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Golf Story (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I was very much hyped for Golf Story, when it was first announced, and I leapt on it the moment it hit the eShop. Unfortunately, Stardew Valley came out just a week later so I only managed to get halfway through it. Until now.

The mantra of Golf Story seems to be that everything is golf. It’s not a full-on golfing game despite being entirely golf based, instead being a story driven adventure game. With golf. It has chatting and fetch quests (some of which involve golf). Slaying the undead (using golf), feeding birds (golf), melting frozen people (golf) and collecting ore (guess what? Golf). Golf. There’s even a mini-game which is almost a remake of the old NES Golf game, only that’s called Galf.

Then there’s the actual golf. Several varied 9 hole courses, each with gimmicks like ice, or turtles in the water you can bounce the ball off. Different clubs provide extra “powers”, such as super-high chipping, the ability to skip the ball across the water, or better control wedging out of a puddle. Despite these unorthodox abilities, Golf Story’s golf is surprisingly standard video game golf. It feels like Sensible Golf, or the old 16-bit PGA Tours, with the controls, spin and swing bars all intact. You always feel in control but a slightly mistimed button press, or a miscalculated wind adjustment and it can all go horribly wrong very quickly.

As you progress through the game, gaining access to each course, you play other NPCs in stroke and matchplay competitions. Despite each opponent being awful at golf (even the pros) mainly because of the style of play they focus on (Max Yards has no short game, the old folks from Tidy Park always play safe and have no range, etc.) somehow they remain challenging enough. Not least when your up until now foe had been hitting bunkers and trees without pause then suddenly gets a slam-dunk albatross hole-in-one due to a bizarre sequence of awry bounces and rebounds. Thankfully, they’re not unbeatable. Although the final tournament at Blue Moon Dunes was almost enough to end me.

Golf Story’s humour, unlike this upcoming pun, is above par too. Sometimes games can be a bit tryhard at making the funnies (see Undertale, to a degree), but Sidebar Games didn’t go overboard. There are pop culture references, sure, but they’re reigned in and it’s the quirky characters and their dialogue that makes it work. Coach’s constant putdowns, the TV guys interviews and inane drivel from the interviewees, and the totally out of place rap battle between the yoof thugs and the Tidy Park elderly gentlemen being some of the highlights.

It’s hard to find fault with Golf Story. There’s the odd bug (including a repeatable one where running between rooms sometimes causes you to get stuck in the “void”), some of the “find x of these things” quests are a bit tiresome as invariably one of them is impossibly well hidden or in a different area entirely, and there are the odd graphical glitches, but there’s nothing to ruin it. Or even put a visible dent in it.

Even if you’re not into golf, you can’t fore go playing Golf Story. And that was the worst pun ever, badly shoehorned in at the last minute. Sorry.

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Fire Emblem Warriors (Switch): COMPLETED!

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You may have seen me enthuse about a game called HYRULE WARRIORS in the past. Indeed, it’s so good that it usually needs to be written in capitals. It’s one of the best games ever made, and between the Wii U and 3DS versions, I’ve devoted over 300, probably nearer 500 hours to the cause.

Imagine that game then, only swapping out the Zeldaverse for Fire Emblem.

Ta-da! It’s Fire Emblem Warriors. And boy is it the same as HYRULE WARRIORS. You hammer the buttons. You take over forts. You get weapon drops, unlock better defence and faster gauge replenishment. You control several different heroes, swapping between them as necessary. It’s all very familiar. In fact, even some of the levels seem to have borrowed liberally from the Zelda title. I mean, the World Tree bears no resemblance to the Deku Tree and is an entirely different prospect, y’honour.

But of course there are differences. Firstly, there are a whole suite of characters I’ve never heard of. Marth, sure, but then that’s from Super Smash Bros. Chrom I recognise. Tiki, but from Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE. Yes, I have played Fire Emblem games before but the only guy I remember is Roy and he’s not even in this. I was a little concerned getting into the game that I’d not know anyone, but it doesn’t actually matter.

Also different is the lack of Giant Monsters. Dealing with those was a core part of HYRULE WARRIORS, and – final boss aside – Fire Emblem Warriors ain’t got any. It’s a shame, but again, doesn’t really matter.

Characters can now team up, allowing you to use one as a support attacker or (if they’re controllable) can be “carried” around in case their weapon is stronger against a particular foe than your main character. You see, this game follows the Sword/Axe/Lance strength triangle of the main Fire Emblem series, so if you have a sword, bringing an axe-wielder with you can help. In fact, I generally paired Lianna (my “main”) with Lissa where possible for this purpose.

There’s more in the way of tactics here too, although it’s mainly limited to telling your allies where to go on the map and what to do. You could do this to an extent on HYRULE WARRIORS LEGENDS on the 3DS, but it’s more important here as your AI chums have no I, A or otherwise. They wander off into danger, then cry they’ve made a terrible mistake, so I have to save them and guide them away. Only to have them return. Idiots. One of the bosses is invulnerable until you’ve taken over several forts, and yet all my allies kept running over to him only to get slaughtered. Babysitting wasn’t on the box blurb.

Other than those, it’s the same game as before. It’s not quite as good, but then very little is. I’ve completed the Story mode, which was about 14 hours long, but naturally there’s a massive History (like HW’s Adventure) mode that is where the bulk of the game actually is. I expect I’ll be playing this for a long time.

At least until the Switch version of HYRULE WARRIORS comes out, anyway.

 

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Blaster Master Zero (Switch): COMPLETED!

