Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Lost Judgment, Nintendo Direct | Episode 17
Join Dave and Dylan in Episode 17 of the Offshore Gamescast as they talk about Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Lost Judgment, and more games!
They also talk about the Nintendo Direct, Netflix acquisitions, and the rest of the breaking news from the week.
Thanks for listening!
Game Log - #09302021
Every week Dave and Dylan take some of their thoughts on the games they’ve been playing and write them out in a blog post. If you prefer reading instead of listening then this is perfect for you, enjoy!
Dylan
Just a solo blog for me this week! My backlog of games building up in the last few weeks alone is crazy. There’s so many games I want to finish up but more and more games keep coming out that I want to play and be able to talk about that it’s hard to know where to even put my time anymore. Unfortunately, I think Tales of Arise is going to be put on the backburner for now and I’m not sure when I’ll even be able to get to the new WarioWare. Really, I just want to spend all of my time playing Lost Judgment, which came out at the worst possible time for me. Anyway, enjoy some of my thoughts on the games below!
Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Kena: Bridge of Spirits wastes no time with its intro as you’re thrown right into things. You play as Kena, a spirit guide who helps people who have died move on to the spirit world, who’s on her way to an abandoned forest village when she comes across Rot. While the name may make it seem like these would be the evil antagonists, they are actually the complete opposite. Rot are adorable small black creatures with big eyes that help Kena during her journey, very similar to how Pikmin behave. They will help you in environmental puzzles by moving around heavy objects for you or they’ll help you in combat by forming a giant hammer or stunning enemies. You can find hidden Rot throughout the game that adds to your numbers as they follow you around and, in my opinion, completely steal the show and make up for Kena’s lack of character. Kena doesn’t speak very often and when she does it comes across as very bland, making it difficult for me to feel any connection with the character so far. Every good thing about Kena: Bridge of Spirits also having its flaws are a common theme with this game.
As you’re arriving at the main village of the game, you realize that this whole area is dealing with corruption that’s taking everything over. One thing I’m a sucker for in games is being able to take an area that’s destroyed or messed up in some way and restore it back to beauty and that’s what you get with the main village of the game, acting as the hub area. This corruption will spawn corrupted forest creatures against you until you clear it out, allowing the natural beauty to restore itself. While I typically find this satisfying in most games, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is missing one important element. Even though this village and the areas around it begin to look a lot better, it’s still abandoned. You don’t get to experience the joy of saving people’s homes or watching them move in as you make it habitable once more. The most you get are silhouettes of spirits that disappear as you get too close. While it’s still nice to visually make things better, the village ends up feeling just as empty as it was before you began saving it.
Visually, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is like you’re playing through a Pixar movie. I think if you were to take a couple of cutscenes from the game and present them to someone who doesn’t know it’s a game, they would instantly believe it’s the next big animated movie. Unfortunately, not all of that translates too well into a game. While the forest is beautiful and can create some stunning sights, it prevents the game from having too much variety in how it looks and makes exploring the area much less exciting. Instead of wanting to explore every nook and cranny to find everything, I find myself doing a quick once over and moving on. I’ve finished up the first area of the game and while the next one is still part of the forest, I’m hoping for some more variation to keep me engaged in exploring.
I find that combat and moving around in this world leave a lot to be desired. Moving Kena around and platforming around the forest feels stiff. I also can’t quite put my finger on it but something about the jump doesn’t feel right. This is paired with combat that is very inconsistent in terms of difficulty. The actual combat is serviceable as you’re equipped with what you’d expect. You have a light and heavy attack, a block, a dodge, and you get a bow, bombs, and other items to help shake things up a bit. My problem lies in the sudden difficulty spikes this game has, especially at the first main boss. Most of the enemies leading up to this moment aren’t all that difficult as you get into a groove of what to expect, including the minibosses along the way. Once you get to the first main boss of the story, the game goes full on Dark Souls very quickly. It only takes one or two combos against you to deplete your health bar entirely. This is paired with strange timings of attacks and the fact that you can only heal two times during the entire fight. I have no problem at all with games being difficult, having beaten Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3, and Sekiro. What I don’t like is the inconsistency. I shouldn’t be plowing through enemies only to be met with a much greater challenge at random points. If the game wants to be that difficult, it should prepare you beforehand so you’re able to master the combat and what you need to do to survive. Instead, I found myself switching the game’s difficulty to easy.
