Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

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One Piece: Unlimited World Red (Switch) - A launch year action tie in to the hit anime series (I believe previously released on 3DS & Wii U).

Gameplay:

• Conceptually it's a pretty standard dungeon crawler. It has "dungeons" based upon the various locales featured in the anime wherein you gather various loot, and a centralized town you return to inbetween where you can use said loot to upgrade your characters, equipment, and the town itself.
• Combat is pretty basic "beat 'em up/hack & slash" fare, and while you can button mash your way through most mobs of enemies, it encourages you to utilize various combos in your arsenal via a combo list in the lower right corner of the screen (seen below), as pulling them all off before taking too much damage yourself (which resets the list) causes enemies to enter a "Break" state where they're easier to stun. It also features system where a button prompt to dodge or deflect an attack will let you avoid incoming damage (this can change based upon who you're playing as, as Luffy can deflect gunfire, while Nami will dodge instead, for example), & by pressing "L" you bring up a list of a character's specials, which you can engage if you have a special bar filled up (if all characters have a special bar filled, you can also choose to activate a flashy team attack, which you can also see Nami activating below).
  
  
• While fights against the various mooks are nothing to write home about, the boss fights are surprisingly bombastic & challenging. Take an early boss as an example (pictured below), which ocasionally summons a giant sword of sand that'll cleave the battle area in two.
• Loot itself can be found by destroying objects in the environment, in treasure chests, dropped by enemies, and pictured below you can pull your best Animal Crossing impression by catching critters with a net or going fishing at designated spots (both of which require you to input some sort of QTE). Some loot can only be accessed (or is easier to access) depending on who you have in your party. For example getting enemy drops is easier with Nami as she can steal from downed foes, chests behind gates can only be accessed by slicing the gates with Zoro's sword, and distant islands can only be reached by Brook being able to run on water.
  
  
• Back in town you can only play as Luffy (who, pictured below, can "Spider-Man" himself about the place), and by using the loot you collect on your adventures you can open up new locations such as pharmacies that offer a wider range of healing items, a tavern which is used to take on sidequests (one of the first things you open), as well as a host of other establishments (a library for example, lets you view character models/bios). There are also various optional minigames dotted about the place, most of which take the guise of Game & Watch like fare (pictured below), though you can also collect balloons randomly puked out across town which can be traded with a girl for (random?) items.
  
  
• Of course characters level up as you take them into battle & there's no EXP share here, so characters not in your active party will get left behind if you don't use them (you have a total of 9 characters, and can only use 3 at a time when heading out). It's not too big of a deal though as (other than Luffy) the game doesn't require you to use specific characters to clear the story & only the character you're directly in control of takes damage, so it's safe to take a low level character into a high level area to power level them. To further strengthen your party, once you have the restaurant in town built you can have dishes made (as long as you have the prerequisite loot) that permanently raise HP and/or Attack stats of whomever eats them (there's no limit to this as far as I could tell, though the boost a dish gives does diminish a bit each time you feed it to the same character).
• Unique to this game are the "Strong Word" & "Item Word" systems. "Strong Words" are quotes spoken by a character in the anime that you can equip to said character to give them a stat boost or some other boon. While this may sound confusing it's literally just a replacement for the standard equipment system you usually see in JRPGs (instead of equipping different pieces of armor, you equip different quotes). Each "Strong Word" has a cost associated with it, and the higher level a character is the higher cost cap they'll have, letting you equip multiple (or higher quality) quotes to them. "Item Words" are exactly what they sound like. They as well are quotes, but instead of equipping them to the appropriate character they act as items you can use while out in a dungeon while controlling their related character (they have unlimited uses, but have a cool down timer so you can't spam them). Also there is an NPC in town who, if you have the required loot, can upgrade the effect of both "Strong Words" & "Item Words".
• For an RPG the main story doesn't last too long, in fact if you really stuck to it you could probably run through it in under 10 hours. The real meat of the game lies in the large selection of sidequests. These are all timed challenges, though usually generously, and range from the typical collect "X" number of this item, or defeat "Y" number of enemies, to remixed boss fights or boss gauntlets, and even feature bosses that don't show up in the main story. I imagine you could probably get 25-30 hours out of it if you really got into the sidequest content, though I only did some of them. Also, a "Hard Mode" for the main story becomes available once you complete it.

