I’ve found differs between versions.

Our Thoughts

It feels like the specific cartoony fighter style of the Smash Bros. series always felt a bit different from other fighting games in its tone and use of weapons. They’ve done a lot of work to keep very different fighters balanced (with far more variety than just about any other fighter), which is pushed further with ultimate smash moves and the various items and stages that pop up. It’s amazing that it works so well and you mostly can have a favourite without it being that much of a problem. While, obviously, the variety isn’t as big as Ultimate, the roster in Super Smash Bros. Brawl is pretty big and it’ll take you a while to unlock all of them and get used to them.

The fighting itself seems a bit floatier than I’m used to, which was a bit of an adjustment to deal with the controls and play. It makes the game a bit harder compared to the tighter play that I remember from Ultimate, but it didn’t take me too long to adjust.

The game also contains a decent solo campaign. It’s quite linear and is mostly fighting through longer stages rather than the individual battles in Ultimate, but it’s quite fun to see the cutscenes and how the characters combine. It’s still pretty lengthy and the other challenges help lengthen that as well. It’s helped by the large number of collectables to get from all the different modes, of which I even managed to unlock a few more while playing for this write up, over a decade after the last time we played.

Final Thoughts

Super Smash Bros. Brawl obviously lives up to the reputation of the series, a good looking, solid fighter that has its own identity and combines different franchises in a way none of its copycats pulled off quite as well. The amount of options is staggering and it remains worth playing – even more when the size of Ultimate feels overwhelming.

#518 Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

Posted: 8th May 2021 by Jeroen in Games
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955th played so far

Genre: Action/First-Person Shooter
Platform: PC/Xbox/Gamecube
Year of Release: 2002
Developer: Raven Software
Publisher: LucasArts

So I still had two Star Wars games left to play, and it felt like it has been a while since I played with force powers, rather than flying ships around. We’ve played Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II before, an earlier game in the series,which was quite fun even if I never got to the force powers in that game. As I’ve got a bit more time these days, I hope that I can get to it earlier this time. It feels like the game should let you do so anyway.

Our Thoughts

As I sort of said, it takes a while for you to get to use those Jedi powers. Initially, you land on a planet to penetrate a base, free prisoners and do other heroic things. It’s a lot of shooting that builds up its enemies slowly and has some quite frustrating jumping puzzles that I barely cleared and where I used noclip to avoid repeats. It then went into a mine level that had some more interesting exploration puzzles to go as I grew my set of weapons. It still felt like an FPS from its age, with winding levels that only have a single real path at a time but has you doubling back because you missed that one extra door that opened up, with the second level having quite a clever twist that forces you down a different route. It’s a decent implementation of the concept, among the better of the era that I’ve seen, but it takes a while to reach that point.

Then you decide you need to get your Jedi powers back and have to go through the trials to do so. There is a lot more interaction here in the physics to make use of your force powers. It’s a pretty neat system with the final puzzles having some neat twists, but it’s all a bit tricky which at times makes it a bit too easy to get stuck.

Final Thoughts

Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast is good at doing what it does, and it brings in enough twists to keep it fun. As I said, the force powers makes a big difference, but dragging an empire officer around part of a level and threatening him so he’d open doors was just as much fun. There’s a lot more here than I expected, and there’s more for me to get into still.

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