The Backlog Check-in Vol. 289: 7/15/23: Pikmin 4 Edition

[Phaseknox]

Added to backlog: Arcade Paradise (a buddy convinced me this is awesome)

Haha, what in the world? I'm intrigued...you'll have to tell us more as you play.

I bought it yesterday, and it’s not very good IMO. The premise is better than the execution. It had the potential to be more than it is. The story (which barely exists) is about a teen (Ashley) who goes to work at his dad’s laundromat which involves daily activities such as picking up trash, pulling gum off of things, unclogging the toilet and washing/drying baskets of clothes people leave on the counter which must be a European thing (where the game was developed), because here in America we do our own laundry at laundromats. Also, European laundromats apparently have arcades in the back of them which I admit is pretty cool.

At the start of the game (which is the tutorial) when Ashley collects the quarters from the token machine in the laundromat and from the arcade cabinets in the back, he discovers that the arcade games make more money than the laundromat itself so he decides to expand the arcade portion of the laundromat. And that’s essentially the goal of the game, to basically turn the laundromat into an arcade. Ashley needs to make money to buy more arcade cabinets to do so, and to also expand the size of the laundromat to make the arcade area of it bigger.

The laundromat sim portion of the game is intentionally designed kind of like an arcade game itself where you earn money for doing the daily menial tasks such as throwing away collected trash into a dumpster, unclogging the toilet, washing/drying customers’ clothes and depositing daily earnings into a safe which are all done via mini-games. There’s a slight strategy element where some arcade games are more popular than others, and by placing the unpopular ones next to popular ones they will earn more money. There’s a few other arcade game managing systems as well such as changing their difficulties and the cost to play them that alters how much money that they make as well. It’s all basic and uninteresting stuff TBH.

The main way to have the arcade games earn more money is to play them yourself, and accomplish set goals in them. All of the arcade games are playable, and are parodies of real arcade games from the 80s and 90s. I think that the main appeal of the game is supposed to be the playable arcade games that it offers, but so far all of them have sucked and I have no interest in playing any of them. You know that they’re not fun when the repetitive laundromat sim stuff is more enjoyable than they are. I think that there’s like 35 arcade games to unlock, and they’re the only progression to the game other than making the arcade bigger.

Occasionally you get little story bits by telephone answering machine messages from Ashley’s dad, and chat messages on a computer between Ashley and his sister. The game takes place during the 90s, so no cell phones. The problem with the game for me is that it’s extremely basic and redundant with a fairly boring gameplay loop similar to a mobile phone game. The laundromat sim activities become repetitive almost immediately, and they’re the only things that you do in the game other than playing the arcade games which have all sucked so far. There’s barely any story, almost no characterization whatsoever and the washing and drying of customers’ clothes makes no sense and is just something that they added for another gameplay activity for you to do.

Customers magically appear and disappear in the laundromat, but none of them actually do laundry. They just appear out of thin air and sit and stand motionless around the laundromat, and if you approach them they turn pixelated and vanish. It’s really weird, and not in a good way.

Like I said, the game seems like a mobile phone game where you just do repetitive same-y mini-game activities over and over again with almost no story, characters, or real feeling of progression. If the game had more of an actual story with characters, NPC interaction and more laundromat sim activities to do it would be a lot better IMO because the premise itself is appealing, but it’s so shallow and repetitive with what you actually do in it that it’s pretty boring. I’m curious to hear what cane thinks about it when he plays it.

[canedaddy]

Sir, this is NOT an SRPG, so sorry if I gave that impression.

"Set in the darker, supernatural side of the Marvel Universe, Marvel's Midnight Suns is a tactical RPG from the creators of XCOM."

https://midnightsuns.2k.com/

I was hoping "tactical RPG" meant FF Tactics style rather than XCOM style. Ah well.

However, I can't remember if you have a PS5. If you do not have a PS5, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. It is a buggy mess on PS4 I put up with simply because I loved the loop and characters so much. I cannot recommend anyone without a PS5/Xbox series/PC play this. I really wish they had a demo though...

I do not have a PS5. Thanks for the heads up!

