Clearing Out My Backlog: Horizon: Zero Dawn

Much has been written about Horizon being overshadowed by Breath of the Wild, which released one week after Guerilla Games' robot dinosaur hunting simulator. I remember going back to HZD after sinking about a months' worth of time into BotW and being shocked by one major addition Zelda made to the open world formula: being able to free climb anything, anywhere.

I have just now, this morning, in fact, completed the main storyline in Horizon after dabbling in it for a year and a half. With God of War fresh in my mind, I found myself reluctantly comparing Horizon to another game again. Whereas Breath of the Wild blew the doors off open world game design in general, God of War has done a similar feat with character-driven, linear stories.

Horizon's story is great on paper, though the execution stumbles due to the limitations of the technology. While the game looks stunning, character animation in cutscenes is stiff. Aside from Aloy and Sylens, played by veterans Ashly Burch and Lance Reddick, the performances are pretty weak. Horizon also slams headfirst into my biggest complaint with open world games: their pacing.

I don't mean gameplay pace, which in Horizon is pretty excellent: giving you a steady drip of new combat options which slowly build your confidence to tackle bigger and badder enemies. The pace of the story is all over the place due to the game's fragmented, scattered design. Because players can take hours, days, or (as in my case) months to get from one story beat to the next, there is a sense of disconnect between the Aloy you are controlling and the Aloy that appears in the cutscenes. The game also, thankfully, refuses the rush you, so even with the world at stake, if you want to spend weeks hunting for collectibles, you are free to do so.

God of War handles this nicely, in having Atreus encourage you to explore when there is time to explore, and the truly ridiculous amount of incidental dialogue between Kratos, Atreus, and Mimir filling in backstory or Atreus literally asking the two older men what the hell is going on.

Aloy doesn't really have that, even in Sylens, who is an exposition machine more often than not. So the story, although definitely on the high end in terms of video game narrative, is hamstrung by being bolted onto a game with few limits or constraints. I believe limitations are a necessity in creating meaningful art. There are plenty of great filmmakers, Christopher Nolan and Darren Aronofsky off the top of my head, who made a name for themselves with a tight budget, who drown in their ambitions once the studios give them a blank cheque. You can, and I did, garner a lot of pride from watching Aloy grow from a precocious young outsider to the confident, heroic saviour of Meridian, but the impact is lessened than it would be if it was delivered in a more concise way.

Maybe it's because I blitzed God of War in less than a week, but I do think the writers found a good way of keeping the story relevant and interesting throughout its entire length. God of War's story is also quite a bit simpler than Horizon's, for the latter is really telling two stories at once: the struggle against the machines in both the present and the distant past. It would make for a killer 8-to-10-episode series, but stretched across dozens of hours (My final time ended up being something like 45 hours) certain moments feel thinner than they should. Assassin's Creed has always had this problem, it's definitely one I've felt in Origins which I plan on finishing this week as well.

I'll be interested to see how Incomniac's upcoming Spider-man handles this. If they play it safe or if they, too, found a solution like Sony Santa Monica did with GoW. Looking further ahead, we'll see if Red Dead Redemption 2 can tackle Rockstar's pacing problem.

One Game at a Time: God of War (2018) - Updated August 25

Putting Octopath Traveler on the shelf for a bit as the repetition is getting to me. I wanted to dive into God of War before the flood of fall releases. I'm hoping to blitz through it this week while my girlfriend is out of town, then turn my attention to my backlog (AC: Origins, Horizon, Evil Within 2) before Spider-Man hits on Sept. 7.

We'll see how that goes.

But, for now: God of War. This game doesn't need much of an introduction: videos of game director Cory Barlog weeping at the review scores (Which is actually a great metaphor for the game's main theme, but I'll get to that) popped up once it was clear this was going to be one of the PS4's biggest games of the year and one of the better games of 2018 in general. I've always had a passing appreciation of the franchise. Although I bought a PS3 late in the cycle, I never dove too far into the series other than playing it at friends' houses. The series main hook of "Major asshole kills everyone" shouldn't work as well as it does, but the consistently high-quality gameplay and incredible spectacle elevated its heavy metal album cover premise.

