The Last of Us: Best of the Generation

I hate The Last of Us! I hated the zombie apocalyptic setting, the stealth based gameplay and its survival aspect! I hated it all! Yet, I fell in love with the game. I loved how the game got a hold of me and didn’t let go. I reached a point where I just couldn't tear myself away from the game. What made me forget my hatred for the zombie apocalypse and stealth based game play you ask? It is simple really… the incredible human tale of Joel and Ellie surviving in a tough and brutal new world; the story and characters which hooked me till the end. This is without a shadow of a doubt the best game developed by Naughty Dog!

The gaming industry has undergone a sea of changes in terms of story-telling. In previous years, most action games did not focus much on a coherent plot and much of the emphasis was on the gameplay. But in recent times, game developers especially of the action genre have started incorporating heartfelt and powerful tales and in this regard, The Last of Us has come up trumps. Had the plot been used in a movie, it would definitely have been nominated for an Oscar or a BAFTA! I am serious! The plot narrative weaved a harrowing tale of survival masterfully which made such an impact that I readily overlooked the gameplay (which was amazing but not my cup of tea) as I wanted to know how the story unfolded and how it ended.

Most games which deal with zombie apocalypse, either have a silly plot or has an 'in your face' attitude, but The Last of Us story is what you call muted. It neither was going at a breakneck pace nor brought in convoluted theories, but kept the human aspect at the forefront. What would you do if some kind of horrific plague decimates the human race? How much are you willing to sacrifice to protect what is important to you? To what lengths are you willing to go in creating a world worth living? Such are the questions that the game asks and to be honest this is what got me pegged. Here was a story which wasn't afraid in asking such questions that even most movies don't ask let alone video games! If only the legendary movie critic Robert Ebert was alive to see how much The Last of Us has come to mimic movies he would have been impressed!

Accompanying the incredible plot were the believable characters. In the last 24 years that I have been playing video games, I have NEVER come across a game that had such mature, complex and well realized characters! Joel, Ellie and all the other characters I met in the game were like real people! I mean I felt a connection towards them that I honestly have not felt in most games (being an RPG fan and having played my share of story driven RPGS but even then almost none could match up with The Last of Us).

Joel who plays the disheveled survivor living his life, taking a day at a time, who has been burdened in protecting a little girl he barely knows and has to chaperone her across the country. The highs and lows of Joel's interaction with the girl is what drive the plot forward. At every twist and turn you start to understand Joel's motives and goals and you can only root for the guy. Troy Baker's voice acting for Joel has to be the best male performance this year. Baker in the last 3-4 years has made quite a name for himself and has almost become as famous as Nolan North. His portrayal as Joel ranks as his best as he was able to exude each and every emotion with skill. Joel is easily one of the most complex protagonists around; a male lead whose spirit has been broken and who fears dying in a horrific manner or worse… turning into an Infected. In an industry which shows male protagonists as the alpha male, where nothing scares him, Joel is an anomaly!

Ellie requires a special mention here. She is the girl Joel has to protect for reasons I can't mention for the sake of avoiding spoilers. But Ellie for me has to be the most realistic character ever created in video games! Her mannerisms are exactly what you will expect from a 14 year girl. Her reactions to the unusual circumstance she find herself in made me not only care for the virtual kid but made me brave many scary set pieces because I wanted to protect the child and get her to safety. I have very rarely felt so connected to a game character like how I have to Ellie! Ashley Johnson who voices Ellie has given the industry the best vocal performance, perhaps ever! Sure there are many well known voice actors and actress who have given great performances in the past but even they can't hold a candle to her. Ellie is a fierce kid who wears her heart on her sleeve and Ashley Johnson captured every diverse emotion perfectly which made Ellie one hell of a character.

The rest of the cast and the characters I met were just something to behold. Throughout the arduous trek of the main characters they meet up with different people with different priorities in the messed world they inhabit. I came to loath them but at the same time I understood their abnormal plight. This is a game that builds its foundation on characters, such a trend we only see in movies. While its usually a given that most of the resources would be put in casting good voice actors for the main characters while the non player characters would just ‘get by’, but this is where The Last of Us differ as even the side characters had some amazing voice work behind it. Anna Wersching (Tess), Jeffery Pierce (Tommy), W. Earl Brown (Bill) and the other characters we get to meet all have done sterling work in the game. A special mention to Nolan North’s cameo which just showed the incredible set of pipes the man’s got! The Last of Us makes a credible case that the game industry has found a new focus and personally I like it. I just hope that the next generation can take this focus to new heights.

