Beaten games 21-24

Here we go, these four games have kept me quite busy, each being released on
Fridays one week apart. I always say that this is the short version and
never come back to the long ones but hopefully I will this time since
all of these deserve it:

-21 Alwa’s Awakening-

Finally, this is a NES inspired game done right!
Another “metroidvania” this time the focus is more on exploring than
fighting which is fine by me, I only wish the bosses were a bit
harder though. Like a NES game you only use two main buttons and
start/ select. One button for the classic, slow “NES jump” and one to
use the selected ability. You get three in total, one to make a block
appear to help solve puzzles and guard against projectiles, one that makes
bubbles that float and are used as platforms and one that just shoots to
damage enemies and open special doors. together these abilities work really
well and makes an interesting game that really feels like something from the
NES era, in a good way of course.
Nice music and the option to play the game in Swedish since the developers
are from here is just a great bonus!

-22 Hollow Knight-

This game would really need more attention but it will probably get it since
it is coming to Switch later this year. Probably the most massive game in
the metroidvania family, it is just so big. How they managed to draw all
the beautiful backgrounds to this game is a mystery.
A really unique atmosphere where every enemy is some kind of insect or bug
and almost the whole game takes place underground. The NPCs are also
top-notch and really unique. I can’t say much negative at all about this game!
It is not an easy game so be prepared, bosses and enemies all have quite
advanced patterns that you need to learn and there is a total of 150
different ones. Just an amazing game, far better than I expected!

-23 Zelda Breath of the Wild-

I really can’t be fair to this game since I had to stop playing right in
the middle when Nier was released and that messed me up and made
everything else seem a bit pointless. I will probably return to the
game since I missed a lot, in the end I only solved 1/3 of the shrines,
filled out the map, beat the divine beasts etc, in total I spent around
35 hours in the world and I feel that there is still more to discover.
I have not visited too many open worlds but I feel that this is at
least one of the best and I am glad that they made at least one
Zelda game in this style.

The stamina meter was driving me crazy for at least the first hours,
I learned to live with it but still hate it, the worst part about Skyward Sword
and they use it again… next up is the durability which also ruins it a bit,
I hate to constantly pick up worthless weapons and going in and out of the
menu to throw them away, I realise now that you can just thrown them
manually with R but still annoying. Taking back the sailcloth was at least
the best thing they did, it is just such a nice way of traveling and while
speaking of the good parts, I can’t believe that a Nintendo game let’s you
turn of the HUD and the fact that you can beat the game in less than an
hour without glitches is just amazing, I really hoped that
would be the case. Oh well, a lot of good a lot of bad but overall
I am happy with the game!

-24 Nier Automata-

This WILL get its own post. My expectations for this was trough the roof and probably the most anticipated game since Valkyrie Profile 2. It’s always dangerous to have that kind of expectations and after witnessing the first ending I felt quite disappointed and for a weak moment doubted the game and Yoko Taro, I should have known better considering how much my opinion on the first game changed over time and how he usually tells stories! By the time I reached the second ending it was clear that I have to change my top 10 list for the first time since I played Xenosaga…! I am so happy that I got to see the day when a game finally hit so hard that I have to do that.

I won’t go into details or spoilers today but this game really makes you question a lot of things and even though the theme(s) is nothing new the game has so many layers of it that it blows your mind,
without spoiling, again, the final ending has so many metaphors and ways to view it that everyone actually seems to get at least one aspect of it unlike Yoko Taro’s other endings that usually makes people more angry than anything, hehe. I don’t like metaphors in general but this time it is used in such a crazy way and really ties up everything in a way no other game or media has done yet.

Of course the game shows signs of the usual low budget etc as all his games do but I am happy to see that this seem to sell well and somehow also being understood by more than just the old Nier fans, maybe we one day will get a triple A Yoko Taro title, or maybe we don’t want that. Either way this is a masterpiece.