I bought it yesterday, and it’s not very good IMO. The premise is better than the execution. It had the potential to be more than it is. The story (which barely exists) is about a teen (Ashley) who goes to work at his dad’s laundromat which involves daily activities such as picking up trash, pulling gum off of things, unclogging the toilet and washing/drying baskets of clothes people leave on the counter which must be a European thing (where the game was developed), because here in America we do our own laundry at laundromats. Also, European laundromats apparently have arcades in the back of them which I admit is pretty cool.

At the start of the game (which is the tutorial) when Ashley collects the quarters from the token machine in the laundromat and from the arcade cabinets in the back, he discovers that the arcade games make more money than the laundromat itself so he decides to expand the arcade portion of the laundromat. And that’s essentially the goal of the game, to basically turn the laundromat into an arcade. Ashley needs to make money to buy more arcade cabinets to do so, and to also expand the size of the laundromat to make the arcade area of it bigger.

The laundromat sim portion of the game is intentionally designed kind of like an arcade game itself where you earn money for doing the daily menial tasks such as throwing away collected trash into a dumpster, unclogging the toilet, washing/drying customers’ clothes and depositing daily earnings into a safe which are all done via mini-games. There’s a slight strategy element where some arcade games are more popular than others, and by placing the unpopular ones next to popular ones they will earn more money. There’s a few other arcade game managing systems as well such as changing their difficulties and the cost to play them that alters how much money that they make as well. It’s all basic and uninteresting stuff TBH.

The main way to have the arcade games earn more money is to play them yourself, and accomplish set goals in them. All of the arcade games are playable, and are parodies of real arcade games from the 80s and 90s. I think that the main appeal of the game is supposed to be the playable arcade games that it offers, but so far all of them have sucked and I have no interest in playing any of them. You know that they’re not fun when the repetitive laundromat sim stuff is more enjoyable than they are. I think that there’s like 35 arcade games to unlock, and they’re the only progression to the game other than making the arcade bigger.

Occasionally you get little story bits by telephone answering machine messages from Ashley’s dad, and chat messages on a computer between Ashley and his sister. The game takes place during the 90s, so no cell phones. The problem with the game for me is that it’s extremely basic and redundant with a fairly boring gameplay loop similar to a mobile phone game. The laundromat sim activities become repetitive almost immediately, and they’re the only things that you do in the game other than playing the arcade games which have all sucked so far. There’s barely any story, almost no characterization whatsoever and the washing and drying of customers’ clothes makes no sense and is just something that they added for another gameplay activity for you to do.

Customers magically appear and disappear in the laundromat, but none of them actually do laundry. They just appear out of thin air and sit and stand motionless around the laundromat, and if you approach them they turn pixelated and vanish. It’s really weird, and not in a good way.

Like I said, the game seems like a mobile phone game where you just do repetitive same-y mini-game activities over and over again with almost no story, characters, or real feeling of progression. If the game had more of an actual story with characters, NPC interaction and more laundromat sim activities to do it would be a lot better IMO because the premise itself is appealing, but it’s so shallow and repetitive with what you actually do in it that it’s pretty boring. I’m curious to hear what cane thinks about it when he plays it.

Well that sounds terrible Sorry for costing you $12. Hope I enjoy it more than you did.

[Phaseknox]

Well that sounds terrible Sorry for costing you $12. Hope I enjoy it more than you did.

Yeah, I don’t like it and I won’t be buying games that your buddy recommends anymore. But perhaps you’ll think that it’s awesome like he does, because a lot of critics and gamers seem to like it. It all comes down to if you like the actual arcade games that it offers or not, because it’s primarily a collection of 70s/80s/90s style arcade games that you unlock and play. I didn’t like any of the ones that I played, but there’s 35 of them so there’s a chance that some of them might be good. But you’re going to have to grind the boring and repetitive laundromat sim portion of the game to unlock them.

If the game actually had a story with characters and some kind of real incentive and motivation to push forward in it then it would be a lot better, but the only real incentive is to unlock the dev made retro arcade games that aren’t good IMO. I skimmed a few video reviews to see what the arcade games that I hadn’t unlocked looked like, and they didn’t look very appealing to me either.

I went into this thinking that it was going to be a comedic sim game about working at a laundromat with a story and characters similar to the movie Clerks. I knew that a big part of it was turning the laundromat into an arcade as well, but I was expecting more from the day to day laundromat sim portion of the game. I thought that the playable retro arcade games were just going to something extra to do in it, but they’re actually the main aspect of the game while everything else feels secondary and half-baked.

