Game Quicky: Baba Is You (Switch) ~ Review Is Win

Official website – Nintendo.com subsite

So, what if a game developer falls in love with the game he created for a game jam? Well, some of those developers make their game into a fully-fledged game like the developer behind Baba is You. Arvi Teikari created the basic concept for this game for a Game Jam. The Jam version is free, but for a more expanded version, you have to pay around 15 dollars. But, is this puzzle game worth your time or was it better as a Jam Game? Let’s take a first impression and quick look at the game that has been released on PC and Switch. The version I’m reviewing is the Switch version. 

The good

One of the main reasons I’m writing a review for this game in my game quicky style is because this game doesn’t have a story. So, I have less to critique which makes for a shorter article. But, why am I mentioning this with the good points? Well, that’s simple. The lack of a story in this game is actually a rather enjoyable thing.

Since this game is a really meta puzzle game, writing a story for this game would be a huge hindrance. It would be too silly or it would take itself too seriously. Also, it puts the focus on the unique gameplay of the game and that’s all that matters.

The gameplay of this game is extremely addictive. The idea of this game is that you finish the level by hitting the object that “Is Win”. So, how do you that? Well, by manipulating almost everything in the level. You can see the basic idea at work in the gif I attached to this article (source: official website of the game).

You see “Pillar is Push”, so that means that you can push around the pillar. Off-screen, there is “Water is Sink”, so you sink/die when you touch the water. Now, something that’s unique is that the text can also be moved. So, you can make: “Pillar is You” as well. And that means that you control both Baba and the pillar.

As long as you make real sentences, the game will act accordingly. Now, there is no real tutorial in the game but the game is divided into sections. The first few stages of a level are introductory levels to the mechanics that the level is going to use. And, these training levels are needed since this game can get pretty challenging.

Mark Brown from Game Maker’s Toolkit explained how smart this game is in his video where he praised this game as his most innovative game of 2019. And I have to agree, this game challenges the most veteran players to finish each level. And sometimes the level is stupidly simple while you look over the solution multiple times. It’s such a rewarding feeling when you finally beat a stage that you were stuck on for so long. Something I enjoyed quite a lot was when a friend and I were figuring out puzzles together. Discussing strategies and trying to figure out how each puzzle worked.

Now, I can keep praising the gameplay for a long time here. But, take it from me. If you enjoy puzzle games or great brain teasers, this is the game for you. But is the rest of the game any good? In the visuals department, I can only give you one answer and that’s yes!

Compared to the Game Jam build, this game got a visual overhaul. From a cuter main character to better animations. It’s all here. I personally think that Baba is a sort of white rabbit/cat hybrid animal. In this version, the improved animations give the player more information instead of the rather static look of the original game.

There are barely any sound effects in the game. But, that’s no big issue. Since it would destroy the atmosphere of the game if the developer added sound effects for the calm water or lava. It would be a bit too much. The music, on the other hand, is amazing. It’s rather calming and soothing to listen too. It’s a trance soundtrack that relaxes you to think outside of the box to find the answer more easily.

Controlling this game is also a blast. I rarely had any issues with the controls. The fact that you only need a few buttons makes the game easy to understand. All you need to know is how to move Baba, how to undo an action or how to wait. You can press the “A” button to wait for an object to either teleport, move, jump… while you are standing still.

Now, yes, I’m praising this game to the moon and back. But, does that mean it’s flawless? Sadly enough, no. I have a few things that I have to mention in my negatives section. 😦

The bad

Now, the game makes a few minor mistakes that might be called nitpicks. First of all, there is something I really dislike about the UI. You are stuck to the level layout. That means that you can’t move freely over the screen when selecting levels. This can make navigating in the level select a bit tricky.

You get a flower when you finish a level in a stage. Whenever you finished around 6 stages in a level, you can go on to the next level. But sometimes, you earn sun symbols. And it’s never clear when you are going to win which symbol. This is extremely annoying when you are only one sun-symbol removed from opening that one gate that’s blocking that one world.

Now, since when is the “B” button a select button? In almost every game I play, the “B” button is a cancel button. Not in this game, it’s a selection button. My brain is so hardwired to press B to go back to the world map, I get extremely confused when I suddenly enter a level or select an option that I didn’t want to select.

Something that I think would be great is a sort of hint system. This game could have used a help system where the user could unlock a hint after a certain amount of time. Sadly enough, you are on your own in this game. Oh well, thankfully there are walkthroughs when I really want to know the solution to one level.

