Continuing the theme of last week,
Tsumugi’s mother was brought to the forefront of the plot once again, as we finally
get to see how Tsumugi herself is dealing with the issue of her mother’s death.
Aside from that, it was essentially business as usual on Amaama to Inazuma, but
the overarcing theme and the focus on character building really propelled it into
the next gear.
So what’s the story? Well, after
eating curry at a school sleepover, Tsumugi’s dad breaks out his wife’s old
recipe for dry curry and decides to make it next. While Tsumugi is excited
about this, it also brings up some memories about her mother, and the feelings
that come with the realization that she isn’t coming back.
The obvious best part of the episode is
the character building, and it’s nice to finally see Tsumugi acknowledge what
happened to her mother. If memory serves me right, it was explained in an earlier
episode that Tsumugi was more or less lied to about what happened, and then it
was kinda never brought up again. To see this plot thread not only make it’s
return, but as the main focus of an episode, it makes for a really compelling
story.
The characters were, as always,
delightful to spend time with. Kotori (I’m sure I’ll remember to use her proper
name without looking it up one of these days) was utilized really well, as her
fear of knives was briefly brought back as she learned Tsumugi can use them now
with her dad’s help. It was pointed out last week that she always wears a
band-aid on her finger, so I think that may have something to do with her fear.
One gripe I do have, and this is one I
have for the show as a whole, is this mother/son duo that Tsumugi and her
father seem to spend a lot of time with. The son is always being irritating and
causing mayhem, and the mother always screeches at him to stop. This shtick got
old after the first time they did it, but they’ve become recurring characters
even more so than Kotori’s friend. I guess they’re supposed to be a contrasting
relationship to that of Tsumugi and her father, but you can figure that out
after seeing them just once. Why the show insists on shoving these two down our
throats, I’ll never know.
A small complaint aside, this was
another excellent week for Amaama to Inazuma. I’m glad that this show’s finally
found the balance it was looking for after Episode 3, because I was literally
ready to quit if the status quo refused to change any longer. I’m hoping we’re
not finished with the mother arc yet, because I think we still need to see
Tsumugi accepting her death to really bring closure for both her and her
father. Regardless of where they go with the plot, I look forward to next week
as always.
Ah, the age old rivalry between jocks
and gamers. Since the dawn of time, the two have battled it out to decide which
is superior. Surprisingly, there’s a lot that ties these two groups together.
Sports fans often memorize player statistics the same way a gamer would map out
a World of Warcraft character. On the other hand, there’s no denying the
presence of sports in the gaming marketplace.
EA Sports is such a goldmine that it’s
become a running joke of E3 just how much sports EA can fit into each
conference. Half of this year’s show was shockingly given up to Madden and
FIFA, going to the point of using the introduction of new coaches as a selling
point, drawing some ire from the core gamers in the crowd. As TotalBiscuit
said, “We’re nerds who watch Twitch. We don’t know who these people are.” And
yet, it’s always at the show, taking up a significant chunk of time. Similarly,
Ubisoft ended their conference with the reveal of Steep, an extreme sports
skiing game.
Ever since then, I’ve asked myself
this question: why? Why are these sports games so popular that they’re featured
so prominently at an event only gamers would watch? The obvious answer is
because they make money for EA’s investors, so they need to be there. But I
wasn’t satisfied with that. I wanted to know if there was truly a place in
gamer culture for sports.
I’ve always been a fan of cartoony
sports games, like the Mario sports series and Rocket League. They bring an
exaggerated take on the sports, with power-ups and special moves. Mario
Strikers Charged is, to this day, one of the best multiplayer games on the Wii.
But then there’s, for lack of a better
term, the “realistic” sports games. The NBA, NHL, Madden, and FIFA games, among
others. They’re yearly releases to update the rosters to whatever the current
real life team is running, yet they never change any of the core gameplay.
There’s no denying these games sell
well. I once saw a guy debating whether he should buy Destiny or the latest
edition of the NHL games. My youngest brother really only plays sports games.
Jocks and sports fans really enjoy them. But that doesn’t answer my question:
do these realistic sports games have any place in gamer culture?
Well, I’m speaking for myself here,
but as a core gamer, I find these games to be incredibly boring. Sometimes I’ll
watch it just to see if I find it interesting, and I never do. I’ll always feel
like playing something else. Judging by people’s reactions to EA’s press
conference this year, calling the sports sections “bathroom break time” and the
like, I’m pretty sure everyone else feels the same way.
In the end, it’s all up to the gamer.
I’m sure that someone out there loves both Dark Souls and Madden. To that
person, I say that you keep doing what you enjoy. More power to you. As for the
rest of us, though, I think that we’re going to start enjoying EA Sports games
as soon as pigs fly.
Song of the Week
The Sudden Death theme from Mario
Strikers Charged. Charged is a cruelly underappreciated game, and I’d really
like to see the return of this series. This song doubles as the intro theme,
and it’s just as high energy and exciting as the game itself.
This week Steven Universe decided to
scare us in thinking that Steven had shaved his head. Not cool, Crewniverse.
You almost gave me a heart attack.
There was a lot riding on this one.
Starting with the announcement that Studio Trigger animator Takafumi Hori was a
guest animator, the rumour and theory mills went into overdrive, with some
people theorizing that something would happen to Garnet, Ruby would somehow be
captured and Sapphire would be left alone.
None of that actually happened (except
for the guest animator, obviously), but the real episode was a charming, sweet
little installment, adding into the larger Garnet arc that pops up every once
in a while, in episodes like Jail Break and The Answer.
Starting with the animation, Hori’s
work clearly shone through during the training sequences with Stevonnie. Some
of the action shots and character animations resembled a fight scene from
something like Kill la Kill or Space Patrol Luluco greatly. I do wish they’d
given him a little more to do, however. I don’t know if he did the whole
episode, but the only times I really noticed Studio Trigger-style animation was
during the brief fight sequences. I hope they bring him back for a few more
episodes later on, because his art style and the Steven Universe designs really
go hand in hand.
