I Hated the Last of Us

Now I know what you’re thinking, and what I want to say first is: put the pitchforks down! I haven’t even had my say yet. You can round up the mob after I’m finished.

Now: I am of a mind that one should always experience for themselves any piece of media or entertainment that people have been either:

• Raving about about like lunatics as if it’s the second coming of Christ
• Or completely demolishing like it’s the second coming of Hitler.

I watched Breaking Bad (Christ), I watched Twilight (Hitler), and I read the first book of 50 Shades of Grey (also Hitler). If you don’t experience something yourself, but bad-mouth it or praise it anyways, you’re doing yourself a disservice – denying yourself a unique experience, at the very least. And yeah, I could kinda guess that Twilight was probably going to be a train-wreck – but at least now I can dismantle all of its flaws from a more knowledable position.

That being said: The Last of Us has been heralded as the second coming of games. The game to end all games! The hype that preceded this thing’s release was unprecedented. And when it finally did release, it did so to the chorus of multiple Game of the Year awards. I mean we’re talking 10 out of 10s – 10 out of 10s everywhere.

Which makes me wonder: were these critics and gamers playing the same game I did?

Now, keep in mind I get the gift of hindsight for playing this a few years after it came out – I recieved a free download-code with my shiny new PS4, and I was finally able to find out what all the fuss was about…and really, I still don’t know what all the fuss was about.

Okay, I’m lying: I kind of do know. But my problem is with the fuss of the Last of Us itself. Because in the end, not only is it a pretty basic game – it’s also the worst game I’ve played in a pretty long time.

But let’s talk about the good stuff first: The Last of Us is pretty. Very pretty. Probably the prettiest game I’ve ever played. The cities you trot about in are alive with lush greenery, and every area feels carefully crafted with the touch of an artist that wanted you to remember his environments and their detail.

It’s also very well acted. Troy Baker is phenomenal as Joel, the facial capture technology makes every character life-like, and the characters don’t all sound like walking clichés that plague many games that claim they’re full of “engrossing narrative”.

And…well, nope, that’s pretty much it.

The Last of Us was heralded by many gaming journalists as some sort of parable akin to McCarthy’s The Road. And that, quite honestly, is doing McCarthy’s work a massivedisservice. This is because, whereas The Road has all the staples that literature requires – character development, engrossing narrative, symbolism, the like – The Last of Us is devoid of all of these things.

Yes, Joel is well-acted. But the development of his character is atrotious as best. The entirety of his growth shows up in one five-second scene involving a certain object given to him by Ellie near the end of the game. Joel straight up says: “I guess I can’t escape from my past. Thanks Ellie.” When you have to spell out your message like that, you’ve sabotaged any possibility of nuanced character growth. I actually gaped at the screen when I saw this scene.

Beyond this, Joel’s character just isn’t very interesting, or relatable. I get that he’s this rough and rugged guy that does bad things to good people – but that doesn’t make him compelling. His actions are all rote in regards to the game’s already cliché story. Compare this to Lee Everett, from the Walking Dead, who is attempting to keep his sense of morality and duty against the backdrop of horror that the zombie apocolypse provides. The decisions Lee has to make are tough. There is no real good action that he can perform without harming someone else, and thus he is an easier character to sympathize with. I always knew what Joel’s reaction to something was going to be: shoot whoever he’s come into close proximity with.

Then there’s Ellie, who’s no better in this regard. It feels like her character only exists as a sort of anchor of redemption for Joel, and as such, she isn’t much of a character at all. I get the feeling that the writers assumed random trivia that Ellie dropped – things like, “I used to ride horses” or “I like comic books” – could flesh out her character. But all that is is trivia. By the end of the game I still didn’t know what kind of person Ellie (or even Joel) really was. I knew I was supposed to care about her, but I wasn’t given much of a reason why.

But the game plays well, right 8bit?

…

Let me put it this way: the first time I put a ladder up against a wall to climb it, I thought it would be one of many interesting ways I’d be navigating the game’s environment. The first time I a piece of wood to jump on so we could cross a river because of her inability to swim, I thought it would be one of many ways I’d be teaming up with Ellie to navigate the environment.

