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EGM Review: Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China

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May 31, 2015

A story better left untold

Once a series reaches a certain point, it becomes more and more difficult to keep things fresh. This problem only becomes compounded the more frequently new chapters are released, so a yearly franchise like Assassin’s Creed is definitely a prime example of something that’s begun to fatigue the gaming community.

I had hopes, though, that the latest entry in the franchise, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, might jump-start my excitement again for the never-ending Templar-versus-Brotherhood conflict—even if it only comes six months after the one-two punch of Unity and Rogue last fall. A new developer, a new protagonist, and a new take on the series’ definitive gameplay were all things that even a tired fan could look forward to.

ACC: China follows a female Assassin named Shao Jun in the early 16th century during the Ming Dynasty. She’s the last of the Chinese Brotherhood, who were all but wiped out by a powerful group of eunuchs called the Tigers. In reality, the Tigers are Templars, and with the rest of the Brotherhood eliminated, they now control the Ming emperor like a puppet.

Driven by vengeance, Shao Jun returns home against almost insurmountable odds—but armed with special training from Assassin’s Creed II protagonist Ezio Auditore. She knows that her mission may be nearly impossible to accomplish, but the only way to free China and start her branch of the Brotherhood anew will be to eliminate the Tigers one by one.

The most striking thing that ACC: China has going for it—and immediately helps differentiate it from other games in the series—is the fact that Ubisoft and developer Climax Studios have shifted from the 3D open world we’re used to with the Assassin’s Creed franchise and instead made a more arcade-like 2.5D side-scrolling platformer. Besides the shift in viewpoint, ACC: China also touts a novel art style where every brandish of Shao Jun’s sword or stealthy elimination from the shadows is punctuated by a flourish of red-and-black watercolors, giving the game a sense of a painting come to life. It’s definitely a far throw from the more realistic-looking adventures in the main series, and I found it served as a much-needed twist on what we normally get in an Assassin’s Creed game.

The level layout is also meticulously crafted to take advantage of the protagonist’s nimble nature. Even considering the fact that this is a 2.5D game, Shao Jun still has a stunning amount of freedom to parkour, with multiple paths often available to reach each level’s end point. Finding different routes through the foreground and background—and switching perspectives as Shao Jun shimmies around the edges to another side of a building—gives the level design depth that you wouldn’t necessarily expect.

Most surprisingly, though, the stealth gameplay for which Assassin’s Creed is known lends itself well to the shift in perspective. Shao Jun still hides in haystacks, crowds of people, and shadowy alcoves to strike at her unsuspecting foes as they pass by. The 2.5D viewpoint, combined with each guard’s “cone of awareness” that allow you to see where their focus is at a given time, makes it easier to plan a path and memorize patrols. Of course, the guards aren’t the smartest ever programmed in an Assassin’s Creed game, either, so luring them to their doom is relatively easy with the assistance of firecrackers, whistles, and special noise-emitting darts.

Playing stealthily is heavily encouraged here for two different reasons. The first is the game’s arcade-based scoring system that rewards clean play, with the highest possible score only achievable by working through checkpoints unseen and without eliminating a single opponent. The second reason? The combat sucks.

For as many cool weapons as Shao Jun has—her hidden toe blade, rope dart, and Jian sword—any direct confrontation against more than one foe almost guarantees certain doom. The 2.5D aspect proves to be flawed here, since it makes it incredibly easy for enemies to surround and overwhelm Shao Jin. This gives her a frail quality unbefitting an Assassin, and it’s easily my least favorite part of the gameplay. Even her counter, the only way to defend herself against an attack in combat, is unintuitive—it requires pushing the analog stick toward the attack instead of away, as one’s instincts would dictate. But why bother with any directional input at all here?

Since combat isn’t really a viable option, ACC: China has a very one-dimensional feel. A first playthrough shouldn’t take more than six hours, but you can’t help but start to become bored by it all around the halfway point. No matter how pretty the game may look, enemy variety is minimal, and the stealth patterns quickly become evident.

I might’ve been able to forgive monotonous gameplay if there were at least an interesting story to tell. Unfortunately, ACC: China falls completely flat here, too. Ever since Shao Jun debuted in the animated short Assassin’s Creed: Embers, fans have clamored for more of her. With nothing more than a thin revenge plotline to push her forward, however, Shao Jun’s time to shine feels wasted, and it does very little to expand the Assassin’s Creed universe in China. Her backstory is told through a few meager paragraphs that you find in collectible form, and the game’s cutscenes do her no favors either, only giving a brief explanation for why she’s assassinating her next target.

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China has a beautiful art style and distinct viewpoint compared to the other titles that share the Assassin’s Creed brand. The stealth works, but it also serves as too much of the gameplay’s focus. The combat and the story—or lack thereof—are both gaping holes that can’t be ignored, keeping the game from reaching its full potential. The one hope is that perhaps India and Russia, the next two games in this spin-off series, can remedy some of the mistakes seen here while building on what China does well.

Developer: Climax Studios • Publisher: Ubisoft • ESRB: T – Teen • Release Date: 04.21.15
6.0
Assassins Creed Chronicles: China offers some solid building blocks for this spin-off series, including beautiful art and decent stealth gameplay. The poor combat and sad attempt at storytelling, however, both leave far too much to be desired.
The Good A colorful art style that really helps the world come alive.
The Bad The gameplay gets very repetitive very quickly.
The Ugly Shao Jun seems like such an intriguing Assassin, but it feels like her story is wasted here.
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China is available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox One. Review code was provided by Ubisoft for the benefit of this review.
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EGM Review: Mortal Kombat X

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April 19, 2015

Not a Flawless Victory

Growing up, whenever the subject of fighting games arose among my group of friends, everyone found themselves in one of two camps: Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. I readily admit I was in the MK camp (kamp?). The franchise seemed to put a larger emphasis on the story, which appealed to me, and of course, there was the blood and gore—and the controversy over that element would eventually lead to the formation of the ESRB.

Now, with the 10th main game in the series upon us—and as someone who’s been playing the series fanatically since the early days—it’s interesting to see that Mortal Kombat X is, in many ways, attempting to get back to basics when it comes to what the franchise has always been about.

The first aspect of this is MKX’s Story mode, which takes place primarily 25 years after the events of the previous game. Shao Khan is dead, and Outworld has been thrown into turmoil courtesy of a civil war between two of his lieutenants who’ve made claims to the throne—the ramifications of which are starting to spill over into Earthrealm. Meanwhile, minions of an old enemy, the fallen Elder God Shinnok, are moving in the shadows in an attempt to bring their imprisoned master back.

Whenever NetherRealm discussed MKX, the plotline was one of the key points of emphasis. We were told it would be an epic tale that brought kombatants old and new together against an unforeseen threat. But considering that it was a point of focus for the team and that MK9 provided a strong foundation to build on, I can’t help but see MKX’s Story mode as anything short of disappointing. Part of my frustration comes from the fact that NetherRealm touted a nonlinear story here, but MKX plays out the same way Injustice:Gods Among Us and MK9 did. It’s nothing new.

