Final Fantasy XV - Thoughts

[contains minor spoilers]

To better or for worse, no two Final Fantasy games are alike. Similar in ways sure, but for the most part (especially after the SNES era) each title has been wildly different from another, only finding common ground in their nomenclature. Final Fantasy XV is perhaps one of the boldest departures from its predecessors, introducing both character action combat and a grand open world into its traditional JRPG structure. It's adventurous, has a ton of style, and is an absoluuuuuute messssssss. I can understand why plenty of people are singing its praises—there's definitely no game is quite like it!—but holy cow does it wear the proof of its troubled development like a badge of honor.

I want to preface the discussion of the story by admitting that I like how it ends. Despite what you may think at the onset of the journey, FFXV strives for ambitious heights with its characters, and the final chapter alone nearly justifies the bizarre "boy band road trip" premise. The problem, however, is the manner in which is told. Characters disappear offscreen to do god knows what (or flat-out die) and rarely are there attempts to inform the player why events are unfolding the way they are. A lot of spectacle is put into the summon battles but there's no explanation given as to what you're trying to accomplish (am I here to kill them or enlist their help?) and throughout the story you'll find yourself constantly questioning character motives (are we really going to help the Empire explore this dungeon guys? Really?)

Honestly, the plot of FFXV is the game's weakest point. Multiple red flags appear early on: the lore of the land is given in the damn tutorial (it's not even accessible from the main menu!), the invasion of your capital city is summarized through movie snippets, nearly nothing is told to you about who/what/where the Empire is, and there's not even a glossary of terms à la FFXIII that you can reference for quick reminders. The game does an atrocious job of introducing you to its core enemies (the first named foe you meet—Loqi—is subsequently killed in the following boss encounter) and the foreign lands you visit in the latter half barely amount to anything more than window dressing along a narrow hallway. The scarcity of reasoning that the plot provides is something I expected from the old Famicom titles, so I can't even begin to articulate how mystifying it is to encounter such obscenely woeful storytelling in 2016. Seriously, when your plot has the same exact "who the hell is Stan" moment from True Detective season two (complete with multiple instances of characters mourning said paper-thin nobody), maybe you shouldn't have left the rough draft phase so early.

The last thing I'm going to rag on is Luna, because she's an affront to the game. Certain scenes in FFXV are among the most honest and heartfelt that the Final Fantasy series has to offer, and it's all thanks to the great chemistry between the core cast. And yet Luna—one of the most pivotal characters to Noctis' development—is a stodgy bore, an old lady in a teenager's body. As a young girl she orates to Noctis the magnitude of his office (because children love talking about stuff like this) and as an adult she barely does anything other than wistfully pine for Noctis in-between sending him dry, emotionless messages via carrier dog. It's bad enough to write a character so hopelessly dull, but even worse to have her play such an integral part of the story despite never even establishing what makes their relationship meaningful. Noctis and Luna are arguably the worst couple in the entire series; the player forms a deeper attachment to Iris during their adventure because she participates in what the game does best: battle, sightsee, and chat.

Where FFXV undoubtedly hits its mark is in the combat; fighting fiendish enemies with your allies at your back is a joy. While your brothers in arms don't have the most sophisticated AI, the battle system is fun enough that you won't really mind if they never seem to get out of the way of AoE attacks (including your own spells). It takes some time to get used to the flow of combat in the game (as you're either holding the auto-dodge button or auto-attack button most of the time), but it provides enough of a spectacle that I was never agitated by some of its jankiness (the camera gets stuck behind shrubbery quite often). Though I wish there was a smidge more monster variety in the game, what's provided here is entertaining enough to last you the 30 hours it takes to complete the main story.

Would that I could say the same about the design of the open world, but as Conan O'Brien so bluntly put it, FFXV's countryside is an "aggressive wasting of our time". I have no qualms with attempting to portray a vast open landscape properly, but with that comes the inevitable tedium of traversing it from end to end multiple times as you undertake one hunt at a time (and can only track a single quest on your minimap). You'll use your royal vehicle to ferry you from town to quest and back again, and after a while a tiny voice will balloon in your head, whispering "it's just not worth it to do all these quests". Even though I enjoyed my time with FFXV's combat, exploring the post-game content was too great of a task for me, due to how cumbersome and draining exploring the world was.