Now to address the elephant in the
room: the new song, Here Comes a Thought. No surprise, it’s a really good song with
a fantastic message, although I do think it went on just a little bit too long.
The visuals, as always, were great, using Ruby and Sapphire to great advantage.
It reminded me a lot of Something Entirely New, and that’s a good thing.
The main theme overall was that Steven
and Connie were dealing with their emotional baggage, making it difficult to
remain fused. Connie was upset because she’d accidentally hurt a kid at school,
and Steven suffered from flashbacks of Bismuth, Jasper, and Eyeball Ruby. I
guess the main villain right now is Steven’s inner demons. No surprise, they’re
able to solve each other’s problems and everyone ends up happy in the end. I’m
certain Steven’s not quite finished obsessing over what he’s done recently,
though. Just the sight of his mother’s sword was enough to set him off, so I’d
have to think that these flashbacks are going to come back into play in the
near future.
While Mindful Education wasn’t quite the
landmark gamechanger of an episode people were expecting it to be, it was definitely
the best Steven Universe since the start of Season 4. The song, message,
visuals, animation, characters, and symbolism were all top notch, and while it
had some small problems, they’re really more nitpicks than anything. I really
enjoyed this week’s episode.
This episode was the primary example
of an episode that just gets better as it goes on. While it had a very weak
start, once we got to just before the halfway mark, it took off and resulted in
a very simple and sweet episode.
We start off this week by exposing
Tsumugi’s father to the horrors of kindergarten, as Tsumugi makes squids out of
boxes, and kids loudly exclaim that they need to go to the bathroom. The scene
far overstays it’s welcome, as we pretty much cover all the exposition we need
about halfway through, with the rest being more or less fluff.
The main focal point this week is
Tsumugi’s mother, which is always welcome for me. She adds a very Rose
Quartz-ish presence to the show, and whenever they decide to bring her up, a
whole other dimension is added. Tsumugi’s dad notices that there’s a large
stain on Tsumugi’s schoolbag, and asks if she’d like him to make her a new one.
Tsumugi refuses, because her mother made it.
This plays in to the cooking segment,
as this week Tsumugi requests a squid stew that her mother used to make. The
cooking segment isn’t anything super memorable this week, aside from a very
funny scene where Tsumugi puts her hand inside of the squid. It’s nice to
watch, and there’s even a few fun squid facts and even an imagination sequence
reminiscent of last week thrown in. The episode ends on a very cute note as
well.
There’s not much else to say about it;
this week’s was just a very sweet and enjoyable episode, albeit with a very
slow start. I’m glad that Amaama to Inazuma is slowly but surely finding it’s
footing, although there’s still a slight problem that it’s using the over exaggerated
expressions a bit too much. It’s not an over the top slice of life like
Nichijou, nor is it a mix of realistic and silly like Non Non Biyori is. The
first few episodes make it clear that this is an anime very grounded in
reality, and the wacky expressions kind of take me out of that theming.
That’s just a minor gripe, though.
This week was another success for the show, and I can’t wait for next week.
It’s a year of celebration for beloved
game franchises. Everywhere you look, it seems somebody is celebrating a
milestone birthday, and they’re doing it in style. The Legend of Zelda
celebrated 30 by hosting an entire E3 floor for the next game in the franchise.
Pokémon is releasing loads of new content for their 20th, including
several new games. Sonic the Hedgehog’s 25th anniversary is also
this year, and the way they celebrated it was…interesting, to say the least.
However, there is another game
celebrating a milestone this year, and quite a big one at that. It’s gone
almost entirely ignored by the developers of said franchise, aside from a small
game that was quietly released with no publicity last Friday.
I’m sure you already know what I’m
talking about because of the title of the editorial and the image, but for the
uninitiated, I’m talking about the Metroid series. Formerly one of Nintendo’s
flagship titles, it celebrated its 30th birthday on the 6th
of this month.
And how did Nintendo celebrate three
decades of one of their most popular franchises?
They released Metroid Prime:
Federation Force, filed a cease-and-desist on a fan game, and perhaps
unwittingly retweeted an article about Axiom Verge that included a comic strip
of Samus complaining she hadn’t had a game in years.
But let’s start at the beginning,
shall we?
I’m not much of a Metroid fan myself,
to be perfectly honest. I like the lore and characters of the franchise, yet I can
never seem to get invested in the games. That’s more my personal preference
than anything, though. They’re clearly excellent games (well, most of them).
They’re just not for me.
Metroid is just one of the many
franchises Nintendo seems to love to shove under the rug for years and act like
it doesn’t exist, others including the F-Zero and Mother franchises. They have
a clear fanbase, with thousands of gamers clamouring for a new game in the
series, and yet Nintendo refuses to deliver. I used to include Star Fox in this
lineup before that series got dragged out of its hiding place in April, only to
produce the dreadful Star Fox Zero.
If younger gamers only knew Samus Aran
from the Smash Bros series, I wouldn’t blame them. It’s been 6 years since the
last real Metroid game was released, and 9 years since the last Metroid game
fans actually enjoyed. The latest entry in the series was Metroid: Other M,
released in 2010 for the Wii, which was met with passable critical reception
and complete backlash by fans. They hated
the portrayal of Samus Aran, arguably the first real badass lead female
video game character, turned into this whiny baby who needed men to tell her
what to do and where to go. No matter what the rest of the game was like, most
fans couldn’t even bring themselves to get past what looked like Nintendo
dragging an excellent character through the mud.
