Turok: Dinosaur Hunter [N64 & PC]

Turok is based on the comic of the same name, but from what I've read, both take place in different timelines; in the game here, Tal'Set whom has taken the role of Turok, protects the barrier between Earth and, where the events of the game take place, the Lost Lands, a place where time has no meaning and where a wide variety of creatures end up in.  The Campaigner has sent his troops around the Lost Lands to find the 8 pieces of the Chronoscepter, a cataclysmic weapon, to break the previously mentionned barrier and rule the universe, thus Turok sets off to defeat him and his goons along the way.  While the story isn't heavily inspired, I always liked the idea of vastly different creatures that hardly have any connections between themselves safe from a common cause, killing you, it kind of feels like there's a sense of a community amongst the enemies.

Turok is an FPS set in an open world of sorts; the game is divided into 8 worlds, and safe from the final hideout, you'll be collecting keys to unlock the next levels.  The game heavily encourages exploration to retrieve the keys, but also to find many goodies such as Ultra Healths and ammo, all while mowing through the many enemy hordes.  It's similar to Metroid Prime in that sense, which isn't a farfetched comparison since Iguana Entertainment and Retro Studios were founded by the same person, although, as a way to support my claims, I'd say that Turok does many things better than Metroid.

First up, the environments are huge and mostly open, which can lead to very interesting encounters, for example in the Ancient City, you could be fighting dudes at ground level around buildings, who are running towards you with their spears or blowguns, while others are firing you with their plasma rifles atop the roofs, things can get pretty tense when the game has the chance.  The vast levels also has many corners where special ammo and precious health pickups reside in, which is also a huge appeal of the level design.

You'll also be blowing apart dinosaurs, giant insects, magicians, and aliens with a vast array of primitve and futuristic weapons, such as an assault rifle, a bow, a rocket launcher, an automatic shotgun, and even more.  With a huge selection of weapons like this, it helps keep the action going; use the assault rifle to shoot the humanoids, then switch to the shotgun for the dinosaurs coming a bit too close, and then finish off the gorilla-like Pur-Lin with Tek Arrows or, even better, the one-hit kill arrows trick.

So because the environments are very open, and you'll be constantly switching weapons, Turok is incredibly fluid and rarely ever slows down to a crawl, compared to the likes of Metroid Prime, the latter heavily divided into smaller rooms.  Its other strength is that, while Turok wasn't maybe the only open world FPS, adventure game, many other games of the genre at the time were more geared towards finishing individual levels.

The jungle motif, albeit it doesn't lead to a lot of thematic variety, makes Turok distinct from other, more modern/futuristic shooters like Quake and Doom.  This is also further supported by the soundtrack mostly made of tribal drums, with the occasional electric guitars, further immersing you into this jungle filled with weird creatures.

Turok has several strengths, but it isn't devoid of issues.  I've been basing my points mostly from the most recent PC version, the Steam one, but since the game was originally made with the Nintendo 64 in mind, the open environments I've described above can be sometimes quite empty, even the Ancient City has a lot of flat, empty spaces, plus the game isn't really all that difficult, so there's still some room to cover.

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is still hella fun though, again its very fluid gameplay makes it fun to run through, and there are hardly any boring moments, safe from maybe the times you have to go back through a level to find a key you missed in your first runthrough.

My other point now is: What if we borrow this concept, and modernize it?

Imagine, I'm also a fan of the Serious Sam series, which is a series of very frantic shooters, so what if we would combine the frantic gameplay of Serious Sam, and put it in an open world, adventure game?  I really wish there would be more shooters using the same concepts as Turok, and so this is why I see this game in such high regards, it does things differently from most FPS games, even from those of today.

Dark Souls 2: Comparing it to DS1

Screw roman numbers by the way, they're annoying.

So for almost three months straight, I've been playing Dark Souls 2, three years late to the party.  We already know what this series is known for: DS is the hardest game ever made, praise the Sun, Crash Bandicoot's the lost link, my pride is small, yeah we've heard it already.  So, this isn't going to be a review, but rather I want to discuss the differences between Dark Souls 1 and its sequel here.

