Ahhh, Splatfest. How real the hype was! We all finally got to enjoy Splatfest last weekend after it was pushed back from its original date in June due to matchmaking issues with the Japanese version. Now that it's all over, was it actually worth the wait? In this humble blogger's opinion, it sure was! SplatFest is really more of an aesthetic change to the game than anything else. All Splatfest matches and celebrations take place at night, and I was pleasantly surprised at how different this small change makes the entire game feel (was it me, or did the ink look extra shiny in the moonlight?). Callie and Marie's chart-topping hits substituting for the usual battle soundtrack was also a nice touch--they're so catchy! Another smart idea was only allowing Splatfest shirts to be worn during the event; this encouraged players to spend time leveling the gear up before the event so they'd have all their abilities available when it was time to throw down. And, of course, outside in the Plaza you were able to attend a totally awesome Callie and Marie concert (complete with choreography and Miiverse fireworks!!). However, hands-down the best feature of Splatfest by far was the team matchmaking feature. You were automatically grouped with your faction (Team Cat for this guy) and faced off against various opposing teams. The cool thing, though, was that you were able to keep your team throughout a series of matches! Normally the teams switch members every match or so, but during Splatfest I literally played with the same powerhouse team for at least 10 matches in a row. It was amazing to actually develop a strong group dynamic over the course of our matches, and to learn how each other played and how we'd all tackle a map. Since teams are usually jumbled up every match in normal play, it's impossible to develop consistently as a team. After the fourth or fifth match with Laura, joeyat, and sajan, however, we were strategizing and outplaying the enemy almost every match, and it felt great! When you usually play Splatoon it oftentimes feels like you're doing your own thing, getting your own points, etc. Being a part of a real team completely changes that--and, for what its worth, our little cheers of "Come on!" and "Booyah!" were used more often than ever during my Splatfest matches. (above: the ultimate team players!)
There were a couple areas where Splatfest could use some improvement though, despite all its overwhelming awesomeness. There were three stages available to play on instead of the normal two, which was great and a huge surprise, but those three never changed. As someone who detests Urchin Underpass with a passion, this was not good news for me. Sure, I learned how to better play those stages and work through them more effectively with my team, and I definitely got better at the game because of that, but I still wish we could've had more stage variety. Aside from that, the only other request I'd have for Splatfest is a dance button we could all push to see our characters dance with everyone else in the Plaza. Remember how you could make your villager in Animal Crossing: New Leaf do four different little dances at the nightclub depending on which d-pad direction you pressed? Yeah, we need that feature active during Splatfest. I felt so left out watching everyone else! How did you guys enjoy Splatfest? Did you reach King rank? What would you like to see changed in the next one? Tweet me @CreamBasics and let me know. See you all tomorrow guys!
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Welcome to the final installment of my short Nindies@Home series. It's been a long time coming (well, since Friday), and we're finally down to the last three Nindies@Home games, The Doubtfuls. These are titles that I was disappointed by, and though there were some fun and creative elements in each of them, the previews didn't leave a positive impression on me. To reiterate from the first post of the series, these impressions are solely of the previews--the quality of the full/finished product might very well be different. Anyway, on to the games! _____________________________ Typoman (multi-platform) It's tough to be too hard on Typoman. In concept, the game sounds brilliant and unique: you control a stick figure--made up of the letters 'H E R O'--and navigate him (it?) through a series of environmental puzzles involving various kinds of wordplay. For instance, in the screenshot below you come to an area where it's raining into a ditch, and you have to get across. The only problem is that you can't swim; instead, you have to move that rightmost 'D' against 'RAIN' to make 'DRAIN' and clear the water out of the ditch, thus making it safe for you to move across without drowning. Sounds like a really inventive, enjoyable gaming experience right? Well, unfortunately, while there are some impressive puzzles like these that make you feel like a genius when you solve them, the actual movement of Typoman feels unsatisfying. He's heavy and can hardly jump, thus making the game feel like its dragging along listlessly as our hero steadily trots across the landscape. While this may sound like a silly criticism, the moment I picked the gamepad up I felt really constricted by the controls and weight of the character. This oppressive gameplay experience wasn't aided in the slightest by the art direction, which seemed purposefully dark and dreary. The moment I came to the area below and saw the first non-monochromatic colors was the moment I gave an involuntary gasp of joy and relief at seeing life within this desolate world. It was probably designed to evoke that reaction, and reflecting back on it it was a very cool moment, but the rest of the time trudging through black and gray wasn't worth it for me. Aesthetics aside, this can be a punishingly difficult game. I won't go into too much more depth seeing how long this impression already is, but look at it this way: if you don't mind severe trial-and-error design, and if you have an abnormal amount of patience, you might enjoy Typoman. Soul Axiom (multi-platform) It really hurts me to put this one in The Doubtfuls. When I watched the E3 trailer I was instantly interested and excited to see what kind of game it would be and how it would function. A visiting friend drew the obvious Bioshock comparison, and while this game is nothing like Bioshock, the power coursing through the main character's arms do look quite similar; in fact, the visual effect when you cast your powers is probably the best-looking part of this game. In all honesty, this was by far the worst preview out of all the titles, and not just for visuals either. *Spoiler Alert* You start off in a drab and mysterious temple, but you can't interact with anything inside; you just walk around, look at a couple statues, fall into a crevice, find a way out and continue walking. The game feels like it only really starts once you've followed the path out to the desert landscape you see below. From here, you're supposed to pick up on extremely subtle environmental clues ("That structure shows those three shapes, so I have to manipulate the shapes of the center structure to match") in order to destroy the surrounding temples