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outofoxygen · 5 years

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NEW - A nice game for cute children.

Before I begin: This review is more professional than my last (Elsewhere) as I feel NEW deserves my respect and consideration more than Elsewhere ever has. Now then, I shall review NEW.

By the way, yes, I am back. I will work on more reviews. But I won’t follow a schedule that is easy to understand in any vague sense, and I’ll just write reviews about what interests me at the minute. (Quick after-post edit to add tags here.)

[ S P O I L E R S F O R N E W ]

[ P L A Y N E W I F Y O U H A V E N ‘ T ]

Part One: Foreword

Oh boy, a new form of padding. Now then, to preface this, I will warn you that I do enjoy NEW, and that I don’t wish its creator ill will, I afford them all proper respect, and I’m not going to talk about Mr. Evan Vasejeff (The creator of NEW).

Part Two: Plot Synopsis

The Batter is back, this time as a Prophet instead of a savior. This time, he has the goal of rendering all the Zones ‘safe’ instead of ‘pure’.

Zone 0 introduces us to Valerie, who is written better than HOME. I’ll write further about him in the Characters section. After a few puzzles, we head off to Zone 1.

Zone 1 is mostly similar to OFF, except Dedan is missing and replaced by a overweight idiotic chef. This chef (named Gabriel) is introduced to be malevolent and idiotic from his first appearance, all the way to his last, where you render him into a bloody corpse.

Zone 2 turned into a more pathetic hellscape than usual, with the nice aesthetic addition of a Japhet corpse on the roof. By the way, the Mall looks beautiful awful now. The game introduces a red herring (Oedipus, a little girl whom The Batter ends up beating to hell and back) before you meet the final villain, Angela, an insane spirit infesting a mannequin that The Batter summarily destroys.

Zone 3 is this time played backwards, with The Batter going from Area 4 to a mythical Area 0. All the while, you are pestered by Sonovan, an odd-talking priest and general narcissist, who eventually fights The Batter, is beaten, quickly jacks up Valerie (just play the game if you want to understand this better), then gets killed by The Batter, who mercy-kills Valerie at his own request. You then go and defeat Gazmel, who is, in his own words, Satan.

Zone 4 (or, The Echelon) is a miserable hellscape that is actually just a part of The Room, maybe. You meet ‘Vincent “Ivius” Corsacoff the 2nd’, who I shall permanently refer to as ‘Ivius’, as his actual name is incredibly long and annoying. So you head onto a roof, where you talk to Ivius, going on to fight him, before inevitably winning, and going to The Room itself.

Of course, The Room is a strange mindnumb I won’t be going into too much, as I feel like getting this poor-quality plot synopsis over with.

Part 3: Characters

The Batter - As I mentioned, he’s a prophet instead of purifier. His goal is to make the zones ‘safe’ instead of ‘pure’, and he seems to be more mellowed out now. On occasion, he interrupts himself before carrying on with a thought (ie. he comments upon Oedipus’ mention of comics named ‘Batteur and Boxxer’ by stating “What kind of trite do you read? "Panic in Ballvile" is obviously-” before cutting himself short and carrying on the dialogue.) and generally, The Batter seems altogether more.. human than before. Other than that, he is mostly the same character as before, and still a bat-wielding protagonist.

Valerie - The cat we (don’t really) know from OFF. I can state something about NEW’s characterization of Valerie: It was executed very well! Mortis Ghost has stated that Valerie was more soft-spoken and shy than The Judge, and NEW does indeed follow through with Mortis Ghost’s stated character of Valerie. He comes across as a shy, introverted, socially awkward cat, and that altogether works very well for him. He’s also the new Guardian of Zone 0.

Zacharie - I’ll say more in the Merchants category.

The Judge - Our favorite, eloquent cat! .. except, he’s taken Hugo’s place. Also, unlike Hugo, he’s not that nice. Or innocent, really. He’s become corrupt with absolute power over the world, and as such, has used his raw powers of creation to muck about, creating demonic feline entities known as Jury, which replace Secretaries in NEW. Of course, the implications of this are quite large in scope, and will take up a portion of the Lore section.

