Niche Plays: Life is Strange

My love for Telltale Games is no secret (see elsewhere on this blog) but a new contender has entered the arena of tailored story based games.

Life is Strange takes the same fundamental gameplay as the Telltales series', it even follows the usual 5 episode format and presents you with ethically grey decisions popularised by The Walking Dead. Only, this new take on the genre is like a breath of fresh air, a completely new game engine, an individual art style, a realistic setting and a completely fresh original  IP rather than a licensed property. Developers DONTNOD even bring some of the time manipulation shenanigans from their previous game, "Remember Me". Starting the game displays a familiar message for anyone that has played one of the Telltale series, "the game will adapt to your choices" etc. only this time your decisions are said to have consequences in the past, present and future. It takes a while to get your head round this concept, but it adds more weight to each decision. Later episodes even have a Steins;Gate flavour, but make of that what you will.
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A different developer along with the unknowns of the time manipulation meant I had no idea what was going to happen or to what degree my choices would matter, whereas Telltale have fallen into a bit of a pattern (more on that elsewhere). The extra gameplay mechanics are pretty creative but the game also takes inspiration the roots of Telltale themselves, having a number of sections reminiscent of classic Point and Click games that seem to have been phased out of Telltale's own adventures.

Life is Strange also has a beautiful soundtrack, it's one area that Telltale are always improving on too. The music may be a bit mellow and emotional for me to listen to by itself but it's a great audio backdrop to the events in game.

It's hard not to constantly compare this series to the ones created by Telltale, but it can be enjoyed purely on its own merits. It will appeal to people that appreciate the slow-burn, story driven games even if you've never had dreams of being a girl at college. DONTNOD have done a great job at their first game in this genre and even made some nice innovations, I'd like to see what else they can do with another series but they seem to introduce some innovative ideas to a genre and then move on. Remember Me had memory manipulation puzzles and a unique combo system, Life is Strange is a new take on Telltale's formula and their next game Vampyr (pronounced with suitable gravitas) is an action RPG where your choice to feed on people can have wide consequences.

Niche Plays: Stories: Path of Destinies

OK this was one of December's PS Plus games, did you grab it? I have to admit I wrote it off as another generic sidescroller with animal characters, but wait, after finishing Final Fantasy XV I found I had a bit of time to spare on another game. I'd heard it was another game where your choices affect the story and I'm a sucker for those, so I gave it a go.

Turns out I was completely wrong about this game, it's not a platformer, those aren't cutesy animals and this is far from generic.

Easiest way to explain this is it's a mix of Zelda, Diablo, the Batman Arkham games, classic Choose Your Own Adventure novels and a touch of Brian Jacques "Redwall" novels,  with a smart art style and a sense of humour to rival Tim Schafer/DoubleFine... it also reminds me of Terry Pratchett or Spike Milligan in places and some story elements have been described as Lovecraftian! The fact that I just compared a game called "Stories" about a magical book to several actual literary works just adds to the                                                                                             charm of this game.

The writing team have also taken inspiration from a whole range of geeky sources, from Star Wars to Marvel, and so much more. You can see this passion for pop culture in the titles of most the game's trophies, numerous one-liners and even a strangely familiar church in one of the first chapters.







I took my first playthrough pretty slow but once you reach the end you get a sense of the many paths through the game... so begins the addictive quest for the True Ending! Each run through is only 5 chapters so shouldn't take more than an hour or two but you have a chance of discovering new information that affects your choices and even if you revisit old areas you might see new paths or new enemies, particularly as you can upgrade your sword to open various elemental doors. You can also learn new skills to help keep the combat fresh, with a new tier only unlocking once you discover a "truth" of the story.

When I started writing I still had a way to go to unlock the true/good ending but I puzzled together the right combination of choices... although there's around 20 alternative paths I could have ended up on.

Thanks to a bug I did get stuck in the landscape once but it wasn't too frustrating to restart that section. I could see the combat and repeated maps getting old if this was a bigger game but it does enough to keep you hooked long enough to get to the end and there's always the question of "what if...?" to answer if you want to unlock every path. These are pretty minor niggles and Stories is still a fantastic game from a small developer (Spearhead Games), I have to wonder what a game with this creativity and charm would be like with a blockbuster budget and hundreds of people working on it.

Another hidden gem of the PS Plus subscription (and also available on Steam). I recommend you try it out and see if it wins you over like it did me!

Niche Plays: World of Final Fantasy (Demo)

In case you missed it you can now try out a demo for World of Final Fantasy on either PS4 or the PS Vita.

