The Backlog Check-in Vol. 119: 4/11/20: Fallout 76: Wastelanders Edition
Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 7:54 pm
Played: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
Finished: Nothing
Playing: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
I've played Ys VIII for close to 40 hours now, and I'm ready for it to start wrapping up at this point. Usually 40+ hour JRPGs include a lot of story cut-scenes, towns and NPC interaction. While Ys VIII has some story scenes and NPC interaction here and there, it's mostly gameplay. Outside of the castaway village hub area and another area that I won't spoil, the game is like one big dungeon despite a lot of it taking place outdoors. Every area is crawling with monsters, and you're engaging in combat constantly. There's not much downtime throughout the game, you're continuously running through areas and dungeons fighting monsters and bosses most of the time.
The combat is fast and fun and there's a good variety of enemies, but a lot of the game world is somewhat same-y looking (tropical island, jungle, caves, ruins) and you retread a lot of the same areas over again. Also, the game originated on the Vita so it looks like a Vita game and is somewhat low budget. The art design is good and it's colorful, but a lot of the game world looks cut and pasted with low res textures. While I'm not a graphics whore, the dated look of the game from a technical standpoint does hinder the overall experience somewhat as it leaves a little more to the imagination in terms of visuals than a game should this gen IMO.
The story and characters have both been entertaining enough to keep me interested, and there's a decent amount of variety of things to do. The side stuff is better than it often is in JRPGs, and the music is great. I've definitely been enjoying my time with the game, but it's starting to feel like it's dragging on a little longer than is necessary. I'm ready to finish it and move onto something else at this point.
Fallout 76: Wastelanders comes out this week.
Finished: Nothing
Playing: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
I've played Ys VIII for close to 40 hours now, and I'm ready for it to start wrapping up at this point. Usually 40+ hour JRPGs include a lot of story cut-scenes, towns and NPC interaction. While Ys VIII has some story scenes and NPC interaction here and there, it's mostly gameplay. Outside of the castaway village hub area and another area that I won't spoil, the game is like one big dungeon despite a lot of it taking place outdoors. Every area is crawling with monsters, and you're engaging in combat constantly. There's not much downtime throughout the game, you're continuously running through areas and dungeons fighting monsters and bosses most of the time.
The combat is fast and fun and there's a good variety of enemies, but a lot of the game world is somewhat same-y looking (tropical island, jungle, caves, ruins) and you retread a lot of the same areas over again. Also, the game originated on the Vita so it looks like a Vita game and is somewhat low budget. The art design is good and it's colorful, but a lot of the game world looks cut and pasted with low res textures. While I'm not a graphics whore, the dated look of the game from a technical standpoint does hinder the overall experience somewhat as it leaves a little more to the imagination in terms of visuals than a game should this gen IMO.
The story and characters have both been entertaining enough to keep me interested, and there's a decent amount of variety of things to do. The side stuff is better than it often is in JRPGs, and the music is great. I've definitely been enjoying my time with the game, but it's starting to feel like it's dragging on a little longer than is necessary. I'm ready to finish it and move onto something else at this point.
Fallout 76: Wastelanders comes out this week.