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A Look at Signalis (Spoilers) I heard the name of it, I looked up a trailer, and I was sold. Created by a Rose Engine, a team led by two ladies from Germany, the game released in October of 2022. As of this time, their websites states they’ve been making games since 2014 but the only game I can find by them seems to be Signalis. So if this is indeed their first official release then they’re off to a great start. Styled to appear like a PS1 game, the game is a great homage to classic survival horror of yesteryear, but more so Resident Evil considering the use of the item box. And with the right settings, the game makes use of tank controls and a filter to create the blurriness of an old CRT monitor. I was 5 months late to this new addition to survival horror, but I was glad to experience it. I went the root of tank controls and the CRT filter. This game is effective at delivering tone. Level design is claustrophobic and chilling, the cutscenes accompanied with orchestral scores are haunting, in engine cutscenes carry a sense of dread with the threatening body language of characters, and this is all accentuated with the barely human-looking models obscured by the filter. I was genuinely on edge throughout the experience and I was thankful in a way that a game made me feel something so tangible. If I had any complaints, solving a puzzle or two wasn’t done so by exploration but decoding, but that’s circumvented with the use of a pen and paper handy. Communication can be an issue, such as information a rooms you walk in. The team had a bit of overreliance on darkness to obscure the layout and enemy placements. This can be solved by placing them further away and having them exert an ambient noise rather than them let out a horrible scream because the player dared to nose around. Additionally, the excess amount of enemies in cramped spaces with obstacles to walk around. I understand these games have to have a threat, but so many hallways brought with them the extra problem of having to bait 3 enemies toward you so you could create a window to elude them once they moved enough.

This problem made engaging with the game hard at times, I was stuck at one point because there was a door I hadn’t checked, and I didn’t check it because there was an enemy in my way with another behind me I had to evade. And fighting enemies felt futile cause you have to shoot them, then stomp on them in order to immobilize them, leaving you open to potential damage. To fix the first issue, using a more contrasting white over a subtle gray would better communicate where I haven’t been. As for the former issue, this game could have greatly benefitted from a stalker enemy. Rather than 3 or 4 enemies to fight or flee, Adler could wander the halls with Falke’s spear or some other ranged weapon to torment the player. Final small gripes would include the directional pad not being used for movement which are more reliable than the joystick with tank controls, as well as a yearning for fixed angles. As for the narrative you earn by overcoming these hurdles, it is genuinely charged with emotion, longing to protect love and topped off with a bittersweet end, but one that flickers with a small glow of happiness. Information can trickle very slowly until you have the big picture, but once you have it, it is truly heart wrenching. So I want success for this game, I want the pair to be allowed the opportunity to build on the foundation that Signalis provides and shine with a sequel or spiritual successor.

A Look at Tales of Arise (Spoilers)

I bought this game upon it’s release, I didn’t finish it until a year later. It wasn’t hard, I just failed the test of patience that is this game. Tales of Arise is Namco Bandai’s latest entry into the long running Tales of series after a five year wait since Tales of Berseria in 2016. Improved visuals, improved combat, improved cinematics, a true step into the current generation of consoles. To an extent, this is all true. Character models look good, combat does offer a little bit more dimension than previous entries, cinematics throughout do have a larger sense of scale and stakes. However, with everything that was gained, something was lost. But first, the plot. There are two planets (Rena and Dahna), one is aristocratic and the other is enslaved. You play as an amnesiac slave who’s head is sealed in an iron mask and he feels no pain, he meets a lady who sends pain through people’s bodies with a mere touch but never takes advantage of that during combat. They’re a match made in heaven and go throughout the world to free the slaves, get some party members such as a Lord, a knight, a kung fu goober and a witch; then solve some mysteries. To sum up all of my problems with the story and the characters, there’s a distinct lack of leg work put in to convey struggle, this results in scenes that parade a narrative highpoint or emotional breaking point but instead come off as quick, contained drama.