I have already discussed the voice acting of the main characters but I JUST HAVE to mention the Infected and the Clicker! Whoever came up with these voices was absolutely insane! Its one of the prime reasons I never could muster up the courage to play the game at night! I felt fear, disgust and yes, even sadness as I saw these… things living out their lives in utter agony and pain! Even thinking about it gives me Goosebumps!

The gameplay? Well I will just say that despite my utter hatred for horror, zombie and stealth genres the game still held my interest till the end credits! Yes there were MANY occasions where I would be cussing out loudly at some of the most intense sections yet I came back for more (bitch for punishment I daresay?). As the game picked up and the frequency of hair-raising sequences increased, I finally understood why many gamers love the horror genre: the constant feeling of dread that heightens the senses and edge of your seat stuff that makes this genre so compelling. Having said that if anyone asks me to play some of the classics of this genre I will only have one thing to say to them, NO!

There were 2 features of the gameplay that were quite fun though. First was how well Naughty Dog implemented survival into the game which made exploration a joy. Any new area I would encounter I would be looking in every nook and cranny to salvage items for creating med kits, Molotov cocktails, and other do-dads. While also looking for ‘scraps’ to upgrade the meager arsenal. Naughty Dog really took the concept of survival to another level!

The other aspect was the gunplay. As the ammo was scarce, every gunfight was a tense experience. I had to make every shot count and I just couldn’t spray bullets all over the place as well. This made the gunfights feel real and with consequence.

But perhaps for me the most hated aspect of the game was stealth. For a horror game to make players slink around avoiding hideous creatures was terrifying as well as a stroke of genius. Due to these sections, I would be criticizing Naughty Dog for it but yet I knew if I stuck with the game I will eventually find the ‘rhythm’ and go with the flow and thankfully such an attitude worked for me! Yes there was more than one occasion where I thought I had to give up playing the game, yet I didn’t stop and was eventually rewarded!

Enough of about gameplay and let me just gush my love for the insane graphics of The Last of Us! I have no qualms in saying that this is the greatest looking game ever made! Every cut-scene was as if I was watching a movie. Naughty Dog has unexpectedly outdone themselves especially after the visual tour de force which was Uncharted franchise. I don’t know how this venerable studio does it but Naughty Dog has become the front runner at constantly pushing the boundaries of the gaming industry.

The level of detail was just astonishing. The facial expression especially of the emotional kind has to be the best ever, even beating the much lauded facial expressions of LA Noire. It was as if I was right there with the character feeling what they were feeling. Not many games can do that if any. The animations of characters were so real! Sure enough Naughty Dog has been doing mo-cap work for years now but The Last of Us has to be their coup de grace! The environments’ detail was bordering on excessive and obsessive but that only played into the hands of the game as it made the game so darn immersive and engrossing!

The HD generation brought with it a deluge of incredibly looking games that blurred the uncanny valley but The Last of Us takes a lead so big that it will take some doing by other companies to even come close. And when they will come close Naughty Dog will raise the bar once again!

The sound department was the unheralded hero of the game to be honest. The soundtrack was so subtle almost being non-existent most of the time but once it does rear its head it just creates an amazing ambience… whether it be during tense gunfights or emotional scenes. But the most jarring aspect of the sound track was on how many occasions there was just no music AT ALL. During stealth sections where evading and avoiding the Infected was required there would be no background music and THAT created an aura of horror I have never experienced in ANY game!

As I near the conclusion of this review I will give a small spoiler free mention to the ending. Now one of the biggest criticism of recent Western games is they don’t make endings meaningful. Many a times I would feel as if the developers have left me in the lurch by giving a ho-hum ending! Even one of the greatest game franchises: Mass Effect had a pretty disappointed ending (in my case I felt like Bioware had kicked my gonads! That’s a topic for another post I guess). The Last of Us literally takes that trend and throws it out the window! The ending was nuanced and beautiful yet was so powerful that it took me a while to come to grips with it. It just resonated so well with the rest of the game. I remember how it kept me a daze during the credits! I wish more western game companies had the foresight for concluding a game in the right way. It’s not that Naughty Dog has not been guilty of such a trend as I experienced with the Uncharted series but with The Last of Us they hit the sweet spot!

