Missy's Game Shelf

Alright, so the Minecraft movie honestly looks awful. First, Minecraft’s player base is targeted to all ages not just kids, but the movie’s marketing is mostly aimed at children. Also, consistency, zombies, Pigman, and villagers as well as several human like creatures show up in these trailers and they fit into the world around them, but the main characters are live action it feels off they stick out like a sore thumb. The reason Pikachu and Sonic’s redesign in live action works is because it fits with the world around them. Designers of these characters spent hours trying to make it work here it feels as though the actors don’t fit in the world aesthetically. The world is blocky and the environments look like they do in the game, but the main cast just look like they don’t fit in the world. Imagine if in the Mario movie every major character would suddenly be live action when the world around them is filled with cartoony enemies and characters. Further, even if Steve is here he doesn’t look like Minecraft Steve. Jack Black who plays him is a good voice actor and while he has done live action it is so unfitting here. In the Sonic movies I can still tell who the characters are despite their redesign the same goes for Detective Pikachu I can tell that it is Pikachu among other Pokemon that were featured.

Minecraft is a staple of the games industry mostly because it started as a indie game that was easy to understand hard to master. It embraces creativity and imagination, but also has things for survival and the ability to choose how you want to play.

Alright recently I’ve been trying to focus more on smaller games or by small teams. So inevitably I was going to cover Untitled Goose Game, however a few major hiccups happened. Thank Goodness You’re Here released late last year in August and I wasn’t really interested in talking about it. Well it just went on sale on Switch not long ago and I wanted to talk about more Indie games so this happened. Both focus on slapstick humor taking place in English towns. House House being Australian and Coal Supper near Yorkshire being incredibly small Indie Studios and both published by the same company perhaps the most inappropriately named Panic Inc. Given they are also responsible for Firewatch, Arco, and multiple mobile games they publish great stuff that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves.

Both these games have their focus on comedy, but I found Thank Goodness You’re Here is actually funnier mostly due to trying to be a cartoon rather than more realistic and grounded like Untitled Goose Game. Now Thank Goodness You’re Here has a shorter game time, but you’ll be free to explore until all of the objectives finish up then the area and there are only the move, jump, and slap buttons. Untitled Goose Game works the same way, but rather than the player finding the objectives on their own it has a checklist that crosses out as the player completes it. Along with its stealth gameplay, you have a raise and lower head movement to stay hidden, a honk button to cause distractions, a flap wings button that is useful in some circumstances, basic controls and a run button.

Both are very simple games that can be beaten relatively quickly. They are oddly more satisfying than the $60 full priced game. At $20 each they aren’t long, but great games that deserve attention.

For whatever reason I wanted to look into games where Pokemon oddly worked with not only other genres, but other developers. While I won’t dedicate an entire review to any of these because for some of them I don’t have a lot of experience with that genre. Most obvious would be the Super Smash Bros series, but I wanted to look at others.

Harmoknight was a E-shop game that was primarily a rythm platformer and featured multiple tracks from the Gen 5 series of Pokemon games and multiple themed maps. I do recall playing this when it was released, but quickly learned I don’t have particularly good rythm and mostly only used it as a time waster. It wasn’t a bad game just not for me.

Pokken Tournament/ Pokken Tournament DX

This game originally failed due to the Wii U being possibly the worst console, but reappeared on switch with all the characters and most DLC unlocked. It is a 1v1 arena fighter worked on by Bandai Namco the owners of the Tekken series. unfortunately, while I do have fun with the game most of my gameplay is random button mashing. I don’t have a ton of experience with games like Tekken and Mortal Kombat. I have played some of the games, but nowhere near enough to give a proper review or analysis to.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Series

Can I count this as a crossover given this is very much ingrained in Pokemon by now? It is primarily a game done by different developers this time being Spike Chunsoft. Though while good games I struggle to find games of similar genre done by these developers. Chunsoft is known for assisting and developing games like Danganrompa and AI the Somnium Files, but while a normal crossover would bring gameplay and characters from the other game Mystery Dungeon really doesn’t. While it does have type advantage and level up. These are in Pokemons main series.

