Now Playing: Yakuza Kiwami

Yakuza Kiwami AKA Everyone You Like Dies is a remake of the original Yakuza game, first released on the PlayStation 2 in 2005. They’ve essentially rebuilt the entire game using the Yakuza Zero engine which I would say is both a good and a bad thing. Good, in the sense that Kiwami is instantly familiar to those who played Zero, but bad in the sense that it’s a little too familiar.

I didn’t play the original Yakuza, so I can’t compare it to this remake. I’m reviewing Kiwami as someone who has only played Zero, and compared to Zero . . . Don’t get me wrong, Kiwami is a good game, but jumping into it from Zero makes it a tricky one to judge. If you’ve played Zero then it’s important to lower your expectations because this is, let’s not forget – a remake of a game released in 2005.

 

Compared to Zero, Kiwami is far shorter and has far less content to explore. And what side content it does offer is almost entirely recycled from Zero. The main story is very enjoyable and the primary reason any fan of Zero will want to play through Kiwami. It continues the story of Kiryu as he finds himself at the heart of another power struggle within the Tojo Clan. Fans of Majima will be happy to know he also makes a return, although he isn’t playable in Kiwami and he doesn’t play much of a role within the core story.

Like Zero, Kiwami is structured into story chapters, each with its own main missions and side missions (substories) to unlock as you progress. The substories in Kiwami aren’t anywhere near as fun, varied or interesting as those in Zero, but there’s still some good stuff to find and they’re worth working your way through. In terms of other side content, Kiwami is far more limited than Zero with no ‘business’ type content to manage.

 

Visually, Kiwami looks great but once again, that’s because it mostly recycles everything from Zero. Combat is pretty much identical – only more limited because you’re now restricted to one character rather than two – the only new addition being a somewhat pointless ‘health regeneration’ state for certain ‘boss’ characters.

This can be interrupted by a heat attack, but it feels like an unnecessary addition that only serves to tediously prolong fights. The combat system also suffers from the same little issues that annoyed me in Zero – the wonky lock on and enemies who can stun lock you from behind.

One thing I’d say Kiwami does do better than Zero is how much easier it is to unlock your combat skills. Rather than cash, you unlock skills by spending experience you earn in battle and you can unlock the majority of your skills pretty early on. It was a smart move, because it would have been pretty irritating having to slowly relearn all of your moves from Zero.

 

Something I wasn’t overly fond of though was the ‘Majima Everywhere’ mechanic. The idea is that Majima will pop up as you explore to challenge you to a fight and defeating him will increase his ‘rank’, allowing you to unlock new skills.

It’s pretty funny during the early stages of the game as he pops up in strange and unexpected ways, but towards the end of the game I was getting kind of sick of him – as I was wrapping up some substories before beginning the final mission, Majima popped up three times in a row as I tried to travel from one location to another. It was pretty damn annoying.

I don’t really have much more to say about Kiwami. If I were to sum it up I’d say it’s good, but not as good as Zero. But considering it’s a remake of a game released in 2005, that’s not exactly a surprise. I’d recommend playing Zero first, and if you like the characters and story, then pick up Kiwami if you’re curious to see how the story continues.

7/10

Battlefield V: Firestorm

Firestorm is the new Battle Royale mode for Battlefield V. I don’t really have much interest in the BR genre, but seeing as I already owned BFV, I thought I’d give it a spin. It’s currently playable solo or in 4 man squads. You’re dropped onto an island with 63 other players in an ever shrinking play area as the titular firestom closes in.

You begin with only a knife and must scavenge weapons, ammunition, armour and supplies to survive. In a Battlefield twist, vehicles – including tanks – can also be acquired, although these aren’t as useful as they might seem.

In the solo mode, you can’t drive and shoot at the same time. Anti-tank weapons are also very easy to obtain. I only played Firestorm in the solo mode, so my experience will be based entirely upon that, and if anything, climbing into a tank in solo just makes you a bigger target.

