A convergence of everything I hate: Crypt of the Necrodancer

No, not really. But we'll get into that.

Crypt of the Necrodancer is one of those titles that gives you the "why didn't anyone think of that sooner" sort of feel to it. One of those weird mashes of two genres that feels entirely obvious, yet somehow, isn't all that common. The weirdest thing is how visually evident the combination is, how just looking at an eight second video of this game almost entirely explains what you're seeing in action. Even the title feels completely obvious. They changed one letter from what is so well tread it is a trope at this point.

Essentially, it combines a mediocre roguelike - that's not a complaint, there's limitations because - with a rhythm game. The rhythm component follows the beat of the soundtrack. I'm not exactly certain how the story works, but it sounds like you're just as enthralled to the magic of the dungeon as everything else inside.

The game procedurally generates relatively simplistic dungeons, has a huge variety of spells and items and floods the screen with monsters who just like you are enslaved to the beat. Everything moves with the beat, or in my case, mostly doesn't since I am completely terrible at either exclusively this game or rhythm games. I'm not certain which.

But either way, this game is something of an experience for me.

From the forge of Donut Steel: Freedom Planet

While Sonic After the Sequel, made by one LakeFeperd, remains firmly in the camp of fan game not all Sonic fan games remain as such. To my understanding, Freedom Planet is the effort of a team that started out making a fan game and then realized they'd, you know, actually like to own their work. This is of course something of a double edged sword, as a Sonic fan game gives you a built in audience - LakeFeperd went on to begin working on Spark the Electric Jester, with a kickstarter and all though - but also you can't monetize in any real way.

Well, sort of. I mean Team Four Star does "fan parody" work on youtube and they've monetized the crud out of that. There's often ways around. But regardless, Freedom Planet's team wanted to actual make money off the game, maybe not some alternate channel, so it ended up as whatever you want to call it now.

I find it kinda jarring when people describe a game as a "fangame of X" and then go on to then admit well ok it's actually a fangame of X, Y and Z and then also a weeb fantasy and a lot of weird stuff that kinda makes me think furries got worked into the game past the Sonic threshold to boot. And don't get me wrong, Sonic is on a threshold and he crosses it in some games as well. Don't make out with teenage human girls Sonic. That's wrong.

Freedom Planet is, ultimately, more or less it's own thing. Whatever people claim is a big part of the game honestly comes off as utterly diluted into the larger whole of the game's influences until while you might recognize an individual part, the gameplay of the gestalt is not really recognizable. I think that's sort of a plus or minus; if you're looking at this review as a review of a "Sonic fan game" no, not really.

But if you're looking for a game that doesn't play a lot like other games in the genre and feels like something unique - for better or worse - I actually think Freedom Planet does manage a lot of that. How well, though, eh...

As an aside, I played about an hour of Freedom Planet several months back (actually maybe in 2015, I'm not quite sure) and then shelved it. The game just didn't grab me, but, given this was just the Summer of Sonic I felt like if there was a time to play it, this was it. 

Sonic Mania May 31st CE

Argh my wallet blargh get hype LOOK AT THAT GORGEOUS BOX got hype

why couldn't I stop myself from buying this

IT NEVER ENDS

Summer of Sonic: Wrap-Up

Tables of Contents for the Summer of Sonic;

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic 2

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Sonic CD

Sonic 4 E1

Sonic Heroes

Sonic Adventure 2

Sonic ATS

Sonic Lost World

Sonic 4 E2

Sonic Generations

Unleashed + Dolphin Colors

After the break are a couple closing statements and thoughts on the series, good and bad, as well as my favorite Sonic game and so forth. And yes that table of images looks even worse on my end. I have no idea why blogger hates me so. Sorry. It also won't let me set them up in chronological order.

Summer of Sonic (9): Sonic Lost World

I kinda wish the title of the game was Sonic's Lost World, and not the usual colon that poops all over like every game title forever. I guess they didn't, but it doesn't read like it doesn't, you know?

Anyway, big preface, big warning, big point: I haven't played Super Mario Galaxy. I'm told Sonic Lost World, hereby SLW, is either a giant rip-off or a homage or takes 'some ideas' or who knows what from SMG. I haven't played it, I don't know, I can't make much of a comparison. I think that's pretty important, but I'm bogged in a backlog, especially after doing so many extra Sonic games this "summer" (he writes as he publishes this in September, but hey, it's still routinely thirty degrees out) and I guess you'll forgive the lack of research.