And then, there was silence. Years
went by without any sign of Metroid, aside from characters cameoing in other
games like NES Remix and Nintendo Land. Retro Studios, developers of the
Metroid Prime trilogy, moved on to making new installments in the Donkey Kong
Country series. It seemed that after Other M was such a disaster, Nintendo
wanted to put the series to rest for a while.
Then, at E3 2015, Nintendo unveiled
Metroid Prime: Federation Force, a blocky Left 4 Dead style game where player
controlled not Samus, but 4 generic space soldiers as they blasted their way
through ugly enemies and environments. Also included was Blast Ball, a cheap
looking Rocket League cash-in, which eventually released for free on the eShop
earlier this year with no fanfare from Nintendo whatsoever. Federation Force
launched last Friday, again with zero build-up or promotion, and was met with
mixed reviews overall. Even more bizarre, while I won’t spoil the ending of the
game, I will say that there’s a lot of symbolism for the franchise as a whole
in the final boss. It’s something that needs to be seen to be believed, and is
surely to be the butt of several comment section jokes in months to come.
But the crazy train just didn’t stop
there.
We now arrive at August 2016,
Metroid’s 30th anniversary. Federation Force is coming out and
little to no one is excited for it, let alone Metroid fans. Then, a small group
of fans known as AM2R took it upon themselves to remake Metroid II: Return of
Samus with updated graphics. Unfortunately, Nintendo swooped in, calling a
cease and desist just as the project gained traction, effectively killing it
where it stood. Fans were crushed. Although Nintendo has a notorious history of
excessively protecting their intellectual properties to a fault, this one
almost felt like a personal attack. The fans were trying to celebrate Metroid’s
birthday when Nintendo themselves refused to, but it felt like they wouldn’t
even let them have that.
Despite this, Nintendo decided to
celebrate the anniversary their own way…by releasing Metroid costumes in
Miitomo. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure no one’s played Miitomo
in the last few months.
Then, as if things couldn’t get any
weirder, Nintendo took to Twitter to advertise the arrival of the game Axiom
Verge on the Wii U. They did this by retweeting an article sent out by the
Axiom Verge developers, which features a giant comic that takes a pretty decent
stab at the recent absence of a certain franchise. Take a look for yourself:
So either whoever’s running the
Nintendo of America Twitter took one look at the tweet and said “Hey, Axiom
Verge is coming out! I’d better retweet this!”, or they know exactly what’s
going on and are just milking it for laughs. Honestly, in all my years as a
Nintendo fan, at this point that second option being the truth wouldn’t
surprise me. Nintendo’s previously shown that they listen to fans, but they’re
also infamously stubborn in actually doing what the fans want them to do.
Remember the time they opened an E3 presentation with a Mother 3 joke?
Nintendo is one of my favourite game
companies, but by god, are they ever confusing sometimes. They seem to try to
listen to their fans a lot. Look at Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s clearly
trying to be the polar opposite of Skyward Sword, a game met with mixed fan
reception. And yet at the same time we see things like this whole Metroid
debacle, as well as the amiibo shortages of early 2015, their refusal to make a
new game unless they can “innovate it” somehow (Hello again, Star Fox Zero!),
their current treatment of the Paper Mario franchise, and the infuriating
secrecy around the NX. And believe me, I’ll be writing editorials on those last
two when the time is right.
So to end this whole mess, let me give
you a comparison. For its 20th anniversary, Pokémon got an entire
new generation of 3DS games, a fighting spinoff, a mobile game that took the
world by storm, events all year long, and more that I’m sure I’m forgetting. In
contrast, Metroid got a small eShop release with zero marketing, a cease and
desist on a promising fan game, some Miitomo cosmetics, and an embarrassing
retweet for its 30th. Granted, Pokémon is clearly the more popular
and renowned of the two franchises, but come
on. This is one of gaming’s landmark franchises! Perhaps later on, we’ll
see the return of Samus, Ridley and friends in games that will rival the Prime
Trilogy, but for now, Nintendo’s interests are clearly elsewhere.
But hey, it could be worse. At least Nintendo
isn’t making a Metroid game that involves going through a portal to fight
hordes of zombies in one of the most stereotypical game formulas known to
mankind. Only a truly awful developer would make a game that stupid.
Kept you waiting, huh?
Song of the Week
Phendrana Drifts from Metroid Prime.
It’s relaxing, the melody is great, and is easily one of my favourite “snow
level” tunes ever put in a game. If you’ve never listened to it, frankly,
you’re missing out.
It’s always nice to have mailman Jamie
come in for an episode, although I definitely feel that he’s only good in small
doses. His overdramatic tendencies tend to get a little annoying even after 11
minutes.
So, on to the episode. What a fun
surprise this was! Not only did we get some flashbacks into what the Gems were
like shortly after the discovery of Beach City, but we also got a few new
tidbits adding to the lore of the show. Granted, they weren’t huge news, but
any pieces added is one step closer to completing the puzzle in the grand
scheme of things.
The majority of the episode takes
place in Steven’s imagination as he reads the journal of Buddy, partner of the
original Mayor Dewey. Speaking of which, whatever happened to Mayor Dewey? He
all but vanished after Season 1.
Anyways, Buddy wants to discover
something for himself, so he crosses the globe to all the major gem locations,
including the Strawberry Battlefield, the Sea Spire, and the Kindergarten,
running into the four main Crystal Gems along the way. They help point him in
the right direction, and all in all, it’s just a really fun episode.
So, two major things got shown. First
off, we were introduced to a pride of Lions owned by Rose. They were all normal
coloured lions, however, so it’s still hard to pinpoint exactly where Steven’s
Lion came from. The fact that Steven and Connie used him briefly in the opening
is a clear tell that the crew wants to remind the viewers that the character is
still around, and wanted you to remember him once Rose’s lions popped up later
on.
