REVIEW OF THE WEEK November 22 - 28: Up Way Too Late Edition

What's my story of late? The same as it's always been.

1) Lots of work.

2) Exhausted.

3) Playing mostly meh games, like The First Templar (which I recently finished, thank goodness). At least Gorogoa has been fun for the fifteen or so minutes that I've played it...

4) Lots of horror movies!!!!

The Nun (2018)
A trio consisting of a laborer, a priest, and a novitiate attempt to send away a demon that has assumed the form of a nun in an old Romanian monastery. It's got solid visuals, but it's mostly pretty boring and predictable. 2.5/5

[REC] (2007)
A reporter and a cameraman are trapped in an apartment complex with firefighters and tenants during an apparent zombie outbreak. Of course, it turns out there's more to the story than the dead rising... No, this is not a ripoff of Quarantine. That movie was an American remake of this one. I haven't seen the remake, but I love the original. It's chaotic without confusing its audience, it's loaded with tension, and it doesn't lean too heavily on its twist. 4/5

It Comes At Night (2017)
Two families attempt to survive together during a deadly pandemic. I'm not going to shit all over this movie as many horror fans have in the past. However, I'm also not super into it. It's very slow and kind of tedious, not to mention just an all around downbeat movie. It's worth a single watch, but not more than that. 3/5

The Slayer (1982)
A woman experiences nightmares of being stalked while on an island retreat with her friends. Unfortunately, her visions become reality as an unknown assailant bumps them off during just such an event... This was a fairly bonkers film. I love it. The ending leaves a little bit up to the viewers to decide and speculate upon. 4/5

The Wind (1986)
An author goes to an old Greek town to get away for a while and write a new novel. There, she's stalked by a murderous handyman played by Wings Hauser. It's got great set pieces and some terrific, strange moments. However, it's an otherwise pretty straightforward suspense thriller. 3.5/5

Madhouse (1981)
A woman's twin sister escapes an institution and begins picking off her loved ones just before their birthday. A pretty standard slasher, but one that makes a fair point near it's conclusion. Or, as Alfred Pennyworth put it, "Some people just want to watch the world burn." 3.5/5

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
A vampire in Iran who preys on predatory men becomes entangled with a man who is enabling his elderly father's heroin addiction. Another slow movie like It Comes, but more entertaining. It's pretty artsy, maybe a little fartsy, but still enjoyable. 3.5/5

Happy Death Day (2017)
A comedy that's basically Groundhog Day reimagined as a slasher. I had a lot of fun with this one. The kills are pretty tame, but it still a good, comical, and appropriately melodramatic film. 4.5/5

Hatchet (2006)
An over-the-top B-movie slasher that features a few horror icons, where a tour group in a swamp attempts to outwit a deformed, undead murderer. I guess I was kind of into this one. It's a silly, self-aware film, but perhaps a little too indulgent. At times it feels like it's "winking and nudging" just a little too hard. 3.5/5

House II: The Second Story (1987)
A couple of men and an undead prospector defend a crystal skull from those who would steal it in their mansion full of temporal rifts. You read all of that correctly, and if you know about my love for bananas movies, you know where I stand on this one. I've always wanted the cater-puppy... 4/5

---REVIEWS---

EmP - Saint Kotar ***SECOND PLACE***
You've sold me on this game. It sounds clunky at times, but up my alley regardless. Anyone describing this could have made it sound absolutely bland, but you chose just the right words and topics to cover to support your thesis, while keeping your language fresh and snappy. Kudos on this one!

Jason - Darius Cozmic Collection ***THIRD PLACE***
Compilations are difficult to tackle. They mostly boil down to how you handle the technical stuff, the quality of the port, and how well you can summarize all of its parts. In that respect I think you struck a fantastic combo here. This review went straight to the point and succinctly touched on its offerings without skimping too much or sound overly technical. It dishes everything it needs to.

Pickhut - Pac-Man
This is yet port review that gets right to the heart of the matter and does a fine job balancing its info. There's also a tremendously useful bonus here: you compare how this version stacks up to the AGS one. That's useful for discerning consumers to know, especially when you're dealing with a game where spot-on play control is crucial. Great work!

