Video Game Round-Up! - September/October 2020

Welcome to this month's Video Game Round-Up! I’m a week late because of, well, because of where you're reading this now. I'll talk about bit more about this in the conclusion.

It's another big month thanks to my ever more popular YouTube show Adan Plays Through His Backlog (well, ever more popular with me). There were three episodes in which I played three or more games, and that always helps my numbers. I played a total of 17 games, but I only finished one of them. To be fair, though, a lot of this month's games aren't really the kind you can "finish".

But enough about that, let's get to the games!

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch) - This month brings a new Halloween update, with pumpkins, new recipes, new reactions, new makeup and hair options, costumes, and candy. Little Feli and Little Adan have both been dressed in costumes since the update went live and we've tried buying candy every day (Felicia has been more successful than I) so we can give them away to our neighbors on Halloween. 

I've caught all but one of the things I can catch, including the Blue Marlin (which turned out to be easier than I had feared) which lifts a huge weight off my shoulders. Well, almost. I still have to catch a Scorpion which is leaving at the end of October. Since our island is pretty well industrialized, the only way I can get a Scorpion now is to go to a deserted island, hope its raining, and strip mine the place (chop down all the trees, uproot all the stumps, pick all the flowers and weeds, and break all the rocks). If those conditions are met, there is a chance Scorpions will start spawning. If it's not raining, then all I'll get are crickets and grasshoppers. Thus far, I have not found a deserted island with rain after 7pm.

Guys, I'm getting a little worried.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (PS4) - I finished the game! This took me a bit longer than AC2 because there were more side missions to do, though AC:B took place entirely in Rome. The storyline is fairly similar (Ezio vs. the Borgias), but I got to recruit new Assassins and send them out on missions, which was pretty cool. I will not be platinuming this game because it requires that I get 100% synchronization on every mission. This usually means I have to do something extra (and very video game-y) in each mission, like only use a certain weapon, do it in a certain time, don't kill anybody, etc., and frankly, I don't have the patience for that. Further, some of the things the game asks me to do are ludicrous. How do I take zero damage in the Leonardo tank level? It's impossible and I refuse to try again (I tried six times).

I did all the story, Leonardo, Copernicus, Christina, Romulus, and Glyph missions, but left a fair amount of the rest of it undone (the various assignments and assassination missions). Those got fairly repetitive fairly quickly, and since I had already decided I wasn't going to platinum the game, I just left them alone.

The Ezio story was pretty good, but the Desmond stuff was bonkers. I have no idea what they'll do for Revelations and Assassin's Creed III, where Desmond's story is supposed to end.

Super Mario 64 (Switch) - I picked up the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection and played a bit of the three games on stream. I started with 64, which I had played some of before on my cousin's N64 way back when (I didn't have an N64 as a kid). I do own the 3DS version of the game, but I never played it.

This was the first 3D Mario game ever, and it shows. Not because of the graphics (though that's obviously showing its age too), but because of how Mario handles. He's not as responsive or intuitive as he becomes in later 3D games (including the ones in this collection), but still. It was the first 3D Mario, and that was amazing. The game is a collect-a-thon (maybe the first?) in which you have to collect a bunch of stars in different levels, in different ways. I got five or so stars from the first level, which let me unlock other levels in Princess Peach's castle. I will of course continue to play this game some time in the future because I love Mario and I've never finished this before.

Super Mario Sunshine (Switch) - The second game in the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection is Sunshine, which originally came out on the GameCube. I purchased this game used for my GameCube, but I never played it for some reason (maybe I had already bought a Wii?). Another collect-a-thon, Mario has to collect Shines in this game (little sun-like things) and clean up large swathes of the tropical Isle Delfino because he has been accused of polluting the island himself (even though he literally just got off a plane). Mario is put in jail almost immediately when the game starts (which is pretty startling, actually) and has to prove his innocence by catching his doppelganger, who is the real culprit.

Again, I got five or so shines from the first level (and had two boss bottles, one with the doppelganger and one with Petey Piranha in his first appearance), but this game is interesting thanks to the introduction of the F.LU.D.D. (aka the Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device), a sentient water-spraying device that Mario wears like a backpack. It helps him clean up the pollution, but it also helps him fight monsters and helps him with some traversal (by becoming one of those water rocket things you sometimes see at lakes and beaches).

A lot of people don't like this game, or think it's the weakest of the Mario games, but I have to be honest: I can't imagine why. Granted, I haven't played very much of it, so maybe it gets bad later on, but I enjoyed Sunshine more than I enjoyed 64, which is supposed to be one of, if not the best 3D Mario.

Please don't burn me in effigy.

