Monthly Archives: May 2019

Oddworld: Soulstorm Reveals A First Look at Gameplay

Oddworld: Soulstorm shows off the second game in an upcoming pentalogy, and is the sequel to the best-selling Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty. That was a  complete remake of Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee. In Soulstorm, Abe finds himself (along with the newly emancipated) 300 Mudokons, without food, water, or a home. Alone in the desert, they find a new drink, which has serious ramifications for their newfound freedom. Oddworld: Soulstorm will show off themes of environmentalism, capitalism, consumerism, and addiction, and is coming to PC and Consoles in 2020.

Sniper Elite V2: Remastered Reveals Launch Trailer

Rebellion is proud to release a new trailer for Sniper Elite V2 Remastered, which shows the gameplay, the revamped visuals and much more. It’s coming tomorrow to the Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and the PC. Players will go back to Berlin, 1945, the heart of World War 2. Karl Fairburne will prove that one bullet can change history – again. Your mission is to prevent the Nazi V2 rocket technology from falling into the hands of the Red Army, with deadly aim and stealth skill.

Sniper Elite V2 Remastered amplifies the original’s iconic sniping and advanced ballistics with a host of improvements and added extras. In addition to impressive 4K and HDR support on available platforms, the game features stunning remastered visuals, from overhauled assets to modernized rendering and much more.

Sniper Elite V2 Remastered also adds a versatile new photo mode that lets you pause and move the action frame-by-frame for that perfect X-ray Kill Cam shot. You can also play the campaign and multiplayer modes as one of 7 new characters from Rebellion’s Zombie Army series. And now multiplayer is expanded for up to 16 players online (8 on the Switch) across all modes. All of the DLC originally released will also come with the game, including the “Assassinate the Führer” mission.

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age – Xbox One Thoughts

by Jason Parker (Ragachak)

FFXII The Zodiac Age - Xbox - Garuda

My Xbox One robbed me of the awesome video I took of this fight.

Final Fantasy XII, for a very long time, was my least favorite Final Fantasy title, for a number of reasons. Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age changed that permanently. One of the primary ones is that Vaan has no personality, no character. He’s Disney’s Aladdin, but in Ivalice and without the cool, hip Genie to get him going on his adventure. From what I understand, he’s supposed to be a blank slate for people to project on, but I’m not as big a fan of that. I wasn’t a fan of the Gambit system, and the overall approach, despite the game being very visually appealing. At the time, I didn’t want something this drastically different. I also loathed the License Board. Having to spend points to unlock new gear, that I also had to spend money on? The board was massive, and it was a very daunting task to figure out where you need to go on it. A few years later, I found Final Fantasy XII: International Edition, and it conveniently had English subtitles.

FFXII The Zodiac Age - Xbox - Noses

How can this be set in Ivalice? They all have noses!

The International Edition had several changes, but most importantly, a new way to use the License Board. Now it feels more like Final Fantasy Tactics (the game it shares a universe with), in that there are job classes, and each has its own specific gear/ability licenses. That way you can focus easier on what you want each character to do, but it can be a double-edged sword. You could have too many damage characters, have no tanks, no healers and could be in a sticky situation. FFXII’s combat feels very much like an MMO to me, so having a balanced party has never been more important. Between FFXII: International Edition, and this HD Remaster, my opinion on the game has really changed. I have less time than ever before, so the ability to create Gambits to help me get through fights, and there are a few other things about this edition I love. There are also “Zodiac” versions of older weapons in the game, that are cool, upgraded versions. There’s plenty to chase, unlock, and discover. So I’m going to offer up some things I love and things people ought to know, in case they don’t.