The nonlinear aspects simply come from flashbacks seen far too frequently that are meant to drive the main storyline forward in a singular fashion. They’re there to fill in the blanks, add missing backstory, and make desperate attempts at character development—necessitated by the drastic leap forward in time between games. If you lose a fight, whether in the past or the present, you still need to beat it if you want to move forward and see the next cutscene (or use a cheap “skip fight” token that can be earned in the Krypt, MK’s interactive way of unlocking extra in-game content via ‘Koins’ earned by playing the game).

The saddest part of MKX’s Story mode, though, might be the glimmers of greatness the game tantalizingly teases. Plenty of interesting subplots are hinted at throughout—like how character relationships between old fighters and new have evolved in 25 years, especially those with familial ties. There’s also Outworld’s civil war, which could’ve been more deeply explored and fleshed out, given how central a role it was supposed to play. Instead, it feels like Story mode tries to cram in too many ancillary tales that, while interesting, are never properly explored. And considering that MKX is 25 percent shorter in terms of chapters than MK9, I was left wanting more in the worst way.

On the flip side of that, admittedly, you can also get too much of a good thing. The game ships with 24 fighters, only a couple less than MK9, but each one has three variations that offer different abilities. For example, Kenshi’s three variations are essentially the moves he debuted with in Deadly Alliance, those he used in MK9, and a brand-new set for MKX that allows him to manifest the spirits that possess his enchanted blade and use them offensively. Personally, I found it too much trouble to learn all the variations for each fighter. Once I found one I liked, I’d simply ignore the other two.

The entire process of experimenting with the variations is frustrating in and of itself—I think people who are into fighting games want to figure out who their “main” is as quickly as possible, so giving them 72 options just feels like overkill. I’d rather have 10 more playable characters and none of the variations than to have all these degrees of gradation.

At the very least, the fighters who do show up—16 of which we’ve seen in previous MK games, along with eight new faces—all feel truly distinct, even if their own internal variations don’t. While a few elements seem lifted from Injustice, such as Ferra/Torr’s Bane-like charge attacks or Kung Jin somewhat resembling like Green Arrow, the returning characters feel like I expected (in a good way), while the debuting fighters all bring something new to the table.

The combination of Ferra/Torr, which sees the diminutive Ferra riding atop the hulking brute Torr’s shoulders as part of an odd symbiotic relationship, has amazing range when Torr swings Ferra around like a club. I also loved playing as Cassie Cage, because she’s such a smooth blend of her parents, MK icons Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage. She quickly became one of my favorites—not just for her fighting, but also her one-liners.

Takeda feels the most distinct of all the new characters in terms of gameplay with his whip attacks and arsenal of different weapons. Both Erron Black and Kung Jin took some getting used to, but they’ve got some absolutely punishing combos once you begin to master them. Kotal Kahn is your typical slow, powerful brawler, but his sun beam that heals him but hurts opponents makes for interesting zoning strategy in battle. Jacqui didn’t really move my needle either way, since she felt like just a faster Jax, and the insect-like D’Vorah was a fighter I just couldn’t get a handle on no matter how hard I tried.

When I finally figured out what variations worked best for me, what characters I wanted to stick with, and who I’d be comfortable competing with online, I found that perhaps the most important part of a fighting game—the actual fighting—was better than ever. The combos flow smoothly, and no character feels too overpowered. Some moves are tweaked from previous versions, like slowing down Sub-Zero’s ice ball and Scorpion’s spear, but only in the interest of preventing spamming. I was surprised at how quickly I was able to adapt to the changes, which makes me think they’re all for the better.

For as good as the combat is, though, the post-fight action might be even better. Fatalities are easier than ever to pull off—and, at this point, it’s almost comical how gory they’ve gotten. Of course, it’s still immensely satisfying to make someone’s head explode with Raiden, rip apart someone’s spine with Sub-Zero, or absolutely eviscerate them with new characters like Ferra/Torr.

What surprised me more, however, was how great it feels to pull off the returning Brutalities. While they’re not as bloody, Brutalities are sometimes more difficult because they need to be executed as the last move of the final round—and some of the conditions are as brutal as the punishment one could end up delivering with the moves. So, suffocating someone with Reptile, kneecapping them with Erron Black, or punching them in the face until their neck breaks with Kung Lao is sometimes even cooler. The game even includes stage-oriented Brutalities.

But that’s not all that will make you want to keep fighting until the wee hours of the morning. A new feature in the form of the Living Towers and an old one in the Krypt provide a tremendous amount of additional content. The Living Towers are three ladders that provide fresh battles with new stipulations every hour, day, and week, constantly pushing you to test your skills in different ways.

The Krypt, meanwhile, has been transformed from a glorified gallery into almost an adventure game within itself as you explore a graveyard, caves, a mausoleum, and more from a first-person perspective, with more of the world unlocking as you find iconic Mortal Kombat weapons—Scorpion’s spear or Kung Lao’s hat, for instance. There’s even random quicktime events that have you wrestling with threats that can pop out of nowhere now and that reward you with more Koins if you succeed. In the Krypt, you’ll find concept art, Test Your Luck modifiers, and more Fatalities and Brutalities for each character, but after unlocking nearly 100 tombs in the Krypt, I do wish there were a few more interesting things to find.

Mortal Kombat X feels, in many ways, like one step forward and two steps back. I can’t get over the lack of depth when it came to Story mode, and the fighter variations aren’t as interesting as I’d hoped. However, once I finally found my favorites, the actual fighting still felt great. And with the Living Towers promising to keep the game perpetually fresh, I found there’s still plenty here to keep me coming back for more in the future.

Developer: NetherRealm Studios • Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 04.14.15
7.5
When it comes to the gameplay, Mortal Kombat X is a solid fighting game, but a small roster and shoddy story hold it back from being a complete experience.
The Good The combat feels smoother than ever, and the Living Towers keep the game fresh long after Story mode is over.
The Bad The narrative has a ton of interesting subplots—but not enough time for any of them to breathe or properly come to fruition.
The Ugly You fight against three fan-favorite characters in Story mode, but they’re not a playable part of the roster. I smell a second “Kombat Pack” already around the corner.
Mortal Kombat X is available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, with versions for Xbox 360 and PS3 coming later. Primary version reviewed was for PS4. Review code was provided by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for the benefit of this review.
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EGM Review: BoxBoy!

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April 6, 2015

Not thinking outside the box

I pride myself on being able to find enjoyment from a ton of different gaming genres. Whether it’s shooters, fighting games, RPGs, or sports titles, you’ll likely find them somewhere in my collection. Sometimes, though, the genre that really gets me pumped up is a good old-fashioned puzzle-platformer. So, when a little passion project from longtime Nintendo developer HAL Laboratory named BoxBoy! found its way on to my 3DS, I was more than ready to give it a shot.

