It’s like a fancy Pharoah / Cleopatra.  Or Ceasar /  Master of Olympus depending on your age.  That’s nearly 20 years ago since a decent one was made.  Maybe that’s why this one hits the right notes?  Large push from Syncaine to try this one out.

There’s a lot to keep track of

Up front, this is the game I have the least time played.  Not because it’s bad, just because it’s not the type of game you can just put down and come back to.  It’s a game entirely about momentum.

Basics are simple enough, you run a small city in the ice cold.  You need to shelter, feed, heal the population.  You need to explore, research and build contraptions to do more with less. And you ultimately need to have more hope than discontent, or people won’t do the things you ask them do.

It’s a game of choices, though how hard they are depends on how mechanical you want to become.  If you’re ok with amputees rather than sick folk, since they are less of a draw on resources, then the choice is pretty easy.  If there’s any message to take from the game it’s that Technocracy is a damn cold way to run a group of people.  Survival inherently comes at the cost of humanity, and how far down that slope you want to go is up to you.

While there is some randomness to events, generally the choices you make in one game will be similar in the next.  There’s a generally optimal path to start the building process, at least until you get into the exploration phase.  Tough choices are make/break when it comes to healthy population, ensuring adequate levels of food/heat.  Optimal doesn’t mean the only way mind you, just the one that’s most tolerant of bad luck.  You can select multiple paths along the way, though each brings its own set of challenges.

While both simplistic (smallish map) and complex (buildings are hard to tell apart, many icons), most choices are made from the main screen’s information overlay.  I never felt like the game was hiding something from me, and each choice made was done so with all relevant data present.  There are very few “what’s behind door #2” situations.  And the majority of choices are balanced against each other, either in the immediate choice or in future choices along the path.  Using the amputee example above, eventually you get to select prostheses for your population.

The overall art/music is quite solid. Visually you can see people trudging through the snow.  You get proper sound alerts when things happen.  There are pause and speed-up options.  Day/night cycles.

The game sessions are long, in line with other city builders.  Since all the missions (until recently) were goal based, they vary somewhat in length, but I’ve not seen one under 30 minutes and most are around the hour mark.  A quirk of this genre is that by the mid-point mark you have so many things going on at once, that leaving and coming back from a save can be a challenge.  You are going to miss something and things will start falling apart.  When you do manage to get an entire scenario down in a sitting, it’s an extremely good feeling.  I guess it’s a bit like a board game in that sense.

It’s a solid recommendation.

I have owned at least a half dozen versions of this game.  Second only to Chrono Trigger (dozens on that one, I’m sure).

The Crew

There’s a special place in my mind for this game, as it was the first to (successfully) move away from the ATB model and really focus on the strategic combat portions.  Character swaps are an integral part of the gameplay, and understanding turn order is key for some battles.  The level of control here is where my issues with FF12/13/15 come into play.

I won’t talk about FFX-2.  There were some neat ideas tried here (notably the foundation for FF12’s kitchen sink approach) but it detracted too much from the previous entry.

I won’t rehash much here on FFX.  If you haven’t played this game from 2001 by now, there isn’t a whole lot more to say.  The PC version is the re-release from 2014, which is the international edition + cheat console.  That means Dark Aeons, expert sphere grid, turbo mode, infinite gil and so on.  What’s good here is that I can play it without any input lag, which is a problem with a lot of games nowdays.  Most games have compensation for it now, but older games were hardcoded and even a 0.1s lag was enough to detract from specific button actions.  Dodging lightning, or getting an Overdrive to connect is painful.

Some high level thoughts

• The story is more resonant now than it was back then.  A world of continual sorrow, with small patches of hope.  People making choices for things larger than themselves.  Themes of self-sacrifice are all over.
• The game is bug free and smooth.
• For the most part, the RNG in this game is fair.  All the instant KO hits are telegraphed.
• Blitzball randomness of stats is ever annoying.
• This game is insanely linear for a very long time.  The variety of combat is what keeps it interesting (press A doesn’t work).
• The FMV cutscenes are still solid (34gb install!!)
• The in-game engine cutscenes have better art, but are even more jarring in HD.  The acting is bad, the writing is on-par with George Lucas, and the camera angles are all over the place.
• The music is still captivating.  The Hymn of the Fayth is still haunting.
• I really do love the chess match of each boss battle. It really is a thinking game.
• It was smart having three villains – one for Yuna, one for Tidus, and then the general acceptance of fate.

FFX is one of the better in the series, and if you haven’t tried it for a while, or have yet to play any variant, it’s a solid pick.

After numerous recommendations and a good price point, I finally picked this one up.  StS is in essence a rogue like card game.  It’s still in Early Access, so there are certainly some new things to come along.  It’s a solid game.

One of 3 classes

Merging of genres is always tough.  It’s really hard to get the best of both worlds, since at some point you need to compromise.  Deck building games are about a combination of control and randomness, where player skill is more about knowing which card to play when (and which to add to the deck as well).  Rogues are often luck based, but the best one have an underlying incremental approach where not only do you get better (smarter) but the characters themselves improve.  StS gets really close to both.

