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Golden Sun (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Many years ago, so long ago that my Gaming Diary didn’t even exist, I played Golden Sun on my Game Boy Advance. It was great. At least, I remember it being great, but I remember very little about the actual events in the game. I recall the catastrophe at the start, and the village you’re in, and that your friend goes missing and it turns out later on he’s working with (under duress) the bad guys. I remember there was a lighthouse. And I remember the djinn – sort of like little dragons – you can find and add to your character to buff your stats, give you new moves, and unleash on baddies. Mainly I remember them because they were in Shining The Holy Ark on the Sega Saturn though, not that they were in Golden Sun.

With very little remembered of the game, it was almost like playing an entirely new Camelot RPG just with the odd sensation that it was all a bit familiar. But being able to replay a great RPG, especially one from the likes of Camelot (who were the late 90s/early 2000s kings of the genre) without knowing everything is a Fine Thing Indeed.

Off I went then, with my guy Isaac and his chums, through the usual overworlds and dungeons and towns and, yes, lighthouses (there are two, or three, sort of) fighting random battles and watching the numbers go up as a charming story unfolds.

Being a GBA game with really detailed 32 bit sprite graphics (with loads of Mode-7 type backgrounds and maps), it looks amazing on a tiny handheld screen but blown up to fifty imperial inches it feels really messy. Older games, like those on the SNES and earlier, seem to come out OK at that size, probably due to less cluttered backgrounds and more obvious sprite edge definition, but here there are too many colours and too few pixels and it becomes hard to see what things are. Until, for some reason, it doesn’t. I struggled for a while, trying the (limited) screen rendering options, but got used to it and actually, it’s fine.

I don’t remember how hard the game was when I played it before, but I found it very easy this time through. Well, in terms of the actual fights and so on, anyway. Perhaps it’s because I did plenty of levelling up, or maybe I was just cautious, or I completed most of the side quests or something. The final boss battle was a walkover. What was difficult, however, was knowing what to do next. Even chatting to everyone in the towns (as is de rigour for JRPGs) didn’t always make it clear where I was supposed to go next, at least in terms of direction. I was nudged towards a new town or dungeon via the dialogue, but very rarely was it made clear where I might find such a place, so much wandering ensued. Perhaps another reason why I levelled up a lot, I suppose.

What I’d also forgotten about the game is how it ends. Because, well, it sort of doesn’t. You beat the boss, there’s an event, and then it’s straight into the sequel to actually finish off the story. Only two of the four lighthouses the game tells you need to be (or shouldn’t be, depending who you ask) lighting are in Golden Sun. A bit of an anti-climax and seemingly hurried end, if you were not aware of the follow-up title, Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Which, luckily, appeared on the Switch Game Boy Advance service at the same time as Golden Sun. Phew, eh?

Detective Pikachu Returns (Switch): COMPLETED!

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It’s been a long time coming, what with the original game coming in at the end of the Nintendo 3DS’ viable life, and it now being the twilight hours of the Nintendo Switch, but finally it was released and, having given it to my daughter to play first, the time eventually came for me to finish the story that cliffhangered on the previous game.

Now, I may be misremembering the first game, but I’m pretty sure this one is somewhat simplified in comparison. It’s shorter, easier, and your hand is held constantly through the entire story. You don’t really have much say in how the investigations progress, and the puzzles are not only straightforward but you’re constantly told how to actually complete them. It all feels like the interaction is somewhat superficial, and really it’s not much more than a visual novel. It’s certainly less than a “point and click” adventure.

It’s also pretty bland graphically. There aren’t many locations, and they’re pretty plain in appearance. Voice acting is variable, with most characters being text-only but the odd one that isn’t comes across as amateur. Aside from the good detective himself, of course.

Thankfully, the story is more than enough to draw you in and keep you connected. The first game ended without a resolution to the big questions – where is Tim’s dad, and why can Pikachu talk? In the intervening years, there’s been a film which loosely followed the plot of the game but did end on an answer – with Tim’s dad actually being Pikachu, of a sort, thanks to Mewtwo’s actions. The game actually addresses this outcome directly, as it is mentioned that “they made a film about Tim and Pikachu’s adventures”, but “they made up the ending”, or words to that effect. Is the ending the same here? Well, that’s a spoiler.

The events that lead to the end mainly involve a load of Pokémon going rogue, which seems a bit like the “R incident” from the 3DS original but is actually more targeted and related to where Tim’s dad is. You’ve the theft of a gem to solve, the rescue of an archaeologist from some ruins, and even deal with Pikachu getting “arrested” for a crime he didn’t commit. Towards the end, Pikachu starts remembering things that aren’t things he could possibly remember. Unless… well, spoiler again.

In summary, it’s a low tech game which exists to wrap up the cliffhanger from the first game, but really shouldn’t have taken nearly six years to make nor is it worth playing on its own. There’s nothing terrible here, it’s just a bit disappointing that after all this time, all we’re getting is what feels like a cheap C-team product.

Detective Pikachu Returns (Switch): COMPLETED!

Posted on Written by

It’s been a long time coming, what with the original game coming in at the end of the Nintendo 3DS’ viable life, and it now being the twilight hours of the Nintendo Switch, but finally it was released and, having given it to my daughter to play first, the time eventually came for me to finish the story that cliffhangered on the previous game.