I gave it a quick run through so thought I'd add a few of my first impressions.

First off, you'll notice the super-cute chibi style; throughout the demo you'll meet famous final fantasy characters recreated in this style but still with their usual voices, they somehow end up being both adorable and hilarious, although you wont get much conversation out of them during the demo. Your own characters can switch between being these tiny "lilikins" or grow into Kingdom Hearts style characters called "Jiants" (see what they did there?)

The style may look like it's aimed at kids but Square Enix seem to have hit a balance where the game will appeal to long term fans too. If you enjoyed Final Fantasy 9 then you won't find the character style off-putting anyway, personally I'm loving it. There's also two command modes for battle, simple button presses for kids and casuals or a classic menu style. There's a new stacking mechanic that I haven't discovered the finer points of, but a stack of characters share health and are more powerful... it also looks so cute and rather funny if you manage to topple a stack of enemies. It's classic turn based combat and some long animations can't be skipped... however if things are moving too slowly for you there is a fast forward button.

As you go you'll figure out how to “imprism” enemies, that is trapping them in a crystal or prism. There are obvious parallels to Pokemon even down to the spherical prism traps giving 3 wobbles/dings on a successful capture. There's even skill trees for each monster you collect and they can evolve into new forms. Monsters come in 3 sizes with the smaller ones forming the top of your stack. You can even ride some of them around the world (something I've heard Pokemon Sun&Moon is also doing).

It remains to be seen how much Sun&Moon will push the Pokemon franchise forward but WOFF (not sure about that acronym) is doing some things the Pokemon games should have done years ago; voice acting, top end graphics, big cinematics, tweaks to gameplay, being able to play on a home console AND a handheld!

World of Final Fantasy is out nearly a whole month before Pokemon S&M (possible a worse acronym) so there's time to try it out, at least check the demo. The full game hits 28th October. Pokemon may have an edge with its mainstream appeal but Final Fantasy might just have a solid contender, even if it is a bit more Niche.

Niche Plays: Con Man; The Game

Fresh out this week, there may be a few of you wanting to give this free mobile game a try.
Based on the mini series of the same name this is a game featuring geek icons such as Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk and a few other familiar faces.



The game takes a familiar  mobile genre of building up a business adding stalls and keeping customers happy and reskins it in all the geeky goodness of conventions. Essentially, this is a comic con management simulator/tycoon!

Finally YOU can choose the extra wide aisles, hold the cosplay competitions indoors and ensure there are plenty of refreshments... not that I'm thinking of any particular band of intrepid con reviewers.

Maybe this could be the mobile game to break my Avengers Academy addiction, stay tuned for a full review.

Niche Plays: Incoming Transmission...

As I'm deep into No Man's Sky and working on the review, you might have noticed there's no "Niche Plays" this week.

At least not yet, we might have another guest lined up... stay tuned.

Niche Plays: PlayStation Plus August 2016

August's PS Plus offerings have dropped and at first glance I'd say they're kinda disapointing, but don't write them off yet. I'm not too excited as I already own half of what is on offer, but that also gives me the ability to point out there are some under-rated gems!

Retro/Grade

This quirky game has shown up on Plus before, but if you didn't catch it then check it out this time around. It looks just like a normal sidescrolling space shooter but you actually join the action at the end of the game... you're explosive victory suddenly causes things to go a bit wibbly-wobbly and time starts to run in reverse, meaning you have to un-dodge projectiles and suck your bullets from the enemy. This would be pretty difficult playing as a standard space shooter, so you in fact play more like a rhythm game, so much so that you can even connect one of your guitar controllers to pilot your ship. There's an appropriately thumping soundtrack, plenty of neon and a few gameplay twists and tweaks to keep you on your toes. Even if you only play the first level it's worth downloading for the experience.

Patapon 3

The vita gets yet another PSP game this month, but I wouldn't complain too much. It's easy to forget how many great games the PSP had and a lot of them hold up surprisingly well. Patapon is one of them, it's another twist on the rhythm genre with a quirky art style.

You tap out different rhythms using the face buttons, each assigned to a sacred drum (pata, pon, don, chaka). Each rhythm is used to command your troops, a bunch of enthusiastic eyeballs in various classes (swordsman, archer etc). I had so much fun with these games on PSP, and this 3rd instalment may be the biggest and most developed as each instalment added in new features, I still like the purity of the first game but Patapon 3 has all the bells and whistles including online multiplayer which actually still works on the Vita. If the gameplay strikes a chord with you be prepared for weeks of chanting the tunes as they get stuck in your head and bobbing your vita along in time to the beat every time you play. The only thing to be disappointed about here is that the Vita never got it's own Patapon game.

