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)

Lost Sea (Xbox One) Review

Lost Sea, from developer Eastasiasoft, is a remarkably different genre of game from their last offering, Rainbow Moon.  It is best described as a Legend of Zelda-style rogue-like game.  The game uses an isometric perspective as you make your way through several islands collecting tablets to ultimately try and escape the Bermuda Triangle.

When you start, you pick one of the characters from a list.  This choice has no real bearing on the game, it just affects what character model you use for the next few hours (or less if you are unlucky).  You will start on a tutorial island that teaches you the basic controls and combat.  Your main weapon is a machete.  Monsters tend to have simple attacks and patterns, which is good because when you die, it's game over.  Killing monsters gets you experience, but you don't level up like an RPG.  This experience is used to buy player skills.  There's a good range of stuff you can buy, from special attacks to more health and the ability to have more carry capacity.

The goal of each island you visit is to find at least one tablet (out of one to three), which will allow you to sail to another island.  The tablet has a random number that will determine how far forward you can move.  In essence, they are like dice.  Islands are randomly generated by linking together pre-existing tileset, and populated with monsters.  Many times, there will be a locked wall and you have to find the key to open it.  At the end of each archipelago, there is a boss fight, and then you move to the next area.  Rinse and repeat until you can escape the triangle.

As you make your way around the islands, you can find other stranded people that can join you.  These people become your crew, and have different sets of skills to help you, which is good, since they don't help you fight.  Instead, they cower in place when enemies come around, and tend to not move out of the way when danger arrives.  Some of their skills will allow you to create bridges, dig up treasure, or unlock chests for usable items.  Other skills are useful in battle, like more damage, more experience gain, or even a player revive.  You will want to keep around the more useful members, especially since many of the abilities stack.  Having four followers with "strength in numbers" lets you kill even the strongest monsters in two hits.  The player revive is also wonderful, since normally a death is game over.

It is difficult to keep them alive, since they seem to have a death wish.  Not only do they do nothing to dodge attacks, they many times don't follow you quick enough to get out of damage zones, especially when you have three or four followers.  They are also really good at getting stuck on the environment, and frequently I found myself having to backtrack to reclaim a straggler.  You have to invest a lot of experience to have that many, but it can be worth it.  They can be dismissed at any time, but will only follow you to the next island if they are actively following you around.  Choose carefully!

Bushes and crates around the island will give money when destroyed.  Similar to experience, money will let you get upgrades for your boat.  Some are very useful, like the one that reduces the experience cost for skills, while other seem less useful than they would appear to be.  One inexpensive skill shows you a random tablet's location on the island.  Since I try to fully explore each one, this isn't as useful to me.  However, I could see it being useful to someone trying to speed run the game (which there is unfortunately an achievement for).

A single session of Lost Sea can last a long time, which I didn't expect from a rogue-like game.  It doesn't save during a run, so make sure you have enough time to finish before you start.  Especially if you start from the beginning.  I've had a run take about 5 hours, which is crazy without saving.  Of course, if you start farther in, or don't do as well, it can end in 5 minutes.  Thankfully you can warp through any zone that you have beaten the boss for, so you don't have to do the whole thing in one run, although that can help.  If you do warp ahead, you get some experience and gold based off how many tablets you found last time, which is a decent way to offset what you are skipping.

Overall, Lost Sea is a pretty fun game.  Its randomly generated layouts give replayability, but can also make runs differ drastically in difficulty and playtime.  Crewmate AI is spotty, but you have to put up with them to make it through the game, for better or worse.  It definitely has its own style, and is worth trying for those seeking a high-stakes (in a game anyway) challenge.


The Good:
Randomly generated islands + rogue-like + treasure and achievements to collect = lots of play time and replayability.

The Bad:
Your crew is as necessary as they are dumb.

The SaHD:
Sad (sahd?), but true: I annoyed my wife by being late for bed one night because I had a good run and didn't end up dying until early in the morning.

(Review code for Lost Sea was provided by the publisher)

The Witch and the Hundred Knight: Revival Edition (PS4) Review

Almost two years ago I reviewed a PS3 game called The Witch and the Hundred Knight.  Now the game has come over to the PS4 as the Revival Edition and boasts improved graphics, performance, a new area to explore and a new feature: the ability to play as the Swamp Witch Metallia in that new area.

