Game #889: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Mutants in Manhattan(Playstation 4)

  Man, we really need more new TMNT games...

 There's one thing I never understood, and that's why this game was so poorly received. After playing it again on superior hardware, I'll admit I may have been a bit overly enthusiastic about it. But only a bit. I won't go over the basics of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan because this is pretty much the same game, bur rather on how I felt playing it again.

 Well, for starters, it's rather disappointing how even though this game is running on a stronger system ,the framerate is still capped at 30. A very steady 30, but 30 nonetheless. There's no offline multiplayer on this system either, which is just criminal for a TMNT game.

 I may finally be able to somewhat understand why the game was so poorly received. While it's a beat'em up, it went for a somewhat random approach. Each level will task you with a few random, mini missions. And... yeah, not all of them are equally fun, particularly if you are playing with the brain dead AI. If the game was only made up of these segments, then I'd agree, it'd be a rather dull game.

 But man, the boss fights!! The boss fights are amazing. The game feels incredibly kinetic, you can have all four turtles pummeling on the same big bad boss at the same time. And you're given so many different tools to deal with bosses. A block that runs on a timer, parrying or countering, all depending on how you time the R2 button. It feels very satisfying to land the counters and parries. Not all Super moves are equally useful, albeit most grant invulnerability frames when using them, but if you find a set up that works for you just stick to it. I love being able to customize each turtle. You go for the safe and unimaginative road and just equip all the turtles with the same skills, the ones you think are the best.... or you can set up each turtle with different skills in order to have different roles. It's not too deep, as each character only has two unique skills, but hey, I think it's a decent system.

 It's not the best TMNT game, and I'll admit some of its elements can be rather dull, but when the game is at its best it's simply sublime. On most games, like Megaman or DMC, I always hate when they have a boss rush at the end. In this game, the boss rush stage was my favorite. I'd really be all up for Platinum to expand upon this concept, even if they forgo the license. But it'd be better if they kept it.

 7.0

Game #888: Marvel's Spider-man - Game of the Year Edition

  The king of swing.

 Ah, Spider-man, we meet again, no Spider-manathon this time though! Marvel's Spider-man: Game of the Year Edition should be the reason I wait to buy games. Should be, for you see, the DLC is not included on the disc, it's nothing but a voucher. The disc doesn't even include the updates, so if you want to play the DLC you have to update the game, which means Spider-man takes a whole lot of space on the console. Why not include a install disc? Beats me, Sony has the money, so why the opted to release a Game of the Year Edition in this state is beyond.

 And it sucks! I care about game preservation, but worst of all, my favorite costumes, Kaine's Scarlet Spider and the Iron Spider, are not on the base game. Poor form, Sony, poor form. I always hate it when companies skim on costs like this, and I'd have never expected it from Sony.

 Well, on to the story I guess. It's interesting, it reunites a ton of characters, villains and heroes, from different incarnations of the webbed crusader, and it makes for an interesting take on the hero. I like the fact that we get an adult Peter, since most adaptations are stuck on Pete being a university student. I liked this new version of Yuri Watanabe, her relationship with Spider-man is very endearing. Silver Sable was pretty cool too. I loved what they did with Aunt May in this version, and we get a fairly nuanced take on Norman Osborn. Miles Morales makes an appearance, and I loved his interactions with Peter, however, I'm not so keen on making him a teen genius, heck, they even made him out to be smarter than Peter. Mary Jane was decent, but I really don't like how they went for the Ultimate version, making her a reporter. I get it, they wanted MJ to play a more active part on the story, but I wasn't a fan. They also made her a bit dumb, constantly getting into danger but then chiding Spidey for rescuing her, she wound up feeling more annoying than anything.

 A lot of villains make an appearance here, but most don't get much development.... but when they do? Oh boy. This is the second most interesting version I've seen of Tombstone, only beaten by the one in the Spectacular Spider-man TV show. As previously mentioned, Norman Osborn felt very nuanced, and I hope we can see him turn into the Green Goblin eventually. Dr. Otto Octavius was fantastic too. So, yeah, the few villains that get developed are fantastic, the ones that only show up to be beaten at least look cool. Mr. Negative is here too, but among the developed villains he was, to me, the least interesting. At least he looked really cool and had some nasty abilities.

 Just like the script, gameplay borrows various elements from previous games. The swinging, arguably the element that has mattered the most in 3-D Spider-man games since Spider-man 2, is pretty good, while not as involved as in other games, the sense of speed makes it fun. It's done just by pressing, or just by holding, R2, which sounds lame since swinging has usually been the most fun when it was a bit more complex, but trust me, it works really well. It's fast and fluid, and the rumble on the joystick makes it rather gratifying, plus, the soundtrack makes it even sweeter. Oh, and Spider-man can swim! Very slowly, and he can't dive, but hey, this is the first time Spider-man has ever been able to swim in a videogame, that I know of anyways. 

