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Rocket League: scoring a pizza

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There’s a new temporary mode on Rocket League, with some sort of collaboration with the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. Yes, I said Hero. It’s similar to Snow Day, but played on a split-goal field and with a giant pizza instead of the puck, and you can’t jump, and you have a grapple hook which regenerates over time, and boost which also regenerates. So not that much like Snow Day.

I’m not a huge fan, because of the lack of jumping and aerials, but the game I’ve embedded below was pretty good fun.

You will note that most of my team left, and then were replaced, after a couple of minutes when we were a couple of goals down. They don’t know what they missed out on.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I’m a little sad now that the whole Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy has come to an end. This feature-length DLC for XC3 might be the last time we see the worlds created for the series, as although it did manage to forge some links with Xenoblade Chronicles X, I understand that’s not really related and the “links” are really little more than Easter eggs. Sad.

But the good things! Future Redeemed is set about 500 years before Xenoblade Chronicles 3, in an area of the same world that is somewhat missing from the main game for reasons which are clear in that game. You play as Matthew, a very familiar looking human who is from The City (no, not the same one as the main game) rather than Agnus or Keves. Agnus and Keves are about, nearer the start of their never-ending campaign to wipe each other out. Matthew, a mysterious woman called A, two “rescued” soldiers from the war, and – what? – both Shulk and Rex from XC1 and XC2 make up your party.

Gameplay is much the same as the main story, although there’s no Ouroborosing here (instead you have team-up attacks that effectively serve the same purpose). A few minor mechanic changes, like clearing out waves of baddies, change things a bit, but really what you’re here for is the plot and the further exposition of how Aionios came to be, how the hell grownup Rex and Shulk are here, and why Matthew looks like, well, spoiler. That, and a very familiar location from XC1 makes a major reappearance.

For a series that I wasn’t too sure I’d get into at the start, I have certainly spent one hell of a lot of time on it these last couple of years!

Harmoknight: completed!

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Harmoknight is best described as a rhythm platformer, although the platforming is basic at best and the rhythms are simple. You have two buttons – a jump, and an attack – and you have to either jump or attack in time with the music’s beat. In most cases it’s sufficient to react in time to seeing the gap or enemy, but on occasion the screen zooms in and reaction times are just too long; it’s at this point that you’ll lose too many lives and have to repeat the level. Each time you repeat you’ll get a bit further (usually), remembering the patterns to hit the buttons in and perfecting timing.

While that’s the core of the game, there are a few sections or levels which differ. Boss battles tend to give you a phrase to repeat, which is very reminiscent of Space Channel 5’s reliance on varying rhythms, while other levels have other characters join to introduce slightly different button requirements – pressing A or X depending on whether there’s an upper or lower enemy, for example. In order to pass a level you generally need to collect enough purple notes – from just running over them, or from hitting enemies exactly in time, or from hitting background objects as you pass them – and this awards you a Royal Note which is used to unlock new parts of the map. It’s possible to get to the end of a level and get a “so so” rating (rather than “good” or “great”), meaning you have to repeat it.

I like rhythm action games. Parappa the Rapper was a favourite at university; I enjoyed Um Jammer Lammy as well, and Vib Ribbon was bought on release day from WH Smiths in Clifton Downs. Space Channel 5 was uniquely stylish, and I still remember Owen when I play it. I’ve enjoyed the various Rhythm Heaven games I’ve played, and Rhythm Thief & the Emperor’s Treasure, and of course the dance mats and bongos and plastic guitars and the maracas. I wouldn’t say that Harmoknight was the best, but it was very enjoyable. The stages were the right length, the requirements were sufficiently varied, and the game didn’t outstay its welcome. After beating the final boss there were a few bonus levels to complete, plus a new section of the map opened. As well as this, any level which you pass with a “great” rating gives you the option of playing it at a faster speed.

It’s a pretty game with a clear visual identity

The game really benefits from being on the 3DS. The latency between processor and screen is known, and so the timing is spot on. Going back to replay Parappa nowadays is difficult, because of lag between the console and the TV, and the fact that the timing was never quite right in the game to start with. No such problems here – if you know which buttons to press when, you could close your eyes and hit the beat dead on. The fact that I didn’t get perfect scores on every level is my fault, not the game’s.

I’d recommend it, but with the closure of the 3DS eShop there’s now no legal way to get it. Maybe wait for the inevitable rerelease on the Switch 3.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)

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I went back after completing the main story, as there was still A Lot To Do. Not least completing the story unlocks two more Heroes – the Queens of Agnus and Keves themselves – but also because I had loads of other side missions and stuff I wanted to look into.

There’s quite a lot more exposition on how the world of Aionios came to be, as well as more backstory on both the main characters and all of the Heroes. Completing quests for your characters also eventually leads to them “ascending”, which unlocks more CP levels for them and some bonuses.

There’s a Nopon you meet fairly early on in the game who tells you to come back once you’ve completed the game, so I did that and he wanted stories of my adventures. Each completed story unlocks something – mostly cosmetic items and skins of characters from earlier Xenoblade games – and to complete them generally means 100%ing something. One I thought I’d go for was to unlock everything on everyone’s Interlink skill trees. To do this requires a lot of SP, and the only ways to get SP are by exploring the world (new areas unlock SP), opening containers (which might contain some), beating big ol’ baddies, and completing quests. Ascension quests unlock 10 SP each upon completion, and were the main things left for me to do, so I focussed on them. Oh boy.

Valdi, the young engineer commander of one of the Colonies, has a quest which involves collecting loads of items. Some are very rare. And only seem to come out of the item generators. Sometimes. I spent probably two whole hours on this tiny bit of one part of one of hundreds of quests, eventually completing it when the RNG Gods allowed it. That gave me enough SP to unlock the final bit of an Interlink tree, which in turn let me go and see the Nopon to get my prize. Only, it turns out, that I’d already got the same “prize” by scanning an Amiibo months ago. Angry? I nearly exploded.

I did, however, mop up some more stuff afterwards until I was satisfied I’d managed to rinse as much information and entertainment as I could out of the game, and with 130 hours on the clock, I called it a day.

Fantastic game. I see the remaster of Xenoblade Chronicles X is out now too, but as it has no ties to the 1, 2 or 3 (bar a single character cameo in a secret mode in XC2), I feel sad I won’t see any more of this amazing world. Or rather, set of worlds. Xenoblade 4 soon please and thanks?

Buzzled: picross times three

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In Buzzled, every hexagon space is either yellow or black. Each has a number. Each row has a sum of some of those numbers, coloured yellow or black. You have to work out which hexagons should be yellow (or black) to lead to the correct sum.

So, for example, on the bottom-left row here, you can see that only one of the 1s can be coloured yellow, and anything greater than a 1 should be black. The 5 on the far right side must be black, since that column has a maximum sum of 4 in yellow. The top-left row, not yet filled in in this screenshot, can only be configured in one way, with the 2 being yellow and all others being black.

It’s similar to picross in a way, but with a different labelling convention and a need for more complex sums.

This screenshot is of the ‘expert’ level; I completed it in 9 minutes 17 seconds. There’s also a ‘mini’ and a ‘classic’ mode, with smaller grids. And there’s a ‘master’ mode, where you are instead just told the number of hexagons that need to be a certain colour. I’ve not quite worked out the maths behind that one yet.

You can play Buzzled at https://puzzmallow.com/buzzled – and you can try Collections and Quickflip while you’re there.