BoxBoy! stars a walking square named Qbby who must use his ability to make box-shaped extensions of himself to overcome nearly 200 different obstacle courses on the way to repairing his damaged homeworld. Qbby can make bridges to cross gaps, create shields to block lasers or spikes, or build makeshift stairs to reach higher areas.

Unfortunately, especially with the illustrious pedigree of HAL behind the game, I was surprised to find that BoxBoy! feels empty inside. I mean, sure, there’s technically a ton of content crammed in here: hundreds of stages, unlockable challenge levels, and a score-attack mode where you use Qbby’s powers to collect emblems. But by the time I’d reached the fourth world—or after less than an hour of playtime—I’d already grown bored.

You see, BoxBoy! does nothing to innovate on the puzzle-platformer. Admittedly, it’s not the worst thing in the world to use the same traps and gimmicks we’ve seen dozens of times before—teleporters, gravity fields, lasers, and spikes. Disappointingly, though, the game never pushes your cognitive process beyond using the same handful of box creations you learn at the beginning to overcome every situation, so the gameplay starts to feel very monotonous very quickly, even when new obstacles are introduced.

BoxBoy! doesn’t offer any depth-of-field puzzles, since the game isn’t compatible with the 3DS’ 3D feature—it’s a wholly 2D world. The game doesn’t even include any physics-based puzzles. Every time I thought I might be able to use something like momentum to get through a puzzle or place a box where I needed it to be, it would almost immediately sink down in a straight line, like throwing a crumpled-up piece of paper instead of an object that actually had some weight to it.

Eighty percent of the game just feels like HAL got into a “rinse and repeat” mindset with the stage design until they got close to a triple-digit number. Each new level introduces a new impediment, but often instead of combining them with ones seen in previous levels, you only have to bypass the latest one. This fact only compounds the monotony since it feels like you’re you’re playing the same puzzle a handful of times before being allowed to progress to the next one. The stages work, but there’s nothing truly interesting about a single one.

At least until you get close to the end of the game, that is. At that point, there’s a drastic spike in difficulty that makes the last two levels boring and hard. It’s not that I couldn’t overcome them, but after walking through the previous 15 stages like they were nothing, this sudden change of pace was jarring—and not in a good way, considering how ill prepared I felt at first.

And one would think that part of the reason BoxBoy! has such a simple motif—black-and-white settings and characters, with every object in the world including a right angle—that HAL would’ve crafted more inventive puzzles to take advantage of this and defend the decision to keep the look so modest. But everything about BoxBoy! just feels bare bones.

I honestly can’t recommend BoxBoy! even for someone who loves puzzle-platformers. There’s a clear lack of creativity here, whether it’s the art style, story (or lack thereof), gameplay, or level design. I kept wondering when the game would finally start to pick up—and then, before I knew it, it was already over, with the entire experience clocking in at only a few hours. I suppose I should be thankful it only took one sitting to beat and didn’t consume more of my time, because almost from the start, BoxBoy! felt like a waste of it.

Developer: HAL Laboratory • Publisher: Nintendo • ESRB: E – Everyone • Release Date: 04.02.15
4.0
HAL Laboratory fails to innovate at all within the puzzle genre and throws many of the same obstacles at you over and over again—to the point where BoxBoy! is as plain a platformer as its monochromatic motif.
The Good A ton of levels and side content.
The Bad The gameplay is as plain as the design, with a surprisingly sharp spike in difficulty at the very end.
The Ugly BoxBoy! feels like it might’ve had a place on the original Game Boy—not on the 3DS.
BoxBoy! is a Nintendo 3DS exclusive. Review code was provided by Nintendo for the benefit of this review.
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EGM Review: Axiom Verge

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No school like the old school

When compared to some of the EGM Crew, I’m admittedly kind of slow on the Indie uptake. Something that helps motivate me to take notice of the latest Indie darling that’s burning up the popular forums, though, is when it’s dripping with nostalgia from my 2D-game upbringing. The latest offering that fits that bill is a result of the one-man development wrecking crew that is Thomas Happ and Axiom Verge.

The action-adventure shooter puts players in the lab coat of a scientist named Trace. When one of his experiments accidentally triggers an explosion in the lab, Trace is knocked unconscious. Upon waking up, he finds himself on an alien world that proves to be quite hostile—and he has no recollection of what happened after the blast. Trace must now explore this unfamiliar landscape in the hopes to not only piece together his fractured memory but also find a way back home.

Trace’s story isn’t the centerpiece of Axiom Verge, though. In fact, it’s far from it. I only ever got small nibbles of the carrot that is solving the issue of Trace’s mysterious appearance on this alien planet, and many questions remained unanswered in the process of my playthrough. Normally, this would have me pulling my hair out. I’d be ready to come up with any number of loose connections to fit together what little plot I came across, filling in the blanks and creating a coherent timeline in my mind as best I could. Instead, Axiom Verge reminded me time and again, through its novel twists on stereotypical gaming devices and old-fashioned design, that the story is never the focus here—it’s always on the gameplay.

Axiom Verge is like a love letter to the original Metroid. It’s exploration tempered by a healthy dose of shooting all kinds of alien life-forms with a pinch of platforming, a wide assortment of weapons, and just enough narrative hooks to keep pushing you forward. Collecting a cornucopia of items that would open up more of the ever-expanding map, lengthening Trace’s health bar, or beefing up the various bioweapon blasters he comes across was a thrill as I watched my completion percentage climb. Deducing the patterns of gargantuan bosses with pixel precision became more and more of an obsession as I played, flashing me back to my childhood and the great gun battles of my gaming glory days. This is as solid a gameplay base as it gets.

In some aspects, however, Axiom Verge tries too hard to stay true to its gaming roots, and it could’ve take a page from other modern games in the genre to deliver a more pleasant overall experience. A prime example? The map system. The game would’ve been well served to include some sort of marker feature that I could’ve used to remind me the location of items I missed or areas I wanted to explore so that I could more efficiently plan my paths—especially considering the sheer size of the world.

A fast-travel system would’ve been welcome as well, because once I reached the 12-hour mark and collected around 80 percent of the items, I got really tired of schlepping back and forth across a map that features more than 700 unique rooms, gunning down the same enemies over and over. In fact, I pushed forth with the endgame sequence before hitting that magical 100-percent mark to prevent what had been a wonderful adventure up to that point from starting to feel like too much of a grind.

To that end, I realized that Axiom Verge truly shines when it breaks away from the restraints of the past it emulates and instead builds on top of those gameplay foundations. For instance, one of the most powerful weapons you get early on in your adventure is best described as a “glitch gun.” Firing its waves of distinctive radiation at walls comprised entirely of blocks of retro texture glitches from games of yesteryear will reveal new paths or items. Lambasting enemies with this gun, though, can have a wide array of effects—they might turn friendly toward Trace or simply become easier to defeat. When under the influence of the glitch gun, some enemies even open up new pathways; unwitting foes barrel through obstacles that would be indestructible by any other means. Taking an unwelcome by-product of past hardware limitations and development issues and turning it into a critical game component only encouraged more experimentation with each new room I entered, and it was a welcome twist on traditional 2D exploration.