[Phaseknox]

I started playing Wanted: Dead, it’s a third person action game with a mix of melee combat and cover shooting that was developed by ex Tecmo employees who worked on Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden. There’s a bit of cheesiness to it, it’s definitely a Japanese action game through and through including a hard difficulty. When you start the game you can choose between normal and hard, there’s no easy. Japanese games normal is usually hard, and that’s unfortunately true for this game as well. You have the option to play a short training mode before the game starts to kind of learn the controls, and then you’re thrown into the action immediately. There’s no slow buildup at all, as soon as you begin the game there’s waves of enemies shooting at you and lobbing grenades at you nonstop. It’s total chaos as they’re everywhere, and they move unrealistically fast.

There’s places to take cover everywhere which you automatically do when you press up against an object, but it’s hard to shoot the enemies when they’re running around like chickens with their heads cut off. And they’re bullet sponges, it takes a lot of shots to kill them. Actually they’re hit sponges in general, because they take a lot of hits to kill with melee combat as well. And they’ll just rush you and start melee attacking you nonstop, you can block and dash but neither are very effective especially when several enemies are attacking you at the same time. There really needed to be a dodge roll, especially since grenades are thrown at you constantly. I keep wanting to dodge roll out of the way of danger, but I do a stupid little dash instead that is only semi useful in melee combat.

The game is linear and fast paced mainly consisting of clearing out waves of enemies in areas. You have to kill all of the enemies in an area before you can move on. You have three health shots that you can give yourself when you’re low on health, and you can be revived by a teammate one time per stage when you die. I reached a later part of the first level and was continuously dying, and it asked if I wanted to lower the difficulty to Neko-Chan which of course that I did. I thought that it was going to be an easier difficulty, but it’s not. You simply get two more health shots, and while of course you can survive longer with two more health shots the game is still just as hard so enemies still take tons of hits to kill and you die after only a few.

I made it to what I think is the first level boss, a cyber ninja that moves extremely fast and rushes at you and melee attacks you so that you can’t shoot him. I tried beating him several times, but he kills me fast. And you have to do the whole stage over again when he kills you, and the stage is pretty hard. If the first level boss is this hard, I can only imagine how hard later bosses will be. But I might not even see them if I can’t beat this boss, this might be where the game ends for me.

I think that the game is fun and I like the main character because she’s a badass, but unfortunately I think that the difficulty is going to get the best of me because I don’t like hard games. I also don’t like when you play the game on Neko-Chan difficulty your character wears cat ears, they look silly which is the point since you’re playing on an easier difficulty. I’m going to stick with it for now since I like it, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish it.

[argyle]

Ugh, thanks for the impressions Phase. Overly hard games are a hard pass for me.

So Mavel: Midnight Suns was on sale this week on the Xbox store, and I had some Bing credit, so I bit - cost me $18 after my credit & tax. I've played through the tutorial and the first mission, and since I've also played enough X-COM to know how it plays I figured I'd throw my early .02 out.

First, I'm really digging the game. Like crim said, it's no beauty, but it seems to have it where it counts - the gameplay. There seems to be very little downtime between missions, which is what I was looking for. Story is sufficient so far - gives an excuse for the good guys to beat up bad guys. I don't look for much more than that in a super hero game. Dialog is amusing, and the characters feel like themselves (and I'd say they feel like their comic book selves, not like they're trying to be bad knock-offs of the movie characters like that Avengers game...).

As for combat, which is the meat & potatoes of the game, you can definitely tell it was made by the X-COM guys but at the same time this is NOT a reskin of X-COM. It's its own beast. The short take is that it's kinda X-COM lite, but that sounds like a put-down and that's definitely not how I mean it. X-COM is very technical in that you have to move your individual troops, be very aware of their surroundings at all times, keep track of where everyone is not only on your side but also the enemies, and one slip-up can mean the end of one of your guys - permanently. While there is some placement consideration in Marvel, it's nowhere near the degree of XC. In fact, as of right now I can only move one character once per turn to give them a better position for an attack or to get them out of the way of an impending area attack. Some of the attacks you use will also result in a character moving, and it shows you where they will move to before you commit, so you CAN technically move more than once per turn - but the point is that movement seems to be largely about better positioning for attacks (especially those with knockback). You are not taking cover, which would be dumb for a superhero game anyway. Combat is card based, which I'm really digging so far - it gives an element of randomness to combat, in that you have to think on your feet and literally play the hand you've been dealt.

