![]() Patch Quest, Phantom Brigade, and Season: A Letter to the Future, among others, have emerged from “under the radar” to make a name for themselves in their own right. ![]() It’s easy to point to remakes, sequels, and spiritual successors as evidence that we’re in a stagnant period - but so far, three months into 2023, the game release schedule has been anything but. We’re only three months into the year, but we’ve already seen remakes and sequels that show a deep understanding of their source material and prequels, and a willingness to question what came before in service of making the next great game. Action-oriented survival horror plays like a dream in 2023, and the Switch has proven to be a more than suitable home for Samus Aran’s exploration-based adventure.Įven Octopath Traveler 2, Company of Heroes 3, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty prove just how well a group of designers can improve upon their previous ideas. Old ideas, which may have been ahead of the technical capabilities of their time, can reemerge with more pixels, better hardware, and more experienced developers to flesh them out. ![]() These remakes from Retro Studios, Capcom, and Motive Studio serve as a reminder that everything - even in video games - is cyclical. Even Isaac Clarke is back, fully voiced and ready to express the thoughts he’s been keeping to himself since 2008. I think that these issues could be alleviated if there was a little pop up you could request every time you get ready to eat a material, instead of having do deal with it afterwards with no backing out.By some bizarre accident in the space-time continuum, we stepped out of 2022 and back into the early aughts. Other mutations felt all-or nothing: it stinks when you need to do precision platforming, but your grasshopper legs have only one setting and that’s a skyrocketing leap. Once I accidentally had all my Trebhum with the ability to convert materials to crystal, but it’s an auto-process and suddenly I couldn’t keep anything I needed with no way to undo the mutation. While that material is usually in abundance nearby, sometimes I’d get something backwards. Several times during the game I’d see something and need a particular ability. ![]() If I had to complain about anything, it’d simply be having to memorize what causes what mutations. Thing is, much like the Oddworld games, the world is simply odd, no need to explain, and makes it that much more endearing. There is a lot of exposition done, particularly when you meet up with Elder Trebhums, but there is still a lot of mystery remaining that could be explored in creative ways (animation, comics, fandoms, or prequel/sequels). Right when this feels like routine, you start getting wisps of what the story actually is: mysterious half-machines that do the Will of the Cylinder, and huge monstrosities that shouldn’t be spoiled for first-time players. The game cycles as such: search for materials to fill your survival gauges and such, look for more Trebhum (eggs, weakened ones to help, or simply waiting around), discover a mysterious cave or building to explore, trigger the Cylinder by breaking the barrier, RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN, and start again. When I found the morph for a filter that let me breathe down there, exploration opened up even more. Then I discovered the item that allowed me to develop powerful jumping legs to get back out. Beginning the game, it was frustrating to constantly fall into chasms filled with poison gas that I couldn’t get out of. New abilities are gained (and hilariously at times lost as your vision goes bad or your legs fall off for a short time). Some of it is just basic food for energy, health, or water supply, whilst others cause instantaneous morphing. Trebhum have the innate ability to store food in their bodies to eat later. Your only saving grace is to make it to the next tower before you and your tribe are flattened by the unstoppable Cylinder. Cold, heartless, and neverending, the Cylinder moves forward across the procedurally-generated landscape every time you wander too far from a protective tower. From the tiniest creature to a skyscraper like giraffe-thing? or a world spanning dragon/snake, these oddly named creatures just ooze personality and uniqueness. These creatures, as well as all the animals, plant life, and strange monstrosities you run across look like someone took Oddworld, Spore, and Monty Python and threw it all in a blender. The Eternal Cylinder finds you in charge of a cute little race of malleable characters called the Trebhum.
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