The map is very large but not all of it is accessible from the beginning of a match. The initial ‘safe’ play area will be randomised every game, but it doesn’t cover the entire map which, given the smaller player count compared to some other BR games, is probably a good idea.

 

The map looks great with a decent variety of locations and terrain although, like some others have noted, there’s no particularly memorable landmarks. Like the ordinary BFV maps, the Firestorm map has a degree of destructibility. And like the other BFV maps, it’s this destructibility that keeps matches feeling fresh and exciting as the terrain is shaped by the players and their actions.

Matches in Firestorm are short and punchy, rarely lasting more than 15 minutes, even if you reach the final 2. The firestorm adjusts to each match, pushing players into an ever decreasing safe zone as their numbers fall. And the firestorm looks great as it creeps across the landscape – an inescapable wave of death.

The first 3 minutes or so of a match are by far the most deadly and will see nearly half of the contenders killed. The question is, do you drop early in a more populated area to try to obtain better quality gear or, do you wait and drop somewhere more remote, with less gear to collect but less chance of catching an early bullet?

 

I guess you could say that’s the risk versus reward nature of Battle Royale, but given the way gear in Firestorm is distributed, that’s not entirely true. I’ve dropped into more ‘hot’ areas such as military bases and fought other players to discover only a basic cache of equipment. And yet, at other times I’ve dropped to a remote, singular farmhouse and discovered a treasure trove of weapons and supplies.

So here’s a pro tip – don’t bother dropping early or targeting more populated areas thinking you’ll find better stuff. From what I’ve seen, gear is distributed almost entirely randomly, so you’re better off avoiding that early death race because you won’t necessarily be any better equipped even if you do manage to survive it.

And that’s the thing about Battle Royale – to win, you only need 1 kill. The last kill. Avoiding other players and trying to survive without fighting is actually the best strategy. Fighting other players when you don’t have to only does four things, and only one of these is positive.

The positive is this – if you win, you’ve narrowed the field of competition. The negatives are – if you lose, you’re dead. Even if you win, you’ve expended some of your precious resources such as ammunition or armour. Oh, and you may also be revealing your location to any other players nearby who will hurry in and finish you off quite easily if you took any damage.

 

So yeah, avoiding other players and only fighting when you absolutely must isn’t just a valid tactic to survive, it’s actually a far more efficient strategy. Like I said, you only need 1 kill to win. I guess the real question now is – do I like it? Well, I’d say Firestom has pretty much confirmed what I already felt about the BR genre – I kind of half like the concept and half hate it.

I’ve talked before about the balance between skill and luck in games, and how whilst luck will always be a factor, it should never feel like the defining factor. Battle Royale, by nature, is a very luck leaning genre. You might drop onto the island and only find a pistol and some med kits, whilst the guy who dropped nearby found assault rifles, rockets and heavy armour.

Sure, that randomised element is a big part of the appeal of BR, but that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating when you get killed purely because you couldn’t find anything useful in the first minute or so. Fortunately, it’s pretty quick and easy to jump straight into another match – Firestorm seems to load in and out far more quickly than the regular MP.

No, it’s not the randomised gear that’s the real issue with the luck/skill balance of Firestorm – it’s the armour mechanic. Every player begins with a level 1 armour slot which, when equipped with an armour plate, will boost your health by 50. You can then find level 2 (100 extra health) and level 3 (150) armour on the map.

 

Why do I think this is a bad thing? Well, it’s because it’s not really ‘armour’ it’s just a health boost, and at level 3 you now have double the standard health. This essentially turns players equipped with level 3 armour into something of a bullet sponge – it takes double the number of shots to kill them, as they need to kill you.

 

That’s a pretty significant advantage, and why armour is by far the most important piece of gear within the game. That’s not to say you can’t win without it – but the advantages it provides can’t be denied. I’ve lost fights simply because my opponent had level 3 armour and I didn’t. But I’ve also won fights I probably should have lost simply because I was lucky enough to find level 3 and they hadn’t.

