Guardians of the Galaxy, Demon Slayer, Facebook Connect | Episode 22
Join Dave and Dylan in Episode 22 of the Offshore Gamescast as they talk about Guardians of the Galaxy, Demon Slayer, and more games!
They also talk about the Facebook Connect event, Vicarious Visions, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, and the rest of the breaking news from the week.
You’ll definitely want to tune in to the beginning of the episode for some big announcements.
Thanks for listening!
Game Log - #11042021
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
It’s crunch time. I’m in the middle of eight games that I want to have completed before Game of the Year with only a month to go, not even including the upcoming Call of Duty: Vanguard and Forza Horizon 5 campaigns that I want to play through. While the early and middle portions of the year were on the slower side for gaming in terms of number of releases, the backend has me overwhelmed with games that all released within weeks of each other. Check out my thoughts on a couple of them that came out this past week!
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy:
I was hyped when I heard the rumors of a Guardians of the Galaxy video game being made. I got even more excited when the release date was announced for October. I never had any real interest in comic books or graphic novels so most of my enjoyment of those properties come from movies, shows, and video games. When the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie came out I didn’t really have any high expectations going in. After I saw it, it quickly became one of my favorite movies ever. The humor hits home for me, I love the cast of characters, I enjoy the type of sci-fi that it is, and it all blended well with some great action scenes to bring me a movie that I could watch repeatedly and never get tired of. Because of this, I had high expectations going into the game and, so far, it’s delivering.
One of the main draws of Guardians of the Galaxy is the decision making aspect. When a game gives my dialogue options and different decisions to make that affect how the game goes, I’m immediately intrigued. I haven’t had to make any major decisions yet, mostly minor ones where I’m siding with one of the guardians while they bicker back and forth, so it’s yet to be seen how impactful decisions can be. Where the game really shines is it’s writing. The humor is right on par with the movie. The first two hours had me laughing out loud multiple times. The best part about it so far is how reactive the guardians are with what you’re doing. For example, the first mission you go on has you paired with Rocket and Groot for the majority of it. At one point, Rocket says one way is a dead end and heads down another path. When I play games I want to explore everything I can, so of course I went right down the dead end. And it was exactly that. Just a dead end. And there’s Rocket, across the way on the main path, talking trash about how I just had to go and see for myself. Later on, Rocket is setting up a device and needs you to bring him a battery. Instead, I went around and explored the area for any collectibles I could find. The whole time I was doing that, Rocket was talking to Groot in the background how I’m just wasting my time and should be bringing him the battery instead. These details are making the characters feel real and like they’re actually reacting to what I’m doing instead of going along their predetermined paths and waiting for me to catch up.
Visually, the environments look great. Each one looks so unique and makes me want to explore every corner, whether it’s the room you had on Earth as a kid, the hub area of the Milano, or the deserted area of a war zone. The character designs also look good but, admittedly, I’m used to the characters from the movie and it’s taking a little time to adjust, especially with Starlord.
The worst part of the game is the way it feels. It’s… fine. Moving around is on the clunkier side and I need to play more to really get the full idea of how combat is going to feel. The intro mission only has you do one fight with the full cast of guardians so I’m waiting to do more before having any kind of final verdict. But so far it feels fine. It’s getting the job done to move the game forward and isn’t standing out as in any way at all. I’m here for the story, the writing, and the characters and they’ve all been great.
Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars:
If there was ever a game that made me truly feel like I’m playing a D&D campaign, this is the one. Almost everything is made out of cards. The overworld, the walls, the floors, the characters, the dialogue, all of it. Outside of the table you’re sitting at, dice, and a couple of other game pieces, you’re only seeing cards. The experience is so unique and really captures the feeling of playing through a tabletop campaign that it makes up for the lackluster storytelling.
It’s all of the details that really give you the feeling of playing through a campaign. As you pan the camera around, you can see the wooden table that the game is set up on. All of the dialogue, the narration, and everything else is voiced by the man who introduces himself as the Game Master. The small reactions that he has to things happening is part of what sells the feeling. If you land a critical hit or take out some enemies quickly, you’ll hear an approving “ohh,” or he’ll comment that you got lucky, or congratulate you on the good work. It’s impressive work from the voice actor that, without thinking, you’re able to tell when he’s speaking as the person playing the game with you, as the narrator of the campaign, and as one of the characters that’s talking.