The gameplay twists don’t end with just the weapons, though. You can use many items to bypass barriers—years of gaming experience has ingrained in us the need to hit a switch or acquire a key to make areas accessible, but that’s not the case here. Axiom Verge goes out of its way to remind you of the multitude of tools that open up the paths before you.

While on the subject of all those tools, though, Happ may have gone a little overboard in regards to how many items he crammed into Axiom Verge. One of the other reasons I gave up on that 100-percent run was that it dawned on me about halfway through my playthrough that a lot of weapons and items are useless. I’d say three-quarters of the guns are style over substance and offer little to no value in terms of furthering your exploration or combat proficiency.

And if you get stuck at any point—like I did toward the end of the game before finally figuring out one particular obstacle—and start doing literal laps around the world trying to figure out where to go next, it’s pretty damn frustrating when you stumble upon a secret room that you think may finally push things forward. Instead, you get a completely useless gun. It makes the otherwise tight design come off a bit haphazard, whereas the best Metroid-like games have a laser focus and no real overabundance of anything, especially when it comes to the weapons.

Working in the shadow of something as massive as Metroid and other games of that ilk is no easy task, though, and Axiom Verge does more than enough to earn its place among them. It manages to work within its limitations and still innovate in subtle-but-effective ways. Even with its classic motif, a little modern polish would’ve gone a long way, but it’s hard for me to be anything but immensely satisfied and impressed with Axiom Verge as a whole.

Developer: Tom Happ • Publisher: Tom Happ • ESRB: T – Teen • Release Date: 03.31.15
8.0
A wonderful throwback to a bygone era, Axiom Verge’s focus on classic gameplay provides a welcome change of pace, even if it could’ve benefitted from a hint of modern design.
The Good Old-school side-scrolling shooter action and exploration that could give Samus Aran a run for her money.
The Bad Too many useless weapons; the desperate need for a fast-travel system.
The Ugly Uruku, the giant, gun-toting slug boss.
Axiom Verge is available on PS4, with PS Vita and PC versions coming later. Primary version reviewed was for PS4. Review code was provided by Sony for the benefit of this review.
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EGM Review: Mario Party 10

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March 22, 2015

Party crashers

Mario Party is no longer the friendship-threatening, free-for-all party game it once was, and I think I miss those days. Mario Party 10 offers several new ideas that attempt to push the franchise forward, but now there’s a more peaceful coexistence among players on the living-room couch. Unfortunately, some of the new concepts don’t deserve a spot on the winners’ podium, and when combined with a clear lack of on-disc content, Mario Party 10 seems to kick off an awful trend for the series.

On the surface, Mario Party 10 should offer more than any Mario Party game to date, since it includes three primary options: the traditional Mario Party mode, a new 4-vs.-1 Bowser Party, and a new Amiibo Party. But once I played through each, I quickly realized that the game splits up and repeats an already limited amount of content among three different styles of play.

The Mario Party mode is the same as in Mario Party 9, with only minor tweaks. Instead of a Monopoly-style board, as in the first eight entries, (where players could go around as many times as they wanted), the boards are more like Chutes and Ladders, with a definitive beginning and end. This style does lends itself to faster games, usually concluding in 30 to 45 minutes. Though I miss the competition encouraged by older Mario Party games, I definitely do not miss the 90-minute marathons that sometimes broke out, and I find these shorter games much more digestible.

The only real difference from Mario Party 9 is that now in Mario Party mode, the Wii U GamePad allows players to keep track of Bowser, who serves as a looming threat on every board. Bowser does a lot more in his own personal mode, but here he shows up and steals stars from whoever unlocks him, which is done when the group, as a whole, lands on every face of the 1-6 die at least once. Whoever rolls the final side needed to unleash him suffers the unfortunate consequences.

While this omni-Bowser does make for an interesting new hazard, it’s really just another way to force every player to come together, like a persistent minigame. No one wants to unleash Bowser, because he can hurt the entire group depending upon how he acts.

It honestly feels like a waste of the GamePad, though. The main Mario Party mode plays out using just Wiimotes (the Pro Controller doesn’t work because of the lack of a gyroscope), and the GamePad is really nothing more than a second screen.

While the main mode doesn’t do a lot to differentiate itself from the previous game in the series, a lack of change in how Mario Party plays isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since I still found myself enjoying each board. My biggest complaint comes from the aforementioned lack of content.

Mario Party 10 offers two fewer boards than Mario Party 9—and nearly 20 fewer minigames. It’s hard to tear the minigames apart because, as always, some will resonate more with a particular player than others. I loved some and absolutely hated others, but the fact that the game offers so few compared to the last game is insulting.

If the main mode encourages players to work together, Bowser Party downright demands it. In this new mode, a fifth player joins the action by grabbing the GamePad and playing as Bowser, already out of his cage and trying to chase down the four-player caravan in a race to the finish. It’s just the latest example in the 4-versus-1 gaming craze, and if Mario Party mode was a light snack, then Bowser mode is just starving itself. Three of Mario Party mode’s five boards repeat here, mildly repurposed to allow for Bowser, who can roll four dice every turn to catch up to the other four players. And while Mario Party mode offers 60-plus minigames in Mario Party mode, Bowser Party offers a whopping seven.

That’s not a typo, folks. You want repetitive, unbalanced gameplay? Jump into Bowser Party, where you have to play the same seven minigames specifically tailored to Bowser’s abilities again and again. What’s more, each board’s minor tweaks are set so that the four normal players are always at a disadvantage. It’s called “Bowser Party” for a reason—he’s usually the only one having any fun.

At the very least, though, the limited content in the Mario Party and Bowser Party modes comes packaged in the game. The same can’t be said of Amiibo Party. Nine amiibo figurines are compatible with Mario Party 9: Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Rosalina, Peach, Yoshi, Wario, and Toad. Now, if you already have amiibo from Super Smash Bros., you can just reuse them here for Mario Party. Eight of the nine figures listed have Smash Bros. equivalents.

If you refuse to get any amiibo, however, this mode is locked away. You see, each figurine contains a Mario Party 1-8–style board themed around that character. The more compatible amiibo you have, the more you can mix and match corners of each board to create all kinds of game setups. You could have one with Toad, Mario, Luigi, and Peach corners or just a fully formed Yoshi board.

But, of course, to do this, you’d need to drop the cash to get each amiibo. Nintendo may not do a lot with DLC, but this might actually be worse, since getting all nine amiibo will cost you more than $100. The boards are cute, and longtime fans might appreciate the throwback nature of them, but that’s a lot of money for some extra game boards in a party game that’s so desperately lacking.