Story:

• The Strawhats find themselves arriving at the sunny shores of Trans Town, and while the gang starts out in good spirits (as you can see below), they discover that the town has been ruined & they soon find themselves engaged in a plot orchestrated by the infamous pirate Redfield (an game original character, but explained as being equal to the most powerful figures in official lore) who is trapping them within illusions of adventures past for his own mysterious purposes (it's essentially Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for One Piece, narratively).
  
• You'll naturally get the most out of it if you're an established One Piece fan, but as someone who'se mostly neutral on the series I still had a pretty decent time with the mostly likeable cast. Every major face seems accounted for & is represented well.

Visual/Audio:

• While the game's age/budget shows a bit in spots, thanks to the vibrant art direction it still looks pretty good, and the unique locales pulled from the anime (many of which are pictured below) keep the dungeons from falling into the cliché tropes for the most part (though Alabasta is 80% generic desert).
  
  
  
  
  
  
• It mostly runs solid, though there are occasional frame rate drops. First I noticed was in the Drum Island dungeon (a snowy biome) in an area with a heavy blizzard effect active, though there are like two tiny spots in Skypea's jungle area that cause the frame rate to tank for reasons I can't think of.
• The soundtrack fits the series well. I'm not a huge fan of the show, but I think I recognized some tunes from the anime.

Conclusion:

• Not a must play game, but still pretty solid if you're into the anime or characters.
  Setting sail for new adventures.

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Star Wars: Republic Commando (Switch)

Tactical FPS set in a galaxy far, far away heads out on a Nintendo platform for the first time ever (originally an OG Xbox console exclusive).

Gameplay:

• A Tactical FPS, it sees you and 3 AI teammates working your way through three different campaigns (each split up into multiple missions) in largely linear fashion. Each campaign should take you only a few hours each, for a total playtime of 9-10 hours (maybe less, depending on how adept you are at it).
• While there were small instances of stuff like a teammate getting in my line of fire (and friendly fire IS a thing, so you can hurt each other & yourself with your own grenades & the like) your ally AI is surprisingly good and they're generally pretty good at taking care of themselves. However taking command is a requirement for success, and there are two types of commands you can give out to them.
• The first of which are more general all encompassing orders triggered by a combination of the "A" button & a D-Pad input. You have "Search & Destroy" (the default command, this leaves your squad to their own devices, for better or worse), "Form Up" (they'll stay close to you), "Secure Position" (they'll defend the spot you're currently aiming at), & "Cancel Manoeuver" (this cancels all commands currently engaged). Also, pressing "A" while aiming at an enemy will cause your squad to focus on it exclusively. I personally like to have everyone "Form Up" after clearing a room, as once too often I'll be rooting around for any dropped ammo only to learn that my squad took it upon themselves to advance to the next room engaging the enemy before I was ready.
• The other type are more specific orders given to a single member. You'll see symbols littered throughout the environment that denote things such as sniping & grenade positions, mountable turrets, hackable computer terminals, surfaces to place an explosive charge, & more. Simply aim at one of these symbols & press "A" for the nearest squadmate to take up position. Many of these things you can also do yourself (as seen below), & you'll have to decide whether it's better for you to place a charge or hack a terminal yourself, or to help provide cover for an AI ally to do so instead (most charges & terminals can be activated in 10 seconds, but some take into the minutes to activate). To cancel these more specific positions, aim at the location & press "A" again, or use the "Cancel Manoeuver" command (this affects everyone though). If everyone is already locked into a position when you pick a new one, the furthest back squad mate will drop his current position for the new one. If you don't call off a squadmate's command they will stay there even after you've moved on, so make sure you keep tabs on them.
  