OK, time to wrap up this long read. The Last of Us embodied every aspect of the HD generation. The last 6 years, very few games can claim to have even come close this game. Yes there are some truly outstanding games which came out on various platforms but The Last of Us stands high and mighty above the rest. 10-20 years down the line when we will fondly look back at this generation, this game will shine out. For me The Last of Us is the best game of this generation! Many people will disagree with me however. The JRPG fan in me is screaming ‘SAY IT ISN’T SO’ but I will stick to my guns. So in the end, this game serves as a fantastic farewell to the HD generation and stands among the pantheon of some of the greatest games ever made and wears its badge of honor with pride!

Time take for completion: 16 hours 32 mins
My final rating: 10/10

Ni No Kuni: Level 5's magnum opus!!

The current generation has had some very interesting trends from downloadable content, system updates, digital distribution and retro 2D gaming highlighting the horizon. Perhaps one of the biggest talking points of the entire generation has been JRPGs. The genre had two bumper decades when the number of games on consoles used to decide the console wars. SNES, PS1 and PS2 had some of the greatest ever JRPGs which gave incredible popularity to these systems. The HD generation was a different kettle of fish. Large production teams and higher budgets meant game companies needed to have block buster titles. JRPGs weren’t given priority like they were in previous console cycles. That led to the false perception that the genre was died or dying. As the generation hit its stride the number of JRPGs slowly started to increase. It’s thus fortunate that some quality games started to roll in onto consoles in the form of Tales of Vesperia, Lost Odyssey, Final Fantasy XIII and Xenoblade Chronicles. Hence this brings me to Level 5’s magnificent Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch!  A traditional JRPG made in the mold of some of the classic games of the SNES era but with all the bells and whistles of an HD generation! Ni No Kuni is the prime example of how a traditional JRPG can turn heads in the new generation.

A couple of years ago when Level 5 unveiled Ni No Kuni for the PS3 after the success of the Japan only DS game of the same name it was clear that Level 5 meant business in giving the HD generation its best traditional JRPG which it required. 2009’s Lost Odyssey was the only game which acted as flag bearer for traditional JRPGs and while it was a fantastic game in its own right, it was a sinfully overlooked. But Level 5 took it upon itself of not only making a great JRPG but to make sure it sold a few copies through aggressive marketing. Coupling itself with the animation giant Studio Ghibli, it crafted a deep RPG with some of the most astounding visuals and art style to grace a gaming console. Screenshots and trailers looked great but seeing the game on a proper TV was something else! So finally after 8 wonderful months of playing non-stop I have finally reached the end credits. Incredible is a word that comes in mind when talking about Ni No Kuni!!

In the following paragraphs I will be jotting down things which I liked about the game and things which I didn't:

LIKES:

Make no mistake, Ni No Kuni ranks as one of the most beautiful and colourful game ever created! The game looks gorgeous when in motion. The level of animation fluidity is outstanding and the vivid colours almost ‘bleed’ off the screen. The towns and dungeons are spectacularly rendered and visiting any new place was an awe-inspiring experience. The current generation has given us some amazingly realistic and mature looking games which blurred the lines of the uncanny valley, but Ni No Kuni is one of the rare games that seem to have bucked this common trend with this colourful bonanza! Level 5 partnership with Studio Ghibli was an inspired one as the studio was responsible for the amazing art style of the game. It was truly like playing a Studio Ghibli movie.!That in itself was a surreal experience and which definitely made the game stand out from its peers! I will be very surprised if the game doesn't win any awards for its visuals and art design.

Level 5 has earned its stripes in the JRPG industry as a seminal game company and the game play of Ni No Kuni once again shows how much the company and its founder Akira Hino understand what makes JRPGs click. The battle system is a hybrid of real-time and turn-based mechanics in lieu Grandia, Xenoblade Chronicles and Valkyria Chronicles. The battle system uses the whole Pokémon/Persona mechanics of using monsters to do all the battling. I know that a lot of people were put off by that and I too have never been a Pokémon fan but Ni No Kuni borrows that feature quite smartly. I finished the game with 90% of the familiars I captured in the first 20-30 hours of the game. What makes the combat involving is how tactics have to be changed on the fly especially during boss battles. The stiff difficulty kept me on my toes. Don’t let the cute exterior fool you into thinking that the game is easy as it’s not.  I had to have good levels and good equipment to overcome tough monsters and bosses!