The best way I can describe Kena: Bridge of Spirits is if you mashed up a Pixar movie with a PlayStation 2 B game. While this game isn’t a masterpiece, these types of games have their place in the industry and I find that they’ve been missing from gaming for a long time. I know I spent a lot of this blog post harping on the negative aspects of the game but I’m still enjoying it and plan on playing through the rest of it. I just wish every good part of the game wasn’t held back by itself.
Lost Judgment
I’m going to preface this by saying two things. First, I absolutely love the Yakuza series. I’ve beaten every game in the main storyline from Yakuza 0 to Yakuza: Like a Dragon, including the spinoff game Judgment. These games hold a special place in my heart and will almost always be a lock in my top 10 list for Game of the Year if they’re not taking the number one spot overall. Second, what I’m going to write about the early plot is going to be a very basic recap. I’m purposely leaving out some details since I find that the twists and reveals of the stories are some of the strongest parts of these games but I still want to give you the basic idea of how the sequel kicks off.
Main protagonist Yagami and his best friend/business partner Kaito are still running the Yagami Detective Agency. While they’ve had success after breaking the major case from the first game, business has begun slowing down. They’ve mostly just been taking some jobs from the Genda Law Office that Yagami used to practice at until they get a call from Sugiura and Tsukumo. You may remember Sugiura as the masked thief from the original Judgment and Tsukumo as the hacker who spent most of his time in an internet cafe. The two of them partnered up to start Yokohama 99, a detective agency inspired by Yagami and Kaito that resides in Yokohama, the main area from Yakuza: Like a Dragon. They’ve been offered a big case from the chairman of the Yokohama High School and need your help. In the middle of your investigation, you get a call from the Genda Law Office. They also need your assistance with a case that has been all over the news involving a cop and sexual harassment that seems to have more going on than meets the eye, as you would expect from these games. It turns out the case from the Genda Law Office heavily involves what you were investigating initially at the high school as the main plot starts to take hold.
One of the reasons I fell in love with the Yakuza games is all the mini games, side quests, and activities you can do around the cities that make them feel much livelier and give some of the more whacky and memorable moments from the series. A lot of these mini games are returning such as the batting cages, golf, darts, mahjong (which I finally have learned the basic rules of) and dating. Each game will typically have it’s bigger, more in depth mini game and quest line and this one revolves around clubs in the high school. You become the advisor for the Mystery Research Club as you try to solve some big (and dark) problems around the school and help the students out. Part of this is joining other clubs to get to know the other students. So far I’ve only joined the Dance Club, which is a DDR-like rhythm game that I’m having a blast with. I’m excited to see what other mini games and clubs are involved here because based on the prerelease trailers, I’m only scratching the surface. Also, you can now ride around the streets on a skateboard which gives you a basic jump and grind and I haven’t had more fun traversing through the areas.
While Yakuza: Like a Dragon has moved on to more of a turn based RPG combat style, Lost Judgment sticks with the traditional beat-em-up style and it feels as good as ever. You get three different combat styles that are good for different scenarios. The Crane Style is better for large groups of weaker enemies. This is where you’ll be seeing a lot of the flashier, sweeping attacks. Tiger style is perfect for one on one fights with a particularly stronger enemy. These attacks are slower and tend to be harder hitting with greater impact. Then there’s my favorite style, Snake Style. This style revolves around counterattacks and disarming enemies with weapons. It’s one of the cooler styles to play with as someone goes to stab you and you counter and give them a little shove, causing them to stumble behind you as you proceed to lay in attacks to their back. I enjoyed the story and characters of Yakuza: Like a Dragon but Lost Judgment is making me remember just how much I loved playing with this combat.
