We Happy Few (Xbox One) Game Preview

We Happy Few had a very attention-grabbing trailer at E3 that appropriately sets the stage for this first-person procedurally generated game.  The game starts off the same as that trailer, where the player character decides not to take his Joy, a happy-making medicine.  After that he escapes the authorities, and wakes up in an underground safehouse.

That's it for the story, so far, as the game is still in alpha.  A screen of text at the start of the game warns about this, so it wasn't a surprise.  It also notes a few other things, like that certain things might not work, or that the game might crash.  Fun!

I have had some of the stuff not work.  I didn't have a main quest the first time I played, which made the opening minutes much more aimless.  I just pretty much walked around and grabbed items.  I wasn't sure what else to do.

Luckily, I came upon some sidequests after about 20 minutes.  These, too are randomly placed in the world.  One tasked me with repairing the valve on a water pump.  Once I did it, the nearby people attacked me.  I'm really not sure why.

This was my introduction into the game's combat.  You attack with the Right Trigger, and each attack takes stamina.  The Left Trigger allows you to block, and you can even parry with correct timing.  Thankfully the enemies attacked one at a time so I could figure out what I was doing, and it is strangely satisfying to stab them with a long stick.  I was victorious, but not unscathed.

A few times I had to eat some food because my hunger was low, and at one point I had to sleep.  Finding a bed was a lot harder than I would have thought.  I couldn't get back into my safehouse (another bug), so I looked around until I found another bed.  The person who owned it wasn't too happy with me, and this started another fight.  Being critically wounded from some trapped treasure chests, I was quickly put down.

That was the end of my first foray into the game.  Since I had accidentally left the "permadeath" box checked when starting up (I didn't see it was an option until I had already hit "ok"), I had to start again.  This time, I had a main quest, and was allowed back into the safehouse.  I also turned off permadeath.

Items you find around the world can be weapons, food, or ingredients for crafting.  The menus aren't the most intuitive, but I was able to craft a few things and figure out where various things were, like my inventory and the quest log.  Your inventory is made of connected boxes, like the first Diablo game.  It is expandable, but I'm not sure yet how.  You can also somehow gain another weapon slot.

What there is of We Happy Few is promising.  The unique and stylized world stands out from the crowd, and the random nature of the world and quests should give a lot of replay value.  My only real complaint is how little they tell you at the start, and how aimless the game can be.  Other than that, I am looking forward to trying out the game when it is finished.


The Good:
Lots of replayability in a unique world.

The Bad:
The game is very much still in alpha.

The SaHD:
You can sneak around, but it seemed like everybody could easily see me.

(Early access code for We Happy Few was provided by the publisher)

Far Cry 3 (Xbox 360) Early Impressions

Yes, Far Cry 3 came out a few years ago, and since that time I've heard a lot of good things about.  It sounded fun, but I kept putting off getting the game.  I recently got it for cheap and tried it out.

You know what?  I'm liking it.  The story is pretty interesting so far, but I know it doesn't get as cool as it could have.  The missions aren't too hard yet, and there seems to be a good amount of them.  In general, there is a lot of stuff you can do based solely on the map in the game.  Similar to Assassin's Creed, there are tower-like areas that show you chunks of the map.  They have some challenges scattered around that give extra experience or items.  It also marks the different areas that animals roam so you can hunt them.

You could hunt for extra money, but the real use of the animal pelts is for crafting.  All the upgrades that allow you to carry more things (items, weapons, ammo, etc.) are made from this menu.  It's pretty cool, but can be a pain to carry around all the pelts in case you need them.  Probably my second highest complaint is that the inventory system seems small.  Items don't really stack, so if you grab a lot of stuff (like me), you eat up a lot of space with stuff you will use in the future.  It's not a deal-killer, but kind of annoying.

My biggest complaint is fighting animals.  Using guns and stealth kills works wonderfully when against other human opponents, but small animals that run up to you and bite...not so much.  It's less a problem with the game than it is very annoying.  Plus, if you snipe an animal, they are pretty good about running up to fight you.  So I'm supposed to believe that animals can trace the shot?  That's nigh impossible, but whatever, video game stuff.

Far Cry 3 is definitely a game I like so far, and will come back to when I have the time.  It could easily keep me occupied with the variety of missions and things offered.  The level up system is neat, with three skill trees full of skills.  Gunning non-animal enemies is fun.  The water is a bit scary, since I'm like that, and the sharks don't make it any friendlier.  It reminds me a lot of Dying Light, which is a good thing.  Playing the game reminds me that I need to play more Blood Dragon as well.

Yakuza 5 (PS3) Early Impressions

So in the past few months, I've gotten review codes for several RPGs and longer games.  In an effort to actually show that I am (slowly) working on going through them, some will get broken into two posts, one about early impressions I have with the game, then a more full-featured review when I've put a lot more time into the game.  Yakuza 5 seemed like a good candidate for this, since I was told to "take my time" with it, in an effort to see and review all the game has to offer.

Firstly, I have not played any previous Yakuza games.  Sure, I've wanted to, but never bought one or got around to trying one.  I thought they were more open world games, something very much like Sleeping Dogs, but they aren't.  There are times you can roam around, but you can't just do whatever you want, willy-nilly.  There's usually an actual goal, like get something at a store or go home for the night.