I will throw in that I generally enjoy rogue-likes.  Faster than Light (FTL) is at the top of my all-time games.  I much prefer short playtimes, where a game over is both earned and recovered from in relatively short order.

Mechanics are simple enough.  3 classes, with similar starting decks.  Ironclad is about outright damage, Silent is about passive cards, Defect is a mage like class with a more complex set up.  You have a set number of action points per turn, play cards that value up to that.  You always attack first.  Different event types and maps where you get to select progress.  Collect more cards for your deck, or collect relics which provide various permanent boosts for your character.

I’m somewhat drawn to the Silent and prefer a Shiv deck.  That build requires specific cards to be successful in terms of damage.  But Silent damage is burst based, and you need to survive until it’s time.  That requires a lot of block cards, which cause deck bloat.  Which I think is the defining mechanic of StS… in nearly all cases it’s about judicious use of defensive cards since healing is so sparse.  Getting to the final boss of a level (there are 4 levels) with only a small bit of health is a quick way to a game over.  Some enemies are just not going to treat you well.

Balancing your needs, making sure you only have cards that will get played, and picking relics (from bosses) that provide a tangible benefit with minimal downside is key.  It gets more and more complex as you move forward.  That’s a lot of fun.

What’s less fun is the inherent nature of rogues and card games where randomness can undo a lot of hard work.  Losing to RNG is part of life, but it’s especially painful after an hour of investment.  Seeing a run fail because of a bad deck pull, or an event that curses you, or just a bad run of enemies is frustrating.  Dying in a rogue like should provide you some larger benefit aside from the game knowledge.  Playing for 90 minutes, getting a set of bad draws, and losing to RNG makes me stop wanting to play.

Each class has 5 unlocks that are achieved through a points-based system.  Do things, get points, unlock things.  These things are additional card types and additional relics.  This causes RNG to spread wider, meaning generally less chances to get the card/relic you want.  It’s pool bloat I guess.   You could be on a path for a specific deck and then be presented with cards that have no value – multiple times.  I’ve found that the runs become harder the more things get unlocked.  That is a weird feeling.  Especially when the starting state never changes.

I’m not quite sure what would help in this situation.  Maybe when you skip a potion/card/relic you get half the value in gold?  Maybe a starting relic that gives more max HP?  Maybe more reward choices every 5 battles or so?  Save states where you start on floor 2/3?  Playing someone else’s hand in a losing scenario?

Not to say that the game isn’t good.  It really is.  Well worth every penny and you’d get hours of gameplay out of it.  I’ve got enough now that I’ll wait until the next content patch.

Mix in some Meat Boy, a story about depression/anxiety, a killer soundtrack, a retro look and smart level design and you get Celeste.  There is a really good reason this was in a people’s game of the year lists.

Final Climb

I completed all the main levels, 2 of the B levels (harder version of the main), nearly done the Core (zone 8), and have collected over 100 strawberries.  Oh, and nearly 2000 deaths.

Game follows Madeline’s climb up Celeste, a giant mountain filled with all sorts of death traps.  The story is simple enough, she confronts her internal fears and comes out the stronger for it.  There’s no voice over, and the characters themselves are pretty straightforward.  That simplicity is also present in the gameplay.

The controls are basic.  Move, Jump, Hold, and Dash.   The actual gameplay is in the mix of those controls.  First few levels have you take long jumps, then dash to reach a far wall.  The later levels have you double dashing, avoiding lava, throwing yourself on bricks with spikes, recharging the dash in midair, then doing it 3 more times.   It’s surreal how much better you get at the game near the end.  Running back into Zone 1 was a cakewalk.

The actual gameplay mechanics are straightforward.  Avoid falling, spikes, monsters, fire, and similar things.  Die and restart the subzone (which usually takes 5-10 seconds to clear).  Easy in concept, hard in practice.  You can collect strawberries for an additional challenge, though it has no practical benefit other than a slightly different ending (if you make a pie).  Each zone has a cassette tape which unlocks a B-side, a harder variant that has no strawberries.  There are 7 main zones, each with their own themes.  The final one is the Core and is a hell of a challenge.

Celeste is one of those games where you always think “one more try” and then end up spending 30 minutes solving each additional puzzle.  And that’s what it is after all, each screen a puzzle of it’s own to solve.  It’s one of few games where I have to play with the D-pad rather than the analog, as some movements require way more precision in quick succession than my hands can handle.

I would be remiss not to mention the music.  It has that old school synth/midi vibe that fits just perfectly.  Each zone’s theme is well communicated, and the multi-screen boss “fights” feel like a true panic attack.  I’m not “done” with the game, but I do need a bit of a break from the heart racing.

Celeste is one of the few games I’ve ever played where I could not find any faults.  Never crashed, never felt I was cheated, no head scratchers.  It’s a shining example of what gaming can be.  A real must own.