The second thing, and something that
most viewers might’ve missed, was that the ruins of what looked like Blue
Diamond’s carriage from The Answer was illustrated in Buddy’s journal. Steven
quickly glossed over the page with a quick “I don’t know what that is”, but
given the nature of this show and how it seldom forgets anything, that’s bound
to pop up sometime in the future.
There’s not much else to say about
Buddy’s Book. It’s a fun episode with some great character moments and even
some lore droplets. I’d fully recommend giving it a watch, even if you’re not a
fan of the smaller Beach City episodes.
Since I’ve been quite vocal in my
dislike of the direction Amaama to Inazuma’s been going post-Episode 3, I made
two decisions prior to watching this week’s episode. One: if it followed the
exact same formula as the last three weeks with minimal differences, I would drop
the show entirely. And two: I wouldn’t write anything for the review while I
watched. I normally write out the review as I watch the episode, and edit it
accordingly when I finish, but this week I decided to try an experiment. Would
I enjoy the episode more if I wasn’t worrying about being critical the whole
time?
Well, this week’s episode was a
roaring success on both fronts. Not only did I enjoy it, but I consider it to
be the best episode we’ve seen from this show so far. The playbook that the
crew’s been relying on so hard for the past three weeks has been tossed out the
window, and I was reminded of what makes this show so unique when it comes to
slice-of-life anime. Next week I’m going to try not writing the review during
the episode again, so we’ll see where that leads us.
This week, Tsumugi’s dad is sick,
prompting her to go to the restaurant by herself to get him some food to make
him feel better. What follows is a delightful sequence, where we see Tsumugi’s
walk in both real life and her imagination, as she pretends to avoid sharks,
see dinosaurs, and travel through dark tunnels on her way to the restaurant.
She even sings an adorable little song that I’m sure will be stuck in my head for
the rest of the day. Everything about it is great; the animation, the music, and
the characters and their voice actors all excel in making this the best scene
the show has produced thus far.
However, it’s the second half of the
episodes where things truly shine. Once Tsumugi and her father are reunited, he
loses his temper at her, and she throws a tantrum, prompting him and
Kurumi/Iida/whatever her name is to take shelter in the restaurant. It was at
this point I was sure I knew what was coming. Kurumi would cook them something,
it would cheer them up, everyone’s happy. They even address in the show that
this might work.
Fortunately, this isn’t the route they
take. Both Tsumugi and her father apologize in another quiet, delightful
father-daughter scene. It’s quite a contrast to last week’s Nichijou-like loud
reactions and expressions. I’m guessing there was a different director for
Episode 6, but I wouldn’t know. Anyways, the scene where they make up and smile
is just delightful, and it only furthers the completely believable bond between
the two.
Surprisingly, the cooking segment this
week lasts less than 5 minutes, and it kind of feels tacked on. I think this episode
would’ve made more of an impression if they didn’t have one entirely, but when
your show is focused around cooking and food, I guess it’s kind of a
requirement. Thankfully the kitchen is nowhere near as crowded as it was last
week, and this week reminded me a lot of the first few episodes, with the trio
making a simple dish and having fun with that.
All in all, this was a fantastic
episode, and it completely reinvigorated my excitement for more episodes to
come. I can’t wait to see what they do next week.
Singleplayer vs. Multiplayer and the
battle for the spotlight
Last week’s editorial looked at the
insane prerelease campaign for No Man’s Sky, and all the controversy the game
went through as it made its merry way down the yellow brick road to launch.
Unfortunately, this crazy train is
showing no signs of stopping. For now, let’s put aside the mess that is the PC
port. That’s a topic for somebody else to cover, since I normally buy my games
on console if I can and have very little knowledge of how to make a PC run a
game properly.
Instead, let’s talk about where Hello
Games really seemed to blow it. At one point, it was confirmed No Man’s Sky
would have multiplayer. Later on, they said it wouldn’t have multiplayer. This
is all fine and dandy. Games change in development, features are added and
removed, and so on. No Man’s Sky is already a massive game. I can only imagine
making it an MMO would only increase the strain on the servers, and some might
consider it superfluous as it would be rare to find another human being in this
massive universe.
Despite this, the game launched with
many people mistakenly believing it to be online multiplayer, and feeling like
they got cheated as a result. I could go on about how you should research games
thoroughly before you buy them and read as many reviews as possible, but that’s
a conversation for another day. Instead, I’m going to go over a trend that I’ve
been seeing more and more recently in gaming culture: the battle between
singleplayer and multiplayer.
Back in the days of yore, this problem
was non-existent. Some games were a singleplayer adventure where you fought
your way to the end of the story campaign and that was it. Others were
multiplayer experiences, where you gathered your friends around the TV, gave
everyone a controller, and played together. Sometimes the two would cross over,
with a game like a Street Fighter game having an Arcade Mode, but that was it.
But with the arrival of online
multiplayer, everything changed. Suddenly games became either primarily
singleplayer or primarily multiplayer, but they’d always have the other tacked
on somewhere, regardless of how lackluster it would be. How many people ever
played Call of Duty for the campaign? And who bought an Uncharted game for the
multiplayer? And yet, they existed all the same.
Which brings us today, with the
arrival of multiplayer-only games. AAA games like Star Wars Battlefront,
Evolve, and Overwatch have eschewed the campaign entirely, giving players an
entirely online, multiplayer experience. These have usually had mixed results,
with Overwatch being adored upon release and still being talked about today,
Evolve going on life support just weeks after launch and eventually deciding to
go free-to-play, and Battlefront being met with a resounding “meh”.
Primarily singleplayer games still
have multiplayer components added on, like Uncharted 4 and Doom, although
people primarily talk about the campaign. Vice-versa, the Call of Duty and
Battlefield series continue to have campaigns, although no one ever seems to
play them. Hell, a lot of EA’s E3 presentation for Titanfall 2 talked about how
exciting it was that there was a singleplayer campaign, although Titanfall is,
again, a primarily multiplayer experience.