It's actually a very story-driven game, which surprised me.  Even though this is the fifth entry in the series, there was enough explanation during the first sections that I got a sense of what was going on and who certain people were.  I didn't feel aliened (yet, that could change) as a new player, which I really appreciate.  It's likely that if I had played the others, I would get a greater understanding, but so far nothing has been confusing.  Anything that needs explaining has had just enough that I get it, but not so much that it brings the story to a halt.

There is fighting in the game, and it is more like a 3D brawler.  You get combo moves, a block and even special "Heat" moves when a meter is filled.  You can even grab guys off the ground or just stomp on them.  My first fight ended when I did a giant swing to a prone opponent (it was a Heat move), but it didn't have the full space.  So, I just smacked him into the wall (ouch), dropped him and did a jumping stomp.  It even has that Batman: Arkham style slow-mo camera for the end, which can make dramatic endings that much cooler.

The enemies quickly learned to block, so we will see if the combat gets annoying or stays fun.  I'm anxious to see how the rest of the game turns out, but so far I'm liking Yakuza 5.  Kudos that the fifth entry isn't confusing to a new player!

Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC (PSP) Early Impressions

Before now, I had heard of Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky and how great it was.  Sadly, I had not played it yet, but got the chance to review the second chapter of the saga, not so strangely entitled Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC.  Being an RPG, it is a longer game, so in an effort to have something on it out in a timely fashion, I figured I would break it up into two parts: one an early impressions about my first few hours with the game, and then a full review later on.  Maybe not the best idea to make more articles when my plate is already full, but I do plan to do this for at least a few games.

The first thing that struck me before I started was: it is two downloads.

Wait, what?

Yup, when the game came out in Japan years ago, it was on two UMDs.  Wow, that's actually kind of impressive.  So when it was made a download, it is just two separate downloads, each one is one disc.  It's... weird for a digital release, but that's probably the only way to make it work.  I just have to keep straight which download is which disc.

The game picks up right where the previous game left off.  Well, I assume it is right after, as it seems like the story starts right at the end of the jolly festivities that would accompany some triumph in battle.  I'm sure this is great for the people that conquered the first chapter, but some kind of explanation of what was going on would have been nice, even if it was optional so returning players could skip it.  I'm sure even fans of the first might not remember some things, considering the gap between the games.  Honestly, most direct sequels do this, and it was a little disappointing to see it not done here.

My solution: play some of the first game.  Maybe that's a good reason to split the review in two.  Luckily it was on sale when SC came out, so I picked it up and played a few hours to generally learn some backstory and game mechanics.  That should make this chapter a little easier for me to understand.  It helped some, but not as much as I'd like.  A lot of references to characters and events from the previous entry still eluded me.  Yes, I should have played all of the first before, but I still feel some optional explanations would have been great.  Maybe as the story goes on, the previous events will sink into the background, but I feel there will still be some cameos and plot points that will leave me confused.

In all fairness, the game does cover a few previous plot points.  However, they seem to be the most spoiler-y ones.  Want to know more about this random character name we threw out?  Too bad!  Hey, this girl you are going to meet is a secret princess, and that old mayor was secretly evil!  Yeah, that might have been better to not say, but sure why not.  It's almost the exact opposite of what I would want the game to do.

Anyway, we will see how that goes later, and move on to the combat.  It's a turn-based affair, but has a unique layout to the map.  It is separated into a griid, and you can move around like an SRPG, but the game isn't one.  For one, you can't move, then attack as two separate commands.  If you select attack, then a target, you will run up and attack.  If you cannot move that far, you will get as close as you can.  If you select 'Move', then that's all you do.  There's no bonus for attacking from the sides or behind as far as I can tell.  So while it looks like an SRPG at times, it is a straight-up turn-based RPG, which is great.  Remember how fun those were?

You also get magic attacks, which are derived from elemental crystals that you equip.  Without going in to too much detail (in this part), these crystals will bestow different status effects and affect what spells you have access to.  It's a cool system that gives some good customization.  Plus, healing spells heal a set amount, so you can give them to fighters and still have it as a viable safety net.

Besides HP and AP (Art Points for magic, basically MP), there is also CP which is used for personal skills and even super moves.  These points are built up by taking and dealing damage.  When you have at least 100, you can use your super move, and even butt in and use it on the opponent's turn.  Some turns have bonus effects, and this is a way to either steal them, or prevent the enemy from using one that you would rather they didn't.

The only problem I have with that is it didn't feel like it rewarded me for using it.  I would jump in and steal the critical turn, but it didn't seem to help in the long run.  Battles felt pretty hard in the first few hours.  It may be because I didn't transfer a save file, but that isn't really good balance.  Every time I lost a fight through some annoying means (exploding enemies, etc.), it made me question the "awesome" nature of the game that I'd heard so much about.  Getting a preemptive strike helps a lot, so I'll try doing that more often and see what happens.  Plus, the starting level difference should even out the longer I play.

I'm definitely playing more, but it seems like I am in for the long haul.  The prologue itself took me 4 hours, which is pretty crazy.  Look forward to a full review of Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC in the future!