Rayman Legends (Video Game) - Review

2D platforming is such a simple genre and one so full of games, that I sometimes worry we'll eventually reach a time when the genre as a whole grows stale. After each time I play one, I get more and more concerned that developers will just run out of ideas. Rayman Legends is the kind of game that restores my faith, but with some strings attached. Rayman Legends is a great game rife  with clever design and superb aesthetics, even though it left me without a proper sense of satisfaction after the credits rolled.

Rayman Legends is a joy to play. The controls and physics are very solid, meaning that the inputs are merely an expression of your skill. There are some hairs to split, like wall-running getting a bit disorienting in terms of which direction to move the stick/d-pad, but overall, again, very solid overall. The level design is truly remarkable. Most levels are designed to be ran through quickly in a sort of rhythm. This makes things exciting and fast-paced, even though technically only some levels actually force you to maneuver quickly. Throughout the duration of the game's main five worlds, original concepts are sprinkled into the bowl. The best example is the stealth portion that is mixed with swimming, which offers a pretty unique experience. It's also the little things that really stick out, like the cleverly-placed hidden collectibles. 

Rayman Origins got the attention it did thanks in large part to its gorgeous visuals, and the ante has only been upped in Legends. This game is beautiful, with intricate and fun animation and bucket loads of color. The music is also quite good here, offering enjoyable tunes that both enhance the feeling of playing and are good in their own right. The aesthetics are remarkable.

Each world ends with a boss and then a music level as a bit of a reward, essentially. The bosses are polygon-based 3D, which is a cool way to contrast them off of the rest of the graphics. Taking down the bosses is good, patterned-based fun, even though none of them are particularly anything to write home about. The music levels are definitely cool, offering a really entertaining mixture of level design and music to enjoy, but they are somewhat lazily put-together. Gameplay footage makes it seem like these are interactive-rhythm segments, but they're actually a fake version of that, as your interaction doesn't create the music, it just goes along with static music in the background. A string of lums (coins) is set to a series of guitar strings, for example, but if you don't collect the lums, the guitar strums still happen. I did enjoy these, even though they don't involve the player in a way that makes game like the Bit.Trip series so neat.

The big disappointment here, though, is just that the main game ends abruptly, leaving me still wanting. The story is a load of nonsense, which means that there is no added sense of satisfaction at the conclusion because there's basically nothing here. Narratives in games like this don't need to be anything more complex than a hero saving a princess from a monster, but something should be here to give a sense of purpose and conclusiveness to the adventure. It would probably seem silly if that was the thrust of my explanation of my biggest problem with the game, but that is just secondary. The short feeling of the main game adds much more to this abruptness. These five standard-length worlds don't feel like enough. I wanted more.

That's not to say that there isn't a lot of content here, because there is. Legends does a brilliant job of constantly holding a carrot in front of your face, giving you new challenges like short time trials (as well as daily ones that are ranked online!), and new rewards like character skins. It's quite addictive! There's nearly an equal amount of remade Origins levels here, which are still incredibly fun despite feeling jarring and useless, considering this game is lacking on new levels and since Origins was so recent. 

I get the sense that Rayman Legends could have so easily been an incredible or even masterful game, when it's really just a great one. So you could fairly say that I'm disappointed. But really, I love this game. It is an absolute blast and very smartly designed. Its aesthetics are wonderful. It's great.

***

~  Reviewed on Playstation 3, single-player ~

Kid Tripp (Video Game; iOS) - Review

Apple's iOS platform has proven itself to be a spectacular platform for interesting, fun, and cheap games. Anybody can make a game for the platform for cheap, and getting on the App Store isn't difficult. This excellent ecosystem of games to play on your phone or tablet gives us fantastic little games like Kid Tripp from "Not Done Yet Games." Kid Tripp is another mobile runner with pixel graphics, but it's an especially well-designed and entertaining one. 

There's a cute little story to be followed through simple cut-scenes at the beginning and end of the game. It's very minimal, but charming. The real thrust of the game comes from playing it, and it's a real joy. As stated earlier, this is a runner, but not an endless runner. There are four worlds with fives levels each. A tap on the left jumps, a tap on the right throws a rock, and, smartly stopping you from spamming the rock-throws, a hold on the right makes your character run.