I guess I should also mention that - so far, at least - combat takes place in a much smaller area than XC. Again, mainly because this game is NOT about cover, troop placement, approach, etc. I'd say it plays more like a turn-based JRPG with some added consideration given to character positioning.

To sum up - I definitely think you can enjoy this game even if you didn't like XC (it never clicked with me really, felt very punishing even beyond the permadeath - I didn't care for how easy it was to slip up & lose a match). A couple questions for crim - is there permadeath in this? Wouldn't make sense given the genre, but you never know. Also, is what I've said/seen so far pretty accurate for the game going forward? I know they haven't introduced some things to me such as leveling up cards, but I feel like I have a decent feel for the flow of combat & the game in general. At any rate, looking forward to playing some more.

[crimson_tide]

Ugh, thanks for the impressions Phase. Overly hard games are a hard pass for me.

So Mavel: Midnight Suns was on sale this week on the Xbox store, and I had some Bing credit, so I bit - cost me $18 after my credit & tax. I've played through the tutorial and the first mission, and since I've also played enough X-COM to know how it plays I figured I'd throw my early .02 out.

Yay!

First, I'm really digging the game. Like crim said, it's no beauty, but it seems to have it where it counts - the gameplay. There seems to be very little downtime between missions, which is what I was looking for. Story is sufficient so far - gives an excuse for the good guys to beat up bad guys. I don't look for much more than that in a super hero game. Dialog is amusing, and the characters feel like themselves (and I'd say they feel like their comic book selves, not like they're trying to be bad knock-offs of the movie characters like that Avengers game...).

Agreed! I watched/read several reviews that bagged on the characters being too much like a Marvel movie. I found this to be a really odd criticism. And I plan to trudge through that Avengers slog before summer's end. THAT was poor ripoffs of the movies from the bit I recall.

As for combat, which is the meat & potatoes of the game, you can definitely tell it was made by the X-COM guys but at the same time this is NOT a reskin of X-COM. It's its own beast. The short take is that it's kinda X-COM lite, but that sounds like a put-down and that's definitely not how I mean it. X-COM is very technical in that you have to move your individual troops, be very aware of their surroundings at all times, keep track of where everyone is not only on your side but also the enemies, and one slip-up can mean the end of one of your guys - permanently. While there is some placement consideration in Marvel, it's nowhere near the degree of XC. In fact, as of right now I can only move one character once per turn to give them a better position for an attack or to get them out of the way of an impending area attack. Some of the attacks you use will also result in a character moving, and it shows you where they will move to before you commit, so you CAN technically move more than once per turn - but the point is that movement seems to be largely about better positioning for attacks (especially those with knockback). You are not taking cover, which would be dumb for a superhero game anyway. Combat is card based, which I'm really digging so far - it gives an element of randomness to combat, in that you have to think on your feet and literally play the hand you've been dealt.

I was hooked on the battle system. The cards and decks were fun to mod and build. The characters all are extremely varied. Even Venom and Spidey share maybe three moves but even those moves act totally differently in combat. Figuring out how to use moves and managing heroism for environmental attacks and specials was really where the strategy came in.

I guess I should also mention that - so far, at least - combat takes place in a much smaller area than XC. Again, mainly because this game is NOT about cover, troop placement, approach, etc. I'd say it plays more like a turn-based JRPG with some added consideration given to character positioning.

No, the arenas remain small and focused and no cover ever. Your JRPG comparison is very apt.

To sum up - I definitely think you can enjoy this game even if you didn't like XC (it never clicked with me really, felt very punishing even beyond the permadeath - I didn't care for how easy it was to slip up & lose a match). A couple questions for crim - is there permadeath in this? Wouldn't make sense given the genre, but you never know. Also, is what I've said/seen so far pretty accurate for the game going forward? I know they haven't introduced some things to me such as leveling up cards, but I feel like I have a decent feel for the flow of combat & the game in general. At any rate, looking forward to playing some more.

