GAME REVIEW: Bladesong (Story Mode Playtest)

 

I don't have as much time as I'd like for video games — especially in the summer, when I'm balancing busy multiple busy seasons at multiple jobs. But when something unique comes along, I like to take a break and try it, rather than relying on one of my YouTube faves to play it in the background while I work.

Such is Bladesong, which is not related to my favorite Wizard subclass but is a very cool game where you smith and decorate swords. At the time of this writing, the game is available for playtesting, with a test build showing off both its Story and its Creative modes. As a story-based gamer, I tried out the former (I may give the latter a go later). And while there were elements that were a bit crunchy for someone like me with terrible spatial awareness, the story woven through the gameplay loop was extremely promising.

You play a blacksmith living in an impoverished settlement on the outskirts of a grand city. You've just escaped death and are currently working your way up to a life within the walls of said city; this will involve gaining a reputation and a work permit, and also not having your throat slit in the night by thieves. By day you can explore the camp, make friends (or not), buy wares, and discover more about the world around you. Once that's done, you fill orders for fellow camp residents. And once that's done, you try to make it through the night.

The character selection screen is very basic. You pick a gender, a background, a single possession, and an outlook on life. The second and third of those will affect your stats, with each Background buffing one stat by +3 and unlocking unique dialogue options, and the third optimizing your game depending on how you choose to play. (These bonuses are explained under each choice, giving you plenty of freedom to customize to your liking.) The first choice simply defines how you're addressed, and the fourth... well, I'm not sure yet, other than the fact that it enables an old lady who saved your life to dunk on you one last time before turning you over to the waking world.

Making swords is at the core of this game, and your forge looks pretty rad. At the start of each day, you have a certain amount of action points. Every potential customer requires a certain amount of points to work with, and each will yield experience, coin, and other bonuses. If you're getting tired, there's always at least one quick and dirty repair job you can do for a single action point.

I especially like that there's story embedded in most of these commissions. Sometimes you'll meet a father in need of a simple blade to protect his daughter; often, you'll meet camp dwellers tired of being put upon and desirous of showing everyone else who's boss. You don't have to take every order; and, indeed, I found myself only accepting orders of certain types after a point. Generally anyone who was against the camp's cutthroat thieves was an automatic yes... along with a lady who kept showing up and claiming she could hear beasts skittering in the night. Listen, the city has a magic barrier around it, and it's clearly to keep something out.

The smithing portion is pretty satisfying, and I imagine it's even more fun in Creative mode. I mostly enjoyed filling orders in Story mode, though. This meant making swords to certain specifications: heavy two-handers with leather-wrapped hilts, well-balanced blades, or (on occasion) just something sharp to get the job done. I did run across a work order or two that felt counterintuitive — swords that, based on the game's hints, needed to have both more and less mass at the point. A little more tutorial time spent working on these seemingly conflicting orders would have been helpful... perhaps a "difficult customer" to satisfy before being let out onto the world map. But if you can't seem to get an order filled, you can leave it. You'll sacrifice those action points, but you won't be softlocked.

There was only so much exploring that could be done in the playtest, but what was there was fun. There was an encounter with a thief, which could be solved in a number of ways: arming him, leaving him waiting, or just killing him (if you're strong enough). As I mentioned, I spent a lot of time arming fellow camp members who were also victims of the thief; had the story continued, I wonder if this would have made a difference.

Your choices have at least some effect on your ability to navigate the camp, as you can befriend and help others down on their luck. Also, there is a dog, and yes you can pet it, you can pet the dog, I'm so happy, these devs know what we need in a game.

As for the broader story, there's promise. The playtest ends right after a frankly horrifying reveal, and even the few areas you can explore before entering the city offer enticing details. There's absolutely a world here for those who want to find out more. And I definitely want to find out more.

Bladesong definitely caters to those with better spatial awareness in terms of the actual forging portion of the game, and I can see lots of people getting caught up in the creative aspect. You gain new methods, new tools, and new ornamentations as you go, meaning you can make increasingly elaborate blades. (Which admittedly sounds awesome.) But if you are more story-forward, never fear: this playtest hints at a vast, dark world waiting to be unlocked.

Bladesong is now available to wishlist on Steam.