and reach the item you're after on top of one of them. The problem is, you have absolutely no idea what you're supposed to do. The game is more old-school in that it lets the player look around and figure out what their powers do and how they're supposed to use them on their own. This would normally be fine, but the barren sandbox that is Soul Axiom's preview stage is full of empty space along the edges and around the temples, and your character moves infuriatingly slowly. I literally strolled around the ruins for a good 20-30 minutes looking for clues and wondering what to do, taking in the lovely brown, muddy textures the game had to offer. When I finally figured the objective out I was excited and proud, but also felt defeated that I'd just wasted a nice chunk of time doing nothing. Soul Axiom may have some wonderful later stages and more intuitive gameplay elements--as the trailers suggest--but for a stage that's supposed to get players excited to experience what your game has to offer when it goes on sale, this was a critical failure. Extreme Exorcism (multi-platform) Similar to RIVE, Extreme Exorcism is a fun game with strong core mechanics that just feels bland and generic--RIVE, however, had much more polish. Double-E also draws a comparison to Runbow, one of my favorite Nindies, in that this game must be played with friends to fully enjoy it. The crucial difference here is that Runbow, unlike Dub-E, offers online multiplayer for those who don't have people to play with locally. This is a massive downfall of Extreme Exorcism as the joy of running and gunning through the levels alone fades after the first few run-throughs. The first time I played the preview I was quickly turned-off and bored of the two sample levels. When I invited a friend over to test it a second time, however, I was shocked at how much more fun I had. We had a blast yelling warnings of "Watch out!" and "Dude, over there! No, that one!" and senselessly creating strategies that fell apart moments later. The multiplayer definitely hits the sweet spot. The thing is, I swear I've played games almost exactly like this--same retro art style and everything--on Newgrounds or Addicting Games. Those were Flash games, and they were free. I can see the appeal of Extreme Exorcism, and I did have some fun with it, but there's no way I can see myself spending money on something like this, online leaderboards or no. And with those last few harsh comments, the series has come to an end. If you enjoyed it there's a new post every single weekday, so check back often for more awesome gaming content and unpopular opinions! You'll know right when the next one goes live if you follow me on Twitter @CreamBasics. As always guys, I hope you have a beautiful day.
Welcome back friends! This is Part 2 of my 3-part Nindies@Home series. In a world where Nintendo is regularly criticized for the lack of content on the Wii U and the lack of third-party support for the system in comparison to Sony and Microsoft, Nindies@Home is certainly a step in the right direction. Similar to the preview program Microsoft revealed last week for the Xbox One, all nine of the games above had free downloadable previews for the week of E3 (they just went offline this morning). After playing through all of them, here's my list of the Nindies@Home games that have great potential, but didn't quite hit the mark for me during their previews. ______________________________ RIVE (multi-platform) Hands-down one of the most visually impressive titles shown, RIVE was both a joy to play and look at. The production values really shine here, most notably the sound design and explosion effects. RIVE feels incredibly satisfying to control, too, and there were few gameplay experiences more enjoyable out of all nine titles than swiftly shooting an onslaught of enemy robots into pieces of scrap metal. The developers really nailed the user experience here. The only real issue is that, well, I could've sworn I've played this before. RIVE is greatly lacking in personality; from the way my robot feverishly shot 360 degrees around the screen to the generic enemy robots and weapon upgrades, I felt like my experience wasn't special or unique at all. The weapons (particularly the missiles) did feel fantastic to unleash, but I can recall so many shooters with the exact same weapon upgrades. I'm sure the game will have more varied environments and a stronger sense of identity in the final version (especially playing through the campaign), but my time with the preview has left me a bit wary. Mutant Mudds Super Challenge (Wii U & 3DS Exclusive) I'll say this right off the bat--the Mutant Mudds series isn't really for me. I enjoy the platforming and how the game handles, but I've never been a fan of the game's aesthetic or Max's character design. The art style is colorful and the chiptune songs are pretty catchy, but the sound effects and giant gold tokens always seemed a bit odd and low-quality to me. Nonetheless, fans of the series love it for its gameplay, and the tightness of MMSC's controls is undeniable. This new entry in the series is punishingly difficult--much more so than its older brother on the 3DS--and yet I could blame no one but myself when I died constantly playing this preview. The game is so hard (hence "Super Challenge") that even one of the developers from Renegade Kid couldn't collect all the tokens in a level without dying repeatedly during the Nintendo Treehouse gameplay. While it may be fun to watch, I didn't enjoy the game too much myself. This is a real love letter to fans of the series, however, and with the additions of boss fights, challenging ghost levels, bonus costumes of characters from other e-shop titles and cross-buy, you really are getting a quality experience here. Freedom Planet (Wii U Console Exclusive) If I could sum up Freedom Planet in one sentence, it'd be "An old-school Sonic game with original artwork direction and a few mechanical changes." The game was literally intended to be a fan-made Sonic game at first, but was later refined into a more original experience. There's no getting around it--from the moment you pick it up, you know you're playing a Sonic game. The classic sprinting and platforming is as fun as ever, though, and your character is undeniably adorable. Freedom Planet looks so different from Sonic that the gameplay similarities actually don't bother me too much. What does bother me, however, is how the game's stages are set up. When playing through the preview with one of my friends, we established that we'd switch off every level, expecting them to be short and sweet like the original Sonic levels. After 15 minutes of playing, however, the level still hadn't ended, even after I defeated the boss--it just transitioned to a second, samey part of the level. While I'm excited to see where the story goes and enjoyed the nostalgic gameplay, I'm a bit hesitant to fully embrace the title due to level design and pacing issues. Thanks for reading friends! Be sure to come back tomorrow for the third part in my Nindies@Home series, The Doubtfuls. Follow me on Twitter @CreamBasics to know exactly when the next post goes up. Until then, have a wonderful day!