There’s also Splatoon, which, as
usual, is the dark horse in all of this. It features both a fully fleshed
singleplayer and multiplayer mode, with both being equally praised. Granted, I
didn’t like Splatoon’s single player as much as everyone else seemed to
(although I still play the multiplayer every once in a while), but people
seemed to be happy that it was there.
So that brings us back to my initial
question, as posed by No Man’s Sky. Does every game need to have both
singleplayer and multiplayer elements?
My answer to all this is, while it
often helps to have a singleplayer in a multiplayer focused game, or vice
versa, not every game needs both. While it may have been interesting to have a
singleplayer campaign in Overwatch, the game didn’t need it. However, Star Wars
Battlefront could’ve benefited from having a singleplayer mode, as it got
boring extremely fast.
As for No Man’s Sky, while I don’t
hate it as much as everyone else seems to, there’s certainly a lot of things I
dislike about the game, one of them being the lack of liveliness in the world.
What if they’d handled multiplayer similarly to Journey, where you couldn’t
really interact with the random people you met online, while also offering a
way to meet your friends? Considering the sheer size of No Man’s Sky (plus the
fact that they can’t seem to properly port the game to PC), maybe it was just
too much for the game to handle. With the promise of added features coming in
the future, we can hold out hope that we can explore this barren galaxy with
our friends before everyone collectively forgets about the game.
Song of the Week
I mentioned earlier in this editorial
that I wasn’t a huge fan of the singleplayer mode in Splatoon. What I really did like in that mode, however, was the
final boss music, specifically Calamari Inkantation, which plays during the
second half of the fight. It’s my favourite piece from the entire game, and
makes me wish they gave us more Squid Sisters songs.
Puzzle platformers are a genre that I really wish we’d
see more of. I love games like Thomas Was Alone, but that’s the only major one
I can think of off the top of my head.
Today, while browsing YouTube, I came
across a few videos for a game called You Have 10 Seconds. It’s a free indie
game available now on Steam, where you have 10 seconds to get your little cube
man to the end of increasingly difficult levels. And it’s a blast.
If you’re a fan of difficult platformers,
you’ll love
You Have 10 Seconds. The game never
feels too hard (although it can feel a bit unforgiving at times), the
soundtrack is excellent, and the platforming physics are great, albeit a bit
looser than I’d like.
The
levels are simplistic and can each be beaten in a matter of, well, 10 seconds,
as you hop your cube man over walls and across spike pits to the door at the
end. Easy as that.
Over
the course of its 40 levels (not including the final level), You Have 10
Seconds gradually increases the difficulty, throwing in new mechanics like
water and magnets at you every time you enter a new world. The magnets are fun,
but the water can be a bit hit or miss, as I’ll explain later.
The
soundtrack is a few techno tracks, each of them being very bouncy and fun to
listen to. I’m currently looking for a way to listen to the songs online,
because right now, the only way to hear it is to play the game. Still, it’s
free, so that’s always nice.
I
do have a few gripes with the game, though. It can honestly be a little too unforgiving at times. The collision
detection on the spike traps is extremely sensitive, meaning that even if you slightly
brush the tip of the side of the spikes, you die. Similarly, sometimes the game
starts you directly next to a spike trap, giving you zero time to react before
you bump into them and die. The water in the game also seems to change physics
at reckless abandon, and in my entire playthrough, I couldn’t figure out a
surefire way to navigate it without using trial-and-error.
These are just minor problems that don’t
pop up often, however. You Have 10 Seconds is a fantastic puzzle platformer,
and the fact that it’s free only adds to how great it is. It’s absolutely worth
checking out, and if you enjoy it, a sequel is currently trying to get through
Steam Greenlight, so if you want to see that happen, go support the devs!
No Man’s Sky is finally here, after
all the problems and setbacks. So what’s my verdict on this experience?
Well, it’s far from perfect, but I
enjoyed my time with it.
What’s amazing about this game to me
is just how little most people, myself included, seemed to know about it in the
days leading up to release. Knowing I was going to buy it, I only looked at the
absolute basics about the game, avoiding lengthy gameplay demonstrations and
the like. So imagine my surprise on day 1 when I finally bit the bullet to
watch Jim Sterling’s video of the game, only to find that it was a survival
game.
Now, these are a real hit or miss for
me. I enjoy playing Minecraft’s survival mode every once in a while, although
it never really holds my attention for too long. However, I played an hour of
Subnautica, and got so bored that I couldn’t even be bothered to continue.
Unfortunately, survival, the main
aspect of No Man’s Sky, isn’t great. The opening few hours of the game are spent
foraging for crafting materials to fix your crashed spacecraft, and it couldn’t
be more agonizingly boring. Although each planet is randomly generated, they’ll
always have the basic materials you need to fix your ship, just in case some
new player starts there. Exactly where to find said materials are is another
question.
My first planet had radioactive air,
requiring me to manage two different life meters when I barely had enough
resources to manage both one and fix my ship at the same time. I spent the
first 2 hours of gameplay running up and down horribly ugly mountains coloured
like mounds of elephant poo, searching desperately for resources, all the while
being bored to tears. Not a great first impression.
The other huge problem is that your starting
inventory is smaller than a real life hiking backpack. You can only carry an extremely
small amount of gear at once, and what’s worse is that tools necessary to
survive also take up inventory space. If I had a unit for every time the game
told me my inventory was full, I’d be able to buy the fanciest ship in the
galaxy.
