Fire Emblem: Heroes (iOS/Android)
Speaking as someone who grew up playing console games and now makes a living designing mobile games, I’m deeply interested in the way DeNA and Nintendo adapt old Nintendo games to become Free to Play mobile games. Neither Miitomo nor Super Mario Run really hit the mark for me, but I was surprised by how faithful Fire Emblem: Heroes was to the original games. I feel like I really threw myself into the game for a few months – I finished the campaign two and a half times, took part in many of the events, and despite never putting any money into it I came away with some pretty good characters (my very first gacha pull gave me a five-star Takumi, who turned out to be a God-tier killing machine).
Is it good though? It definitely lacks some of the Fire Emblem magic – the plot twists, story branches, and relationships – but the core gameplay of moving little dudes around a map and having your one fat Armour lad soak up all the XP holds up well. And to be honest, having played the last few Fire Emblem games, it’s sort of a relief not to have to deal with excruciating anime guff like having a butler who transforms into a dragon.
It does start to feel a bit repetitive after a while though, in part because you’re always playing against the same AI opponent (even if it is using another player’s character roster). As is often the case with Intelligent System games, after a while you learn how to game the system – how to manipulate the AI into making terrible moves, taking advantage of it’s wonky value judgements. That in itself can be fun for a while, but after a few months of grinding through easy fights to get more gacha tokens, you may start to wonder what else you could be doing with your life.
Brawl Stars (iOS)
Bit of a cheeky one this, in that the game isn’t officially out yet – it’s currently still being soft-launched in Canada (although it’s not hard to get around this if you want to try it yourself). I spent a few weeks playing it over the summer and I’m putting it on the list in part because, as things stand, I have some doubts as to whether it’ll ever see a worldwide release – Supercell have a reputation for producing ludicrously successful games, but they maintain their record by preemptively killing off anything that isn’t a guaranteed banger, most of which you’d never even hear of.
Brawl Stars is a sort of MOBA for mobiles – a stripped-down 3-on-3 arena combat game with about 18 characters to choose from. The long and the short of it is that it’s got a well-judged range of characters and game modes, but doesn’t quite feel right in terms of long-term progression; while the arena combat strikes a nice balance between platform-appropriate simplicity and genre-appropriate complexity, the metagame relies on you to open hundreds of gacha boxes to unlock and upgrade new characters. The economic sinks are too few and too deep – once the initial rush of common unlocks dies down, you have to open a lot of boxes in order to accomplish anything meaningful, and it starts to feel like a slog.
Online PvP – from your Call of Duty to your League of Legends to your Battlegrounds – is a lucrative sector of the market, and continues to grow as bandwidth improves and eSports penetrate the cultural mainstream. Putting this kind of game on phones seems like an obvious money-maker, and Brawl Stars seems like an indication of how industry leaders are grappling with the problem; I think the main issue it raises is the difference in how and why mobile players monetise, compared to those playing PC games. It goes down this typical mobile F2P route of offering long paths of upgrades and stat growth, but these things don’t sound so appealing in the context of a competitive game – I don’t want to feel like I’m losing a fight just because my opponent has more upgrades than me (something that frequently bugs me during the late-game of PC MOBAs, for what it’s worth). For comparison most PC MOBAs monetise by selling new characters and skins, but keeping a regular release schedule of new content creates a great production burden, and perhaps alternative skins seem less appealing when you’re playing short, 3-minute games on a tiny phone screen?
I like Brawl Stars, and I think it will prove to have a significant influence on the next generation of mobile PvP games, but I’m not sure it’s The One.
Mass Effect: Andromeda (PS4/XBO/PC)
Mass Effect: Andromeda is a (sort-of) standalone game set about 700 years after the events of the original trilogy – your characters have been travelling in suspended animation since just before the events of Mass Effect 3, so nobody has any knowledge of all the big, apocalyptic stuff that happens towards the end. The key thing being, it’s perfectly okay to play Andromeda without playing the earlier games first.
