<–The State of the Gamer: 2/6/18            The State of the Gamer: 3/6/18–>

A weekly post updated every other Tuesday detailing my current gaming projects.  I have an account at Grouvee, which is a site you can use to keep track of your backlog, so please feel free to friend me there!

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What I Played

Nintendo Switch

Title: Super Mario Odyssey
Series: Super Mario
Genre: Platformer/Puzzle – Adventure
Developer: Nintendo
Release Date: October 27, 2017
Date Started: October 29, 2017
Date Finished: January 27, 2018

I played a tiny bit of this, picked up a few more moons, but I think I’m done with it for now.  A lot of the after game moons are beyond my skill level (owing to what I saw Olizandri do), and I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve played and seen so far.

Android/Kindle

Title: Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius
Series: Final Fantasy
Genre: RPG/JRPG
Developer: Square Enix
Release Date: October 22, 2015

I booted it up for a few minutes the other day to clear out notifications and advance the story a little bit.  It’s not that I don’t like the game; it’s that it’s time consuming, and I have more games I want to play.

I didn’t really play a lot myself this week.  I was quite busy with Let’s Plays, though, as you’ll see below.

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What I Watched

Title: Super Mario Odyssey
Series: Super Mario Bros.
Let’s Player: Olizandri

I finished watching Oliz’s Let’s Play of this, and I’m pretty satisfied with what I saw.  As mentioned above, a lot of the after game moons are pretty difficult to obtain, but Oliz did a bang up job doing so.  I’m planning on moving on to Breath of the Wild fairly soon, since I need an action/adventure game to take the place of Mario Odyssey, for which I can now start working on the review.

Title: The Last Guardian
Series Title: Ico
Let’s Player: Olizandri

Even though there’s no series mentioned, The Last Guardian is at least a spiritual sequel/continuation of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.   As such, I’m not going to write my review for it until I’ve watched those two games, because the connections between will more than likely color my interpretation.  I searched for analysis videos after finishing the LP, but they seem to be in short supply. The best one I located is by Max Derrat, though I don’t know enough about the series to yea or nay some of his theories.  There are aspects of it that share similarities with Final Fantasy VII, and that’s enough for me to look deeper.

To put it succinctly, the game is a masterpiece.  If someone asked me to visually explain the definition of loyalty, you need look no further than The Last Guardian, which is kept ambiguous until the very end when it is blatantly shown.  I was expecting something else out of the finale (having been warned it was disturbing and graphic), but what I saw broke and filled my heart, while bringing both me and the Let’s Player to tears.

Trico’s animation is nothing short of amazing.  He is the most realistic imaginary creature I have ever seen, besting even the animation for real world creatures.  The designers did their homework, which should be expected of a game that spent nearly a decade in development hell.  The beast’s movements are graceful and catlike, but it’s the little things like an ear flick, a yawn, or a paw swat that really bring him to life.

I have so many questions and so many things I want to talk about with this game.  Because it’s mostly visual with very little exposition, the possibilities are varied.  When it starts, the boy awakens in a cave near a chained and armored beast (Trico), which means someone had to have armored and chained him.  One of these is explained in flashback, which allows you to extrapolate the other, but the question of “why” for one remains a mystery, nor is the other fully explained.  Even before this, the opening credits show a montage of different creatures that, upon reflection, have aspects that align with Trico’s species, but this begs the question of how?  Was it a variation of evolution or purposeful engineering?

The soundtrack not only perfectly entwines with the action of the game, but the composer uses music sparingly and only at significant moments.  This makes it all the more chill inducing when it swells.  Additionally, it often serves as a warning that something is about to occur.

I’ve seen some harsh critiques of this game with some insisting it should’ve been better based on the wait.  I couldn’t disagree more (though again, I haven’t yet played/watched Ico and Shadow).  Though the year is young, The Last Guardian may very well be the best game I’ve experienced in 2018.

I do intend to watch the prior two, but after I finished TLG, I needed something lighter, which is why I started watching…

Title: Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Series: Mario, Mario & Luigi, Mario RPG
Let’s Player: Olizandri

A polar opposite in terms of atmosphere, I was planning on playing this myself, but figured in the interim, I can watch an LP of it.  I still plan to play Color Splash at some point, but since I don’t own a Wii U (and I’m kind of broke right now), it’s no big deal to watch games like such.

I like that the mechanics of Mario RPGs are a bit more active than other franchises.  Well…than other franchises were, which is weird because I abhor the more action RPG elements of Final Fantasy now.  I like that the Mario RPGs tend to mix them in a nice way, not going wholly action (except in Super Paper Mario, which is the main reason I didn’t finish it), but instead relying on action commands within a turn based environment.  So far I’m enjoying the comedic and brotherly elements of the game, and Oliz is such a fantastic LPer with an enthusiasm for the games he showcases that’s unmatched.

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What I Bought

• Final Fantasy XIV for $59.99 @ Target – The game comes with all three (A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood) and 30 day free subscription; it was really hard to resist.  No clue when I’m going to break it out since I have many, many more games in my possession that are on my backlog, but with this purchase, I own at least one copy in some way of every Final Fantasy except for FFXI (which I may purchase just to have it).

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Oh shit!  I totally forgot about Four in February D:  I only remembered because I mentioned it in my prior post.  Ah well, I was pretty skeptical on me doing it anyway.  Have you worked on FiF?  Have you completed four?  Do you think you will?  What did you pick to play?  Have you played The Last Guardian?  Do you agree with my masterpiece assessment of it?  Do you have any good theories of analyses of the story?  I really want to talk about that.  Have you played the other games associated with it?  How does TLG stack up?  Let’s discuss this and other things in the comments!

<–The State of the Gamer: 2/6/18            The State of the Gamer: 3/6/18–>