Recent reviews by sfried

Elite: Dangerous, the 4th entry in the Elite series of space-sims, is an MMO utilizing a procedural generated galaxy to allow players to explore, trade, and dogfight/firefight in either the presence of friends or simply enjoy solo. It's quite easy to get lost in the vast expanse of gameplay activities and loops that the biggest hurdle of E:D is the barrier to entry when it comes to learning all the mechanics, especially without the use of a guide, as in-game explanations tend to not be sufficient in laying all the details of its moving parts. Prepare to be invested in pretty long play sessions, sessions that tend to feel very rewarding for the most part.

A very fun but very flawed Elite-like experience.

Worthy followup to the original Deus Ex, despite its flaws.

Full disclosure: I received this game as a gift during the hollidays, and the game mechanics of this "Touhouvania" are already very solid (stopping time to attack, stopping time to create traversable terrain, etc), not to mention the feel of moving the main protagonist Sakuya around just feels incredibly fluid. For an Early Access title it is already incredibly polished and the level design really makes full use of Sakuya's time-based skillsets. Progression and pacing is also great.

Highly recommended, even from somebody who has gotten burned out by the metroidvania genre.

In a post-Shovel Knight era, it's hard to look at the "Indie" label without a scrupulous eye for game design that doesn’t merely leverage on nostalgia nor old-school aesthetics. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is the 4th installment of a series of games developed by Guilherme Martins “rdein” that demonstrates how far a developer could go just from learning and improving upon a solid foundation and refining its execution, regardless of looks. At first glance, it might seem like another action exploration platformer in the same vein as Guacamelee, Super Metroid and post-Symphony of the Night Castlevania titles (often referred to as metroidvania). In fact, it shares more in common with the classic style Castlevania than, as others might claim, Dark Souls. Despite all semblances, Reverie manages to feel fresh and engaging; it doesn’t feel like just a mishmash of the aforementioned games. It manages to carve its own identity using the series own roots as a basis.

The Momodora games started out as action adventure games that bear more similarities to Daisuke “pixel” Amaya’s indie hit game Cave Story. The first game, in particular, shared similar super-deformed aesthetics as its source inspiration with the main character taking up the width and height of one in-game block. The game had a more linear focus with regards to its level design. Numerous weapon pickups were available, but the most apparent was the magic leaf that Isadora, the protagonist, wields as her primary melee attack as she desperately finds a way to revive her mother from mortality. This becomes one of the defining traits of the series continuing with the second game, Momodora II: Once again playing a female protagonist wielding a maple leaf, this time a girl named Momo, you’re out to hunt for the Undead Queen. Progression has been expanded upon to that of a standard metroidvania with ability based upgrades along with a more open world design. The presentation itself has taken an upgrade, and players would save and restore health in the now series-familiar prayer bells. By the 3rd game, players could choose to play either as Momo or Isadora, with boss battles becoming a prominent highlight, doubling in number from the previous installment. Momodora III opts for a more solid palette of colors accompanied with a cleaner design, showcasing more nuanced sprite animation than its predecessors. This is helped by the variety of environments with its distinct set of vibrant palettes.

All of these aspects coalesce resulting in this latest entry. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight has the open-world design of Momodora II, the equipable item ability from Momodora III, and a protagonist who was merely hinted in lore from the previous games. You play as Kaho, a priestess hailing from the village of Lum, seeking a way to stop a curse from spreading to her homeland by traversing the Kingdom of Karst. Like its predecessors, themes of death and the sending off of spirits once again crop up. Not only does it feel darker in tone, but Reverie leverages on its evolved presentation, with the primary cast and non-playable characters represented in a less abbreviated stature than in the former games, putting more focus on positioning, dodging, and chaining attacks, with environmental and enemy placement feeling more dense, focused, and compact. Every screen prepares the player to be on their toes for an encounter, as seldom are there just rooms which merely serve as vistas for items and NPCs: While previous games in the series are no stranger to emphasizing enemy placement, Reverie does pull new tricks up its sleeve with regards to diversity and how they control the space within the screen, as often times one might feel pinned down in an inopportune spot, yet never does it feel unfair. Unlike preceding games, Kaho can now roll to get behind enemies to hit them from behind and pass otherwise undodgeable attacks unscathed. Combat is also more nuanced and meaty; there is a sense of weight to each stroke of the leaf Kaho unleashes and even the arrows she fires has a nice sense of swiftness, and all of this is mesmerizingly animated by the wonderful sprite work with a wide breath of expressiveness. Controlling the game not only look great, but feels right.

Reverie features a handful of entertaining and challenging boss battles. New to the series are obtaining items from bosses upon defeating them without getting hit (A similar reward mechanism is also present in Mega Man Zero 2). While these items are not prerequisite to obtaining the true ending of the game, many who feel the urge to get 100% completion (or are just obsessive compulsive like me) might find this feat particularly daunting, especially for first-time playthroughs. Luckily, a New Game + mode unlocks upon completion of the game and retains all your collectibles and most of your upgrades including your completed map, allowing to set oneself properly for the encounter ahead.

In terms of scope and design, Reverie’s open-world has a nicely knit network of areas that, while large, never feels overwhelming; backtracking is alleviated by some smart design choices, and retraversing sections to get from one screen to the next never felt like a chore. The map itself not only houses a handful of secrets, but places them in areas which make backtracking feel rewarding (This is not an easy feat to pull off, as many developers would sometimes keep upgrades and ability items as a sole reason to backtrack, not in-spite of). To help with matters, much like in Momodora III, prayer bells would eventually let you warp back to previously explored areas. Exploring 100% of the world is not that difficult a task, but the game itself is by no means too short.

Which brings us to Reverie’s overall length: After traversing 7 unique areas, the game never overstays its welcome and ends right before things begin feeling rote. Even despite repeated playthroughs, there are so many approaches one could take thanks to its non-linear progression: After the first boss, it is possible to beat consecutive bosses in any order which you see fit. The abilities you gain from each defeated boss can be subsequently used to your advantage in any other boss fight, creating a form of Mega Man style effect of boss progression. It is also possible to beat the game without defeating a single common enemy (known in-game as a Pacifist run), or try for the Insane difficulty that leaves you to perish in one hit; These are more bragging rights rewards than anything, but the fact that the game can be played and completed in either fashion shows how much thought went into its design.

If one is interested in wanting to see how far a single designer could take their idea by learning from each iteration, the Momodora series would be considered a textbook example of how to refine a franchise: Taking inspirations from various games, learning to experiment and keep what works, trim what doesn’t, while holding steadfast to the core principles, which in this case, is a maple leaf.