Posts Tagged ‘dlc’

23 Dec

Best of 2024: Top 10 Game Re-Releases & Expansions

Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2024, Lists. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

That’s right, last year’s experimental combined list is back for a sophomore appearance. 2024 was hardly the year to drop the double-barrelled concept, sprinkled as it was with plenty of quality remakes, remasters, and expansion content of all flavours to challenge the year’s full-on new releases for quality. This year I can even properly balance the lists at five entries apiece, and I don’t even have Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred, Starfield: Shattered Space, Fantasian: Neo Dimension Eastward: Octopia, or Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven on there! What a world.

And here’s the thing: I don’t have Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, either. Yes, I know, I know. I know! I’m disappointed in myself too, but it just turned out to be one in-depth RPG too many; I got back to my 2022 Game of the Year a week or two late thanks to a pretty busy time in my life, and then soon discovered that despite completing the game I hadn’t even entered the optional dungeon required to access the new content, let alone beaten it. On top of that, my co-op partner for a large chunk of the base game had also lost access to his character. My heart sank, I picked up something else, and just couldn’t find the slot to go back to it.

Even without Shadow of the Erdtree, however, this evenly-divided list of ten entries still features no less than six RPGs. Yeah, it was that kind of year.

Just like last time, the first mini-list only includes re-releases that don’t aim to fully “reimagine” their source material; essentially any entry within the first five categories from this article count, while contenders within the last two are saved for the main list at the very end of the year. Parentheses indicate the platform on which I played each entry.

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VR BEST OF 2024 DISCLAIMER

This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. Nobody ever agrees with me 100%. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.

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RE-RELEASES
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5. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance (PC)

2024 was Sega’s best year for videogame releases in decades, perhaps ever; this is the first of about a dozen mentions the Japanese publishing veteran is going to get in the lists this year, after I already dedicated an entire article to the team’s 2024 efforts, so strap yourselves in.

The original Switch version of SMT V was already a fantastic semi-open-world evolution of a legendary series, but the crisp menus and smooth traversal were crying out for just a little more performance, so this multi-platform release years later is just what the doctor ordered. The neatly-optimised PC version is perfect for Steam Deck play (or indeed for my AyaNeo Air 1S), especially now that you can save the game anywhere – at long last!

But of course that’s not the main reason Atlus released this edition of the game: an entirely new story route transforms the experience for returning players and provides a more colourful challenge for newcomers, following the time-tested Atlus tradition of videogame re-releases that pack in enough new stuff at every level to defy simple categorisation. The game still loves to make you regret going into a fight unprepared, but fresh tools and abilities level the playing field enough that you feel like you can take on whatever nightmare lies around the corner. In any other year, this kind of game would have been the flagship Sega RPG. But this, unfortunately for SMT V:V, was 2024.

4. Dragon Quest III: HD-2D Remake (NS)

I do not know what delirium-inducing substance has been slipped into the coffee of every single marketing department at every single major Japanese publisher this year, but here’s yet another great JRPG with yet another awful title. Someone at Square Enix was clearly huffing internal jargon fumes, terrified of any possible ambiguity, and looked at only the key art of the FFVII remake team down the hall without actually playing anything.

Luckily, this wonderful revisitation of Japan’s favourite entry from Japan’s favourite RPG series seems to be selling anyway, because it is as close to a warm hug as a JRPG can be for those of us who grew up on turn-based random-battle grinds. Convincing people why the Dragon Quest games are so compelling has been a struggle ever since XI converted me to a series apologist in 2018, but the simplest explanation remains as true for III HD-2D as it was then: the game’s confidence in the strength of its original, very old-school mechanics shines through via some of the most polished presentation in the business.

The Octopath Traveller / Triangle Strategy projects may have introduced and refined that so-called “HD-2D” aesthetic, but it has never looked this colourful or this vibrant before. The series is also clearly over its controversial attitude to stubborn MIDI soundtracks, because the rearranged orchestral score is simply stunning. These significant overhauls work alongside the small ones – like the ability to see your party in between battle turns or the way the menu messages seem to have a voice of their own – to both cushion the game’s more stubborn habits and enhance its time-tested strengths. Bring on the next two awfully-titled entries.

