In Which Our Hero Gushes About His School De-stresser
Iāve been a big fan of video games, but Iāve never really dived into the indie scene until now. I really wanted to broaden my horizons with these games, and this goal certainly did that. As Iāve become an adult and matured in my approach to media, Iāve noticed that you can actually get a lot out of video games. If you have the right mindset, they can be just as enriching an experience as Literature, Visual Art, or Film. I could probably ramble on and on about these games, but for the sake of time, Iām just going to give you a brief overview of my experiences with each game. So letās get started!
Since thereās no official ending to this game, I decided to call it āfinishedā when I reached the end of my second in-game year, when all of my goals had been reached. Itās dangerous that this game has no end, because I could easily play this game indefinitely. Stardew Valley has made it to a lot of Top 10s and favorites lists, and this game earns all of those placements. This game is one of the best examples Iāve seen of a new developer taking a good idea from the past and building it into something better.
Stardew has a heavy Harvest Moon influence, for sure, but also incorporates elements from RPG games, Animal Crossing, and Minecraft. There are so many things I love about this game: the leveling up in different skill areas, the time-management challenge, and the character / play customization, among others.
The most compelling thing for me, however, was restoring the town to its old glory and befriending the NPCs. I fully went into this game expecting the NPCs to be these flat characters, but boy was I wrong. Itās a diverse cast with poignant backstories. They have their own cliques, their own goals, and their own conflicts with other NPCs. Stardew covers a variety of issues we see in our modern-day society, including PTSD, depression, disability, poverty, the environment, and race, just to name a few. There are aspiring artists, conniving corporate managers, and rebellious youth. I found myself making spreadsheets of what gifts everyone liked, just so I could unlock more backstory.
I definitely recommend it to anyone who loves Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing games.
This game is arguably the most beautiful pixel art game you will ever play. I want to hang screenshots of this game on my freaking wall. From wide photogenic vistas to minute details, this game is visually impressive. And the soundtrack only heightens your sense of immersion.
This game also gives a lot of challenges. I'm referring not only to the challenging difficulty, but also to how Hyperlight Drifter challenges typical storytelling. When speaking to NPCs, all you get to decipher what theyāre saying is their body language and some pictures to illustrate a narrative. Think of those childrenās books with just pictures and no words ā conversation in this game is exactly like that. As you interact with the world, you create the narrative. Iāve seen people take issue with this, but I really enjoy it. It was exciting to fill in the gaps yourself and make some theories about what happened to the worlds' various inhabitants.
Gameplay-wise, you mostly fight monsters in fast-paced combat that is the epitome of the phrase āeasy to learn but hard to master.ā Even in the late game, when you have lots of upgrades, the game demands that you stay on your toes. You pay for every careless move. You also do a lot of exploring and looking for secrets, but I felt like the game was a little too inscrutable with these at first. I eventually figured out that the game left you clues, if only I could have had a hint at it during the early game.
Iāve heard people say that this game is similar to the Zelda games, but the cryptic Sci-Fi setting, the searching for secrets, and the upgrade system make it feel more like a Metroid game to me. I have soooo many things to say about this game, and not enough time to say it. I may even come back to this game at a later time and give you guys my extended thoughts on it.
If games were food, then Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove is like a nostalgic & comforting grilled cheese sandwich. It deserves all the praise it gets. Iām going to break down this review into the different campaigns, since each one is so different:
Continuing with food metaphors, Shovel of Hope (2014) is the vanilla flavor of the campaigns. I donāt mean that in a bad way, either ā this game is one heck of a good vanilla. The level design quality of this game is on par with the classics that it tries to evoke. Using only a few simple controls and attacks (with some cool spell upgrades to boot), you progress through more and more intricate platforming challenges. The soundtrack is catchy, the retro-ness is spot on, and the characters are all memorable. It feels like all the NES games packed into one unique super-platformer experience.