Part 4: Music

I will state this immediately: This fangame has some incredible tracks. These include: My personal favorite, Awesome Miniboss, Crying Girls Part 1-2 (which are actually samples of Is Dancing Till Her Head Explodes, from Alias Conrad Coldwood’s album Crying Girls), Dented Helmets on TV, Stay in in Stay (A remix of Stay In Your Coma), and Funky Bucket of Nasty Noises, among plenty others. Its soundtrack complements the game, and it’d be an incredible mistake to play it without listening to its excellent tracks. One warning for headphone users though: the miss sound is awful, and it’s rather loud in comparison to the other sounds.

Part 5: Basic Enemies

The enemies in this game are well-designed, with inventive competence names and lovely art. They’re well-made, and this fangame clearly had a lot of care put into it. However, I have never had to grind so much in my life. The enemies are rather harsh, and you will suffer. Before anyone tosses an ‘git gud’ in my face, I did. After a while, The Batter will be so high-leveled that bosses fall in a heartbeat against his bat’s blows and his add-on’s.. cuts(?). Now then, on to the next section.

Part 6: Merchants

I think everyone reading this knows of my distaste, my violent hatred of fangames using Zacharie as a merchant? So, who is the merchant of NEW?

.. this guy. Zacharie. But, just look at his face. Look at that face. I.. I can’t be mad. To be honest, I found this incredibly amusing. I simply cannot be mad. His face.. It’s absolutely hilarious. Zacharie is absolutely ridiculous in this fangame, and I cannot be as vitriolic as usual. Sorry.

Carrying on, I almost feel like NEW mocks Zacharie in a way; outside the mall, there are two statues of Zacharie with his mask as how it originally looked. What does The Batter have to say about this? “A statue of Zacharie when he looked less pathetic.” All throughout the game, The Batter insults Zacharie. Here’s another line of this, as an example: “I'm tired of this wild goose chase. I've went through one too many things. One of those horrific things being friends with Zacharie.” Finally, Zacharie repainted the mall an awful pink color, which The Batter is clearly disgusted by, including making a comment about Zacharie having poor taste.

Altogether, I feel like NEW uses Zacharie in a way that I can’t be mad at.

Part 7: Lore

NEW takes place after the events of OFF. The Batter returns, and fights 4 Purifiers instead of 4 Guardians, and it seems the original 3 are dead. The world is a corrupted shade of a corrupted world; it is broken to the point of being unable to be fixed. One actually gets the sense that The Batter is righting wrongs, and fixing the world.

But, let’s talk about the position Hugo filled, and that The Judge fills. In the events of NEW, The Batter is looking for The Judge as he makes the Zones ‘safe’. It turns out The Judge has taken up the mantle of Creator and God, and has become corrupted by his new-found power. Which implies quite a few.. unpleasant ideas. If the power Hugo had can corrupt someone with as pure intentions as The Judge, was Hugo also corrupt? If NEW’s idea of how the next Creator takes power (basically, how The Judge offs The Batter) is correct, does that mean any number of individuals could become Creators in their own right, merely by killing The Batter at the apex of his quest?

But let us leave behind these thoughts, and carry on; we are nearly at the end, and I have more reviews to do.

Part 8: Does This Game Fit In With OFF?

Yes. I hold NEW as my personal pick for an unofficial OFF sequel, and I am proud in that. Its lore doesn’t contradict OFF’s; in fact, it follows the lore as closely as possible, and its lore, whilst small, is worthwhile to notice and consider. I believe that it adds on to OFF’s weird world.

Part 9: Conclusion

I hold this fangame in high esteem. I view it as an example of what one person, with naught but a computer and a dream, can achieve. In the end, though, I suppose NEW asks us a question. A very important one, and one I’ll state directly.

Would you like to start a new game?

#NEW #off fangame #off #a review

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dlamp-dictator · 6 years

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Allen’s End of the Year Rambling: Fighting Games

So now we get to the part of my End of the Year Rambling where I actually Ramble. This... this is gonna’ be a long one, and I haven’t even gotten to the RPGs yet... Lord help when I do.

So yes, video games. I can’t just talk about everything in one go, I’ve played so much, played too much to be honest. So for the sake of my sanity I’ll be breaking this into genres, starting with fighting games.

I’ll be honest here, I’m not the best at fighting games. As much as I love a lot of the characters, as much as I enjoy writing lyrics to the character themes and fanfics for the lesser known fighting games, I really couldn’t play at a competitive level for my life. My best game is Blazblue, and I can barely keep a 10% win rate on rank.

No, my love of fighting games comes from the aesthetics and the animations.