The first thing that has surprised me was the health system, the trusty Estus Flask was given to me with only an ounce of Sunny D left, the Emerald Herald must've drank it all.  Instead of using Humanity, which is gone now, to burn bonfires to increase uses by 5 up to 20, you have to find Flask Shards to give to the Herald, so it's an incentive to look around every crevices, but even then you can only have little more than a maximum of 10 uses, and compared to the first game, a fully buffed flask doesn't heal as much anymore.  As an alternative, you'll be relying more on Lifegems, found onto the many Hollows of Drangleic.  Furthermore, you remember how when you drank your Estus in DS1, you regained life in about a flash?  Well here, instead of that, life slowly refills in a set amount; this means that while you may get to drink it, a boss could very well just charge and kill you even seconds after you drank it, since your life didn't refilled fast enough.  So, this is actually an evolution from the first game, refilling health is even more harsh than before, and you have to be even more alert to the enemies' attack patterns to not die like a fool, I liked that.

Along this are other, smaller changes.  Remember as well durability, that thing that forced you to repair your armor and weapons on a few occasions?  This again has been heavily changed, weapons now only have a durability of around 40 or so, and the more precious rings are even lower than that.  So, stuff may break more often now, forcing you to take a different approach regarding your equipment.  There's also the new Power Stance, where you can use the weapons on both hands at the same time to increase further your damage output, more ring slots for more customization, and the covenants has some very interesting ideas like one is a dungeon master type of thing.

The layout of the world has been heavily changed; before, most of the environments were interconnected, but DS2 has more straight paths, all with their own sets of levels and lunatic bosses of course.  I prefered the first game's world layout since it encouraged finding hidden paths, I was surprised by how I came about to the back entrance of Blighttown, but DS2's isn't all that bad either, if anything there are still secrets to uncover, such as Darkdiver Grandahl's true purpose.

So yeah, these changes did pleased me, it made DS2 has its own distinct experience instead of being almost too similar to the first game, but still not too different, this is how you should make a sequel.

Sadly though, there were a few things that bothered me, that kept me from thinking I was having as much of a great as I did back in 2013; the original game blew me away because of its high difficulty that relied on swift gameplay, environments that, upon first glance, all made me say "wow", and crazed bestiary.  So, my expectations were obviously high, so this is kind of where Dark Souls 2 maybe didn't failed, but suffers.

The main thing that bothered me were the aesthetics, the game isn't generally ugly, but the environments just feel bland.  In comparison, DS1's Undead Burg is riddled with cramped houses, and when you go to the cemetary in Firelink Shrine, you can see another village down the clift; that game is just so full of details, you could tell there's a lot of life in this kingdom, or at least were.  In DS2 though, in the first fortress, I noticed just how bland the interiors were, there were little to no furniture, and the environments' backgrounds aren't as detailed, sometimes it's just plain mountains or even grey clifts.  Upon reaching the Gutter, you're greeted with... darkness; the point is to light all the sconces so to find your way and not backtrack in the wooden maze, but the first impression was very barebone I must say, and a lot of the areas kind of give that impression as well.  There are still areas that are impressive, for example No-Man's Wharf has a lot of houses with tables, bookcases, and resting Varangians inside, this is what I meant by having life in the world.  It's just that, in general, DS2 didn't impressed me as often as the previous game, there were fewer moments where I said "wow".

The other problem I have is the difficulty, it's been made much easier.  Now, another change that was made was the rolling, which not only you could mid-roll unless you go over 70% of your equip load, but I feel the invincibility frames are a bit more generous this time around.  I don't think this is a detriment to the game though, it did thought me to effectively roll, as before I was just blocking with a fat shield, and I still had to dodge in the proper direction in risk of diving into the back end of an enemy's swing.  I could say rolling was made better in this game.

No, what I meant by the game being easier is that the healing is too generous, the level design is kind of dull at times, and the bosses must've gotten too many hits to the head from the many visitors of Drangleic.  As I've said, you'll be relying on Lifegems when Estus uses run low, but a merchant will be selling these for dirt cheap, and you still find them frequently.  DS1 had Humanities and miracles which also healed, but your character had to stay glued to the ground for quite a while to use these means, which was unlikely to happen during bosses, but using the Lifegems are quick, and you can still move around a bit.  Furthermore, not only are there more types of healing items with other uses such as Crimson Waters, but bonfires are more frequent or at least less spread apart, so there are less areas that are long and arduous, thus less tense.

The level design has suffered quite a lot; what I liked about the first game was how cramped everything was, there was little to no useless space, multiple paths below and above, thus more opportunities for enemies to ambush you in various ways.  In DS2 however, it seems they've opted for more open and flatter environments; I understand that you're often outside, but it removes quite a lot from the challenge when you can circle freely around most enemies.