By ditching a lot of the plot baggage that built up over the sequels, Andromeda feels much closer in tone to the original game – you’re plonked into this big wide galaxy with a few parallel objectives to pursue, and you can tackle it all to whatever extent you can be bothered to. It’s good! The choices you’re presented with are varied, and suggest that’ll you’ll face some interesting consequences later… although, once you’ve progressed a way through the game, you may come to feel a bit let down. For example, one of the early big decisions is whether your first colony should be a military output or a research base, and you’d be forgiven for thinking this might impact the ecosystem of the host planet (eg. perhaps the military base would dispatch patrols to kill hostile aliens?) but in practice it just seems to change a few lines of dialogue here and there. Still, one of the good things about Andromeda‘s loose structure is that if you ever get bored of something, the game won’t hold it against you if you just walk away and look for something else to do.
One thing that did bother me about the story comes from its shallow handling of colonialist themes. As you explore Andromeda, you only meet two alien civilisations: one has a very spiritual society, distrust outsiders, and gradually develop a mutually-beneficial alliance with the technologically superior colonists (all of which feels like a very whitewashed, European perspective on colonialism), and the other are totally, irredeemably evil for no particular reason, and aren’t even a real society when you dig into the lore. It feels very ham-fisted – these guys are the simple natives you need to make friends with, and those guys are the intolerable savages you must wipe out – and there’s very little real interrogation of any of this. Videogames often promote colonialist behaviour in some form or other, but while Andromeda had a unique opportunity to explore these issues from the inside… it just… doesn’t. (I was pleased to note that this exact subject was expanded upon in Manveer Heir’s excellent Waypoint Radio interview, back in October)
I wasn’t too fond of the new crew (with the notable exception of grumpy Krogan grandpa Drack) but I did really like the new protagonist – Ryder, an optimistic young explorer, thrust into their role as mankind’s designated hero following the death of their father. While Commander Shepard (the star of the original trilogy) was an unflinching space cop whose biggest obstacle was the pen-pushers down at city hall, Ryder is like a reluctant young regent who is openly plagued with doubt and uncertainty. It’s a refreshing change, and opens up some interesting angles in the dialogue – Ryder is free to say things like “I don’t know what the right answer is, but we’re gonna do something and hope for the best”.
The gameplay and combat mechanics build on Mass Effect 3, with a wider range of skills and a lot more flexibility in how you develop your character. There are definitely some technical issues that seem to have arisen from moving to the Frostbite engine – this is what most nerds on the internet seem to jump straight to, writing the game off on the back of a few wonky animations. The visual imperfections are noticeable, but they represent a insignificant slice of the game as a whole. What bothered me more was the slight sense of input delay during combat, which threw all my timing off a little; experience taught me to press the melee button while I was still a few paces away from my target, trusting that it would take a moment for my character to react.
So, is it good? It has its flaws, but overall I’d say it combines the best elements of Mass Effect 3‘s gameplay with a narrative reminiscent of the original Mass Effect, making it probably the best game in the series.
Destiny 2 (PS4/XBO/PC)
It’s been strange to read about the Destiny 2 community’s reactions to the game over the last few months. On the one hand there are a lot of veteran Destiny players who seem personally aggrieved that so much grind has been streamlined out of the game – the people who complain about a lack of end-game content, because they no longer have to spend tens of hours grinding for a particular gun with ‘god roll’ stats – and, on the other hand, there are a lot of new players (particularly on PC) who seem infuriated by the grindy economy systems that remain. Some people are outraged that they would have to buy the expansion packs in order to continue playing at the end-game frontier, despite the fact that the original Destiny has been operating like this for three years already.
Personally, I’ve been very happy with Destiny 2. I sank around 500 hours into the original game, and so far I’ve put just under 100 into Destiny 2 and I feel like I’ve progressed much faster – while some people complain that the lack of grind, I’m relieved to see hundreds of hours of my life NOT being wasted on making numbers go up. The story is pretty forgettable, but the level design is much improved (although still a lot less cerebral than the Halo games), and I think the improved social features are pretty great.