Fortunately, when you finally fix your
ship and launch into the cosmos, the game takes a leap in improvement. No Man’s
Sky is at its best when you’re exploring a colourful planet either from the sky
or the ground. The sense of discovery and exploration you get when discovering a
new planet or system is fantastic. I had lots of fun just wandering around new
places, admiring the visuals, creatures, and colours. At least, that’s what I when
I didn’t have to worry about collecting meaningless bits of ore to refuel whichever
tool of mine was currently malfunctioning.
No Man’s Sky feels the need to
constantly swarm your HUD with an onslaught of updates and notifications, more
often than not getting in the way of your experience. Whenever your life
support or toxic air filter goes down by at least 25% (which happens a lot, might I add), you’re greeted by a
robot voice who alerts you to what’s going on, as well as a bit of text right
in the middle of the screen. Similarly, whenever you accomplish something new
or get an achievement, the entire game grinds to a halt just to congratulate
you. You can’t interact with anything until the game’s finished giving you your
literal 15 seconds of fame, and in the early hours when you’re accomplishing
something new quite often, the game feels the need to pat you on the back and
slow down your quest way too much.
Going back to how great the
exploration is, I feel that I must need to congratulate Hello Games on their
accomplishment of creating such a massive universe to explore. There’s so many
planets here, it’s insane. Just one look at the galaxy map and how many planets
reside in there, and thinking about how small the team was that made this game
is, it’s kind of crazy. Good job, guys.
And now for the news you don’t want to
hear. Every planet is, aside from the weather and colour scheme, essentially
the same. I hopped around a sector, visiting each planet, and I came off
feeling that there wasn’t a single planet that was unique in any way, aside
from the initial excitement of “ooh, a snow planet!” They’re all littered with
the same types of resources (there’s rocks of every colour imaginable, but they
all turn into iron), and while it’s cool to see a large t-rex looking creature
walking across the horizon, the animals are ultimately just there to look
pretty. As far as I can tell, they don’t serve any other purpose, and more
often than not, it’s clear that they’re cobbled together from a large pool of
animal parts, resulting in some Frankensteinian beast. You can name the animals
(and plants, rocks, planets, solar systems, and anything else you can think
of), but once you realize that no one will likely ever visit this area of the
game and admire your discoveries, naming things sort of loses its luster. Still,
I enjoy naming the planets and quadrants. Naming things in video games is a
sort of a weird, simple joy I’ve had since I was a child, when I always named
all my different animals in Zoo Tycoon, so that’s fun.
Still, despite the planets being
arguably the same over and over again, you get a real sense of accomplishment
whenever you discover one, and going on a quiet stroll in a new world can be a
lot of fun. If you’re the type of person who picks a direction and just walks
that way in a game like Skyrim, you’ll love No Man’s Sky. When you find a
planet that isn’t just brown and grey slabs of mud endlessly, and actually has
trees, water, and other cool natural features, the visuals of No Man’s Sky are
very tranquil. The graphics don’t exactly push the PS4 to its limits (they look
like they’re from the PS3, but given how many planets this game needs to
render, it’s easy to forgive), but for what they are, I really like them.
The two other big features No Man’s
Sky touts are the trading and combat segments. Let’s just get this out of the
way quickly: the combat is awful. Both space and land battles are extremely
stacked against you, the aiming is horrible, often forcing you to flail around
wildly and hope you hit something, and you’d be better off just accepting your
death and then recovering your loot from your grave after respawning. That is
all.
As for the trading, this is where some
of No Man’s Sky’s visual novel aspects come in. Every once in a while, you’ll
bump into an alien of varying species who’ll either give you some gear or trade
you something. You don’t speak their language, but you can learn it through
various magical stones strewn across galaxies. I really like this! It’s kind of
frustrating to have to pick blindly which option you think will make the alien
happiest, but the idea of slowly learning their language and becoming friends
with them is really cool.
There seems to be some sort of lore
going on in the background, but it really feels like the type of story that
thinks it’s a lot smarter than it actually is. Hello Games is clearly taking
some influence from old sci-fi novels here, but your character’s occasional
musings as he zooms around this candy coloured universe are more than
pretentious. When presented with a triangular monolith, he goes on and on about
how it’s opened his eyes to the truths of the galaxy and how it’s revealed many
secrets to him. However, to the player, the monolith is nothing more than a
stone structure. It’s a Class A case of telling instead of showing.
And that’s No Man’s Sky. It’s a lot
simpler than I was hoping it would be, and there are several things about it I
dislike, but overall I had a positive experience with it. I’m sure I’ll go back
to play some more before too long, and discover even more planets. I think that
it might be better to rent this game before you buy it and see how you feel.
And if you ever run into a planet
called Panika, you probably shouldn’t land on it. There’s a crab there that
doesn’t like people messing with his stuff.
Well, we’re halfway through the
season, and while Amaama to Inazuma continues to be as sweet and relaxing as
ever, there’s still a definite worry that the same structured plot over and
over again will grow stale before Episode 12 is reached.
This episode decides to mix things up
a bit by finally giving us the proper introduction of Shinobu, Iida’s friend.
As first impressions go, she’s kind of funny every once in a while, but more
often than not she just feels like she’s there to fill the “annoying friend”
trope.
What was really good was the overarching theme of this episode. Tsumugi
decides she wants to throw a party at Iida’s house and invite all her friends.
Her father isn’t happy about this at first, but after a flashback where we get
our first appearance of Tsumugi’s mother, he compromises to let them come over
later.
Unfortunately, the rest of the episode
kind of falls flat on it’s face. For the first time ever in this series, I
found Tsumugi annoying this week. She was way louder and more over the top than
usual, and in turn she felt a lot more like what a writer thinks a kid sounds
like as opposed to the real thing. This is too bad, because up until now they’d
pretty much nailed Tsumugi’s character, awkward moments and all.
