A note on my rating system. If something is bad, I feel there’s not much room to move there so I came up with a simple 5 star rating system where there only “bad” rating is 1 star. Here are how you should take any rating below:
= Bad, * = Okay, *** = Good, **** = Great, ***** = Exceptional
Beast of Reincarnation – A beast of too many burdens
Beast of Reincarnation doesn’t put its best foot forward, I was all but ready to give up on the game after stumbling around in the first area for about an hour. With Koo constantly barking, things lighting up, items to pick up that were often unclear on their purpose, it was all way to overwhelming too early. When the game dumped me back in the NPC area and put me in what felt like an endless cut scene, I said to myself I was done, but I gave it more time, worked my way through the first area and something just clicked to the point that I found myself powering through the remainder of the game and enjoying the experience.
At its best, Beast of Reincarnation is a focused action game where you find yourself working through a largely linear level that has some branching off. The combat is engaging and the element of using your wolf Koo brings some fun variation. Unfortunately, this isn’t always how the game decides to focus and when one of the levels is a vaster landscape, my desire to explore felt more like a burden than anything else. That’s the main problem with the game, it’s just overstuffed with ideas and a lot of them feel superfluous, did I really need a garden, did we need cooking and all the various upgrades where I felt very little impact to the overall game. Working through the smaller focused levels though just worked for me and when the game experiments with its environments, it sings.
I did find myself largely engaged if not entirely drawn in by the story, that was mostly a thematic thing though, I like stories about decay but at the same time, it also felt largely familiar and ultimately, along with the music, reminded me of the better game in Nier Automata. It also doesn’t look fantastic either, while models and some environments present well, the lush nature take over that dominates the game largely feels bland. I enjoyed the relationships in the game and how they developed over the time played, especially that with Koo, but again, the main character is so robotic that I always felt at arm’s length and when the major beats played out, they just kind of happened.
All the above may sound like I’m a bit down on the game and it’s a bit of a bummer to write about the game in this way because I came away from it enjoying the experience and felt really fulfilled once I’d finished it. The choices to just do way too much hurt the game though and left me thinking it could have been so much more if their focus was just a bit sharper. Ultimately, I think this one sits firmly alongside another game from last year I enjoyed a lot, Hell is Us, in that it’s something I really want to see a sequel to because if they really nail down some of the weaker elements, they could have something genuinely great. ***
Other Games:
The Incident at Galley House: I’ve been more drawn to mechanical puzzle games recently (more on that soon) but this reminded me how much I get from deduction games. I thought the way the story played out was a bit up and down but ultimately it was a hell of a journey to work through and work out. My only larger issue with the game was how plain the artwork was, it felt so middle of the road that never quite worked for me but overall a solid one that had me locked in from start to finish. ****
Helix Descent N Ascent: It’s a shame I’ve not heard all that much said about this game (at least from the people I generally follow) because this is a great little puzzle game that constantly delivered surprises while also leaving me to scratch my head and spend a solid amount of time working through things. I loved the black and white art style of this one and like a lot of puzzle games, I couldn’t really pull myself away from it until I finished it. My one complaint is that I know there is more to the game but I just couldn’t find a way to get to that extra content. ****
MYST (Remake): Yes, I played this because of Giant Bomb and other than some puzzles that didn’t really work for me, going into this cold and working out the secrets was really thrilling and just everything I love in a first person puzzle game. ****
Pointing and Clicking: August
Two more down and it was a mixed bag this month. Current count for the year is 16, finishing 10 more may be a challenge at this point but I’m working on it.
Detective Grimoire Secret of the Swamp: Given the response to The Mermaid Mask I thought it best to jump in on this series and this one was a lot of fun if a bit slight and not overly difficult. There were a few moments where I found it a little bit trying but I’m driven to see if they work out those issues in the sequels. ***
Space Venture: Sigh, I don’t want to be too harsh here because this one went through development hell and they got a game out. I was a backer on this and I’d recently become somewhat nostalgic for the Space Quest games so I thought, what the hell, lets give this a try…and I kind of hated it. The whole thing just felt off, and nearly every sequence I would just sigh and try to get through it best I could while enduring the story. *
Other Media:
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM (Film): When I saw this at the cinema a few years back, I hadn’t seen Destiny and thought it was a bit of a mess. Having now seen Destiny I still thought, particularly at the end, it was a bit of a mess, but it was a mess I enjoyed the hell out of. SEED is a mixed bag for me, the melodrama is turned up way too much and I find some of the characters pretty awful, but it does deliver on the cool Gundam stuff and when this film gets going with that cool Gundam stuff, I couldn’t help but just have a lot of fun here. ***
Blade Runner (Film): Okay, so this is one of my favourite films, I’ve seen it a wild number of times though this was the first time in a few years. It’s still one of my favourite films but one thing I noticed this time, there is no film that looks this good. *****
Princess Mononoke (Film): This is one of the few Ghibli films that I’d only seen once and given the themes and inspiration inherent in Beast of Reincarnation, thought it was a good time to revisit. It’s pretty sublime all around though does feel a bit stretched thin towards the end, you’re so strongly enthralled throughout that’s only a minor complaint really. *****
Demolition Man (Film): I haven’t seen this since I was in my teens but feel like I know it so well and have heard it so heavily discussed through the years. It’s great seeing Wesley Snipes on fire in this one and a Sandra Bullock performance that shows why she became such a big deal but the seams do show on this one, particularly towards the end where it feels like the film was butchered in the cutting room. ***
Mortal Kombat (1995 - Film): I’ve always loved this film, it’s just such an efficient and balanced adaptation of the work that could have easily spiraled out of control similar to what the sequel ended up doing. It’s cheesy as hell but the fights are a lot of fun and the cast understands the brief. As a director, I find Paul WS Anderson’s films misses the majority of the time, but this one always hits the sweet spot for me. ***
The East Palace (TV Series): This one was a fairly sold miss for me. Be it that there were just too many episodes or the show seemingly trying to outsmart the audience, by the end it all felt like a mess that never landed its emotional beats. There was some fun to be had, but it was few and far between. **
September Plans:
I’m currently up to the last area of Mortal Shell II so I’d expect to be finishing that off and given how much I’m enjoying it, it’ll like be my focus in next months write up. I also want to play through Resonance and The Sinking City 2 before then going into Fire Emblem. I’d also like to find at least some time to knock over Dragon Quest VII Reimagined finally but I really have cooled on that one quite a lot.