OD - Magus
In your honor, I'm going to send the publisher some aloe vera so they can deal with that scathing introduction. Oh man! This game sounds like a real dud. I know that sometimes easy games are fine, but this one sounds like it lacks so much in engagement that it's insufferable. Adding linear levels and dumb AI to the mix only solidifies your point.

Dragon Quest IX - Dagoss ***REVIEW OF THE WEEK***
This review is over 3000 words. When they go that long, it means you're either going to read something brilliant or long-winded. Thankfully, this review is the former. There's information in this review that most of us wouldn't have even thought to include or brush up on, and cultural perspectives that don't even enter our minds when we're playing stuff like this. Hell, the closest I've come to even considering something like that for a review was The Witcher's blatant political centrism, which stemmed from Poland's rise of centrism in the '90s after its population grew politically weary. Most reviews lightly touch on these topics before delving whole hog into mechanics and balancing. This one examines the game from cultural perspectives, and still goes into mechanics and balancing properly. I can't not give this piece the win.

Jason - PixelJunk Racers
Ugh, this sounds like a painful game. It doesn't help that I'm not into racing titles, and what you've described sounds horrific from my perspective. This is a good review that illustrates how a racing game can go wrong in an unconventional way, and had me snickering pretty good a few times.

---

No tears please, it's a waste of good suffering.

Thank you for the comments on a week of surprising quantity, in spite of life business. I'm glad you enjoyed my reviews. I didn't go into the week expecting to write them. They just sort of... happened.

Dagoss has been killing it lately. I got to DQ9 too late for the multiplayer stuff, so this was quite fascinating.

Sorry this was your week Joe. This review was originally around 5,000 words, so I cut out a lot. Thanks for the win!

Jerec, even if you got DQIX at launch, you still might not have used the multiplayer, except to unlock costumes and quests (which you can still do by pointing to a fan-run server). I was actually inspired to write this review listening to an episode of Retronauts where people went on about how great the multiplayer was, visiting Japan, going to gaming and anime conventions, etc. It struck me as not representative of the average player outside Japan. I lived in a small town in 2010 and never met another person with a DS, let alone carried one around in standby with tag mode on.

I also question all the retrospectives that claim DQIX was going to be an action game. I couldn't find any first hand accounts seeing a demo by and English speaker, so I think those details came from Famitsu. It seems to me like "action oriented" (which the final game is) was misunderstood as action game. I think there could be more digging on that point.

When I wrote for Hardcore Gamer Magazine and early versions of Dragon Quest IX were shown, it was showcased in media as a game with action-based combat. I impotently complained on the forums magazine staff members used at the time, because I am an advocate for turn-based combat in JRPGs. One of the other editors couldn't understand why I would object to the series finally evolving to action-based combat. However, the push toward a more traditional approach was announced not terribly long after that, because apparently the outcry was sufficient that the developers reversed course (to my still remembered relief). Apparently, there were enough people like me to keep the series rooted in tradition for a bit longer (though X came out and was online, so whatever).

I have concerns for Dragon Quest XII now, which is apparently trying to "evolve" Dragon Quest again while keeping in mind Western preferences as Japan regards them. Square Enix is on a kick right now, hoping that changing how it develops games will soak up more American dollars, and those kicks almost never end well for someone like me who stupidly still enjoys Japanese game design.

Dagoss - You're right, I would only have gotten the bonus content (and I saw a video on how to connect to it). I think there were plenty of people that had a DS, but I didn't know anyone else IRL who had a copy of DQIX and I don't think it's the sort of thing random Aussies would be playing on their DS. If I ever saw someone playing a DS in public, they were usually children and the game was almost always Pokemon.

Jason - Maybe it is time for Dragon Quest to evolve a bit. XI seemed aggressively traditional, a 16-bit JRPG but with fancy graphics. It felt like a final salute to that classic style, so I am interested to see where they go with the next one.

Aggressively traditional is PRECISELY what I want from Dragon Quest, and there's no active franchise that can really compete on that level.

If developers want to do something different with Dragon Quest, I can appreciate the creative urge, but I say do it with an offshoot. I've never understood people who say, "Wow, this new entry in my favorite series has very little in common with the previous ones so that makes it the best!"