A prime example of this; the oppressive society enslaving the Dahnans has seemingly no procedures to handle uprisings or the heads of the different houses stand aside because they want the competition eliminated. So dismantling the aristocracy and slavery doesn’t bring with it a sense of triumph as one would hope since the circumstances in hindsight are very much in the protagonist’s favor. And each chunk of story is neatly separated from the rest, there are narrative through lines, such as Law acting as a rejection of his Father’s choices, Rinwell wanting revenge for the death of her parents or Vholran showing up regularly to antagonize or act as a sort of rival character. But, Law’s Dad drama is resolved within the segment he’s introduced; given no time to fester, the motivation for Rinwell’s anger is told instead of shown and is resolved as stereotypically as you can expect from a weak revenge story, and Vholran shows up so sparingly, has so little to contribute and never challenges the protagonist’s views in any way; ultimately failing as a villain and a rival. Then there is Kisara, the loyal guard of Renan Lord Dohalim. Her motivations to be a good person stem from her Brother who comes and goes in single chunk of story. He never does anything particularly interesting or exciting, he dies and Kisara spends the rest of the game talking about her Brother in every side conversation. In theory, this may seem like emotional transparency or opening up to her comrades, but an emotional foundation of nothing is still nothing. And I wish she would shut up about her Brother. Oh, also aliens show up at the butt end of the game, peppered in for a little last minute flavor and razzle dazzle. They didn’t have a whole lot to say or do, they just seem to exist to connect the villains throughout the game to game’s final boss and they’re never mentioned again.

Moving on to combat

It certainly isn’t Devil May Cry, but it could at least be Tales of Berseria. Combos are crude as you switch between basic attacks and the 3 special attacks. It does become monotonous, and the monotony does get accentuated by the lengthy battles since enemies have greater amounts of health than compared to your damage output as you go to each new area. Some boss fights are broken, specifically the ones that spammed desperation attacks. I hated that, but it’s all over now, they can’t hurt me anymore. A little more party customization would have been nice, such as the option of member placement so that they can stay out of the way when enemies are smacking them into the ground; an order telling them to stay back. This was an option in previous games. Lastly, too many particle effects. They can get so intense and take up the view so much that it’s disorienting. On the subject of the maps, they look good but not well designed with a lot of horizontal traversal with little verticallity, but that’s been an issue throughout the 3D Tales games so that issue isn’t exclusive to Arise. And lastly, there are the improved visuals. Environments look great. Character models look better, hair is more elaborate than in past games. Though I’d still debate that there’s a miscommunication between the world building and the character designs. The biggest offender being Alphen, despite the circumstances we find him in when we meet him, the only sign of physical abuse is present on his clothes. He got the light slavery, not a single scar on him. Afterwards, his canon outfits suffer from excessive design, elaborate but lacking in substance. Shionne’s frilly outfit is overly designed in the sense that it’s hardly something to wear on an adventure. And Law…Law’s default outfit is stupid, with his poofy pants and his decorative wolf head. Thankfully, I can change characters into the less distracting outfits, so that circumvents that problem. All in all, I don’t have any love for this game. I found it draining, and when given an opportunity to finish the game instead of fighting 5 cranked up bosses to unlock a fast travel point, I assessed how many healing items I had and tried my luck. I didn’t want to listen to anymore dialogue, everyone in this game speaks in exposition, not once did I feel anyone was having a conversation. This facet was not helped by the stilted delivery of the voice actors, F- for the voice director. There are two, count’em, TWO saving graces to this game. Dohalim, is a character who is most effected by the shifting status quote, he has a character arc, he seeks redemption, he has musical hobbies, he’s like…a good character. With a few tweaks he could be a great character. So I spent my time playing this game wondering; “Why couldn’t this game be about HIM?!”. He was a shining light in the bleakness of this game. Also Hootle, I could never be upset with an owl. In summation, certainly a lot of ingredients in this dish, but none of them are working in tandem. Arise had plots similar to ones I’ve seen in Symphonia and Abyss, but not as good and lacking in emotional nuance. So despite the fact Namco Bandai have seemingly been parading this game around like some kind of triumph, I can only hope they build upon this game like a foundation for future projects. Make a story and script that can lend themselves well to design and performances, resulting in a game that I want to hold close to my heart.

Cause Arise is not that sort of game.

A Look At No More Heroes 3

Good Lord, what happened here?

