What I'm Playing (Volume 160): Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

 

Kirby 64 is a side-scrolling platformer released in 2000 for the Nintendo 64. The plot features Kirby attempting to track down all of the pieces of a shattered crystal, because what's a video game without some crystals?

I absolutely loved that HAL decided to use the D-pad rather than the control stick for movement in this game. Can we please stop pretending that analog sticks are useful for 2D platforming? The advantages of analog sticks are that they allow for a wide range of movements, as well as for shades of movement (slightly tilting up will result in a slower walk speed, etc.). That's great and all, but it's really only useful when you have need of more than 4 (or 2, in the case of racing games) directions. It was a little weird at first when I picked up the Nintendo 64 with my hand on the left part of the trident, but I quickly grew accustomed to the grip and was grateful for utilizing the N64's surprisingly solid D-pad.

The gameplay itself is fine. It plays and feels like a Kirby game, with only a few small additions. The most notable new inclusion is Power Combos, a mechanic that allows you to combine two different powers together to create a new and improved power. In traditional games, for example, swallowing a rock type monster enables you to use Kirby's power to turn into a stone and smash down onto his enemies. Using power combos, however, you can swallow the powers of two rock type monsters, enabling you to turn Kirby into a giant rock boulder instead! Other examples include ingesting bomb and fire type monsters to produce larger, flaming bombs than would otherwise be possible. While this is interesting an new, it's pretty rare that the combined powers are much better than the original ones, and the mechanic left me wanting for a more varied playstyle to develop based on these powers. For example, they could have made it so that some elements were more effective against enemy types than others, or given you a wider range of possible outcomes depending on which order you swallow them (swallowing bomb then fire gives you the same outcome as swallowing fire then bomb). There is one powerup (bomb + bomb) that is so far and away superior to the rest of the options that you should do almost anything to obtain it, including just skipping all of the other powers entirely. It feels like a good idea that provides some fun in experimenting with different combinations, but ultimately lacks the sophistication to provide a play experience that's sufficiently different from other Kirby games to be memorable.

The poorly refined Power Combo mechanic is matched by some dull and repetitive level design that makes the game less interesting than it ought to be. The bosses are all just ok and are far too easy, even without the use of the Power Combos. I was left wanting a bit more diversity and challenge from this title, although I do think that 2D platformers tend to skew too far towards being difficult, so I'm generally ok with the difficulty here, particularly as an entry point for young gamers who want to learn the basics of experiencing the genre.

The game feels too short, even for a 2D platformer. I would have enjoyed having another world or two, but on the other hand, only would have wanted them if they offered a new challenge or take on the genre which the previous worlds lack.

The look of the game is good, for a Nintendo 64 game. I'd gladly take the look and feel of the Kirby games on the Game Boy, NES, or SNES (especially the gorgeous Kirby's Adventure or Kirby's Dream Land 3) before this one, but it's a faithful adaptation of the Kirby style with some chunky looking polygons that fit the era just fine.

The music is generally good, but doesn't quite reach to the heights of previous Kirby games. Nothing really to see here.

This is a perfectly fine game that's plagued by a bit of a lack of imagination. Rumor has it that the game was developed under a pretty significant time crunch to complete it on time after several revisions to the game, and that fits pretty well with the experience I had with it. There are several good ideas here, but none of them are implemented in a creative enough way to make this worth playing for most people. I'll give it a 7.5/10.

Up next on What I'm Playing is a game from a series I just can't quit! Until now. Because I'm out of games. But here's a little teaser...

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 159): Civilization VI

 

Civilization VI is a 4X strategy game in the long-running series of Civilization titles. 4X, for those who are uninitiated with the genre, refers to (generally) turn based strategy games in which you must compete with other players to excel at the four x's, explore, expand, exploit, exterminate to become the dominant player in your universe.

I have a Ph.D. in political science. I have an armchair fascination with political and military history. I love strategy games. And yet, I had never sunk any time into Sid Meier's legendary Civilization series until very recently. I never owned a copy of the game, I had slid away from PC gaming in recent years, and had plenty of other games to keep me busy, but this title was always on the edge of my mind. Then, Epic Games gave away this entry in the series for free a few months back, and I added it to my mental queue. When the time is right, I was going to give it a shot.