Beyond that, there's a myriad of little designs that I can't believe made it into the final game. For instance: when someone offers you a quest, why do you pick it up/drop it off in a separate but directly adjacent spot to where you talk to them? Why can't you adjust the volume of the song in your car on the fly? Why can't I cook my own meals without resting? How the hell are your friends supposed to avoid getting nuked by the higher tier spells? Why are there no save points mid-dungeon? Why is "slow walk" the standard speed in dungeons? Why are all treasures a minuscule, glittery dot on the ground? When I'm selling treasures, why can't I see how they specifically alter spells so I can keep the quintcast ones? Why don't I get gil from side quests? Why can't you undertake more than one hunt at a time?!

Mind you, I'm not actually as irate at FFXV as the above tirade may suggest. There are still a ton of things I appreciate about it: I love how each day ends by looking at the Prompto's photos, I like the monster designs, the character animations are magnificent, magical explosions have a good weight to them, and gil is actually a rare commodity for once. For as wonky and imperceptible as the combat gets at times (good luck figuring out whom the damage numbers belong to when fighting more than five foes), at the end of the day FFXV is a fun game to play when you're playing it. All of the downtime is a chore though; FFXV is only enjoyable as a whole if you have plenty of time on your hands, or plan on playing only one game this month...

... oh, and, you know, if you're immune to terrible storytelling.

The problems with Final Fantasy XV are manifold to those not drunk with hype. There's no shame in liking it but this is a game riddled with issues in a series typically known for its above-average quality (I didn't even get into the never-ending slog that is Chapter 13!) I don't regret that I played it, but I do feel a pang in my heart for the good that is present here, as it's eternally submerged in a swamp of poor decisions. It took a long time to finally get to FFXV's release, but unfortunately it's going to take even longer for the franchise to catch up to where RPGs are at today.

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Images obtained from: finalfantasy.wikia, youtube.com

Always the Same Blue Sky... - Thoughts

[contains minor spoilers]

The worst part about Always the Same Blue Sky... is that it offers not but a taste of brilliance. There's a lot about it to like: approachability, colorful visuals, fantastic music, expressive writing... which makes it all the more tragic that the entire story wraps up in forty minutes. It's less of a visual novel and more like a visual short story, offering you a momentary glimpse into its cozy island setting before reaching one of its two endings. While I don't inherently dislike experiences that seek to be brief yet impactful, the amount of work and polish on display here practically beg for a longer runtime, especially in regard to the game's ulterior message.

This is not to say that I was disappointed by the experience; what I ultimately feel about the game is somewhat hard to describe. I think Always the Same Blue Sky... is good!—I definitely enjoyed my time with it. But narrative-centric visual novels can be finicky creatures to develop properly, since their emotional payoff depends on your fondness for their characters. There's nothing wrong with Kira (the sole heroine of the story) either, but familiarity forms the strongest of all bonds, and being able to say "hello" and "goodbye" to her in a single sitting doesn't provide the player with the emotional resonance the story seeks. Considering that the tale ends on a bittersweet note makes this issue all the more lamentable.

Always the Same Blue Sky... does try its best however, and the heartfelt effort is commendable on its authenticity alone. Though there are a handful of sections where the dialogue feels a bit forced (usually before a branching path centered around philosophical argument [e.g. "I have firm beliefs and I know what I'm doing is right. It may feel difficult superficially but I have a job to do for the greater good..."), the writing overall is splendid, featuring a wondrous amount of expressive phrases. There's a nostalgic, nearly saccharine feel to the game thanks to the portrait and description of the antique town ("The school is situated on the end of a peninsula and no matter where you are, you can hear the constant lapping of the docile waves on the beach not far below") and the ways in which the player character describes Kira's ethereal beauty ("Although untanned, the colours in her hair gave the impression she had spent a lifetime bathing in the sun. Full of depth, it appeared radiant in the bright light that flooded through the window behind her."). I suspect the writer Grant Wilde is somewhat of a hopeless romantic, as he naturally excels at filling the player's heart with an anxious whimsy that longs for love's sweet release. Granted, it's a naive, star-struck type of teenage love, but that doesn't detract from how soothing the relationship with Kira can be if you're able to transport yourself to those distant summer shoes.