I mean, even if you count the minor Bowser Party variations, the game only includes eight non-amiibo boards, and nine potential amiibo boards can be unlocked by buying the figures. Also, since Bowser isn’t a normal character on the roster, if someone uses the Bowser amiibo, you can only play the seven minigames from Bowser Party—and you’re locked out of the other 60-plus in the game.

Mario Party 10 is a decent game at its core, but it sabotages itself to the point where it’s barely worth playing. Mario Party mode is still fun, even if it’s mostly the same as Mario Party 9, and it’s easily the best balanced of the game modes. Bowser Party is an interesting idea, but it needs a lot more work to make the win/loss ratio fair. But I just can’t get behind a game that has half its content locked behind the amiibo figures, not to mention fewer minigames and game boards than the previous entry in the series.

Mario Party 10 is a disappointing debut for the series on the Wii U, and I can’t help but wonder if Nintendo tried to do too much and ended up doing nothing worthwhile instead. The bottom line, though, is that all Mario Party 10 made me do was wish for the days when I got into fights with my friends after every round of mini games.

Developer: Nd Cube • Publisher: Nintendo • ESRB: E – Everyone • Release Date: 03.20.15
5.0
A lack of content and a failure to properly execute on some of the new ideas had me longing for the days when Mario Party games would result in brawls in my living room.
The Good The new game boards are fun and certainly keep players on their toes the first few times around.
The Bad Relying on amiibo to boost the game’s diversity; poor balance to the new Bowser mode; lack of overall content.
The Ugly What would happen if the next Mario Party tried a different style of board game—like Settlers of Catan?
Mario Party 10 is a Wii U exclusive. A retail copy and several Amiibo were provided by Nintendo for the benefit of this review.
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EGM Review: Ori and the Blind Forest

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The last guardian

Ori and the Blind Forest speaks to the best of what video games can offer. It’s rare that you find a game that’s not only beautiful to look at and to listen to, but that also delivers a poignant, powerful story—which is told while providing a wonderfully tight platforming experience that pushes your reflexes to their limits.

The game begins when a freak storm catapults a young guardian of light named Ori from its home among the branches of the greatest tree in the Forest of Nibel. Found by a citizen of the woods, a bearlike creature named Naru, Ori is nursed back to health and quickly looks to Naru as a mother. While it’s seemingly innocent in nature, this turn of events serves as a catalyst that will shake the whole of Nibel to its very core. Ori must set off on its own to reclaim its purpose as a guardian of the light before Nibel succumbs to an encroaching darkness.

From the opening cutscenes to the end credits, the one thing that consistently amazed me about Ori and the Blind Forest was its beautiful look. The game offers a variety of different locales—icy caverns, flower-filled grottoes, volcanic mountaintops, barren woodlands—and they all look stellar. The exquisite hand-drawn art style offers a bevy of bright colors that seem to jump off the screen and make each area feel special.

Once you start playing, though, it might be easy for the graphics to fade into the background as the story takes hold. Complemented by a hauntingly beautiful soundtrack, Ori and the Blind Forest tugs on your heartstrings in such a way that it stays with you long after beating the game. At its core, it’s a coming-of-age tale plainly divided into three acts, but the themes the game conveys about life and death, falling from grace and finding one’s redemption, and persevering in the face of adversity are all things that we, as humans, can relate to. And they’re driven home all the more emphatically when playing as the undersized Ori, alone in a world on the verge of being torn asunder.

As good as a game may be creatively, however, it can always easily come undone if the technical side doesn’t hold up its end. Fortunately, Ori succeeds on this front, too. With an emphasis on puzzle-solving and exploration, the game offers only a limited combat system, forcing you to instead focus on deftly guiding Ori through a labyrinthine world full of traps and hazards.

The game also incorporates some RPG elements, and Ori can learn a dozen different moves over the course of its adventure that will help open up new areas and allow for more efficient traversal across previously discovered locales if you decide to backtrack. The Forest of Nibel is a massive world, but I found that with Ori’s full complement of powers, I could run from end to end in no time flat.

I also enjoyed the fact that combat only came in short bursts—usually just enough to put me back on my heels a bit. This allowed me to better appreciate the overall design. As a platformer, Ori and the Blind Forest toes that fine line between being too forgiving and too punishing. I died more than 300 times on my first playthough, which took me about eight hours—an average of one death per 90 seconds of gameplay. Not once did I feel frustrated during my entire time playing, though. Some sequences, of course, skew these numbers, where you’ll likely die a lot, such as in the seemingly Metroid-inspired dungeon-escape sequences.

What also helped quell any possible annoyance was Ori’s quicksave system, a rarity on consoles. Just by holding the B button down, I was able to place a marker almost anywhere in the world that would serve as a makeshift save point. So, if I saw a harrowing-looking cave filled with spiked walls up ahead, I’d just drop a quicksave. Admittedly, it took some time to get used to the game not having any sort of traditional checkpoint system—and I sometimes had to play large sections over because I forgot to save—but once you get used to it, this method allows you to be a bit more reckless than normal, which is especially nice when exploring new areas.

Unfortunately, unlike Ori reaching its full potential by game’s end, Ori and the Blind Forest slightly stumbles in a couple of key areas. For example, I experienced some noticeable framerate drops at various instances—almost two dozen times during my playthrough, most often when moving quickly through different areas.

The most grievous issue, however, may be the fact that, once you complete one of the game’s three main dungeons, you can’t re-enter them, leaving any possible collectibles you missed lost. This goes the same for the end of the game—if you finish, you can’t replay that particular adventure and instead must use one of the other three save slots and start completely over. Consider this a warning for all you completionists out there.

If you’re less worried about seeing 100 percent of the game, though, and just want to have an action-packed adventure, Ori and the Blind Forest fits the bill completely. It’s the kind of story that knows how to find the soft spots in even the most hardened of gamers (like me!), and once it digs its adorable claws into you, it’s polished enough to rarely break the immersion it inspires. Ori and the Blind Forest had me coming back just to reexperience all the wonder and fun I had along the way the first time through, and it’s one of my favorite titles of 2015 so far.

Developer: Moon Studios • Publisher: Microsoft Studios • ESRB: E – Everyone • Release Date: 03.11.15
9.0
A terrific blend of story, gameplay, and graphics, Ori and the Blind Forest is an unforgettable debut for indie developer Moon Studios.
The Good Beautiful world, amazing soundtrack, and an unforgettable story.
The Bad Similar-feeling powers; occasional framerate issues.
The Ugly Forgetting to quicksave before tackling a spike-infested area.
Ori and the Blind Forest is available on Xbox One and PC, with a version for Xbox 360 coming later this year. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox One. Review code was provided by Microsoft for the benefit of this review.
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EGM Review: Helldivers

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Hell ain’t a bad place to be

The twin-stick shooter is one of gaming’s oldest game types—and one of the hardest to make stand out among its contemporaries, especially given the genre’s recent resurgence in the Indie scene. Helldivers’ unique metagame feature, though, helps separate what would otherwise be a rather generic game from the pack.