 The game plays like your modern open-world sandbox that Ubisoft likes so much. There's a ton of busy work, towers to climb to clear the map, the whole nine yards. It's much smaller than your average Assassin's Creed game, but also much denser, which each zone housing various side activities. Activities reward you with different kind of tokens that you can then use to unlock costumes or improve your gadgets. As for the activities, they involve random Crimes(Stop a car, stop a robbery, rescue a kidnaped person, etc), defeating various waves of enemies inside a criminal hideout, chase and capture pigeons(really), take photos of landmarks as well as simple 'sciency' puzzles. 

 Combat too takes cues from some of the better Spider-man games, as well as a few elements from the Batman Arkham series. Basically, you attack enemies with the square button, use your webs to throw or disarm enemies with triangle, dodge with circle(Time it right for perfect dodges!) and you can even use various gadgets, such as electric web or web bombs to help you. Unlike Batman, Spidey can take it to the air for some fun and simple aerial combat. You get a focus gauge, that raises as you land hits, that can be used to either heal yourself or use powerful finishers. You can also use a support ability(Call in help from a drone, electrify your attacks, shoot web everywhere) by pressing L3+R3 once your Suit Power gauge fills up. Each costume unlocks a different ability, so you can use the costume you like the most with the power you like the most.

 As you finish missions and side activities you earn XP, and every time you level up you get some Health, Damage or Swing speed bonuses, as well as a single skill point you can then use on three different skill trees. By the end of the game you'll get every skill, so no need to worry about which branch suits your playstyle better.

 So far, so good. It has a pretty good script and pretty good gameplay, but there were a few things I didn't really like. For instance, QTE, which, at least can be turned off on the options menu(Although I think these options appeared after I installed the patch?). Which I did. Also, the game forces stealth sections upon you in which you play as Miles or MJ. These aren't hard at all, but man are they boring. Playing as Spider-man is so much fun, so whenever I was forced to play these stealth segments I couldn't help but groan. Also, like with pretty much every Spider-man game, it can be a bit tough to move precisely, since he sticks into walls and moves fairly swiftly. It might've costed me a few tokens on the Challenge activities, but it wasn't too bad.

 Lastly, a few times throughout the game you are forced to wait. Spider-man suggests doing side activities but... I did everything as it popped up. So the game just forced me to aimlessly swing about for like 3 minutes straight every now and then because reasons. I know, Yakuza has done this a few times, but it was once or twice at most per game. In this game this was a very common occurrence. And they do it again on the DLC packs. I had a fully maxed Spider-man, so doing the DLC side activities was something I did just for completion's sake, but the game forced me to wait just because. Luckily swinging around is fun in and of itself, but boy, this isn't good game design, it's not immersive in the least, it's just annoying.

 The last thing I want to mention are the bugs and glitches. The game crashed a couple of times on me, another couple of times the XP bar on the top of the screen wouldn't go away, another time the random crimes got bugged and while the missions would spawn, the enemies I had to defeat did not. Oh, and after I defeated the final boss, Spider-man just spawned inside a building. I reloaded the last checkpoint and... I spawned on the boss arena, with no boss, and nowhere to go. I reloaded the last checkpoint again and finally the final cutscene played.

 Marvel's Spider-man is probably one of the best games starring the webbed hero. It borrows some of the best features from previous games, while also adding a few original elements of its own, the end product being pretty darn great. It does have a few shortcomings, like the forced waiting periods or the unnecessary stealth sections, but the brunt of the game is really good. On the other hand, I really don't like the fact that the DLC came in the form of a voucher, Sony could and should do better. 

 8.5

Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS: MaxiBoost-ON Suits

 So, um, I started writing this, as with most Gundam VS games, but I realized there were TOO many suits, and it'd take me forever to cover each suit. But since I already wrote this, might as well post it! For preservation's sake, if anything.

 Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny

NEW Gundam Akatsuki

 Returning from Gundam VS Gundam, we have the Akatsuki. While he doesn't really fit my playstyle, I like him just because he is a callback to the Hyaku Shiki, so I like having him. He is similar to how he used to be, so he has two forms: A decent mid-range fighter with a gerobi to a weak, ranged unit with access to a fantastic shield you can put on your ally. Glad to have him, not a fan of his style.

NEW Orange Gaia

 The first of Full Boost's crappy DLC I'm gonna cover, the Orange Gaia is different enough from the Gaia to deserve his spot. He can't switch between modes, instead his melee attacks change him into the doggy form. That's why it took a while for me to get used to his melee, but after I did... he was surprisingly fun!

Destiny Gundam

 The Destiny is the same strong machine it's always been. He has fantastic melee and great ways to close the gape towards his enemies, but it's also blessed with a decent beam rifle and two gerobi beams. It's just too good, which is just too bad because Shinn sucks.