The length of the game was very satisfactory. It took me 62 hours to finish the main story and 90% of the side quests and bounty hunts (which there were quite A LOT of). As soon as the game finished I found myself back in the game world with new side quests which were tough and complex and an ultimate secret boss (whom I am still trying to fight with, having to go through a long series of hoops). There is also the coliseum to compete in. So basically the game can easily take 80 hours to fully beat.

The sound productions were top notch. Studio Ghibli’s alumni Joe Hisaishi produced the entire sound track which was epic and yet very heart warming. As his first foray in games Hisaishi-san did a fantastic job as his work easily rivals that of Nobou Uematsu and Yasunori Mitasuda. The voice acting has got to be one of the best this year. The last couple years has seen British voice actors coming to the fore: Xenoblade Chronicles, Pandora’s Tower and The Last Story had some amazing voice work and Ni No Kuni once again follows the trend. The entire British cast was pitch-perfect esp. the main antagonists but  the best performance was by Mr. Drippy, The High Lord of High Fairies and Oliver’s trusty side kick, who had a thick Welsh accent which was just wonderful. More games should have Welsh accents as far as I am concerned! The rest of the cast were right up there although I did feel the ‘weakest’ performance was of Oliver as it sounded too sweet and innocent. Guess that is what the aim was in the first place!

Oliver’s journey after his mother death was quite heart breaking and poignant. His quest to bring back his mother from another realm was a very effective plot hook which kept me going on ahead. Not many games have the courage to have such a depressing back ground yet Ni No Kuni wore it as a badge of honour  Yes the plot isn't a complex or epic but had enough charm to pull at the heart strings. What backed up the good plot were the characters; Oliver, Esther and Swaine weren't the most fleshed out main characters but I always felt close to them and egged them up on their perilous journey. The relationship of the 3 heroes really took the simple plot and made it very personal.

While the game was truly fantastic there were just a couple of things which did not sit in well with me:

DISLIKES:

The most glaring negative was the amazing voice acting. As I mentioned before the voice work in Ni No Kuni was quite strong, but there was so little of it! In this day and age a game of Ni No Kuni’s pedigree should have been fully voiced. Namco Bandai was in charge of the English localization and I just feel they may have cut corners. I mean Namco Bandai’s own JRPG franchise: Tales games are 90% voiced yet Ni No Kuni had very little voice work! Sure it isn't a deal breaker but I think more voice acting would have certainly made the game more immersive.

Level 5 was clearly inspired by the SNES era as it lovingly recreated it for the HD era in Ni No Kuni, yet the plot narrative still retained the old school feel. What that meant that sometimes the plot took a back seat and that kind of killed off tension of the plot. Once again this doesn't really affect the game on a whole but it would have been nice if it told the story in a proper way.

Lastly the ending was very VERY disappointing. Without going into detail to avoid spoilers the ending didn't do it for me. I am sure many of you guys will disagree but for me the game’s ending lacked the ‘oomph’ I was expecting.

Ni No Kuni will be fondly remembered in the years ahead as the game which not only stood against the dreaded perception that traditional JRPGs were dead but did amazingly well sales wise. Even the harshest critics of the genre warmed up to the game and its fairy tale aesthetic. Level 5 should be lauded for its effort as it created the company’s second best game (after Dark Cloud 2). The current generation will be remembered for a lot of mature games and themes but Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch will remain the darling of this generation with lush visuals, solid game play, top notch audio and a beautiful setting. If anyone is looking for a deep and fascinating JRPG experience then Ni No Kuni fits the bill perfectly. My rating: 9.3!

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: An opinion!

FINISHED LEGEND OF ZELDA: SKYWARD SWORD! 40 pounds very well spent! Skyward Sword, for me at least, is one of the best action adventure games. It is the longest. By the time I killed of the last boss my playtime was nearing 50 hours! And this is NOT an RPG! 

