Horizon: Zero Dawn (2017)

 

Genre: Open World Action RPG | Players:1 | Developer: Guerrilla Games

     Tribal humans fighting mecha-dinosaurs? Quite a pitch. Sign me up. I see why they put that as the first trailer for the game. That child's dream premise is the setting of Horizon: Zero Dawn, where an unspecified apocalypse has left humanity on the brink of extinction. Those left have reverted to tribal stone age societies that survive by hunting animals and scavenging the mechanical beasts that now roam most of the land.

    At the center of this is Aloy, a girl cast out from her tribe at birth for unknown reasons. Raised by her adoptive father figure and mentor, she trains to be able to take place in a tribal tradition that will win her re-admittance to the tribe as well as the right to demand answers of the matriarchal tribal leader of her past and banishment. Things go wrong tho when the contest is interrupted by outsiders raiding and slaughtering the contestants and other warriors who have seemingly come specifically to kill Aloy. This spurs her to journey outside tribal territory on a journey to find answers to not just the attack, but to her own heritage and how it connects to the legacy of the "Old Ones"; the humans of the pre-apocalyse who are both semi-worshiped for their technological knowledge and feared for their downfall that has left only ruins.

    Players control Aloy in an open world setting where they can do quests for NPC's, follow the main story, fight machines both stealthily or openly with a wide variety of weapons and skills, or scavenge resources to craft items, weapons, ammo and outfits. The combat is decently fluid and the skills and weapons give many ways to take down enemies. Each enemy type has strengths and weaknesses that Aloy can scan to learn the best way of taking them down and leveling up gives skill points that can be spent for Aloy to learn new abilities which gives the RPG part of this action RPG. The enemy AI is decently challenging, but can feel a bit stifling when multiple enemies attack patterns overlap effectively stun-locking until Aloy dies. The world is large and heavily explorable with villages, bandit camps, cities, landscapes and the ruins of the Old Ones. More chances to run into the more colorful NPCs. The characters are all interestingly designed and acted as they go about their lives like the man who pays players to collect "artifacts" which are actually just ancient coffee mugs with corporate branding on them because he thinks they were part of a sacred ritual. Too bad Aloy is the least animated of them. Natural given she has lived isolated for 18 years, but she never seems to grow out of it. Ashly Burch gives great emotion in some dialogue, but Aloy's whole personality can come off kind of flat. There are also some technical bugs like voices sometimes going out of sync with mouths, or Aloy becoming torso-less when an outfit change won't load. Nothing unseen before in video games and it doesn't dampen what is an excellent science fiction story and adventure with varied combat and deep exploration with a bit of replayability in different dialogue trees and choices to be made.

Buyer's Guide: Was a PS4 exclusive for years until a PC port was released. The PC port was super buggy. It has since been patched, but is still the slightly less stable version with more versatility in technical options being on PC. Later editions come with the Frozen Wilds DLC already included.

4 Corporate Sponsored Apocalypses out of 5

Let’s Talk About Silent Hill in 2023(Also, The Order I Suggest Newcomers Follow)

 

WOW, the monetary suggestions I made, and the hunting tips I laid out, in my reviews, sure look ludicrous, now, don’t they? You probably know who to blame. Let’s hope they get what they deserve, and that makes the market return to normal.

Don’t hold your breath on it, but have hope, nevertheless.

The best outcome I can reasonably expect is that the folks who spent obscene amounts of money on Silent Hill games, the last few years, will actually play them, and not simply let them rot on their shelves, as objects of status.

FUCKING DO IT; THEY’RE OBSCENELY AMAZING.

I intend to help anyone of that number who actually ends up wandering into this dark, sometimes, somewhat comforting corner of the interwebs. A while back, I was talking with a friend of mine, and stumbled into a sound strategy for tackling the series. I might as well share it.

My suggested order is present at the bottom of this post, as an image, for those who have no interest in listening to me explain myself. I promise there will be no spoilers, should you hear me out, in full, but lots of people are impatient/busy/etc. That’s alright, because I enjoy talking, for my own sake. Diogenes would be proud.