The 8th time I was putting a ladder up against a wall, I was fed up. And by the 5th time I was navigating wood through a river for Ellie to jump on, I was ready to call it quits.

The Last of Us is repetitve as hell. It’s an 8 hour version of the escort mission from Resident Evil 4, and even then, the latter game did the whole relationship between Leon and Ashley much better. The stealth sequences are bland and uninspired. Getting killed in one attack by an enemy was something game design left behind in the past, along with arcades and tokens. For all its gritty realism, the fact that I didn’t fight a single female bandit in the game was more than irksome. And the second time I threw a brick and it whirled from the right to the left so that it would connect with the enemy it auto-targeted, my sister and I laughed aloud. The whole time I dealt with this uninspired gameplay, all I could think was: man, this is an okay movie I’m playing.

And that pretty much sums up how I feel about the Last of Us as a whole. With the gameplay, it was an uninspired stealth cover shooter that I’ve played a billion times before. And without the gameplay, it’s a B-movie filled with zombie-shlock that takes itself too seriously considering its cliché narrative. The fact that gamers and journalists consider this game to be a narrative masterpiece is highly dissapointing for two reasons: it shows that gamers and journalists don’t have much in the way of literary expertise. That games aren’t nearly as good as movies or books when it comes to building a strong narrative, if this is the criteria we’re basing gaming’s “best narrative” off of. And it also shows that games are still valued for their production values first, and their rewarding story and gameplay second.

To sum it up: The Last of Us makes Uncharted look like East of Eden in comparison. I’m actually excited for the fourth game now.

The Thrill of the Hunt

Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate released in the past week, and I’ve been engrossed by it since, leaving Majora’s Mask by the wayside, to collect dust in its box. Long story short: it was worth every penny. For more, read on.

Monster Hunter has always been pretty inaccessible, in my opinion. My first game in the series was Monster Hunter 2, on the PSP. It was a slow start, and I wasn’t able to the fun parts of the later sections of the game for very long, when I hit a wall fighting a tigrex and getting my butt handed to me over and over again. Fast-forward to Monster Hunter Tri, and I enjoyed it a bit more – the new Switch Axe especially – until its Online mode was shut-down, and I was forced to drop the game.

Thankfully, MH4 eschews my previous issues with the series – namely, the fact that rather than throwing you into the deep end of the pool, the game slowly introduces you to new pieces of information to help you hunt bigger and badder monsters. I actually got an explanation on Skills. Skills! I had no idea what those were the first time I had played a Monster Hunter game. These and other nuanced aspects of the game have been streamlined and explained in clearer detail in terms of preparation, making Monster Hunter 4 the best time to jump into what is historically a complicated series.

Which gives you more time to get to the meat of the game: hunting. This is what makes the grind of any Monster Hunter game worth it. The Monster Hunter series does away with any traditional aspects of “videogame bosses.” There are no healthbars to tell you how much damage you’re doing to one of the many great beasts you do battle with. There are no quicktime events that hold your hand through complicated gaming sequences. Instead, you watch for each monster’s tells: when it flicks its tails, when it limps to its nest to heal, when rears back to deliver the killing blow – these are your healthbars, your quicktime events, and these are what you use, along with skill and knowledge, to take down a beast.

Of the many games I’ve played, very few have as fulfilling of a moment as when you finally take down one of Monster Hunter’s towering hunks of flesh and fang for the first time, after a drawn-out encounter. Some battles can be grueling, going on for half an hour or longer, but the risk begets the reward. If you like story in your games, or a reason beyond better loot, Monster Hunter will probably not be for you. But for those who want to kill a dragon and make a giant sword out of its bones – well, you’ve come to the right place, I’d say.

That being said: if you love Monster Hunter, you’ve probably already picked its fourth iteration up. But for those of you on the fence, you’ve got nothing to lose – nothing to lose, that is, but dozens of hours going toe to toe with some of the coolest enemies in any game. Grab a copy, grab some friends, and join one of the greatest gaming communities I’ve had the pleasure of being introduced to to hunt some giant monsters. Maybe I’ll see you online!

How I Organize My Gaming Backlog

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say many of my followers here have a pretty large backlog of games that they’ve yet to complete. Tonight I’m doing a quick post of how I organize my battle against that never-ending pile of games.