NEW Orange Destiny

 I was so angry for the longest time! That's because I had Extreme VS Force's DLC codes, but since my Vita had a USA account, but you can't have more than a single account on the Vita.... I wasn't able to play as this one! And that made me so angry because I love the Destiny Gundam, and it looks so cool in orange. Since it's a lower cost-clone, it is weaker than the original Destiny, for a 2500 unit it's still REALLY good, but it loses one of the Gerobi beams and while you get two mirage wing uses, instead of Shinn's single stock, it has a slow start-up time making it less effective.

 Gaia Gundam

 Dang, I was fairly harsh with it when I played it on Full Boost! I had not trouble using its mobile armor mode this time around, however, I still am not a fan. Surprisingly, I liked the Orange Gaia clone a bit more since it's more streamlined.

Strike Freedom Gundam

 Y'know how the Destiny is really good at everything but particularly good at close range? Same deal with the Strike Freedom, but it's particularly good at long range. This guy has been so good in Extreme VS, and that ain't changing any time soon.

NEW Legend Gundam

 Seed Destiny had one of the more insufferable cast of characters, didn't it? The Legend is decent. It has funnels, which makes it effective at mid-long range distances, but I didn't find anything worth talking about with this one. Next!

 Impulse Gundam

 Still one of my favorite units to play as, what can I say the Orange Destiny is too good, it feels as great as it was in Full Boost. The close-range form feels a bit stronger than before? Maybe I'm crazy, but I was tearing through units as if they were Swiss cheese.

 NEW Luna Maria's Impulse Gundam

 The first of Full Boost's really crappy DLC I'm gonna cover, Luna Maria's Impulse looks just like Shinn's and plays just like Shinn's, except for its Burst Move, but it costs less so it's weaker. Lazy, boring.

Infinite Justice Gundam

 I was REALLY positive about this one back when I played Full Boost. My, how things change, because I found him so BORING for a 2500. It excels at nothing.

Lacus' Infinite Justice Gundam

 Another boring clone. It has a better assist than Arthrun's IJustice since the Strike Freedom fires a beam instead of rushing in with a stun. It's super move is better than Arthrun's, while his twirly slash is easy to interrupt, Lacus' burst has Strike Freedom shooting a gerobi. Surprisingly... I found this one better than Arthrun's, because I think the 1500 cost fits this boring unit better, and it really shines as a weak support unit, I think.

 Gunner Zaku Warrior

 Luna Maria's packing heat, baby! What I really like about this one is that her gerobi and beam ax is all she needs, because her three sub-weapons are all summons. Sadly, I don't really like using summons, so this Zaku ain't for me. Still, her basic weapons are so good she doesn't really need anything else.

Gouf Ignited

 This guy was in Extreme VS Force and he really bummed me out, because he was a constant reminded that I couldn't play as the Orange Destiny(Same pilot). He felt rather weak, its whip sub weapon attacks are rather slow and its bullets just don't cut the mustard. As far as his summon goes, the Beam variation worked better to cover its weaknesses.

NEW Strike Gundam Rouge Ootori

 Yes, another version of the Strike, but it's no clone. It's a really solid unit, good melee, lots of ammo, summons and even a missile sub-weapon! Coming into this one right after using the Gouf marked such a stark difference.

 Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Astray

 Gundam Red Frame Astray

 It has a beam rifle and its Katana and that's it. Yeah, it's long-to-mid range game sucks, but dude, the amount of damage he can deal with his combos is astronomical, if this guy catches you you are done. Plus, he has some really cool animations. Man, the amount of power this unit has makes the Gouf Ignited, another 2000 cost unit that specializes in close range, look WEAK.

Gundam Blue Frame Astray Second L 

 Much more balanced that its Red counterpart, this guy has some fun things of its own. It has a one-time charge gerobi that turns into a long-range stunner, perfect for closing in with his giant sword sub-weapon. His charged square actually puts up a shield in front of it while it shoots its machine gun. Pretty interesting unit.

Gundam Gold Frame Astray Amatsu

 I enjoyed this one in Full Boost, but... my tastes have changed. It has its tools to close the distance, such as two stun-projectiles and its invisible forward dash, which mains it's a pain in the butt to fight against!

NEW Gundam Gold Frame Amatsu Mina Custom

 One of the boring DLC clones from Full Boost. This one has armor on its feet, but otherwise looks pretty much identical to the other Gold Frame. It's a 2500 cost unit, instead of 2000, so it packs a stronger punch and has more ammo stock. It also has a single different combo string. Boring.