As for the bosses, as I've said they're kind of dumb this time around, for example the Freja fires an heavily telegraphed laser attack, always starting from its right, so you simply have to run to its left.  The Flexile Sentry, which is an anthromorphic lizard with two torsos looking at opposite ends, you'd think that it'd be unlikely to slip by its other side as they'd attack at the same time, but not at all, only one of the torsos attack at a time, so you can easily trigger one of the sides and attack its other end.  The Lost Sinner, which is one that has a Great Soul, is just a larger humanoid with a big sword, nothing too special safe from that you could light the room to lock on her better as she jumps.  Meh.

There's also the problem that the bestiary is not as interesting as before, you fight less demons, and more humanoids with generally bland armor.  The bosses also suffer, given there are many more than there were in DS1, but there wasn't as many things as cool as, say, the Gaping Dragon or even the memorable duo Ornstein & Smough with their sick armor sets.

Still though, is Dark Souls 2 a bad game?  No, not at all.  I would be lying if I'd say I wasn't the least bit disappointed, but I've never played any other games like this series; maybe it's just me, but games where you play as knights, like Skyrim which I've played a month prior, felt like I was controlling a brick, it's no fun.  DS2 on the other hand still has very fluid gameplay, and even if it's generally easier, it's never unbearably slow, no that would be the absolute worst.  I like this series because you need good reflexes to counterattack with the right timing, and it's an interesting world to be immersed in.

DS2's narrative doesn't directly take upon the first game, but rather there are obscure references to it, such as "people say that the name Havel is that of a kingdom ruined by a barbaric war", I like that, it almost makes playing the two games in backward order interesting.  Like the first game, most of the lore lies in item descriptions, which are full of details and you have to put the pieces together, this is such a fun narrative that doesn't impede on the gameplay, I've seen no other games do that.

I may have issues with the gameplay, but not only is it at least a distinct experience from the first game, but it still has its hard moments, such as the Smelter Demon boss, and especially in the DLCs which are surprisingly good, better than the best the vanilla game offers.

2017/08/22 Edit: Recomposed some of my points better, and gotta remember that the mobile's view with the images can be weird.

Umihara Kawase [SFC]

For my first, proper post, I'll be talking about the first in my favorite platformer series, Umihara Kawase, originally for Super Famicom.  Despite the publicity it's been getting recently, the series remained rather obscure, heck if I'm not mistaken, I'm the only one who has done 100% let's plays of the first and third game.  The game gained a cult following owing to its swinging mechanics, crushing difficulty, and surreal art style.

The gameplay relies on a fishing hook which latches onto any hard surfaces like a grappling hook, and you can shorten and extend the line by holding down and up on the d-pad.  Comparisons has been made with Bionic Commando, but the two don't work the same way; the line has rubbery physics which is largely capable of propelling Umihara in crazy angles.  This is in part what makes the difficulty, and is the main appeal of the series, you need to master the technique of pendulum-like swings and release the button at the right timing to get accross large gaps, scale up walls, and even take shortcuts.

The levels are riddled with murderous, giant fish, as Umihara is searching for ingredients for making sushi, quite the dedicated chef.  While they can be stunned by hooking onto them, and can be reeled into the backpack to defeat them permanently, most can instant-kill you by contact, and they can be located in places causing big hindrances, such as the eels throwing nuts at you, stunning you off the edge, and the snails crawling around key platforms, so this again means you need to master the fishing hook to properly avoid their attacks.  Defeating them may make more fish to spawn randomly, but sometimes they may appear right in your face, which is kind of lame right here.  There are even multiple levels where the key is to NOT defeat enemies, otherwise clams have the room to spawn in, they are easily the worst enemies in the game, even the sharks won't approach them.  There are also boss fights, but a few of them are about dodging an even bigger enemy until the path is cleared, which I'd say is not an highlight since it gets kind of tedious.

Most of the levels have a squarish design, and while they may have a linear path, they can be approached in any ways you may imagine.  Above is Field 10; you start on the lower left, the door to the right, and there are multiple ladders to take, with enemies to worry about, but what I always do is grabbing onto the underside of the platforms above the water, skipping all of the above, and in about 10 seconds, reach for the door.  The game really doesn't care which method you take, all for the better, it just shows how much depth the gameplay has.

The game is set in an expansive labyrinth of sort; it's not that you can take a wrong turn and go in circles, but instead a good portion of the levels have multiple doors (level exits) to take, leading to different levels.  You always boot the game in Field 0, with 10 lives, and you'll need all of them as the levels become even harder, and a game over puts you back at the beginning.  There are extra lives to collect, but the multiple paths help diversify your playthroughs, and while they may cross at certain levels, you always have a mean towards one of the three main endings, but taking an easy-to-reach door may prep you for a much more arduous level.