Before we start, the software I use to organize my gaming backlog (and the rest of my life, really) is called Trello. It’s a to-do list manager that creates a board and card-style system for you to handle your tasks. Each card can have a due date attached to it, as well as images, descriptions, and more. It’s a simple but powerful system, and you’ll see its full use by the end of this post.

First up – don’t try and start from the very beginning of your backlog! It’s just not gonna happen. All that does is make you feel even worse about all the games you’ve yet to complete, or even start. I tried doing this before, so trust me on this one – just trying to catelogue every game I’ve yet to play made me exhausted.

Instead, take a handful of games that you consider the MOST interesting that you’d want to beat at that moment. That’s how I started this year. Then I made a board called “Backlog.” This will most likely be your most filled board, haha…

After that, I made a card for each game I was interested in playing. I also created labels – one for each console I had, as well as for the PC. I attached a label to each game. This isn’t necessary, but it helps me catalogue in terms of where I may be spending my time the most. I also made labels based on rating, from “Awful” to “Fantastic”.

After this was done, I created four more boards: “Want to Play”, “Currently Playing”, “Finished”, and “Quick and Endless”. “Want to Play” houses my wishlist of games I don’t actually own, but plan on owning. “Currently Playing” is self-explanatory – I try to stick to one PC game, one Console game, and one Handheld game. It lets me cover the most amount of ground. “Finished” is my pride and joy, the stuff I’ve completed.

I put checklists for games that are bundles, like the Kingdom Hearts and Metroid Prime collections.

I also comment on each card when I have a particular thought about a game that I don’t want to forget. This is useful for games I plan on reviewing, or writing about.

The last category, “Quick and Endless”, includes games that I’ll go back to now and then that don’t have an indefinite conclusion, or things I’ve beaten before. Multiplayer games, endless simulators, etc. These are low-priority.

With all that done, I have a left-to-right flow for my games. With Trello I can easily drag a game’s card when I’m ready to move it to another section, letting me stay organized and steadily chip away at my backlog!…Whiiiich will have two games added to it tomorrow, when Majora’s Mask and Monster Hunter 4 come out.

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So! How do you keep your backlog organized? Pen and paper? Mental checklist? Do you even have a backlog you think about? Lemme know in the comments below!

Knowing When to Quit

Recently I finished playing Mario and Luigi: Dream Team. It was relatively enjoyable throughout the entirety of my playthrough, and though it did drag near the end, it wasn’t too bad.

Until, that is, I reached the final boss.

I won’t spoil who or what it is, but I can tell you it was a massive pain in my behind. Note to game developers everywhere – do not give your final boss the ability to regenerate more health than you have time to counter against. At least, don’t do that if you actually want your players to enjoy the final battle without feeling cheated.

In any case, I tried defeating the boss three times, to no avail. After a few minutes of deliberation, I did what many gamers would deem unthinkable:

I set the game to easy mode.

And then I beat the final boss in one hit.

I know what a lot of people may be thinking: didn’t you feel cheated? You had to rig the game to finish it! And the answer is: honestly, not really. I experienced every attack the final boss had thrown at me before I had switched to Easy Mode. At a certain point I was just going through the same motions over and over again, hoping I’d get lucky and win. More importantly, I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore. I play games for fun, not for the competition, or even for the challenge, minus the odd Platinum game here or there. It’s why I avoid Online Shooters, or games like League of Legend or Starcraft.

That being said, I feel that if I’m not enjoying myself, then I shouldn’t be putting myself through the pain of that experience. I have precious little time for gaming, and I’d rather not spend it banging my head against an unbeatable obstacle. If that ends up being the case, I’ll either try and figure out how to bypass it, or leave the game entirely. As I said, there are exceptions to this rule – Bayonetta and Persona Q come to mind – but if the difficulty feels artificial, then I’m not going to waste time on it.

Fun anecdote: Another experience that reminds me of this is when my sister and I were playing Tales of Xillia. We were up against a boss, and simply could not defeat it. So we devised a trick where we let our characters be played by the CPU. Because the CPU was inhumanely fast in terms of reaction time, it easily decimated the boss, knowing exactly when to defend, attack, and heal. That done, we were able to move on and continue playing – though, not for long, because honestly Xillia sucked.

