Dork Quadrant: Enemy Mind

Rounding off my set up space shooty games is Enemy Mind, which I got from ... Actually I'm not really certain where I got this, though it was probably in a bundle? I believe this game was in Early access back in 2014, but is probably bundlefare at this point.
 
Enemy Mind is a shmup, and it is in space, AND it has cards - actually what this series was supposed to be about -  with really nice pixel artwork done in the more 16-bit style. The premise of the game, however, gets away from the general shmup thing with two slightly interesting twists on the general basics of the genre.

For one, the game has a core gimmick that shapes basically every design made in its design.

For two, it has a really neat story that relates back to its core gimmick. But the addition of a store is a 'for better or worse' arrangement, as it continues to add to the odd issues of the game.

The "gimmick" or "premise" depending on how you jive with it, is that your ship is not your ship. You are a psychic entity, capable of possession that leaps from ship to ship. You fight using their guns, you move using their skills and you die as they would die - unless you leap to the next ship.

It's nothing super hyper new, but it isn't on the other hand something I'm all that familiar with. I'm sure it has been done before, but I'm struggling to remember another example besides like ... Messiah or something.




Enemy Mind is, like I said, attractive to both eyes and ears, and the gameplay is pretty interesting if a touch over-simplified to justify the gimmick. But the problem is a lot of the gameplay is very samey, very tedious. That lies with the gimmick, mostly.

You need to jump a lot because ships are fragile and usually have only a handful of shots. This ties into the other problem with the game, but the first thing I want to mention is it lacked the feeling of just a million random silly things going on. Go watch a video of Gradius made in 1985 or Super Gradius in 1990, and note the raw number of enemy types and shifts in the terrain. Enemy Mind couldn't do that, since it would make the game really confusing to be unable to jump to some things, unless you - I don't know - designed stationary enemies who are clearly delineated from the 'jump capable' enemies. Either way, there's so few enemy types and such little in the way of detail to the terrain, you just find yourself getting bored.

The other thing is that the gimmick takes too much out of the game and doesn't function well. It is constantly disorienting, and the part where a ship with ammo still fights you after jumping makes for really frustrating moments where you get shot in the back because you were trying to dodge and weave into a jump. It is by very nature the ship you jumped from wasn't destroyed - after all, they are usually out of the line of fire because you aligned them there to make the jump!

It's also really weird that you do not default to the ship you hit a checkpoint in. You default back to the piddly lil earth fighter, which means you get one good shot regardless of the lives system to do harder sections.

Also as a third thing, there is this weird feeling to the game's linearity. Because you're often waiting to jump, or making choices about where to be on the screen, you really notice the flat straight line progression of the game. The levels are so boring and you really take it in.

The game's story, like I said, ties into the gimmick. You perceive the situation a little differently depending on which faction you're, for lack of a better term, "riding" with. It is an interesting angle, but it's very vague and the story itself is one part interesting two parts incredibly boring.

In conclusion, I was largely impressed with the visuals and music of Enemy Mind, but the gameplay suffers from a legitimate problem with pacing and difficulty spikes. The game is just flat out boring in sections, and having to redo long chunks of tedious boredom to get back to a difficult fight you can lose in a matter of seconds is ... Dull. I'm only so-so, as some people are, on the challenge of games - I enjoy doing something difficult, but I do not feel like I should have to work to return to that difficult moment with long periods of boredom before it. I'm in my thirties, I have about a million things around the house I could be doing instead of playing through the "chore" section of a game in my leisure time. Enemy Mind does this over and over, and it just begins to feel like I need to slog through a period of doing chores before I can get to the "good part".

even more boring than it looks

Seriously, I can go clean the oven or build some shelves to put my paints on. I play video games to get away from the feeling of raking leaves, not to replicate it but for the promise of reward. Because having all my leaves raked up actually feels kinda good, you know? A clean yard or a chance to fight an interesting boss?

If the tedium doesn't bother you, I think it's a really solid game, but I too often found myself dreading the boredom of restarting a level. I feel like maybe more of the game would be interesting, but I just found myself bored and tired of playing the game. Not a good sign.