Fire Emblem Echoes

You see, Fire Emblem is a tricky series. I have a love/hate relationship with tactic rpgs, I really enjoy moving my characters across a board and watch them unleash their power in a seemingly realistic scene, where everyone else is there too, like a turn based rpg but way more dynamic where positioning and a lot of other stuff like terrain and orientation matter too, the problem is that usually the rest of the usual jrpg experience is partially lost, as the whole dungeon exploring or walking around the world and visiting towns is missing, usually having more of a hub world or menu, were you can do some cool stuff like take sidequests and customize your party.

The thing is, Fire Emblem doesn't have much of that either, it's way more similar to more pure tactics/strategy games like advance wars (made by the same people woah), than other staple tactic rpgs like Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea/Nippon Ichi games.

You see, your army in FE is disposable, and the game is balanced so keeping everyone alive is a challenge, yet makes the characters more than generic units so you grow attached to them, that's a cool thing I guess, but it still functions pretty similar to advance wars, where your army is both disposable and renewable, but the units have set dynamics instead of the rpg element in FE; good units in Advance Wars are always good, in FE you have to level up and good units may not be good forever, and bad ones can rise above with proper care, so the style of managing your army is very different, the way the game actually proceeds, however, is very similar; use your units strengths against the weakness of the enemy while keeping them safe (also take advantage of terrain), archers kill Pegasus knights, anti air tanks kill planes, its basically the same thing.

Its not like that's bad, it's that that's all there is to it, like in advance wars, you press forward, map after map, there's dialogue yes, but its usually like just a simple visual novel where the story is just basic war stuff, FE is all about its characters, and if you don't like them (and you may well not like them, they are not really writing landmarks) there is almost nothing to enjoy aside from playing map after map, and if you actually expect something more like Disgaea or FFT, you will be disappointed (like me).

That's why FE Echoes, Shadows of Valentia (and Gaiden to an extent) is so nice and refreshing to me, even more after playing both Awakening and Birthright, it's a very different experience, it has a very different flavor, and it's definitely more of my taste.

It's not that hard to explain, SoV just has more to do than just do map after map, and more to the story than just the characters.

First of all, this is a remake, of a very old game, one that didn't age really well, and the map design and battles are simple, limited and repetitive compared to newer iterations in the franchise, this remake upgrades the most in the presentation side, graphics, the music, the characters, even the world are heavily revamped and the production values are incredible, yet the gameplay is mostly the same as it was before, so this makes for a very new yet very nostalgic experience, you have to be prepared to play something that is still a famicom game at its core.

The battles is nothing to write home about, its just very basic Fire Emblem, the speed of gaiden was pretty slow so the modern upgrades really make it go way smoother and the game is a bit rebalanced to make for a better experience, its not great, but it does the job very well. The game also has new support conversations between specific characters, you wont be marrying anyone with everyone but you get to know every character well enough, way better than in the original (and fully voiced too!).

What I want to talk about is everything else! and I can talk about it, because there's actually things to do other than to do map after map, there's villages!, there's dungeons!, there's world building! side quests! deeper forging! a-and grinding...

And that sort of stuff matters to me, a lot, it may not be what Fire Emblem really is about, but I feel like it is what jrpgs are about, the villages have people with things to say and needs to fulfill, they make the world feel real, the dungeons don't have much to do aside from running around, breaking stuff and fighting, but they all feel different, and help the world get richer too (if you pay attention).

It may seem like it's just generic stuff to some people, but I feel like its truly great, actually getting to know what the people in each country thinks of the other outside of "we are at warrrr", and there's really subtle details in the dungeons too, like seeing the bodies hanged in the cells in a creepy prison dungeon, watching the decay of the tombs in an underground graveyard, every dungeon has this tiny love for detail, it makes me smile.

The equipment system is really interesting too, because everyone can only have one item at the time (but it wont break, ever), and weapons can be upgraded at the cost of the valuable silver and golden marks (coins), you need to upgrade your weapons, but if you don't want to grind for hours you have to think wisely and ration what you get more naturally, and you have to really think what to give everybody, and even how to move around and swap items if needed, because sometimes you can't afford to have two of the same item, or there's only one in the game, period.