1. The Zodiac Spear: In Final Fantasy XII, there’s a hidden, incredibly weapon known as the Zodiac Spear. It’s the best in the vanilla release of the game. Now there are only two weapons better, but they are insanely hard to acquire – Great Trango and Seitengrat. In the original game, you could miss the Zodiac spear, by opening certain treasure chests. In Rabanastre, the Royal Palace of Rabanastre, Nalbina Dungeon, and Phon Coast – if you open particular chests in any of these dungeons, the Zodiac Spear is lost for the rest of that playthrough. If you don’t do this, the Necrohol of Naubidis will grant you the Zodiac Spear. There’s a second one in the game too, thankfully, which ignores this rule, but it’s not easy. Though there are better weapons to get now, the Zodiac Spear was moved to the Henne Mines (Special Charter Shaft) and is a very rare drop. The chest has a 1% drop chance but respawns, and after the respawn, it will always contain the spear.

2. Jobs: Sure, it can feel limiting to have one of these smaller License Boards, instead of the giant one, but personally, I like it better this way. Fortunately, if you decide you don’t like what you’ve done, you can go back to your Clan Hall in Rabanastre, and talk to Montblanc. He offers a reset so you can choose a different license board. If you decide you’re unhappy, just speak to him. Another fun edition is you can acquire a second Job! It’s not very far into the game either (about 8 or 9 hours in my personal playthrough). Once you complete the Tomb of Raithwall and acquire Belias, you can unlock a second Job for 30 LP. Now you can make some incredible combos, and create way more awesome opportunities. Want a Knight that can buff/heal himself with Bubble/Protectga? You’ve got it! Want a Marksman that also can cast Black Mage to take advantage of those Magic Boosting licenses? No problem!

3. Grind: Do it! There are incredibly easy places to grind, especially in the early going. Find a location where many of the same enemies spawn over and over, such as the Skeletons in the Lhusu Mines. You can run back and forth over a Bridge with Skeletons that spawn (in your first trip – the second trip there for Hunts/etc changes this and adds more stuff). Each time you kill an enemy of the same type back to back, you gain a Chain/Combo. The longer the chain, the better the items the mobs drop. This is especially important because you don’t receive gil for defeating most enemies. In the early going, gear can be very expensive, and this will make it significantly better. You can also farm Panther pelts in the Golmore Jungle (500 gil per!), and also get the Thief’s Glove to help you steal rare drops. Personally, I find a spot like the Lhusu Mines, or the Nam-Yensa Sandsea, and kill 50-60 of the Urutan-Yensa. They’re easy to kill, and ultimately will benefit you with some great stuff to sell.

FFXII The Zodiac Age - Xbox - LP

There’s a lot of grinding to do, but Gambits+Speed Up make life so much better.

Needs More Zodiac Stones: 4/5

This is an amazing release of Final Fantasy XII, and I’m so glad to be playing through it again. Some final helpful hints: Don’t be afraid to use the Speed-Up function, because grinding is boring, and combat can feel very slow in Final Fantasy XII. Don’t be ashamed to google up some good Gambits either – I certainly did. It will make your playtime far more enjoyable, and help you get through this incredible story. If you don’t like a character, for whatever reason, just don’t use them! I dropped Vaan from my party immediately, but I do keep up with his and the other non-party members License Boards and gear, just in case I need them for something. You should too! Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age is a game I already reviewed on PCPS4, and I’ll drop a link to it here. This version is just as great, without any of the things I grumbled about on the PC (such as it not remembering my Borderless Window settings/alt-tab issues, because it’s on console). It’s a beautiful game visually and in terms of the story. The soundtrack is gorgeous, the characters are interesting (except Vaan and Penelo). For every challenging aspect of the game, there’s a way to break it and make Final Fantasy XII overwhelmingly easy. That’s half the fun of the game though.

A.V.A: Dog Tag

A.V.A: Dog Tag is a competitive modern military first-person shooter built around diverse class-based strategies.

Business Model: Free-to-Play

Microtransactions: Yes, there are optional in-game purchases available.

Key Features:

Gunsmith: Customize your weapons with addons modifying attributes like damage, range, rate of fire, accuracy, and stability.

Kill or Be Killed: Work with your squadmates to find victory in Team Deathmatch, Demolition, or in a dogtag-collecting Hog mode.

Global Mercenary: Head to conflicts in diverse locations across the world.

Looking Out: Become the highest ranked player in a match and earn the ability to spot enemies with a pair of binoculars.

