September Update:
This month was all about the two new releases that both dealt with our world being affected by interdimensional beings of the astral plane, though in very different ways!
Control was a very enjoyable experience and probably my favorite Remedy game yet. Having one well-designed and believable central location and making it fun to get around and explore is always a recipe for something I'll like, and this game nails all of those things. In general, there aren't nearly enough 3D Metroidvanias and games like Control show why there should be more of them. I took my time exploring what felt like every square inch of each area, and even at that I was still finding new things to discover. And the thing I liked most about the gameplay is that, unlike Alan Wake and Quantum Break, the combat never felt like it was getting in the way of the experience. It was fun and fluid and wasn't something that I ever got sick of. And while you get new abilities and upgrades throughout the game that make combat and traversal even more enjoyable -- one in particular changed the game in an amazing way -- I thought it was still good at the very beginning of the game. Many games don't manage to pull this off.
Though part of me wishes I played this game after Astral Chain, as the glitches and performance at launch were unfortunate, even on the X. I was able to get past the stuff with the menus causing slowdown and the map not displaying properly, but it was nevertheless really annoying stuff that never should have been in the game at release. I imagine the game post-patch is much more pleasing. Still a great game, though, and I can't wait for the expansions (especially the second one!).
l also really liked Astral Chain a lot. Like NieR:Automata, it has the feel of a game out of time that doesn't abide by boilerplate open-world AAA design approaches, but instead reminds me of - graphics and presentation aside - something that might have come out in the late 2000s on the Wii. That's not to denigrate these games; I actually appreciate how they buck a number of modern game design trends. Astral Chain is not for everyone, and a lot of that comes down to the exploration/detective sequences which are light on action and heavy on discovery -- poking and prodding around every corner for hidden items and quests. It's this downtime that separates it from your typical Platinum game, and it's where a lot of my enjoyment came from in the first half of the game before the combat finally clicked.
And once that happened, my enthusiasm for the game went up tenfold. Like Spider-Man last year, I found the combat really underwhelming for the first 33-50% of the game and was never looking forward to enemy encounters. But as was the case there, once I started getting more abilities and skills, I began having a blast with it and then started seeking out more of these combat sequences. Some of this is the game's fault; it throws a lot at your early, and consequently the first 2+ missions felt like an extended tutorial. And not all of it works. One of the X-Baton modes is much better than the other two, making switching modes something I would only do when I absolutely HAD to and not when I wanted to. The left-bumper Legion Actions work well during environmental puzzle solving, but feel clunky during hectic combat encounters and they overcomplicate the control scheme.
It's not until you get 3+ Legions and start to level them up that the combat becomes really satisfying. At that point, it's still very much a game where you're rewarded for being mashy in moment-to-moment combat, and without the Legion switching it's fairly unremarkable. But the draw is planning and timing these switches between Legions, using their unique powers to your advantage, and then switching to the next one. It looks great and feels great while pulling it all off. I don't normally get a lot of great scores in character action games, but I was getting "S+" ranks left and right in Astral Chain and it's a damn good feeling. I'm not planning on 100%ing the game, but I also had no plans on going back and replaying earlier missions to find stuff I missed. I've got other stuff lined up on the Switch right now and for the next couple months, but I will go back to this game and complete more of the Orders, because I find playing this game to be very rewarding despite taking a while to get to that point.
Anyways, they're both really good games despite their flaws, and I never really wanted to stop playing either of them after the credits rolled. Both will almost assuredly place on my Top 10 GOTY list at year's end. Next up it's horror games month. Starting off with a couple of bangers, I'm doing replays of REmake and Silent Hill 2 (long-overdue in the case of REmake, which I haven't played in at least a dozen years) and then the next game in my backlog, Silent Hill 4.
Finished: +2
- Control (XBO)
- Astral Chain (Switch)
Bought: 0
Currently Playing:
- REmake (Switch) **REPLAY
- Silent Hill 2 (PS2) **REPLAY
Total score: +2
Backlog Priorities:
- Silent Hill 4: The Room (PS2)
- Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U)
- Assassin's Creed Origins (XBO)
- Halo 2 (XBO)
- Halo 3 (XBO)
Bought in 2019: 20
Beat in 2019: 21
Current Score: +1