While I don't mind that setup in concept, and I do like the survival aspect, this mechanic still makes it so that you have to redo the same levels multiple times if you wish to see everything in the game.  The first few levels are quickly done with practice, but the worst offender has to be the Tadpole in Field 8, this boss just takes so long to beat as you need to survive for about 3 minutes, and many of the levels has you take that specific path.

As it may have been insinuated by the above statements, there are no way to save your progress.  The difficulty is not the problem, but rather, like Kid Chameleon on Genesis, part of the fun is trying to see every levels since they become even crazier as you go on, but since there are no means to record them, it's kind of a wasted opportunity.  Still though, it's perfectly playable the way it is.

As for what I previously said about "games having their own distinct identity", not only does Umihara Kawase has super fun physics to master, but the aesthetics are very unique; this is a case where, if I would see a screenshot even without the characters, I could say "I know what this is from".  Already the whole water theme with the freshwater and salt water fish and backgrounds representing either a riverbank or a port appeal to me, but the levels have weird features like giant vegetables, school supplies, and the checkered platforms.  I've been told that the cheerful soundtrack pairing with the theme gets redundant at times, but there were a good couple of songs that stuck to me.  Compared to the many Nintendo platformers of the time, this is such a breath of fresh air to see something as wildly different as this.

Umihara Kawase also has a replay feature where you can record your best performances, and albeit the memory was limited, from what I've heard, it was quite a novelty back in the day.

The Steam version expands upon the game; first, there's a practice mode, where you can play any of the levels you've unlocked, showcasing every doors and backpacks found.  It still means you have to go through the game normally to unlock them, but this is what I meant by getting the most out of the game.  The replay feature also has been simplified, there's more room to save drafts, and you can even upload them in the Workshop.

Another of Umihara Kawase's appeal is its speedcentric elements, with the replay feature it encourages you to go for the best times in each levels, and doors do have their own best times.  Seeing the performance of veterans is quite a sight to behold.

Really, this game deserves even more love than it's already getting, its gameplay is very unique in itself, and the challenge is surely there.  It's a game requiring a lot of practice, but the commitment is well worth it.

If it wasn't for its cult following, it could've just faded in obscurity.  There was even a point where the trilogy on Steam got de-listed, only 2-3 months after release, due to Agatsuma Entertainment having closed its doors.  These games eventually came back, thanks to Degica, but it's a reminder that, in this era of downloadable games, something could very well just go away, any day, and it's all the more reason why I'd keep on promoting these types of games.


I admit this was quite lengthy, but I truly do care about this game, might as well do a good first article about it.

Source
Field map by Naulahauta: http://kawasefan.net/umihara-kawase-field-maps

Neon's first step into blogging

So yeah, it's my first time doing that think called blogging, so to try it out for once.  This blog's main goal is mostly for me to brainstorm and put into words stuff about games I've been playing, wether it's a review, or an analysis of its game design.  I try to showcase more obscure or at least underrated games which have interesting ideas and may deserve more praise.  There isn't really a clear agenda, I mostly want to talk about games I like or loathe.

As for I, I'm a Canadian born from the north-west, french portion of NB (we call ourselves brayons), and I've grown with mostly the Nintendo consoles.  One of my main hobbies is not only gaming, but specifically game design, I've been writing for quite a few years multiple game ideas of mine, called "game bibles", as I wish to create my own games at some point, it's truly something I care about.

My explanation of game design may sound vague, but basically a game isn't just "fun", there are many elements that differentiate the "good" games to the truly outstanding ones.  What I consider great games are those which have their own distinct identity, an unique art style and/or stellar gameplay.

I find that a lot of games nowadays borrow the same ideas; realistic graphics, generic anime style, A to B platformers, shooters, etc.  If games follow these design tropes, they may not be automatically bad, but video games is a medium that had always encouraged imagination, and I feel that the stellar titles I've described above are fewer and far between; it has struck to me as I've realized that many of my preferred titles are usually several years old.

Still, that mentality didn't deviate from my passion, in fact it made me appreciate even more the games I already loved, understanding better their design, and it even helps me craft better games.  So yeah, I'll try to explain the best I can these ideas.

I can fluently speak English and French, so you may interact with me in either ways, I chose English as my main here because it's more "universal".

Other links:
YouTube (mostly in French): https://www.youtube.com/user/NeonHenchman
Twitter (heavily NSFW and gross): https://twitter.com/Neon_Henchman