Fighting games just tend to look very pretty in motion, and as someone that loves action and shounen and all that, games like these are right up my alley in terms of hitting those aesthetics. I don’t mind trying to learn how to play the game, but... well, “Git Gud” is a phrase that will forever haunt me for a reason.

But yeah, I gave just about everything a shot as far as fighting games go this year. I played 2D fighters, 3D fighters, Brawlers, Side-Scrolling Beat-Em-Ups, and so on. If it went on sale on PSN or Steam, I tried it out. So here are some of the highlights and my general thoughts on some of these games.

So first I gotta’ talk about Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2, Blazblue’s older brother in a way. I’m not gonna’ lie, my opinion of Guilty Gear is a tad... negative due to a lot of Guilty Gear fans putting down on Blazblue fans in the early years of Blazblue’s rising as a fighting game. I know I shouldn’t let that color my view of the game, but it does make it harder to make posts like this, and I can’t help but compare so many things in terms of characters and aesthetics. I tried a bit of Xrd when it came out, the original Xrd back in 2014. I mainly played Chipp and Ramlethal, then mostly Ramlethal since she was a bit easier than Chipp (online anyway). I liked a lot the visuals and animations, it was a bit grittier than Blazblue, and had a much easier story to follow despite being the 3rd (major) game in the series than the time-traveling, multi-dimensional, quantum-mechanical science-meets-magic craziness that was Blazblue. Hell, the voice casting was actually pretty good, even if it felt like they used literally 10 voice actors at times (I swear every English voice actor was playing at least 2 characters). I put it down after awhile and went back to Blazblue and Under Night In-Birth.

What brought me back to Guilty Gear was actually Answer, and not Baiken to everyone’s surprise. As much as I love samurais and tough girls, Answer hit every single Ninja aesthetic I could ask for in the world of Guilty Gear. His suit, his style, how he talks on the phone while he fights, his theme, oh lord, his theme. I bought Rev 2 with every intent on Maining him.

Then I realized I had to learn how his scrolls worked to do that, and went right back to maining Ram.

As far as the story of Rev 2 goes, I... I really don’t care for it. I honestly didn’t bother with it after chapter 2. And honestly, it was because this game didn’t get dubbed.

Yeah... sorry if I’m bringing up an old point of complaint, but when games have visual novel-style cutscenes, or a CG movie in the case of Guilty Gear, to showcase their story I’d really prefer a dub. It’s just easier for me personally to follow the information a bit more. The Japanese voice actors sound fine, and I do prefer Ramlethal’s Japanese voice as a oppose to Erin Fitzgerald if I’m being frank, but... I need a dub for these kinds of story scenes, hearing it in a language I understand helps me. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between, and I’m especially not cutting Guilty Gear a break because of that. The only reason I tolerated it in Blazblue is because it was the finale to Ragna’s story, and I was personally invested in Ragna’s character after 3 games. Sol and the cast of Guilty Gear... don’t get that advantage with me since was my first time really caring about the story. I played a bit of Guilty Gear XX beforehand, but not enough to care.

In terms of how it plays, it’s fine. Personally, I think Guilty Gear is way more strict with inputs. You can’t just fumble around with joystick and expect to combo into a DP like in Blazblue, you need to be accurate. You also have to account for close and far-ranged normals like with Slash and Heavy Slash. Guilty Gear is... just a different animal for me. A more strategic and precise one that punishes mistakes heavily.

I do like a lot about it though. It’s music definitely surpasses Blazblue in terms of quality, my favorites of the Rev 2 track is One Dawn, Dizzy’s theme, and Enough is Enough, Answer’s theme. I’m... trying get lyrics together for those songs, but... eh, it’ll take some times.

Next up, we’ve got Street Fighter 5. Admittedly, I’m not a huge fan of the Street Fighter series, but I do like a handful of character in the sense of aesthetics. Makoto and Ibuki are my favorites, but yeah, I actually bought this game since it was real cheap at the time and I wanted to see if I could actually get into it despite it’s focus on competitive play. I heard this game wasn’t for those looking for a single-player experience, but I needed to see that for myself.

And man, this game is actually tough. Sorry, for the sudden segue, but mechanics of Street Fighter so different to the fast-pace style of an ASW fighter. Doing combos is so hard for me. I know Guilty Gear was tough and punished mashing, but Street Fighter is so much slower paced with how you need to approach it. This game does not want you to button mash for combos. Like, at all. In fact, the main reason I like Ibuki so much is because she one of the few characters who has a handful of combos that you can mash. You need to time things carefully, and that makes things a nightmare for me in netplay sometimes.