• You'll need to make use of these commands too, else you'll run into situations where you'll be routinely slaughtered until you think of the right strategy. It isn't an easy game (I played on Normal) & there are some sudden difficulty spikes in spots, but it does a lot to ease the frustration. Firstly, it isn't a game over until everyone is dead as you can indefinitely revive your allies (to half health) & they can revive you as well. Secondly there are healing stations (called Bacta Tanks) installed liberally through the levels that have unlimited uses (usually every couple rooms, or even stationed around an area you're expected to hold for several minutes). Allies will heal up automatically if they're gravely injured, but you can also command them manually to top off too. Finally, auto saves come pretty quickly & you can make manual saves at any time as well, which particularly comes in handy as this is an older game & the auto save system will put you into some unfavorable positions at times.
• I also want to point out that in terms of structure I think it fits the Switch surprisingly well. Each of the three campaigns has 4-6 missions, and each of those is usually broken down into several smaller segments (probably for loading purposes). Each segment is usually just a few rooms big, which (alongside the frequent saving ability) makes the whole thing pretty digestible in more bite size sessions.
• The UI is organically built into the presentation as well. You view the world through the helmet of your Clone Trooper, and UI elements such as your (easily depleted) sheild power, health (as well as that of your squad), & equipped grenade type appear to be part of your helmet's display. Also, a wrapon's total ammo (as well as what's left in it's current clip) is built directly into it's design, all of which you can see in the screenshot below. While this is mostly cook, one small problem with this approach is the one timed objective in the game. The first campaign is capped off with a task that must be completed in 5 minutes (IMO, the hardest part of the game, since it requires a more gung ho approach that kind of runs counter to the tactical nature of the rest of the game), but it isn't made immediately apparent as the countdown is presented sort of in the background by the computerized voice of the facility you're in (there's no on screen representation of it), and you don't really realize the countdown isn't just for effect (as there'll be ominous warnings elsewhere presented similarly which are just that) until it's too late.
  
• Let's talk ordinance, shall we? There are three weapons you'll have on you at all times (technically, 3 configurations of the same weapon), the first of which is an Assault Rifle (the default configuration, you access it by pressing up on the D-Pad), a Sniping configuration (press right on the D-Pad), & an Anti-Armor configuration (launches charges that really obliterate enemies but only holds 4 shots at a time, press left on the D-Pad to access it). Ammo for these weapons tend to be lying around after every other skirmish, usually near Bacta Tanks or in the corners/slightly hidden nooks of larger rooms you may be fighting in for awhile.
• Other than those you can also pick up enemy weapons (of which you can hold one at a time), which are accessed by pressing down on the D-Pad. These range from Assault Rifles, Shotguns, Bowguns, Laser Cannons, Concussion Rifles, to Rocket Launchers. My favorite was a heavy duty Chain Gun which could really mow down foes. To replenish ammo simply walk over a dropped weapon of the same type you're currently in possession of.
• If you run completely out of ammo you'll revert to a basic laser blaster that has unlimited ammo, but an overheating feature so you can't just spam it. You can also access it at any time by double tapping down on the D-Pad if you want to conserve ammo elsewhere or for whatever other reason.
• You also have 4 grenade types at your disposal (of which you can hold up to 5 of each), and you cycle through them with "L" (the game never tells you this though, and you don't automatically switch over to the next type when you run out of another, so it took awhile to figure out). Thermal Detonators are your basic grenades & EMP Grenades are extra effective against Droid based foes, but you also have Sonic Detonators (I'm not sure what specific effect these have, but I'm guessing they may be extra effective against organic enemies?), as well as Flash Grenades that temporarily blind enemies. Extras are often found alongside the ammo for your main 3 weapon types.
• You'll need to know when and where to use what weapon, as some enemies (particularly the tougher Droid types) are absolute bullet sponges unless under the effect of an EMP Grenade or picked off by a couple of well aimed shot of the Sniping configuration. The game likes throwing new enemies (or altered versions of current ones) at you at a pretty regular pace throughout the first 2 campaigns, and while the final campaign only introduces one new enemy type, it's an absolute doozy that'll ask the most of you whenever it shows up (plus, enemy types introduced in the first campaign that skipped the second return here, so it throws everything you've been introduced to at you).
• Other things to note are that "L2" & "R2" are used to lob grenades & fire your weapon respectively (pressing the right stick as a button lets you aim down your sight), "R" cycles visor modes (in addition to your standard view you have a "Low Light Mode" that gives everything a lo-fi black & white look that lets you see in dark places, and a "Tactical Mode" that adds some extra noise to your view, though I'm not sure it's exact purpose), "B" performs a melee attack, "Y" is jump (I literally got stuck at a downed pipe for 10 minutes as I didn't know you could do this, lol), & "X" reloads. Oh, and you have to press the left stick as a button to crouch (and hold it down to keep doing so), which is a bit of a pain.
• You unlock development extras such as videos of concept art or developer interviews after clearing each campaign, but much like the pre rendered cutscenes in titles such as Onimusha & the Devil May Cry games, no attempt has been made to remaster these videos into HD. Also, I think there might be a glitch as the last one didn't unlock after I finished the last campaign which the game stipulates as it's unlock condition (not a huge deal though).