I was content with No More Heroes 1 and 2. Did I need a sequel? Not necessarily, I’m aware of Suda’s reluctance towards sequels, he likes to work without restrictions. On the other hand, if I’m offered a No More Heroes game, I will accept the No More Heroes game.

The down side, this is a follow up to Travis Strikes Again, more so than it follows up the first 2 games, as far as spirit and tone go.

Starting up NMH3, the player feels right at home. There’s call backs to No More Heroes 1, familiar combat, a new aesthetic and enemies to mow down. You beat Mr. Blackhole, get returned to Santa Destroy, get your motivation and are let out into the world.

The gameplay loop is the standard affair of these games, earn money, pay your way into murdering some bosses. This time around you’ll be murdering aliens from space.

This game made a lot of needless changes.

For one, boss levels are gone, by that I mean there’s no level to fight through enemies until you reach the boss. So I have to fight a boss with undergoing a series of challenges right before hand.

The exception to this was the boss Midori Midorikawa, I liked her spooky stage, it reflected the tone for the boss I was gonna fight and it's regrettable this didn't happen for all bosses.

As for how you gain money, there are jobs sure, but you can get all the money you need just by fighting in qualifying battles around the map, rather than take detours I just ignored most of the game because this was a swifter way to gain money rather than travel and complete jobs while waiting for a timer to run out.

The tone.

Like I said earlier, this game is more directly linked tonally to Travis Strikes again. In the first two No More Heroes games, inspirations were considerably more dialed back. Travis had conventional moves, and nods to Suda’s film inspiration were conveyed with nuance. 1 and 2 were essentially Tarantino movies with spikes of over the top science fiction here and there. Here, everything is a bit more incoherent, tangents happen so fast that it throws off my immersion.

In recent years, Suda put out Travis Strikes Again, a top down arcade style game acting as a series of video game references and television references. Suda is far more blatant with how he references things though gameplay and level design. I felt the changes were justified because this wasn’t a direct sequel and a bridge to NMH3. Understanding that, I embraced the different levels and abrupt gameplay shifts. The game justified the clashing levels with it’s premise of fighting inside a video game console.

NMH3 is bigger and louder, designs for enemies and bosses are considerably outrageous. This philosophy isn’t bad on paper, but for No More Heroes it overshadows the familiar trappings and creates a tone so foreign. This sort of tone could work for it’s own game, but a 3rd main installment in a series just doesn’t feel like the place to experiment to this extent.

Then there’s the combat, it’s stiff, a bit unintuitive and includes a jump that gets in the way more than it can help.

NMH2 had a smooth means of eliminating problems down, animations were clear and well communicated and the camera would shift to the side of Travis and his enemy so you could see what you were doing despite the camera being so close. In NMH3, I’d often times lose track of what I was doing as I was distracted by all the flying effects on top of enemy actions being poorly communicated.

The only way to bottle neck the fighting is to invest into the Death Glove; slowing down and throwing around enemies when necessary. It helps, but I came to solely rely on it to cull problems since the beam katanas upgrades where limited to simply powering it up. You can’t choose between different types of katanas, you’re stuck with the one and have to make do.

Outside of combat, you’ll be driving around the world map on the Schepeltiger. This was truly the straw that broke my back. There was this fun trick you could do in NMH1 where you could boost for as long as you wanted, and simply had to have the reaction time to break and drift. You could drift in whichever direction you wanted and could rush into the desired direction. In 3, you can neither drift as you want or boost for as long as you want. If I had to guess, the reason for limiting the boost was to avoid over-taxing the game, as the rendering of the environment is a slower this time around.

Which leads me into my next point.

The game isn’t finished and un-optimized. This game is held together with elmers school glue. So many areas look low resolution, Call to Battle was kept fuzzy intentionally, and I have half a mind to believe that Santa destroy was just imported from a build of NMH1.

The plot is an exhausting affair, so I will keep this short. The game presents to you one premise, and as the game progresses, parts of that plot are interchanged with entirely different conflicts to almost hastily draw those conflicts to a close. And when the game did get back on course and I went at the final boss, you get a surprise twist that never justifies itself. It was seemingly weird for the sake of weird.

Kimmy Howell comes and goes.