Basically, aside from the all too
brief flashback, this episode relaxed back into the “everything is perfect!”
world that caused some of the earlier episodes to be so slow. Without a real
problem or storyline to follow, I feel like I’m watching an anime version of
the Food Network, and while that sounds fun on paper, in practice it’s really
boring. That’s why Episode 3 worked so well: it blended the cooking segment
with the story from the first half of the episode. Here, the story is resolved
8 minutes in, leaving us with just the cooking segment.
Another problem was that, what with
all the over exaggerated expressions and loud screamy voices, this almost felt
like an episode of a completely different show. Amaama to Inazuma is usually a
realistic slice of life show, but here, the characters reacting to things were
so bananas that it wouldn’t feel out of place in Nichijou.
It was cool to see new characters join
in the cooking, but at this point, it’s all formulaic. They prepare the food,
do something while they wait, some problem comes up, they fix it, they finish
cooking and eat it, somebody cries, roll credits. How can I keep being excited
for each new episode when I know it’s exactly the same thing I saw last week
and the week before that? If something doesn’t change soon (and sadly, I doubt
it will), I might lose interest and stop watching.
The final week of the Summer of Steven
is upon us! If you missed my review of Beta, I watched the Canadian airing last
Friday, so it’s in my Week 3 post.
Wow. That’s
all I have to say to describe this episode. Wow.
I’m going to
say this right here and right now, just so everyone can hear it: This was my
favourite episode of Steven Universe to date. Not necessarily the best (Jail
Break is still probably the best thing they’ve ever done), but as a personal
opinion, this is my new favourite.
Sometimes it
feels like the 11-minute time limit is surprisingly too much for the smaller
stories the crew has for us (Drop Beat Dad and The New Lars were good examples
of this), but more often than not I’m on my hands and knees wishing that these
episodes were longer, especially when the episode was packed with lore.
Considering this is a three-parter with Beta and tomorrow’s episode, I suppose
this could be referred to as a 45 minute special, but I digress.
Earthlings
threw everything it could at us, providing what I assume to be the end of the
current Amethyst arc (but who knows?), the end of Jasper’s little adventure, a
new fusion, some great humour courtesy of Peridot, and a LOT of lore.
We pick up
exactly where we left off last time, with Amethyst challenging Jasper to a
rematch. Once again, she’s barely able to land a scratch on the perfect Quartz
soldier, and gets wrecked. Steven, against Amethyst’s wishes, jumps into the
fight, and after he reinvigorates her by telling her that she’s great the way
she is, the two of them fuse into a brand new character: Smoky Quartz.
She’s my
favourite new fusion since Malachite, easily. Her design is great, her voice is
fantastic, her weapon is genius
(whoever decided to give her a yo-yo should get an award), and she’s all-around
a great new inclusion into the vast library of fusions we have.
After Jasper
gets destroyed by a fusion again (that’s 4 times now, right?), she attempts to
fight back by fusing with one of the corrupted gems, but this doesn’t go well
for obvious reasons. What happens after is what really matters. Jasper begins
to corrupt. Despite Steven and Peridot practically begging to allow them to
help her, Jasper refuses, and is corrupted and bubbled, but not before dropping
a significant lore bomb: Rose Quartz betrayed her diamond, Pink Diamond. The
fandom’s been buzzing about the identity of Pink Diamond ever since the diamond
sigil first appeared in the show, and this is really going to add fuel to the
fire now that it’s confirmed Pink Diamond isn’t Rose herself.
Even after all
this, the Gems returned to the Barn to find a surprise: the Ruby Squad is back!
I’m surprised they made it to Neptune and came back this quickly, but I guess
their space travel is pretty fast. In any case, I’m happy to see them again,
and I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen tomorrow.
I loved every
second of Earthlings. I was laughing, gasping, and on the edge of my seat the
whole time. This was Steven Universe at its absolute best, and it was
absolutely waiting those extra two days for.
FINAL SCORE
10/10
Legendary
Back to the Moon
The arc that began with Gem Hunt is
showing no signs of slowing down, as we had yet another cliffhanger to deal with tonight!
The Ruby Squad was back in action after their short adventure
around the galaxy, demanding to know where Jasper really is. Without any other
options, Amethyst shapeshifted into Jasper to convince them, and the Rubies
demanded they return to the Moon Base to file a form so “Jasper” can keep her “prisoners”
on Earth instead of returning to Homeworld with them.
It was cool to see the Moon Base again, especially as we got
the long-awaited reveal of the Pink Diamond mural which was infamously ignored
back in It Could’ve Been Great. Unfortunately, we didn’t get an answer as to
what was in that room Garnet hurried Steven past last time we were here, but
there’s always tomorrow.
As for Pink Diamond, we learned what nearly everyone expected
given yesterday’s lore bomb: Rose Quartz shattered her during the Gem War.
Steven naturally is in disbelief over this, and then…just kind of gets over it.
Huh. I’m hoping that this subject comes up in more detail later on, because it
kind of came out of nowhere and then vanished.
The rest of the episode, aside from
the lore, wasn’t really anything super special unfortunately. We spend way too
much precious time outside of the barn trying to convince the Rubies that
Amethyst was Jasper. I did like that the Eyeball Ruby got some character
development in the reveal that she participated in the Gem War as a soldier,
and the group is always fun to spend time with. Pearl was especially funny in
this episode to, with her over-the-top reaction to being “captured”.
There’s not really much else to say
about this one, except about the ending. We know from episodes like Space Race and
Warp Tour that Steven can survive in space longer than a normal human can, but
even then his human side requires breathing before long. Considering tomorrow’s
episode is called “Bubbled”, I think I have a good idea of how he’s going to
save himself, but you never know.
So anyways, a good episode, just
without many good laughs and poor pacing. I liked that we got an answer to the
Pink Diamond question so fast, but Steven kind of forgot about it two minutes
later. Hopefully tomorrow will improve on it.