Helldivers puts players in control of a run-of-the-mill soldier fighting for the glory of the unified Super-Earth. Ruled under one “managed democracy”, the inhabitants of Super-Earth feel it’s their duty to expand and spread the message of this way of life to all they come across in the universe. Several races, however, wish to stand in the way of Super-Earth’s all-powerful government, so conflict erupts on an intergalactic scale.

It’s here where the metagame aspect takes place. Besieged on three fronts, the Helldivers branch of Super-Earth’s military must perform missions on a series of planets, pushing each enemy race back across several sectors of space, until finally reaching a homeworld in the hopes of conquering it.

Each respective planet in those sectors is procedurally generated, which means that you’ll never play the same mission on the same terrain twice. The game offers almost a dozen different random missions types no matter the planet, such as demolishing enemy fortifications or setting up and protecting oil pumps to help support the war effort. Combine this with the dozen different difficulty rankings among the planets—from Level 1’s “Dive in the Park” to Level 12’s “Helldive”—and Helldivers features possibly the most variation you’ll find in a top-down, twin-stick shooter. Only when everyone pitches in to successfully complete missions can you make any real progress in the campaign.

The idea of working together to win goes well beyond just Helldivers’ metagame, though. With four-player local and online co-op, it’s easy for players to team up with friends or strangers to tackle the game’s objectives. Unfortunately, you’ll be forced to if you want to have any hope of completing the hardest difficulty levels. I found it impossible to beat anything beyond a Level 4 difficulty by myself, and we couldn’t beat anything past a Level 6 without a full four-player complement of Helldivers.

It was here where I found myself the most frustrated, as often, I couldn’t find enough players to successfully conquer the game’s hardest terrain and objectives. Sometimes, I couldn’t find enough players willing to take on the Level 12 worlds and was forced to muck about in the lower-level ones. Even though they’re procedurally generated, locations started to feel simple and repetitive as I quickly mastered the necessary techniques to use to finish my missions. The lack of an option to play with bots—and allow me to play how I wanted to play—made the game feel way too reliant on co-op, and I found my progress severely restricted by who was or wasn’t online.

Of course, sometimes even when I found a full group of players, the mission would still be doomed from the start. Similar to Arrowhead Game Studios’ first project, Magicka, friendly fire is a constant threat and can’t be turned off. This does offer an extra nuance to the game’s substantial inherent difficulty when you find a competent team of people who want to work together, but someone with an itchy trigger finger who wasn’t the greatest team player would often ruin the mission for us. We could’ve booted them, but then we’d be back to being down a person in a game that doesn’t lend itself well to fewer than four players.

If you can get that right mix of players together, though, Helldivers provides a memorable twin-stick-shooter experience. Whether it’s the unusually fleshed-out universe for this type of game—including Super-Earth’s propaganda being pumped across the news feed in your home base and a full encyclopedia’s worth of baddie rundowns—or the responsive controls, Helldivers shows the potential of how great this ancient gaming genre can still be, even on modern consoles.

There’s also a strong strategic element that you don’t always see in shooters like this. Figuring out where to drop in pre-mission and which objectives to tackle first were often just as important as working well as a team. Sure, there were moments when one player would have to act as a decoy to expose the weak point on the rear of a tank enemy, and without that teamwork, the day would’ve been lost. But dropping in away from known enemy encampments, using the terrain to protect one side when defending a point, or just bringing the right gun to the fight were as critical as working well with other players.

And while Helldivers may be classified as a twin-stick shooter, there’s also more to the gameplay than just pointing and shooting at one of the three alien races. The game incorporates several RPG elements into the experience to help your individual character still feel unique enough among the thousands of other faceless soldiers.

Each Helldiver is mildly customizable, with a handful of different armor pieces given to you at the start, and more can be unlocked as you level up. The armor is purely cosmetic, though, and actually, so is the process of leveling up. The game doesn’t offer any stat boosts—not even for HP. All you can get is a new gun, cosmetic armor piece, or access to a harder set of worlds.

The real rewards for playing the game actually come from conquering planets, which allow you to earn new Stratagems—the equivalent of special powers. Each Helldiver can carry four into battle, and these could be as simple as calling in an ammo drop or as game-changing as having a vehicle, turret, or mech-battle armor delivered in order to help turn the tide of a battle or beat a hasty retreat. The Stratagems add some real diversity to the gameplay, and being able to utilize them at opportune times often means the difference between defeat and victory.

And since the balance relies so much on four-player co-op, that means the best Stratagems are unlocked mostly behind the game’s hardest worlds. These are easily the most interesting part of customizing your character, but tying them to planets instead of levels makes the RPG elements feel somewhat worthless.

I found issue with how much of Helldivers’ accessibility and difficulty is balanced for the four-player co-op experience—when, realistically, it’s not the easiest thing for everyone to pull off. If you’re fortunate enough to have that tight-knit co-op crew you can always go to, Helldivers is one of the better top-down, twin-stick shooters I’ve seen in a while.

Developer: Arrowhead Game Studios • Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment • ESRB: T – Teen • Release Date: 03.03.15
7.0
Helldivers’ metagame campaign and variety of gameplay are more than enough to keep you entertained, but only players with a tight-knit group of co-op buddies will be able to get the most from the experience.
The Good The metagame aspect makes you feel more like an actual soldier in an army, working toward a greater goal.
The Bad Tacked-on RPG elements; lack of AI bot options.
The Ugly Getting ambushed by alien bugs—but you’re too distracted by twirling your cape around to fight back.
Helldivers is available on PS4, PS3, and PS Vita. Primary version reviewed was for PS4. Review code was provided by Sony for the benefit of this review.
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EGM Review: Kirby and the Rainbow Curse

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Taste the rainbow

Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is the long-awaited follow-up to the offbeat Canvas Curse, which helped sell players on the concept of the Nintendo DS. Like its predecessor, Rainbow Curse begins when a massive portal opens in the skies above Dream Land. Without warning, the otherworldly gateway sucks all the color out of Kirby’s home and uses it to bring life to seven new worlds, themed after the spectrum of a rainbow. Of course, it’s up to Kirby—with a little help from his new friend, Elline, a paintbrush fairy from the other side of the dimensional opening—to conquer these seven worlds, restore the color, and save Dream Land.

Players take on the role of Elline and use the Wii U GamePad’s stylus to act as the paintbrush fairy, drawing paths for Kirby to follow in order to lead him to each respective stage’s goal. You’d think eliminating the buttons would oversimplify the gameplay, but I believe the experience might actually be more difficult in the beginning for seasoned players—it takes some time getting used to the idea that you’re not controlling the game’s main character. Instead, you’re just kind of guiding him along.

Even simple maneuvers, like turning Kirby around, can’t be done with a press on the D-pad. You have to draw a whole new path, and therein lies part of the brilliant challenge of Rainbow Curse: Right from the get-go, it challenges your thinking when it comes to how you’d normally approach a platformer or more traditional Kirby title.

