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Phogs (PS5): COMPLETED!

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One good thing about PS++++++++++, is that in amongst all the crap games and shovelware there are a load of co-op games that are fun for me to play with my daughter. It’s because of an afternoon where we were looking for something to play together that we were trawling through the library and spotted Phogs (or possibly “PHOGS!”), and now we’ve completed it.

In many ways, this game falls into a similar category as other wonky-physics titles like Human Fall Flat and Totally Reliable Delivery Service, in that you have inaccurate control over a character and have to manipulate objects in the environment in order to progress. An additional hinderance here, however, is that each player controls either end of a double-ended dog. Imagine a sausage dog with a head at each end, Push-Me-Pull-You style, with each independently moved by each player. You can make things cosy by sharing a single controller and having a stick each, but we were fine to go with a pad apiece.

Anyway. That’s all logistics waffle – what about the game?

It’s a sort of platformy-puzzley game, where your phog has to reach a big snake at the end of each level who swallows you and moves you on to the next. In the way are gaps you have to fill, plants you have to water, items you have to collect, water spouts you have to plug, and dark areas you have to light up (or vice versa). Mostly, these are achieved by grabbing something with one or both of your phog heads. For example, there’s a watermelon patch that needs watering so the watermelon can grow and create a platform for you to progress. Nearby is a pipe with water coming out. You grab on to the pipe with one phogmouth and then the other phogmouth becomes a hose, and – since you can also stretch your phog – you can use this to reach the patch and water the watermelon.

Cooperation is absolutely key, as you can imagine, especially on the many “swing over this gap” sections, where you can grab hold of a hook (or something) with one phoghead then swing the other phoghead to the next hook and grab hold, repeating until you’ve swung all the way over. Timing is often critical so we found ourselves counting to three a lot. Thankfully, you can’t really die and if you fall off the world (which is inevitable give the wonky physics and lack of coordination) you don’t lose much progress at all.

It’s not a very long game, with us finishing it in about three hours, but we enjoyed it and the silly hats you can unlock (which do nothing except adorn a head). There’s a fair amount of variety across the four main worlds, with bosses of a sort on each. The “night and day” world has some especially clever light-and-dark, awake-and-asleep and perspective puzzles and events. The final world also has a short section where there’s a big change to the game mechanics, although I won’t spoil it. Oh, and eating all the food you find so you get phat phogs never gets old or boring.

It’s nice and colourful and mostly low stress (unlike, say, Overcooked), and we didn’t end up fighting each other or anything so that’s probably a recommendation?

Metaphor: ReFantazio (PS5)

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It’s rare I post about a game before I’ve completed it these days, but I felt I had to write something about Metaphor: ReFantazio. I’m only about 10 hours in, with the last five of those being mostly spent in the first proper dungeon, so it’s early doors, but oh my, is this a game.

To begin with, I was a little disappointed in the graphics. I’m not All About The Graphics, as regular readers would know, but it’s sometimes nice to play a PS5 game and have All The Graphics. Sadly, although it’s pretty, for the most part so far Metaphor isn’t an improvement on Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Until it comes to the UI, where it is utterly mental. If you thought, as I did, that Persona 4 Golden had UI diarrhoea (in a good way), then get a load of the exploded fontbook that is the Metaphor menu system and battle UI. Everything moves and has different fonts and styles and it’s all circular and spirals and flashy overlays and and and… there’s no reason for it! It doesn’t affect the gameplay in any way! My guess is the UI designer got bored after their task on the game only took a week.

Look at that beautiful mess on the left there.

That’s the first thing that hit me. The second was more subtle to begin with and is to do with the Metaphor title. After reaching Grand Trad, the (first?) big city in the game, and chatting to everyone and finding out what’s going on, my mission, and the general state of various races, religion, and relationships, added to a class system and a man who wants to change everything and be King, the real story was then as subtle as a brick to the face. It’s all about real life issues and politics under the guise of fantasy and magic. Clever.

That aside, the gameplay is Persona. So I’m loving it. The dungeon I’m in might be big and hard but it’s so slick and the turn-based combat is tuned to be fast and clear and stupidly over the top. It’s a shame the graphics aren’t quite there, but as I said, not a big loss for me.

Miss Rosen’s Wowtastic! Marching Band (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Note: A free code was given to me by the devs for review purposes for an upcoming episode of the ugvm Podcast. This isn’t a full review, just a record in my gaming diary. The full review will be over there anon.

A while back, I played the totally ridiculous Switch game About An Elf. It had a very unique art style and gameplay which teeters on the very definition of what gameplay is, and was baffling before you even got into the plot. Very few games leave me with a lasting impression like that, so when I saw Miss Rosen’s Wowtastic! Marching Band, which features the same art style because, well, it turns out it’s by the same devs and set in the same universe, there was a pang of omgneed. And here I am having completed it to tell you about it.

I’ll start with the gameplay because, frankly, that’s the only bit that makes the slightest bit of sense. Each level, or rather, episode of Miss Rosen’s TV show, you’re given a number of “packing” puzzles to complete. You have to fit things on a desk, or in a suitcase, or a box, before the time runs out. That’s easy to understand, right? It’s not quite as easy as it seems because they’re mostly real-world items with their odd shapes and sizes, and later levels add gimmicks like things that are invisible or that constantly move to make it trickier.