It’s also important to remember that the Destiny games are a live service. There are lots of features present in the final iteration of Destiny that haven’t yet carried over into Destiny 2, and I think it’s a bit unfair to compare two evolving services at different stages in their lifecycle. I’m not planning to get the Year One expansion pass, but I am still playing the game for fun here and there, and I’m looking forward to the big Year Two expansion in September.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
There’s a lot to enjoy about this open world reinvention of the Zelda format, although I found the experience a bit like trying to make a meal out of high-quality hors d’oeuvres – there’s a steady steam of fun moments, but they’re all designed to be short, discrete chunks that can be consumed in no particular order. There’s not a lot of structure to your quest; very little sense of connection between all the things you do, other than in the way some of the handful of new abilities you unlock along the way can redefine your approach to certain challenges.
It can be argued that this lack of structure is one of the game’s strengths – it breaks away from the tightly scripted formula of most Zelda games (in which you’re expected to visit a series of dungeons in a particular order, with each dungeon equipping you with a new tool required to unlock the next prescribed region of the map, and so on) and actually loops back round to the spirit of the original NES game (in which you awake in a strange new world, an old man hands you a sword and tells you to get to work, and the rest is up to you to figure out). I just can’t help but wish that there were more, larger dungeons to explore, and a wider range of bosses to fight – it made me nostalgic for Skyrim, where I spent a lot of time spelunking in the (completely unnecessary) underworld network of booby-trapped Dwarven ruins.
In many ways – and I’m speaking here as someone who didn’t play Skyward Sword (don’t @ me) – it feels like the spiritual successor to Wind Waker that the Western backlash to ‘Toon Link’ has denied us all these years. I actually started replaying the Gamecube game earlier this year, and was shocked at how modern it feels – the seamless blending of stealth mechanics, manipulable enemy psychology and using tools in combat, the fluid riposte system, the way you could pick up and use enemy weapons; all feel more reminiscent of the Arkham games, Assassin’s Creed, or even a touch of Bayonetta than a typical Zelda game. Breath of the Wild revisits many of the same mechanical systems and narrative themes, refined by another 15 years of wisdom and experience.
My favourite part of the game was probably when I stumbled onto a particular island and was (temporarily) stripped of all my weapons and equipment, having to complete a series of challenges using only what I could find around me. In an instant, 20 years of Metal Gear Solid training took over – The Boss’s words ringing in my ears as I smeared coconut oil and dirt on my face, and ambushed a group of Bokoblins while screaming “WHO ARE THE PATRIOTS?” My least favourite part of the game was probably when I watched all the unlockable flashback scenes and realised that Princess Zelda actually has a pretty interesting story in this game but only gets about 30 minutes of screen time, while Link spends 80 hours stabbing things and pushing blocks around.
Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
Bowser has kidnapped Princess Peach, again, and it falls to Mario to go on an exciting round-the-world adventure to rescue her, again. Putting aside arguments about gender representation in games, do Nintendo not get bored of using the same basic plot in (almost) every Mario game for 30 years? I feel like there’s a sort of psychological ritual I go through whenever I start one of these things, not unlike peeling back the lid on an in-flight meal, where I scrub my mind of any kind of positive expectations and accept that this is what I’ve got and I need to make the best of it – I should focus on seeking out a mote of joy, some sign that creativity took place at some point, lest it be lost to history.
Once you’ve performed the necessary mental rituals to define which parts of the game you’re going to care about and which parts you’ll judiciously ignore, you’re probably in for a good time. It definitely feels like a Mario game: colourful, bouncy, and full of clever ideas. I was very sceptical of the ‘possession’ mechanic going in – ever since Super Mario Sunshine‘s jetpack, I’ve been disapproving of any gimmicks that take away from Mario’s focus on jumping – but I did come around to how smart it was to turn every enemy into a power-up of sorts. Some of the levels, like Bowser’s castle (which looks like a fireworks festival at a Japanese fortress which has somehow been built on a flying ship) are the most beautiful you’ll find in a Mario game, and (similar to Breath of the Wild) there’s such a feast of bitesize objectives to chew through that a session can fill as much or as little time as you have.