Guess who cashed out? 😂

Final Fantasy VIII (1999)

Genre: RPG | Players: 1 | Developer: Squaresoft

VIII went out of its way to create a very unique and strange system, but it ironically ended up producing a very one-dimensional experience, even compared to bog-standard RPG systems. Basically, you equip stocks of spells as armor and stat-boosts. Of course, this drops your inclination to use magic to absolute 0. Well, close enough. You’ll usually end up collecting two full batches of the various Cure spells, so you can actually use them, as intended, but that’s it. Outside of that, when you cast magic, you’re decreasing your stats! Why would you ever want to do that?

There are two ways to get magic, but all that changes between those methods is HOW you’re going to be significantly waylaid. You can ‘Draw’ magic from enemies, resulting in a duplication of leveling. You’ll be leveling yourself and grinding for spells whenever you come across an enemy with something new. Ideally, you don’t want to level, because enemies’ levels increase right alongside yours. But, you need AP to teach your summons new abilities, especially if you’re using the second method. Ergo, you ARE going to level to a normal degree, unless you specifically modify EVERY non-boss enemy into its playing card, from the game’s preeminent mini-game, Triple Triad. That only increases the time necessary to complete the game a MILLION fold. You ARE going to level. It is…inevitable...

The second method involves modifying Triple Triad cards and item drops into collections of spells. Again, that only means that you’re going to spend aeons playing cards, or getting drops, instead of Drawing spells. There is no escaping the eternity of VIII, unless you’re a speedrunner, but their fate is still mostly the same.

VIII commits a fundamental sin. I consider a fundamental sin to be an act that goes against something so BASIC to the structure or purpose of something, that it should have never had to be spoken of, in the first place. The joy of grinding in jrpgs is based on the very simple concept of reinforcement. The more you level, the stronger you become, and USUALLY the more money you acquire. The stronger you are, the faster battles end. This creates a very nice curve, and cycle, of reinforcement.

VIII says, ‘NO.’ An early boss battle sums the problem up, perfectly:

'Oh, no! HELP ME!'

'Yo, I got you, girl...just wait for about 30 minutes while I Draw these 3 new spells from this thing and its minions. Don’t worry, I’ll get around to defeating them, eventually.'

You get stuck in singular battles for extended periods of time, Drawing spells. The joy of getting into and ending battles swiftly is largely denied. It doesn’t help that the battle animations feel like they’re in slow-motion, and there’s a healthy delay to getting into battles AND starting card games. Again, there is no escape.

What inevitably happens (if you don’t quit immediately) is that you put up with this and equip the spells and summons as best you can, in three sets, that you can switch between characters. This is largely a farce, though, since you’re just going to attack Squall until he’s in critical HP, and then have him spam his Renzokuken Limit Break endlessly, since it hits a large amount of times.

If only there was a game that allowed you to hit multiple times, without having to be on the verge of death. Oh yeah, Final Fantasy I… It’s utterly incomprehensible that VIII chose to make class-specific skills into Limits. Why isn’t the Blue Mage casting Blue Magic? Why isn’t the Monk doing his special attacks, at will? Why isn’t the gunman using special ammo? Why is the Beastmaster not using her beast? The ways to prevent players from spamming these skills are MP pools, fighting game inputs, and ammo supplies. They had all of this down pat two games prior! But, here, they all have to be nearly dead to use their special skills. What? Why?!?!

I’ll address Triple Triad, here, because I want to end with some discourse on the story and characters. When I think of VIII, I'm always struck by how I remember the events of it, but virtually nothing of the characters. They are character sketches, at best. Ideas jotted on a napkin, by a writer, that were never brought to life, never developed. It's exactly the same in Uchu Sentai Kyuranger. At the end of the series, because there have been no personal interactions between them, no bonding, no hanging out, the Senshi are STILL just character sketches. 50 hours, or 50 episodes, and there's nothing to show for any of these characters beyond: "This is the brooding lead." "This is the sickeningly cute girl." "This is the chef.” Many members of the party in Xenogears only have their introductory story event to their names. This is honestly much more than most of the party in VIII can claim. They’re almost like Transformers: they’re definitely personalities, but not really characters.