Story:

• Set during the events of the "Clone Wars" in Star Wars canon (though I'm not sure if the events are still considered as such after the big Disney retcon), the game does away with lightsabers & Jedi & instead follows "Delta Squad" (of which you're the commander), a specially trained strikeforce of Clone Troopers who take on missions of insurmountable odds in support of the Republic's war efforts. You exist on the periphery of the overall Star Wars narrative and as such there's no game long story arc (each campaign, though played through in a set order, is largely stand alone), and what few famous figures do appear (such as the shot of the villainous General Grievous below) do so in fleeting cameos. What the game lacks in overall narrative & recognizable faces it makes up for with a strong brotherhood between your squad (who'll begin to rib each other with playful "Bro" talk as you get further in) & a surprisingly gritty war torn atmosphere for the Star Wars universe.
  
• The first campaign takes place during a major battle on the rocky desert world of Geonosis (I believe it's supposed to be the same battle featured during the climax of the Star Wars: Attack of the Clones! film), and while your team is first sent in for an assassination mission, the powers that be decide you may as well destroy the enemy HQ while you're there. Despite the generally limited scope of being a linear shooter it does a great job of making you feel like you're in the middle of a massive battle, and it's all that action on the periphery that I believe helps contribute to Switch's frame rate woes (while frame rate hiccups do appear elsewhere, they feel most prominent during the opening campaign).
  
• The second campaign takes place on a Republic Assault Ship which has sent out a distress signal, and it's my absolute favorite of the bunch. Your team is split up at the onset of the mission, and due to the isolation & the foreboding atmosphere of "something" gone wrong (such as dead Clone Troopers), which builds up to seeing other Clone Troopers assailed by myserious assailants just out of your reach, and ultimately a tense solo trek which sees enemies surprising you by jumping out of grates & other sudden encounters, it gives off an almost Metroid vibe that's unlike anything else in the game, and it feels good to finally meet back up with your squad to kick some butt and take the ship back.
• The final campaign sees you off to Kashyyyk, the forested homeworld of the Wookies, where you must free the imprisoned resistance & help them retake their occupied home. I'm sure it'll put a huge smile on any Star Wars fan's face to team up with the famous creatures, and it is neat to see them toss around foes like ragdolls (and similarly sad to see them die due to their tendency to rush headfirst into danger).
• The narrative unfolds organically as you play, and as such there's a minimum of cutscenes (and nothing pre-rendered). The game does have brief prologue & epilogue scenes that bookend the adventure, but even in those you can move the camera around to some degree. Each campaign will also start you off rooted in place as your squad huddles around a hologram of your commanding officer (usually riding in a transport vessel where you can look out the door to the action outside), but once it puts things in your control it never wrestles the controls from you to focus the scene, as more modern adventure games tend to do.

Visual Audio:

• It has a grittier take on the franchise to really focus on the wartorn aspect of it all, and while there can be a bit of hallway deja vu in the design every now and then, I generally feel it changes things up just often enough where it never feels too repetitive. There's at least one screenshot from each of the three campaigns below, but picking them out I had to keep myself from making it all Assault Ship shots. While it is the most "hallway-ized" campaign in the game, due to the simpler geometric shapes that make up it's environments I felt like it held up the best graphically (I didn't post a screenshot of one, but there are these vents you occasionally crawl through in the early portion that have a heat effect, and I thought these looked really good).
  