Pokemon Conquest

Based on the Nobunaga’s Ambition series Pokemon Conquest primarily takes its gameplay as a tactics genre. With multiple Kingdoms to unlock and battle. ensuring loyalty and more focus on maps and terrain to cause damage to opponents. It should be noted that many wrongly believe Hyrule Warriors was the first time Koei Tecmo worked with Nintendo, but this game predates Hyrule Warriors by nearly 10 years. It does make me wonder if we are ever going to see more of the tactics genre or Warriors for Pokemon. Especially with how well recieved Nintendo’s own Fire Emblem series has been recently.

These two games greatly surpass the main series of Gen 6 games. Introducing Fairy Types, Mega Evolution, and multiple changes from updated teams, new Pokemon, and the new Delta Episode. Now I played this because of Pokemon Legends A-Z. It is a turn based RPG and customizing your team, but there are some things in this game that were advertised as new, but actually existed in spin off games. Soaring an ability exclusive to Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire was introduced in Pokemon Ranger Guardian Signs as was riding Pokemon a mechanic that would later be put into Gen 7.

There are a few things this game did right that the Kalos games didn’t. The first a lot of the environments are amazing and look good. Even though it is a remake of a Gameboy Advance game it feels new with new cutscenes and characters stand out and are more fleshed out than before. This game doesn’t feel like a one to one remake like Fire red/ Leaf green and Brilliant Diamond/Shining Peral did. It feels like a new game on its own and trying to fix the mistakes from X and Y as well. Also if playing all of these Gen 6 games did anything it made me want to replay Sun, Moon and the Ultra games again so look forward to a review on those.

Score: 9/10

When it comes to video games that went viral due to ease of access and a pandemic they gave people ways to talk to others without being in person. Further, a fun game to play was also a win, but which game was better.

Gameplay

Among Us relies on teamwork crew and imposters need to work together. Either through confusion or visual tasks. Now with the multiple maps this is rather tedious. While I enjoy Skeld as it seems the game was built around that map other areas just aren’t as fun to me, Airship is a reference to the developers previous game the Henry Stickman Collection, but it is just too big with multiple sections it can take forever to find anyone, Mira has the disadvantage of having limited areas to explore and heavily favors crew with the hallway meeting, and Helix is just empty with everything spread out. Now this doesn’t mean that the game on these maps is bad as often it is the players who make the game fun and with them being able to bring more to the game often I have the most fun ignoring the game and reading what other players are saying.

Fall Guys has less teamwork and interactions with other players. Being a battle royale makes this game very different. There are a series of obstacle courses designed to eliminate various players until only a few remain. One thing is as these game continue it just becomes slower and it feels like the game more waiting for someone to lose as opposed to how hectic things could actually be. When put up to Among Us where something is always happening. It feels more empty and less fun as it is usually two or three players left. Yes you can leave a game at anytime, but it is a boring slog.

Graphics

Both these games have very simplistic design and graphics Among Us really plays into that as well as taking advantage of the cartoony atmosphere. Everything from their advertising to easy to see and identify colors is actually vital to the game. Identifying who is the Imposter or otherwise who the Imposter should leave alive or not is easy to understand.

Fall Guys uses bright colors at all times to indicate something to avoid and for players, assisting in reaction as something to avoid, but it really doesn’t do anything past that. While yes the warning is nice when there are about a hundred other players going the same way and jumps don’t always land where you think it is easy to get thrown off anyway.

I enjoyed both these games, but found that they both end similarly. Eventually a Hacker will join and ruin the fun for everyone. Afterwards, everyone just quits the game and lobby because these guys can’t win without cheating and have really no skill at all. While I haven’t tried the new map for Among Us yet and people are waiting for Fall Guys’ next update it is really impressive how far these two games have come especially considering they weren’t really well known on release.