Now Watching: A Ghost Story

I think the best way to sum up how I feel about A Ghost Story is that I like what it’s doing, more than how it does it. It’s a film dealing with all the big issues – life, death and love. But above all, it’s about time.

Casey Affleck plays a nameless man who dies but returns as a ghost wearing a white sheet. It’s both comical and quaint, but neatly plays into the feeling of disconnection between him and the world of the living. As the film progresses he does learn to interact with this world to a limited degree, but he’s largely a passive observer. Time passes, but he remains constant.

Dialogue is almost non-existent, as the film relies upon its visuals and sound to tell its story . . . at least until a completely unnecessary scene in which a living character practically turns to the audience and explains the plot in a meandering, pretentious monologue.

The scene could have been cut, and I think you’d have a stronger film without it. In fact, there’s a lot of scenes that could be trimmed, particularly during the first act. The concept is sound, but this feels like 60 minutes of solid content stretched to 90. Stretched so thin it almost breaks.

Almost. Fortunately, A Ghost Story pulls it back together and delivers a satisfying pay off at the very end – even if it’s one you’ll see coming long before we get there. I do understand why so many of the early scenes are presented as they are, as it ties into our perception of the passage of time – but it’s still 10 minutes of watching someone eating a pie that I’ll never get back. Cut that scene in half, and the impact would be the same.

Overall, I felt a little disappointed by A Ghost Story. The presentation is great. The direction, sound and concept are all things I can appreciate – but I think the execution is flawed. It’s a difficult film to recommend, but if you’re in the mood for a more slow paced, thoughtful film exploring themes like the nature of death and time, then be sure to check it out.

5/10

Now Playing: Final Fantasy XV

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game shit the bed quite as hard as Final Fantasy XV. In just a handful of hours, it went from a game I considered to be an early contender for my GOTY, to an early contender for my Most Disappointing Game of the Year.

I had an absolute blast during Chapters 1-8 of Final Fantasy XV. Chapter 9 seemed promising, but that’s where things rapidly fell apart. Chapters 10, 11 & 12 took a serious dive in quality and Chapter 13? Chapter 13 was so bad it made me want to stop playing the game entirely. Oh god, was it bad.

Then came the final chapter, and I was just ready for the game to be over. But Chapter 14 knocked it the f**k out of the park with an absolutely fantastic finale. And suddenly, FFXV became a contender for my GOTY once again. To say that FFXV proved to be a roller-coaster of an experience would be an understatement.

The question is: what the hell happened? Chapter 9, which introduced a new location and map, felt stripped down, and the following Chapters 10-13 felt unfinished. The story was always a little disjointed, but from Chapter 10 onwards it goes entirely off the rails. It feels like massive chunks of content are simply missing and these last few chapters were simply cobbled together with whatever they had.

Was it a matter of time and budget? I don’t know, but as I said, FFXV does gets it shit back in order for the final chapter and go out with a suitably epic bang. But my god, was Chapter 13 terrible. There are two routes available, and from what I understand, Route B was only added because of how poorly received the original (and only) Route A was. But I didn’t know that going in, so I chose Route A because it seemed the ‘right’ choice to make considering it focused on the main character.

I wish I hadn’t. Route A is so boring, tedious and infuriating it made me want to quit. But I’m glad I pushed through, because Chapter 14 f**king rocked. I don’t think I’ve sever seen a game dive so hard in quality but recover just as quickly. That’s not to say Chapter 14 doesn’t take a misstep or two. It’s a shame we didn’t see more of the new world Noctis awakes to. I was disappointed we didn’t get to see demon slayer Iris, for example.

The most fun I had with FFXV was simply exploring its world. The side quests and monster hunts do a good job of pushing you to see every area and creature. Yes, the side quests are mostly basic fetch quests, but there’s a nice variety of objectives and fighting the fantastic variety of monsters is something I never grew tired of.

As I said in my First Impressions post, the combat system of FFXV is stylish fun, but it can become very messy in enclosed environments. This is particularly true during the dungeons, many of which feature narrow tunnels and chambers. But once you’ve unlocked all of the various combat skills and abilities, there’s more depth to the combat than you might initially think. It’s very fast paced, so it can descend into a mindless brawl, but when everything clicks, it’s very satisfying to play.

I’m also quite impressed with how much post-game content there is to explore and unlock. It keeps you wanting to play, even once you’ve finished the man story. And the main story, overall, is pretty good, despite feeling butchered to pieces during the last few chapters. What sells it are the characters, all of whom are pretty fun to interact with.

Graphically, FFXV looks great but could use a few more patches to improve performance. They fixed an issue with the summoning ability, but at the time of writing I’m still experiencing what I’m sure is a memory leak. Because I don’t tend to play for extended periods it’s not really an issue for me, but many people are still reporting it.