  
  
• There's a great attention to detail in the action as well, as your visor will be smeared by raindrops in rainy areas & enemy "blood" (black from Droids, orange from the insect like Geonosians, & green from the lizard like Trandosians) whenever you get a kill up close, which is quickly wiped away by a an electric "wiper" (this you can see back in my UI screenshot).
• There's a lot of recognizable elements from the wider franchise present, whether it be the unmistakable blaster sounds & musical cues, to common enemies such as the Battle Droids, Super Battle Droids, & Droidekas (which I've always called "rolly poly robots" until now, lol) which appear prominently in the prequel films, as well as the aforementioned Wookies & the unmentioned R2 units that roam the halls of the Assault Ship.
• The big convo regarding the Switch version is in relashion to the aforementioned frame drops, and while a patch is promised for early May to fix the issue, as I write this I can say that the issue is currently pretty prominent. It wasn't enough to keep me from enjoying the game & I felt like they became less frequent the further I got, but if you have any issue with this at all it may be better to wait for the patch (and as an OG Xbox game the problem shouldn't have been there to begin with in all honesty).

Conclusion:

• It may have it's share of technical hiccups and general dated elements, but this is still a really strong example of the genre. I may not rate it quite as highly as other gen 6 HD conversions like FFX & Okami (though genre bias will play a part in your own ranking), but I'm more than glad to have been able to play it on Switch and as always hope to see more games from the era cleaned up and given a new lease on life.
  
  Accomplished, your mission is.

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New Super Lucky's Tale
Platform: Nintendo Switch

For a while it seemed like the 3D Platformer genre was dead - but from Nintendo's big splashes with Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Super Mario 3D World (+ Bowser's Fury), to Activision-Blizzard's revival of the Crash and Spyro franchises, to the upcoming release of Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, it seems this genre is getting the most love its seen since the early 2000s. The original Super Lucky's Tale - an Xbox One and PC exclusive - seemed a timely release in 2017, not only capitalising on the emergence of this trend, but providing a charming homage to classic 3D platformers on a platform that was in desperate need of compelling exclusives. Despite this, the game sorta just came...and went. I played an hour or so of Super Lucky's Tale at the time and, while it seemed interesting enough, I never took it past the first few levels or so - it was, after all, competing with Super Mario Odyssey for my interest.

Come 2019 and Super Lucky's Tale was to reborn as New Super Lucky's Tale on the Nintendo Switch - not only would the game make it to a non-Microsoft platform, but it would be portable, and include a fully controllable camera. These features made the game all-the-more compelling so I took a dive and picked it up for Nintendo Switch. The Switch port is serviceable enough, with the art style scaling well in both handheld and docked mode (the latter of which, I believe runs in 1080p), and the game generally running at a steady 30fps. The added camera control adds a whole new layer of depth and immersion to the game, which is certainly welcome.

New Super Lucky's Tale is a modern 3D platformer with collectathon elements. In typical platformer fashion, the player controls the titular fox character, Lucky, progressing through numerous worlds, stages, and bosses to complete the game's main objective, while collecting magical "Pages" along the way. The game is divided into 5 worlds, each of which contains numerous levels, puzzle challenges, and a boss fight.

At their most basic, levels require that Lucky complete an objective (usually reaching the end of the level), to collect the level's completion Page. However, each level will also contain three other pages: a Letter Page (for collecting 5 letters, each spelling out Lucky's name, akin to the KONG tokens in Donkey Kong Country), a Coin Page (for collecting at least 300 coins), and a Hidden Page (for completing some sort of hidden task, often a platforming challenge requiring the collection of coloured coins under a time limit). Although these are optional, a number of Pages are need to complete the game, and, as standard in the collectathon genre, you will probably find yourself motivated to collect everything anyway (especially as none of these tend to be too far out of your way).