Once you start getting used to the idea of being this sort of “hand of fate” and become accustomed to the controls, the game ramps up the difficulty, introducing new ways to use what you’ve learned. At one point, for example, Kirby will split into two, and you’ll have to guide both parts of him to the end goal. Rainbow Curse also sees Kirby taking on the guise of a submarine, tank, or rocket, and Nintendo’s able to squeeze a surprising amount of depth from a singular game mechanic. I was so engrossed by each new way to use the stylus—blocking lava waterfalls, guiding Kirby through a self-destructing spaceship, and so on—that the absence of his signature copying and floating abilities never even fazed me.

Part of what helps keep each stage fresh might be the fact that the game’s only 28 stages long (seven of which are dedicated solely to boss battles), which is on the short side for Nintendo platformers nowadays, if you’re just looking at the numbers. But it still feels lengthy enough because of what feels like a natural rise in difficulty all the way to the final boss. Add in a half dozen collectibles to each level and 40 extra challenge rooms, and the replayability of each world definitely helps counter the lack of total levels overall.

Another surprising strength lies in Rainbow Curse’s art style. In today’s hyper-realistic gaming world, using clay animation is brave—even for a Nintendo franchise that typically tends toward the cartoony. But the choice works well, since the clay designs give everything in Rainbow Curse a novel texture that really helps this new dimension feel uncanny and very alive. Coupled with Kirby’s typically bright color palette, everything seems to jump off the screen.

The only real downside to Rainbow Curse? As pretty as it looks in HD, I found myself hard pressed to look up from the Wii U GamePad sans the opening and ending cutscenes. In order to more accurately and successfully draw paths for Kirby to complete his adventure, I couldn’t look at the TV and draw at the same time. This forced me to play the entire game on the GamePad—not the worst experience in the world, but I think the dual-screen gimmick would’ve been better served if I’d been able to look at the TV once in a while. The only reason to play on the big screen at all is if you’re in co-op, where a second player controls a Waddle Dee with a Wiimote.

It should also be mentioned that Kirby and the Rainbow Curse features amiibo support, and while this is entirely optional, I found this element tacked on and uninspired. So, if you don’t own a Kirby, King Dedede, or Meta Knight amiibo, I can promise you that you aren’t missing much. All amiibo support does is grant players a single stat boost for one stage, once per day. King Dedede gives a health boost, Meta Knight increases your attack, and Kirby grants unlimited Star Dash special attacks. I found the effort of looking for an amiibo figure far more exhaustive than just playing the game normally.

Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is a fine successor to Canvas Curse—it’s on par or better in many ways and should provide a potent challenge for even the most experienced platform player. It’ll also keep you on your toes as it constantly adds new elements over the course of the game’s seven worlds. And, of course, it does all that in a charming, colorful fashion that can only be decidedly described as staying true to what Kirby’s all about.

Developer: HAL Laboratory • Publisher: Nintendo • ESRB: E – Everyone • Release Date: 02.20.15
9.0
Bright, colorful worlds brought to life by a unique art style, coupled with challenging, diverse gameplay highlights yet another successful Kirby spin-off that is as good or better in many ways than its predecessor.
The Good The stylus-based controls are simple to learn but difficult to master.
The Bad Never looking at the HD graphics besides the opening and ending cutscenes in order to see where you’re drawing on the GamePad.
The Ugly HAL Laboratory has officially run out of naming ideas. The game has seven levels, so they call the world “Seventopia”? Really?
Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is a Wii U exclusive. A retail copy was provided by Nintendo for the benefit of this review.
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EGM Review: Dying Light

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February 10, 2015

Don’t rage against the dying of the light—just let it happen

I was a fan of the original Dead Island. I didn’t think it was the end-all, be-all of zombie games—and the open-world undead action-adventure has come so far in such a short time—but I thought developer Techland had laid a wonderful foundation of gameplay mechanics, and I was excited to see what they’d do next. Then they gave us Dead Island: Riptide, practically a carbon copy of their first game that did little to further the gameplay or lore of the world. It left a sour taste in the mouths of many, myself included.

The announcement of Dying Light gave me hope that maybe Techland had merely hit a sophomore slump with this genre and that a new franchise would be just what they needed to get back on track. Dying Light would offer the developer a fresh start, with a new open world to craft, new characters to explore, and new gameplay mechanics to tinker with. Unfortunately, it just serves as the latest failure to enthrall the zombie-enthused masses.

Techland’s biggest blunder comes with the story. Dying Light stars Kyle Crane, possibly the most incompetent special forces agent in the history of video games. In the opening cutscene alone, Kyle botches his insertion into Harran (the fictional city that serves as the setting of this latest zombie outbreak), gets himself infected, and allows the guy who saved him to be killed. As the game progresses, Kyle’s stupidity begins to feel like a running joke, more sad than funny (I mean, I think I murmur more intelligent things in my sleep than this guy said over the course of the entire game).

Kyle is only the start of the story’s problems, unfortunately. Dying Light is full of one-note characters like the primary antagonist, Rais, a man reminiscent of a cheesy B-movie villain who kills hapless henchman on a whim and angrily pontificates about order versus chaos. There’s also the strong independent woman/potential love interest, Jade, who’s pretty and nice to you—and, therefore, you must care about her and her plights.

At times, though, Dying Light does seem to stumble onto some potential emotional gravitas. On more than one occasion, Kyle’s ineptitude gets friends killed, usually as a result of unwittingly leading Rais’ men to where survivors are hiding out. Despite Techland dragging me around by the nose like Curly in a Three Stooges short, I still grew to care about some of these survivors. Techland mercilessly stomped on those moments by quickly moving into prolonged action sequences, however, instead of allowing me to feel the full weight of their deaths.

Whereas the story completely failed in its endeavor to entertain me, at least Dying Light’s gameplay remains as a bastion of sorts from the loophole-laden cutscenes and dialogue that haphazardly forces the story forward. Take the day/night cycle, for example. During the day, the zombies, while still hostile, are far more manageable than at night, where the horde has larger numbers, moves faster, react more intelligently, hit stronger, and several new types of purely nocturnal zombies come out—some of which can deliver one-hit kills.

Daring to go out at night in these worsened conditions rewards the player with double experience—and even an XP bonus if you survive until sunrise. This provides an enjoyable risk/reward system, and adds some much-needed tension to the story’s scripted nighttime sequences.

The best part of Dying Light’s gameplay, though, is its world-traversal system. I’m hesitant to refer to it as “parkour,” because you’re rarely ever truly parkouring—and even if you are, because of the first-person camera, you really can’t tell. But being able to actively climb on almost anything in the world, grabbing onto nearly every ledge, and quickly conquering the world’s verticality is an invigorating feeling.

The parkour makes traversing Harran more enjoyable, and it also gives you the option to run away from a fight if the zombies ever become too much to handle—you simply scramble up the nearest scaffolding or building façade. This helps keep the repetitive hack-n-slash melee action seen in the game—also an issue in Dead Island—feeling a bit more fresh.  