Super Mario Galaxy (Switch) - The third and final game in the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection is by far my favorite. Originally on the Wii, Galaxy (and Galaxy 2, which is strangely missing from this collection) was easily my favorite game on the system. I loved all the finely-crafted worlds and the way gravity worked and the way it sometimes became 2D. I really love this game. It was my favorite 3D Mario until Super Mario Odyssey (Switch) came along.

Also a collect-a-thon, Galaxy asks you find stars to unlock more worlds and eventually save Princess Peach, whom Bowser has kidnapped and taken out into space (as you do). It also introduces Rosalina, an awesome space goddess who takes care of the Lumas, a bunch of marshmallow star-type things who are cute as hell.

Death Stranding (PS4) - This was the main game I streamed this past month, and you guys, it's friggin' weird. As I've said before, this is basically every "bad" piece of video game design smooshed together: walking simulator, fetch quests, escort missions, and lots and lots of cutscenes. But Kojima and his team have crafted a pretty interesting story about the death of civilization and the impending extinction of humanity, and the attempt of one brave porter to reverse all that.

The story is predictably weird as hell (why are umbilical cords so important again?), and people will either love it or hate it depending on their personal thresholds for Kojima's unique brand of storytelling. I've been enjoying it, but it's clearly a lot of nonsense. More interesting is the gameplay, which takes its cues from Kojima's Metal Gear Solid series. Beyond the walking and the fetch quests, Death Stranding is at its heart a stealth game. Every encounter with BTs or MULEs is set up as something you can sneak through. Because of the rules of the world, killing MULEs is out of question lest you accidentally cause a voidout. I'm sure there is a grace period where you can maybe rush the body to an incinerator before it explodes, but you can only carry one body at a time, and you can't seem to load bodies onto cars either, so it's not something I'm in a hurry to discover. And if you don't stealth past the BTs, you risk triggering a boss battle every time that will certainly damage whatever you're carrying. So yeah, stealth all the way.

While I've snuck past most BTs (while throwing some blood bombs to thin out their numbers), I've mostly just rushed through MULE territory, occasionally punching them all out (or hitting them with a car, though that destroys whatever they're carrying).

After a boss battle against a Titan, it feels like I'm very close to the end of the game, so I'm pretty sure I'll only be writing about this game once more :)

Battlefield 4 (PS4) - In the 10th episode of Adan Plays Through His Backlog, I played the latest three games in the first-person shooter Battlefield series. Battlefield 4 is a modern shooter starring Michael K. Williams (Omar Little in The Wire, Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire, and Montrose Freeman in Lovecraft Country) that I bought a super long time ago in the US. I only played the first level, but it was very fun and cinematic. I tend to like the modern FPSs more than the historical ones, so I will get through this campaign sooner rather than later.

Battlefield 1 (PS4) - I got this at around the same time as Battlefield 4 (it was the new game at the time) and ended up playing it first. This game went back to World War I (hence the title), something different for FPSs at the time (I can't actually remember if any other FPS franchises followed suit, or if this game is the only one; World War II tends to be the war of choice as the morality is more easily presented as binary). At that time, I'd made a pretty substantial dent in the single-player stories, so for the stream I started the North Africa campaign and messed up some Ottoman soldiers on a train. I also replayed the opening sequence with the Harlem Hellfighters because it's a pretty damn good introductory level.

Battlefield V (PS4) - The newest game in the series Battlefield V (which could be a letter or a number... but probably a number), this one takes place in World War II, which, again, is where most historical FPSs reside. I played the introductory level, which took me to lots of different places in the war to showcase the different kinds of levels and gameplay this game has. Then I jumped into the Norway stories, which feature a female lead. Unfortunately, the missions leaned very heavily into stealth, and I was not very good at stealth :P 

Untitled Goose Game (Switch) - This brilliant and wonderful game got a two-player update, so the girl and I streamed it and beat the game together! It was lots of fun even though we'd both done it on our own before. We did it in slightly under two hours, and we were the most annoying geese ever.

BlazBlue: CentralFiction (PS4) - In the 11th episode of Adan Plays Through His Backlog, I subjected everyone to my terribleness at fighting games by playing 5 of them in two hours. I started with CentralFiction... or at least, I tried to start with CentralFiction. A lot of fighting games have a story mode in which you get to play as different characters as you go through some kind of narrative, but the narrative of CentralFiction is like an out-and-out episode of anime (with less animation). I kept waiting for a fight to start, and when the first chapter ended with no fighting, I quit out and did a couple of exhibition matches.

It's a very anime fighter, closer in style to Skullgirls (Switch) than Street Fighter II (PS4). This isn't a knock or anything, just that the fighting styles are incredibly varied and cartoony, as opposed to Capcom or SNK games, where the fighters are (relatively) more realistic with (relatively) more realistic martial arts. I played as the witch Rachel Alucard because she looked pretty cool, and was in the narrative a lot.