This is one of those challenging, deceptively simple games. Your character automatically strolls forward, and there are spikes and baddies to avoid, springboards to use, and coins to collect on your journey to the end of the level. That's it. But it really is challenging, starting off mildly hard and progressively getting expletive-shoutingly hard towards the end, but it's always a joy. Levels are very short and you get shot right back to the beginning whenever you fail. I found it absolutely exhilarating to finally get past a part of a level I was stuck on for so many deaths, only to be flung into the next portion and be forced to figure out the next death trap. 

Kid Tripp's controls feel very tight and responsive, too, which makes flinging around your character all the more cool. There are times when bouncing on an enemy's head is essential to moving on, and there are some obligatory mine-cart sequences that are exciting. The game's pixelated visuals are very pretty, and the game runs very smoothly. Enemies are cute and reasonably varied, and the tunes are good, although certainly nothing special. 

There's really not too much to complain about here; this is a totally solid game. I don't like the black bars on the screen (which is more obtrusive on the iPad or 4 inch iPhones/iPods), but that's a small complaint, really. I was able to brave my way through it all in about an hour, but the game is designed to be replayed. When you finish, it counts the number of coins you managed to collect, how quickly you got through, and how many times you died - all of which are tracked separately through online leaderboards. You can pay levels separately to master them, and the game will award you medals on your mastery to let you know how well you did. 

I really love this game. It's fantastic. If you have an iOS device, which you probably do, I highly recommend you fork over a mere dollar for this gem. Just be in for a challenge. 

***

Played on an iPad 3rd Generation for approximately an hour and fifteen minutes. I'm matt456p on Gamecenter for those who want to try to beat my scores! 

Ikachan (Video Game; Nintendo 3DS eShop) - Review

Ikachan feels like the video game equivalent of a decent little short story written for a high school Creative Writing class. It's noticeable that the creator took some short cuts to get this done. And it's over quickly. But even if it's certainly not great, there's a distinct joy to be gotten out of the experience. Ikachan is an okay game that makes up for some laziness with charm. 

This game casts you as a cute little squid named Ikachan. You maneuver him around with a combination of aiming his head with the circle pad and propelling him forward with the a or b button. It controls similarly to an underwater level in a 2D Mario game, save for aiming replacing more direct movement. The physics feel great and it's fun to maneuver Ikachan around. 

This game is at its best when you're avoiding enemies, collecting fish to level yourself up, and taking down the few bosses. The game gives you a small, open environment to explore, and this provides for some neat metroidvania-style gameplay, in which you gain new abilities or items that can be used in past areas. The game has gorgeous and adorable pixel art that looks even cooler when the 3D is flipped on. The sound effects and chiptunes combine with the visuals to create a really engrossing atmosphere.

Unfortunately, a lot of the progression depends on going back and forth, talking to NPC's. The story is cool but the diaogue is usually a bit dull and it gets frustrating when you have to arbitrarily initiate conversation with the characters until something happens. The most banal areas of the game, by the way, are where all of these characters are.

At the end of my playthrough, I felt more positive than negative about my journey. Since the game is only an hour long, it's hard to forgive boring, text-heavy segments that probably made up half of my play-time. But it's a pretty trip that tells a weird, charming, simple story, with a cool ending to boot. It's clear that the creator had fun making Ikachan, and I had fun playing it. It's okay. 

***

This game takes place in the universe of Cave Story, and is made by the same dude. It originated as freeware, but I played the Nintendo 3DS eShop version for review. It costs $5, which is a decent price. 

The Last of Us (Video Game) - Review

The Last of Us is special in many ways. It marks the first time Naughty Dog has started a second new IP on the same platform. It's essentially the last big release that is exclusive to the 7th generation of consoles. And it's also not only one of the finest video games of said generation, it's one of the finest ever crafted. With its unparalleled, visceral combat, jaw-dropping aesthetics, and unprecedented storytelling, The Last of Us is truly masterful.