And yes, that are all the negatives of this game. So, let’s wrap this article up and let’s go to the conclusion.

Conclusion

I can totally understand that this game isn’t for everybody. This game is for people who really enjoy solving brain-melting puzzles or extremely unique indie games. The game is extremely charming and enjoyable. The addictiveness of this game has that one more try mentality. And as soon as you find the solution, you get that rush of adrenaline.

I really meant what I said in my tweet in January. I think there are huge chances that this game will be in my top 10 games of 2020 list. I enjoyed my time with the game, the visuals, the soundtrack, and the gameplay that much.

So, give this game a try! It’s totally worth your time in my opinion. And not only that, 10% of the game’s profits go to charity which is an extremely nice move of the developer. Even for an indie developer.

There are a few minor things that this game does wrong but honestly, I think they can be fixed with a patch or a feature update easily. Especially the “B” button thing since I found that extremely annoying.

And with that said, I think I have said everything about this game I wanted to say. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I hope you have a great rest of your day and take care!

Score: 100/100

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First Impression: Dragon Quest VIII – Journey of the Cursed King (PS2) ~ Let’s Go Forward!

Wikipedia entry

So, I have something to admit, I actually wanted to talk about this game last summer. But, I wrote about other games and this game got on my “to review” list. Let’s fix that today. Let’s talk about the journey of the cursed king. A journey I own on two different systems. Yes, this game got a remake for the 3DS. But, I haven’t played a lot of the 3DS remake, so I’m going to look at the PS2 version. Oh, if you are wondering what the differences are between this version and the 3DS remake, RPGSite.net wrote a great piece about it. In any case, that’s enough rambling. Let’s get this first impression started since I haven’t beaten the whole game. For this review, I am give or take 25% through the story. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the article and/or the game.

Direct story

In most RPG’s I played, the story mostly starts with a peaceful setting and then something big happens and the world needs to be saved. Yet, this story starts out a bit more “humble”.

You start looking for a jester that cursed the king and the princess into a monster and a horse. If you want to know what happened before that, you have to read the manual. So far, the story is very enjoyable. The writing is great and the voice acting is really great. But for a better analysis of the story, I think I have to get further into the game.

The gameplay of this game is a good but it has some flaws. In this game, there are random encounters. In some cases, there is an overkill of random encounters. I had several times where each 5 to 10 steps I took, got me in a random battle. Thankfully, the 3DS version fixes this with showing the enemies in the overworld so you can avoid them if you want.

Yet, it isn’t a great idea to avoid them at all, at least all the time. Since not only does the game keeps a counter with how many times you fled a battle, you will need all the experience you can get. This game can be quite hard and you will have to grind if you want to survive.

So, you will have to get yourself a lot of healing items before you can fight bosses and enter into caves. I recommend that you at least raise 2-3 levels before you venture into a new area. Also, explore each area as much as you can. Since there are a lot of side quests that might help you on your journey and make the grinding less repetitive.

Orchestral

I want to touch upon a few things that could have improved the game. I seriously miss a run button. Sometimes, I feel that you walk so slow and getting somewhere takes a bit too long.

Another thing that I don’t really like about this game is the inventory system. For certain tasks, it takes too many steps to preform. Like moving an item from the central inventory to a characters inventory. At first, I wasn’t a big fan of the split inventories but after a while, I learned to appriciate it. It adds realism into the game, since you can give certain characters items to help them in battle, like your allies are carrying a bit of the resources on your journey. But it also adds a layer of strategy. To whom do you give healing items and such.

Something that didn’t need any improvement is the soundtrack. Why is the soundtrack in this game so good? I mean, running around the open fields exploring the world with an amazing orchestral soundtrack, what’s not to love. On top of that, visually, this game looks amazing. I had several times that I just stopped moving and looked around. This game looks amazing and still holds up today.

You venture through various locations that each have an unique feel. Not only that, in some cases, you can play as the pet mouse of the main character and let it run around in buildings to open locked doors or to get more information about a certain quest.

If you have forgotten what your main quest was, you can always ask your team mates when you press the “Start” button. With this, I think it’s a great time to talk about the controls. They are great, the only complaint I have is that the menu button isn’t the start button. But, this nitpick might be because my brain is hardwired by handheld games.