GAME REVIEW: Shadowveil: Legend of the Five Rings

My knowledge of Legend of the Five Rings comes from two very specific places: a 5e campaign my housemate Phoenix ran, and Josh Reynolds's Daidoji Shin novels. Both of these things are very dear to my heart and gave me an excellent impression of the setting. So when I was offered a chance to play and review the first L5R video game, of course I said yes. My knowledge of the world may be primarily comprised of foppish gentleman detectives and the fae romance my friends and I played for a year, but I was here to dive in further.

I was not expecting a play style very, very targeted to me.

A little about myself and my experience with games: between having a strict upbringing and some neurological issues, I don't have the same video game muscle memory as many of my fellow Xennials. When I did start gaming on the regular, I stuck largely to tactical games: things I could think about like chess and that had less danger of seizure-inducing visuals. Super Robot Wars has been a fave, for example.

Shadowveil: Legend of the Five Rings slots right into the type of game I became comfortable with out of necessity. Equal parts resource management, deckbuilding, roguelike, and tactical game, the game puts you in charge of an ever-growing army venturing out into the Shadowlands. You start by choosing between a berserker and a tactician (I recommend the former as you're getting your feet wet), then heading out with ronin to fight off ghosts and goblins.

You can pick your route across the map based on what rewards you'll receive for each battle—items, cards, card slots, and so on. Camping to heal up gives you potential bonuses as well. Cards can be boosted and items can be combined and leveled up for bonus effects.

The combat itself takes place on a hex grid. This takes a little bit of learning, but once you've figured out the quirks of the maps, you can have a lot of fun laying out your combat. Some hexes give you power-ups; others are traps you can lure enemies into. Beating a level by placing your leader behind a spike trap and waiting is, well, weirdly satisfying.

The good news is, defeat gives you opportunities to regroup and try again, better this time. Returning to the watchtower after a defeat triggers dialogue relevant to the circumstances of your defeat, then opens up opportunities to level, recruit, and gain abilities from different crab clan families. The first handful of runs will be short, and you will be brutally defeated, but it's rewarding to start building up a strong squad and seeing measurable improvement.

The art is gorgeous, and cut scenes include voice acting. I don't expect that level of aesthetic for a game like this—I'm happy to move my pieces around the board without all the artistry. The fact that it's there is a bonus, and shows how much the devs care about this world.

As someone on the ragged edge of the Rokugan experience, I still recognize enough of what's laid out to care about the action. I can't imagine how amazing this will be for someone even more immersed. If you're a fan of tactics and deckbuilding, this one is a no-brainer.

Pick up Shadowveil: Legend of the Five Rings on Steam.

Helldivers 2: The Good, the Bad, and the Democratic

 

Helldivers 2 has been getting lots of attention lately—and, speaking from experience, that attention is very justified. Between being raised by grandparents who frowned on video games and having a neurological condition that makes motion and visual effects in games uncomfortable (if not outright dangerous), I am not as entrenched in gaming as many of my fellow X-ennials. I don't have decades of muscle memory that make Soulsborne games rewarding or first-person shooters second nature. It's why I follow video game channels, to be honest: it's the only way I can interact with most offerings long-term.

So when I find a game that I both can play and want to play, it's huge. So when both the oshi and my friend group couldn't shut up about Helldivers 2, I had to give it a go. And it is one of the few games, ever, that I have stuck with consistently since picking it up. Or as consistently as I can while holding down multiple jobs.

It's Starship Troopers meets the Terminator franchise. It's a blunt and unsubtle satire of modern warfare. It's also fun as hell and shockingly welcoming to new and untested gamers. So, in advance of the upcoming Escalation of Freedom update, I thought it was time to give a rundown of what works, why it works, and also a diplomatic assessment of where the game could be a bit better. Because we're all about spreading democracy, right?...

The Good

The thing that first attracted me to Helldivers 2 is how it handles multiplayer. I've never enjoyed PVP, and not just because I don't have the time or skills to "git gud." I have more fun figuring out how to deploy resources to solve a problem—whether that be through tactical games like Super Robot Wars or real-time co-op. I do, in fact, love it when a plan comes together.

So knowing that Helldivers 2 is co-op only was a huge draw. Sure, a rando could drop in on your mission and make life difficult, but the way things are set up, there's only so much they can do that. Alongside that, it's hard to be a detriment to your team just by being unskilled, which makes the learning curve much more welcoming. When you're in an environment where everyone's working toward the same goal, coming back to learn and improve is way more fun.

I really appreciate that you can set up for private games, friends-only matches, or open things up to anyone. The in-game voice chat works pretty well, too; I've only encountered a few glitches in my time, and they can generally be fixed by rebooting.

