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March update: 11/52
Just remembered I had a march update to write so, uh, let's just get into things before April's over.
9. March 20th | Pokémon HeartGold | Nintendo DS | 38h 45m | ☆☆☆☆(/5)
Legends: Arceus was a mostly great experience that devoured my February, but for all the good it did it also made me curious how playing a more traditional Pokémon game would feel afterwards, and so here we are with Pokémon HeartGold. Could have been any Pokémon that I hadn't played really (B/W 1 & 2, The D/P remakes or X/Y), but I love the original gen 2 games and have been wanting to play the remake for a long time anyway while also suddenly having a bit more money than usual meaning I could in good conscience spend way too much money on a 13 year old video game.
And, like, it's a very good remake of an already very good game. Johto certainly has its issues with a pretty severe level spike when going from the final gym leader to the elite four, hiding so many of the new Pokémon in the post game and an incredibly underbaked Team Rocket plot, but most of it is still almost just as fun as the first time I played the Game Boy games. Like, I really like this region. I love the varied cities, the gym leaders, the legendary Pokémon and the absolutely insane rival who steals a Pokémon just to show this complete stranger of a kid that you're playing at that he's actually a much better trainer than you. A lot of it is probably nostalgia and just being soaked in those warm memories that are here recreated with a fresh coat of paint, therefore making it feel just a bit more like I'm playing it for the first time, but a lot of it is also just simply because Pokémon HeartGold is one very good game. Most of it goes along at a pretty steady pace, the pokégear is a fun gimmick (there are honestly a lot of weird, fun gimmicks that I think only showed up in this game? Like Kurt making special Pokeballs from acorns or the daily bug catching contest) and Johto as a region is varied enough with enough forks in the road that despite the game still being extremely linear for the most part, there are still alternate routes to take to get to your goal which does make traversing across the routes a bit more fun. It is a bit annoying to go back to having to use HMs again since most of the moves are absolutely terrible and a lot of them especially in Gen 2 feel like they are used in about two spot in the entire game, but it's not too big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.
The game looks absolutely beautiful too. I'm a big supporter of the the orignal games looked and in some ways I prefer that one's deep, dark colors with the 8-but graphics, but this one really is a looker in way that makes me appreciate the environments a lot since Gamefreak really did a great job with making different parts of Johto feel distinct. The Pokémon sprites also look absolutely incredible (though Feraligtr's back sprite does make him look a bit unhinged) to the degree that I, someone who rarely thinks at all about a game's pixel art, just had to marvel at some of them. Having the first Pokémon in your party follow behind you is nice touch too. It's not really a big deal or something that I'm upset over future games not replicating (outside of Let's Go Pikachu, I think?) it, but I guess it does sort of make you care more about your Pokémon when you can speak to the and find out that they feel unsafe in a Pokémon Center or something.
Now, while this is a very good game I still think it has some very noticeable issues that makes me hesitant to put it above the original. Not doing a better job with the endgame's level balancing is pretty poor considering this is their second shot at it, and while it's cool that a new character was added as a nicer alternative to the rival, they only really play a role for about the first third of the game until just completely disappearing, making them at times feel more like an afterthought the developers forgot to cut every cutscene with rather than someone who was actually supposed to appear in the final game. Not a huge fan of the rearranged soundtrack either. Most if it is fine, but it's all a very noticeable downgrade from the original, probably because it was originally orchestrated with the Game boy's sound chip in mind and not something with a bit more realistic sounding instruments. It's not bad, but "not bad" is pretty terrible considering Gen 2 has one of my favorite soundtracks of all time.
I complain because I love and my complaints really aren't all that big in the grand scheme of things, but they are there and are very hard to ignore simply because the rest of the game is so good. I'm not going to write some paragraph about Pokémon is played since everyone already knows, but it feels as good as ever here and some rebalancing of types , the friendship mechanic and a wider move pool in gen 4 does make a lot of this play a lot better than the original games. I probably prefer those for nostalgic reasons, but this one does play better and you can really feel how the different mechanics have been improved upon between 1999 and 2009. Some surprisingly difficult fights here and there, too!
