Welcome back to Video Game Round-Up! This month, we’ll see some mainstays, some new games, and some surprising returns! But before we get to the games, I want to talk about something else for a bit. On the last day of June, I got to hang out with writer Nuraliah Norasid at a National Library Board event and talk about video games for 2 hours and 15 minutes. It was only supposed to be an hour and half long, but we kept it going because we had so much fun. I want to thank Nuraliah for being an awesome co-presenter, Joey from NLB for setting it all up, and all the folks who showed up and asked some awesome questions (and helped me out with names and terms that my dumb brain couldn’t properly remember) for making it the best panel/discussion thing I’ve ever been on. I kept hyping it as the best talk this year before it actually happened, and now that it has, I’m happy to report I was 100% right.
Now, on to the games!
Celeste (Switch) - I’m as surprised as anyone that I started this game up again. I was watching a livestream on YouTube of other people playing the first few levels, and I got all cocky and was like, “Man, I did that way faster than they are doing it.” But then they started getting Strawberries I never got, so I had to go back and get those collectibles! So I jumped back in to grab the Strawberries, Cassette Tapes, and Crystal Hearts I didn’t get the first time.
Halfway through doing that, I realized I had never done Chapter 8 of the game, the Core of the Mountain. The reason I had never done it was because I didn’t have enough Crystal Hearts to unlock it. Well, four Hearts let me unlock it, and unlock it I did. Holy hell is this section ricockulously hard! There is some fiendishly difficult platforming in this area, with some incredibly long sections where death means going all the way back to the beginning. But you know what? After a ridiculous amount of deaths, I beat this section too, and I am super proud of that.
I went back to the main game and got every single Cassette Tape, Crystal Heart, and Strawberry, including the ones from the Core of the Mountain. All that’s left to do now are the B-Sides, which are much harder versions of the levels (they’re unlocked by the Cassette Tapes, and I’ve done only the first one), and the C-Sides, which you can unlock by beating all the B-Sides.
My death count was 2605 after I originally beat the main game. Now it’s up to 5047 (1066 of those deaths came in the Core of the Mountain, and a whopping 1591 are from the Summit, the level before it).
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (PS4) - Finished up the second episode of the Fate of Atlantis DLC. This Hades’ Realm section ended a bit oddly as no clue was given for where the third episode might be going. The first was in Elysium, the second in Hades’ Realm, so will the third be in Tartarus? Or maybe even Olympus? Who knows. All I know is I kicked Hercules, Perseus, Achilles, and Agamemnon’s asses all over the underworld, and topped it off by smashing Hades himself in the face. Also, in the present time, Layla may or may not have killed a friend (who was acting kind of squirrely though, and may or may not be a Templar spy), and might have got herself disqualified from being the Heir of Memories.
...This present day shit with the Precursors and whatnot is really weird and I don’t quite understand it, but there it is. More mythological heroes, gods, and creatures for me to beat up please!
Yakuza 0 (PS4) - I finally returned to my hard, steely men who are actually soft, mushy men after two months, and what did I do? Did I try to further the story in any way, shape, or form? Nope, I spent all of my time in Kyriu’s Real Estate Royale and Majima’s Cabaret Club Czar minigames. That’s right, I purchased a lot of real estate in Kamurocho and ran a cabaret club with a bunch of hostesses in Sotenbori, and I am ashamed of none of it. I also did a bunch of substories. I completely finished the Real Estate Royale, and I am pretty close to finishing the Cabaret Club Czar minigame (two rival cabaret clubs to go).
In between all of that, I took care of a lot of substories as well and only have four left for Kyriu, and six for Majima. For Kyriu, one can’t be done until the end of the game, and the other three are a based on the telephone dating minigame (which is weird as hell). For Majima, one can’t be done until the end of the game, and the other five have to wait until you finish the special training (that is not a euphemism, though I wouldn’t blame you if that was your first thought) for each of your Platinum hostesses from the Cabaret Club Czar minigame (I’ve only finished one so far).
I assume once I finally finish these minigames and substories, I’ll finally move on with the story again.