It got me thinking about the Sony/Microsoft argument. Sony's exclusives are of a vastly superior quality to Microsoft's, judging by review scores, though they tend to be 3rd person character action games, like Horizon, Uncharted, and now God of War. While both companies have tried to 'mature' their franchises recently: Halo 4 and 5 attempted to inject a pathos and emotional heart into Master Chief and I guess Gears of War is trying to be a family story? But both of these efforts fell flat. It's very similar to the Marvel/DC cinematic schism: Sony's putting a lot of money and care into giving creators a lot of freedom to take their time, make the games they want, and take risks in their storytelling. Microsoft seems to just be throwing buzzwords like "gritty" and "emotional" at stuff and seeing what sticks.

So God of War hits and it immediately reminds me of Horizon, in its ancient folklore feel, its wintery deciduous locale, and its strong lead character. I was really surprised that this isn't a reboot: you're playing the same Kratos, the Spartan warrior turned God of War, who impaled Zeus and killed all the Olympian gods. He's got the same ashen skin, the scar through his eye, the hideous pucked gash where Zeus impaled him at the beginning of the second game. I'm not up on my lore, so I don't know if GOW3 ended with Kratos going into exile, but in exile he is: your default armor is all "...of the exile" or "exile's ..." there is even an early wink at his forearms, which have been covered in bandages and whose info panel in the inventory reads "...hide a dark secret."

For the size of Kratos and how close in the camera is, similar to Resident Evil 4's claustrophobic OTS angle, I was surprised how fluid Krato's movement is. I expected him to handle a bit heavier but he's quite nimble. He's not as loose as Kiryu/Majima from Yakuza 0 but he's not as deliberate as Senua, from Hellblade. Hellblade is another game that I keep thinking of while playing God of War. There are similar themes of guilt and redemption, and the dark fantasy twisting of Norse mythology is close as well, though God of War is a lot more of a video game than Hellblade: you collect health gems and upgrade your armour and weapons and unlock new skills.

The combat is fantastic and gets steadily more complicated as you go, unlocking new abilities for you and your son, Atreus. All the options can be overwhelming in busy fights, but the game strikes a great balance between being an unstoppable killing machine and running into brick walls of stronger enemies.

Atreus is not just a useful tool in combat. He is maybe the best character representation of a game's theme I've ever seen. He takes the role of Elizabeth in Bioshock: Infinite and builds on it. He's a kid: at times annoying, inquisitive, charming, funny, and moody. He's also got to spend all his time with Kratos, probably the saltiest motherfucker in video games, and their dynamic is incredibly well written and performed. 

I have no idea how far in the story I am, but I've almost filled out the skill tree and I've hit an obviously major milestone in the story. However, there is still a ton to do and see, so I'm expecting another curveball to be thrown at me. The game has already introduced an entirely new combat mechanic during an incredibly effective emotional moment which proved I was maybe a bigger fan of this series than I thought I was.

Update: The End and New Game +

No surprise, but God of War stays as strong through its final few hours as it is in its first. This is one of the very few games that I have bothered to chase down all the collectibles and minor quests. (The only game I've ever 100%ed is South Park: The Stick of Truth.) While I didn't actually 100% God of War, because killing all of those ravens isn't worth my time and I'm not interested in grinding through the Rogue-like realm of Nifelheim, I came very close.

The story wraps up very nicely and the final twist is great mostly because it was staring you in the face the whole time. I won't spoil anything but I will lay it out for you as clearly as the game does from the get-go: the antagonist is Baldur, who is a God, and Kratos has a bit of habit of killing Gods, and if you know anything about Norse mythology you know what happens when someone kills Baldur. There is some play with time right at the end that is handled really nicely.

This new GoW does the same "all the Gods are assholes" dance as the previous ones, but the storytelling has matured so much. While the game stops short of introducing the two major players of Norse mythology, Odin and Thor, despite giving Mimir a ton of dialogue building them up as murderous, ambitious psychos, this is clearly the set-up for a new series. The ending-ending, triggered after you walk all the way back to your humble house and go to sleep, sets up the next installment perfectly.