I don’t really mind the randomised gear in the sense that you just have to work with what you can find – I can see the appeal of that. But the armour system just doesn’t feel very fair. I really think Firestorm would be better without it because it crosses that line between luck and skill too far. I shouldn’t have double the health of other players just because I got lucky on my drop.

Overall, I’ve had some fun playing Firestorm but I’m not sure it has the legs for long term appeal. The loot system is pretty terrible as gear spills out of downed players and becomes a nightmare to sort through. The armour system is something I just don’t like. And honestly, after only a week or so, I’m already going back to the regular MP. I’ve not given up on the mode, and it’s something I’ll probably drop into now and then, but I’d still rather have more maps and new locations in the core game.

Now Playing: Resonance of Fate

I played Resonance of Fate when it was originally released in 2010 and a friend of mine was kind enough to gift me this PC remaster over Christmas. I got pretty hooked on RoF on its original release, playing through the game twice and completing all of the content and achievements. Returning to the game today, it’s not hard to see why.

The real strength of RoF is its unique combat system. It’s semi-turned based, in the sense that your three party members each take their turn to move, attack or use an item, but enemies can also move and potentially attack when you do. The combat isn’t based around swords and magic, but guns and grenades. On each character turn you can initiate a simple attack by charging your weapon, with each successive charge delivering a more powerful shot.

You can also spend a ‘bezel’ (a segment of a special power bar which you can expand over the course of the game) to initiate a ‘hero’ move which allows you to plot a path across the combat map and attack on the go. This allows you to reposition your party, dodge incoming enemy attacks, or trigger special moves such as a ‘smackdown’ whereby you flip an enemy into the air and repeatedly slam them into the ground.

 

By carefully positioning your characters during these hero moves you’ll gain ‘resonance points’ which you can use to initiate a ‘tri-attack’ whereby all three party members follow a set, triangular path from point to point and attack in turn. But you have to be careful not to waste bezel shards, because if you run out of these you’ll enter a critical state in which you’re unable to perform hero moves.

 

Is everyone still with me? Damage in RoF comes in two forms – scratch and direct. Handguns and grenades do direct damage whilst machine-guns do scratch. Scratch damage doesn’t actually kill an enemy, but severely weakens their health bar which remains ‘scratched’ following the attack. A direct damage attack against the scratched enemy will then reduce their health bar to the level of scratch inflicted.

Direct damage in RoF is very weak and unlikely to destroy enemies on its own unless they’re at a significantly lower level than you. Typically, you’ll approach fights by doing as much scratch damage as you can to an enemy and then following it up with a direct strike to wipe the scratch. That’s not to say that direct damage doesn’t have its uses beyond clearing scratch, as a heavy direct strike against an enemy can also ‘break’ their health bar, temporarily stunning them, or even destroying individual ‘parts’ such as the cannon on a robot, preventing it from using that attack.

 

Every hero move in the game is accompanied by a stylish animation as your character runs, flips and jumps into combat whilst firing their guns or tossing grenades. And the combat maps must also be considered when planning your attack strategy, as some may feature walls, ramps, explosive barrels, or switches that activate defensive bunkers – although I do wish the game did a greater job of mixing up and expanding upon the variety of battle maps and their environmental components.

Every battle in RoF is about planning the most effective and efficient strategy to win. Most enemies have shields to deflect scratch damage, but those shields may not be as strong from one angle to another, so it’s important to look for weaknesses and openings through which to maximise your attack. Enemies can also be weak to various grenade and ammunition types – such as fire, electrical or poison. And there’s a great variety of enemy types to fight ranging from human, robots and monsters.

I’ve written a lot about the combat because it really is the heart of the game and it’s where you’ll spend 90% of your time in RoF. But what about the others aspects? The world? The characters? The story?