Lastly, I need to congratulate the musician Jon Hayward for writing some absolutely amazing music. While I'm by and large a visually-oriented person, I find that the aspect of visual novels that hooks me the most is actually their soundtrack, as even titles that I deem not particularly good (*coughKanoncough*) can at least tug at my heartstrings with a melancholy tune or two. The short journey you find yourself on in Always the Same Blue Sky... is filled with breathy flutes and gentle marimbas, as evidenced by its phenomenal "Main Theme" or the curiously winding "Alleys and Side Roads". The work Hayward puts in to fit the music so perfectly to the style and setting of the game cannot be understated; where simple themes could've sufficed, Hayward truly brought out the beauty in this fleeting relationship.

My concluding thought on Always the Same Blue Sky... is that it serves as an amazing proof of concept for Wilde. I think it's strong enough to be played and enjoyed on its own, but it undoubtedly feels like a diamond caught in mid-transformation. The twist at the end is something I wish had more care delivered to it (as it's a bit jarring as is) but I really like the tone and outcome of both endings, finding them interesting concepts that would probably flourish better had the story spent more time building up to them. Always the Same Blue Sky... is like a precious sapling that only needed space to sprout into a mighty tale, yet in spite of that detriment there's still plenty to admire about it.

Odallus: The Dark Call - Thoughts

I was greatly looking forward to JoyMasher's sophomore effort, Odallus: The Dark Call. Oniken proved that the developers knew what made the classic games of the 8-bit era tick, and though I didn't hop on the Indiegogo campaign when Odallus was announced, I was eager to play it somewhere down the road. Thanks to the recent Humble Bundle I came upon that road sooner rather than later, and man, is Odallus a really great game. It can be a bit tricky at times, wedging the player between a difficulty spike or a confusing progression path, but the game adheres to a philosophy that respects the player and fully expects them to use their arsenal in order to make it to the end of this dark, monster-slaying journey... and after wiping the blood off of your sword, you're likely to think back on it all and conclude (with a grin), "yeah, this was a lot of fun!"

Before I begin, the description on Odallus' steam page lists Ghosts 'n Goblins, Demon's Crest, and Castlevania as direct inspirations, but Odallus actually plays like none of those games. Sure it shares the same kind of oppressive atmosphere (in spite of its versatile color palette), but all three of those games play considerably slower than Odallus does—hell, JoyMasher's game doesn't even have a quirky jump mechanic like those do! Odallus is less about planning your next move and more about executing swift barbarian justice on your foes... kinda like Oniken! In fact, that's probably the best analog to the game: picture Oniken, enlarge the sprites, add in some backtracking and cool powerups, and there ya go!

The backtracking aspect plays a bigger role than the above sentence might imply, but it's important to note that the majority of Odallus is played as consecutive stages from an NES game (with a few branching paths to spice things up). Rarely will you have more than one viable stage to select from, keeping things feeling less Metroidvania-y and more classic, despite the fact that you'll still have to head into earlier levels to pick up goodies or find a secret exit. Thankfully the levels are shorter than you remember upon replay and offer plenty of permanent shortcuts to unlock (like activating a skull-face teleporter), never burdening the player with prolonged periods of boredom. The overarching design is a successful mix of "old meets new", playing like an retro platformer but having enough modern design sensibilities to never become overbearing or groan-inducing.

That said, Odallus can still be a prickly at times, especially once you reach the final boss (which is an astoundingly awesome fight, by the way). It's no easy task to reach the credits but I'd hesitate to call Odallus a difficult game, or at least difficult in the same way its alleged inspirations are. The only thing that conflates its perceived challenge is that the game sticks to a limited lives system despite not really needing to, given how prevalent the shortcuts are. I was also confused for a long time whether or not the unlocking a shortcut would persist after using a continue, but fortunately they do, which I wish the game had indicated to me beforehand somehow. For the most part Odallus is very gentle and rewarding at just the right times (like stumbling upon a full health chest after a section filled with fierce enemies), which is a testament to how tightly designed the game is; as long as you proceed cautiously and keep your side-arms ready, there's no reason you can't reach the final stage in a few hours (good luck beating that level though!)

Besides the limited lives, I suppose I don't have too many qualms with Odallus overall. The controls felt a little sloppy and slidey at times—Oniken suffered the same problem if I recall correctly—but they're easy to get used to by the third level, especially once you eventually obtain the double jump and command more control over your trajectory. I'm a little sad that the sub-weapons don't have an upgrade to enhance their use in the endgame, but whapping guys with just your sword remains fun for the entire duration of the game. The story can be somewhat confusing but the Berserk-inspired theme of the game in conjunction with the revolting Gigeresque pixel art is a super awesome combination that never feels trite or dull. Almost every time I think of something that might make me feel a little lukewarm on the game, there's always some other aspect that I really dig and enjoy.