But this really isn't me rambling about "problems" in the Fire Emblem franchise, it's more about me wishing for a game franchise to be something it isn't, then it magically becomes true, it's almost surreal

Maybe I should just play Shining Force already...

Shantae

Yay Shantae! Shantae is great! right ? like, wait, for reals, is it great? is it good even? I mean, there are some terrible stuff in some of them and well...

you see, this is a weird topic, because I have all three Shantae games (fuck off, half genie hero) and I really love them, they are some really charming and interesting platformers, but at the same time there's a lot of dumb stuff and shortcomings, and they do keep the games from greatness, and conflict with makes the games special at the same time

Shantae can transform in different animals, this is the main exploration device because she's basically link from zelda 2 if not more useless, these animals are nice and mix well with the arabic tones but they totally break with the "metroidvania exploration" flow, you have to stop, do sexxxxy dance, and then you can overcome your obstacles

Let's also mention that the aspect ratio cripples the first game a lot and the second game is over so fast it feels almost like a demo thet let you play way(forward) more that it originally intended.

But then comes the third game, oh boy this game is beautiful, the music is the best from Virt ever (and I just love this man, damn), the graphics are like the second but a bit better and the flow is just great and and...., Shantae can't transform.

They ditched her most curious ability, and gave her generic metroidvania progression elements, like more jumps, shooting, dashing, its great and all, but its nothing special, but all this made the game better, the levels are now segmented in different islands but you can explore them freely so its less confusing, the game is longer than ever, the locales and moments are more, well, memorable, and the visual charm is intact and pumped up a notch, its still amazing.

what does this mean to the series as a whole though? were the dances and transformations useless? was it worth it to sell part of her character for gameplay?

the fact is that the Shantae games are good (Pirate's curse being the best one), but they're pretty much the top of that developer, I feel like Wayforward isn't as great as they may have make you believe. Talent was there obviously, some guys from there made shovel knight and its better than anything Wayforward has ever done.

Another game I've played form WF for example, is Alien Infestation for the ds, and its very similar to Shantae, its a 'good' flawed platformer, but even when Alien is a cool franchise it doesn't elevate the game to something it isn't like the charisma from Shantae does, so I'm relucant on how good can The Mummy Demastered truly be, but I'll see eventually I guess.

Maybe one day Shantae will receive the truly great game she deserves, in the meantime we can just watch her dance.

Gotcha Force

This one here is pretty sad, because its an amazing game hold back by its shortcomings 

This is one of many robot games, some have them big, like Armored Core or Zone of the Enders, some have then small like Medabots or Little Battlers eXperience, some are piloted, some are not, but all of them have in common that you usually have a nice deal of customization.

Gotcha force does something really different, you cant modify your "Borgs" at all, but you can collect them, there's like 200 of them, many are clones but there's a very big diversity of cool designs AND movesets, not all of them play the same, there's a plethora of different borg fighting styles, and damn do they play good, the game is extremely satisfying, the movements and attacks feel incredible and its just a blast to play

By that alone I could say that by sheer gameplay this game could be a solid 10/10, but from here on it only gets worse and worse.

This game takes a lot from pokemon, mostly the "gotta catch em all" mentality, but in practice, it does none of the best parts, there's no exploration or real rpg elements, the plot is terribly dull (even for a kiddie plot), and in the end, all you do is battle, and even when the combat and controls are that tight, it gets old fast with nothing else to look for in between, the music gets REALLY repetitive too, the voice acting is god awful and you can't turn it off.

So the story mode is a no-no, so lets have a blast playing multiplayer with friends, right ? too bad you have to play the story to get new Borgs to use (and getting them mostly at random), just great.

It could have been a masterpiece, and its one of the most important games of one of the many geniuses at Capcom, Atsuhi Tomita, and even when it has many problems, its well worth a play, just leave it when it starts to get tedious, don't let the bad parts ruin an extremely fun game.

(If you manage to find it because boy this game is rare and it has one heck of a cult following)

Secret of Mana

I do not like secret of mana.

The graphics are charming, the music is great, the game has a very cool and unique ring menu system and an upgradeable selection of cool weapons, this could make for one of the defining rpgs of the era, and some think it is, but I don't think so.

