Look, I’ve never really been much of a Stat Wars fan. I grew up loving the original trilogy and caught the prequel films as they played on all the different cable movie channels. The prequel trilogy could never hold my attention because those movies were more interested in building lore and dealing with politics. I was much more interested in the original films as they were just fantasy, adventure stories that happened to take place in space. For the most part, I’ve rarely given any of the various side stories, comics, books, tv shows, or video games a chance. I just didn’t want to engage Star Wars on that level where everything has to fit together. Somehow though, EA, of all publishers, has found a way to make me care about Star Wars.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is like a melting pot of some gaming’s best action-adventure games. It has a bit of Uncharted, some Metroid, and a heaping helping of Dark Souls. This game never truly reaches the heights of the games it borrows from but it does have it own highs. A lot has been said about the Dark Souls elements that Fallen Order borrows but they don’t just steal the combat system. Fallen Order’s combat has it’s own distinct flow and rhythm, different from all From Software’s catalog. I started on this game’s version of hard mode because I was feeling cocky after spending so much time with Sekiro last year. I quickly learned that the way this game felt was quite different and brought the difficulty down. That said, even on the normal difficulty, you will get butt kicked quite a bit. The enemies are aggressive; taking advantage of whatever they can to get you. Getting caught up in melee battles? The blaster’s sit back and shoot you while the melee troopers are in your face. Death is handled the same way Sekiro does it. When you die, you lose experience points and you have to hit the enemy that killed you to regain it. If you happen to die on your way to that enemy then you lose those experience points. You use those experience points to gain skill points which you can use on the nicely sized skill tree. I’m happy it’s not one of those unyieldly skill trees where there are a bunch of filler skills in between the ones you really one. Each skill helps to give you more tools in your arsenal for combat. This game made me feel like a Jedi with all of the force powers I had at my fingertips. Clashes against other force wielders felt fantastic and dramatic. For those battles you have to parry and get the rhythm of combat down if you want to stand a chance against these foes. Exploration is your typical Metroidvania fair. There are some places you can’t reach until you have the right ability and you may have to leave a level and come back if you want discover all of the secrets. One of the worst things about Fallen Order is its map. It’s just so cumbersome and hard to navigate. A lot of times it just isn’t clear where you have or haven’t been and trying to get a good look at the different levels of the map can be quite frustrating. Like Uncharted, there will be times when you’re climbing walls and riding down slopes and interacting with the environment to solve different puzzles. The exploration was fine but combat was the biggest draw for me.
One of the best things Fallen Order has going for it is it’s narrative. It frames the narrative in a way that evokes the tone of the original movie without copying its story beats. You play as Cal Kestis who was a young padawan when Order 66, the order given to kill all Jedi in Revenge of the Sith, was given. He locked way his Jedi teachings deep within his conscience so he that wouldn’t be found. Through some turn of events he’s found out and ends up on the run with a former Jedi master, Cere and captain of the Mantis, Greez. These characters are great with their own fleshed out backstories and faults. You see the group come together and build a bond of friendship. The story this game weaves feels like a pure, classic Star Wars experience. You get to go from world to world, helping out inhabitants deal with the Empire or looking for an object that could help rebuild the Jedi Order.
Where this game really stands out is how well it captures Star Wars. As I said above, combat makes you really feel like a Jedi. The music sounds like it comes straight from a John Williams score and does a great job highlighting the action and intensifying the drama. All of the locales and aliens feel right at home in the canon, except maybe the wookies. I’ve yet to see a good looking wookie in a Star Wars video game. Since we’re talking about presentation, I have to talk about one of this game’s biggest issues. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is buggy. There were times when I fell through the level, levels loading in while I’m exploring them , and game crashes. Any time Cal would walk into a wall with a crevice in it, the camera would freak out and zoom in super close on his face. I even ran into some T-posing enemies sliding into their correct position. These are all minor issues but the fact they were so constant made them hard to ignore.
There’s no doubt the Fallen Order is a great game. Had Sekiro not came out, it’d probably be my game of the year for 2019. While the bugs can be a problem, the rest of the game more than makes up for it. It does justice to its source material and has an extremely, engaging story. Most importantly, it was the first video game to make me feel like a Jedi in the same way PS4 Spider-Man made me feel like Spider-Man and the way the Arkham games made me feel like Batman. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is simply an experience you shouldn’t miss, fan or not.
One Piece: Stampede is the definition of a movie made for fans. From its very opening moments, the film is filled with callbacks to the franchise’s 20 year run. Characters we haven’t seen in years, multiple Pandaman sightings, musical callbacks, and both dream matchups and team ups make this the ultimate One Piece movie.