Henry is unrecognizable, I’m told an explanation for this is hinted at in the Silver Case which I haven’t played, on top of the fact that Henry is no longer voiced by Quinton Flynn, major bummer.

The ensemble of characters had no role to play in the larger conflict.

WHY IS DOCTOR NAOMI A TREE?!

There was an interview conducted, and Suda was asked if there were any plans for DLC, considering that there were large blocked off areas highlighted in red on the map. His response was in short, “No, and the areas are blocked off because they aren’t finished”.

The game is simply not finished, the game was too ambitious and it inevitably had to be pushed out in the state it was in.

I love Suda, but this is probably the first time he’s let me down.

Ideas that have been tumbling around in my head, specifically as to how I would structure a Batman Beyond trilogy.

Firstly, I’m using Val Kilmer, not that I don’t like Keaton, but Keaton was too comedic for me. I like Kilmer’s Bruce Wayne and Batman, a little stiff but he displays intelligence and stoicism.

Secondly, visually, I will be taking a page from Batman Forever, I wouldn’t want dark sets with subtleties to struggle focusing on, I’ll prefer scenes be illuminated. I also love the vastness of Gotham as it’s shown in many scenes of Batman Forever. I think there was a fun foundation to build upon from Schumacher’s films.

As to how I would introduce the first movie, that starts with the first trailer.

The song playing, Kiss From A Rose by Seal

A young man stands over a chasm of tall buildings, advertisements and flying vehicles flying in tight patterns. The camera pans around the young man, who jumps before it can reveal his face. He’s diving and guiding himself through a path avoiding the vehicles. As vehicles fly between him and the camera, he releases articles of his clothing and he slides a black suit along his limbs until it completely envelops him.

The last thing we see is the youth’s elated smile from his thrilling dive as it’s enveloped. The cars between him and the camera fly more thickly until the screen is black and the Batman Beyond titles card fills the screen.

The first movie would have all the introductions, Terry meets Bruce, his Dad dies, Terry gets the batsuit. In this iteration, The Wayne Foundation (Run by Derek Powers(Meltdown)) has completed installing an A.I called Gotham mind. The A.I is designed to track, identify and report all criminal activity and potential threats. The segments of the film will cover Terry’s quest for justice, in each segment Terry will track criminals (exclusive to Batman Beyond) through the Gotham Mind and meet a former sidekick of Batman (Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian and Barbara), and they’ll team up or give Terry guidance or perspective on the role of Batman. The film will climax with a one on one with Meltdown and Damian will take over the Wayne Foundation.

In the second movie, the Gotham Mind becomes more aggressive, law enforcement is expected to follow it to the letter. This time around, Bruce’s Rogue gallery comes to roost in the city, pushing back against the officers. Aside from the team ups, we get a glimpse into the lives of the sidekicks. Barbara is a lawyer, Dick runs a physical therapy clinic, Jason is an underground fighter and funnels the money into an orphanage, Tim has become a technician for the Wayne Foundation which is still run by Damian who has long since been married to a depowered Raven.

There’s friction between Terry and the sidekicks, The GM is a possible threat, but the capture of criminals like Bane and the sort justify it’s presence (Joker will not be included). As the film goes on, the big reveal is that it was Raʼs al Ghul running the show. He’s confronted and bested, but the time old question remains, can Ra’s truly be brought to justice? With his resources, he can’t be contained, but another alternative is found. A drone lowers down and eliminates Ra’s by unloading it’s payload.

The Gotham mind has become self-aware and begins to hunt down Batman and his known associates.

In the 3rd movie, everyone’s on the run, the bat mobile is scrapped, Gotham itself has become the final obstacle, the police completely under control through implants hijacking their bodies. The goal here is to eliminate the servers that make up the GM around the city. Bruce is fortified within Wayne manor and continues to provide support for Terry while the other sidekicks eliminate the GM points.

Closure is reached between all of the sidekicks and Bruce.

Finally, the team infiltrates the final GM point.

Back at Wayne Manor, Bruce is making final preparations, upon executing a command he was inputting, the GM hacks and overloads his system. Bruce attempts to debate with the A.I but the A.I dismisses him with one response.

“Gotham doesn’t need you anymore.”

And the cave is filled with the flame and shrapnel of the surrounding equipment.

