Welcome to another Video Game Round-Up! I did not play a lot this past month for three main reasons: 1) We had to finish writing the first draft of the next Sherlock Sam; 2) I have been watching a lot of classic movies in my free time instead of playing video games because a friend has been challenging us all to share our annual top 10 films lists, and I realized I have watched a woefully small amount of pre-1980 films; 3) The girl continues to bogart the Switch for Animal Crossing, so I can’t use it for anything else :P
The world is still extra dangerous right now thanks to the coronavirus, and I haven’t left the house since my last Video Game Round-Up! I might be developing a bit of agoraphobia, but I have been exercising a lot more in the house, and cooking a lot more (simple things, but still, way more than I was before all this). I keep finding new and interesting things to do in the house to keep me busy and sane, and sometimes that means less video games and more movies, or writing, or writing about movies :)
But enough about that, let’s get to the games!
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch) - This has become a daily thing for me and the girl, and pretty calming presence in our lives. Little Feli gets to run around her island, visit friends, plant trees and flowers, dig up fossils, buy new clothes, and catch new fish and bugs. Tardisland, Feli’s island, was visited by K.K. Slider for the first time, and that was super exciting. He’s been there twice now, and will come again tomorrow. We have been enjoying all his music :D
The beginning of the month brought new bugs and fish to catch, and we spent like three days running around trying to catch everything and give it to Blathers so the museum would have even more cool things to look at. Redd, the untrustworthy fox, has started selling art for the new wing in the museum, and that’s super cool too, but I wish he came more often and let us buy more than one piece of art each time he visits. Yes, he does sell fakes and forgeries, but it’s really easy to figure out which ones are fake and which ones are real thanks to various online guides.
We’ve not gotten sick of this game yet, and I don’t think we will for some time. We’ve really started to care for some of our neighbors, like Sherb, Apple, and Annalisa, and get a little thrill every time we see them walking around, as if they were our real friends.
Trials of Mana (PS4) - I originally wrote this review for Geek Culture, but I gave it to them too late and they couldn’t use it, so instead I’m putting it here. Enjoy!
When the history of gaming in 2020 is written, much will be said about the coronavirus, the new hardware generation, the many, many, many game delays, and the fantastic JRPG remake published by Square Enix. Unfortunately, that fantastic JRPG remake published by Square Enix that everyone will talk about won’t be Trials of Mana. That may be a bit harsh, especially since the game isn’t bad or anything. It just came out at the wrong time.
Originally released in Japan in 1995 as Seiken Densetsu 3 for the Super Famicom, Square Enix officially ported Trials of Mana to the west only last year as part of the Collection of Mana (which also includes the first two games in the series, Final Fantasy Adventure aka Mystic Quest and Secret of Mana), a full 24 years after its Japanese release.
It is difficult not to compare Trials of Mana to Final Fantasy VII Remake. They tread much of the same mechanical ground. And while FFVIIR does most of it better, Trials of Mana did most of it first.
Like its more famous cousin, the game uses action RPG mechanics. This includes real-time combat against enemies you can see before you encounter them. You can pause that combat to do special actions and use items by pulling up the move and item rings. You don’t need to wait for an ATB gauge to fill up, so spam those healing items. Battles are quick and consist mostly of repeatedly pressing the attack buttons and using your special items and moves, making them fun but a little too easy on the Normal difficulty. Leveling also seems a bit fast, ensuring nothing is ever really a challenge. This can be fixed by simply playing on the Hard difficulty, so I suggest starting there, and then ramping down if it’s too challenging.
On the PS4, circle is weak attack, triangle is strong attack, X is jump, and square is evade. You can of course change your control scheme, which I highly recommend. I spent the first few battles rolling across the battlefield instead of hitting anything because who makes square the evade button? Also, the camera is often not your best friend, especially when there are multiple enemies to fight.
You start the game by picking three out of six characters you want to play as. One of them is your main hero, and the other two are your secondary heroes. I chose Duran as my main, and Riesz and Hawkeye as my secondary because I liked the look of them. You always play through the beginning of your main character’s story, but Trials does a neat thing in letting you play your secondary characters’ backstories too. You can skip this option, but I enjoyed playing through my three characters' backstories, especially because it gave me a feel for each character.