Like most re-releases, I'll first give a quick recap of the game without too much detail.  If you want more, check out the full previous review here.  You control the Hundred Knight, who was summoned to this world by Metallia, the Swamp Witch.  She sends you to various locations to fight enemies and release special pillars that will spread her swamp (she cannot leave it, so expanding it is the way she can go elsewhere).  It is an action rpg with some mystery dungeon elements to the game.  You free run around each area (there is no grid), and have a stamina meter that drains when you attack, sprint or dodge.  It will quickly fill up if you have Gigacals left, which drain as you move around each dungeon.

This aspect is like systems found in many mystery dungeon style games.  You will refill your HP as long as you have Gigacals, but if you run out of both, you will return to Metallia's hut and lose many of the items you gained in the dungeon (the items are held in the Hundred Knight's stomach).  You can also activate a power-up mode, called Chaos Revelation, which increases your stats but burns through Gigacals much, much faster.

Combat is handled by equipping up to five weapons, which will be your combo.  You can get bonuses by equipping weapons in matching slots (there's a little die-like number on each weapon).  The Hundred Knight can also block and dodge.  If you dodge at the right time, you get a mystical dodge, which slows down time so you can counter attack.  Mastering it is really helpful on bosses, so you can inflict lots of damage when their defense is lowered.  The combat is pretty satisfying and fun, and the adoption of some mystery dungeon elements add a unique twist to the whole thing.

With that said, it is now time to check out the improvements.  The game does look better on the PS4, but it isn't that noticeable to me (maybe it has been too long since I played the original).  It loads a little faster, but again, not a whole lot of improvement.  The game is much more stable on the PS4, though.  Where the PS3 version had some random crashes, I have not encountered it or any other crashes while playing the Revival Edition.  This is great, but strange that "more stable" is a re-release bullet point.  The game felt a little easier than I remember as well, but I don't know if they balanced it more or if I somewhat remembered how to play.

Really, the biggest addition to this edition is the Tower of Illusion.  This dungeon opens up after completing the first 2 chapters of the story, and then you can freely travel to it from Metallia's home swamp.  To start a tower run, you must select a weapon you have to show it to the tower.  Your choice determines average enemy strength and things like drops and drop rates.  So thankfully it will be hard to bite off more than you can chew, since you shouldn't have weapons way above your level.

Once inside, you must complete a number of rooms and floors.  All monsters in a room must be defeated before you can move on to the next.  You still earn bonus ranks that you can cash in for stat boosts, but there is no bonus meter.  It's basically a random assortment of room of enemies you have to kill as you try to go to the top.  When you first load a room, it is loaded before it displays, and I've been hit with a few cheap shots when the enemy attacks before the game shows me the area.

The best part of the Tower of Illusion is the ability to play as Metallia.  When killing enemies, you collect Concentrated Mana that fills a meter.  As long as you have at least one full section, you can summon Metallia, which lets you play as her for a time.  She has a big and powerful sword for her attack, and three magic spells at her disposal.  Drop rates are also doubled while using her, but honestly, just using her is fun enough on its own.  To further entice you to go through the tower, enemies in the tower sometimes drop alchemy ingredients that the Hundred Knight can use outside to increase the stats of his equipment.

The Witch and the Hundred Knight: Revival Edition is a reasonably fun game that combines action, rpg and mystery dungeon elements together into a cohesive package.  The added Tower of Illusion does actually feel like a significant addition to the game.  It's really cool that you can play as Metallia there, and being able to power up weapons with special drops makes it just a little better.  It might be enough to tempt fans of the original release to double dip.  It's a shame you can't import your data from that release, as it would make recommending it a no-brainer.  New people should definitely choose this edition over the previous one if at all possible.

(Review code for The Witch and the Hundred Knight: Revival Edition was provided by the publisher.)

Galak-Z (PS4) Review

I first saw Galak-Z at PAX Prime two years ago.  It is a space action game that is a cross between the ship movement of Asteroids, a power-up system like a shmup and the perma-death of a rogue-like game.  The setting is a 70s or 80s space anime.  Can all of this work together in any kind of coherent whole?