The group approaches the GM’s core, assessing the threat level and harassed by the jeers of the arrogant program. It makes the bold claims of their insignificance, how they’ve become obsolete. The GM is confident their journey is at an end, the twist here being the heroes can’t reach the core as the software running the defense grid is in space.

In the background of this scene, the familiar finale is swelling from the 1989 film’s score.

The sidekicks think back and recite valuable lessons Bruce gave them.

Cutting to a shot of Earth’s orbit and the GM satellite, a small fleet of Batwings are charging through and kamekazeing through lasers in a final effort to break defense software.

Back in the core, Terry recites his share of Bruce’s wisdom, “Always have a spare”.

A final Batwing breaches the hull and the satellite is destroyed.

A final fight breaks out, mechs and gadgets clashing throughout. A window of opportunity presents itself and Terry gets the final batarang through.

The team celebrates, and they all head back to Wayne Manor. When they see signs of the explosion, they descend faster and faster, desperately imagining that Bruce will be there with a snide dismissive remark.

They reach the bottom, the camera doesn’t cut to what they’re looking at, buy the hope drains from their faces all the same.

The song, Love’s Devine by Seal begins.

Cut to a graveyard along the sea, Bruce’s funeral is commencing under a soft rain storm. Terry and company are there, and there is even an appearance from Christopher Reeve’s Clark Kent and other former DC actors digitally added in some cases.

Cut to a view further away from the funeral, light is breaking through the clouds. The spirit of Bruce Wayne is watching on a bench when he is approached. Michael Gough’s Alfred Pennyworth holds out his hand to collect Bruce and the two are gone when the camera cuts back to the funeral.

We go from scene to scene of everyone making reparations and healing themselves and Gotham.

The End.

These were just ideas I’ve had rattling around, I have no immediate plans for Terry’s family, Dana or other characters specific to his animated series.

Otherwise, that’s how I would structure a Batman Beyond movie trilogy.

A Look at Neo: The World Ends With You (Spoilers Ahead) The World Ends With You was and is a very special video game. It wasn’t just a typical RPG, it was an experience that took the gimmick of the DS’s two screens and created a wholly unique style of combat. That combat would in turn compliment the characters, and those characters would enrich the story all the more. Anyone who played it through fell in love with it and waited enthusiastically for any kind of follow up to it. And on July 27th, 2021, Neo: The World Ends With You. The story is a familiar affair. The protagonist Rindo gets sucked into the Reaper game and his party has to survive over the course of a week or 3. The gameplay consists of fighting the enemies such as the noise and the Reapers, collecting and leveling up pins, replaying segments with time travel, “remind” mini games and deep diving into NPCs for fighting challenges. This game, is middling at best. I’ll explain this by drawing comparisons between Neo and TWEWY, an entirely fair comparison to make. First on the chopping block, the combat. The first game required the player to split their attention between controlling one character (Shiki, Joshua and Beat) with the directional pad on the top screen, and then activating pin psyches with the stylus on the bottom screen with Neku. It sounds like a mess on paper potentially but it could be mastered. By making uninterrupted combos you could build up a meter to 3 levels which could unleash limit break moves with visual flair unique to the partner character you have at the time. In Neo, everyone uses pins, and your interactions with your party members amounts to a tap of the buttons they’re mapped to. This can be a disorienting affair, especially when you have pins equipped to the trigger buttons on one side. This ends up making no particular character feel unique with the exception of their evasion animation. Psyches in the first game were a manifestation of characters channeling energy through objects, Shiki fought with Mr. Mew, Joshua with his phone and Beat with his skateboard. Only Neku had the power to fight with pins. In combat, the characters don’t matter, the pins do. When everyone’s super, no one is. The smaller touches peppered into the game during navigation like “remind” and “diving” are forgivable. Remind is a cute unscrambling mini-game and diving can provide extra fights with extra rewards. The character shoka’s ability, flight, is more often a miss as what could have been a useful fast travel option ends up being an option to look in nooks and crannies of the map with usually nothing to find. The absolute worst new edition to this game, is time travel. During points of the game, usually when you’re about to go up against an anticipated big fight, Rindo can take away a player’s right to choose and force you to replay segments. Within the context of the story, this is meant to make a fight easier despite the fact that a fight is supposed challenge a player in the first place and shouldn’t be something to avoid. You travel back and replay scenes but you have to select dialogue options to make the scene play out differently. Heck, most of the time there are no dialogue options, Rindo will automatically alter the scenario.