One Piece itself seems like a callback to the Shonen Jump he was reading as a kid. It’s reads like a comic from someone who was a fan of the story and values of Fist of the North Star, Kinnikuman, and, of course, Dragon Ball. One Piece: Stampede is a celebration of One Piece, in turn making it a celebration of that era of Shonen fair. In it, we are introduced to a very powerful foe who shows up mopping the floor with our protagonist. The battle scenes when Bullet shows up maybe the closest One Piece has gotten to a Dragon Ball Z style fight which is saying a lot. The story for this movie is a lot more straightforward than the stories for previous movies, Film Z and Film Gold but I still thought it was pretty good. Halfway through the movie, the stakes are ratcheted up to such unbelievable heights that even the main series has never reached. Bueno Vista and Bullet both are such great villains.
Next month, Game Freak will be releasing the next entry into its Pokémon franchise but did you also know they have another game coming out this month. Little Town Hero is a much smaller game than Pokémon as it takes place in one small town. There’s no grand adventure to go on or an epic quest.
Our story stars a boy named Axe and his goal is to see what’s beyond his village. For some reason no is ever allowed to leave the village and this has caused Axe and his friends to grow curious what’s beyond they’re village. He devised a plan to sneak into the castle, located at the edge of his village, and try to get a peak at what lies beyond. His scheme doesn’t work out the way he plans and is sent back to his village. There, he befriends a knight who agrees to train him under the condition that he lies for the knight about the completion of his mission: to defeat a monster. The only problem is monsters don’t exist. On cue, a monster begins rampaging the town and its up to our hero, Axe, to put it down.
I found the story of Little Town Hero to be very enjoyable. The town is littered with characters with so much personality. Like in a lot of budget jrpgs, there are limited amount of character models used for the npcs so the writing does the work of selling the different characters’ personalities. Axe is a twelve year old boy and the writing shows it well. He sees everything in a childish light. Matlock is his rival in every aspect. Any time Axe is doing something, Matlock is guaranteed to be there trying to show him up. Nelz is the smart best friend character. He’s there helping Axe come up with different plans. The cast continues to expand with each passing chapter.
The biggest problem with this game though is the game itself. Little Town Hero is a hodgepodge of game ideas thrown together. It’s a card battler, a board game, and rpg rolled into one. When in battle, you are given ideas that represent your available actions called Izzits. This is like your hand in a card battler. You have more ideas in your headspace (like a deck). Each turn you are given five ideas which you can spend POW points to turn them into Dazzits. You are given three POW points at the start of each battle and your total amount raises every three turns up to maximum of six points. Ideas can come in three different variants: attack, defense, special. In normal battles you only have to worry about the basics of combat and take out your opponent’s hearts. In monster battles, things get a bit complicated. The game turns into a bit of a board game. You’re put on a board where you use a dice roll to travel to different spots. Each spot on the map can have an item to interact with, townsfolk to add ideas to your headspace, or one of the supporting cast members providing a support skill. Now the reason why I’m explaining all of this is to convey just how complex the battle system is and how much goes into each battle. I found the monster battles to be fun, engaging, and challenging until chapter 4. It’s within the next two chapters you’re introduced to bosses who basically cheat. The game wants you to manage your resources properly but these sets of monsters interferes with your ability to do so. They’ll destroy ideas out of your headspace, turn your dazzits back to izzits, and break your dazzits irregardless of having enough defense points to counter with. These battles weren’t fun for me and I was stuck awhile fighting these bosses. Now to be fair, some of my problems with these fights may come from me not utilizing the game’s tools to the fullest but that’s up to you to decide. After beating these monsters, however, I found myself having fun again. The plot picked back up and I was engaged once more. Now to be fair, my trouble with these bosses may just stem from me not utilizing the tools given to me at the time to the fullest. You can also use Eureka Points, this game’s version of experience points, to level up skills, making them more powerful and adding helpful effects.
Despite my misgivings with chapters 4 and 5, I still highly recommend this game. I found the characters to be a treat and the story entertaining. The game doesn’t even take long to beat, maybe 15-20 hours. I would love it if Game Freak decided to revisit this town or another for a Little Town Hero 2.
If I had to pick an anime of the year so far I would say Kimetsu no Yaiba: Demon Slayer. From the moment this show was announced and was going to be animated by famed animation studio, ufotable, I knew I was in for a treat. The thing that makes this show special isn’t that’s unique but that it does what it sets out to do so well.
