July was an interesting month because I played a very diverse set of games. I can't recall exactly what set of circumstances led to this but I imagine I must have really buckled down and committed to single-player experiences again. The first game I finished in July was one I had primarily played in June, however, and that game is Celeste.
Celeste is an absurdly wonderful game that I now consider to be one of my favorite platformers ever. It is unlike other challenging games I've played in that it somehow is designed so ingeniously that even when it is difficult, it is never frustrating. It is constructed masterfully so that it coaxes you into performing platforming feats that you might have never considered yourself capable of doing. I'm not what I would consider a skilled gamer. I'm a fan of some tough games, but I find them very difficult and lament their time-consuming nature. I love Mega Man but even I don't have a lot of fun repeatedly being thwarted by invisible block puzzles or frustrating robot masters. By contrast, Celeste is always serene and enjoyable even after hundreds of deaths.
I think there are a lot of factors to consider when determining exactly why Celeste feels so good to play even in failure. Generous checkpoints certainly play a part, but it's also important that respawning is seamless. There's very little delay between death and trying again. And from every death, you learn something new. Dying is just another piece of the puzzle. Every time you try again, you understand just a little bit more how to tackle the challenge. It never seems cheap or unfair, even if at first glance, the series of obstacles laid before you seem insurmountable.
All of these seemingly impossible challenges also serve as a metaphor for our protagonist, Madeline. Celeste is a mountain that must be climbed. It's a really hard thing to do, just as it is hard to tackle one's personal demons. Anxiety and depression can be just as tough an obstacle to overcome as any tangible, physical thing. Madeline understands that, but she also understands that it's possible, and that every time you fail, you can get back up again, equipped with more knowledge of how to better overcome those obstacles.
I also finished Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation in July, finally picking back up on my intent of playing through that entire series in order. Like the two games before it, Dragon Quest VI is built on a central theme. Dragon Quest IV was built from a series of separate groups of characters that came together 3/4ths of the way through the game. Dragon Quest V followed a hero from birth well into adulthood, through marriage and having children, who also join your party. For VI, the primary theme involves switching between different worlds, not entirely unlike The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past. In Realms of Revelation, the Dream World serves as an alternate reality made up of people's memories and aspirations.
What also sets Dragon Quest VI apart from the previous two games in that series was the return of a job system, which hadn't been seen at that time since Dragon Quest III. The implementation here is virtually identical to how it is later implemented in Dragon Quest VII and is interesting, but pretty flawed. There's no way to level up your classes in the game except by fighting multiple encounters. A static number of said encounters will trigger a level up and unlock new skills and abilities. This never gets any faster as you progress further in the game, even as encounters grow more difficult. Additionally, an extremely large percentage of the abilities you unlock over the course of the game are close to useless, completely invalidating the point of the job system in the first place, aside from modifying your characters' base stats.
It is interesting that each of the game's playable characters are better suited to certain classes over others, minimizing the homogenization issue that job systems tend to cause--but it doesn't change the fact that most jobs are simply stepping stones to the few classes in the game that are actually useful.
Because I became interested in clearing out my PlayStation 4 backlog, I also decided to revisit Tales of Zestiria in July, a game that I'd purchased around release and in which I quickly lost interest. On some levels, I feel like that series if a relic of my past because I struggle to engage with them these days--and if I'm being honest, I always found them tedious in one way or another. They have plots that are chock full to the brim with saccharine anime tropes and tremendous amounts of inane dialogue. The gameplay is frequently never enough to save these games and this is particularly true for Zestiria, in which haphazard camera angles spoil a lot of the fun.
What I did enjoy a lot at the tail end of July, however, was Yakuza Kiwami, an open-world brawler/RPG set in Japan. Kiwami is a remake of the very first entry in that series originally released on PS2. I've heard the series described as a middleground between Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row, but I personally find it more thoughtful than either. Guns aren't at the forefront. It's mostly about bare-knuckle brawling with thugs in the street, completing quests for citizens, and eating a lot of ramen. It can be wacky, but the central plot is pretty affecting.
Sure, the yakuza operate outside of the law, but at least in Kiryu Kazama's case, there is a sense of honor. There is definitely a code of ethics he abides by, and at the end of the day, he's always willing to help out the less fortunate, whether that be the homeless, a worried mother, or just some guy getting mugged on the street. I typically have trouble playing the "bad guy" in video games, but in the case of Yakuza Kiwami, that never feels like what I'm doing.
No comments:
Post a Comment