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3 May

The Great & Perilous Era of Long-Life Nintendo Games

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Switch. Tagged: , , , , , .

The morning sun peers over the horizon, rays painting the sky and illuminating the dew on the tree leaves. The birds stir and my alarm shakes me from my sleep far too gradually, considering it’s the weekend. I reach bleary-eyed for the glasses next to my bed, stretch slowly and pull my Switch Lite off the charger. I take it out of flight mode and boot up Animal Crossing: New Horizons, with the volume just loud enough to let the gentle grooves of the soundtrack tell my ears it’s a new day. Isabelle greets me with typical cheer and updates me on the status of my town. There’s Nook Shopping to be picked up, rocks to be struck, fossils to dig up, weeds to pull, villagers to talk to, beaches to comb, a fresh catalogue to peruse. I get stuck in.

Half an hour later, when I’ve done all the tasks that can’t wait until tomorrow, I swap out to Pokemon Shield. All the dens in the Wild Area have been refreshed, after all. So have the Watt Traders. Yesterday one of them had the Substitute TR, which I hadn’t ever seen in the game before, so I have to check them all. I’ve checked the Wild Area News and there are some rare spawns to check out. Plus a new online battle season just started and I only need two or three wins to get into the next tier, securing myself enough BP to buy that Choice Band to help my Barraskewda hit like a missile. So I ride around for a bit, scoping out the daily updates, jumping into a few online raids and a quick battle. I try to brush aside the guilt that I still haven’t finished that new Fire Emblem: Three Houses DLC story and briefly entertain the idea of logging into Super Smash Bros Ultimate to clear a Spirit Board or two – I still need to check out that Trials of Mana crossover after all. But I need caffeine, so I get up.

Such is a normal day in this year of 2020. And as a lifelong Nintendo fan, it feels a bit strange.

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Launch is Not the End

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We stand at a familiar junction. Barring any unforeseen delays (or indeed foreseen, given the current worldwide landscape), we stand at the dawn of a new videogame console generation. We now know that on both sides of the blue/green divide the games optimised for this new generation will not just be enhanced by lightning-fast solid state storage drives, but require them in order to run at all. If spending the extra money and effort to “down-port” a new PlayStation/Xbox game to the Nintendo Switch was already a tricky proposition, it’s about to get several times more difficult. Nintendo has an absolutely gigantic head start when it comes to mind-share and third-party allies compared to where they were at the start of the Wii U era, but they’re about to face a similar problem. Until they are ready to phase into whatever piece of hardware comes next, the Big N is going to need to be a whole lot more self-sufficient.

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25 Apr

My Mario Kart 8 DLC Impressions, Round 2

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Wii U. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I regret that this year’s guest blogging week had to be cut short by one day due to unforeseen circumstances, but I do want to take a brief moment thank all six wonderful contributors for their entertaining pieces. Moving on…

It’s official: Mario Kart 8 is now the biggest Mario Kart game to date. Say what you will, Battle Mode fans, but this week’s arrival of the highly anticipated second MK8 downloadable content pack announced last year means that the latest in Nintendo’s flagship racing series boasts more content than any entry before it. The game is now bursting at the seams with 48 painstakingly rendered tracks, along with 36 playable characters and a dizzying number of karts, bikes, ATVs and the like. Given the critical and commercial success of the last DLC pack, I wouldn’t be putting any money down on this being the last update, but we are at least now at the end of what we knew was coming, and there’s a sense of finality that comes with that.

So, much like I did for the first DLC pack last November, I thought I’d share my impressions of the new stuff. Everything you’re about to read has been scientifically tested by a small but lovable bunch of teenagers and twenty-somethings over an evening of, err, healthy competition.

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17 Apr

A Borderlands Retrospective

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Rolling on to the entertaining thoughts of tehdr4g0n, an accomplished medical practitioner with fiery opinions and a blog you can check out at the bottom of this page!