So last week they introduced a New Game Plus mode, which is usually not my bag as I actually like being under-powered at the beginning and getting stronger as I go, and I got my fill of the fully powered combat system by closing all the Rifts, completing the Muspelheim trials, and beating all the Valkyries before the ending. New Game Plus does add some new items to find and craft for both Kratos and Atreus, but I played the prologue and was satisfied. Blitzing the game in a week was plenty and, though I expect I'll play it again someday, that won't be for a while.

I actually wish I had held off on the Valkyries until the story was over because the final boss of the main story is a cakewalk compared to the Valkyrie Queen, who is one of the toughest bosses I've ever fought in a game like this. I had serious flashbacks to fighting Alma in Ninja Gaiden, my very first "hard game."

Anyway, yeah, God of War is spectacular and well worth a purchase if you have a PS4. With Red Dead Redemption 2 looming on the horizon it's a bit early to call this a definite Game of the Year, but Rockstar is going to have to step up their storytelling big time if they hope to grab me the way this journey did and, based on their previous efforts, I'm not optimistic. Sitting here at the end of August and looking ahead, I can't see anything topping God of War's story before the end of the year, not just in terms of the quality of the writing and acting, but in how the storytelling synergizes with the gameplay, the world building, and the exploration. I've written a lot about 40+ hour video games having pacing problems and God of War comes closest to addressing or even negating them. That may be a side effect of me playing it exclusively for ten days, but even the fact that I was happy to do so speaks volumes.

One Game at a Time: Octopath Traveler

Approximate Time Played: 10 hours (Not including pre-release demos)

System: Switch

Thoughts:

I didn't play any of the "big" 16-bit RPGs in their time. I had a PC and my friend had a SNES, later a PS1, so my experience with most of the 90s classics was through him. I would either watch him play most games or we would trade the controller back and forth.  While I most fondly remember playing FF7, being as how it was the biggest game on the planet the year it came out, I spent a lot of time watching Matt play Chrono Trigger.

While Octopath is much closer to FF6 than Chrono, the sensibilities of the Square RPGs of the time are ubiquitous and their presence in Octopath is so obvious that it's easy to take them for granted. Octopath has random battles that take place on a "battle screen" like FF6 but instead of a huge overworld, there is more of a "dungeon tunnel" feel like Chrono: You move between towns into enemy-infested exploration areas, each of which is labelled with a "Danger Level" warning you as to the strength of the monsters within.

So is Octopath a marriage made in heaven between the two great Square RPGs of the 90s? Not at all and the differences are both to its benefit and detriment.

Of course, the game looks amazing. The decision to tilt the perspective of the world, from the classic top-down, slightly isometric view to a tilt-shift look with a heavy depth of field effect, gives the game a gorgeous dreamlike quality. The character sprites strike a cute balance from an almost chibi style for the heroes to the big, detailed sprites for the monsters. My favourite touch is the boss monsters, which are all twice the size of the normal monsters, even if they're just humans. The boss of Primrose's story is a big fat guy in a chair with a glass of red wine, and he looks amazing.

Which brings me to the big hook of Octopath: the octo-path. At the beginning of the game, you're given a choice of eight characters to start with. Once you pick your lead character, you are locked into having them at the head of your party, and the others become the NPCs you will recruit as you travel the world. Think of it like Mass Effect, if you could choose between Shepard, Garrus, Tali, or Liara to start with.

Unfortunately, the comparison ends there. Considering all the work that went into creating these 8 characters, most of whom are really well-written and developed, there is almost no interaction between them at all. When my main, Therion, rolls into a new town to meet one of the unchosen PCs, the same thing occurs every time: We play a brief introduction to the new character, often some running around town and talking to NPCs before being sent to a dungeon. At that point, the narrative jumps back to the present, as this new character has run into our party. What follows is simply a single line of dialogue amounting to "So, you'll help me? Great!" and the character joins the party. There is no dialogue between the characters, no need to convince Therion, the self-obsessed thief on a quest to pay off his debts, to gather snakebite venom from a giant viper in a cave. For a game with such lavish detail, such care given to its characters, each one exists in a vacuum and is slammed together in a way that is as purely mechanical as it gets.