Not everything borrowed from Dead Island becomes less humdrum here, however. Dying Light uses a similar crafting and weapon degradation system, encouraging you to tediously look through or lockpick nearly every crate you find. Sidequests are also the same—unexciting fetch quests I’ve become far too accustomed to at this point. Some, infuriatingly, require multiple stops before you get the little bit of cash, XP, or item the questgiver will award you. Plus, the two distinctive areas of Harran don’t change or improve if you complete these quests. They just feel like a cheap way to lengthen the experience dramatically, since there seem to be about three sidequests to every story objective.

I did appreciate how different Harran’s two areas felt—they even forced me to change how I played. The game begins in the Slums, and about 60 percent of the story takes place here. The Slums have a decidedly Middle Eastern flavor to them, and although the area isn’t as graphically vivid as I’d like, the world feels crafted to take advantage of the traversal gameplay with plenty of ledges and easily crossable gaps between shacks.

Old Town, meanwhile, is the exact opposite, with grandiose buildings and towers that have a Western European feel. Bright colors and exotic signs are everywhere, and the area’s not nearly as scarred by the outbreak as the Slums. Old Town offers much wider streets, however, making it more difficult to traverse safely across the rooftops without the aid of a zipline. I found the differences between the two areas enjoyable, even if I’d rather play in the Slums.

Like with most of Techland’s work, I see the potential in Dying Light. But it comes across as yet another project where the developer can’t seem to get out of their own way. The parkour and risk/reward systems of the day/night cycle are nice aspects, but whether it’s in the writing or the game design, Dying Light tries too often to offer something for everyone—and instead offers nothing of real note to anyone because it never digs past the surface of its characters or mechanics.

Maybe one day, Techland will be able to put it all together and make that grand zombie epic they’ve been dreaming about. Given Dying Light’s boring, repetitive quests and complete mess of a story, though, we should just let it quietly fade to black.

Developer: Techland • Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 01.27.15
6.0
The parkour and risk/reward of the day/night cycle are nice features, but they aren’t enough to overcome the abysmal writing or the boring, repetitive fetch quests that unnecessarily bloat this game.
The Good Risk/reward system of the day/night cycle; parkour is surprisingly competent.
The Bad Abysmal writing; the entire game is one long monotonous fetch quest.
The Ugly We’re starting to scrape the bottom of the zombie-naming barrel with descriptions such as “Biters” and “Volatiles.”
Dying Light is available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Primary version reviewed was for PS4. Review code was provided by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for the benefit of this review.
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EGM Review: Kalimba

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January 16, 2015

Just the two of us

When I first saw Kalimba at last year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, it was still called Project Totem, but what started out as a quirky side project meant to entertain guests at the Press Play holiday party a few years back quickly intrigued me with its potential as a full-blown puzzle-platformer.

I’ve always had a penchant for this genre, with friends from college still referring to me as an idiot savant when it comes to effortlessly working my way through any number of twisting, trap-filled corridors. But Kalimba is novel in that you’re never controlling just one protagonist, but two—and the duo must work together in myriad ways in order to progress.

On the surface, even with the duality twist, the game seems simple enough. You find yourself on a tropical island named Kalimba, which has been protected for generations by the magic of a totem pole. An evil shaman appears one day, however, and shatters the monument, looking to cloak the island in his unique brand of dark magic. The totem pole’s guardian realizes that she can control remnants of the old pole, two pieces at a time, in the hopes of building a bigger, more elaborate magical ward. Taking control of these pieces is where players step in. With guidance from an aloof talking pink bear named Hoebear, players must work their way through 24 levels, collecting intricate wooden carvings on the way to sealing the dark shaman away forever.

The most impressive thing about Kalimba is how smoothly the difficulty scales. You start off with minimal obstacles to demonstrate how the two characters work in unison, but the action ramps up. You’ll begin by just pressing the A button to jump, but you’ll eventually swap your characters back and forth, acquire special amulets that let one of your totems walk on the ceiling or change their size, and even obtain the power of limited flight.

Even with all these new mechanics building on top of each other as the game progressed, I never felt the challenge was too much to handle. That’s partly because some levels include themed minigames based around your new powers, which give you the chance to perfect your new skills before continuing on. Not once did I feel frustrated by a puzzle—instead, I welcomed each new one with glee, and even the handful of times I had to resort to trial-and-error, the checkpoint system was generous enough that I never found myself having to replay huge sections to get back to where I’d initially gotten stuck.

The levels also feel distinct enough that there’s never any sort of repetition. Each puzzle is carefully crafted to push you to explore new ways to use the increasing range of your abilities—and this makes each successful solution all the more satisfying.

What’s more, the simple-yet-colorful art design ensures there aren’t any unnecessary distractions to take you away from the task at hand—which I appreciated, since the puzzles only get more intricate in the game’s limited local co-op mode. While this option only consists of eight levels, having four totems bouncing around the screen (with each player controlling two) requires some intense teamwork and concentration.

These level designs also succeed because of the tight controls. It wouldn’t be much of a puzzle-platformer if they stunk, but there’s a precision here that veterans of the genre can appreciate. All the jumps (particularly in the later levels, once it becomes ingrained how far your little totem avatars can go) are spaced out just perfectly, and the obstacles are set up just right so that you can make some impressive runs through each course as you start to master them.

Kalimba’s primary fault is its length—or lack thereof. Between co-op and single-player, the game offers 32 levels in total. Yes, some of the charm in a game like this lies in mastering the levels, collecting every item, or performing a speedrun courtesy of an always-running clock, but it shouldn’t take players more than three hours to get through that initial playthrough, and then it’s diminishing returns after that.

Some extra options do enhance the replayability—like “Old Skool” mode, which places you at the start at the first level with three lives, and from there, you must get through the whole game in one sitting. But again, I can’t imagine Kalimba continually drawing players back again and again, because once you solve the puzzles, it’s much easier to replicate your results the second and third time through.

When a game leaves you simply asking for more, though, it’s hard to be too disappointed. What Kalimba lacks in substance, it more than makes up for in style. With inventive puzzles, tight controls, and colorful worlds, there’s more than enough to keep those twitch reflexes sharp, and Kalimba should prove to be plenty of fun for gamers looking to put their puzzle-platforming skills to the test.

Developer: Press Play • Publisher: Microsoft • ESRB: E – Everyone • Release Date: 12.17.14
9.0
I only wish Kalimba were a bit longer, because its inventive puzzles, charming art style, and tight controls equal a winning combination for this quaint puzzle-platformer.
The Good Inventive, fun twist on the puzzle-platformer; the challenge steadily ramps up; excellent co-op mode.
The Bad A very short experience.
The Ugly Hoebear making fun of me for Achievement hunting. That hurts, dude.
Kalimba is a Xbox One exclusive. Review code was provided by Microsoft for the benefit of this review.
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