NEW Hyperion Gundam Unit 1

 I thought this guy was a bit boring at first, but it's a very interesting defensive unit. It has a beam 360 degree beam shield, and every time it uses its beam laser uzi it gets a mini shield in front of itself. It also has a pretty nifty one-time temporary unlimited ammo mode. It does suffer a bit in the melee department, but this guy can be quite a pest!

NEW Gundam Red Frame Astray Kai

 Add a curve-bow sub weapon to the Red Frame and give it the Blue Frame's giant sword and you get the this bad boy. The giant sword can also be used as a claw, and it gets a nasty AoE stun that could hurt your ally. The Claw is extremely nasty, it's very slow, so an enemy's buddy might be able to rescue your victim, but if you land the full attack? Oh booy... Once I understood how this unit played I grew to like it.

NEW Dreadnought Gundam

 Eh, it can set out two tendrils to shoot alongside him for a few seconds, and that's about it. I didn't really like it, it's one of those very weak 2000 cost units. I dunno, I think 2K units are better when they excel at one particular area, like melee or ranged. But even though it has a few tendril-beam subweapons it still feels a bit weak.

NEW Gundam Red Frame Astray Red Dragon

 Surprisingly, not a 3000 cost Red frame, but another 2500. It's a bit more balanced, but still slanted towards melee, with two burst attacks(One being a projectile!) . It can buff itself by landing attacks with its massive sword sub weapon.

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Stargazer

Stargazer Gundam

 And THIS is why 2000 cost units are better when they specialize in something. While it's melee is useful, but awkward, this suit is built to zip around the battlefield showering the enemy with energy beams.

Strike Noir Gundam

 This suit has a lot of different sub weapons and beams, and looks really cool too, he can even use his two beam pistols to target both enemies at the same time. But, as cool as it looks... It feels so weak, and it's a 2500 cost unit, it shouldn't take it so long to destroy its enemies.


Mobile Suit Gundam Seed

LaGOWE

 Oh, look, it's the LaGOWE. Woohoo? It's incredibly basic, and its low height means that if you are not careful your shots will hit the ground. It can summon other LaGOWEs to rush the enemy, and its ammo recharges pretty fast, so I think it's a decent support, even if a bit boring.

Game #887: Black Clover - Quartet Knights

  So this is what watching an episode of Dragon Ball Super feels like, huh?

 So, um... I don't really like Black Clover. I read the first 80 chapters and found it almost as dumb as Fairy Tail, although I've been reading the last few chapters that were released because why the hell not, so I approached Black Clover: Quartet Knights as someone that didn't really care about the series but found a very cheap game and decided to give it a try.

 With Shonen shows, nothing makes more sense than a 1 on 1 fighting game, but for Quartet Knights they did something very different, for you see, this is a 4 on 4 goal-based third person shooter. Every character falls into one of four different categories: Fighters, which tend to fight up close and can block incoming damage, Shooters, squishy wizards that pelt you with projectiles from afar, Supporters, who usually have spells that grant bonuses to their teammates and Healers, which are pretty much self explanatory. The game includes 17 playable characters, 5 fighters, 4 shooters, 4 healers and 4 support characters. Every character feels very different from each other, even Young Yami plays nothing like Yami, which is pretty cool for an anime game.

 Modes is where the game falters a bit... There's NO offline multiplayer, which is very disappointing. If you are by yourself you can play the Story Mode(2-3 hours top), Challenges(1 hour top), and... there's Training or VS CPU Mock Battle. Pretty lame to be honest. You can customize your characters with alternate color palettes and give them passive buffs to their spells... but you can only see these online, not even during Mock Battle. It's a shame, but if you're not planning on going online you only get half the experience... something that split-screen versus/co-op could've easily fixed.

 So, what do you get if you only plan to play offline? Well, the Story Mode follows a whole new story, featuring a time-travelling young Yami. This mode also has all new anime cutscenes drawn exclusively for this game.... And I hope to god the anime doesn't look like this. The art is atrocious and the animation is incredibly bad, it looks like something made by the same studio that animated Dragon Ball Super. Still, I appreciate the effort into giving fans something new that feels official.

 Challenge Stages are simple fights that more or less introduce you to each playable character. They are prefaced by a few story bits, but they are boring and dumb.

 Black Clover: Quartet Knights is an interesting offering. The gameplay is fairly original and it works well, so it gets bonus points just for that. That said, if you're not planning on going online, the game won't have much to offer you, something that offline split-screen could've fixed.

6.0

Game #886: Assassin's Creed Origins

  Now with 40% more Witcher.

 The problem with Assassin's Creed lies in the fact that it's an yearly franchise that rarely skipped a year, which translates to a lot of stagnation. AC 2 was great, Brotherhood and Revelations not so much. With 3 they changed up things, and while some people may not agree with me on how good it actually was, with 4 they expanded on everything that made it great. Unity was great fun, but let's be honest, it was more of the same. Syndicate was more of the same but without the wow factor. Assassin's Creed Origins brings another shake up to the series, taking more than a little inspiration from The Witcher III, effectively turning the series into a RPG, for good or bad.