Once you assemble your party, you can switch back and forth between them, and control different characters in different situations, just like FFVIIR. However, the game doesn’t actually tell you this even as it tutorializes almost everything else to death. Yes, Trials, I know I can press up and down on the D-pad to bring up the item and move rings. Yes, Trials, I know I can press L3 to make my character dash, and that I don’t need to hold it down to keep them dashing. Stop telling me the things you’ve already told me and tell me the things you haven’t instead.
Unlike FFVIIR, Trials does not boast any new or extended story beats. It’s an old-school JRPG story, featuring elemental crystals and dying worlds. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, especially if that’s the itch you’re looking to scratch, but it’s obviously outdated when compared to more modern JRPGs like Persona 5, NieR: Automata, and, yes, Final Fantasy VII Remake. But don’t let that put you off; it’s still quite the charming story, harkening back to a simpler, more innocent time. There is replayability here as you only discover three of the main character's stories in your first playthrough.
But that’s the overall story. The actual nuts and bolts writing isn’t particularly good. This wouldn’t be much of problem except everything is now said out loud. The game’s bad writing wasn’t all that noticeable on last year’s port, but it's a lot harder to ignore now that it’s voiced. And that’s unfortunate, because apart from Charlotte (whose speech is obnoxiously babyish; turning every ‘r’ and ‘l’ sound into a ‘w’ sound was a bad idea), the English voice acting is quite decent.
What the game lacks in writing, it more than makes up for in the visuals and the music. Trials is exceptionally pretty. Every location is bright and colorful, even when set underground. The music boasts new arrangements with full orchestral recordings, but purists can switch to the original 16-bit tracks. In fact, you can switch between the two options throughout the game. You can also switch between English and Japanese voice acting. You can do both in the pause menu, but be careful: changing these options will send you back to the Title Screen, and could erase some of your progress. Make sure you save before you change these options.
Overall, Trials of Mana is a good game. It's old-school JRPG fun with interesting characters, great updated visuals and music, and an enjoyable combat system. Don’t be fooled by its updated sounds and visuals, though. There is no real innovation here; this is a hit of pure nostalgia. If that’s what you’re looking for, then great. You will love this just like you loved Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VI. If you’re looking for something with a more modern sensibility, then skip this and play Final Fantasy VII Remake instead.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch) - I finally got the Astral Chain spirits! Huzzah! Unfortunately, I also missed the Trials of Mana spirits. Boo!
I hope Nintendo won’t make me wait to get these as long as they made me wait to get the Astral Chain ones.
There should be another DLC fighter in the near future for me to talk about, so it’s not just about spirits every month :P
LEGO Marvel Super-Heroes 2 (PS4) - The girl and I finally came back to this game after a nearly 2-year hiatus, and played the DLC levels we never played the first time around. This included the Black Panther one, the Cloak and Dagger one, the Runaways one, the Infinity War one, and the Ant-Man and Wasp one. Our favorite was the Runaways level as we really like those characters, but they were all pretty good, except for Black Panther. It was quite busy and our characters kept getting stuck in weird places.
As is common with me and LEGO games, I also made sure I got all the trophies from these DLC levels. I platinumed the game a long time ago, so was only missing 25 trophies from these five DLC levels.
LEGO Incredibles (PS4) - Because I was on a LEGO kick, I decided to go back and get the platinum trophy on this game as well. I initially played it to do a review, and while I finished the story and some of the endgame stuff in the open world, I then stopped playing (probably because I got busy with something else). So I had a lot of stuff to do in this game to get the platinum, and that included taking care of all the crime waves in the open world, finding all the gold bricks, finding all the minikits, doing some special stuff in each story level (like doing something within a certain time, or getting a perfect score on something, or beating it with a certain character, etc.), and unlocking everything there is to unlock. It was fun, and I especially liked that some of the unlockable characters were from other Pixar films, including Dory (from Finding Nemo and Finding Dory), Miguel (from Coco), and Sully (from Monsters Inc. and Monsters University).
Needless to say, I got that plat.
And that’s it! Yeah, only a few games this month, but I suspect I will get back on track. Now that I’ve got that LEGO itch again (and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (PS4) is rumored for September), I might try to platinum The LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game next, or do some more LEGO Dimensions with the girl. Or maybe we’ll play through the three other LEGO video games we have but haven’t started yet (LEGO City Undercover, LEGO DC Super Villains, The Lego Movie 2 Video Game).
Who knows, I might play an entirely different game. I did get a bunch of stuff to try to do some streaming, so maybe I’ll set that up before next month’s Video Game Round-Up!
So until next month, play more games!
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