The world of RoF is certainly interesting – a clockwork city created to save humanity, but resulting in an oppressive, class based society in which people’s lives and deaths are determined by an automated system. The problem is, the game does a shit job of explaining the world and the plot. Even playing it for the third time, I sill didn’t have much of a clue as to what exactly was going on or why I was fighting certain people.

 

The story aspects of RoF aren’t well presented and honestly, I’d probably just skip them if it wasn’t for the fun character banter. The three heroes of RoF – Vashyron, Zephyr and Leanne – make for a fun little dysfunctional family, and it’s their bond and banter that sees you through a rather poorly presented and not terribly exciting tale.

As you progress through the game you’ll unlock new levels of the city to explore. It’s a hex grid map, and fighting various enemies will grant you new hex pieces in order to unlock new sections. Every chapter will give you a primary mission to complete, but there are also side missions to work through, and by the end of the game these missions will have taken you to every area of the city. There are random encounters on the map, but also dungeons to complete – although these are basically just several combat maps strung together by a common theme.

You can earn money and ‘hunter points’ by completing missions, but you only level your characters by improving their individual weapon stats, so it’s important to rotate weapon types between your characters for maximum effect. And in one of the best features of the game, your weapons can be customised with a variety of crafted attachments.

You can also customise your characters with a lot of different clothing to purchase, but these are purely cosmetic, so unless you really love to play dress-up, it’s not something you really need to bother with.

 

Okay, so the characters are good, the world is interesting but the story is weak. The gameplay is very fun, but it does get quite repetitive as you progress, especially if you intend to clear the optional Arena content, which is a series of fights against increasingly tough groups of enemies – there’s something like 500 of these to clear.

The game can also be a bit of a grind, especially if you intend to clear the final, optional dungeon, which will require a level of at least 120 or so, but you probably won’t be more than level 80 or so by the end of the game, not unless you’ve gone out of your way to grind extra levels as you’ve progressed. I cleared all of this content on the original release, but I’m not sure I have the patience these days to bother.

Overall, Resonance of Fate remains a very unique, interesting and fun game to play. The story is weak, but the characters and world are good. And the combat, once you get the hang of it, is the real star of the show. But it can be a bit of a tedious grind at times, the random battles can get kind of annoying, and it can be pretty repetitive if you intend to work your way through the Arena. It certainly has its flaws, but the good far outweighs the bad, and I’d recommend checking it out.

7/10

Now Watching: Aquaman

Aquaman was good when it was good, but even better when it was bad. I was thoroughly entertained by Aquaman. It’s everything I didn’t know I wanted from a movie about a dude who talks to fish. Aquaman has fun with its concept in a way that’s both respectful to the source material, but also self-aware.

It’s silly enough to enjoy itself, but serious enough to keep you engaged. It’s got some fantastic visuals and most importantly – action. The opening action scene featuring Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) was a perfect combination of stunts, fight choreography, CGI and creative camera work, a winning combination that’s repeated throughout the film.

So it should come as no surprise that Aquaman struggles between fight scenes. Jason Momoa (Aquaman) looks half-asleep during some dialogue segments – and possibly a little drunk during others. And the complete lack of chemistry between him and Mera (Amber Heard) is pretty damn funny. There’s one scene that plays like a parody of a bad romantic comedy. That shit has to be intentional. James Wan knew exactly what he was doing, right down to the way the scene was shot and the choice of music.

As far as the plot goes, it’s pretty much what you’d expect – an unwilling hero who doesn’t believe he’s worthy to lead, but who must seize his destiny to become King. Toss in a villain with bad hair and a quest for a magical MacGuffin and it’s a pretty by the numbers affair.

Did I mention that an octopus plays the drums? Like I said, Aquaman is self-aware enough that it knows when to have fun. It’s silly, but it’s not stupid is the best way I can describe it. It knows exactly what it is and just rolls with it.