 Well, at last we get a proper Egypt game, that's cool. You play as Bayek of Rivia, I mean, Bayek of Siwa, who is pretty much an Assassin before the Assassins. Bayek is an interesting character, sure, he is another vengeful hero, like Ezio, but he is much less of a rogue, being deeply devoted to his wife, Aya. Aya is sort of a secondary character, and you play as her for some very short bits, but they missed the mark with her completely. She is like Kratos, consumed by anger, and she only thinks about The Mission, about The Creed. So, not only is she unlikeable, but the few times you play as her you're stripped of your hard earned equipment as well as your experience points and the abilities you worked for, now being forced to play as her. You're not even properly told of what abilities she has, you sorta have to try things and see if she can do them or not. Apparently, Bayek was supposed to die early on the story and you'd play as Aya, and that probably would've worked better since we could've gotten a more sympathetic portrayal. You don't need to look far to see how much people disliked her on Youtube comments, and it makes sense, she's very unlikeable and in gameplay she is a huge step down from how you've been playing. Kratos works as an angry character because we get glimpses into his humanity, even at his most unlikeable, during God of War III, he'd still take Pandora as a substitute for his daughter. We've got a new modern-day protagonist, and we saw too little of her to make heads or tails of her, as of now, can't say I care about her, she seems a bit too arrogant for my tastes. That said, the modern-day segments are mercifully short.

 Look, I've made fun of Ubisoft for pretending to be woke and then making Evie Frye 'Weak but stealthy' as opposed to her brother, who was 'strong' because he is the dude, I'm all in for diverse portrayal of characters. However, I think they tried TOO hard with this game. Most of the Warriors Bayek meets are women, there's even a female Gladiator. And then men take them seriously, the Lanista boasts about her as his finest Warrior. It feels very unauthentic for the era, an era in which sexism ran rampart. And I can't help but feel slightly disappointed considering how much attention to detail they pay when it comes to recreating these past eras. If it was up to me, I'd have a fewer number of female warriors, but better developed, and have the men in the game actually comment upon it in a negative way, and then have these women join Aya's pre-Assasssin order, a place where they could be accepted beyond the societal norms of the era. I think it'd be a better work around in order to have strong female characters, but still make sense for them during the era. I just think there were better ways of having their cake and eat it too, y'know?

 Alright, final complaints about the story... I felt it started off very promising, but for whatever reason it felt a bit... forgettable? It starts with Bayek's son getting murdered by an order of people code-named after animals("The Snake"), and it's all about him and Aya trying to bring them down. This order would be the precursor to the Templars. But as a whole, this whole Hidden Ones vs The Order isn't as interesting as it should be, and despite them being precursors to the Assassins and Templars, it feels too far removed from them. I liked Bayek, and I liked this depiction of Cleopatra, but I think the rest of the characters were forgettable, Caesar was a complete wasted opportunity, he was so lame and left no lasting impression.

 Well, the script is a bit of a bust, luckily the game fares a bit better. For starters, Egypt is MASSIVE, and it has a ton of "?" signs on the map, just like The Witcher 3, which hide side activities. Mostly having to do with finding hidden treasure or finding treasure AND defeating X amount of Captains and Generals inside an enemy encampment. Beside the trademark Ubisoft busywork the game offers about 150 side quests, which is massive. As much as it borrows from the Witcher, I can't say most side quests were very memorable or interesting, but, hey, if you like the game you won't find any shortage of stuff to do, and I can appreciate that. I cleared 120 missions, including side missions, and felt satisfied enough, even if I didn't finish every side mission.

 Gameplay has seen the most changes since AC 3. This is an a RPG, so now you obtain XP and level up. You have a skill tree made up of three branches, and you can level up on forever, there are three skills, one for each branch, that can be leveled up as much as you want, letting you dump all those bonus Skill Points you get after you reach level 40. One thing I didn't like about this system is that they went about it exactly like Xenoblade. If you try to attack an enemy that's 5 levels above you or higher you'll deal chip damage, while they can easily massacre you in one or two hits. That said, the game clearly defines the recommended level per area on the map, so if you veer where you shouldn't it's completely on you.

 Parkour has been further simplified since Syndicate, just press X once and you'll be able to freely climb up however you see fit, and hold Circle for Bayek to make his way down a building. It works pretty well, I think. Since it's an RPG, now there many different weapons to equip, from double swords, to axes or spears, as well as different types of bow. There's not a whole lot of different weapons for each type, and there are no modifiers, the only thing that changes is its level. You can only equip weapons of your own level, and you upgrade weaker weapons up to your own level at any Blacksmith, for a hefty fee. In my case, by level 20 I had already found the Rare dual swords, single-handed sword, bows and shield I wanted to use for the rest of the game, so every five levels I'd go the blacksmith and upgrade them to my level.