Part of the issue is that Squall is given carte blanche to turn them off like light-switches. Quistis TRIES to be a character, but Squall flatly says, ‘NO. Not on my watch.’ No one should ever be given this manner of power.

When it comes to the story…I still don’t entirely understand it. I’ve definitely heard some theories about it, but none of them have helped me. The resolution to this amorphous issue is honestly awe-inspiring, in the worst possible way. You are going to be presented with the most bald reasoning I have ever witnessed. It’s like an animatronic that has been stripped of not only its skin, but also all of the plastic shielding holding its wire guts to shape.

You can’t do that. You have to come up with some explanation, guys. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but it has to EXIST. I’m talking Care Bears, here, guys. Care Bears. Oh, and technically the game's biggest surprises are spoiled by the computer you can access at the very beginning of the game. But, who reads things? Oh wait, people who play RPGs... 😡

There was a time when I actually strolled into a forum and claimed that this was my favorite game. Do you know why? Because it helped me waste time. It gave me something to do, while I was coming to grips with something I had lost. First came VIII, then came XII. I needed time and distractions. If that’s all you need, have at it. It’s great for wasting your time, but little else.

A dumpster fire, from stem to stern. I don’t understand how things like this and Kyuranger make it out of development, in such a state.

 

I'll stick with Dirge, tyvm~

Buying Guide: Originally a PSX release. Also, PC. It's been remastered, so it's on PS4, Switch, and Xbox One. I've seen some screenshots. They definitely half-assed it. I'm honestly not surprised. Wait, didn't they lose the source code, or something? Some things are lost for a reason, mir?

0 Dreamy Cowboys For Selphie To Bang, Even If She Wrote This Fanfiction out of 5

Mega Man 4 (1992)

Yes, Pharaoh Man, purge those demonic faces with flame.

Genre: Platformer | Players: 1 | Developer: Capcom

Let’s wrap this endeavor up. I briefly discussed 4 in my review of 5, but I want to tackle the Anniversary Collection in a Mega Man Collection post. The main reason I’ve forwent this for so long, besides wanting to talk about 5 quite a bit more, is because 4 is very much the workhorse entry. It’s not the greatest; it’s FAR from the worst. I’ve never complained about doing a run, outside of having to deal with the newly borked Rush Jet, of course.

As I’ve said elsewhere, it’s a deathtrap, now. I cannot fathom why they would ever go from the perfect execution of it (in Rush’s first appearance, no less!) to this pile of horseshit. If a sub-pixel of your toe touches him, he’s off, WITHOUT YOU. Progress. We’re supposed to progress, people. Move forward, not back. This is a regression.

I’ll be honest, I take Toad Man out first, which immediately nets me Rush Marine. And yet, I have NEVER thought to use it in Dive Man’s stage. Not once. I only now saw it mentioned as a possibility on the wiki. Ergo, for me, there is only one tiny section where it’s ever been able to be used. That has never bothered me. It made it feel special. It made me feel glad that they decided to keep it, in spite of its VERY VERY limited time to shine. I’m a 3 fanboy, through and through. It can’t jump out of the water and be used for platforming, anymore, but that was quirky icing, not functionality I ever expected.

Beyond Rush, there are two new, hidden movement tools to find. Balloon is basically Item 1 from MM2. Wire is a grappling claw that allows you to travel vertically and jump slightly sideways on the dismount. Its usefulness is somewhat constrained, unless you’re like me and want to grind for E-Tanks in Drill Man’s stage.

I mean the following in a literal sense, not a tonal sense: The visuals are a bit darker than elsewhere in the series. Everything’s a bit drab. It doesn’t take too much away from the experience, but it is worth noting. I suppose the beginning of Ring Man’s stage is an outlier, but the majority of it falls very much in line with this assessment. That said, it is a serious boon for Pharaoh Man and Dust Man. The former is top-tier, from his design, to his theme, to the night-time tomb raiding expedition that is his stage. I respect him way too damn much to use his weakness against him. The first time, anyway. The rematches are immediately followed by the initial battle with Wily. I have to be pragmatic about it. Dust Man…the unspoken story of his stage is magnificent and haunting.