Odallus is not a gigantic leap beyond their blade-swinging debut, but that's because since their inception JoyMasher has understood what made 8-bit platforming so much fun. Whereas Oniken made me a believer in their work, it was Odallus that cemented them as masters of their craft, doing far more than simply invoking nostalgia with their punchy visuals. It's somewhat hard to recommend the game to anyone that doesn't enjoy the era of gaming that inspired it, but for those of us who yearn for an oldschool challenge aided by some clever design, nifty bosses, and catchy pulse wave tunes, Odallus is right down our alley.

Gone in November - Thoughts

[contains minor spoilers]

Gone in November is a severely undercooked game. Developed by Florastamine, its a walking sim that centers around struggling with three separate but related problems: loss of a friend/lover, depression, and leukemia—a powerful combination on paper. The visuals and price tag make it pretty clear that Gone in November an amateur piece of art, but I went into it with an optimistic outlook, especially since I know topics like these are probably really close to the developer's heart. Reaching the end of the tale less than twenty minutes later, I walked away feeling that it was in dire need of some serious feedback during development.

Perhaps the most glaring issue is that the author of the game is (most likely) not a native english speaker, given the multitude of errors in the text and the Vietnamese on some of the billboards outside of the main house. In a game such as this that's highly dependent on its prose to convey emotion and evoke pathos, any broken sentences or irregular dialogue will fail to properly resonate with the player, only serving to distance them from the story. While there are a handful of times that what's written does work ("Time. Please don't take her away." and "I hate you for not being right here, right now."), there's a multitude of examples where I couldn't tell what was happening, who was speaking, or what the author was even trying to communicate to me ("She said they didn't allow her to go out. That if she was released, she would never come back. But that was everything." and "Isn't people were born to pay their debts?")

For the most part I could understand what the game was trying to tell me; Gone in November unabashedly wears its heart on its sleeve, yet its dauntless attitude doesn't necessarily amount to anything special while you play it. You'll understand that the player character loved a girl, lost a girl, and feels isolated and cut off from everyone else... but there's really not much to it beyond that. A good chunk of the game is spent reading dialogue about how apathetic and cold the world (read: society) treats its inhabitants, but these generalizations are similar to those you're bound to make in highschool, during the time when you become disillusioned with both yourself and everyone around you ("Look at these people. They are all clueless about you and your problems. Like they care. It's not their business anyway." and "And here you are. Standing between a mess created by people's ignorance and your negativism.") Had I played this over a decade ago perhaps I would've been floored by the experience—likely finding the author to be a kindred spirit—but now it's too easy to recognize the raw, aimless angst that poisons early adulthood, each cynical remark made far from being unique, biting, or poignant.

The one aspect that Gone in November handles pretty well is its trippy visuals, but due to the simplicity of the textures there's not really anything that's worth more than a passing gander. There were a couple of instances that actually surprised me (the cactuses, the car), however the overall experience kinda just wanders around with its ideas until it reaches a screeching halt. As there aren't a lot of strong recurring motifs or optional goodies to find there's almost no reason to replay the game, especially since both of its endings only result in a mere difference of closing audio. I did remain entertained as I was playing through it, but this is far from being a sterling example of how beautiful and enthralling a walking sim can be.

I admire Gone in November's heart—any piece of art that attempts to communicate how utterly consuming depression can be is welcome in my book... it's just unfortunate that I feel it's not worth a recommendation. I mean sure, it's worth a look if you wanna see someone's personal take on the subject, flaws and all, but it essentially offers a perspective that you can stumble upon yourself in a random DeviantArt journal post. It's great that the game is both short and cheap, though I think its brevity conversely contributes to it feeling half-baked in the end. More than anything, I'm interested in seeing what Florastamine takes away from this experience, and if we see another effort from the developer—I want to encourage these kinds of products to keep being made, even if there's some ugly bumps along the way.

Thumper - Thoughts

There are a handful of games that are about journeying into the depths of Hell—Doom, Dante's Inferno, and Diablo immediately spring to mind—but no product more perfectly encapsulates the dread of such an endeavor than Thumper. I know it might come across as grandstanding (after all, how does a rhythm game with no discernible setting accomplish this?) but I implore you to listen: surviving Thumper is surviving Hell. In an Inferno-esque style, nine vicious stages await you as you descend into the maw of madness, obstacles and beats coming at you faster and faster until you're unsure if the human mind is capable of processing such an onslaught of information. Your vision will blur, your palms will sweat, and your fingers will tense up as you smash against walls and fly into spikes; you will die, and die, and die again, until your weakness has been purged... or you simply break. No game released this year has put up more of a fight than Thumper, and no game I've played this year has been more satisfying to finally conquer.