Rebel Galaxy

Typical that this game pops up as part of Plus just weeks after I bought it. I have to say it's not quite what I expected, I'm still searching for a current gen replacement for Colony Wars but this plays a lot more like a bunch of PC games I was playing just over ten years ago.Roam the galaxy, run trade routes and complete combat missions while keeping an eye out for pirates, managing your relationship to different factions, upgrading your ship and uncovering the mystery through story missions and dialogue. All just what i'm looking for but the combat is less dogfighting and more naval combat, all about relatively slow positioning of your ship to bring the right weapons to bear at the right time, just like those PC games I was talking about. It's a pretty neat game and relatively well made, perhaps the nostalgia hit is enough for me to enjoy it.

It's nice to see this kind of game make it's way to console, but hitting Plus only a week before No Man's Sky I doubt many people will be giving it the time it deserves.

Honourable mentions to the rest of the plus lineup... 

Tricky Towers looks like a Tetris clone, only imagine Tetris with physics enabled so you have to balance each block which makes it close to a 2D version of PSMove classic, Tumble, it should be fun multiplayer but does feature a single player mode too.

 

Yakuza 5 is another worthwhile entry and a full game rather than a small indy offering, I've always had respect for the franchise with all it's side quests and distractions, now's my chance to sink some time into one.

Ultratron, isn't one I know much about but by all accounts is a competent fresh take on arcade shooters, it's also worth noting I haven't been disappointed with anything from one of the developers, Curve Digital.

You might have to dig a little deeper to find something you love this month but there's still some quality gaming to be had. Have you tried any of these games before? Feel free to pass on you impressions for the uninitiated; comments below.

Niche Plays: PlayStation Plus July 2016

Just a quick one this week as I find i haven't had much gaming time, however I have managed to dip into a few of July's "free" PlayStation Plus games, and thought I would share my thoughts on them before they are swapped out for August's games.
(Trailers available via PlayStation YouTube Channel and not owned by Niche)

Furi (PS4)

I admit, I had not heard of this one before it became available on Plus, it's an action game that does much more than hack'n'slash. It becomes more about anticipating your opponent and using the right moves in each situation, the result is somewhere between arcade gameplay and full on tactical combat. I haven't gone too far into the game yet but the gameplay is distilled into a series of boss battles, all of which are pretty creative and challenging and it is kind of refreshing not to have to face corridors full of minions.  The default difficulty will be pretty challenging for most but I can see that being one of the major draws of this game. There's a rather dark story about eternal torment and your journey out of some kind of hell dimension, there seems to be some deeper mysteries that I cant wait to uncover. The art style is distinctive and reminds me of El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, a beautiful game that I still have not got round to playing, it's on my list but it's a long list. This could be one of those overlooked gems of your PS Plus collection.

Saints Row: Gat Out Of Hell (PS4)

On paper, Saints Row should be a game I completely hate, the franchise started as a GTA clone, all drugs, gangs and violence but each instalment has grown a little crazier. It's this irreverent sense of humour and focus on fun gameplay that has had me hooked since Saints Row 3. This offering is in fact a standalone expansion to Saints Row 4, so if you enjoyed that then you'll have some idea what to expect and I recommend you give this a go. If you've never played Saints Row before then this could be a nice little taster, however don't expect the intro to make sense, after that focus on running wild in the hellscape, go have fun!

 Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines (PSVITA)

This JRPG has a pleasant art style inspired by Japanese ink wash art known as sumi-e and packs a lot in to a nice portable package. Set in a mythical version of feudal Japan you are the head of a cursed family. You need to set out on quests, protect and strengthen your lineage and win the favour of the Gods, which is important because part of the curse is that your clan can only reproduce with Gods (or other cursed clans). Could be worse, right? There's whole layers of management and crafting, customising your family and arranging marriages as well as dungeons to explore. I've enjoyed it so far but look forward to being able to sink a good chunk of time in to this.

Fat Princess (PS3)

An honourable mention for Fat Princess as I haven't picked this game back up in a while. It's a fun and colourful class based team game. The main mode is similar to capture the flag, but with princesses, you can even collect cake to feed to your princess so that she becomes harder to steal. You might have better look finding online opponents that I did earlier this year as other Plus subscribers will be trying it out, but it can also be good fun with friends.

Niche Plays: Mobile Medley

Hey, it's Mulukh back again for this week and despite a crazy backlog on actual console I seem to have spent my time on free-to-play mobile games this week. I only usually have time to focus on one mobile game at a time, this week I have 3 to tell you about...