The problems start with the % bar, once you attack, you have to wait until your power goes back from 0 to 100% to be able to attack again, you can do anyway, but the damage will be pathetic, this makes for a tedious waiting in an action rpg, i have heard of people saying its "strategic", so you just don't "slash away everything", but its simply not fun, and the whole game contradicts those statements, its fundamentally flawed, why ? because of the magic system.

When you cast magic, the whole game freezes, you can basically pause the game to heal, or enchant your weapons, or just do damage, nothing is stopping your, and nothing is stopping the enemies or bosses for doing the same (and then they will spam you with unavoidable magic, talk about strategy..., just hit them when you can)

The combat is bland, in TloZ ALttP, Link encounters a variety of enemies who require different approaches and you power is never hindered, you just have to defeat the enemies, it feels natural and fun, The waiting adds nothing to the game, it waters it down, more when you realize most of your attacks make the enemies flinch, which in turn gives them invincibility time, and when you have 2 other party members (who btw, are useless and dumb unless you have friends controlling them) try to attack them too, only one can hit them, because they'll flinch when hit, so even with more people fighting is just as obtuse.

Maybe I'm being to hard with an old game, maybe it somehow gets better the more you progress (I just cant force myself to press on), but compared to other snes games that have aged like wine, like Chrono Trigger, Zelda and FFVI, its best to leave this one for the record, it just isn't that good.

And what a shame, I love that art with the tree, its just precious.

Lost kingdoms

Has anyone noticed how many card based rpgs the GC has ? baten kaitos..., that yugioh game that is more like tactics ogre than a tcg, phantasy star online 3 and, well Lost Kingdoms (Or Rune, i prefer calling it Rune).

Rune is a very enjoyable game, after playing dozens of long 40hours+ rpgs, i see it short stay as a good thing (you may differ), its a game that doesn't overstay its welcome, with a fun and interesting battle system that is really easy to grasp and simple but enjoyable common rpgs places to briefly explore.

You play as princess Katia, tasked to save the world from an evil fog that is filling it with evil monsters.

She cant really do anything herself, but her magic runestone lets her use the power of the cards, every card holding one of the very same monsters you fight, going from werewolves, lizardmen, orcs, goblins and fairies, you arsenal is made from the very enemy.

You have 3 card types, attack cards that summon the monster to do a quick attack (giving it a very action rpg feel with some slashes and thrusts and maybe some energy balls or lasers), assist type that summon a monster to the field to help you with attacks, buffs or spells with they own hp meter and stats, or summoning a very strong monster in a more old fashioned FF-like summon where they take your place to do a devastating attack.

You go into the levels with a deck of 30 cards, you must conserve your cards because if you run out of them you're completely defenseless (you don't lose your cards, they are just useless for the rest of the stage, and there are ways to get them back mid-stage) , you can also skip cards at the cost of losing them for the stage or use them as a finishing move to capture a weakened enemy monster (so there's some monster catching elements here too).

The game must have less than 20 main stages that are pretty short, usually having a simple objective like getting to the exit or beating a boss, the story is nothing to talk about really, bare bones and completely lacking but not awfully unbearable, if anything, this is a gameplay centric game, and it shows because on its 5 hour duration you mostly just enjoy the fighting and craft better decks with the cards you can find or buy, there's also some collectibles and side-stuff in the levels, but you cant return to them later so you better get them before beating them if you really want them.

Like a very nice stroll in the park, its a fun game with lots of charm, never the story gets in your way or make you drop the controller in frustration, its a very flawed game however, as it can feel overly generic and lackluster and filled with balancing issues and repetitive music (which i kinda enjoy, guilty pleasure of mine), not taking price into value, it can be forgiven considering how much of a simple fun it is, it should be remembered for that.

I might talk about Lost Kingdoms 2 at some point, I'm playing it at the moment and i would say its better in many ways, so i'll tell you how that goes later.

Severed

Now we'll be looking at Severed

Severed is a first person action adventure game, You play as a girl with a missing arm, trapped in a surreal world, looking for her missing family.

The game plays like an old school dungeon crawler, solving simple puzzles and going deeper and deeper into this desolate world, while fighting monster with a touch based combat system, highly reminiscent of fruit ninja, upgrading your character with the severed body parts of your enemies while looking for your missing family, and maybe meeting some other interesting characters.