Part of Thumper's allure is in how deceptively simple it is: the only required inputs are a single button and the cardinal directions of a joystick. As your iron-clad beetle vehicle whizzes down the track, you'll press the button to hit a pad, or press the button plus direction to grind against a wall. There's also flying, multiple lanes, and stomp chaining that gets introduced later on, but Thumper eases you into these abilities one by one, teaching you a new trick for each of its first five levels. Perhaps the best way I can describe the game is that's it kinda like Stepmania meets Super Hexagon with an F-Zero exterior, requiring rhythmic precision at a blistering fast speed.

And Thumper is fast—very very fast. You'll need each of its sixty frames per second to read objects in the distance before they hie to your position, a mere two crashes needed to burst your beetle into bits. While the game showcases a lot of spiffy effects and visuals (some of the bosses in particular are real nifty), Thumper demands you parse the signal from the noise in order to survive, which can be a grueling task at first. Hairpin turns, claustrophobic tunnels, and a dizzying amount of particle effects and lights are all meant to obscure your vision, but hopefully you'll grow used to the bewildering amount of action onscreen, eyes squarely focused on the oncoming track.

And what rhythm game is complete without some excellent music? To say Thumper's soundtrack is catchy or melodic would be... well, a lie; primal drums accompanied by ambient hums are what urge you onwards, all other instrumental fat shorn away. Each oncoming obstacle adds percussion to the soundscape, with your inputs either repeating or complementing the audible attack. While it might seem like the dearth of other instruments would cause the game to get boring after a while, the clever twist that Thumper pulls is that each of its nine levels is a corresponding time signature: Level 1 is 1/4, Level 2 is 2/4, Level 3 is 3/4 and so on. Just when you feel you've mastered one stage's tricks, the next one hastily makes a fool out of you until you can grasp its completely different timing. To best survive, I recommend putting on headphones, cranking the volume, and zoning out until you become one with the beetle, naturally intuiting what every move will add to the battlefield of noise.

Rarely will you ever feel comfortable playing the game though, which is where the Hell analogy comes back in. In something like Doom the player is empowered as they march on, whereas Thumper immerses itself in cruelty and despair as you delve ever deeper. The world itself is alarmingly alien: cold colors reflect off of the iridescent metal track, strange and brutal geometric shapes forming from afar to distract or obliterate you. The gameplay matches the visual austerity as stages simply get faster and longer, always teetering the cusp of being too demanding. I thought Level 5 had shown me my limits, but I continued to bore downwards, improving my reactions and sharpening my reflexes. It's silly to say, but I'm pretty sure I experienced all five stages of grief whilst playing the game, emerging out the other end as a changed man... er, at least a man that can do perfect turns while flying.

Thumper is not an easy game—it will demand a lot from you. You'll have to endure (literally) odd time signatures, deal with sharp changes in rhythm, and retry sections a dozen times over if you want to earn anything more than a C Rank.  But Thumper is also a game about self-improvement, not submitting to the forces of evil, and the indomitable power of the human spirit. What first seems dark, belligerent, and frightening slowly grows on you until the fire and brimstone no longer burn; where once you were a prisoner, you now make the very road your slave. Beyond Thumper's pain is pleasure, and I can't recommend it enough—it's the best impulse purchase I've made in a long while.

Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts - Thoughts

The final console release for the mainline Ghosts 'n Goblins series stays true to its rough 'n tough roots. Being developed for the Super Nintendo instead of the arcade, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts feels more mellow and purposeful than its jittery siblings, being polished and waxed until you can see your reflection shimmering on its surface. Ah, but the red arremer hides in the detail! Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts takes inspiration more from the first game than the second, proud to amp up the difficulty and force you to make every shot count. Lost is the Contra-like speed, brevity, and tamer difficulty that the Genesis entry had vitalized the series with; Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is the textbook definition of "one step forward, two steps back".

