I'm not buying games on sale this year

I love shopping for videogame sales, and it's sort of fun to "hold out" on buying a game until the price drops. I have bought and played some cool games from bundles and oh-my-gosh-it's-only-$1-sales, but now I have a giant library of unplayed games, many of which I don't feel excited to play.

If I were more disciplined, I'd resolve not to buy any more games until I've played more of the ones I already own. But instead, I'm going to restrict myself to paying full price for any new videogames I want (and yeah, I'm trying to buy fewer games in general too). If I buy a game for full price, then I'll feel more invested in playing it and maybe writing about it (how would you feel if you never played a game you paid $1 for? $20? $40?). Of course, I have the luxury of being a rich woman who can afford to buy games at full price too. And if the "thrill" of getting a good deal is gone, my videogame shopping can be more purposeful.

I'm also sort-of trying to play certain games before buying certain other ones. So here are the games I'm most looking forward to playing more of this year:

The Talos Principle - I love looking at this game, I feel smart when I manage to solve its puzzles, and the story is enough assassin's-creed-y to be exciting, but not so much that I feel cheezed out... yet, anyway. 

Undertale - I love the soundtrack for this game. I'm just stuck on the final boss fight the first time through--I did a pacifist run not realizing that was a new game+ thing? So it's really hard :-(. I love how the choice to kill or interact with enemies was more meaningful in this game. I just really suck at dodging stuff. 

Dragon Age 2 - When I play this game I feel like I don't want to rush through it to be "done" with it. Sure, I wish I could just skip all the combat and cut to the conversations, but sometimes the combat is narratively interesting too--like when you do the companion quest for the dwarf guy and he goes it alone, slaying guards left and right with his crossbow, only to find his brother and have him grovel before him... but oh wait, that's now how it happened! I also want to finish this game before playing Inquisition because I'm methodical like that.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask - great for if I can only get intervals of a few minutes to play something between entertaining my daughter. After I beat this one I'll have played all the Professor Layton games for the DS and 3DS, which I consider some sort of achievement, I guess. 

Steins; Gate - I'm at least halfway through this visual novel, and I've been sticking it out because I've heard so many great things about it. The SF elements are very interesting, but the internet-bro characters are really annoying (but I'm hoping the main character has some cool explanation for his weird personality). After I play this one I'll let myself play either Norn 9 or Code:Realize. I played through Amnesia (an otome VN) which I liked pretty well, although some of the consequences of conversation choices were frustratingly opaque. 

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer - sometimes I just want a break from frenetic games where the world is ending. When that happens I design houses for adorable animals. I love the Animal Crossing community on Tumblr--I like posting designs there occasionally. Accessible, shareable pixel art! I don't really ever plan on "beating" this game, it's just always there for me. :-)

Ni no Kuni is bringing the airship back

"I want an airship in my game. Not an airship where you just select where you want to go, but one you can actually move around the world in." This was my husband's one stipulation about what an RPG should have. After a bit of discussion, I wasn't sure if such a game existed this-gen (although I think Tales of the Abyss has one). I remember googling "airship JRPG" to try to find a JRPG with whole-world exploration, and not being able to find one (it's not the most searchable topic... so please comment with your favorite explorable JRPGs).

So you can imagine how we've been enjoying Ni no Kuni, the JRPG that incorporates some aspects of old-school design (including a way to explore the world aerially), while at the same time making the genre highly accessible.

And by "accessible," I mean, "a good introduction to JRPGs for this generation." Some JRPGs get difficult very quickly, and require strategies that a 10-year-old might not think of. I'm glad we have games that are difficult, but I still appreciate games that are made with children and adults in mind; Ni no Kuni does this excellently. The pun-filled "pieces of art" quests might go over a few kids' heads, but they made me chuckle. I don't mind that Drippy always tells me how to beat a boss, and I've enjoyed playing on easy to just enjoy the exploration and story.

Being able to explore a world is key to my enjoyment of an RPG. In some games the amount of possible exploration is overwhelming (like Oblivion), but I'd prefer that to a railroaded course like in FFXIII. Repeatable battles still strike me as a way to extend the "fun" content of exploring and story-reading, which makes me wonder if I'd like an RPG that completely got rid of combat (I probably would; I really enjoyed To the Moon).

Combat in Ni no Kuni is what has bothered me the most. In an effort to make the game easy for children to understand, the AI controls are very minimal (but exist!). It's very common for an ally to dump all their MP out on a battle they could have won using only one ability (the alternative is "no abilities"). It's probably a sign that I've matured in my RPG strategies; I doubt I would have cared about ally AI as a teenager.

The lack of AI control is completely forgivable given how well-written and gorgeous the art is. The creatures you fight have funny names like in Pokemon--one chick creature is a "Teeny Bopper" while a cat creature is a "Purrloiner." Yes, it's that kind of humor.




















Have you been enjoying Ni No Kuni? I-I think you would probably like it.

