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.

Final Fantasy XV: Review Follow-Up

Niche: Treat Your Geek Issue 15 is out now and includes our Final Fantasy special. You may have read our Final Fantasy XV review. After 10 years of development I had a lot to say about the game so here's a few extra thoughts that didn't make it into the review.

Remake

The Final Fantasy VII remake is still in development and I can see it picking up a lot of cues from FFXV, I'm imagining a playable version of FF7: Advent Children! I'd be ok with that, I'd expect more control over your party and can you imagine the work needed to create the entire world in one map? I'm not sure how this would fit with the episodic release schedule, but it would give Square Enix time to work on the much more open later stages of the game.

Photo Time

One standout feature of this new roadtrip sub-genre that FFXV has created: Prompto and his camera. He basically takes automatic screenshots for you and lets you review them each time you camp or rest. You can then save these to the album as a record of your journey; your first hunt, that girl you like, that time you accidentally set fire to a bunch of giraffe like creatures... He can take some memorable, beautiful and epic photo's but he's also a master of terrible photos we all take... although usually by accident (see the related blog post for examples!). It's important to save the best ones so you can flick back through them and remember your journey. You can also use the console's screenshot feature to save any other amusing shots but you can only save 150 ingame.

The Infamous Chapter 13

No story spoilers but this is the section that a few players are unhappy with, the game has become more linear, cut off from the open world, for the last few chapters and then hits you with a stealth section, swaps up the combat and replaces rolling hills with grey corridor- attempting and failing at survival horror in the process. You might find the story skips and jumps a little here but the details are there if you look for them, it might mean finding radios and newspapers hidden in the environment or it might mean watching the tie in movie and anime. Either way there are plans to patch in more story to this chapter. Oh and if you have enough ethers you can cut out some of the frustration of trying to stealth your way through and just destroy everything. The darker tone is important but it does drag out a little more than I'd have liked, the ending chapters make up for it with plenty of atmosphere,  impressive graphics and some pulse racing battles so hang in there.

The Regalia

It’s shiny that you can customise the regalia but I’m reluctant to spend my hard-earned on cosmetics when other items  are rather expensive, saying that I’ve probably spent more on ingredients and fishing gear than I have on weapons so it’s completely your choice.

Honourable Mention

Final Fantasy playing to it's strengths, anti-hero dragoon by the name of Highwind. Aranea was my favourite supporting character.

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.