Visually it's a gorgeous game. The planets all feel like different planets, even if you're doing similar missions and fighting similar baddies. Evacuating civilians on any planet requires the same steps (regardless of if you're fighting bugs or bots), but whether you're braving blizzards or fire tornadoes depends on where you land. Leveling up your ship actually leads to aesthetic changes, which both look good and help you get a better sense of how far you've come. And maybe this is just the propane porn fan in me talking, but those explosions are glorious.

Best of all, I love the game devs' involvement. This ranges from actively handling the wargame aspect to doing some frankly magnificent social media work. While there are very few interpersonal problems, they fix the ones that arise (like the issue of "grief kicking"). And they're also just damn good people—don't forget how they matched players' motivation to save in-game children by donating to Save the Children.

The Bad

I will say, the good outweighs the bad in Helldivers 2. If it didn't, I wouldn't keep coming back. But many are the times when a night's diving has ended in frustration. If I was soloing, I would chalk this up to me just sucking at gaming and call it a day. But when I'm in the company of leveled-up friends who do have the gamer instincts I lack, and even they're frustrated beyond the bounds of fun, something's up.

The two biggest issues, at least in my experience, are glitchy crossplay and whatever is going on with enemy spawning. In the case of the former, I'm simply hoping this is a matter of growing pains. The fact that there's cross-system play at all is magnificent. But as a Steam player, I have a much harder time friending my actual friends. This is even with my PSN account hooked up. You can generate friend codes, but they reset whenever you log off, meaning I can't just pass a code to my buddy for them to pick up at their convenience. (Accursed time zones.)

Now, spawn rates. Again, I wouldn't complain about these if it were just me, because I generally assume any major problems I have in video games are a skill issue. But there's a strange disconnect between how many outposts you close up and how many breaches come in. A friend apparently found the formula: shutting down outposts lessens the wave of enemies until it doesn't. There's some kind of magic number at which they'll start calling in outside forces, so there's a degree of management to be done. This has my little brain ticking over: more tactics to work out.

But I have found myself on lower-level missions where the sheer amount of spawns makes no sense. The storyteller in me wants to believe they're stressing us out in advance of introducing new power-ups. The baby gamer in me just feels frustrated.

Your Mileage May Vary

There are shades of grey in anything, of course—things I think I want, but that I'm aware might unbalance what already works. Things that might suit only me as opposed to the broad player base. So this is where I throw those: things I've observed, but that I'm aware might just be a "me" thing, so I'm not confident enough to file them under things that are "good" or "bad."

First is squad size. Four might be the magic number, and if that's what the devs have found works, so be it. I will admit that my desire for a more flexible squad size comes from the fact that I have lots of friends who play, and I want more of us to get to convene. I think all of us have been stuck outside "4/4 fighting Terminids" at some point. That desire, though, is absolutely not a good reason to unbalance the gameplay. But I wouldn't say no to the occasional super-duper-democracy mission with bigger squads.

I also crave a bit more storytelling... but again, that's the storyteller in me. I am absolutely the personal who interacts with non-mission-critical prompts, trying to glean whatever I can about the setting. And considering we are the ones shaping this universe with our actions, there's only so much story one can pre-plan. If we fail to liberate a planet, that just happens and the course of the war changes. (See also the "Save the Children" thing—we chose saving kids over upgrades and that happened.) And that's a part of the game I love a lot because of how important it makes even one player feel. But if the devs ever feel so inclined, I'd love to see some story points backfilled after the fact. Aconyte, if you ever pick up the license for tie-in books, call me.

Last thing... I just want to be able to swim. Or even to get some armor in a warbond that lets me swim. Just give me some little orange floaties. Something.

All things being equal, this game is magnificent. I love the visuals. I love the music. I love the explosions. I love that, as war-torn and ridiculous as it is, the player base as people is so good. If you're wondering whether you should play, the answer is yes.

I'd give you my info so you could friend me, but again, Steam friend codes are a mess.

GAME REVIEW: Arcana of Paradise -The Tower-

 

I'm picky about video games. For a lot of my life, I couldn't play them—first because my family didn't like the idea of me having a game system, and later because health issues kept me away from fast-moving games that posed a seizure risk. I never got to develop that Gen-X trigger finger that makes punishing games gratifying, devoting most of my time to tactical games and visual novels.