I won’t go deep into combat. It’s another card battler. If you’ve played one, you know the basics of all of them and this one doesn’t stray too far. When you’re exploring out in the overworld, everything is presented with facedown cards. As you move your game piece to the next card, the surrounding cards are revealed. I’ve been exploring every corner of the maps and, luckily, haven’t gotten too tired of the combat as random battles happen frequently. There’s also random events that’ll happen that help sell that D&D feeling, such as having to roll the dice to see what the stone you just found is, or trying to avoid a sudden storm. Once you reach a town, you’re safe from random battles and spend most of the time talking with other people. It’s hard to explain but something about the overall presentation doesn’t make side characters feel like video game NPCs giving me side quests. It feels like I’m exploring in a D&D campaign and the Game Master had some characters planned with different objectives attached to them in a tabletop kind of way.
That ongoing feeling is what’s keeping me sticking around to the end of the game. The writing, characters, and overall story don’t have anything special going on and the combat, while overall enjoyable, is very familiar. The game seems to only be about ten hours in length. I’m eight hours in and am at the end of chapter five out of seven, which is a good length because I don’t see myself sticking around for a 20+ hour long game.
House of Ashes:
What else was there to do on Halloween night than finish up House of Ashes? I can’t really go into detail because the whole point of the game is the story and the type of ending you get but, overall, I was satisfied with it and I’m excited for the next one. My biggest gripe is that the decisions really do seem random. I made one early in the game that all of the characters trashed for almost the entire game. Then, at the end, it turned out it was a good thing I made that decision in regards to one of my favorite characters from the game. Without spoilers, that’s pretty much the extent of what I can say. Overall, a fun and enjoyable horror experience, especially while playing with someone else.
Dave
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Hinokami Chronicles
My expectations for this game were pretty level when it came out. I had just finished the anime itself and was very much looking forward to the game, but as with other adaptations some of these games are nothing more than arena brawlers. A lot of what the gameplay entails is based off of what anime it’s adapted from like the devs previous titles of DragonBall Z Kakarot and the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm games. From what I heard before the game’s release is that Demon Slayer would be the most similar to the NUNS series, those games having a large following and being generally really well regarded. I’ve played some anime adaptations in the past ranging from One Piece, DragonBall, Kill La Kill If, and now Demon Slayer. The ones that stick out the most to me are the more faithful retellings of the core plot, my favorite being DragonBall Z Kakarot. That also being my entry into the full arcs of the Z storyline and I was extremely satisfied with how it was relayed and the activities included. In this case like I said, I had already finished the anime and knew the beats of the story so the only thing helping me along to the end was the gameplay. The reason I bring up the differences between DragonBall and Demon Slayer as animes into games and how they are limited based off of the anime is because while they are made by the same dev they play very differently. In the world of Demon Slayer the environments are usually either a forest, narrow roads of a small village, or the small hallways of a building. On the other hand DragonBall is a universe of large cities, different planets, and big open spaces at times using transportation like the Nimbus Cloud just to get around so comparing just the worlds themselves you can see the contrast. So when it comes to Demon Slayer not much can be done in the environments presented.
The game looks amazing and the devs did a wonderful job translating the art style from the show into 3D models in game. Some of the shots in game look absolutely picturesque with the anime where some stills don’t even look like in game models. I do believe that the game deserves some attention in those regards but since I knew everything that was going to happen I skipped just about every cutscene except for a select few moments that stick out from the show. Also not all of the animes’ details are present, in most adaptations they leave out the filler episodes which works better in some stories than in others and they kind of throw you into the first fight of the show missing out on some helping details. They do have some scenes that can be collected and unlocked but not everyone is going to see them. I may also be an exception in the fact that most people probably have been deep into most anime before a game adaptation releases and then there’s me.