So, readers: when do you realize it’s finally time to quit? This could be within the context of gaming, or outside it. Let me know in the comments below!

Persona 5: Trailer Impressions

Okay, I swear the hype has died down…a little bit, at least. I’ve watched the Persona 5 trailer at least 10 times now, and each time I’ve noticed something different. So I figured I’d give a play by play of what I’ve seen, as well as what I’m expecting, from one of my most anticipated anythings in the history of anything.

First, watch the trailer below. 

All done?

THEN LET’S DO IT.

So first we have that shot of the city. It turns out that the man in the mask that was teased recently is actually our protagonist. We seem him leaping about, in what sort of felt like a scene from the Phantom of the Opera — I’m sure that was intentional. 

An alarm sounds, and our protagonist leaps through the window and lands on the ground below him unharmed. One thing I’m interested to know is how far ahead into the game this particular cutscene is. This may just be a hunch, but this particular protagonist feels a little more characterized than the P3 or P4 main characters. Like he has a history he’ll be drawing from throughout the game, as opposed to the blank slates of the other two games. In fact, this first scene might even be before the game even starts!

Also of note in that regard: Kudos to Atlus for totally trolling Persona fans — many people complained that this new protagonist – henceforth referred to as “Glasses” just to speed things along – looked too much of a wet blanket/boring to be a main character. Turns out, this guy is a badass! Or at least, he is when he’s wearing his mask…that’d fit with the game’s theme of “putting on another face”, so to speak.

Music starts. Hype increases even further. We get our first glimpses of the Glasses’ partners! They, too, are wearing costumes. Where in P3 we got SEED, and P4 had the investigation team, it looks like P5 will have a sort of vigilante team of super-persona heroes. And I am OK with that!

Then we get our first glimpse of Igor! Glad he’s back. And our new blue-wearing assistant seems to have split in two – in that there are assistants. And they’re twins! I wonder what each character will do in terms of services for the player. 

Also of note is that the Velvet Room looks to be inside a prison, as opposed to the Elevator and Limousine of P3 and P4, also fitting into the juvenile theme of the game.

Then we see a flash of red in the middle of the game’s interpretation of Shibuya. From it emerges a  winged beast, wearing a top-hat. It also seems to have horns, if you pause the video and look closely. Our villain, perhaps?

And then…our first in-game glimpse! I love the new look of the timer at the top-left – fits the Shibuya setting perfectly. I get a lot of World Ends With You vibes from it. There are also, if you notice, way more NPCs on screen at once in this game, as you see again while Glasses walks down the train station/mall. I love how much more the camera has been pulled in – it sometimes felt like you were too far away from what was going on on-screen in Persona 4. I also really like the effect on Glasses’…uh Glasses. The white tint helps to hide his face, much in the same way his mask does when he’s on a mission.

A classroom shot — wouldn’t be a Persona game without some learnin! If you look closely, you also see the first female party member in this shot. She’s wearing red pants, and a four leaf clover is on the back of her uniform. I wonder what the significance of that could be. Her name also appears to be Takamaki Anzu. 

We see the party hanging out on a bridge, and get a closer look at the two new introduced party members. The other boy’s name seems to be Sakamoto Ryuuji. Their conversation seems super animated – way more than in Persona 3 or 4. 

A shot appears of what looks to be the party’s hangout. On the table is a map – probably to plan out one of their missions. But for what? Robbery? Are they anti-heroes? I’m not sure. In this shot a cat-character is introduced. It looks to be a party-member.

Some more anime cutscenes. Dancing seems to be a theme in the game. We also see the cat transform from a regular cat into its more monster-like form. What I wonder is — is the regular cat a disguise? Or is the transformation into a persona (purrsona?). Also of note is that the cat is surrounded by the seven deadly sins. My guess is that, rather than being arcana based, personas will be based on the seven sins this time around. Quite a shake up, if it turns out to be true!