Plague of Shadows (2015) builds upon the foundation Shovel of Hope made in ways I did not expect them to go. At first I was worried, because I struggled with Plague Knightās controls and level design, and I wasnāt really sold on the story. But the more I played, the more this alchemist villain bombed his way into my heart. Speaking of which, Plague Knightās bomb crafting system is one of the most unique gameplay mechanics Iāve ever seen. You mix and match powders and casings to change the way your bombs explode, which in turn changes how you fight and jump around. Your play style changes from Shovel Knightās straightforward jump-and-pogo to a more calculated, experimental, methodical approach. Your gameplay eventually begins to match Plague Knightās character. And that, my friends, is good game design. By the time I came to end of the game, I could finally handle his controls decently, and the story even ended up better than I anticipated. My only complaint is that I wish Plague Knight got a level or two that were totally unique to his campaign. The small changes made to each level were good, but it wasnāt quite enough.
Specter of Torment (2017) is probably the one campaign that I will keep playing and replaying the most. Specter Knight is just so cool. I picked up with his controls the quicker than the two other games, and from then on the game was just one jumping, slashing, sliding joyride. The sense of momentum and the complex platform challenges make you feel like a ninja, zipping this way and that. Best of all, Specter Knight has his own unique levels in the form of flashbacks. Maybe Iām just a sucker for tragic backstories, but to me, the story is far better than the previous two installments. It really moves you by the end. Add in the quirky hubworld of the Tower of Fate, and you have a game that, for me, is the best installment of the series yet.
Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is a quirky game that deliberately breaks a lot of video game conventions. Itās gutsy to develop a game like this. You are the cursed janitor of a spaceport, with hopes of someday leaving to go to a better life someplace else. But you have to break the curse before you can leave. You roam around the spaceport picking up trash, praying to various shrines for luck, and keeping a few valuable things you find for yourself, all the while avoiding the mysterious police that like to bully you and steal your money. You can sell what you find at the various markets, or incinerate it for a cheap buck from your employer.
The game embraces the fact that you are not a hero. All around you are these warriors, wizards, pilots, and other big-shots that are all on their way to some epic quest, while you are the NPC that is there in the background, adhering to a day-by-day schedule and taking in the world around you as you go.
The routine was calming, almost meditative, for me. I donāt think it may be for everyone, especially those who like fast-paced games, but I enjoyed spending an in-game day or two after homework was done to help relax. Thereās always something new to see, or something new to pick up.
Furthermore, itās not afraid to talk about important social issues. It depicts poverty without being condescending or preachy. Every now and then the game works against you in acquiring your goals ā prejudice of NPCs, bad luck, and oppressive social systems all begin to weigh on your character. Just when youāre feeling frustrated about a certain thing that happened in the game, you have an āa-ha!ā moment where you realize people in poverty might experience exactly the same. Itās simultaneously cute, weird, and poignant. If you approach this game with an open mind, I think you will enjoy it.
Fez was one of those games I had heard about for a long time and never got around to playing, and was one of the reasons why I wanted to do this challenge in the first place. Being a newcomer to the indie scene, Fez for me appears to be a game that has aged pretty well and is still a compelling one to pick up.
Fez is a 2-D platformer, with the twist that the main character, Gomez, has a fez that can shift dimensions and alter how the terrain appears. In reality, his world is 3-D on a cube, but can only be seen in two dimensions at a time. I think I explained that well enough?
Anyway, lots of clever puzzles ensue on this premise. If you ever played Portal, think back to when you first saw how the portal mechanic worked and thought, āWow, this changes everything.ā Thatās kind of how I reacted to Fez. The dimension shifting took a bit of getting used to, but once I did, I quite enjoyed myself. I love a good puzzle game, and this one delivered exactly that. I also think how fitting that the game is based on cube-to-flat dimensions, and the game espouses pixel art to match that mechanic. Quite clever. Thereās even lots of secrets and background lore to find out, but some were even more enigmatic than Hyper Light Drifter. Really. Setbacks aside, thereās nothing quite like the satisfaction of solving a good riddle, and Fez delivers this quite well.
Congratulations, you made it to the end! Thanks for humoring me as I gushed on and on about these games. If you want to talk more about them, feel free to pick my brain! I only scratched the surface with these games. We havenāt even covered the themes I found in them! But that can be for some other time.