Gameplay in most cases is pretty limited, in the forests and the villages you are stuck on narrow pathways that are linear for the most part. Some areas require you to move up and down in automatic animations of jumping up a rock or onto a roof. In the small maps the pathways intertwine leading to dead ends, point collectibles, or the most boring talking checkmarks. Going up to NPCs just to talk to them for either context or telling them they’re saved and can leave the area. Something I gave up on right from the beginning. Combat is really the center of the show but even the smaller battles don’t really shine. Some repetitive combos quickly finish off the lesser enemies but the reason I’m here is for the boss fights. These are obviously the high action parts of the show and the most memorable moments in general. Again you are thrown into medium sized battle arenas with you and the one boss, usually in their respective settings and begin by wailing on them with all of the skills you have. As the battles progress they become much more intense and most bosses will have more than one health bar lengthening the fight. Once enough damage has been done there will be a small red line ¾ of the way down the bar signaling the final sequence. At the final sequence the scene explodes with color and flows through badass shots of the characters gearing up for the final blows. A plethora of Quick Time Events riddle the screen whether it’s spamming a button, hitting a random button as fast as you can, before finally hitting Y at the end to take the head off of the demon and end their tyranny. Those are easily the best parts of the game for me. Towards the end there are some mini games to go through that come and go very fast. Mainly from the episodes where they meet the Hashira and train at the camp. Both are simple, either tapping A as fast as you can to break the gourds or a simple rhythm game during the cup challenge.
I do recommend the game for anyone who’s a fan of the anime, after I finish the main campaign on most games then I usually retire them shortly after but there’s more to do for others after the credits roll. There’s the VS multiplayer, extra missions and challenges throughout but for me it was a nice time to shut my brain off and slay some demons.
Echo Generation
I thought I had a pretty good idea of what this game was from the demo during SGF. Still so when I started the full game and quickly replayed what I had months ago. It wasn’t until the second boss that I realized this game is brutal. You don’t notice it at first, running up and down the roads and passages, taking out the rats by the repair shop and being victorious over the first and very creepy boss. It’s right after that where things get a little clearer, alongside the roaming and collection of random objects the characters need in order to get the objects that you are looking for is a grind on levels that no one has ever seen. I’ve played your average Pokémon game and some other JRPGs but I wasn’t anticipating the combat to grow into a crazy slog. Luckily though it doesn’t last super long, it’s mainly just the first few levels until you’re able to conquer the second boss. After that threshold the game seems to balance out and doesn’t require excessive leveling instead it’s more of a difficulty slope than a spike. The amount of times though I ran back and forth to home in order to heal from sleep and to the spaceship crashed in the fields behind the repair shop to farm XP from 5 enemies lasted a couple hours. The most annoying part is that the enemies down respawn every time you sleep or load in a new location so that will only prolong the leveling needed to overcome the higher level bosses.
You’ll be spending a good amount of time in the treehouse by your home, after battles finish you will be rewarded with a bit of money to bring back and spend on resources from the treehouse. From apples, sandwiches, and moms coffee for healing items to mushrooms that can enhance your abilities like increasing strength for a few turns. These items are more than necessary if you want to survive. Definitely needed when you encounter each chapters’ main boss. I want to point out that the enemy designs are fantastic. The use of voxels when creating the game and in turn it’s art style lets it stand out and apart from other releases. The mix between that and the game’s nostalgic setting combine for a fresh take on the fleeting adventure genre. Back to the enemies though, each matches it’s setting and location very well like they were made to be there. Judging even by the first boss, a creepy Five Nights at Freddy’s-esque clown animatronic hiding in a dark and dreary back of an old repair shop. How it stands and the animation repeating the same uncomfortable twitching and motions add to the atmosphere and turns the game into a straight up horror experience. There are a bunch more that I could go on and on about but that would be doing a disservice to the designers of the game, some of the enemies just need to be seen in game for the first time.
While not that long of a game the back and forth in classic adventure fashion will keep you occupied for hours. Not to mention the early game grind. This title hits close to me as a fan of those types of games from years long past and though I’m not the biggest fan of the XP farm it doesn’t ruin the experience enough for me to have a bad time, by the end of it I felt satisfied and hopeful that this game can spread a new appreciation for the genre. I won’t go further into details than needed because I do think this is a great starting point for those new to game like this, definitely recommend.