Some ridiculously sexy menus are shown off in absolute style. I love how dynamic they look, and Atlus was able to pull off the red-theme without having it grate on the eye. It looks as if Glasses is trying to push the camera away, with the subtitle “Don’t Look at Me Like That” appearing next to him. You also see that the protagonist is carrying a gun, and a menu opens showing access to some sort of knife or sword.

A train conductor goes nuts and crashes the train. Possessed by a Shadow? 

Then we see Glasses jump into what is probably the first game’s dungeon. Right off the bat, you see how more dynamic the dungeons are going to be, with Glasses jumping about, and even sneaking behind objects Metal Gear Solid style. 

We get a glimpse of a nurse-looking character. This is further confirmed by the “Takemi Medical Clinic” posted above the menu. Could Takemi be the name of the party’s school?

More cutscenes, followed by a show of a military shop run by Munehisa Iwai. You’ll be buying weapons from him, for sure. This scene also confirms that each character carries a melee and a gun weapon.

We see Glasses behind bars. Catherine reference, for sure. But are they more intimately connected then they first appear? Some have said even Glasses looks like a younger version of Catherine’s main character. 

Combat! Glasses and crew lay waste to…personas? Not shadows!? Interesting! Fighting personas is a Shin Megami Tensei thing. I wonder what’s up with that! 

The characters do some kind of slow-motion attack, which leads into an epic all out attack. The character portraits look straight villainous in before they do damage.

More dancing on a road that blazes by – something tells me that racer-like logo of the game is no coincidence.

The last shot shows Glasses get hyped up. He gets covered in blue flames, and then that familiar glass-shattering sound appears. Do the characters transform into their Personas when they attack? I don’t know!

BUT I NEED TO KNOW. Atlus, for the love of all that is holy, please release Persona 5 in America in 2015! I can’t take it anymore! 

PERSONA 5 PERSONA 5 PERSONA 5

We interrupt your regularly scheduled intellectual videogame analysis WITH COMPLETE 100% HYPE OH MY GOD PERSONA 5 LOOKS SO GOOD YOU GUYS I THINK I’M GONNA DIE.

YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS IT? HECK NO, WE GOT A DANCIN ALL NIGHT TRAILER TOO.

BEST THURSDAY EVER.

Now Playing: Fantasy Life

I bought Fantasy Life on a recommendation from a friend. I had heard mixed things about the game, so I was slightly hesitant on picking it up. But I trust my friend’s judgement, so I decided I had nothing to lose. 8 hours in, what’s my consensus?

Honestly, I don’t have one yet. Fantasy Life is a huge game. I can tell I’ve just barely scratched the surface in terms of what it has to offer. The game is a life simulator, while simultaneously containing RPG elements — think Animal Crossing meets Skyrim, really. You can take on a variety of “Lives”, which are basically jobs from other RPG games. You can be everything from a Paladin to a Blacksmith to a Cook to a Tailor, and can switch your Life at your leisure.

By the way, “leisure” is the key word here. Fantasy Life is a very slow paced game. The comparisons I made to Skyrim are not far off. You can do whatever you want in this game, and not feel pressured to complete any particular objective. Want to fell a few trees as a Woodcutter, switch to a Craftsman, and then sell the furniture you end up creating? Go ahead. Want to go mining for materials, use those materials to craft some weapons, and then explore and kill monsters for bounties? Do it! It’s really up to you, and what’s great is that in comparison to games like Skyrim, there’s no overarching, urgent quest that’s waiting for you to hurry up and get the side quests done so you can get back to saving the world.

I’d say that’s one of Fantasy Life’s strong points. It’s truly a relaxing game. At first I was getting anxious at all the quests that I had to complete, but as I settled in and decided to take my time, I was able to enjoy it much more. I can always go ahead and speed through Mario and Luigi: Dream Team. Fantasy Life is a “stop and smell the roses” kind of game.

Also of note! You can create a dark skinned character in this game. I was so relived when I realized I could do that – I’m getting pretty sick of games that are touted as being “life simulators” deciding to forget about one of its demographics. (Animal Crossing, cough cough).

So, Fantasy Life, thus far, has been worth my time. I’m interested to see how it fairs in the long-term — whether the endgame becomes a grind, or if the game as a whole begins to feel repetitive. We’ll see!