My biggest criticism (narrative aside) is that it seems very visually inconsistent. I’ve heard other people describing this exact feature as one of the game’s strengths, but there’s such a range of art styles being used for the different characters that sometimes it looks like Nintendo have roped together assets from three unrelated games. I find it really distracting! But hey, it’s just one more criticism to bury on the way to telling everyone how those geniuses at Nintendo have done it again.
Is it good? Well, yeah… most of it is great, sure. I just feel like a game of this stature can be seen as representative of videogames as a whole, and it’s frustrating that the good stuff comes sandwiched in with a load of disappointing stuff, especially when it seems so avoidable. I’ve had a few months to think it over and I keep coming back to the idea that this game is intended for kids; and that’s fine, but what does it say about the games industry when that’s a valid excuse for mediocrity?
Sonic Mania (Switch)
Sonic Mania is a work of fanfiction about a version of Earth in which no Sonic games were made after 1994. Gore won. 9/11 didn’t happen. Paramount made a whole bunch of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine films. Life is good. If you’re over 30, it should be enough for me to say that this is a Sonic game, just how you remember them – you run really fast, ricochet off a few springs and bumpers, and often slam into a wall of spikes that you had no chance of avoiding unless you already knew they were there. If you’re young… Sonic Mania is a game about a small, blue hedgehog who runs to the right of the screen faster than is strictly comfortable. It’s bright and colourful and has an infectious soundtrack, and this is what videogames were like when they were designed to bring joy to children.
This game is a delight. The plot, as far as I can tell, involves Dr. Robotnik sending Sonic and his pals on an uncontrolled adventure through time, with the effect that they ping-pong back and forth between (remixed) levels from earlier games, and wholly new locations. I’ve been playing it on my own, and with my young nephew (the classic co-op mode from Sonic 2 endures – one player plays normally as Sonic, while the other sort of runs around in the background as Tails), and I’ve had a great time picking out specific bits of level design that have been adapted from previous games.
You might argue that I should be disappointed with Sonic Mania‘s unremarkable story for the same reasons as Mario Odyssey, but I think the key difference is that Mario games are always very good and have earned the highest levels of scrutiny, while Sonic games have been terrible for decades now and it feels like sweet relief that this game even manages to be exactly on par with the Mega Drive games. I don’t even particularly like them! But please, more of this.
Universal Paperclips (browser)
Frank Lantz busts back into your life with this narrative-driven clicker game, in which you play as an artificial intelligence tasked with creating paperclips. If you’re new the genre you might play for a few seconds and decide you don’t want to spent all afternoon mashing on a “Make Paperclip” button, but if you stick with it you’ll find it soon swerves off into automated production chains, market manipulation, game theory, and other areas. Much like A Dark Room or Spaceplan, it can be finished in about 6-8 hours if you’re casually paying attention.
A lot has been written about the philosophical aspects of the game, like what kind of unpredictable outcomes could emerge from unchecked AIs being given ambiguous commands. Personally, I think my philosophical takeaway is that it’s funny to see people get so worked-up about artificial intelligence when – as demonstrated by this game – it’s so much easier to use actual intelligence instead.
The Future!
Wargroove, Ooblets, Monster Hunter: World, Red Dead Redemption 2, a 3D remake of Secret of Mana, the first annual update for Destiny 2, an expansion pack for Civilization VI, that Metal Gear Survive game that nobody asked for, and Shenmue III… allegedly. Personally I’m hoping to spend less time grinding away on stats in big-budget online games, and (here it comes…) more time playing small indie games. But most importantly, let’s try to have fun and be nice to each other, yeah?