Spoiled by 3DS

So far, I’m enjoying myself with this game a whole lot. Like I said, this game looks and sounds amazing. If you have any doubt, I also mean the animations too, they are great as well.

The only thing I lack sometimes is a sort of ingame map. Maybe I have looked over it, but there isn’t any map to speak off. I’m somebody who easily gets distracted and looses their way easily. So, I use the in-game map to navigate. Also, I’m bad in remembering names like street names, town names and things like that. It’s so bad sometimes that I forget the streetnames of the neighbouring streets of the street I live at. Yeah. So, an in-game map with names would be so lovely. That’s why I “cheat” sometimes and have an overworld map open on my tablet if I need to take a quick look at it. But only the overworld map.

Like I said various times in this first impression, I think that this game is great but the 3DS improved on a lot of things. It also added additional content. But, why don’t I play it on the 3DS then? Well, for two reasons. My first reason is that I owned this game on PS2 first and I gotten to far and didn’t want to restart. And my second reason is that I think this game looks a bit better on a bigger screen than the 3DS screen.

So far, this game has a high score in my book. But, due to the high random encounter rate, the need for griding and the sometimes slow flow of the game; I have to get in the right mindset but I can play this game. But if I do play the game, I have play sessions that clock in at 3 hours or more each time I boot this game up. That’s why I haven’t gotten too far in this game in over a year. According to some sources, you can get over 100 hours of gameplay out of this game, so I have a long away ahead of me if I want to complete this game.

That’s everything I wanted to say about this game for now. If I ever beat this game, I will write a review about it. But for now, I have to thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing this. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impression: Minecraft Story Mode (Android) ~ Tappin’ That Adventure, yo!

Official website

Back in 2015, when I was at Minecon, I saw the trailer for Minecraft Story Mode. I actually attended the panel as well. And truth to be told, the game didn’t interest me at all. Which is really strange since I enjoy adventure games a whole lot, but this game didn’t grab my interest enough for me to put it onto my “to play” list. But in November 2016, I bought this game in a sale on the Android store. And now, I have to explain why it made it on the list of best games I played in 2016 as an honorable mention… So, let’s dive right into my first impressions of this game. When writing this article, I’m halfway into episode 4. There are 8 in total. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

This isn’t Minecraft!

For those wondering, I’m playing this game on my Asus ZenPad 8S. So, yeah. In any case, let’s talk about the story as spoiler free as possible.

At the start of the game, you get to choose how your character looks and the gender. Right after that, you are thrown into the game. In this game, you go to a building competition to decide who goes to EnderCon. But, it doesn’t take long before something horrible happens. A monster gets loose that tries to destroy the world.

Before I take a better look at the story, I have to say, that I find it sad that people bash the story and the game because “it isn’t Minecraft”.  Minecraft is a sandbox game, a game where you have full control of the situation. But that’s a rant for another time.

This story is made more interesting thanks to the subplots that are going on. Since for most of the story that big monster “takes a backseat”. The whole story is written pretty well in my opinion. I enjoy how the dynamic works between all the characters. And how each action you take, changes the dialogue of the game. And something I truly like is that at certain points, the story branches off. Like you could choose between two heroes you could save, and your start of the next episode would be totally different. But that’s to be expected with a TellTale game.

Something that makes the writing even more interesting to me is that the developers made an interesting attempt into trying to implement all the subcultures of Minecraft into one story. The Redstoners, YouTubers, Builders, Adventures… they are all present in some way in the game.

About the story, there is one thing that I think would improve the game, in my opinion, is a sort of skip button or speed up button. I think that would be a great option for people who are playing through an episode again.

Sit through this game

Something I saw other people be disappointed with is the fact that this game has way less gameplay than Minecraft. But, that isn’t a bad thing in my eyes. That isn’t the main focus of this game. The main focus of this game is to tell a story using the Minecraft setting and lore.

The gameplay is your typical adventure genre gameplay. It’s very close to point and click gameplay. So, the first gameplay element is the dialogues. You can choose between 5 dialogue options to react to a certain situation. The 5th option is pure silence. That isn’t available in every dialogue, but hey, it’s there. The only nitpick complaint I have with this is that in some cases, that time runs out way too quickly. By the time I have read the options, the time is nearly up and then I still have to decide which reply to go with. Thank you for the pause button at least!