There's no permadeath but characters get injured. You can still take them into battle but if you don't let them rest, they just keep stacking injuries. You will get to the point where you can run around your base, the Abbey, and can participate in friend events. There's all kind of short little events you can do in and around the Abbey. It's worth doing. The pace does naturally slow because they want you to engage with other stuff I will cover in a moment. But if you just want to jump right back into combat, just go for it!

The things you want to do outside of combat are pretty quick, even the friend events. The loop after the first couple hours is essentially: wake up in the morning. Complete a friend event if available to level up your friendship. Go to the forge. Get new cards from your gamma coils. See if you want/need to have Stark and Strange build something to upgrade or craft. Go to the yard. Spar with a character (it happens off screen in seconds but offers good rewards including huge level ups sometimes). Upgrade your cards. Go to the mission table. Pick your mission, general or story. General gives you a resource and story pushes everything forward. The harder the mission you choose, the better the reward. After combat, you can explore the grounds, participate in clubs if available (the clubs are so dumb, loved it), or hang out with a hero to level up your friendship to try to gain a level the next morning. And the biggest protip: pet your dog Charlie every goddamn day. Mostly because she's a good girl but also because that how you level her up. You want to do that.

And that's it because every loop takes between 30 minutes to an hour (for more complex missions with specific objectives and story cutscenes focused bits focused or prep heavy sections). Please let me know if you have any other questions. Even if you don't stick with it, I am glad you gave it a shot!

Answers in bold friend

[Phaseknox]

Ugh, thanks for the impressions Phase. Overly hard games are a hard pass for me.

I played it again today, and now I’m officially done with it because it’s just cheap. I kept trying to kill the cyber ninja that I was stuck on, and each time he killed me fairly quickly. He’s just a tougher enemy, not a boss. One time I was doing good against him shooting him with a shotgun and slashing him with my sword a lot of times, but he still kept coming at me like the Terminator. Shooting him doesn’t stop him from rushing me, he still comes straight at me as if I’m not shooting him. He’s just a cheap hit sponge enemy, and I had enough.

While you have a block that you do with your sword, unlike other games where you continue blocking attacks as long as you hold down the block button in this game you only block the first attack which pushes you back and staggers you taking control away from you and makes you vulnerable to further attacks allowing enemies to hit you without you being able to do anything about it. And often you’re fighting more than one enemy at a time, and they all just basically pummel you with melee attacks until you’re dead.

Shooting in the game almost feels useless since enemies essentially just absorb the bullets as if they’re not even being shot, and it takes a ton of shots to kill them. Instead of like in other shooters when you pick up a shotgun and blast enemies at close range killing them in one or two shots, in this game it’s like spitting spitballs at them as they don’t even get knocked back and it takes a lot of shots to kill them. The difficulty is just cheap, it doesn’t make the game feel challenging it just makes it feel unfair. This could have been a really fun action hack ‘n slash shooter, but they ruined it by making it artificially difficult.

I haven’t been enjoying games as much lately partly because of stuff like this. It seems like almost whenever I buy a game now there has to be something about it that turns me off, and I’m admittedly getting tired of wasting money on games that I barely play due to aspects about them that I find aggravating, annoying, frustrating, infuriating and irritating. It seems like less and less games are just fun to play anymore, they have to be overly complex, complicated, or difficult with tons of mechanics and menus or high difficulties. I miss the days when games were kept a little simpler in design, and primarily focused on just delivering an entertaining and fun time. I’m tired of feeling like I need to attend a college course to learn how to play a game, or have the best game playing endurance, patience and skill just to progress. I play games for entertainment and fun, and less and less games have been providing that these days IMO.

[canedaddy]

To sum up - I definitely think you can enjoy this game even if you didn't like XC (it never clicked with me really, felt very punishing even beyond the permadeath - I didn't care for how easy it was to slip up & lose a match). A couple questions for crim - is there permadeath in this? Wouldn't make sense given the genre, but you never know. Also, is what I've said/seen so far pretty accurate for the game going forward? I know they haven't introduced some things to me such as leveling up cards, but I feel like I have a decent feel for the flow of combat & the game in general. At any rate, looking forward to playing some more.

Thanks! That is good to know.