New for the sake of new is more likely than not to turn me off because that's not what I want from a brand. We've seen Dragon Quest Monsters (a Pokemon wannabe) and Rocket Slime Adventures and Torneko: The Last Hope, and I'm happy those exist. They are great, even if they can't compare to the classic Dragon Quest.

I do believe the Dragon Quest universe is ripe for experimental titles, but I don't want them to come about as part of the "main" series because that tends to mean a chapter is closed. I don't like the idea of no new traditional Dragon Quest games being made in the future, and I like it less still when that's happening because Square Enix feels a desire to add hack 'n slash because they think Americans are too stupid to understand turn-based combat.

In the company's defense, a lot of Americans do say outright that they won't touch JRPGs precisely because they hate turn-based battles and consider them too advanced and confusing. But that's why we have that whole other genre: the hack 'n slash. It's made special for people who just like pointing the hero toward an enemy and mashing a button or two until enough blood has been spilt and the bad guy is a lifeless lump on the ground. Shifting a beloved JRPG franchise in that direction doesn't make it better. It does quite the opposite.

Going forward, if the Dragon Quest franchise does as good a job of abandoning its roots as the developers apparently plan, I fear we'll have one in a long line of examples of corporate greed turning a terrific thing into a decent one. That's not an evolution I'm anxious to witness.

Dragon Quest Monsters (a Pokemon wannabe)

Dragon Quest had monster collecting before Pokemon existed. Pokemon *wishes* it was Dragon Quest Monsters! :)

I do agree with the sentiment that I like the main Dragon Quest series as it is. Eleven previous entries that are so conservative suggest the twelfth will be as well. IX is the one people always point to as SE going a bit off the rails, but it was no different from the rest in how it tried to make the DQ formula relevant to Japanese players.

When I wrote for Hardcore Gamer Magazine and early versions of Dragon Quest IX were shown, it was showcased in media as a game with action-based combat. I impotently complained on the forums magazine staff members used at the time, because I am an advocate for turn-based combat in JRPGs. One of the other editors couldn't understand why I would object to the series finally evolving to action-based combat. However, the push toward a more traditional approach was announced not terribly long after that, because apparently the outcry was sufficient that the developers reversed course (to my still remembered relief). Apparently, there were enough people like me to keep the series rooted in tradition for a bit longer (though X came out and was online, so whatever).

Do you remember seeing footage or how you learned about it?

What you described is how I've always heard the story of DQIX. When I started this review, I tried to find information on what was meant by "action oriented." I expected to actually find footage or a description of gameplay that was more hack 'n slash. The closest I found was an account of Koichi and three others from the team demoing an early build for the Japanese press. The English accounts I found appeared to be second hand, repeating details from Famitsu, but they were vague on what "action" actually meant. The demo was described as being "in real time" with one player getting into a fight while the other was off doing something else, and not much else.

I was able to find lots of kvetching in forums and stuff from around the time, but not a clear idea of what "action" really meant here. The final game is still in real time (like the demo I can't find footage of, one player can get in a battle while the other is off doing something else) and the combat has a very dynamic style that looks "action oriented".

So when I wasn't able to find details or video or anything of the "action version" of DQIX, it's made me wonder if this was a brief misunderstanding and it was never going in a true action RPG direction.

I didn't see footage that I recall, but it has been a long time, so my memory is far from perfect on the matter. Hardcore Gamer Magazine worked pretty regularly with JRPGs in particular, and there was at least one individual who wrote/spoke Japanese at the time, so I'm pretty sure the discussion went a little deeper than pointing to an online article somewhere. I just don't remember how deep it went beyond that.

(for historical posterity) here's some details I managed to dig up in the Internet archives from shortly after DQIX's announcement. It seems there was a demo given to Famitsu and Gemanga. It's described as "action oriented" and other than monsters being visible on the field, it's sparse on what that means. I guess there would be more in the Japanese publications.

Huh, you liked The Slayer a fair bit more than I did.

But, no, go ahead and play Magus. You'll love it. I swear! Or you'd hate me for suggesting it, which is more likely, but whatever, emotions will be felt. The one and only reason I played it was that it was on PS Now; it seemed to be an action-RPG I hadn't heard of; and when I went online, Wikipedia said it had gotten "so bad, it's good" reviews. At least half of that sentiment was correct, in my opinion.