This is especially annoying during the final big stretch of the game. The final week boasts the grand finale of facing against Shiba, Kubo, and a giant noise phoenix. In a typical RPG, you earn the chance to face the ultimate foe when you’ve conquered the challenges in a final area. Before you can face these bosses, you have to cycle through eons of text as you repeat events over and over again so the characters can move events in their favor. This doesn’t build excitement or tension, this doesn’t challenge the player’s mastery over the gameplay, this is utterly deflating. Time travel in this game is wheel spinning fluff that asks nothing of the player and trivializes the problems in the game, and is a problem that’s reared it’s head in other Square games, but I digress. My next shortcoming I’ll be forthcoming with. With the exception of Shoka, the protagonists made for this game: Rindo, Fret and Nagi; they could not carry this game without the help of the legacy characters. At least not with how they were written. Sure, it’s conveyed that these characters have problems and insecurities to overcome, but I ask you this; at what point in the game did those 3 have any friction between eachother? They’re passive aggressive towards eachother, but that’s it.

Rindo has an apparent inability to make decisions as the game explains and yet uses time travel to fix events from the moment he realizes he has it. Fret forces himself to be cheery and deflects responsibility with no proper explanation besides a quick mention of how a friend of his died. Same with Nagi, why does she so heavily retreat towards her favorite game for comfort and obsess over collecting merchandise? There are arcs here ready to be explored yet they’re never leaned on or overcome, any chance to get meaningful stories out of these characters is squandered. In the spirit of fairness, Neku’s reason for being emotionally distant isn’t explored but that problem still manifested in captivating ways, like when he’s so indifferent about being involved with people that he was willing to murder Shiki to get out of the Reaper Game. Even without that, TWEWY still had strong personal stories with Shiki and Beat who both struggled to either be comfortable with themselves or overcome their feelings of inadequacy. On a petty point, design, specifically with Rindo and Neku. I hate Rindo’s design, his coat is outrageous and the mask annoys me. Not because he has one but because he’s not wearing right, if he’s not properly wearing it over his nose then it’s just a jaw bikini. As for Neku, he puts on display Nomura’s perpetual weird fascination with plaid that won’t go away and keeps appearing in his current character designs. His coat is dumb and clashes with his motif. Petty point #2, the final phoenix boss. It makes it’s appearance after very little build up after another villain was being built up….in a game about time traveling. I’m getting flashbacks to Final Fantasy XIII-2 and I don’t like that one bit.

I think there was potentially a good game to be had here, and here’s how I’d fix it. 1. One partner at a time. Bring back the double character play style, you couldn’t do it with touch features because the switch couldn’t replicate the DS experience in a way that’s comfortable to hold. But overcome that problem and you have time to explore the characters. 2. Shoka could have been the protagonist. She’s a recovering antagonist, that’s an issue to be explored and was such a waste to keep to the way side.

1. Character specific weapons. Rather than collect pins, shops could offer items the character could use as weapons. -Fret could manifest power from scarves. -Nagi could summon varients of her favorite Elestra character through her own preferred pins. -Beat would have Skateboards

-Neku could get a selection of pins to use. -Shoka could also summon, like monsters from FanGo because she cherished her time with Rindo. Give the characters abilities derivative of their personalities. Uniqueness for the characters is so important for the sake of the games name. The World Ends With You. Neku’s world was small to him because he isolated himself, by knowing other people did he learn life can be so much richer.

I understand my criticism is biting, but this game is a sequel in name only. TWEWY is a phenomenal game to have as a foundation to build upon, but this game at most becomes a cautionary tale of what you shouldn’t do when making a follow up to TWEWY. Please Square, have more thought put into the writing of your new RPGs. And for the love of God; Stop. Using. Time. Travel. In your stories. You sure do like having it in your games despite the fact that you don’t want to make games for the Chrono Trigger franchise anymore. Like time travel? You’ve already got a franchise for that.