I don’t have much more to say about Aquaman. I’m not going to claim it’s a great movie or even a particularly good one, but it’s easily the most fun I’ve had with any of the DC films. It’s a movie about a dude who talks to fish – what more do you expect?

6/10

Now Playing: Supremacy (DLC)

I said at the end of my review of The Vaulters DLC that I hoped the next major DLC for Endless Space 2 wouldn’t just introduce a new faction, but new gameplay mechanics which would change the way the campaign plays for every faction. And with Supremacy, I kind of get my wish . . . but also kind of wish I hadn’t.

Let’s begin with the new faction – the Hissho. As far as unique faction mechanics go, I can’t say I found them as interesting to play as the Vaulters, but they’re still pretty fun. They’re very war focused, and fighting – and more importantly winning – battles isn’t just key to maintaining high public order throughout your systems, but also your expansion.

As you’d expect, the Hissho get some lovely new ship designs, heroes and their own faction quest chain. They also get access to some unique boosts to both fleet performance and system development which are tied to the new Behemoth content – but it’s the Behemoth content where Supremacy runs into trouble.

The Behemoths are a new ship type which can be constructed to focus on 3 specialisations – military, science and economy. They’re very powerful – though not invulnerable – and can be used (when upgraded by various technologies) to support your fleets, mine resources and even terraform worlds you’ve not yet colonised.

 

Regardless of your chosen specialisation, every Behemoth can then be upgraded into one of three classes – Obliterator / Juggernaut (offence) or Citadel (system defence). Although you’re limited to a single Behemoth at the start of the game, you can rapidly expand your fleet with hero skills and system upgrades. How powerful (and important) these ships become as the game progress cannot be understated.

The Juggernaut has the ability to wipe out entire fleets, whilst the Obliterator has the ability to wipe out an entire star system in a single missile strike. This strike may cost significant resources, but can also be fired for free simply by orbiting a friendly star for several turns.

Using my own Obliterators constructed during my campaign, I was able to wipe out three enemy systems on a single turn. I can’t say watching all those enemy planets go Boom! wasn’t particularly fun, but it became clear to me then just how ridiculously overpowered the Behemoths are and when I began a second game, just how much they change the dynamic of the campaign.

 

If the Behemoths were restricted to say, 1 of each type, and were ridiculously expensive to produce, that would help, but they’re actually pretty cheap considering how deadly they are. They’re also not limited to the Hissho – any faction can construct them.

I really think I’d have preferred it if the Behemoths were faction unique to the Hissho. They’d need to be rebalanced, but it would give the Hissho a pretty cool, unique mechanic. Instead, everyone gets access to Behemoths. This is disappointing not only in a gameplay sense, but a visual sense as well, because the Behemoths all look alike regardless of who constructs them. And one of the best things about Endless Space 2 is the unique visual styles of each faction and their ships.

Although I enjoyed playing my Hissho campaign, it was only when I began another game playing as the Empire against several other factions that I realised how much of a negative impact the Behemoths were having on the overall campaign. Within thirty turns I’d encountered four Behemoths – two from the same faction.

I hadn’t constructed any, not because I didn’t have the resources, but because I’d decided not to. But as I quickly realised, I’d need to construct them in order to remain competitive – they’re just too powerful not to use. And then the campaign felt more like a race to construct and upgrade my Behemoths before the AI, so I wasn’t at a disadvantage.

 

To put it simply – the new Behemoth mechanics had completely taken over the campaign. I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily a bad thing, because as I said, I did enjoy playing with them, and I did want to see new content added which changed the campaign dynamic. But as they’re currently implemented, Behemoths become far too much of the focus of the campaign, and because they all look the same, you lose some of that cool uniqueness that makes Endless Space 2 so fun to play.