When the time became right, I quickly discovered the reason that this game had endured for decades, and it can be expressed in three words - one more turn. The game is designed both to engage your brain for the present turn, but also to allow it to wander towards a point in the future when you will be able to truly unveil your brilliant strategy to all the world. It does this with a genius system of research and civics which allows the player to direct his civilization towards a specific technological or political goal at all times. The game begins in the ancient era, with you struggling to ward off barbarian attacks and accomplish simple feats such as figuring out how to make pottery, and developing a system of irrigation to improve your farming. But you'll quickly be presented with a bombardment of options for how to develop your civilization, and realize that you can't be the best at everything. Determining your planned end game, while warding off the attempts of your foes to dominate you, will demand that you direct an inordinate amount of effort on developing in a few key areas, rather than accomplishing them all at once. With so many pots on the fire, you'll always want to be playing for the next big pop of achievement, whether it's improving your nautical mastery so that you can sail away from the shallows and across the wide ocean, or developing your civilization's mastery of ballet.

Winning the game requires that you achieve one of the end-game conditions, or can endure until the final turn with the generally most impressive civilization (while thwarting your opponents' attempts to win the game outright before then). The conditions that will immediately end the game are divided into several categories, cultural, religious, military, and scientific. Winning the game with culture demands that you develop your civilization's production of great works of art, music, and archaeology to the point that other civilizations view yours as the dominant one and begin to adopt your cultural practices. The religious victory will be triggered when more than half of the world follows the religion that you have founded. Military victory is the most straightforward-crush your opponents' civilizations with your military might and conquer the world! The scientific victory requires you to achieve certain technological achievements into the post-modern future, including landing on the moon and starting a martian colony.

As a professional political scientist, the thing that I adore the most is how nicely the game simulates the real experience of leading civilization throughout history. One way in which it does this is forcing the player to think about path dependency, an idea that argues that each civilization or outcome is as much dependent on the decisions that led up to the current situation as it is about current decisions. Once set on a certain path, it is very difficult to depart from it, and this game nails that idea. If you've spent time becoming a scientific powerhouse and ignoring your culture and civic institutions, you won't be able to get the kind of support from the state that you may need to accomplish your goals. If you never spent time learning astrology (a religious perk), then your sailors will take more time to be able to learn how to navigate in deeper waters away from familiar coastlines. Each civic and technology that your develop will shorten the time necessary to develop later discoveries, and keeping your end game in mind is helpful in plotting the shortest path to achieving your aims. In addition to path dependency, the game also forces you to appreciate the value that technology brings to human life. The game begins with you landlocked, with the wheel barely invented, and as a result, your experience is bound by what is directly near you, geographically speaking. But, as you develop your technology, you'll spread far and wide throughout the world, seeing more of it, and being able to travel further and further each turn.

The controls can be a little weird sometimes. It's a game that thrives on strategy and thoughtfulness, not on its UI or the controls. Commanding your troops to move and attack can be wonky, and the game is so deep that novices may not realize why they can't do something that they think they ought to. There are good resources in the game for learning these, but it just takes a lot of play to get up to speed.

I won at least one game using each win condition, and enjoyed most of them. The one that was dull was the religious victory, which feels like an addition that wasn't particularly well thought out. Developing your religion gives benefits, but it seems too easy to counter your opponents' attempts to spread their religion, and if two or more civilizations are spreading religions, it's nearly impossible for either of them to win.

The game's AI is also really dreadful. I'll give an example to illustrate. I was playing on a pretty high difficulty level in a game, and had war declared on me by two civilizations early in the game. So I developed my military, sailed across the sea, and crushed them. Neither of these civilizations had built their military in the slightest (something that you might think would be important before declaring war), so they rolled over easily. With two of my five competitors out of the way, I noticed that another civilization lie directly to my west, that 40% of my conquering was completed already, and declared war on that civilization. I conquered that one, moved to the west some more, conquered the fourth, and finally turned my eye towards the last other civilization left in the world, the one that began the game directly bordering me. Conquering these four civilizations had taken me about 150 turns. What, do you think, the remaining civilization had been up to in those 150 turns? Building up walls on their cities in preparation? Developing their military to stand against me? Garrisoning troops in all of their cities? Racing me to develop their culture for a win condition before I could turn my greedy eyes on them? No. They just were peacefully sending trade routes into my territory for 150 turns, with no culture to speak of, a small handful of ancient military units, no navy, and no religion! Any creditable leader would have prepared, but the AI in this game just doesn't think that way. This game will entertain when playing against AI for a while, but it eventually becomes pretty dull. Playing with real people is the way to go.

I really, really enjoyed this game, despite some of the minor flaws. It's super fun, and actually promotes real thought in the player. I haven't played any other titles in the Civilization series, but when they come out with the seventh entry in the series, I'm going to be there. I'll give it a 9.2/10.

Up next is a quick little title I squeezed in during some downtime. Check back soon for a review!

-TRO