I was expecting, with Octopath's focus on character and honouring the greats of the past, for an experience similar to the airship war room debates and family histories of FF6 or the Spielberg-like "friends on a journey" comradery of Chrono Trigger. I was at the very least expecting some incidental dialogue like Baldur's Gate or Pillars of Eternity. Instead, we get something more like Elder Scrolls: the world is just there for you to experience its content, with a certain ludo-narrative dissonance required to get through it all.

So far, having just completed each of the eight introductory stories, the game I'm most reminded of is The Old Republic, the BioWare-developed Star Wars MMO. My first ten hours with Octopath have felt very similar to playing all of the starting areas of Old Republic one after the other, with little to no story connection and the same gameplay loop for every one.

I know that it would have been a lot of work to have unique dialogue for every character to interact with every possible lead character, as well as to have interjections between whoever was travelling with you at the time but... not that much work. We've seen that many, many times, for years, in games with comparable budgets. As much as I'm enjoying my time with the game (The combat is really great, I'll touch on that more next time,) I'm having to stretch my imagination to fill in some of the gaps which, considering the era Octopath is invoking, isn't entirely unwelcome.

Update: After 14 hours

I've just completed Part 2 of Primrose's story after having previously completed Part 2 of my main man Therion's story a few days ago.

Pretty much immediately after publishing my last thoughts, the game opened up in a few surprising ways. Each Part 2 story quest has a recommended level attached to it but it was far above Therion, who will always be higher level than the rest of the party because he's locked in there. I was afraid this meant I had reached the dreaded 'grinding' phase of the JRPG, though I have issues with that term. It also proved to not be the case.

I have often heard fans of the old JRPGS lament the grind period, where you're forced to dash around the overworld looking for fights to get your level up before you can fight the next boss. Western RPGs often avoid this with sidequests or level scaling, so I have never really experienced this problem. For the JRPGs I've played the most (FF6, 7, & 15, and Chrono Trigger) I assumed I'd never gotten far enough in any of them to need to grind. Now I'm thinking that grinding is a misnomer.

I made a decision last year, around the time I decided to switch to the one game at a time model, to do as many sidequests as I could, with exceptions. I'm not big on crafting or collecting useless items, for example, but I'd do my best to see as much story content as possible. I picked some good titles to practice this with, namely Assassin's Creed: Origins and Yakuza 0, which feature side quests that seem worthy of the character and player's time and are fun to do. Breath of the Wild also has excellent sidequests that are worth completing. There's an argument to be made that BotW is all sidequests, I suppose, considering you can run right to the final boss from the moment you leave the tutorial area.

Part of this decision included not using fast travel. If I like a game enough to play it for more than a few hours, I like it enough to soak up the world, to treat it like an experience, and not just blast through it checking items off a list. I call the latter "Playing the UI" because the graphics, animations, sound, & music are all incidental, running the background to the climbing progress bars and increasing numbers. It seems a lot of people in the critical space play this way, a side-effect of deadlines and games critique as buyers guide. Octopath has a generous fast travel system, you can warp to any visited town, but I opted not to use it.

Crucially, while I arrived at Therion's Part 2 still four levels below the recommended level of 22, I was tasked with some errands in town in what has identified itself as the 'main story mission loop' of Octopath. While none of these tasks give XP, they do present lots of opportunities to gain items. Once you do enter the dungeon, while your party is underlevelled, the challenge is not insurmountable and the enemies give lots more XP than they do in the wild. By the time I reached the boss, I was still only 21, but the fight was the right amount of challenge.

Also new is the discovery of secondary jobs, allowing your characters to multiclass. This has made Alfyn, my Apothecary, much more useful as he is now also a Cleric, giving him potent all-heals for the party along with his base class' buffs/debuffs. I have also made Primrose a Scholar, giving her access to four different elemental spell types which target all enemies. She's a beast at taking out groups of weak monsters.

The stories are good, too, Primrose's is a pretty basic revenge quest but it's well written. The environments continue to stun (I was just in a snowy landscape cloaked in perpetual twilight and sparkling ice that was particularly breathtaking.) The 'dungeon tunnel' overworld I mentioned has opened up: both the areas leading to the Part 2 towns were much larger and wider than the beginning areas.