Demon Slayer has a lot going for it. First of which are the characters. Nearly every character is like able in their own way with their own quirks and faults. Our protagonist, Tanjiro, is your typical main hero from Japanese media. He’s just a regular kid who gets thrust into this world demons and slayers and becomes this super reliable swordsman who almost always shows up at the right time. Now, I have no problem with this style of character but the writers take it a notch further. Tanjiro actually cares about his opponents. At the end of every one of his battles, he reminds them of their humanity just by showing sorrow for their situation. He, himself, states how he could never forgive demons for hurting humans but that doesn’t stop him from respecting his opponents as they die, sometimes even offering a kind hand to ease them into the afterlife. That’s not really something you see in a Shonen battle series. Normally, opponents after battle are an afterthought but not here. Besides Tanjiro and his demon sister, Nezuko, are his companions Zenitsu and Inosuke. Each with their own quirks and flaws that I don’t want to get into.
The show’s other big strength is its production. Demon Slayer is animated in such a loving fashion, utilizing various animation techniques and flourishes. Tanjiro’s water breathing technique is animated with this living painting look that’s absolutely gorgeous. All of the fights could come off as standard shonen fare but because so much attention is put on camera positioning, staging, and choreography, each fight is elevated. The music is no slouch either. Demon Slayer features two composers, Go Shiina and Yuki Kaijura. Kaijura-San provide five songs that work as the themes that Go Shiina using to compose whole episodes, similar to how western productions work. This turned out to be the best way to go about creating the music because the soundtrack helps to tell the story just as much as the visuals do. It helps sell the drama and put you at the edge of your seat every cliffhanger. The production really shines at episode 19. I won’t get into details but that is truly is the episode of the season.
I still remember all the hype surrounding Red Dead Redemption 2 last year. It was so huge that no matter how hard I tried to ignore it, I still came across it. Now, I’m going to be pretty honest; I was never a huge fan of Rockstar’s games before. I’ve played the various Grand Theft Auto releases over the year but nothing ever really stuck with me. The original Red Dead Redemption was touted as being one of the greatest games of last generation. A close friend of mine had played it and while he enjoyed it, he didn’t regard it quite that high. Even still, I had too big of a backlog to try it out.
Fast forward to the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 and I’d made the decision not to pick it up due to financial issues and not having a big enough interest in the game. Red Dead Redemption 2 reviewed quite well and was already a huge contender for game of the year upon release. The same friend who told me about the first game ended up giving me an extra copy he gotten with his PS4 pro. I accepted it with the thought thought that I probably wouldn’t care for or finish it. There was no way that I’d find a western to be compelling or fun. Unfortunately, it would take me about a week to get to the game because I had my first child at that same time. Most of my time was spent caring for my new baby girl.
Open world games, I feel, are becoming too tedious and monotonous these days but Red Dead 2 doesn’t ever feel that way. As soon as the world opens up you are given a ton of land to explore with a lot to do. On your way to the game’s various missions you can take part in all manner of activities: robbing people, stealing trains, hunting, fishing, gambling and even bounty hunting. There are even randomly generated events that just happen on the road like a man being bitten by a poisonous snake or a couple being held at gun point. RRD2 gives you a lot of flexibility in how you deal with these situations and may even have question if you’re doing the right thing. doingThe game comes off as a sort of cowboy role playing game. Not in like stats even though there are like a slight progression system but in being able to choose the man you want Arthur to be. The gun play leaves a bit to be desired, in my opinion. While it does do a good job of making you feel like a badass, the fact that there is auto aim on at all times can make some of the earliest encounters a bit easy. The difficulty ramps up when you are facing an army of gunmen or when you’re fighting with companions who can die at any moment if you’re not careful.
My favorite thing about Red Dead Redemption 2 is the story and that can be attributed to the main protagonist, Arthur Morgan. Red Dead Redemption 2 is the story of outlaws trying to find their way out of a life of crime. At the beginning of the game Arthur is a hardened man who doesn’t think twice about the bad things he has to do help the gang but as the story goes on and he meets more people he begins to soften up. He becomes more reflective of his life and what he’s done with it. There are moments where if you do too much bad a member of the gang will come question him about what he’s been and Arthur then has somewhat of an emotion breakdown. Moments like these made fall in love with this game more than the gameplay ever could. I don’t want to talk too much about the story because watching the many plot threads open and close was where I got most of enjoyment and I don’t want to take that from anyone else. If you are interested at all in this game, you need to do the stranger missions. You meet some the most absurd and lovable characters who not only help to flesh out who Arthur but they themselves are interesting.
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