 Combat is fun, for the most part, but it got a bit boring by the end. R1 is your weak attack, and R2 is your strong attack. L1 makes Bayek adopt a defensive position that blocks most basic attacks in front of you, but for the red-tinted attacks you gotta dodge, with square. By the end of the game, after I was level 40, the game quickly devolved into mashing R1, or pressing R2 to break their defense and then mash R1. Or, if it came to the big enemies or enemies with Tower Shields, hold R2 to charge an attack, dodge, and then press R2 to break their defenses and mash R1. Also, R1+R2 every now and then to use my super move. It devolved into something that was super repetitive, although it never felt completely devoid of fun.... except when the game forced me to play as Aya and deal little damage to my enemies.

 Speaking of Aya, she gets 3 naval battle sections, and these were pretty fun, it's a shame there's only three of them. Going back to the combat itself(Quite a rollercoaster, eh!) I think that adding proper special moves and the such would've eased the repetition. I mean more moves besides R1+R2, something like... hold R2 and every face buttons performs a different ability, governed by some kind of cooldown meter. That would've been really neat.

 Lastly, while Ubisoft took their time to make this game, or so they say, it's still filled to the brim with bugs. Some bugs tanked the framerate and forced me to restart, this one time Bayek FUSED to a column I was trying to climb, and one time I fell below a pyramid, dropping below the game's world itself. Nothing game breaking, thankfully.

 I think Assassin's Creed Origins offers an interesting new direction for the series, but it's become so time consuming that I don't know when I'll continue with Odyssey. I think there's a lot to like about the new combat, and Egypt provides some gorgeous vistas. Sadly, the story was uninteresting, and the sidesquests didn't fare much better. As far as combat goes, this isn't a bad first attempt, but I hope they expand upon it. Still, despite how I felt the game left something to be desired on many different fronts, I still think the game is more than a sum of its parts, y'know? When you bring every piece together, it makes for a fun way to pass some time.

8.0

Game #885: Mortal Kombat XL

  Budget so high you can smell the money.

 While I love the fighting game genre, or used to anyways, Mortal Kombat was never among my favorites. And yet, ever since MK 9 Netherrealm studios have really poured blood and tears(Alongside a healthy amount of Warner Brothers' money) into making their Fighters really good. Mortal Kombat XL is no exception, taking everything that worked from MK 9, a few contentious elements from Injustice as well as some rather daring new ideas for the genre.

 The core of the game plays exactly like MK 9. Four attack buttons, a block button, Special Moves, EX Special Moves, Kombo Breakers and X-Ray attacks. So far, so good, as MK9 was pretty darn good. From Injustice it takes the ability to interact with certain objects from the background, some are one-time offensive tools, others are reusable jumping pads to gain a better positions. This was a very interesting choice, as interactive Stage Elements weren't universally well received, but MK has always flirted with going outside of the box, I mean, remember Stage Hazards from MK Deception and Armaggeddon? I do. And I wish I could forget.

 There are two big additions to the fighting: Variations and Brutalities. Brutalities are just another way to finish off an enemy with a bit of flair, they are done by fulfilling certain conditions and finishing off an enemy with a special move. Variations is where it gets interesting, because every character has 3 different variations, each variation has access to a few unique special moves, and sometimes, it even changes a few of a character's normal moves. For example, Jax could either go with the Grappler variation, that grants him access to special grabs, or use the Heavy Arms variations that allows him to use his machinegune and rocket launcher. Sub-Zero can only use his Ice Clones when in his GrandMaster variation, but you could also use a variation that lets him use Ice weapons. Every variation adds a little cosmetic addition or change to a character, which applies to every costume, and is a nice detail.

 Now onto what through a few people off.... if you remember MK9, pretty much every body died... so for this game, there's a ton of new characters, a lot of them being offsprings of stablished characters, such as Cassie Cage, daughter of Johnny and Sonya. Most fighting game fans HATE when fighting games do this... but I've always enjoyed it. Tekken 3, Soul Calibur 5, Street Fighter 3 and Garou Mark of the Wolves, I like when the story moves forward, I like the idea of successors. As for the new four main characters, I really liked Cassie and Takeda, Jacqui I didn't care about and Kung Jin I hated, because he is the new arrogant, cocky kid in the block, but I like the fact that someone with that personality is part of the group, adds a bit of variety, which I like. That said, I think they might've shilled the new characters a bit too much, when Takeda beats Scorpion, even if he wasn't taking it seriously, left a sour taste on my mouth. And I like Takeda. Kotal Khan is Shado Khan's successor, and he sucks. Seriously, he is supposed to be the next Khan, but he gets his butt kicked by Kung Jin... and then by pretty much everyone else he fights, probably because his chapter comes very early, so afterwards he turns into someone the player must defeat.