Fortunately, the gaming landscape is becoming more forgiving for gamers like me, between accessibility controls and an increase in alternative gameplay styles. It's why I accepted a review key for Arcana of Paradise -The Tower-: while "roguelike" and "real-time" tend to warn me off a game, "deckbuilding" intrigued me. These are all things this game is. There is combat in a procedurally-generated dungeon, and it is speedy as heck and requires good timing. But it's strategic.

The basic setup is this: you're overseeing an ever-growing group of children at the top of a tower. These children survive on bread, and will one day be baptized to become warriors with different strength. However, the Tower is in ruin. Through your guidance, pairs of children can venture down into the Tower once per day, facing the monsters and challenges within. Whether the goal is to bring home bread or venture toward the base of the tower is your call day to day.

While in the Tower, you'll find more children to add to the commune's population. As the population grows, you'll need to balance exploration with resources. Plus, bread also serves as an offering to the tree growing on top of the Tower. With regular prayers, you can begin to restore the Tower, unlocking further resources and upgrading the children's abilities.

Each child has a hand of up to four cards you can use while within the Tower. (As you restore the Tower, you'll also gain opportunities to add extra cards to your hand.) These cards allow you to attack, heal, and interact with creatures and their surroundings. Certain attack and spell cards can be chained, delivering harsher blows.

However, there are some risks inherent to this form of combat. Like tarot cards, these cards mean different things when flipped. Some enemies can flip cards, rendering swords useless or turning healing herbs into poison. Some children also add a Hanged Man to your hand, which flips the card for you. This is useful to counteract a particularly flip-happy enemy, or to alter the effect of certain cards that benefit you in different ways based on their orientation.

Combat goes fast, kept speedy by a timer on the right-hand side of the screen. If you don't make quick decisions, you'll be rotated through your hand. (That said, you don't lose cards unless they rip, you use up a trash card, or you feed the children all the bread they have on them. So the card you want will come back around.) Similarly, certain enemy attacks have a timer on them. Throw a shield up right as it's about to hit, and you have a chance to stun them.

It's not just combat, though. Some creatures in the Tower need to be helped or reasoned with, and some barriers require you to use certain cards to move through them. This means you have to account for not only combat challenges, but also puzzles. For example, certain characters may request certain items from you, whereas others want you to guess their name by playing a certain card. These interactions not only further your progress and spare you from difficult combat, they also build out your deck.

It's worth mentioning that the art and music in this game are really lovely. The top of the Tower is peaceful, and I love to watch it grow and watch the kids run around exploring. The Tower interior has some pretty gnarly characters in it that are simultaneously terrifying and fascinating to look at. It's a very atmospheric game, and the look and sound of it all deserve top marks.

I'm of two minds about this gameplay loop. On the one hand, games like these are more accessible and forgiving to players like me. (I'm aware that this is not even close to the only deckbuilding roguelike out there, but I am glad to see more of them.) The fact that I can play it at all, and even get into a groove, is a satisfaction I didn't necessarily get with several eras of gaming.

On the other, the quasi-gacha aspect of the game means you really have to grind unless you're lucky. Don't have the right cards to proceed? Keep going down and getting bread so you can afford to keep all your children fed and rebaptize one of them. Resource management is the messiest thing about this game, which is difficult when it's sort of the key to the game. It would theoretically take less time and effort to simply start a new game and hope for better luck than it would to save up enough bread to feed the kids and the Tree.

I'm also of two minds about the story. I'm intrigued by the idea, because I love a slow-burn mystery. I want to know what's at the bottom of the Tower, for sure. I want to know why these children are up here, what the chalk drawings mean, why this big sky-whale is watching them. Sadly, the game seems to be less about collecting clues to the story and more about collecting clues to the Tower, which will get you to the story at the bottom. Which is fine... if the gameplay itself is rewarding. And whether it's rewarding or not depends on your luck.

Arcana of Paradise -The Tower- is absolutely beautiful to look at and listen to. It's an intriguing concept, and the gameplay is fun and accessible. Those are all things worth mentioning, and I would love to see more games of this nature out there. That said, either the gameplay needs to be inviting enough to fight your way to the story's payoff, or the story needs to offer enough breadcrumbs to make the gameplay worth fighting through. One or the other would have sufficed. Both would have been amazing. But we kind of get neither.

If you are a fan of this genre of game in general, I recommend it. If you play games for the story, it depends on your tolerance for grinding to get payoff. Either way, the game is quite beautiful to look at; and, if nothing else, it's inspired me to look into the world of roguelike deckbuilders.

The reviewer was provided with a Steam key in exchange for an honest review of this game.