I’m excited to get deeper into Lost Judgment. It’s doing a great job of walking the line between whackiness and being deadly serious. I don’t think the story will end up being as large scale as the original Judgment was which revolved around a big government and pharmaceutical conspiracy but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Being able to see these characters get right back into another investigation is all I needed and so far, it’s delivering.
Sable
Sable is an absolutely beautiful game to look at. It has such a unique style that I wasn’t really sure how to describe it and had to look it up, coming across a 2018 post on Gamereactor where Sam Bishop spoke to Sable’s creative director Gregorios Kythreotis. He described the inspiration for the look of the game as a mix of Belgian and French comics with Japanese animation like you’d see from Studio Ghibli. It makes for one of the most unique and interesting looking games that I’ve ever played. When you mix that in with music playing by Japanese Breakfast and just traversing the world is an experience I recommend.
You play as the titular character Sable who is preparing to take off on her Gliding. When you reach a certain age, it’s time for you to leave your village or settlement behind and go explore the world on your own and figure out what it is you want to do with your life. Masks play a large role in society in this world and show off what it is you do with your life. For example, if you wanted to work with machines and make hoverbikes you would want to get a Machinist Mask. In order to get the mask you would need to help various machinists around the world and if you impress one enough, they will give you a Machinist Badge. If you get three badges of one kind, you can trade them in for a mask. The goal is to get as many masks as possible and explore all different paths in your life before finishing your Gliding and deciding what you want to do.
One game you could directly compare Sable to is Breath of the Wild. Once you get through the tutorial and begin your Gliding, you’re free to go out and explore the world however you’d like. You’re given some direction on what to do and where you could go next but you don’t have to go that way. As you explore the map, smaller in scale than something like Breath of the Wild, you’ll come across all kinds of things. Without going into too much detail, since discovering things in this game is half the fun, you’ll find small villages and settlements, crashed spaceships, and different types of interesting creatures for you to interact with. Many different temples or abandoned areas require you to get through some puzzles that you’d expect to find in a game like this, similar to the shrines that you go through in Breath of the Wild, offering you different rewards from cosmetics to new quests to explore. To continue with the comparisons, you can climb almost anything and have a stamina meter just like Breath of the Wild along with means to glide off of high points that allow you to traverse further than you’d normally be able to.
While Sable has some clear inspirations, it does a good job carving out its own place. There’s no combat in the game, taking away a lot of tension and giving you a calming experience as you explore the world. The only thing holding this game back from being incredible are the technical issues that it has. I’ve had quest creatures not spawn until I fast traveled away, quit the game, reloaded, and traveled back to the spot I needed to be in. I’ve also clipped through walls, had some issues with the climbing being janky, and am able to save money by buying items from merchants quick enough that the game can’t register me purchasing more than one item at once. The only other nitpick I have is that the game doesn’t look nearly as good when you’re inside a dark area. The game will fade out of color and into black and white which takes away a lot of the visual appeal of the game. Even with the technical flaws this game has, I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an open, calming experience that’s an absolute joy to play.
No More Heroes 3
Just a quick update on No More Heroes 3. I beat the 6th ranked boss, Velvet Chair Girl, putting me at the halfway point. I won’t go into details since the boss fights are the highlights of the game but the bosses are getting more gimmicky and even weirder in the best way possible. Unfortunately, the game gets in its own way. The padding in between boss fights where you have to fight waves of enemies in order to be able to fight the boss just isn’t necessary, especially since the world is so empty and not all that fun to explore. The combat is fun enough that I’m still enjoying it, it just goes from high to low real quick once you’ve defeated a boss and have to go right back into the world and defeat more waves of enemies.