Avengers Academy

Check out the brand new and minty fresh Niche: Treat Your Geek Issue 12 for my full review, but suffice to say I am STILL playing this game. Currently there's a Spider-man themed event going on. It adds a little bit of new gameplay and missions to complete plus plenty more opportunities to empty your wallet with in-game purchases. If you want to get involved there is enough time for you to level up to qualify for the event and attempt to unlock Spider-man and premium character, Spider-Ham. There's also the chance to unlock Black Cat and Mary Jane. Later you'll have a shot at Doc Oc and if you do well with the event and you'll earn Green Goblin, however "doing well" tends to require spending some real life money.

Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle

Turns out this game has been out for a year and I never knew. This one year anniversary plus a total of 7.777 million downloads means there's a tonne of celebratory freebies right now, there's never been a better time to join in. The screenshots on the app store make it look like some kind of rhythm game but the core gameplay is actually a twist on colour matching games, you pick from the first row of power orbs and any adjacent orbs of the same colour will also "pop". The more orbs you gather the more your characters power up, dealing more damage, power up enough and unleash a devastating  special attack. The gameplay does get more tactical and challenging as each class has strengths and weaknesses, choosing the right team member to guard against an impending target is crucial to your survival.

The game does a great job of capturing the spirit of the anime, battles play out in a frenetic exciting fashion, special attacks are suitably epic and iconic, they even power up even further once the Dokkan gauge is full. All the patient powering up feels really appropriate to the universe. Upgrading and levelling your cards ties in nicely with the constant training and evolving power levels of the show. All of this plus familiar characters and locations and being able to collect capsules and the ever rewarding dragon balls.

Somehow most of the characters I started with felt really powerful, pick up some super rare characters (maybe a Super Saiyan God?) and they feel just as overpowered as you'd hope. If you're worried about this making the game too easy, have no fear, 3 levels of difficulty are here.
Story missions follow an original plot but borrow elements from the anime, the writing isn't an amazing adaptation but it does a fair job of summarising plot points. There's a host of daily, weekly and special events to keep you going.

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius

Brand new this week I haven't been able to sink a lot of time on this one, but I wanted to share what I have found so far. This game seems to build on Final Fantasy Record Keeper. Exvius has taken the concept of recruiting heroes from other games in the franchise, but returned to FF's roots with RPG gameplay and a full story mode (featuring elemental crystals being destroyed).

The graphics and sound are another step up, inspired by the 16bit graphics of yore but much more refined, the opening cutscene was not something I expected from a mobile game and some graphical elements look to be high quality HD.

At first the turn based battle mechanism seemed super simple, but actually appears to be an ingenious solution to fitting RPG battle menus onto a mobile device. At first it is as simple as clicking on a character's tag to attack, but then you learn that swiping in different directions brings you to magic and other skills. It'll be a while before I can get a full review together but I thought I'd give a heads up in case you have an interest in playing a new classic Final Fantasy on mobile, go give it a go!

Niche Plays: Battleborn Vs Overwatch

This week Mulukh has been sinking some time into the new strategy RPG, Grand Kingdom, keep an eye out for Niche Issue 12 for a full review. So this time Niche Plays has been taken over by Crosshire and his thoughts on Battleborn vs Overwatch. Some colourful language with some colourful words but you can always use your imagination.

Jumping between the two, they are so different. It's a time difference thing, one is rocket league and the other is 3 laps on a race track. Battleborn is an experience of growth and learning as your character gets stronger. Overwatch is fast paced, in and out. You can play like 5 different characters in the time you would play one in Battleborn. I can play Battleborn alone or with friends but I only play Overwatch with friends; it's what everyone is playing.

Overwatch was always going to overshadow Battleborn. It's frakin' Blizzard, they have a fudging World of Warcraft MOVIE currently in the cinema. This year Blizzard are swinging their "credentials" about and getting poop tonnes of muns for it.

But in all fairness, Battleborn has a frelling sweet single player with cool ass loot you can then use in battle, the characters are very stylised in keeping with the developers,Gearbox. I love that stuff. They plan on patching the game and balancing the characters, something Blizzard said they will not be doing with Overwatch. But Blizzard are getting a bad rep for taking down the Overwatch ... (let's say) "fan art"... Haha, if I was Gearbox I'd start producing official Battleborn "fan art".