FINAL SCORE
7/10
Good
Bubbled
So I guess this is Steven Universe’s
take on the movie Gravity.
What a crazy episode this was. If you
told me 5 years ago that I’d be watching a cartoon where a boy was launched
into space, accepted his fate, and then curled up into fetal position after
fighting an alien to the death, I would’ve said you were crazy.
But, here we are. Picking up
immediately after yesterday, the Season 3 finale featured some of the best
background art I’ve ever seen in this show, and that’s saying something. All
the stars, planets, and galaxies in the background were so amazingly rendered,
it really felt like outer space.
It was really smart for the Crew to
bring back Eyeball Ruby for this episode, because as interesting as it would’ve
been to see Steven’s internal struggle about what his mother did to Pink
Diamond, it wouldn’t have made for great kid’s TV. Instead, this episode had a
lot of really good humour, like Steven imitating the famous portrait of Rose
Quartz, and his all too relatable grouchiness about changing phone plans.
Eyeball Ruby was really fun, and it was
amazing how threatening they made this little red gem. Her little knife looked
downright intimidating in the tight space, and although it was a kind of
obvious solution how to get rid of her, it didn’t make it any less tense. I
feel that now’s a good time to say goodbye to the Ruby Squad. In my opinion,
they served their purpose, and having them back again and again would get a
little repetitive.
But two things stood out to me above
all else. One is that the Gems are now in capacity of a ship with space travel,
so that opens up a literal universe of possibilities for new settings. The
other is that we finally got the full version of the credits song, Love Like
You. It’s a song we’ve been hearing since Episode 1, and it’s nice to finally
be able to listen to the proper version in full, although it really feels like
the end of an era. One can only hope we get a new song for the next season or
two.
Overall, Bubbled was a great way to
end Season 3, and the future looking towards Seasons 4 and 5 looks bright. Here’s
to more Steven Universe!
FINAL SCORE
8/10
Great
The Kindergarten Kid
And now for something entirely
different.
At first glance, the word Kindergarten
in Steven Universe context means a dark episode exploring the creation of gems
and usually focuses on Amethyst. I remember when the title for this episode was
announced nearly a year ago everyone assumed it would be a part of the now
finished Amethyst arc (which was predicted through the titles of other episodes).
Instead, we got a Road Runner vs. Coyote style episode starring Peridot as she
tries in vain to capture a corrupted gem.
Surprisingly, it turned out to be
really funny, even if it wasn’t one of Steven Universe’s better episodes.
Peridot is my favourite character, and we got a little more information about
her abilities here. She’s surprisingly resilient, managing to go through all
kinds of trauma without being poofed. We also learned she’s able to bubble
gems, although she mistakenly didn’t send the bubble to the heart of the
Temple.
The physical humour was really on
point with this one, with all the cartoon physics really feeling straight out
of a Looney Tunes cartoon. The animators used the desert backgrounds and the
hills of the Beta Kindergarten to their advantage to make a real playground for
Steven, Peridot and the corrupted gem to run around.
That’s really all there is to say
about this one. It was a simple, funny episode. A bit of a weird way to start
Season 4, since in the past we’ve had premieres like Full Disclosure and Super
Watermelon Island. I don’t know if I’ll ever watch The Kindergarten Kid again,
but I enjoyed it for what it was.
FINAL SCORE
6/10
Okay
Know your Fusion
Much like the fusion gems themselves,
this episode was…bizarre, to say the least.
I like it when the show decides to
nonchalantly include the fusions. They’re usually only saved for big, groundbreaking
events, but when one pops up when you’re not expecting it, it’s a bit of a
treat. Think back to when Pearl and Amethyst formed Opal back in Log Date. Although
it wasn’t a speaking part, it was nice of the crew to acknowledge they haven’t
forgotten about her.
This episode, surprisingly, gave Smoky
Quartz and Sardonyx starring roles, as Steven and Amethyst introduced their new
fusion to Garnet and Pearl. The two are understandably ecstatic, and form
Sardonyx so that the two can…go on a talk show.
Yeah, that’s not what I was hoping
for, but okay.
Honestly, it would’ve been really cool
to be out in the field with Smoky Quartz as Sardonyx tries to have her unlock
her full potential, but here it was just nothing being accomplished for 10
minutes straight. Sardonyx asks Smoky what her power is. Smoky doesn’t know.
Sardonyx asks again. Smoky doesn’t know. Rinse and repeat until credits.
The pacing in this episode is all off.
Remember, the primary rule of storytelling is show, don’t tell. How fun is it to
listen to two characters talking about what one of them can do? It’s not fun at
all. I wanted to see Smoky Quartz really trying to figure out who she is,
instead of watching her participate in stupid games that you know she’s going
to fail at.
This one episode’s saving grace is
that there’s some humour in it I really didn’t expect from Steven Universe.
Sardonyx breaks the fourth wall several times, acknowledging the fact she’s in
a cartoon, having the clips she used carried with the watermark “Provided by
Cartoon Network”, and even a quick jab at the fact that Sugilite is probably
never going to have a speaking role again. It was really unexpected and funny
because of that.
Immediately after watching Know your
Fusion, I thought to myself “If I were to show Steven Universe to someone new,
would I show them this one?” My answer would probably be no. Very little was
accomplished at all, aside from a 30 second reveal that Smoky Quartz can use
her yo-yo as a grappling hook, which you honestly could figure out just from watching
Earthlings. Aside from some of the good jokes, the always delightful fusions,
and the ending, this episode is one you can definitely skip in my opinion.
FINAL SCORE
4/10
Mediocre
Well, that’s a disappointing end to
Steven’s Summer Adventures. I’m glad that weekly episodes are coming back,
because that would be a bit of a lackluster way to go on a hiatus. See you next
Thursday for the next episode!