The second element of gameplay is the exploration. I have to admit, I would have loved a bit more exploration in the game. The exploration parts are way to easy in my opinion. Yet, I can forgive the game for that, because you can beat various situations in different ways. This gives the game more replay value. You also solve puzzles in this game and so far, no puzzle has really stumped me. Maybe in the later episodes, I have some harder puzzles, but so far, I haven’t gotten stuck at all.

And the third gameplay element is the quick time events. Oh dear lord, the quick time events. I have nothing more to say that they are sometimes pretty annoying to play.

So, the final gameplay element is the combat. And I have to say, this isn’t great on Android. The combat is slow and when you miss an attack, you can’t attack again before the animation is finished. I don’t enjoy the combat sections very much.

The rest of the package.

Now, let’s talk about the other parts of the game. First of all, the music and sound design. The music is good, but this soundtrack isn’t one I would listen to outside the game. It loses its charm without some visuals.

The sound design is pretty well done. Because most of the sounds are from the great sound design by C418 for Minecraft. So, no complaints there. Also, the sound packs way more punch when you play this game with a headset.

The voice acting in this game is pretty good. I have played this game once while I was on the train and I forgot my headset, and I truly missed the voices. Yeah, they are that good in my opinion.

Visually, this game is pretty good but not perfect. Maybe it has to do with my tablet, but sometimes things didn’t render for me. I remember one scene pretty well.The gang was feeling on horseback, and the horse for the main character didn’t render always. So, the main character was floating away. Apart from the very few creative liberties the designers took, the game looks like an adventure map built in Minecraft. And I have to applaud the designers for that!

The atmosphere and visual presentation of the different areas you visit are pretty great. There isn’t a place I would change or adjust.

So, I have to praise the controls for the most part in this game. I was afraid that this game would control pretty poorly on Android, but I was surprised. This game controls pretty great on my tablet. The only problems I had with the controls were during the quick time sections, but thankfully, I was able to redo those sections and not make my mistakes.

Oh, before I forget, there is something truly annoying in this game. The download speed for the episodes is just way too slow. At first, I thought it had to do with the download speed of my tablet, but no. I have tested it with various speed tests and downloading large files from the internet. It has to do with this game, I’m sure of it.

I think I said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. There are a few things I have left for the review, but nothing that special. In any case, it’s time to wrap up this article up.

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then… have a great rest of your day and take care!

Top 10 Wii games I played until now – Part 1

I’m planning to buy a Wii U next month. I have been delaying this purchase for too long. Another thing I have been delaying for too long is my article of my top 10 Wii games I ever played. Here is a bit of shocker. The Nintendo Wii is the first console I ever owned. Yes, I never owned a SNES or anything among those lines. I grew up on the Nintendo handhelds and various PC games. Now-a-days, I have a PS1 / 2, Wii and SNES. So, I can play some games I missed out upon. In any case, this list is my opinion and is based on the games I have played. I hope that the title made that clear enough. Feel free to make a comment with your favorite games on the Nintendo Wii. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the content of this article. 

 

#10: Pandora’s Tower

This is one of the latest games I have started playing on the Wii. But it’s one of the best action adventure games I have played in a long while.

It mostly reminded me of a mixture of the Castlevania, Zelda and Metroid games. It also blew me away that the story of this game went quite deep. I honestly felt that it didn’t feel at home on a family friendly console. I always pictured the Wii for games that the whole family could play, but I have been proven wrong by this game.

The writing is excellent. Which shouldn’t have surprised me to be honest. xSEED games worked on this title. After seeing their work on the Corpse Party series, Zero Escape series and this game… I have high expectations of this game. It’s not letting me down.

I got interested in playing this game after I googled for new Wii games to play. (It also gave me the idea for this article. So yeah.) I also learned that recently this game has been re-released on the Wii U eShop. This is a big reason for you guys to go to your Wii U and give this game a shot. I have only played the first hour of this game and I like it that much that it deserves a spot in my top 10 Wii games.

If you like action & adventure games in the style of Zelda, Metroid and Castlevania this game is one that you don’t want to miss!

#9: Lost in Shadow

This game is based on something every kid did. Playing with shadows. Your fingers were Mario (or Sonic, depending which fanbase you were at in the past) who jumped from object to object.

A company that I thought didn’t exist anymore made this game: Hudson. Sadly enough, this is one of their last titles before they went under almost a year later. It’s quite a shame to see since I would have loved to see more games of them. But hey, we were talking about this game right…?