So this is a review of SLW as an ending to playing through 20+ years of Sonic games, not as whatever game it is replicating or referencing or whatever else. This is the most recent full Sonic game produced by Sonic team; until next year's holiday "Sonic 2017 project not yet named" or whatever we're supposed to call it.

a golden shower of fun

I never understand why branding is so lazy with video games. The name of a game should always be catchy, right from the get-go. First bit of copy should have a name, a logo, and shit for people to get hype about. Sonic Mania is catchy, go with something like that. People are hyped for Sonic Mania. I am buying a Sonic Mania t-shirt as we speak! (why?) Instead the upcoming project just doesn't have a real name? Sonic Lost World is catchy, on that note.

A bit more catchy than the game itself is...

This is the final review in the Summer of Sonic! The previous review is here, and the wrap-up is here.

Relevant to Sonic: Fotonica

Most of my gaming news comes through a pretty narrow selection of youtube channels and the occasional hit off my otherwise trump-riddled facebook news feed, which tends to overlap with google news feed and complaining media isn't what I was going to get into. Anyway, I mostly watch superbunnyhop, wish I could enjoy his podcast but one of the trip is a donger, and then I get the rest from Super Best Friends and a bit of Total Biscuit, who is also a bit of a donger but at least a focused one.

I mean I get you want to talk about protecting the consumer and all the menu options and FOV sliders, but sometimes I kinda wish you could just click on a video and here a review. And sometimes you can so... Anyway, Fotonica got played on the 2BF's youtube channel. The game didn't look super amazing, but it looked like a 3d running game, so I picked it up as a method of contrasting with the Sonic games.

At its core Fotonica is one of the simplest titles you'll ever play or look at. It has one button, and that button is Goes Fast. Upon clicking the goes fast, you go Goes fast. When you release, you jump, and if you click again while jumping you attempt to force toward the ground to try to Goes fast once more. The game's visuals are complex wireframes, but not much beyond that, and the gameplay is...

Something alright.

The game relates back to Sonic because it creates longevity through levels which must be learned through muscle memory and rote memorization. Player skill is largely irrelevant; the game under-explains its mechanics and you're often left wondering what you were supposed to do. It also goes fast, beautifully fast, but then abruptly it doesn't, You don't so much die as fall off, and unlike Sonic, the game instantly restarts when you hit another button, although for whatever reason it's the Back button on the xbox one controller which feels a little awkward as that hand's side of the controller isn't otherwise in use.

One plus is the game has an excellent, minimalist score that frames the weird atmosphere beautiful. It's not beepy boop chip tunes, but gentle and enticing techno. It lends an airy sense of tranquility the game's design does not carry with it. Fotanica, you see, is not about player skill in the least - you are incapable of seeing the things you're going to respond to, so once you have the basics down you see little improvement - it is entirely about rote memorization. You can only get better at this game through replaying levels, though there's a period of learning how to master the jumps.

The game touts exploration as a feature, but I don't think that has any real meaning. The terrain is intentionally flat and devoid of substance; which is beneficial to the design, but offers nothing to the brain. The levels are all around the same difficulty, eventually you memorize them, or more likely, eventually you join me in getting bored. That being said, if you can get it in a bundle or the price tag doesn't bother you, I think there's a unique - if short lived - experience here.

DMC: Devil May Cry

I mentioned at the tail end of the Sonic wrap-up that very few 90s characters, mascots and their ilk, have survived as long as Sonic has. Although much emphasis is put on the value of 'the brand' insofar as doing remakes and reboots, very few brands actually hold up for all that long. The "Devil May Cry" series is an oughts brand, which lasted for what ultimately looks like 12 years, with this being the final game - at least for now - and one I don't think was especially well received. It's also a reboot, because reasons. REbootsons.

As I warbled on about in the Sonic reviews, I do not have much affection for "early 3d" games. I've actually never played a resident evil game, nor a tomb raider game, or Legacy of Kain or a myriad of other series born from the experimentation of this era. I've never touched a DMC game until this one either, and I'm pretty sure if I go through the list of games released around then I skipped a lot of them.

And a lot of the ones I did play I wish I could go back and un-play.