The Last of Us is another story about a zombie apocalypse, but it does enough of its own to ensure that doesn't make it feel stale in any way. For example, these zombies are not even quite zombies, but a growth after affliction from a fungus. As time goes on, the growth gets worse, first making one lose control of his or her body, then taking away vision, etc. What's smart is that not only does the growth get worse with each stage for the victim, but the further along a particular victim is in their sick state, the more difficult of an enemy they are to deal with in the game. This game builds its own world, with a crippling government run via Martial Law, and a rebellion group against the government known as The Fireflies. 

Soon enough the player finds himself in control of a man named Joel, escorting a fourteen-year old girl named Ellie somewhere because of a prior agreement. They're great characters, Joel a shell of a once normal man with remnants of his humanity left, and Ellie a chipper girl that has adapted very well to the only world that she's ever known. The game very easily got me invested in these characters as well as the various other characters along the way. Comedy, drama, and horror are all elegantly represented here. It's very funny, and it's very sad, and it's very intense, and each of those types of story-telling are balanced remarkably well. 

The game is absolutely stunning. The beginning of the game actually isn't, I should say, with lots of unimpressive textures, but once the game really gets started, the beginning's lack of graphical flair is easily forgotten. The facial animation is top of the line, not looking awkward at all and getting across the emotion of the characters well. The world is packed with detail and may just be the most impressive display of visuals on this generation of consoles. The great contextual animation that Naughty Dog gave to the industry with Uncharted 2 is here, which means that when a character approaches a wall, for example, their hand will casually touch and push off of it for no reason other than aesthetics. The score is also fantastic, drumming up the proper emotion for each particular moment.

I have always wanted combat in video games to be as good as it is in The Last of Us. Many action games of this kind, with varying levels of detriment to their respective qualities, come off as artificially challenging, through lazy design like enemies that take a ludicrous amount of bullets, but not this one. It's perfectly challenging, with every death feeling like my fault, partly due to the multitude of equally viable options available. The fusion of gunplay and stealth feels more natural than other games that attempt to do the same because one does not feel cheap because of the other. It doesn't feel like a shooter with stealth tacked on, and it doesn't feel like a stealth game with shooting tacked on. 

The AI is very well-done and impressed me more than I've ever been impressed by such a thing. Enemies react dynamically to how you play, in familiar ways such as flanking you when in a bad position, but also in new ways. For example, if you are dominating your opponents, they will run away from you, frightened. Your allies also have impressive AI, helping you in a way that doesn't make the game too easy, but in a way that makes sense. The AI overall comes off as organic.  

The violence is very brutal, which made me feel genuinely bad about my actions, but the tense, survival-horror atmosphere makes me empathize with the character I'm in control of. He's just trying to survive. This game had me of two minds, one of my own, civilized perspective, and the other of Joel, this man whose sense of morality is mostly broken due to a country whose order has crumbled. This makes the combat even more engaging. I feel like the successes of my character are truly my successes, and when I finished off a large group of dudes, I needed a breather.  The only other types of gameplay to be had other than combat are good puzzles that don't ask much of the player and serve as a nice break, and RPG elements that eschew things that bog down gameplay like inventory management and stick with completely fun things like upgrading weapons and your character. 

That level of empathy for actions that are unacceptable when scrutinized under civilized morality is a concept that runs from the beginning of the game all the way to its controversial ending. Many have reacted differently to this hard-to-swallow ending. I think the ending solidifies a pretty clear theme: In this world where everything has gone awry, many have dropped their sense of morality because their own survival seems more important to them. This is a theme that can be picked up from things like The Walking Dead, but The Last of Us hammers it home more strongly than any fiction I've ever experienced. And part of its effectiveness lies in the emotions that being forced to take the role of someone in a world like this intrinsically bring about, which is revolutionary for gaming. 

The Last of Us also features a multiplayer component, which presents a unique type of gameplay. You choose a faction to align yourself with and you play alongside other real people. As you do well, your camp of people grows and remains healthy, and vice versa. The combat of the single player is recreated pretty well in multiplayer, and it comes off as a well-thought-out diversion. It's fun, but it's not the star of the show here.  

The star of the show here is this masterful single-player experience. Naughty Dog has crafted a piece of high art. The Last of Us is a pretty much perfect experience. It is one of the finest achievements in the history of video games. I laughed, I cried, I nervously clenched my controller, and I wrote this glowing review with optimism for the gaming industry.