—Written by tehdr4g0n—

—Edited/formatted by Vagrantesque—

Before I begin this article in earnest, I’d like to thank Ryan for featuring me on his blog. In doing so, the man shows a remarkable degree of courage, considering my usual style. With this in mind, I’ve toned things down a little.

So, on to the actual content of the article. With the recent release of Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, this seems as good a time as any to take a look at the Borderlands franchise as a whole. In other words, strap yourselves in because I’m about to talk about three Borderlands games, and various aspects of each. Full disclosure, I’m going to talk about my own experience and thoughts on each game, so there won’t be any philosophical discourse on this article. It’s just going to be my experience and opinion on each instalment in one of my favourite franchises of all time.

Borderlands

The original Borderlands game, released in 2009, was adventurous and different. For any whose memories of the time are hazy, this was the year of Uncharted 2; the auspicious first release of Dragon Age: Origins; James Cameron wowing the world with pretty trees and blue aliens in Avatar; and me curled in a little ball trying to ignore the calamity that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Yes, more stuff happened, no I’m not going to name them all. That was just off the top of my head.

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15 Nov

My Mario Kart 8 DLC Impressions

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Wii U. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Yesterday, Nintendo entered a brave new world – one in which for the first time in their history, they have a Mario Kart game with additional tracks as paid DLC. Thanks to the largely unprecedented Nintendo move of adding substantial downloadable content to Mario Kart 8, fans now have an extremely enticing incentive to jump back into the game almost six months after it launched. For $10 AU (technically $8 if you buy the pack with the upcoming May DLC as well), three new characters, four new karts and eight new tracks are available for you to download at your leisure. Last night I brought some friends over to try out the new content, and here’s what I think:

Nintendo, this is the reason I love you.

It’s certainly weird to think of the Big N as a company peddling DLC, especially given how long they’ve gone without it in a general gaming environment that is positively rife with the stuff. But surely, this is downloadable content done right. This first pack is alarmingly cheap for what you get, and it’s extremely evident that a lot of design work has gone into it. Though I’m not really all that fussed about the new characters (Tanooki Mario, Cat Peach and Link from The Legend of Zelda series) or the new Karts (The classic B-Dasher, the Blue Falcon from F-Zero, the bulky new off-road Tanooki Kart and Link’s matching Master Cycle) , the detail that has gone into their design is fitting of Nintendo’s reputation. Link makes his trademark angry yell noises during hectic races and waves his sword around during tricks, for example, while Tanooki Mario’s horn sound will be familiar to anyone who grew up with Super Mario Bros 3. The real value for money, of course, is in the eight fresh tracks, and boy do they deliver.

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17 Feb

Why You Might Want to Play The Last of Us’ DLC

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists, PS3. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

So I just finished the single player downloadable content for PS3 exclusive The Last of Us, released a couple of days ago, and I have to say that it’s pretty damn good. Entitled Left Behind, it’s definitely short (around 2-3 hours, which is probably par for the course with this kind of DLC) and maybe you could argue it’s also a bit pricey for what it gives you. But I’m certainly glad I played it. As you might already know if you read my review last year, I adored The Last of Us and it only just missed out on my personal game of the year award for 2013. If you share my feelings on the brilliance of the original game then you owe it to yourself to consider playing Left Behind. Here are five reasons why:
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1. It fleshes out both the original story and its world.

Though it sets itself up as a prequel, Left Behind is only really half so. The narrative follows two interchanging paths, one set before Ellie meets Joel and one set during the events of The Last of Us’ main storyline. As such, if you face the temptation to play Left Behind first and let it lead into the main event, resist. You will have things spoiled for you in a big way if you elect to look at things in that manner.

Having said that, the bulk of the story of Left Behind focuses on Ellie as she explores a decrepit mall with her friend Riley, who has recently joined the rebellious Fireflies organisation. The brief tale is inspired by, and indeed connected to, the four-issue Dark Horse comic book series American Dreams that was released last year. It features callbacks and references to both major and side events in The Last of Us, particularly if you are willing to poke around the environment a bit, and its revelations add an extra layer to the main game’s excellent ending. TLOU rightly stands alone as a well told, standalone story, but Left Behind certainly makes it richer.

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