This was meant to be the Halloween blogg but time got ahead of me and now here I am typing this out in November. Thankfully I only played one game themed around the holiday so it’s not a major loss I guess. Hopefully you all enjoy this blogg in some capacity. Lets kick this off with some tunes.
Journey (PS3):
Journey is a good looking game, and that’s kind of it’s best feature. It’s short, simple and feels like the hybrid of a walking simulator and a platformer. The platforming aspect is really fun and there’s at least some reward for exploring your surroundings as you can find items that give an extra jump. The audio design is also quite nice and the online features aren’t a bad idea either. The problem though is that it doesn’t feel all that interactive and it doesn’t have an engaging narrative to compensate for this either. What you’re left with is a fun short experience that doesn’t live up to the hype. I don’t regret playing it but that’s because it was free, I don’t think I would have parted with my money for this.
Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru! (Anime):
A simple comedy anime about an art club, that doesn’t exactly do anything extraordinary with the genre or premise. It’s competent though and provided some laughs. You could do worse when it comes to this genre so while I don’t recommend it highly I think it may be worth your time if you’re into the genre. At the very least it is average.
MediEvil (PSN):
A fun action/adventure/platformer game originating on the PS1. Like many Classic PS1 games I never had the chance to properly play it when I was a kid (I believe I only tried a short demo of it once) and while I have no idea if my childhood self would have been good enough to complete this game I am at least satisfying some long term curiosity. MediEvil is clunky and cumbersome however for an early 3D game it’s not the worst I’ve seen and it’s quite functional all things considered. In terms of visual style it’s what I’d call cartoony horror and it’s held up decently since it didn’t try to take itself so seriously. This whole game is perfect for Halloween, I mean there’s a fucking pumpkin level and everything. The music is atmospheric which is fine but it lacks anything that makes it memorable or catchy. There’s 2 very frustrating levels mid game that involve some rather small platforms and given the controls this was a terrible idea. Luckily it’s a relatively small percentage of the game and the rest of the experience makes up for these lacking areas. A huge positive aspect has to be the be the writing and voice direction, it’s often cheesy but in a good way and I would describe some of it as ‘British Comedy’ in it’s approach. I recommend this game highly but on the condition that you can handle some mildly archaic controls.
Macross Delta (Anime):
After having watched Macross Frontier I figured I’d watch Macross Delta and while it helped with my understanding of the setting I don’t think it’s 100% necessary in order to enjoy this anime. The battle scenes are pretty neat but you may have seen better by now and they often take a second seat to the musical performance. The music in this anime is great, it’s fun and often quite catchy with a few exceptions to help with tone and story. In fact the story here is relatively solid all things considered and the conclusion is at least somewhat satisfying. I’d say it’s worth watching for the action and music alone but the narrative isn’t that bad at all and helps keep it all together (in fact it’s important since it’s what maintains the long term interest but I’m underplaying it because I don’t think y’all should be expecting something amazing).
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (Movie):
A good but forgettable and incredibly standard action movie. Honestly there’s not much I can say positive or negative about it. What I will say is that I enjoyed it more than the last Mission Impossible movie so I guess that’s something. If you want to relax mindlessly for a few hours this is a decent film to rent out and that’s probably about it.
Flying Witch (Anime):
This anime feels so laid back it’s quite strange. It takes the supernatural story of a witch and makes it a casual slice of life anime with some comedy elements (main reason why I kept watching to be honest). It’s not bad at all but it can be quite slow due to it’s nature. This makes it a bit tough to recommend but at the very least it has some enjoyable soundtrack pieces so give them a listen. I think being into the ‘slice of life’ genre might be a requirement for this title.
Doctor Strange (Movie):
Marvel once again makes a movie about an odd character that hits a home run for myself. I had no idea what really expect and they managed to pull it off. Which is impressive since magic is about the last thing I thought could be believable in this movie well that is to say magic that isn’t from fucking Asgard which so far has been the major co-out for all the weirdest shit in these movies. I was impressed with the visuals (in particular how it was handled in the 3D version) and the audio had it’s own flair to set it apart from the rest of the current MCU. The story was solid with lots of great action sequences and a great character arc for the protagonist. It’s very much worth watching so hopefully you catch it before it goes out of cinemas.
Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson (3DS):
So over a year ago I bought another titty ninja game on a whim, hoping that I would find gameplay more substantive than Shinovi Versus on the Vita. However I only recently got around to it since I wanted to clear out the space on my 3DS for other games like Gunvolt and Ace Attorney. Overall the game suffers some of the same problems as the Vita title but it often feels less fluid. There’s a lot more enemy and boss variety though, a better story and a whole bunch of weapons to unlock (including some novelty weapons). Visually it’s not bad but that’s an incredibly subjective area and not everyone likes jiggle puffs. The music is pretty damn good though which is why so much of it is bellow, I wouldn’t say it’s all catchy but it’s certainly blood pumping and some of it is memorable. The gameplay is incredibly simple though and it serves it’s purpose as a 3D beat em up title, although I think the Vita game had better combat even if just slightly. I don’t think I can recommend it in a broad sense since it really only has value to a certain niche that wants this kind of fanservice and enjoys somewhat mindlessly hacking and slashing away (It can be cathartic though so it’s not what I would consider a bad game by any means).
Okay it’s done folks. I’m guessing there won’t be another one of these until December but I could easily prove myself wrong. I’ll see you later anyways.
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