Ultimately a damn fine game, across the board.

Buyer’s Guide: Buyer’s Guide: NES game. Mega Man Anniversary and Legacy Collections (PS2, PS4, Xbox, Xbox One, GC, 3DS, Switch). Virtual Console. PSN. Cell phones. The usual.

3 Fat Guys Hula-Hooping In the Rain out of 5

Mega Man 6 (1994)

It took them until their last NES at-bat, but they finally hit a grand slam. I fucking love this boxart.

Genre: Platformer | Players: 1 | Developer: Capcom

When I first started replaying this entry as an adult, I found it kind of soulless. That’s a bit crazy to me, at this point. The more I played it, the more I enjoyed it. It’s really fun! It isn’t as easy as 5, but it’s the closest game in the franchise to it, in that regard.

It’s cool to know that some of the Masters were designed by people other than Capcom’s usual creative staff. Contest winners from Canada (Daniel Vallée) and…North America (Michael Leader; thanks Mega Man Wiki, for that wonderfully detailed bit of information…) were responsible for Knight Man and Wind Man. I rather like the former, but not for reasons one might expect. You see, he doesn’t care about always giving you easy chances to cross the room, like most Masters. No, he’s perfectly fine with occasionally jumping you straight into a corner. I rather like assholes like him and Charge Man (who’ll change directions on a whim and pimp walk all over your corpse with no fucks given). Wind Man…is one of the easiest Masters ever. Oh well~

If nothing else, those two are the ones that appear on the NA cover. That's top-shelf, Nintendo. Class. Yes, Nintendo, because they were the ones that published it, here, not Capcom.

In spite of the split theming of the overall crew, there is a bit of a generic feel to everything on display, but it’s far from my original assessment of the game’s merit. All of the Masters are taking part in a tournament run by Wily (SPOILERS, OH NO!!!), but four of them are much more warrior-like than the others. Those being Knight Man, Centaur Man, Tomahawk Man, and Yamato Man. It’s best that they didn’t call the last one Spear or Yari Man, because you would have ended up wielding the Spear Spear~

These four Masters can all be reached via two different paths. The fights with them are the same, but traversing the less accessible ones will cause them to give you the Beat parts. Yeah, Beat returns, but isn’t nearly as useful, as far as I can tell. In 5, he was fairly indispensable. Here…is anything weak to him? I always just use Tomahawks whenever it seems as if he would be worth calling.

I absolutely cannot complain about that, however, given how well the Rush Adaptors are utilized. You have to use Power and Jet Mega Man CONSTANTLY, especially in the Dr. X and Wily Castles. Yeah, the same animations of Rush transforming play every time you select them, but you can skip ‘em by mashing buttons. The only real drawback to using them is that you cannot slide. Power Mega Man still has a basic projectile in spite of him mainly relying on regular and charged punches. Not being able to charge your Buster isn’t really something you need to do while flying as Jet Mega Man. No, it flat out isn’t necessary, at all, to my knowledge. I’ve never felt that need. These two went on to be combined into the Super Adapter in 7.

The other four Masters are mostly elemental in nature. Flame Man stands out, as you may personally find him culturally insensitive. I’m honestly much more upset that the power he grants you is a re-colored flame effect from Gemini Man’s stage. Seriously? Plant Man is the oddball, but I rather like him. I even like his somewhat irritating backyard. The latter half of his stage is a pit-filled obstacle course predicated on springs that respond to the strength with which you press the jump button. This can be trouble if your controller of choice is as knackered as my current PS2 one is. It’s a little maddening, but it’s an appropriate challenge to overcome in order to earn the Jet Adaptor.

In short, 6 is a bit of a mixed bag, but even what’s not top-tier is still comfortably enjoyable.

I dig it, man.