Nintendo is a company often lampooned for the lack of third-party support on its systems. Though there has been plentiful third-party support for the 3DS, the Wii U has seen a severe drought of new titles in general, much less ones from outside Nintendo. The Nindies@Home program looks to fix that and show consumers that Nintendo can still have strong relationships with indie developers. Each game featured in the program has a free preview you can download and try before the full version releases this year, and doing so will save you 15% off the purchase price. After eagerly downloading and playing all nine previews, I compiled them into three categories: The Top 3, The Most Potential, and The Doubtfuls. The other two posts in this three-part series will come on Monday and Tuesday, respectively. Keeping in mind Nindies@Home ends Monday morning, I recommend downloading all the previews this weekend while they're still available and deleting any unwanted ones later. Though these are early builds of each game and aren't necessarily representative of the final products, here are my impressions of what they gave us to try. ______________________________ Runbow (Wii U Exclusive) We're starting out strong here. Runbow is a party game, pure and simple. It supports up to nine players either locally or online, a great option for those without a ton of friends to play with locally (like myself). The base concept is pretty simple: players dash to the end of a level that's manipulated by constant changes of color that wipe across the screen--platforms appear and disappear, openings are blocked off based on what the current color is, and so on (this is only one mode; there are four different ones, all with optional multiplayer). I invited a couple friends over to play the preview with me, and it was a pretty good time! We laughed, shouted, and screwed each other over to gain an advantage--all signs of a great party game. The character designs and animations are full of personality, and out of all the previews Runbow probably made me feel the happiest while playing it. I highly recommend getting some friends together and trying this preview out for yourself! The Nintendo Treehouse gameplay is also great if you want to see it in action first. Forma.8 (multi-platform) This was by far my favorite single-player experience. You control a tiny space ship as it flies around beautifully-stylized cave environments armed only with mines and a protective force field. The exploration in this game fully enveloped me, and I found myself playing the lengthy demo for about an hour and a half. The art and sound design do a fantastic job creating this ominous, foreboding atmosphere, and it really pulls you in. Depending on the final release's length and variety, I could easily see myself putting a couple-dozen hours into Forma.8. It's a shame it isn't an exclusive (apparently it was originally an iOS game, but later expanded to consoles), but it nonetheless controls smoothly and naturally on the gamepad, so I'm not complaining. Lovely Planet (multi-platform) You've never played anything like this. From the super-cutesy art style to the earworm main theme, the first-person shooter is unapologetically Japanese. It feels strange to call it a FPS, though, because it's so different from others in the genre. Though it was originally released almost a year ago on PC, Lovely Planet feels right at home with the gamepad controls. The game introduces new mechanics gradually, and I never felt like I was cheated when I died. There isn't room for much frustration since you restart a level almost instantly after dying. The reason for picking LP up isn't the lackadaisical, appropriately floaty gameplay, however--it's the aesthetic. While playing I couldn't help but feel encouraged by the cheery music, and I felt admittedly awesome wielding my strange flower-gun weapon. This is definitely a divisive title, though, so I'd overwhelmingly recommend playing the demo before buying the game. Thanks for reading guys, and look for the other two posts in the series early next week. Follow me @CreamBasics on Twitter to know right when they go up. Hope you all have a great weekend!
I was both shocked and intrigued when I first stumbled across this screenshot for Kelp Dome on Nintendo of America's Twitter. It was the farthest thing I've seen from a traditional Splatoon map; instead of designated sides of the arena for each team, the Dome has a continuous square shape that teams can go around from either angle. Because of this, it's somewhat hard to figure out if you're on an enemy's side of the map--aside from the area directly in front of their spawn point, there really isn't a designated team half like there is in Urchin Underpass, Walleye Warehouse or Blackbelly Skatepark, just to name a few. This less linear design left some of the players I've talked to confused during matches, with one friend even saying that she constantly got lost around the Dome and had to keep glancing down at the map every couple of seconds. |
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