This game is brimming with quality, the visuals are colorful, highly detailed, even disturbing at times, but always amazing to look at. The soundtrack is outstanding, with haunting pieces that flawlessly transition into a more aggressive tone when a fight starts. The story and lore are very pleasant, even when subtle, it's an important part of the game too, because it really sets the mood of the adventure, and gets you wanting to know what happens next.

The game was a blast to play, and i highly recommend it, but i do have some mixed feelings about it.
Taking a look back at Ninja Smasher, the game i talked about yesterday, the game just feels...empty.

While ninja smasher doesn't have near the same production values that severed has, it had some extras to keep you playing outside of the 4 hours the game's last, while Severed has pretty much none. The game has 2 difficulty modes, normal and easy (for the nintendo releases at least), and its achievements are just basic stuff you do while doing a 100% run, so when you complete the game in about 6 to 7 hours, there's no reason to come back again immediately, unless you do some sort of self imposed challenge.

That leaves me with a conflict, quantity or quality ? quality of course, but was it too hard for the devs to add some extra content ? speedruning options, harder difficulties, more interesting achievements, a sound test, a bestiary, or an infinite battle mode to test yourself, not to ask for even higher ground like different characters with different play styles or a post game. But of course, you paid for a game, and a game is what you get, but i can't help but feel like that with so many games filled with extras and stuff to do.

And for 15$, its harder recommend (harder, but still recommended), considering there are some good cheaper and longer games, and with a more casual appeal, in the end Severed is a fantastic game, I just wish i could play it more.

Ninja Smasher

Let's get started with a fun little game I just played

Ninja Smasher is a pretty nice action-exploration game that takes a lot from classics like Super Metroid and the Zelda series.

You play as a ninja on the mission to save a princess from an evil tengu king, theres no dialogue in the game, but it isnt needed anyway, in the other hand, the graphics are pretty simplistic and "retro" styled, the pixel art isnt even close to the likes of Shovel Knight, but they look decent and well made and the music is pretty standard and repetitive, but not ear jarring for the short 4 hours the game lasts.

Were the game really shines is on it's gameplay, the ninja controls pretty much flawlessly, After you kill an enemy on the air, you also get a tiny impulse, and soon after the first zone you get a doble jump ability, which recharges after you touch the floor or kill an enemy, so you can keep yourself in the air bouncing from enemy to enemy, clearing entire screens without even touching the floor. You also got a dash attack that can be used as long as you have a jump left, and some other abilities you get from completing zelda-like dungeons, like clinging on walls or throwing fire.

The game is not amazingly designed, but the level design is decent and not too frustrating or hard, with a pretty good difficulty curve that may get you killed once or twice in the last zones if you are not careful.

The game isnt anything spectacular, but something I admire is the efforth to make something enjoyable, the game isn't great on any aspect aside from the gameplay, but it doesn't do anything inherently wrong either, and the asking price isnt too high (3.99$).

Also the game also has 3 different playable characters with different starting weapons. The ninja robot has a short range machine gun that can shoot in 8 directions and dash like the ninja. The sickle chain ninja can attack like the normal ninja, and can grapple to enemies, walls or ceilings, even reaching zones you shouldnt before time. The female ninja moves faster, attacks faster, and can shoot long range knifes for minimal damage, but can't dash or grapple.

Lastly there's achievements too, related to the completion level of a run, the time, character and control scheme used (theres a touch based control mode after you finish the game, but its pretty mediocre). These are pretty simple and straight forward and there arent any on enemies killed or other feats like that, but it doesnt do any harm either, so it just keeps track of your speerunning abilities.

In any case, you're getting you money back with the surprising amount of content tighly packed in the game, so i recommend it a lot if you like action exploration games, or "metroidvanias", if you wish.

Welcome !

Welcome to Wondo's Den, a tiny videogame-filled dungeon were I shall talk about games I find most pleasant. If you enjoy your read be sure to leave feedback, its heavily appreaciated.

Do have in mind that the time between post can vary a lot because I'll write mostly on my free time and this place isn't nor will be monetized.

Im also lazy as sh*t, sorry.

Thank you very much.