Welcome back to Video Game Round-Up! This month features the least amount of games I have played since I started writing this column. This is mostly because I am reading a lot more, and playing longer games instead of shorter ones.
But let’s get on with it!
Return of the Obra Dinn (PC) - I talked about this game a bit during my Best Games of 2018 write-up, but oh man, it’s so good. As I mentioned then, this game was created by Lucas Pope, the guy behind the also amazing Papers, Please (PC). This game is an honest-to-goodness detective game in which you play an insurance investigator with a supernatural compass as you discover the fates of the entire crew and passengers of the Obra Dinn, a ship lost at sea until it mysteriously showed up at the harbor, with everyone missing or dead. You have to solve every death and/or disappearance and match them to names by listening to audio cues, trying to match pixelated images to each other, and trying to name everybody. It’s a very simple premise that gets deliciously hard. Also, the music is excellent and the visual style is a mix between pixel art and Game Boy Camera, which sounds terrible, but is actually awesome. I’ve completely figured out about 10 people’s deaths, and semi-figured out a dozen or so others (there are over 100 in total, so I still have a lot of game to go through).
Omensight (PS4) - I’m still trying to beat this, but also trying to platinum the game (which may require me to start over from the beginning) which is why I haven’t beaten it yet. I will beat it by next month!
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: Legacy of the First Blade DLC (PS4) - A new DLC episode dropped, and man, did it make a lot of people angry, myself included. So, spoilers here, and if this is not something you want to know, then skip over to the next entry.
Throughout Odyssey, players could romance many different characters, entering into heterosexual and/or homosexual sexual relationships as desired (I nearly played as Alexios because this is the only game that comes to mind that lets you play as a bisexual male). None of these relationships went beyond sexy times, and that made sense since the playable character Alexios or Kassandra is a mercenary and they’ve got a lot of shit to do that doesn’t allow for long-term partners. We will settle on Kassandra from here on out, as that’s who I play as.
The DLC introduced a Persian proto-Assassin in Darius, and his son Natakas or daughter Neema. Again, we’ll settle on Natakas because that’s who’s present in my playthrough, though it’s important to note that the gender of your playable character determines the gender of Darius’ child, and that determination is always to be opposite; I think you can see where this is going.
At the end of the second episode of the DLC, no matter what choices you make (and I made many choices multiple times NOT to romance this dude), Kassandra and Natakas not only end up together, but Kassandra gives birth to Natakas’ child. And that is some high-grade bullshit. I understand Ubisoft’s reasons for this: Darius is THE proto-Assassin, and he is important to the lore of the whole AC universe, so Ubisoft needed Darius’ blood to be part of the lineage just as much as it needed Pythagoras’ (father of Kassandra), so if Kassandra and Natakas don’t have a child, then the Assassin’s Order is over before it even starts. So they had to force this coupling in order for their story to make sense. But if Kassandra was always going to end up in a heterosexual long-term relationship, what was the point of letting us romance whomever we wanted? There are lots of people who played this game with exclusively homosexual romance options who now know their choices meant nothing (I’m sure even some bisexual and exclusively heterosexual players are not okay with this since it ties down a character not really suited to being tied down). And as bad as this story decision is regardless of which gender you played as, it is doubly terrible if you played as Kassandra because it means there were a good few months where she wasn’t kicking ass! I mean, what the hell, Ubisoft.
To their credit, Ubisoft have apologized for this, and made it clear that if players don’t want to be Natakas’ partner forevermore, Kassandra will be allowed to leave him. But the damage is done. Do better next time, Ubi.
Kingdom Hearts FINAL MIX (PS4) - I told myself that before I could get Kingdom Hearts III (PS4), I had to replay/actually beat the first two mainline games, and possibly the other none-mainline games as well (maybe). When I played the original Kingdom Hearts on the PS2, I played through the entire game, but could never beat the final boss. I did even worse on the second Kingdom Hearts by not even making it past the Roxas section, which is like right at the beginning. So yeah, I gotta replay them. Both of these games are part of the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX collection, which I have, so I am being very serious about this. But when I started playing the first Kingdom Hearts, I hadn’t played a proper JRPG in ages. Now, KH isn’t a “proper” JRPG because it doesn’t have turn-based battles, but there are a lot of menus, a ridiculous story, spiky hair, and boss battles that just do not end, so it’s close enough. I’m very close to the end, but I had three ridiculously hard boss battles in a row (Maleficent, Maleficent as a dragon, and Riku), and that wasn’t even the end of the game! So I took a little break, but I will get back to it because I next have to beat Kingdom Hearts II FINAL MIX (PS4) before allowing myself to buy the third game. Also, the reason these have “FINAL MIX” attached to their names is because new bits got added to them, like quality-of-life improvements and the like.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch) - I spent most of time playing Smash instead of literally any other Switch game I should be playing in an attempt to unlock every spirit in the game. There are 1303 total spirits in this game, and I have 1102, which means I only need 201 more spirits. This is very doable, and I will get them all! I also want to get every single music track, which will require a lot more gold coins. Also, there’s a new fighter!
Piranha Plant - The humble Piranha Plant first appeared in the original Super Mario Bros. (NES), but at that point it could only pop in and out of various pipes. In its next appearance in Super Mario Bros. 2 (Famicom) (also known as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels outside of Japan), a second type of Piranha Plant was introduced that wasn’t so afraid of Mario (i.e. it would pop out even if Mario was right next to its pipe. Further variations were introduced in Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES), like some that blew spiked balls up in the air, some that spit fireballs, and some that walked around without the need of a pipe. In Super Mario World (SNES), Piranha Plants started jumping out of their pipes straight up in the air when Mario tried to jump over them. In Super Mario 64 (N64), tiny and giant versions of Piranha Plants were introduced, and these could also walk around and spit fireballs or breathe fire. Super Mario Sunshine (GC) introduced the seed-spitting and rolling versions of the Plant, as well as the introduction of Petey Piranha, an anthropomorphized Piranha Plant that walks around and spits various things at you, depending on the game he appears in. Further versions and variations appear in subsequent Mario games, but basically the Piranha Plant fighter in Smash can do most of the things his forebears can, which is why I went to the trouble of listing them out. His Final Smash is even turning into a nearly screen-sized Petey Piranha and smacking everybody around.
Metro: Exodus (PS4) - I reviewed this game for Geek Culture, so you can see most of my thoughts there. I said: “Metro: Exodus is a decent attempt at changing the formula of its predecessors for new and interesting gameplay. While there is greater freedom with the more open level design, the changes to the horror and survival aspects go a little too far. While newcomers will be treated to a decent adventure, returning veterans might be a little shellshocked at such wholesale changes, Metro: Exodus is so different from its predecessors that it might be better off as its own thing.” It’s still a fairly enjoyable game, but I do feel it doesn’t quite go enough in either direction (original Metro-style gameplay vs. new open-world gameplay) and so gets muddled in the middle.
And we’re done! Short and sweet update this month. See you in March, when I will hopefully actually finish some games instead of just Smashing all the time!
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