Though I do have to complain about the pretty obvious transphobia in this game. The Pleasure “King” character from the Real Estate Royale minigame is a trans woman, and even though she refers to herself as another character’s big sister, and otherwise signifies her preferred pronoun, she is consistently referred to with male pronouns (even her title is “King”, not “Queen”). During the takeover of her part of Kamurocho, Kyriu has to play the telephone dating game and is clearly unhappy when it turns out he was talking to the Pleasure “King” instead of another woman. The subtext here being Kyriu was “tricked” into flirting with someone who is not a “real woman”. This “trap” mentality is why trans women are at such risk of being assaulted and murdered in the real world, and I really would have preferred if this bullshit wasn’t included in an otherwise pretty great game.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (Netflix) - Is this a game, or a movie? Why not both?
The girl and I “played” this a couple of times in search of an ending that wasn’t narratively unsatisfying, but you know what? They were all narratively unsatisfying. It was almost as if the first half was a completely different story from the various endings that you could get. The stuff with the in-universe video game and Colin was infinitely more interesting than the meta stuff later on. I will admit the stuff with Stefan’s mom was pretty good too, but after spending like four hours with this, the girl and I decided we could have written much better endings than those that were offered.
Bandersnatch is an interesting experiment, but one that ultimately failed because of the bizarre turns the story takes. Still, if you have Netflix, you should give it a shot, just for fun.
SEGA AGES Wonder Boy in Monster Land (Switch) - It’s my favorite SEGA Master System game of all time, and I can finally play it again! Wonder Boy is easier to control in this version than he was in the original game (as far as I can remember, anyway). Also, the game is a lot easier to play because I have infinite continues, something that did not exist in the original game, thereby making me start from the beginning every time I died more than twice. I would have finished this in a day or two, if not for it coming out at about the same time as the next game.
Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch) - I have not yet made a Mario, but I played through the entire story mode and beat every level created by the Nintendo designers. I’ve also gone online and found various amazing levels created by other folks all over the world (including five from Matt Thorson, co-creator of Celeste, which are stupid hard; I’ve only beat two of them). I will eventually try my hand at making a level (I’ve even been watching the explanatory videos in Yamumara’s Dojo), but for now, I will continue playing through various amazing Marios others have made.
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator (PC) - This is ridiculous fun! It is not at all an accurate battle simulator, as all the characters are rubbery people with googly eyes, but that’s where all the fun is! You can pit various units against each other. For example, have you ever wondered how many halflings it would take to beat a frost giant? What’s more powerful, a knight or a ninja? Can Zeus and the Monkey King defeat a bunch of Valkyries? You find all of that out in this game. They’ve got various units, both real and made up, from various time periods, with more on the way as this game is still in early access (i.e. it’s not a complete game yet). But even in this unfinished state, it’s a lot of fun, and I have been laughing uproariously to myself as various halflings fling themselves at a frost giant.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All (Switch) - I jumped back into the Phoenix Wright games after talking them up at the talk I mentioned in the intro. I’m still on the second game, but I’m well into the third case. The mechanics I really liked from the first game (the luminol spray, the fingerprint kit, and the manipulation of clues in your record to find more clues) still haven’t reappeared in this game, but there is a new supernatural mechanic called Psyche-Locks: when a person you’re talking to outside of the courtroom (during the investigation phase) is hiding something, Phoenix will be able to see these psychic locks thanks to some mystical doohickey called a magatama given to him by Pearl Fay. He will then have to ask and/or present the correct questions and items to unlock those locks and get the person to say the thing they were hiding. It’s a weird thing, but no weirder than putting a parrot in the witness box, so, you know. And mechanically, it works basically the same way questioning people in the witness box does.
Also, these games have a bunch hokey-ass dialogue that is precariously close to the edge of being racist and/or sexist. I have to believe this stuff, like pretty much the rest of the game, is intended as satire, but it does sometimes feel like they’re just telling a bad joke instead of telling a joke that comments on something.
And that’s it for this month! I will quickly add here that the girl has successfully finished both Gris (Switch) and What Remains of Edith Finch (PS4), and is currently making her way through Undertale (Switch). Wish her luck, and join me next month when I will definitely talk more about Yakuza 0 (and hopefully finally finish the dang game) and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order (Switch) (which comes out at the end of the week), and maybe more Phoenix Wright, Super Mario Maker 2, and what should be the last of the Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC (unless they release more, I mean, though I highly doubt it).
Until next month, play more video games!
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