On it’s own, it’s no Unpacking or anything, but the rest of the game. Oh my.

So Miss Rosen is a wind-up majorette. She has a TV show where she has “adventures” each episode, and you know they’re going to be fun because she’s here! How much fun? This much fun! Quite. The “fun” mainly involves talking to bizarre people, creatures and sentient objects, and then solving the packing puzzles in order to help or defeat them as appropriate. All while assisted by a child called Dunno who wears a bandana over his mouth which completely disguises the fact that he’s really a T-Rex because obviously?

As the game goes on, you find there’s Something Bad happening, with things disappearing not only from existence, but from time itself. Then your friends disappear too. Is it the work of a magician who makes things disappear in front of your very eyes? Well, that would be too obvious, surely?

I… well. Erm.

What I really, really love about the game is the animation and art. Like About An Elf (Dam and her cat from that game make an appearance here too, actually) it’s hard to tell what is real, what is models, what is CGI, and what is your imagination because surely you can’t really be building a horse can you? Oh, you are? Righty-o. Backgrounds are filled with semi-humanoid mice that speed up and slow down. Is the sun made of plasticine or is it a woman wearing a mask? Why do all the women have hotpants on? THE CAR HAS A FACE. And WHY is the game called Miss Rosen’s Wowtastic! Marching Band when she doesn’t really have a marching band. Or even a band of any other sort. All important questions, none of which are answered and by the end you’re feeling bewildered and maybe a little bit sick like you’ve been on a Waltzer.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country (Switch): COMPLETED!

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If the $hlmun of hours on the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 main game and DLC wasn’t enough, then thank $deity for this prequel spin-off! Yes, more Xenoblade! Amazing.

To be cynical for a moment, it’s clear that this was likely originally supposed to be integrated in the main game. There’s a number of flashbacks to events 500 years ago, and it’s those events that are retold in full here. You could complain about it being money-grabbing to ask you to buy two things, but when you get so much damn game for your money it’s hard to. Besides, despite being much smaller than the main game (both in terms of size and length) it’s still bigger than many other full price releases and did come with all the extra stuff for the XC2 itself.

Anyway. To the game itself!

It’s the same in many ways as Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and they’ve not drastically tweaked the gameplay. You still have blades (although each character only has two and you can’t awaken an army of them), battles are pretty similar, and even one area of the game – Gormott – is here as it was before (albeit 500 years younger with no town to speak of yet). A few things have gone, like the cloud sea “tides”, which was silly and underused anyway, and salvaging. Your main character and blades now fight directly, rather than you “channelling” your blade, but this doesn’t really change the gameplay. Crafting items is now a big thing, expanding on the cooking you could do before. Finally, there’s a new addition called “Community”, where things you do for people you meet builds your reputation. It doesn’t seem to do much, though, aside from allow access to a few more missions or skills.

The plot follows Lora, who is Jin’s driver, who joins up with Addam (Mythra’s original driver) and one of Mòrag’s ancestors Hugo, driver of Brigid and Aegaeon as they try to put down Malos before he destroys the world. You know, much like in the main game. Although it’s set 500 years in the past, there are a surprising number of recurring characters, including Mikhail (as a kid). It’s interesting to see how Jin is a good guy here, before he becomes one of the Big Bads in XC2. In fact, it’s a shame that it isn’t really fully explained why Jin and Mikhail swap sides, although both are redeemed in XC2.

So really, it’s more of the (almost) same. A few changes, some new locations, and a power where you can halve your HP in return for vastly reducing the cooldown of your skills which speeds up fighting lower-level enemies greatly – a really issue in the main game and I’m thankful for here. Probably essential playing if you liked Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and probably useless to play if you haven’t played (or at least, intend on playing) that as there’d be a load of missing context. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 before X comes out now? Why not?

Rain On Your Parade (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Rain On Your Parade is one of those silly arcade games that things like Donut County and Pool Panic. In this, you’re a sentient cloud who – initially – is mainly tasked with raining on things. After all, what else can a cloud do? You have to soak so many people or rust so many vehicles, that sort of thing.

Quickly things take a bit of a turn when you’re encouraged to cause chaos, set fire to stuff (you can hover over oil leaks and then rain oil), learn how to cause lightning, and so on. The game is framed within a Princess Bride style man telling a kid a bedtime story about this cloud, and he keeps adding to it to keep it interesting, so there’s the introduction of a baddie – Dr Dryspell – who wants nothing more than make everything dry.

Levels are varied, some short, some mere time or score attacks, and some pretty huge and complex. There’s quite some imagination going on (“rain” coffee into cups, get everyone covered in bird poo) but a special mention is needed to the first person shooter level, and the Legend of Zelda one for really stretching the formula. It’s also fun finding the references to other games, like Katamari, Metal Gear, and Power Wash Simulator.

Most of the levels have a number of “missions”, which usually require you to wet a certain number of things or complete the level without running out of water, and there are optional tasks, and even some optional hidden tasks, if you really want to go down the 100% complete route. There’s also a load of unlockable “costumes” for your cloud, like a frog hat and a chainsaw, and some minigames too.

Rain On Your Parade is quirky and funny, although a bit janky when it comes to things like collision detection and it even crashed on me a couple of times, but don’t let that put you off. A bit more polish would have been nice but it doesn’t detract from the ridiculous gameplay. Oh yes, and it has toilets. Five stars, would play again. Etc.