In this game you play a shadow that got separated from it’s body. Your goal is to get your body back. This game is a platformer that could mess with your mind if you play it for the first time. Since most of the action is actually taking place in the background. In some occasions you can jump to the parts in front to solve puzzles.

Also, I like how each dialogue part, each tutorial and each save point makes your shadow heavier. I haven’t gotten far enough into the game to know if this makes a change or not when you beat the game.

#8: Kirby Epic Yarn

The spin-offs of Kirby are always very creative and set standards. This game even got a spiritual sequel under the name of Yoshi’s Woolly World. In this game, they got rid of Kirby’s signature ability to suck up enemies. Oh, this mechanic was introduced in the 2nd game. The one on the NES.

In this game, you have to mess around with the background in some places. Which makes for some rather unique puzzles.

At it’s core, this game is a platformer with some on rail shooter sections. These on rail shooter sections are the parts where Kirby turns into a firetruck or a spaceship.

As you would expect from your usual Kirby game, this one isn’t too challenging. Once you know what to do and where to go, it’s rather easy. The tricky part comes in the bonus challenges. I remember them to be rather hard.

The visual style is something different. I seriously enjoyed my time in the Yarn World. Truth to be told, with the mechanic where you couldn’t die, this Kirby game was the most relaxing game I have ever played. When I came home from a busy day at work or when I just needed to relax, this game got me to the right state of mind each and every time. Only the Zelda games get me to that state of mind, so this is that exception on the rule.

I’m curious if the Yoshi sequel will have the same effect on me. So, I have Yoshi’s Woolly World on my “To buy” list for sure.

#7: PokePark Wii 1 & 2

So, this game is an adventure game with mini games mixed in. It was rather though for me to pick my favorite, so that’s why I decided to put them both on the 6th place. The first game set a fun standard for an interesting Pokemon spin-off game.

This game isn’t one of the best spin-offs. I can understand that this game is kind of “boring” for some people. The reason for that is that it’s repetitive. I’m one of the Pokémon fans who actually enjoyed this game. It was something different from the usual battling and collecting gym badges. I also have a weakness for games that try something different.

I have fond memories of the story of these games. It’s a story that underlines the power of friendship. Not once, but at least twice. The story made me smile many times.

The sequel came a little bit after Pokémon Black & White got released. And guess what, the main characters in those games are the Pokémon introduced in Pokémon Black & White. While I enjoyed the sequel more then the original… Like I said earlier, both games are equally as good. They are both worth it if your child or young relative is into Pokémon and has a Nintendo Wii. This is a perfect gift for the upcoming holidays!

#6: Metroid Other M

The amount of hate this game received for some story mechanics…. Well, honestly, I see where it comes from. This game isn’t perfect, I can agree with that. But the gameplay is anything I wanted from a 3D Metroid game. It even has some 2D elements that work perfectly for this game.

I haven’t finished this game and I really should. I was first putt off by all the bashing this game got on the internet— Actually, let’s try to not bash this game and look at it from another angle. Is this game actually fun? Well, if you haven’t figured out the answer to that question… I wonder if you have read the title of this article. 🙂

This game actually proves that shooters can work on the Wii. I have tried the Call Of Duty games on the Wii, and believe me… I pick this game over those anytime of the day.

I’m not going to talk too much about this game since I’m planning to write a more indepth article of this game in the future. So, I’m saving up my opinion for when I write that article. For now, I’ll say to you guys and girls that this game is a mighty fine game to play and it would be a shame to overlook it. Be ready for some amazing battles and an interesting story. Yes, I liked the story in this game. I personally think it was written quite well.

Wrapping up

So, I think it’s time to wrap up this article. Next week I will talk about my top 5 Wii games. I’m quite sure that some titles will come as no surprise.

Truth to be told, this list was quite hard to put together. The main reason is that I haven’t played that many games on the Nintendo Wii. Consoles don’t interest me that much since I play more (3)DS games and PC games. But writing this article actually made me willing to play on my Wii again. And yes, this might mean that in the future, I might write more articles on Wii games.

It also has been a long time since I played most of these games on my list. I actually wrote the parts out of memory without looking anything up. Since I think that the power of your memory makes articles like these even better. If a game deserves a spot in your top 10, it should leave an impression on you that you won’t forget anytime soon. But if you think that made the quality of this article not that good, feel free to let me know.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this. I hope to welcome you next week where I reveal my top 5 Wii games and my honorable mentions. Until then, and take care.. Oh, and game on of course~!

Update: Part 2 is here