 This version of the game includes the 8 DLC characters. Four of them are returning characters, Bo'Rai Cho, Tremor(MK Special Forces, baby!), Triborg and Tanya... the other four will be a bit more divisive. Look, I was fine with Freddy Kruger in MK 9, and I would've been fine with ONE of these, but were Jason Vorhees, Predator, Alien and LeatherFace really all that requested? When it comes to crossover characters, I'd rather keep them to a minimum, I much prefer having characters that can evolve and/or change, or at least affect the story in any meaningful way. Look, I'm a HUGE horror movie aficionado, Jason, Predator and Alien ARE my childhood, but I would've much rather have other MK characters, like Reiko, Jarek and Mavado over these guests.

 Speaking of the Story Mode... Holy s.... It's amazing. Structurally, it has the same issues MK9 had, basically, every chapter has you playing as the same character for four fights, which means that when you play as someone, suddenly everyone else gets weaker so that your character can shine, and after their chapter is over they turn into punching bags. That aside, the lighting, the camera angles, the dialogue... it feels VERY cinematic. Look, the story itself is nothing to write home about, it really isn't, but it feels like a perfectly fine popcorn movie, and it looks the part too. It's pretty lengthy too, easily taking over 2 hours, although, sadly, you only get to play as 12 of the 32 character roster. They added QTEs to the Story Mode, but failing them has no consequence, except maybe robbing you of your character being a badass for a short while.

 Alright, so Netherrealms has never had the prettiest character models ever, nor the prettiest animations, but... Jesus, these character models range from decent to fantastic, which is a HUGE step up from previous games in the series, in which characters could look like very ugly facsimiles of humans at their worst. The character models themselves are very large and very detailed. The animations are much better than anything NR did before. Most walking animations need some serious, serious polishing, but most of the attack animations are really good, they really do get better after each game. It's still not quite something like Tekken or Street Fighter, but we're getting there! If there's something to complain about it's that the color palette is very subdued, even the red blood looks muddy at times, the game could've used more vibrant colors. Which is something they fixed with MK 11, judging from its bright yellow cover.

 Besides the Story Mode, there are are also Single Player Towers you can partake in, heck, Arcade Mode is now 'Klassik Tower', which rewards the player with a brief ending for your character upon completion. The Krypt returns, and it's now a first person mini-game, not only are you opening up coffins for rewards, you're also collecting items in order to open up other areas! An unnecessary amount of time and care went into something that could've been a boring list of items to unlock. Honestly, this game's production values are through the roof, I don't know how they managed to get so much money to sink into this game, but boy, is it something marvelous.

 One caveat with this disc... It doesn't include every DLC costume. It's missing costumes such as the Medieval pack, the Cosplay pack and even the cool metallic ninja costumes for Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Ermac. If that wasn't disappointing enough, some costumes are locked behind the online modes, which I think should be a BIG no no. At least we get every DLC character, which is what really matters.

 Worth mentioning, the game crashed on me multiple times throughout the Arcade Ladder, which wasn't very fun.

 I always used to think that Mortal Kombat was overrated. Heck, I think the only reason people held it in high regard was because it came out at the right time, and for whatever reason the violence managed to mask how basic and dull the gameplay was, I mean, Mortal Kombat couldn't hold a candle to Street Fighter II. But since MK9 Netherrealms have turned into a heavy-weight of the genre. Sure, the competitive scene might devolve into projectile-fests, but Mortal Kombat and Injustice are quality games that manage to offer fun gameplay, and the right mix of substance and style to keep most people happy. 

9.0

Game #884: Remothered - Broken Porcelain

  It's broken alright....

 Talk about disappointing, while the first game, 'Tormented Fathers' was a bit lacking in a few ways, it was also quite promising, being a decent tribute to the classic Clock Tower games. It was scary and cheesy in all the right ways. Remothered: Broken Porcelain ups the cheese, lowers the scares and couples them with an ungodly amount of bugs and glitches that range from funny to heartbreaking, as a matter of fact, the game can't be beaten without downloading the patch. It's that bad.

 Let's start with the story, I watched trailers such as 'Whispers', and it looked really interesting. You'd continue Rosemary's story while also delving deeper into Celeste's story, the missing girl from the first game. But it's so poorly told. At first the game does a boring, extensive info dump on the player in the way of boring dialogue that goes on and on. And then we delve into Celeste's past, and they try to build up her relationship with her friend, Linn, throughout flashbacks, but... they are poorly paced and sometimes very cringy, the Piano scene is meant to be romantic, but it looked ridiculously silly. Lip movements are so minuscule that sometimes it looks as if characters aren't moving their lips when speaking, and if you pause during a dialogue, for any reason, the subtitles will get out of synch from the audio. Assuming the scene has subtitles, because some scenes are unsubbed.