The levels themselves come in various different flavours, from more open designs to more streamlined, 2D design. On the one extreme, you have more open, objective-based levels akin to those in Spyro 2/3, Banjo Kazooie and Super Mario Sunshine, where many collectables are obtained by performing certain tasks such as finding an NPC's chickens. Other 3D levels are more akin to Super Mario 3D World's focus on purer platforming challenges. Some stages are in 2D, granting a feel similar to the side-scrolling levels of Crash Bandicoot games, or the Donkey Kong Country series; and many of these levels are auto-scrolling. This juxtaposition of predictable objective structure and varied level designs is welcome - while the varied levels keep things fresh, the familiar objectives add a level of comfort to the game's progression, ensuring that no part of the game is too strenuous or frustrating. Unfortunately, however, I will say that the 2D sections tend to be weaker, as Lucky's platforming isn't quite tight enough for the challenges in these levels to be as satisfying as other games in the genre. Moreover, the 2D level design doesn't seem to blend quite as well with the collectathon nature of the game - in the autorun stages especially, these will be over within a couple of minutes, and rather than testing your platforming skills by having you get a perfect or near-perfect run, I always found that playing 2 or 3 times through was enough to get all of the Pages anyway.

Outside of levels you have puzzle stages and boss fights. Personally, I found puzzle stages to be a welcome break from the platforming, although I can see a lot of people not wanting to do these. One puzzle type - involving moving statues across paths to reach a certain point - requires more thinking than platforming skill, and I really enjoyed this - in fact, I found this to be the most challenging part of the game before the final boss. Other puzzle levels replicate your typical ball rotation maze / collectathon (think Monkey Ball physics). Personally these aren't my thing, but they weren't overly abundant in the main game (although did overstay their welcome in the post-game, in my opinion). Boss fights are generally solid - being mostly based around platforming and maintaining your footing as the boss attacks you, before finding an opportunity to hit them. The final boss unfortunately was an exercise in frustration, being the most difficult part of the game only because of the need to attack numerous floating enemies, viewing from a fixed camera angle in which the player has very little perception of depth.

One great thing about this game is how Lucky controls. Lucky has a fairly standard repertoire of 3D platformer moves - a double jump, and a tail whip attack, for example. But his notable technique is his ability to dig underground by pressing the ZL or ZR buttons. This allows him to pick up items underground, to attack enemies from below, and to get underneath certain barriers. In practice this feels very much like swimming through ink in Splatoon. What's also great about this move is that, when on hardened surfaces that Lucky can't dig through, he instead skids, adding a bit of acceleration to his movement. This adds a great sense of flow and momentum to his movement, and generally Lucky is great to control. As alluded to earlier, however, while his moveset is greatly fine-tuned for 3D platforming, I find that his jump arc and double-jump are less suited to precise 2D platforming - not terrible, but his strength is definitely in a 3D space.

Overall you've probably got the impression that this is quite an easy game, and...that's because, for the most part, it is. In fact I'd say it's perfect for someone's first platformer, or for someone (like me) looking for a comforting game after a difficult day, or something that won't have you exert too much mental energy. The post-game adds a few extra challenges which do dial up the difficulty a little - however this part of the game also lacks Page collection so, personally, I didn't find it as compelling as the main game, despite the welcome addition of some extra challenge. Regardless, this game is pure 3D platforming comfort food and I'd recommend it to anyone who's not too bothered by a game being easy for that reason.

Finally, you'll note that I've mentioned a lot of other games in this review. This is partly because I'm a big fan of the genre, but also partly because the game lends so much from other games in the genre, but not in a bad way. I don't think this game does anything particularly original, but was is original about this game is how it weaves everything together - definitely a case of the sum being more than its parts. You may feel like you've seen everything this game has to offer before, but IMO it didn't detract too much from my enjoyment.

Verdict: New Super Lucky's Tale is pure 3D platforming comfort food. While not particularly original, nor are its 2D sections particularly strong compared to some other games, it is a charming game that brings together some of the best aspects of the genre into a compact, charming, and easy-going experience. B+