But yeah, two very different experiences, two very fun games but Overwatch did steal some of Battleborn's thunder. It's a shame but I'm honestly happy to have the option of playing either. Like, you know how long I've been waiting for something with a bit of colour in the FPS format? Like seriously, why did no one pick up the ball after Team Fortress 2? Nope, we went into the CoD generation where every game had to be gritty and bleak.  

Niche Plays: Minecraft Story Mode Episode 6

I can hear you all exclaim “You wrote that amazing preview in Niche's Christmas edition but now you've skipped 5 episodes!” well, I'm giving "Episode 6: Portal into Mystery" this edition of Niche Plays as it can easily be played as a stand-alone episode. (Although you will need to purchase at least Episode 1 to be able to play this but I know the season passes for PlayStation are currently on sale.)

The series handles a lot like other Telltale games, an evolution of point and click adventures with a focus on making your own story, all set in the

familiar world of Minecraft.

This episode starts with our heroes entering a new dimension, to be immediately invited to a gathering at a large creepy mansion. What follows is basically Danganronpa for kids, a crazy, intense murder mystery involving major Minecraft YouTubers; Captain Sparklez, Stampy, Dan TDM, StacyPlays, and LD Shadowlady.

There's nothing quite like this. The choices this time don't seem as major or as plot altering, but if you happen to have kids that are big fans of these YouTubers then to them this is going to be like taking part in a major blockbuster movie alongside your favourite god-tier actors.

I was joined on this adventure by my 6 year old and he was on the edge of his seat the entire time, seeing some of his favourite characters put in harms way, not knowing what would happen next and possibly being responsible for their safety... It's going to be one of those gaming memories I hold on to. This episode does speak to a more specific audience but despite the odd graphical hiccup and variable voice acting skills of the YouTube guest stars, this was an enjoyable experience particularly with a young side-kick along for the ride.

Niche Plays: Valkyria Chronicles Remastered

I'm free from the pages of Niche: Treat Your Geek and terrorising the internets. "Niche Plays" is my way of sharing what I'm playing/thinking as and when it happens and maybe I'll rope in some other Nichelings along the way. This isn't intended as a review, in fact it may come across as more of a love letter...

This week I've been playing Valkyria Chronicles: Remastered. Originally this anime styled blend of action, strategy and RPG genres released 8 years ago for PS3, it didn't receive the recognition it deserved, I'm hoping this PS4 release can change that.

Despite the remaster not being a massive upgrade, the slight boost to graphics over the PC version along with 1080p at a smooth 60fps, trophy support and all the old DLC mean I couldn't ask for more. Graphically the game has aged really well thanks to it's simple but uniquely beautiful hand drawn and water-coloured graphics. I'll throw in some images but I can't do justice to how good it looks and the art style really shines in some of the cutscenes. It's also worth mentioning the soundtrack as it is just as memorable and finely crafted.

I'm enjoying the game just as much as the first time, the story is an emotional and engaging mix of grown up themes (like racism and the realities of war), with magic, fantasy and tales of friendship. There's no gore but thanks to the gameplay and the possibility of perma-death for your squad members, deaths still have weight. There is even a moment that I'd put up there with one of the most iconic scenes in an RPG ever... but that way lies spoilers.You'll find you'll make extra effort to rescue downed team-mates in-game too thanks to the efforts taken to make sure they each have a personality. This personality extends to traits that affect their stats in certain situations. I have a "klutz" on my team that occasionally loses their grenade, some members that can see better in the dark and others that fancy their fellow soldiers and so try harder when they are near in an attempt to impress them.

The gameplay has been described as part overhead turn-based strategy, part RPG, and part real-time 3rd person shooter. The closest thing I can think of is PS1 classic "Hogs of War" or  Worms 3D but good. It captures the patient strategising you might be looking for but gives you a direct connection to the action and your soldiers. It also has some of the stats and character levelling/equipping of an RPG which gives you a lot of freedom on how to beat a mission or customise your squad.

It would be fair to mention some problems at this point. A lot of the story takes place in a visual novel format with almost expressionless faces delivering lines of text (fully voiced mind) and I cant find an auto skip for the text so I'm spending a lot of time hitting "X" to progress. The only other problem I have is that the aiming controls are a bit clunky and could have done with an update as part of the remaster, lining up headshots is just more finicky than I would like.

I'm in love with this game, the story, gameplay, art and music all come together to form one of the best and most unique strategy experiences on console and it's currently less than £20 at some online retailers. The pacing and tactical gameplay might not be for everyone but if there's a chance you'll fall for this like I have and it sounds remotely like something you'd enjoy then it's well worth a try.

Does this sound like something you'd play? Do you remember the original release? If you have any other thoughts or questions then let me know in the comments.