The story was pretty good, esp. the fact that most Zelda games are about the game play and it gets the most attention, but Skyward Sword had a riveting plot. Sure it kept things simple and still used the “Save the Princess’ theme that is synonymous with Zelda games, but the way the story was told was very interesting. There were quite a few cut scenes that had good amount of cinematic flair and kept things moving along. There is where the devs have done a great job in juggling story exposition and game play considering the long play time. For the game to be this intriguing right till the end, esp. for a game plays heavy series like Zelda was remarkable. I loved the fact as it’s an origin story; I didn’t feel as if I was being weighted down by Zelda’s past. This has to be Nintendo’s most story focused game to date.

The characters were pretty decent too. While Link was once again a blank slate and the many of the NPC were rote, but the real stars of the show were Zelda, Fi and the villain Ghirahim. Zelda side stepped the whole damsel in distress cliché and showed her as a strong willed and brave girl, but still retaining the fragile and vulnerable nature of a damsel. Unlike the tom boy version of Wind Waker or the coward type in Spirit Tracks, here was Zelda who, while staying innocent, was standing up to the evil that threaten to destroy the world  and fought it out, in different ways, along with Link. Man I would love to have a girl like Zelda. And did I mention she was quite the cutie!

Fi is Zelda’s very own Cortana! While Cortana had spunk…..amongst other…..assets, Fi was a ‘master’ of stating the obvious made her pretty memorable. At least she wasn’t as annoying as the fairy in Ocarina of Time (played OOT for 3 hours). Ghirahim takes the place of the series regular villain, Ganon and is pretty menacing….in a…queer…kinda way. I have never seen Ganon, but Ghirahim did decent job in me hating him all the same. Had fun beating his ass!!

The game play was a bit of a mixed bag, for me at least. The level designs and puzzles were amazing and very creative. Puzzles found in Lanayru Desert were nothing short of awesome! The entire game world was like a big puzzle which was fun; although a bit of normal exploration would have been good. But for me the most divisive aspect of the game was the use of the Wii Motion Plus, esp. how it was implemented in combat. At first it was fun, using precise attacks to dispatch enemies, but as the game started to get more tough and enemies attack pattern started to change, I started to find the precise waggle to be annoying to the point of almost hating it. My arm would tire very quickly which could had become a deal breaker for me if the game would had been a notch tougher. But during boss battles I would be cursing Miyamoto-san for put Wii Motion Plus in the game. So while it was fun for a while, I am glad and relived that the usage of the device had come to an end!

The thing which really impressed me was how much the game kept on offering in terms of game play. Right when I thought that all of the game play had been displayed, there would be something new.!

The production values were great! The game looked like a Claude Monet’s painting! The colors were bright and vivid and while due to hardware constricts the game textures were blurry but that played right into the hand of Nintendo and the end up giving it a unique artistic touch. The sound track was….okay I guess, but the main theme which used the classic Zelda’s theme arrangement with the new theme was just great! I like the new Zelda theme more than the classic one though. All in all while the production values could not beat the ones found in Super Mario Galaxy 2, Skyward Sword sits very cozily as one of the best looking and sounding games on the Wii.

Ok so now I am putting on my critics cap and nitpick the things I did not like about the game:

I did not like the monsters and enemy designs.  I felt that maybe the artists of the game were a tad lazy. While I appreciate game design that are aimed at a young crowd, but the ones found in Skyward Sword were just not good. I will cite one example: The Imprisoned. Here was a horrendous monster whose sight made me shudder a little, but then I saw its hands and feet! I mean..LOOK AT IT!!

In this day and age where voice acting has become so important in games, to stay so rooted the past ended up hurting Skyward Sword. Nintendo kept the game voice less which I just do not understand. The game would have benefited from voice acting if they had British actors!

The most damning feature of the game was back tracking. No, not your typical back tracking here, but visiting the new environments in the same location..3-4 times was not good thinking. A game that is as lengthy as this, there should had been locations to go to. I just couldn’t fathom reusing the same locales. EVEN IN THE LAST DUNGEON!! I had to deduct a few points.

So in the end I will still rank Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword as quite an amazing game. Having so much content in a game whose genre is action adventure was quite bewildering. The story was decent and the game play was solid as ever. Sure there were a few things that I did not like, for which I will be chastised by long time Zelda fan (this is the first Zelda game I have finished) but I still have loads of fun. My play time at the end was 49 hours and 32 mins. My ranking: 9 out 10!