Haven't done the postgame in Kanto yet, by the way. Me and a friend played the game concurrently so I'm waiting for him to beat the Pokémon League before I continue on with the journey. I've heard it's been expanded from the original game's extremely depressing Kanto so I'm looking forward to experiencing it myself in a near future!
Oh, should probably mention what Pokémon I used as well. My party when I beat the Champion consisted of Feraligatr, Xatu, Slowbro, Arcanine, Donphan and Bellossom.
Soundtrack highlight:
Gym Leader Battle
10. March 20th | Yakuza 6: The Song of Life | Playstation 4 | 26h 25m | Replay | ☆☆☆☆
The Yakuza trains keeps steaming on ahead! First played Yakuza 6 in 2018 as my third game in the series (after 0 and Kiwami) and I really liked it at the time. Now that I've played Kiwami 2, 3, 4, 5 and Judgment as well, I... still like it quite a lot!
There has come a point now where I sort of feel like I could just copy and paste the exact same thing on every Yakuza game because they're really not that different. Men have big emotions, someone takes a bullet for someone else after ignoring a downed villain with a gun, a big fight takes place on high altitude, Karaoke is great, mini games are fun, "let me tell you about this cool sub-story", and so on. Yakuza 6 isn't all that different as to warrant some huge write-up, but it does differentiate itself a bit by feeling like all the retreads are more intentional than the developers having about a week to write the script before the start developing the next one and therefore pulling from the same bag of tricks each time (and I say this as someone who likes most of the Yakuza stories!). You really feel the journey Kiryu has had since the first game, going from being a force driven by some kind of sadness and grief to now being driven by protecting the ones he loves, and replicating a lot of moments from the previous games with this "grown-up" Kiryu does a great job of showing that while also making you remember all the good times you've had with these games. The story as a whole does have its issues and has twists within twists within twists that are more stupid than impressive, but these, like, intertextual moments where you suddenly see every Yakuza within this one Yakuza game is such genius writing that I'm just left really impressed by what was achieved here. Not only is it very clear fan service with all these callbacks, but they also serve such nice thematic purpose. Even outside of this I feel like Yakuza 6 has by far the best character writing in the series, with so many great, layered and lovable characters introduced here that I almost wish there could be a Hiroshima spin off just to spend more time with them. One scene in particular near the end between Kiryu and Haruka also has to be one of the most touching moments in the entire series, with the writers also somehow understanding show, don't tell is actually a good thing sometimes (again - I love these games and their stories!). I guess I'm telling rather than show here, but I really love this story. It still has that sort of trashy soap opera feel to it that all the other games do, but it sort of combines it with a really nice character drama and the results aren't the best video game story ever, but one that certainly hits pretty hard and with so many great moments. Still haven't played Like a Dragon, but it's probably my favorite story in the series as of now. It's at least tied with 0. If it hadn't been for a pretty terrible epilogue it'd probably be the absolute best, but it is what it is.
Want to know where Yakuza 6 isn't close to the same level as 0? The gameplay, sadly. I like how much weight every attack is given in the Dragon Engine games and how it removes basically every loading screen (and it also makes the games very pretty), but it's clear that RGG Studio must have had some issues working with it in this first outing since the game really doesn't run all that well and the combt is... it's bad. It sort of feels like going back to Yakuza 3, but with Kiryu being a lot stiffer and losing all combo momentum whenever an enemy blocks an attack (and at least on hard, they sure are good at blocking). If you grab a bike or any big object, every single fight is a cake walk, but when just fist fighting against several enemies it can be a real slog. The bosses can also damage you like crazy with a single attack, even if you've leveled up your defense to 200 and since almost everyone dodges your heavy attacks the main tactic to defeating them is a slow square, square, square, wait for a new opening, square, square, square. It's not like the Yakuza games have the best action gameplay of all time, but it usually at least feels a lot better than in Y6.