Buyer’s Guide: Buyer’s Guide: NES game. Mega Man Anniversary and Legacy Collections (PS2, PS4, Xbox, Xbox One, GC, 3DS, Switch). Virtual Console. PSN. Cell phones. The usual.

3 Easily Missable Proto Man Appearances out of 5

Mega Man 2 (1989)

Better art than 1, but still shit.

Genre: Platformer | Players: 1 | Developer: Capcom

Though hailed as a classic by many, I'm just not much of a fan of it. I still play it, though. That having been fearlessly stated, I will concede that there are a number of positives!

I really do love the Masters. I’m sincerely glad that they all came back in Mega Man 3. That wasn’t padding. It was honoring, dammit. Because I load this up rather infrequently compared to the rest, I usually have to do the rematches many multiple times. I blame Wily. Though, blame is a poor choice of word. I’m rather glad of it. I love having to do it! It demonstrates to me that the fluidity in the controls did come into being a bit sooner than the third entry. Something about being removed from the stages themselves puts that into perspective. I’ll never ever be able to Buster Shadow Man, but I have a decent grasp on Quick Man and his fleet-footed shenanigans. There’s a wholesome joy to blasting through all of them again and again, until I remember that the hit-box on Wily Machine 2 seems to extend beyond its nose…

Some of the stages are exquisite. I have no qualms whatsoever with doing Quick Man’s as many times as necessary. The disappearing blocks in Heat Man’s are the most notorious in my personal span of the series. There might be more insidious ones out there, but I absolutely respect this set. I enjoy those precarious bastards. On the other end of the spectrum, Crash Man’s is pure monotony and Metal Man’s makes my eyes bleed. While we’re here, one could complain about so many Masters and other bosses being weak to the Metal Blades, but frankly I’m surprised that more aren’t. You’re literally chucking sawblades around, of course destruction is inevitable! The rate at which your supply depletes is broken, as well. Feel free to cheese the game to your heart’s content. Even someone who Busters as much as they feasibly can, like me, ends up using them a decent amount.

The elephant in the room is the Boobeam Trap. It’s pretty bad. I’ll explain why I feel this way: until you know exactly how to do it, it will waylay your first run. If you play as sporadically as me, it’ll stop even subsequent runs dead in their tracks. The stage itself feels overly long with the moving platform sections, and overly cruel with the final gauntlet of Sniper Joes and their mecha walker things. Technical terms, yo. Dying to the trap makes you repeat all of the sections I just detailed. There is no boss hallway checkpoint! The thing that makes it the worst is that the turrets can only be damaged with Crash Bombs. You simply don’t have enough to take out all of the barriers and the turrets. Now, a bit of mercy is shown in that if you make it there again, without getting a game over, the barriers you destroyed will not reappear. Of course, you’ll have to hope you didn’t take the weapon refill capsules at the start (and go back there to get them, if you didn’t) because otherwise you will be FARMING. Oh JOY~

Now, I’m going to draw a direct comparison to explain my thinking. The first Wily stage in the first game also forces me to play it over and over. However, unlike the Boobeam Trap, I rather enjoy the process. Mainly it’s because that stage is not an exercise in exact resource management. You have more than enough Ice Slasher to freeze the Big Eyes and the flame pillars. You have enough Super Arm for all three lives in a round. You are given energy for the Magnet Beam after traversing the pit, immediately before the section it is mandatory for. You restart right before the Yellow Devil. The Thunder Beam is very energy efficient. AND, even if you somehow manage to run out (you won’t, you’ll die first) you can damage it with more than just its weakness!!!

The Boobeam Trap doesn’t break the game, but it exists squarely in the realm of INCREDIBLY IRKSOME, until you know (or remember) what has to happen. I avoid 2 as much as I do, because of it.

“Get Good!”

That requires motivation, son, and this game tends to sap it out of me.

Buyer’s Guide: NES game. Mega Man Anniversary and Legacy Collections (PS2, PS4, Xbox, Xbox One, GC, 3DS, Switch). NES Mini. Virtual Console. PSN. Cell phones. The usual.