My disappointment of the game notwithstanding, I have to applaud Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts for switching out vertical firing with the double jump. It's usually not a good sign to lose a major mechanic from one game to the next, but the trade-off here is balanced: you lose an offensive capability for more planar maneuverability. Now enemies directly above you pose more of a threat and a greater emphasis can be placed on pure platforming, as exemplified by the midpoints of Stage 1 and 3. You have a chance to correct for foolish jump by leaping backwards, but it also means that fudging the second jump is more costly, since it'll take you longer to hit the ground. While I was a fan of the vertical firing from the previous game, I feel the double jump brings plenty of excitement to the series, further expanding your options for approaching the challenges on the road ahead.

And what a road it is! Seven grueling stages will test your mettle as you work you way to the heart of the demon castle... and then retrace your steps for the harder second playthrough. Because Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is slower than Ghouls 'n Ghosts, finishing the adventure will require quite a bit of endurance, especially on the last stage (more on that later). I was worried that the prettier, crisper visuals would lead to it being more "normal" than its kin, but there's plenty of kookiness and bizarre settings to be found as you charge nobly onwards to rescue poor ol' useless Prin Prin. My favorite location is the frozen mountain in Stage 5, the first half of the stage dotted by these crystalized, Seussian trees that hang overhead. It may not be as offbeat as the last game, but Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts remains a gorgeous title with a heckuva lot of charm.

Where I start to wane on the title is under the inspection of its design. Stage 1, 4, and 6 are perhaps the only levels that I don't really have qualms with—every other stage in the game is hampered by some questionable piece of design that slows it down. Stage 2 has the loooong raft section that overstays its welcome, Stage 3 has these bland and listless towers, Stage 5 doesn't do enough with its cool avalanche mechanic, and Stage 7 is just a god-awful gauntlet. Compounding this are bosses that are pretty hit or miss, losing a lot of the simplicity that made them so fun to fight in the last game. The second boss can't be jumped over for some reason, the third boss is pretty unintuitive and confusing, the fourth slows the screen to a crawl, and the fifth is just plain stupid (it only has one real attack and looks absolutely dopey without its legs). These are admittedly minor nitpicks that don't significantly detract from the overall experience, except with regards to Stage 7.

Stage 7 is bad—Ghosts 'n Goblins Stage 6 bad. I have no idea who thought it was a good idea to place so many cockatrice heads in the vertical climb at the start, but it makes playing through that section a vile chore every time you die. Some parts of the stage are laudable—the dual cockatrice fight in that one chamber and the ghosts harassing you as you bolt to the boss are clever (and fair!), but needing to get through all this (and a red arremer!) to face two similar, tanky bosses at the end is extremely taxing. Perhaps you'll feel that this degree of challenge is to be expected while running through it the first time, but it's the second playthrough that pushes this endeavor beyond humane limits, requiring you to basically not get hit once the whole level (since you have to have the gold armor to stand a chance against the boss). Reducing the health of everything on this level by 50% would alleviate a lot of my complaints, but as it currently stands it's arguably worse than Ghosts 'n Goblins Stage 6, largely because it takes so much more time to beat.

Besides the unjustified whipping I got while trying to finish the game, there's a couple of odd discrepancies that hampered my enjoyment of Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. Continues are now limited but can be restocked by collecting money (I think?) such that it's not really a problem... though their presence adds unnecessary stress. The bronze armor and shield add some more flavor to the game, but the shield requires you to stop moving to work and getting hit once outside of that immediately reduces you to your underpants. Your weapons are slower so there's barely a reason to use anything outside of the knives/lance/crossbow combinations (all of them being the fastest firing weapons), and the red arremer is absurdly obnoxious this time around, being able to instantly dodge all of your attacks unless you hit them as they're swooping down upon you or have an upwards firing weapon. It really is something you have to experience for yourself; even the original red arremer incarnation was more fair than this! Again, none of these are game-breaking problems, it's just that they contribute to how exhausting it feels to play through the game twice in a single sitting.

I wanted to be blown away while playing Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts—after all, I naturally lean more towards SNES games than Genesis, so I had high expectations diving in. What I had yet to experience was just how prickly this game was; limited continues, longer stages, and a ferocious final level barred my entry to the credits, Capcom asking if I had what it took to best their devious design team. There were certain moments throughout my journey where Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts astounded me with its creativity and visuals, but far too often I found myself groaning in frustration or questioning if certain sections could've been made better or more interesting. Perhaps during a replay I'll look upon it with a fonder gaze (I still do want to replay it after all), but that horrid requirement for a second playthrough will likely continue to keep my appreciation at bay.

