Whatcha Been Playing?

[Truk_Kurt]

Midnight Fight Express has been on my steam wishlist for a while but after recently signing up to ps plus, I noticed it was on there so gave it a go.
I was expecting something like a mix between SIFU and Arkham combat, but I came away disappointed. The game is focused on combat but the combat just felt imprecise to me. It wasn't really clear to me how to read enemies actions and how to counter them effectively. It ended up being a bit too button mashy which wasn't particularly satisfying to play in a game where the focus is on combat.

[Jobobonobo]

After three weeks or so, finally finished up the surprisingly lengthy demo for SaGa: Emerald Beyond. I never played a SaGa game before so thought I would try this new release. I was a little intimidated trying it out as the SaGa games do have a reputation for being somewhat obtuse and convoluted to new players. I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself really getting into it. The battle system with its focus on where your party members are positioned on a timeline and how it effects combos and turn order can take a bit of getting used to but once I got the hang of it, I was really enjoying myself. The constant equipment upgrades and trials which reward you for performing certain actions are a really fun and moreish feedback loop. The leveling system is a bit strange too with only relevant stats being leveled depending on how your character performed in battle (for example, getting hit a lot increases your defense). I heard many Final Fantasy fans decry this system when it debuted in FFII but here I found it perfectly fine. The fact that each battle is completely relevant to whatever mission you are on means that grinding is completely removed from the game and even if you are dying constantly, re-configuring your equipment, stats and battle formation can really put the odds in your favour.

Another thing I really liked was how open the game is, by making certain choices through your playthrough you can unlock completely different story paths and I replayed certain parts over and over so i can see all the different paths you can do in one world. The simple overworld where you can move over the map like a figurine on a board game was actually quite refreshing from traversing a huge world map and since you always know your next objective you never waste time getting lost. JRPGs especially these days really focus on massive worlds where you spend ages getting into constant battles and sometimes it makes them really monotonous to get through but the simple to the point way of navigation here makes Emerald Beyond a breath of fresh air among its contemporaries.

My only complaints are petty but I still feel like airing them out so I will. The music while generally good (I love the jazzy overworld score in particular) can sometimes be utilised in ways that don't make sense in context. For example, I meet up with this witch and this sinister foreboding music is playing so I'm thinking "Uh oh, trouble's afoot." But it turns out she wants to help you on your quest so she insists another witch who was accompanying me joins me on my journey and wishes us luck on our adventure. So I get a new party member and am fully supported by this character but this creepy music is playing suggesting something awful is going to happen. And it never does. Maybe in the full game, it is revealed that she was some Machiavellian schemer plotting my downfall from the very beginning but somehow I don't think so as she gave off no vibes other than the music playing that she was bad. This happens often where spooky music is playing over otherwise mundane events and it just makes me wonder did they not think to put something more relevant playing during these scenes. It is not a big thing really but it is the one element of the game that came off as a bit half arsed which is a shame because I liked everything else about it. Well there is one other thing, I'm not a fan of some of the localisation in the script. Often your character will use saccharine internet lingo like "hecking" and I roll my eyes whenever stuff like that comes up. I never understand how talking like Ned Flanders became part of modern day internet speak but that is just my late 30s millennial grouchiness kicking in I suppose. Very small thing but it annoyed me enough to ding this otherwise quite enjoyable title a point or two.

Overall though, for my first time with a SaGa game it was not nearly as painful as I was expecting and has interested me enough that I might try the full game sometime in the future when I don't have such a mental backlog to deal with.