Garou: Mark of the Wolves (PS4) - This was originally an arcade game before being ported to the Neo Geo, then the Dreamcast, it is part of SNK's extended universe that includes the Fatal Fury and King of Fighters series. I played as Terry Bogard, as he was the only character I recognized in the roster. I was pretty bad :P

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite (PS4) - Finally, a proper story mode! I played the latest Marvel vs. Capcom joint, and while I didn't at all hate it, I can understand why others did. It's veeeeeeeeeeeeery different from every Marvel vs. Capcom that's come before. It's 2-on-2 instead of 3-on-3, the art style is not great, and there are no X-Men! Boo!

But it was still pretty fun, and I like that the story is literally Ultron and Sigma Six getting mooshed together to take over both the Marvel and Capcom universes, which have also been mooshed (and Capcom doesn't even have one cohesive universe, but whatever). I got to play as lots of different characters, including Thor, Mega Man X, Captain Marvel, Chris Redfield, the new Bionic Commando, and my girl Chun Li.

Street Fighter V (PS4) - I ended the stream with two games I had played before. First was the latest Street Fighter and played through some of the narrative to showcase multiple characters. I first played the game when it originally launched, and was really enamored with the new fighter Rashid and his sweet wind powers, and didn't really play as anybody else. I think I prefer Capcom fighters to anything else because that's what I grew up on, and the control schemes don't change much from game to game. Like, Ryu's Fireball is always the same button presses.

In the story mode, I played as Charlie Nash, Ryu, and Dhalsim, and new characters Necalli, Rashid, and the ridiculously named F.A.N.G. who is like a jiang shi, but not really.

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (PS4) - Probably my favorite Capcom fighter, this is a ridiculous mashup of Capcom and Marvel characters, including my boy Wolverine and my girl Chun Li, but also left field characters like MODOK, Frank West, and Phoenix Wright (but no Cyclops, who is, was, forever will be, right).

I only played this for about 15 minutes at the end of the stream with Chun Li, Wolverine, and Ryu (because I always know how to do his Fireball), just to show everyone I wasn't awful at every fighting game ever made.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS4) - In the 12th episode of Adan Plays Through His Backlog, I played the beginning of the first Arkham game for two reasons: 1) I had let Batman Day pass without even a mention and I felt bad about that; and 2) I didn't want to be embarrassed on stream by playing the next game on the list yet.

I've played every Arkham game from beginning to end before, and Arkham Asylum plays exactly as I remember it. I made it past the first Scarecrow boss battle on stream. I think I acquitted myself pretty well, and didn't really mess up anywhere, though it did take a while to get used to the combat again.

I purchased the Return to Arkham collection on the PS4, which is pretty cheap and let me own Arkham Asylum for the first time (I had previously borrowed a friend's PS3 disc).

Bloodborne (PS4) - And then, I couldn't put it off any more.

The first time I tried playing Bloodborne, I died 15 times in 30 minutes and decided this game was not for me. I've since seen Let's Plays on Eurogamer (as played by Aoife Wilson and Johnny Chiodini) and Outside Xtra (as played by Luke Westaway) and decided to try it again.

On stream.

Like an idiot.

Let's get one thing out of the way: I died, and I died a lot. But, I also learned. I think the button mapping of this game is awful (like, who uses the shoulder buttons to attack? well, From Software, apparently), but I eventually got used to it (though I was making the same mistakes all the way to the end of the stream). I got a little bit farther along after every death (most times; there was a bit of tilting in the middle there), and I learned most of the enemies' patterns and attacks (most, but not all, and I still forgot many times). I eventually found the first shortcut (thank goodness), and then found the first boss of the game, the Cleric Beast. When I started the stream, I mentioned that I would consider the stream a raging success if I could find the boss, something I got nowhere near close to doing the first time I attempted the game.

Well, not only did I find the Cleric Beast, I beat the Cleric Beast.

Not only did I beat the Cleric Beast, I beat it my first time.

The rush of beating a Bloodborne boss was ridiculous, and you can see it for yourself because it was thankfully recorded for all time.

No joke, I am honestly considering continuing this game.

On stream.

Like an idiot.

And we’re done!

So yeah, you're reading this on Blogger now because Facebook is discontinuing its Notes function at the end of this month. When I learned about this, I was initially worried that all my previous Video Game Round-Ups! would be lost to time, so I started copying them all over. About halfway through that process, I realized only the drafts would be deleted, but the published notes would be left as is (though I wouldn't be able to edit them anymore). I decided to continue copying everything over, fixing only grammar and spelling mistakes I hadn't caught the first time around, and now every Video Game Round-Up! is at its new home here, on my thecomicaztec Blogger account.

Next month, there will be a bit more Death Stranding, some more games with titles starting with B for Adan Plays Through His Backlog, and maybe Bloodborne as well... depending on how insane I am.

Until next month, play more video games!