But, back to my time with the game. I know I’m beating a dead horse with this critique, but the lack of a true arcade mode or any really single-player experience outside of Survival Mode really bugs me. As someone that isn’t good on a competitive level, nor has an interest in the competitive scene of Street Fighter, I feel like there’s nothing keeping me around. Maybe I could find a group of beginners like me and just pal around with them and improve, but... I don’t know, I don’t think it’s worth it.

In terms of good things about this game, I like the presentation very much. We can... talk about character models and their hair another time, but I like a lot of the outfits and style of the characters. Certain outfits I just had to get for the aesthetics of them. Like I said before, Street Fighter has aesthetics, but... not much outside that is keeping me playing it. Eh, maybe I write a fanfic about the series, who knows?

Alright, next is something I was meaning to get to for awhile, King of Fighters 14. Between this and Street Fighter, I much prefer this one. The inputs took me a minute to get use to, realizing that special inputs could be combined into super inputs and all that, but I like the combo system in this game. I find it a little faster paced than Street Fighter, but not as fast as something like Blazblue. It’s a nice middle ground given my experiences, something I’d be willing to stick a little bit more time into.

I had to uninstall this due to... certain events happening this year with my PS4, but I’m hoping to buy a physical copy of this game at some point in 2018 and try this out in earnest. My favorite characters to use were Mian, Luong, and Mui Mui. I messed around a little with Alice and Vanessa too at the time before... the event. I’m just hoping there’s still a community afterwards when I get this game later.

And last one my fighting game highlights, I tried to get into Tekken 7. I really tried too, but there’s just a lot that’s dissuading me from it. Much like Street Fighter, I feel like the focus was on online and competitive play instead of making a single player experience. Story mode I didn’t care much for since I’m apathetic to Tekken’s storyline as a whole. Arcade mode... is barely there. There’s Treasure battle, but it doesn’t feel like much of a game there. Honestly, I think Tekken 6 was a little better at this. I feel like a lot of previous fighting game titles did more for the single player experience to be honest. I mean, it’s fine if they want to focus on multiplayer and online,but that just didn’t keep my attention. I’m not really interested in reaching a higher tier of playing a fighting game unless we’re talking about Blazblue and Under Night In Birth.

Now if there’s one good thing I can say about Tekken, it’s the animations. If there’s any reason I get 3D fighters, it’s for how fluid all the characters look and move. It’s why I like Virtua Fighter, it’s why I like Dead or Alive, and it’s why I like Tekken. Your character just does cool stuff when playing them, and unlike 2D fighters, it really feels like you’re doing all the crazy martial arts action. Spectacle is probably the main reason I love Tekken so much, and even if I feel this game is lacking, I’ll probably come back to it eventually... eventually.

Honorable Mentions

Blazblue Central Fiction 2.0: I’ll talk about the Blazblue series in depth another time, but I do want to at least finally welcome Jubei to the cast, it’s nice to have you here Cat Person, here’s hoping we can see you in Cross Tag Battle.

Dead or Alive 5: I actually played this a bit more often over this year, not enough to talk about it in depth, but I’ll admit there’s more to this game mechanically than the breast setting... plus I... spend roughly $100 on cute outfits for the girls... hehe... what can I say, I’m a bit of a shameless pervert.

Absolvers: While technically not a fighting game, there’s enough fighting and martial arts in this game for me to give it a quick mention. I liked it well enough, I just wish it ran at a higher frame rate on the PS4 though.

The Plethora of Small-Scale Fighters/Old Re-Releases I Bought This Year: If I talked about all the fighting games I bought and I’d be here all day, so I’ll just list them off here.

Brawlhalla

Chaos Code New Sign of Catastrophe

Garou: Mark of the Wolves

The Last Blade

Melty Blood

Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena

Arcana Heart 3 Love Max Six Stars

And that’s it for fighting games. Again, I care more about fighting games in terms of aesthetics and animations, something I’ll probably Ramble about in the future, but for now... I’ll see you all when I talk about the Fate series... yeah, I’m really hesitating to talk about RPGs guys, just... give me a week at least.

#guilty gear #street fighter #king of fighters #tekken #your dictator is speaking

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