Summer videogames!

Hello everyone! In gaming I find I tend to cycle between playing lots of games and then not playing games and writing about them a lot. Right now I've been playing lots of games! So here's some games I've been playing in the last month I've decided to start an Amazon affiliate* account, so many links will be to Amazon. Steam has good deals too! :-) Most indie games aren't sold on Amazon, but I'll still talk about them, cause they're also awesome:

Pro Games
Psychonauts -You explore other people's brains in this action RPG from 2005. I love the collection and exploration aspects. Getting different abilities and trying them out in the world is fun too! I want to make a backpack like Rasputin's. The PC port is terrible, but my handy USB xbox controller fixed this problem. There's a lot of superfans of this game, which kind of turned me off for a while, but then a game scriptwriter, Rhianna Pratchett said it was like her favorite game ever.

Catherine -A puzzle/dating sim... I really like the moving-block puzzles, but I find the boss levels kind of ugly and unfun. I kind of wish the story were more upbeat (it's about a man cheating on his girlfriend), but at least it's weird enough to be unpredictable, and the anime cutscenes look good too.

Persona 4 Arena -I suck at fighting games, but luckily visual novel mode (yep! visual novel + a few fights) is easy enough for even my frenzied button-mashing. Some of the writing is a little lame but the fighting system has plenty of depth if I'm willing to put in the time to learn it (I might not be). I admit that I just got this game because I want to be in on all the Persona fandom... though I have yet to beat Persona 3 (I'm in September now!).

Sound Shapes -Really cute rhythm platformer for the Vita. Okay, you don't really have to have any sense of rhythm to play it (mostly timing... does that count as different?), but it's themed around collecting notes in a song that plays as you play. You can build your own levels too! Reminds me a little of Mutant Space Blobs Attack only more arty.

Indie Games
Long Live the Queen -A time management stat-cruncher! I loved the idea but I found it wasn't as flexible as Princess Maker 2 because it had kind of a story. I really liked how stats affects how you reacted to things, and how some of the classes (like foreign policy, a subcategory of history) seemed to be... really relevant for a queen-in-training. I might give it another go; the mood bonus system for learning actually requires quite a bit of planning.

The Sea Will Claim Everything -I've just been playing the generous demo but the free The Fabulous Screech will give you a good idea of the unique art style, point-and-click mechanics, and zany, Pratchett-like humor in a short, browser-based game. I love reading through the book names for gems like The Importance of Puns in the Release of Magical Energies, by Magister Erasmus of Zauberberg and The Voyage of the Darwin by Peter S. Beagle. Lana Polansky has played more of it and wrote a review praising its slower pace and political commentary.

Run -This experimental game has a soundtrack that's still running through my head! The story is a little weird, but I like that developers are messing around with how minigames can connect to each other.

What games are you playing this summer? Did you really hate a game I liked? Let me know in the comments!

*The deal with Amazon Affiliate links is that if you click an affiliate link, I'll get a 4% commission of anything you buy in the next 24 hours. I have no idea if it will make me any money, but I think it's worth a shot.

My experience with Heavy Rain

When I played Heavy Rain for the first time, I felt impressed by the actual role-playing aspect. Oh, I'm a father, I should help with the groceries. I even got nervous when I couldn't find the dinner plates. This went on, except I grew frustrated by the limitations of the game. The game wouldn't let me leave a house to avoid killing a guy. I couldn't role play too far out of character; that option wasn't given.

I can chalk up lack of choices to realistic game limitations (you can only have so many branches), but the game did something I found unforgivable. My characters made decisions off-screen, without my knowledge. I felt this betrayed some unwritten rule of adventure/role-playing games: that when you play this game, your character's world is what you make for them. The ending is kind of like if you turned on a Zelda game and suddenly Link had betrayed Zelda and the world has ended. That just doesn't happen. I appreciate that the developers are trying to change what games can be, but I didn't feel that it was fun.

Part of the game asks how far I'm willing to go for someone I love. Well, my character will do anything in a virtual world where he doesn't get caught! Everything looks real, yet it's still in this weird game universe where you can do crazy things and not get in trouble. So the question of what I'm willing to do for someone I love turns into this meaningless quest-fulfillment (especially when I'm screaming inside, "go to the police, dumbbutt!"). I cannot deny the game's ability to creep me out or get me tense, but upon further reflection, my intense emotional reactions seem stupid.

Lastly, I was annoyed at how they seemed to try to fit every adult piece of content they could into this game. I guess I get tired of "gritty" games after a while; all the shooting, illegal drugs, swearing, and that one scene with the creepy guy were not my cup of tea. I know, it was rated M, what did I expect? I think I just associate "mature" with artful discussion of adult matters and not just reveling in them, but I think that most M-rated games are not really concerned with a serious discussion of adult issues. I wonder: if the game had been more carefree would I have enjoyed it more?