The AA Report: March 31, 2020
I decided, for now at least, to just name this post “The AA Report” because a good friend named Mittenz wanted to know if I ever did “after action reports” on the games I tried out on stream. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while – write-ups, and video companions, with my first impressions of said games. So, here we are – I never knew what to name it until now. This works, I suppose. We’ll see if it sticks 😉
I have tried out a LOT of games this March, but I’ll start with the ones I just finished up playing this evening on my stream: Foregone, Iron Danger, and Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.
Foregone
I was asked at minimum 30 times if this game was Dead Cells, or if it was by the makers of Dead Cells. It is not – it’s actually by Big Blue Bubble, who have created a lot of games that you probably haven’t heard of – My Singing Monsters (the series), Super Dinosaur: Kickin’ Tail, Concert Kings Idle Music Tycoon, Jammer Splash, Home Arcade, and a few others. These are mostly mobile titles, but that shouldn’t discount them as developers from creating something outside of that platform. Enter Foregone, a game that has clearly taken some inspiration from games like Dead Cells, but has pulled from other titles in style and execution (my mind went straight to Slain and Valfaris) to create what I felt was a delightfully challenging, and beautiful, platformer. For starters, Foregone isn’t a roguelike. Foregone is a 2D sidescroller RPG with progression points that were challenging to reach, enemies that varied in difficulty to face, and an easy point of entry to learn how to navigate all of this. It sort of felt like a soulslike, but without the retrieval upon dying mechanics that you’re used to in that genre. Upgrading weapons was your main focus to make plowing through enemies much easier. If you were lucky, you’d reach your next checkpoint with all of your blue points, or what we were calling “blueberry jellies” so that you could upgrade a rudimentary skill tree that helped to distribute extra damage, health, and crit points. All of this surrounds a beautiful 3D-modeled, but 2D presented, landscape and a lush story to match. I really enjoyed the game – personally, it was nice to play something that didn’t try to rope in the roguelike mechanics of other games that it… er… happens to look kind of like. Heh. Foregone is available exclusive to the Epic Games store, but can be wishlisted on Steam for a March 2021 release.
Buy Foregone on Epic Games Store
Iron Danger
At first this game was a little flustering, and probably because I’d just played a platformer, and the shift in pace was jarring. There was a lot of information being thrown at me about how to navigate the mechanics, and there was a lot of story that, while beautifully narrated, was still confusing. This is my own experience though, and it likely will not be yours. Once I calmed down a bit, I sunk right in to Iron Danger with little issue. A slightly steep learning curve comes with this game, but if you’re willing to give it a few minutes, I think it’s worth falling in love with. Iron Danger sports a very interesting take on the tactical combat genre, due entirely to its time control mechanic – something you immediately adopt as main character Kipuna when she’s given an ancient power that allows her to control the flow of time. Think Max’s powers in Life is Strange, but in an isometric Finnish folklore setting. It’s also been compared to Super Hot, but I honestly have never played that game, so I can’t say. Regardless, with this time control mechanic, you’re able to play out the scenarios of combat mechanics and see how well they work, or how spectacularly they fail, and try different methods of combat out until you succeed. Because as they say, if at first you don’t succeed, die and die again. I think that’s it? The world isn’t as open as I’d have liked it to be, but I did enjoy the guided chapters and combat scenarios enough for that to not be a big deal. I would love to see these kinds of mechanics adopted into games with the scope of something like Spellforce 3 or Divinity: Original Sin 2, though. Also, I don’t know if you were able to watch a full preview of your battle when all was said and done, but I think that would have been a rad addition. Iron Danger is available on PC via Steam or GOG platforms.
Buy Iron Danger on The Humble Store
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
I’m such a big fan of janky RPGs that allow me to create my own character and write my own story, and Bannerlord ticks all of the boxes for me, and then some. I had honestly not really played any Mount & Blade games, save for a bit of Warband on my own to see if I would like it before streaming it. When I had that ready to go, they announced Bannerlord at E3 (I believe this was around 2017), and I decided to hold out for the new game. and hold out I did – here we are, 3 years later, and I’m so ready for this journey. I often look back fondly on my time spent in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which was a full open-world sandbox RPG set in a similar setting to the Mount & Blade games. Bannerlord doesn’t seem to have an entirely open world like Kingdom Come: Deliverance does, and in some ways I wish it did. But you also do seem quite free to go across the map wherever you’d like, chase down groups of bandits, and slaughter them to your hearts content, which is just as acceptable in many ways. This is apparently in line with the franchise too, so I am not complaining. As a first experience into the Mount & Blade series, I’m thrilled. I created Moira, a goblin-esque creature of a woman with stout posture, dopey grin, gung-ho demeanor and a dead eye. Her brother, whose name escapes me, is a cornrow-clad ruffian who looks like he’s been kicked by a donkey. Once I got through the tutorial, it was off to the races. Battle was hard to control, but not in a way that was prohibitive to the gameplay – moreso in a way that you would expect any RPG of its kind to be. It’s not a negative towards the game whatsoever, though if you’re not a fan of flawed games of this ilk, you may not enjoy Bannerlord. It’s something I relish in games, like a finely aged wine meant to be savored for every last drop. And, for what it’s worth, I can see myself playing this game into the ground. Thank goodness for social distancing, I suppose. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is available on PC via Steam or GOG platforms.