Actually, yes, it blends really well together.  The game is separated into five seasons that have five episodes in them.  Each season must be completed in one life, and unfortunately your life does not automatically replenish between each episode.  This is one of the rogue-like elements in the game.  You can purchase health from the store, but only 1 bar each time, so it is best to conserve it when you can.  Therefore, running in to every encounter with guns-a-blazin' isn't an advisable strategy.

A lot of what you do has to be somewhat deliberate,  The space controls make this more difficult, since you will drift in whatever direction you have momentum.  Thankfully you won't take damage if you make contact with the terrain, so it is manageable.  As a ship, you can fly and shoot in any of 360 degrees, boost for a time, and juke to avoid enemy fire.  It controls well as long as you keep your cool.  I would sometimes stumble with the controls when firefight chases would get tense.  It didn't really get me killed, but I would end up taking unnecessary damage.

Oh, and in some episodes your ship can transform into a mech.  The mech looks cool, but trades the gun for a laser sword (of course).  It also gets a shield to guard from attacks, and a grapple to grab space debris to use as a shield or throw at enemies.  While this in and of itself is cool, and some of the moves really useful, I found the ship to be much better, simply for the attack range.  Yes, that sounds strange coming from me, the robot fan, but I prefer the ship.  The sword is very strong, but I tended to take a lot of damage when trying to use it versus the gun.  The super brave tactic of running backwards while shooting left me alive more often than not.  I'm sure that using the mech in certain situations is far better, as big enough debris makes an effective shield or cover to sneak by opposing forces.

All stages are randomized, but the goals are similar: get to the target(s) and then escape.  You usually start in an open area of space and then have to make your way through a cavernous asteroid or derelict ship.  Enemies are either one of the space insects, soldiers from the Empire, or Void Raiders, which seem like a type of scavenger.  There are a few different types of each to mix it up a bit.  Further stages have stronger variants as well.  Thankfully, the groups are not allies, and will fight each other if they are close enough and don't notice you.  Also, enemies will predictably spawn near the exit point once you have to leave the level.  You are stuck killing them, since using the warp point takes a long time.  You don't want to be sitting still with some Empire goons looming near!

Dying in an episode isn't always the end.  It is possible to continue in exchange for some Crash Coins, which are sometimes dropped by enemies or chests.  If you do, you still need to find your stuff in a crate that is randomly placed in the level.  You also unlock blueprints that are randomly strewn around the various stages, which lead to ship power-ups that can be purchased from the store.  Unfortunately, if you die, your money is not carried forward.  Couple that with the fact that blueprints must be purchased after unlocking, and you can easily be screwed if you do die.  Yuck.  Either keeping your money or letting the blueprints be actual unlocks (my preference) would alleviate those problems, but it is not to be.

I like the inspiration of Galak-Z.  It is a fun combination of retro sci-fi anime, rogue-like gameplay and Asteroids.  Each episode even has a "written by" and the seasons have their own ending credit sequences.  There is some funny dialogue, too.  The game can be fun, but the pretty unforgiving nature of death is of course present.  It does get really tense when you are fighting an enemy patrol while riding next to no health.  The random levels and unlockable blueprints gives a decent replay value.  Fans of rogue-like games should check it out.

[Update: 11/13/15]
I tried out the PC version, and the levels ran fine on my i7-4790 3.60GHz w/ 16GB RAM.  The cutscenes seemed a tiny bit choppy, just enough for me to notice but not to disrupt the experience.  It also controlled fine with the Xbox 360 controller, and I vastly preferred that to the keyboard and mouse.  The K&M worked... but the positioning of the keys was awkward.  Thrust is W, S is reverse and Shift is boost.  Since braking is both W and S together, I couldn't find a finger position that let me do all of it as comfortably as just using a controller.

The biggest addition to this... edition... is the Arcade mode.  Whereas normally when you die you go back to the beginning of the season, in Arcade mode you can restart the episode.  It's a good change, and thankfully the game doesn't make fun of you for it, and in fact, acknowledges how mean Hardcore is.  Also, the stages load much faster than the PS4 version, but that is likely because of the increased memory in my PC versus the PS4.