Nanostray 2 - Thoughts

In regards to each of Shin'en's previous shmup titles, I've always had a fondness for their peculiar camera choices. Sure, it made dodging bullets quite awkward and it wasn't always clear if you were going to collide with something, but their cinematic bent was a style fitting for the experimental handheld series. Nanostray 2—Shin'en's final attempt at a "straight" shooter—is their most conventional and streamlined entry yet: gone are the strange perspectives and questionable collisions. Instead, we're given a game that takes notes from Life Force, providing ship-partnered "options" and alternating perspectives every other stage. Though I can't help but gravitate towards the other titles in the series (for no reason other than nostalgia alone), from a design standpoint Nanostray 2 is undoubtedly Shin'en's best shooter.

Part of the reason why I didn't warm to Nanostray 2 when I was younger is that the Adventure mode (the standard shmup campaign in the game) was structured too rigidly for me to complete. Whereas the previous games had an imbalanced health system where one bullet took a small chunk off of your health bar while any ship collisions outright killed you, Nanostray 2 addresses this by making all damage immediately lethal. I do prefer playing STGs that take this "1 hit = death" approach, but Nanostray 2 awkwardly attaches limited continues it, making it so you have to restart a level should you lose all your lives on said stage. Not only that, but the game saves your lives remaining if you quit to the main menu, which means that all lives lost on a stage are permanent unless you hard reset the handheld.

While it's fair to say this keeps the game feeling like an oldschool shooter that you have to complete in a single sitting, I think the simultaneous inclusion of one hit deaths, limited continues, restart upon game over, and inability to return to an old save makes Adventure mode ultimately too demanding. Knocking out two of those facets would've provided me with an enjoyable—and still challenging!—experience, but instead I had to play it with a prudent mindset, powering off my DS should I die within the first minute of a stage. Thankfully there is an Arcade mode that lets you play the individual stages with five lives and all of the weapons available, but there's no cozy middle ground between the two modes; you're either playing each level as its own separate experience or struggling to make it through the brutal campaign thanks to its harsh, disciplinarian structure...

... which is a shame too, because the game is pretty fun!

With the shedding of unconventional camera angles comes more conventional gameplay. No longer do you have to pray to the RNG gods for your warping hitbox to avoid damage near the top of the screen—its pretty clear what the size of your ship is and when you'll get hit. Like with the first Nanostray, you have a handful of nifty special weapons available to you, though you'll only be able to equip one of them for a mission (and why would you pick anything other than the highly damaging Ionstrike?). The luminescent satellites orbiting your ship can be placed into three customizable configurations which is neat too, though like with the special weapons you're likely to find something that works for you and stick to it. There's also challenge modes and cute minigames that add some quirky variation to an otherwise standard shmup, but they feel more or less like distractions from the delicious meat of the main game.

Eight decently sized levels are at the core of Nanostray 2, and there's not a lot to comment on here other than that they're a blast to shoot through. Perhaps the most disconcerting thing while playing the game is that difficulty is all over the place: Nanostray 2 peaks in difficulty at Naizoh Habitat (level 3) while Daitoshi Station (level 5) is the easiest in the game. Besides that perplexing roadbump, you'll get plenty of variation from each of the settings and their denizens, whether it be the claustrophobic sewers of Kohai City, the Life Force-inspired organic interiors of the Naizoh Habitat, or the arctic laboratories of Himuro Base. Bosses are also a hoot to duel too, nearly all of them (besides the first) putting up a fair fight on your very first encounter. In a way, it truly feels like Shin'en took everything they learned about level design from the previous titles and applied it here. The game is crisp, clean, and offers some no-nonsense fun from its first stage to its last, no doubt helped by the standardized camera angle.

As prosaic as it sounds, Nanostray 2 in one word is "competent". The unattractive parts have been hewn off in favor for more stability, almost all of the weirdness of Iridion 3D finally stripped away. True, I think it doesn't have heart in the same way the old GBA titles did (their soundtracks probably played a major part in establishing that), but it's not hard for me to recommend Nanostray 2 to STG fans looking for some portable action. Had Adventure mode been more accommodating, I could easily list this as the best shmup designed for handhelds—as it stands now, it's simply one of the best.

(And a special thanks to Manfred Linzner for contributing so much to these games... awesome to see him promoted to director here!)
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Images obtained from: nanostray2.com