1½ Overrated Tracks out of 5

Mega Man X (1994)

Genre: Platformer | Players: 1 | Developer: Capcom

Though they are related, the classic and X series are relatively distinct entities. X did not take up the torch, wholesale. Mega Man 7 saw release after this game, and eventually there was an 8, 9, 10, and 11. The defining differences are as follows:

Pros:

• The Mavericks, while still essentially Robot Masters, are animal-themed.
• X can wall-jump straight up singular walls.
• X can find Dr. Light capsules to power-up his legs, armor, helmet, and X-Buster.

Cons:

• X’s soundtrack is all screechy guitars and synths.
• Each entry attempts to shoe-horn in more and more story.
• Heavy emphasis on a new character, as the series progresses.

There’s an (ego-driven) reason that Zero is doted on, but that doesn’t mean it was done well, or was justified. It wasn’t. In fact, in a later entry, there exists a situation that clearly demonstrates that they were no longer bothering to play-test the games fully, FOR THE TITULAR CHARACTER. Zero is over-powered and there’s no weakness present in him to balance it out, as with Proto Man. How I love thee, my dear, sweet Proto Man 😍

If you’ve read almost any of my reviews here, or on the other Nut Blogs, you know that, in general, I play games for story. I play them for characters. There are times where skill is the primary focus, however, and the classic and Mega Man X series are two of those times, for me. If I found the story of the X series to be compelling—or logical—I would have been ecstatic. However, it’s not, and I find it completely and utterly obtrusive. The text gets longer and longer in each entry and quickly becomes unbearable. As I noted in my X3 review, the power-ups come to be detrimental, as well. It pains me, because this game is fantastic. X2 is acceptably worse, and I honestly kind of like X3, in spite of itself. That’s where the series ends for me. I tried my hand at X4, X5, and X6 and they are not pleasant. In my opinion, both series lost themselves when they jumped to the Playstation.

This game, though, this one has always been near-perfection. Zero’s role is minimal, the story is basic, and it controls like a dream. There are changes in the levels that occur depending on the order in which you take out the Mavericks. You’ll have to revisit some of them to collect the heart container in each (and the game's four sub-tanks), because of these ultimately beneficial changes. Those sub-tanks are innovation of the best kind, because you permanently possess them and you can fill them by collecting energy when you’re at full health. There’s even a level that starts with the perfect grinding spot. It’s not the kind of secret that you can intuit, but Ryu’s Hadouken can be learned and performed when at full health. It instantly KOs everything and I highly recommend using it to painlessly clear the first part of the Sigma fight. I really wish he had settled for simply being a serial villain like Wily. There was no reason he couldn’t have been all, “I got put back together and I’ve got another set of Mavericks, X!”

The elephant in the room is, fittingly, Maverick Hunter X, which I said did the near-impossible and improved this. It did. I stand by that. Numerical scores are a tricky thing and they can paint you into corners. Well, when writing reviews, YOU can paint yourself into a corner. While Maverick Hunter X improves quite a bit, it is a case of ICING. In terms of the original LACKING, I can only bring to mind the second Sigma level, which starts in a very ho-hum way as compared to the remake.

I can’t give this less than what I gave Maverick Hunter X, and I won’t. This is simply a consequence of the nature of the act of writing reviews. And, when you feel inspired to write them. Also, being human. If nothing else, it helps me call attention to a collection post wherein my fellow Nut Blog authors and I detail the pieces of media that we feel are equally worthwhile in multiple incarnations.

Buyer's Guide: Originally an SNES game. It's on the Wii and Wii U Virtual Consoles, and the eShop (but, only if you're using a New 3DS, apparently). Damn your idiotic nomenclature, Nintendo. Your quarter-assed console iterations, too. It's on the SNES Mini, mobile phones, and oddly enough MS-DOS, as well. It's obviously in the Mega Man X Collection, which was on PS2 and GameCube, but is now coming to PS4, Xbox One (Did Nintendo name that one, too?), and the Switch.

4 Bosses Philip Finds Fascinating out of 5