Clip That: Enjoy a suite of integrated esports options including a fully featured replay system.

Classes:

Rifleman – An all-around soldier comfortable in any situation. Utilizes strong and reliable weaponry like the AK47 and M4A1 assault rifles.
Pointman – Swift moving close-quarters-combatant and short-ranged weapons expert.
Sniper – Unmatched marksmen taking shelter at the edges of the battlefield. Makes up for a slow movement speed and low rate of fire with a high 1-hit-KO potential.

Brave Frontier: The Last Summoner

Brave Frontier: The Last Summoner is a 2D adventure role-playing game featuring gorgeous handcrafted visuals and massive turn-based battles. Rise up against tyranny and reveal the mystery behind a brand new fantasy world birthed a millennia after the original.

Business Model: Free-to-Play

Microtransactions: Yes, there are optional in-game purchases available.

Key Features:

Revengers: Build and train up an army of of the greatest warriors and mercenaries from across the land.

All Out War: Manage up to 25+ characters in hectic battles fought with synchronized attacks, brave skills, and spirit summons.

Fighting Technique: Mix and match nine diverse, upgradeable weapon professions complete with speciality abilities.

Open Challenge: Measure your might against rival players in the arena.

Forager Review

By Jaime Skelton (MissyS)

It’s been incredibly hard to tear myself away from Forager enough to write about it. Fifteen hours in, and my structures create a pleasant tick-tock-THUNK rhythm as they go about processing materials and crafting items. It’s the kind of self-made industrial music that makes you feel like being productive, makes you feel like you’re accomplishing something grand. I am a master of my little world of islands chained together by floating wooden bridges, and it feels like nothing will stop me from pushing until I have every last skill, every last feat, that the game currently has to offer.

That is to say, Forager is the most addictive game I have played in a number of years. Sure, I’ve dropped over 300 hours in Siralim 3 this year, and Forager promises only about 20-25 hours of content right now. But I can easily walk away from Siralim 3 any time I want, and often play it in smaller spurts throughout the day. Forager, on the other hand, has a way with gameplay loops that so seamlessly erases the accomplishment boundaries that normally give players a place to mentally ‘bookmark’ their game until the next play session. I don’t play Forager for an hour at a time; I play it for five.

Forager Review Screenshot

All of this visual noise is satisfying.

With that experience in mind, it’s been easy to see why Forager has gathered such an enthusiastic fan base, one that’s rapidly growing with its launch in mid-April. Dissecting its success, however, is a little trickier. It’s got so many great elements bundled together in a single package. It has cheeky NPCs and dialogue; cute, cool, and relatable cosmetics; dozens of feats to achieve; classic RPG elements; modern sandbox design; and a gameplay loop that is so neatly packaged that there’s rarely a moment that progress isn’t felt. It pulls inspiration from many titles, with elements likened to Stardew Valley, Fez, Terraria, Zelda, and Minecraft. It isn’t perfect, but its flaws are well hidden.

Forager Gameplay: It Never Ends

Forager is, at its core, a sandbox role-playing game. You begin as a lone explorer on a small, isolated island. You must gather the resources around you, then use them to build structures that help you process more resources and build more things. Gradually you expand these activities, as well as purchase access to more land. This land comes in the form of square island plots, which are sorted into five biomes. The location of the biomes on the map are pre-determined, and the islands hand-crafted. But while neither of these elements are random, the placement of each island is randomized, meaning that each play through may islands unlocked in different orders and placements.

Forager Review Screenshot

It’s like a quilt of choices.

As a sandbox style game, the choice of what to focus on and achieve first is up to the player. Much of this choice is powered by the skill system. There are 64 total skills to unlock, available on a square grid that begins in the center. These are sorted into four categories/quadrants: industrial, economic, magical, and farming. The player gains one skill point per level, and can unlock skills in any order they choose, so long as the skill is adjacent to one they have already unlocked – a radial skill system, as it were. As with any game, there are community recommended paths that make progress a little easier or more efficient, but picking without a guide isn’t really punishing. After all, you gain experience for everything.