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You know my post from a couple of days ago where I said I was going to concentrate on a couple of games from the Christmas Game Pile? Well, I ignored that and started – and completed – Blaster Master Zero instead.

I’d previously played the demo and quite enjoyed it, but not enough to actually buy it. However, I later learned two important things about it:

  1. It was made by the same people as Mighty Gunvolt Burst
  2. It’s a Metroidvania

So that was me sold, and as it was cheap recently, it was purchased. And it’s excellent.

You navigate your surprisingly nimble jumping tank around various areas, which in true Metroidvania style have sections you can’t reach until upgrades are found. Sometimes, you have to hop out and proceed on foot, often entering rooms where the action becomes more overhead. You can run around the main levels without your tank too, but you’re hopelessly underpowered and even a pretty short drop kills you instantly.

There are loads of bosses to contend with, most of them in these on foot areas, although they’re all very easy. Even more so once I noticed you could change your weapon style in a Mega Man sort of way. Ice baddies are no match for your flamethrower, and bosses that consist of many parts (or waves of smaller baddies) can be damaged all together with a spark attack.

Click to view slideshow.

Poorly tying it all together is a crazy plot involving an android, a frog and a load of mutants, but that’s not really important. What is important, is how much fun it is upgrading your tank, reaching new parts of old levels, playing Colour In The Map, and simply exploring. I’ve beaten the end boss, but I suspect there’s more to do here since there are bits of the map as yet unvisited, a number of caves that were too dark to see in (so I left them), and the ending wasn’t as positive as perhaps it could have been.

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Currently Playing, January 2017

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As an alternative to a catchup post, here’s a catchup post. Only it’s more to declutter my game playing mind after a flurry of new games obtained over the Jesus Birthday Period. Got that? Right.

So for Christmas I got four Switch games – Splatoon 2 (which I’ve covered already), Super Bomberman R, The Lego Ninjago Movie Video Game and Fire Emblem Warriors. Because my wife is the most excellent of wives.

I also got quite a bit of eShop credit, and spent a bit of that on Gorogoa (also covered) and a game I’ve had my eye on a lot, Blaster Master Zero. I also accidentally bought the Ghostbusters and Lego Batman story packs for Lego Dimensions.

Oh, and because I had some Steam credit and because Cool Ghosts made me want them, I’ve picked up Passpartout: The Starving Artist and The Norwood Suite. Like most games they may sit unplayed until I buy the Switch version in the future instead. Ho ho.

Mainly, I’ve played Splatoon 2. I completed single player, and have reached Level 4 online.

With my daughter I’ve played quite a few matches of Super Bomberman R and I’m pleased to reveal that whatever was “wrong” with it at launch has now been fixed. Aside from the graphical style (which has never been good since they stopped using pixels), it’s Bomberman. And Bomberman is great.

I’m not actually sure I remember what the issues everyone had with the  game back when it came out now, but I’m not seeing anything now. It’s fun!

Once I finished Splatoon, I moved onto (again with my daughter) The Lego Ninjago Movie Video Game which as well as having the most ridiculous game name ever, is actually a little different to other Lego games. You have lots of fighting moves at your disposal, and instead of red bricks you have XP to obtain that levels you up giving you “powers” to unlock in a sort of skill tree. It’s early days yet (we’ve only done the first few levels), but I’m liking it a lot so far.

And finally, I’ve played a bit of Passpartout: The Starving Artist. Yes, I know I said it’d probably sit unplayed – and it might yet – but it’s quirky and silly and I love making crap art and selling it for peanuts. I mean look:

And of course, I played some more Stardew Valley, but as I posted the other day, I consider that “completed”.

Other than that, I got given a few games by @IndieGamerChick as part of #indiexmas. First up, was a game called Gunmetal Arcadia Zero. It’s by the same team as You Have to Win the Game, which I coincidentally, played, enjoyed and completed recently. This game is a lot like Zelda II and Castlevania II, and has a familiar NES feeling to it. It’s pretty good so far.

Also from her was Kid Tripp for the Switch. Yep, she (and the devs, Four Horses) gave away a Switch game! It’s a simple “forced runner”, but with lovely blown-up pixel graphics. There’s a nice rhythm to each level, albeit not a “musical” rhythm like, say, Bit Trip Runner, and it plays well. It’s just so very, very hard.

Finally, another game (also from Four Horses) is Digger Dan DX for the 3DS, a homage to Boulderdash. Judging from the number of levels, it’s huge! I’m enjoying it so far.

And that… is everything. I think! Phew, eh? For now, I’m going to try and slim this lot down to a couple of titles just to make it manageable. Ninjago will be one, and for the moment at least, Passpartout will be the other. Find out soon if I actually do this or not!

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Stardew Valley (Switch): COMPLETED!

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In theory, Stardew Valley could go on forever. However, it gets to a stage where there’s very little left to achieve and so, fun aside, no point in carrying on. I’m not quite where I would want to stop playing just yet, but I do feel that after 120 hours (count ’em) it’s finished.

I’ve achieved most of the achievements, unlocked Qi’s casino, shipped every item, got married (to Emily), finished the Community Centre, broken into the witch’s house for the wizard, unlocked the sewer, reached the bottom of the mine, made (in total) over 4 million gold, reached level 10 in all the stats, and maximised my relationship with almost everyone 1.

So yeah, it’s completed.

Until they release the two player mode update, and then I’m back in, I expect.

Notes:

  1. bar Elliot and Sebastian – Elliot won’t talk to me, Sebastian is a misery ↩

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