 They tweaked a few mechanics, now you play as Celeste most of the time, and she can carry a limitless amount of defensive items, said items also respawn regularly inside the Inn. You can 'craft' items, which means adding extra stun effect to a few defensive items, but every now and then the game will remove these enhanced items from you inventory just because. Oh, and after cutscenes your equipped items will get unequipped, so be wary lest you get murdered because you couldn't defend yourself. There are also sneak attacks against Stalkers, which is alright, I guess?

 Celeste also gets super powers, which are never properly explained WHAT they are(It's as if you take control of a disembodied spirit? The game mentions telekinesis at one point, but this doesn't feel like telekinesis) or how to use them. The game just says "Press Right to use your powers" and then... nothing. Figure out on your own that you have to use R2 to fly forwards. And it's so clunky, it's easy to get stuck on the tiny vents the game expects you to send your.... telekinesis? through.

 The game runs like butt. Seriously, the framerate seems to be on the lower 20s most of the time, and it isn't a particularly good looking game. Sometimes moving the camera around in order to interact with objects is a pain in the butt, I don't remember having this issue in the first game, so I don't know why or how they managed to break something that worked fine before. There's a new upgrade system, which is a really neat idea. You can collect Moth Keys around the Inn and then use it in designated spots to upgrade different abilities. Problem is... the game will regularly remove keys from your inventory. It seems to be tied to reloading, either because you died or because you exited the game, which is just annoying.

 Look, the game would be downright unplayable without Autosaves, I was a victim to so many soft locks it isn't even funny. I'll proceed to list everything I came across:

Firstly, the worst one, during the fourth chapter you are supposed to collect a Recorder and use it to record a voice. I collected the item but it didn't count as a tool item, so I couldn't use it. I reloaded my last save, the last autosaves, but it never worked. I even reloaded an old save and got through a very annoying boss fight again and.... the item still wouldn't count as a tool. But the BEST part about it? The patch fixes that issue with the recorder... but now you can't interact with the safe! I even came across youtube comments saying the same thing. THE GAME IS STILL UNBEATABLE, at least on PS4. Unbelievable.

 There was this time I got into a locker and the stalked forced me out of it. I mashed X and got inside the locker again and.... the controls stopped working. Had to restart. Another time I sneak attacked a Stalker as it opened a door and... soft lock. The stalker got stuck and I got stuck, the controls stopped responding too. Another time I got into a locker RIGHT before a scripted sequence happened and.... controls stopped working.

 This one time, there's a boss jump scare. But I was fooling around and triggered my super powers, which highlights bosses.... so I shot at him before he was triggered and nothing happened. I tried to use the microphone the game expects you to use and... he got up from his hiding spot, but wouldn't move! I kept shooting at him, I tried sneak-attacking him, but nothing would outroot him from his spot. I saved my game, reloaded and.... the game thought I finished the boss fight and let me proceed!

 There's this sequence in which you have to trigger a jukebox through your powers. I mashed X against the jukebox, since I wasn't sure if I was triggering anything and... the game didn't proceed as it should. A character gets to a door and... wouldn't open it. I reloaded, pressed X on the jukebox once and everything went as it should. There's this silly, cringy basketball mini-game against Linn, and every time she misses Celeste repeats the same line, I thought I had entered an endless loop for a while.

 Then there's the overall feeling of sloppiness. There's a boss fight in which you have to use a fire extinguisher, and you're not told how to use it. Firstly, getting to the fire extinguisher is a bit of a hassle, because the Stalker is right in front of it, and Stalkers are very aggressive, it's very easy to die if they just touch you once, because your hitstun is so lengthy that they can just keep hitting you without giving you a chance to get away. This is true for most Stalkers, but at least once you get the Defensive item prompt you can stun them for a bit and get away. Regardless, say that you manage to get the fire extinguisher, your natural instinct will tell you that you should hold L2 to aim and then hold R2 to spray him with the extinguisher. But nope, that will only get you killed in seconds flat. You actually have to get close to the enemy, and press R2 ONCE to hit him with... pressurized air? And then GET AWAY for the thing to.... recharge? And then repeat the process a few more items. It's very clunk, very counterintuitive and it makes no sense as to why it should work this way.

 What an utter piece of garbage. Remothered: Tormented Fathers was SO enjoyable, so much fun. Sure, its low budget showed through some of its clunkiness, but it was very, very playable. The entire time I played this game it felt as if I was fighting against it, very early through the playthrough I just stopped having fun entirely. And it's sad, because I was really starting to like the new characters, I liked the direction they went with the story, bad dialogue aside, but this game should've never been released in this state, and it's downright criminal that such a promising series might be cancelled because they rushed this game for Halloween.

 1.5