Mining, foraging, combat – all are done with a very simple click, or click-and-hold. There’s no fancy abilities, although later on you will unlock magic rods that come with a point to aim system with an on-screen reticle. Movement is done with WASD, and you can hit the spacebar to roll-dodge (also a speed efficient way of moving). All of the keys can also be remapped, although most feel natural and easy to adapt to.

Forager Review Screenshot

Oddly, the museum didn’t want my poop. I mean, the poop I collected from animals. Not …

Besides gathering and crafting, there are several other goals to achieve. There’s a Stardew / Animal Crossing style museum to collect various objects and complete for rewards. NPCs are scattered across the islands that offer specific fetch quests for special rewards. There are several puzzles as well, scattered on the islands and in towers that host special challenges. There are also four dungeons, built similarly to Zelda dungeons with puzzles to solve, keys to find, and even secret rooms to discover. All of these grant even more tools, goodies, and power to the player. From humble beginnings, you can ascend to near godhood with powerful spells, potions, scrolls, and weapons at your disposal.
Forager Criticism: Plenty Good Enough, But. . .

If my addiction to Forager doesn’t make it clear enough, let me spell it out: Forager is a great game. Despite being an approximately 20 hour game (as of review), it is high value gameplay. If you’re not sure, you can even try the demo. I also have to point out that this is just the beginning for Forager: the game has a further roadmap that will add more quality of life updates, new content, and more. So long as HopFrog follows through, that game value is only going to increase over time.

Forager Review Screenshot

This piece of equipment is a painful grind… and it’s designed to help you grind.

The greatest flaw with Forager is content scaling. This is a two-edged problem. On one extreme, the power granted by gear becomes so great so fast, there is little challenge in combat. This leaves most of the game’s challenge in solving its puzzles and optimizing your lands. It’s scaled badly enough that you can one-shot bosses long before you get your final weapon. On the other extreme, the material and time grind shoots up exponentially for the last set of gear and weapons. This leads to a common scenario, where players have completed most content and are simply left to grind for the last gear and feats, something that far outweighs the quick five to ten minute grinds that characterize the earlier parts of the game.

Another criticism I have is the lack of motivation for choice in play through. While I’ve praised the game’s open-ended nature, there are some elements in which the player – should they wish to complete all the feats as required of them for completion – must follow a certain path. Alternate paths would add a great deal of replayability to the game, and give meaning and consequence to some choices (such as what you might do with those giant beets). This could also be used in elements such as gear (what if you don’t want a demonic weapon?), puzzle solving order, etc.

Forager Review Screenshot

These beets support you and know that you’re valid.

There are also more minor issues to consider. One (though certainly not minor for some people) is that the game heavily utilizes screen shake, yet there’s no way to turn it off. Early on this isn’t too bothersome, but the more you develop and get your personal factories running, the more you find the screen bumping and shaking constantly. Another is the lack of description or explanation of some items or buildings. For instance, I had no clue what either the Lighthouse or the Power Plant did, and ended up building them in locations where they were practically useless. Animals exist in the game, but there’s no real way to manage them or herd them into fenced areas to keep an eye on them. There’s also an issue in that the Steam page cites a couple of features, like raids and NPC combat assistance, that aren’t actually available in game yet.

Final Thoughts: Great (4/5)

Forager already has the makings of an indie cult favorite: accessibility, a bright memorable world, addictive and open-ended gameplay, and a small development team that sees the game as a passion project. It is absolutely charming, and despite its limited play time and replayability, is remarkably engaging for any who enjoy these style of friendly sandbox games. It’s a unique experience that blends a lot of great elements from great games, and it’s absolutely worth buying.

Forager Roadmap

On the same token, I must again caution that the game is both complete and incomplete, with a roadmap of features yet to be released. I believe that the game’s success and its passionate development team, paired with Humble Bundle, will see Forager grow into the foreseeable future. All the same, it’s important to purchase games based on what they are, and not what they might become. I’m looking forward to what the future holds.

Note: A game copy was provided for review purposes.

Forager Screenshots