Now, I may be misremembering the first game, but I’m pretty sure this one is somewhat simplified in comparison. It’s shorter, easier, and your hand is held constantly through the entire story. You don’t really have much say in how the investigations progress, and the puzzles are not only straightforward but you’re constantly told how to actually complete them. It all feels like the interaction is somewhat superficial, and really it’s not much more than a visual novel. It’s certainly less than a “point and click” adventure.

It’s also pretty bland graphically. There aren’t many locations, and they’re pretty plain in appearance. Voice acting is variable, with most characters being text-only but the odd one that isn’t comes across as amateur. Aside from the good detective himself, of course.

Thankfully, the story is more than enough to draw you in and keep you connected. The first game ended without a resolution to the big questions – where is Tim’s dad, and why can Pikachu talk? In the intervening years, there’s been a film which loosely followed the plot of the game but did end on an answer – with Tim’s dad actually being Pikachu, of a sort, thanks to Mewtwo’s actions. The game actually addresses this outcome directly, as it is mentioned that “they made a film about Tim and Pikachu’s adventures”, but “they made up the ending”, or words to that effect. Is the ending the same here? Well, that’s a spoiler.

The events that lead to the end mainly involve a load of Pokémon going rogue, which seems a bit like the “R incident” from the 3DS original but is actually more targeted and related to where Tim’s dad is. You’ve the theft of a gem to solve, the rescue of an archaeologist from some ruins, and even deal with Pikachu getting “arrested” for a crime he didn’t commit. Towards the end, Pikachu starts remembering things that aren’t things he could possibly remember. Unless… well, spoiler again.

In summary, it’s a low tech game which exists to wrap up the cliffhanger from the first game, but really shouldn’t have taken nearly six years to make nor is it worth playing on its own. There’s nothing terrible here, it’s just a bit disappointing that after all this time, all we’re getting is what feels like a cheap C-team product.

Return to Monkey Island (Switch): COMPLETED!

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It’s another one of those “why did it take me so long to get round to it” games. Well, to answer that, just take a look around the rest of my site. But here I am, having eventually played and completed it.

There was much kerfuffle about the change in graphic style between this and the original (and the remasters of those, and the Telltale Games ones) as if the pixels of the first two games were sacred and should never be altered. Even though they already had, several times. To this I say: go away. They’re fine. Better than fine. They look great. Stop whining.

It’s been a long time since I played any of the Monkey Island games in any form for any length of time, but coming to this even after such a gap was a real kick in the memberberries as so many of the characters, sounds, locations and banter are instantly recognisable. It helps that it is a direct continuation of the second Monkey Island game (explaining the unusual ending of that title) and has the original voice actors, in the most part, from the original “talkie” versions. With much of the game set on the familiar Melee Island, complete with SCUMM Bar and the Ask Me About Loom guy, it’s really like old times. Only new.

The plot involves going back to Monkey Island, as the game’s name suggests, to, you know, actually get the Secret Of Monkey Island this time. As you’d expect, that involves point-and-click adventure puzzles. Some of these are similar but different to puzzles in the older games (such as the potion required to actually get to Monkey Island), and none seem to be as obtuse as those that came before, although the pulley-in-a-rubber-chicken one is referenced. In this way, it feels easier, but it also means that everything makes more logical sense and really the only criticisms the original games garnered were about the illogical solutions, so that’s fine.

It’s as funny as you’d expect, as good as you’d hoped, and just modernised enough as you can tolerate. More like this, please.

FAR: Lone Sails (Switch): COMPLETED!

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In a post-apocalypse world, the seas have dried up and you, the only living creature in the entire game, have a land-boat thing with big wheels which you have to take from the left side of the world to the right side of the world. You have an engine you need to keep fuelled, you get a sail you can raise when there’s wind, things break and catch fire and you have to fix them, and often there are places you can’t get past (presumably because the game is 2D and there’s no steering wheel) so you have to hop out your land-boat and explore some abandoned structure to open a door or power a lift or something to progress.

The problem is, everything is too small. I don’t mean just on the Switch handheld, as I played this on a 50 inch TV; Everything you need to actually see (like the stuff you pick up or things you interact with) is minute and you can’t make out what most of it as and so you have no idea what anything is for. Turns out, almost everything you pick up is just fuel or ornamental or both, so my hoarding of All The Things was pointless and it didn’t matter that I couldn’t see anything anyway. Just burn it all. Apart from the red things (that are more red than the other red things) as they make your engine go on fire.

Eventually you get to the far right of the world, and the game ends and that’s it. No win, no prize, no happy ending, you just get there and your ship has fallen to bits and you light a lamp and that’s the end. A real disappointment, and it doesn’t feel like the game was supposed to be teaching you a lesson that there would be one or anything like that, and after a bit of research I’m pretty confident I haven’t stumbled into a “bad” ending – that’s just how it ends.

I did enjoy it, mainly because it looks lovely and the world is great, but I don’t really understand either 1) what was the point of it all, and 2) why it was so lauded in the press. Also, what does FAR stand for?