And here’s the other problem – although you can disable the Behemoths before starting a campaign, they’re unfortunately tied to the Hissho faction mechanics, so if you want to play as or with the Hissho, you’re getting the Behemoths along for the ride. Which means if you don’t want to play with the Behemoths active, you can’t play with the Hissho.

I don’t think the Behemoths are a terrible idea, but I do think they need to be drastically rebalanced. I’d also love to be able to toggle them on and off without losing access to the Hissho, or maybe just making them Hissho exclusive. And if we could get unique Behemoth skins for every faction, that would be pretty great.

Overall, Supremacy is a decent DLC pack with some good content, I just think it’s been poorly incorporated into the campaign. From what I’ve seen, a lot of other people share my concerns, so hopefully the developers will take steps to address these issues.

6/10

Apex Legends

When I heard rumours of a Titanfall ‘Battle Royale’ game I thought they were just a joke. But when Apex Legends was officially revealed, I wasn’t quite sure what to think. If you’ve followed my blog you’ll know I was a big fan of the original Titanfall and its sequel – despite my criticisms of the design direction of the TF2 MP.

The more I thought about a Titanfall BR game the more excited I became. I’ve not played any Battle Royale games – it’s just not a genre I’m particularly interested in. But a Titanfall BR? A BR game with Titanfall movement mechanics, on a map facilitating those mechanics with the addition of Titan combat?

Oh shit, that actually sounds pretty great, doesn’t it? You take the fantastic fluid movement of Titanfall, the cool Titanfall world, and then add Titan combat into the mix – maybe as an unlock for a set number of kills, or perhaps when a certain number of players remain, everyone can call down a Titan and duke it out to win. You could choose to fight in your Titan, or perhaps let it go auto as pilot bait.

The thought of all this got me quite excited about playing a BR game. I loved playing Titanfall and though this isn’t exactly a Titanfall 3, the chance of returning to that world and that unique blend of pilot/titan combat was an exciting prospect. That excitement was, unfortunately, short lived.

Because Apex Legends doesn’t have jet packs or wall running or even bloody titans. It has none of the unique movement mechanics that made Titanfall such a joy to play. From an interview with Eurogamer -

‘The choice to not have those came about because of play-testing against our goals: to have a strategic, learnable, masterable, deep game.’

‘[We had] things like wall running and double jumping for a long time, we had triple jump for a while, they make combat really hard to beat and comprehend. You can’t predict where players come from or you’re pushing them to, and things would happen to you more than you would predict and respond against. So it’s really fun to do, but it’s really bad for combat legibility.’

To be honest, after seeing the design direction of TF2, this attitude shouldn’t exactly surprise me, but I’m still disappointed. They’ve essentially ripped out everything that made Titanfall unique, special and great fun to play. They may stress that Apex Legends isn’t a Titanfall game – hence the name – but it is set within the same world and uses many of the weapon and environmental assets of the Titanfall series.

I wouldn’t be so bothered by this if A) we still knew a Titanfall 3 was in development – but it appears that whatever Titanfall 3 was going to be was then transformed into Apex Legends and B) if I hadn’t thought about how cool an actual Titanfall BR game would be, incorporating the pilot/titan combat of the series with the excellent map design of TF1.

For a few short hours, I was pretty excited about playing that game. But that’s not what Apex Legends is. And I’m not saying that Apex Legends is necessarily a bad game because of that – it’s just not the game that I wanted, that I imagined when I pictured a BG game set within the Titanfall world.

I’m also not a fan of the character designs which look totally out of place in the Titanfall universe. They look more like low budget Overwatch heroes. I did download Apex Legends to give it a shot, to see if it could win me over, but after playing the tutorial I just didn’t want to continue.

The running and sliding felt so good and immediately familiar. And even though I knew I couldn’t wall run, I instinctively had to try. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I had to see it to believe it. It just made me sad, and I just didn’t feel like jumping into a match to play this weird looking, bastardised version of a game series I once loved. Maybe in the future I’ll be willing to give it a fair shake. But not today.