The side activities are fun as always. They took away billiards so I'd say the collection as a whole is actually better than in previous game, but it's pretty much the same as in the other games other than a fun but very simple underwater rail shooter and the fairly mediocre but inoffensive clan creator. The karaoke combo of Today is a Diamond and Tonight has to be noted as being extremely top tier, though. Some real good side stories as well, with a good mix of throwbacks to previous games and some real fun standalone ones, like a super fun homage to The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
So uhhhhhhhhhhh Yakuza 6 is great. Doesn't play great, but the story and characters are good enough to carry the experience.
(Soundtrack's amazing too!)
Soundtrack highlight:
絆
11. March 20th | Ratchet & Clank | Playstation 3 | 9h 57m | Replay | ☆☆☆½
Yet another replay. This time of what I think might be the first game I ever bought. Not the Playstation 3 version obviously, I'm not a toddler, but as far as I can remember the first game I bought with my own money was a used copy of Ratchet & Clank so a lot of nostalgia here. Haven't played it since I platinumed the PS3 version in 2015, though, so it's been a while since I last touched it. Doesn't really matter though since I've beaten it enough times as a kid that I basically remember everything in it and even where most of the gold bolts are. I even beat the final boss without dying a single time, which should be a clear sign to everyone that I'm actually a pro gamer and someone to fear.
Going back and playing Ratchet & Clank is always a curious experience because while it does look like future games in a lot of ways, it really doesn't play or feel like them. When you think of the series today, it's as fast paced action-platformers with some light RPG elements with leveling the weapons, but the first game really is more platformer than action, with Ratchet feeling a lot heavier, combat feeling much clunkier and slow (on later stages it's even preferable to snipe enemies from a distance instead of facing them head-on). I wouldn't blame anyone for playing the beginning planets of this game and just deciding that "no more, life can be better than this", but at least to me personally when the game finally clicks after a while it actually becomes a lot of fun. Not some sort of
INCREDIBLE FUN, but fun! Most of the weapons could certainly be better, the auto aim as well and the lack of good strafing is sorely missed at times (the thruster-pack enables a kind of strafing, but it's... awful), but when the game really focuses on the platforming and light puzzle solving, you can really see Insomniac using what they learned from the Spyro games to create a creative and well designed (outside of the stealth mission in the endgame) platformer with good level variety and a surprising amount of freedom in which order you want to tackle different missions in and extremely light Metroidvania elements where you can access new paths with equipment acquired on later planets and thanks to the relatively small scale of the stages, this sort of backtracking never really gets old. Having to grind for bolts to buy the next weapon does get sort of old, though, especially when so many of the weapons are so forgettable and you'll mainly use nothing but the Tesla Claw, Agents of Doom, Devastator and Visibomb Gun by the end, but I guess you could say it makes actually being able to finally buy the weapons more satisfying? I wouldn't really say that, but I won't stop you from saying it either.
Have to say though, that I do not get the love for the writing in this game? I remember when the 2016 remake came out and so many though it lacked all that edge and fun factor of the original game came out, but, like, this is edgy 2002 humor for a 12 year old with some extremely shallow satire sprinkled in with Drek and his whole scheme. I'm not saying the remake has better writing or anything like that, just that this really didn't strike me as noticeably better. Maybe more high energy, but not really better. In the plot itself things sort of just happen. Ratchet & Clank happen to find an Infobot and it points them somewhere until they somehow reach the end of the game and Ratchet learns that he shouldn't behave like the universe's biggest dick and Clank... well, Clank's mainly just there.
Not sure what else I have to say, really. It's a pretty basic, but fun game with nice art direction and a really funky soundtrack that doesn't really stick, but is great when you're actually playing the game. Future games would improve upon a lot of things, but there's still something special about this one that makes it fun to revisit. The higher difficulty? The walloper? the bigger focus on platforming? Not sure. Probably all those things. Either way Ratchet & Clank does still hold up in 2022, despite some roughness with getting used to physics and the like in the beginning parts.
I sometimes think about that lizard-like salesman with his "hey there, fuzzball" every time you open the shop and wonder a little about whatever happened to him after this game.
Soundtrack Highlight:
Oltanis Orbit - Gemlik Base
Currently Playing:
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations (Nintendo 3DS)
Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4)
Final Fantasy II (PC)
Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (PS3)
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