Final Fantasy XV was the first FF game I really got stuck into and despite the flaws and that late dive in quality, it’s a game I thoroughly enjoyed and intend to keep playing until I’ve completed all of the additional content. It’s certainly got its highs and its lows, but when it hits high, it really knocks it out of the park.

8/10

Gallery: Final Fantasy XV

Now Playing: Super Mario Odyssey

Princess Peach has been kidnapped and only you (Mario) can save her (again)! But you’re not alone! Accompanying you on your journey is a sentient hat by the name of Cappy. If sentient hats aren’t weird enough, Cappy can be used to possess various creatures and people. They become your unwilling puppets. It’s kind of f**king disturbing when you think about it.

I’ve played a few Mario titles such as 64, Sunshine & Galaxy but I’m not a massive fan of the series. I think Galaxy was the one I enjoyed the most, but it’s been a long time since I played it, so it’s hard to say if I prefer it to Odyssey. It’s something I’d certainly like to revisit this year, if I can find the time.

SMO is one of the most creative, fun and clever games you’ll play. Variety is its strongest aspect, with a fantastic mixture of environments, visuals, audio, enemies and most importantly – gameplay mechanics. Every world introduces new and fun mechanics which you’ll need to utilise in order to progress. It does this via Cappy’s possession ability – by taking control of various enemies, creatures or objects, you’ll gain access to their abilities too.

It limits these abilities to a couple of basic functions, so it doesn’t overcomplicate things. It also doesn’t overuse them – as I said, it’s introducing new mechanics with every world. And every world has its own unique theme and style.

The goal on each world is to collect a certain number of Power Moons in order to progress. There are, if you add together all additional post-game content, 999 Moons to collect. Of course, you don’t need to collect quite so many to complete the game. In fact, if all you’re interested in is progressing from the first world to the last, you could probably beat the game in a couple of hours.

Power Moons are practically everywhere and collecting the minimum number required to progress is incredibly easy. Some Moons require you solve small puzzles or platform challenges, but others are just sitting there waiting to be picked up. I can see this being an issue for some players, who aren’t really interested in going out of their way to collect as many Moons as they can.

If all you want to do is ‘beat’ the game then you may be disappointed by how short and ridiculously easy Odyssey is. As fun, creative and clever as it may be, it also has practically zero challenge – at least as far as progression goes.

The ‘challenge’ of Odyssey isn’t finishing the game, but collecting all of the Moons. That’s the primary focus of the title, and that’s very clear when you do complete the game and it unlocks a whole f**k load of new Moons to collect.

I’m not normally someone who cares very much about collecting stuff like this. It reminds me a little of the Korok Seeds in Breath of the Wild of which there are 900 to find. But I never felt the need to find them all, because you’ll find enough to see you through quite easily. They also weren’t the focus of the experience.

But the Moons in Odyssey are the focus. Finishing the game is just the start, as it unlocks a new world to explore and hundreds of new Moons to collect. And because it has so much variety and clever mechanics to play with, even I found myself continuing to play to see how many Moons I could find. More Moons = more content to unlock. Unlike Zelda, Odyssey really nails the post-game experience. In fact, it feels like the post-game is where it really begins.

If I had one major criticism of Odyssey it’s that it never really requires you to combine all of these neat little mechanics in a testing or complex way. It’s only at the very end that it presents a section where you have to combine the various mechanics you’ve learned, but it’s still a very basic and easy section to navigate.

I kept waiting for the game to really put these various possession abilities to the test, combining them in unique and clever ways, but the game never takes that extra step. Every mechanic is fun and unique, but also very isolated from the next. The boss fights, though fun, are also very basic, easy and somewhat repetitive.

Whilst some Moons present fun, clever and unique challenges to collect, others just seem to be there to make up the numbers. That said, they do lend themselves to playing the game in portable mode, where you can jump in for short sessions and collect a handful of Moons on the go.

I played primarily in docked mode using a pro controller, which can be a little awkward at times, because it seems the game really wants you to use the detached joy-cons. It seems like it was designed primarily for that control method, so that’s something to be aware of. I’m not really a fan of the joy-cons though as I find them too small and tricky to use.

My only other issue is that a couple of the worlds feel somewhat incomplete compared to the rest – they’re smaller, with less to see and do. The best example is the Ruined Kingdom, which feels like a hell of a lot of wasted potential.

Overall, Super Mario Odyssey is a fantastic title that’s extremely fun to play. I just wish it had stepped up the complexity and challenge a little more than it does, and combined the various mechanics in more interesting ways. Despite those complaints, it’s a must have title for the Switch and a game that’s perfect for pretty much everyone to play regardless of age or skill level. It has something for everyone to enjoy.

8/10