DMC is, to my understanding of genre nomenclature, generally discussed as a 'spectacle fighter' and may in many ways be the beginning of that genre, though I think far more popular is the God of War series which probably diverges heavily in terms of gameplay. I wouldn't know, since spoilers I haven't played God of War either. That has less to do with disliking 2005 era 3d games (lol) and more to do with the fact I've never owned a Sony console. I borrowed a Playstation to beat FFT, FF7 and FF8 but that's about it.

I didn't really go into DMC expecting much; the game isn't exactly a critical success and to my understanding killed the franchise, though that might be a bit harsh. On the other hand I'd read the game does some pretty interesting things in terms of storytelling, so that's sort of unexpected...

Summer of Sonic (8): Sonic 4 Episode 2

I didn't really follow Sonic news, as I implied in the Generations review, for most of my and Sonic's lifetime. I've always had a soft spot for Sonic, and I've always admired Sega for staying vaguely relevant in the face of adversity. Sonic has had lots of average or below average games, and some truly legendary stinkers, but Sega just keeps coming back. And sometimes completely awesome happens, like Generations.

Writing about Sonic 4 starts to shift from being a target worthy of ire to feeling like you're bagging on someone who is just trying to keep their head up. I wonder about its development, who the team was, what kind of budget they were given. Sonic 2006 is legendary for being a hot pressed bad game sandwich, but the story of its development tells you exactly what they were making. Cutting a team for a AAA release after making grandiose claims and shortening its deadline. It's amazing the game is functional on a basic level, let alone the scope it is. It's a mansion of content, except they gave the builders half the time and half the team to do it. I doubt a house under those circumstances would even stand, let alone something you could walk around in, albeit at the price of being hurled off a cliff every couple minutes.

Tails has my expression

Rather than bagging on Sonic 4 Episode 2 with the same zest and zeal as I did the previous review, let's take a step back and discuss the other onus of Sonic frustration, outside of mixed resource development issues. Let's talk a little about Goes Fast and how Sonic as a franchise is perpetually stuck on a spectrum of problems.

Previous review in the Summer of Sonic is here. Next review, is here.

Shootember: Nuclear Throne

Shootember was traditionally a month for shooters, but this game involves more shooting than most shooters, so I think it's fair to classify this one under Shootember.

Nuclear Throne was $10, or rather, at the peak of the humble bundle a couple weeks back, though I mostly picked up said bundle for it. I've being eyeing Enter the Gungeon for a while, and it is often mentioned that NT here is either a spiritual predecessor, a game you should just buy instead, or a game a lot like it. You can pick whichever harsh or positive statement you like, I've heard them all. NT has an overwhelmingly positive rating on Steam, and I've heard lots of good things about it.

I was a little reluctant, which we'll get into, but bundles with multiple quality games are just hard to resist. That's the rub of Humble bundle, isn't it? Buying a bundle of seven or eight games for $10, when you want maybe three of them, but $3.33 doesn't sound so bad for them individually...

It's especially enticing when rumor has it the developers of this game stated they would never put the game on sale, or something to that effect. I haven't touched the rest of the bundle as of writing this, but that's generally how most humble bundle experiences work for me. I play two of the games and forget about the rest.

Odallus: the Dark Call

Nostalgia or "homage" driven game design is an interesting and oft-times frustrating way of building games for the end user. I've often thought about what defines the niche, and from there, whether or not I'm complaining about something most of the niche enjoys or if it's just something they piled into the game because they could.

Odallus: the Dark Call wears its retro styling in big bright pixels on its sleeve. The game resembles a visually superior Castlevania 2. Yes, that Castlevania. The one you're not supposed to mention. Look at that sentence and look at the paragraph above, and you can start to wonder what I was worried about when I picked this up in a bundle a couple weeks back.

But there's a lot of mechanics in Castlevania 2 that could be good or bad, right? Just as there's lots of mechanics in Sonic, or Shadow of the Beast, or the whole potential variety of retro gaming to draw from, including a lot of games I honestly can't remember even though I've probably played most of them.

And draw from it does, in fact. Odallus feels like a mish-mash of themes and homages jumbled together, all drawn in with an almost Berserk like overtone and pixel graphics with a sweet "television" filter that makes it look super retro in a way pixels along rarely convey fully.

The result? Well, let's see...