What I've Been Playing Vol. 53

Another Code: Recollection (NSW)

Reclaim your lost memories.

 Another Code: Recollection brings two classic DS and Wii games to the Switch in HD. They follow the young Ashley Mizuki Robbins, who's on a journey to regain her lost memories. In the first game, she visits Blood Edward Island to reunite with her long-lost father and help the ghost "D" in finding out what happened to him. The sequel, Journey Into Lost Memories, picks up two years later and has Ashley visiting Lake Juliet, which she visited with her mother years ago. Both games had interesting stories that were coupled with a decent cast. No surprise, Ashley was the standout as you get to see her character develop across the two games. 

 The games are visual novels with puzzle-solving segments to boot. In both games, you'll be exploring around as Ashely and solve puzzles to progress in certwin areas. You're accompanied by the "DAS", a Switch-like tablet that serves as a camera, data log, and inventory list for items that you've collected. The second game introduces the "RAS", an electronic bracelet that allows you to open locked doors in unison with the DAS. The puzzles were generally on the easier side as they were simple enough to piece-out and there's even a hint system as well. Both games combined took me around 10 hours to beat, so they aren't long stories by any means.

 Another Code: Recollection does a great job remaking the games as they now look more vibrant and captivating. The character designs and backgrounds are good, though they could've benefited from a lot more detail. The voicework was decent and soundtrack was awesome, packing many calming tracks that complimented the atmosphere of the games. Overall, Another Code: Recollection is a nice packaging of two underrated gems that will woo fans of the visual novel genre.

Ys VI: The Ark of Napisthim (PC)

Adol's thirst for adventure lands him in deep water.

 Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim is the sixth mainline game in Nihon Falcom's venerable Ys series. Red-headed adventurer Adol Christin finds himself in trouble when he's shipwrecked to the uncharted Canaan Islands. He meets and slowly befriends the elf-like natives of the island the "Rehda", but it's not before long when trouble finds Adol. The story's as straightforward as it gets with characters being mostly forgettable.

 Ys VI is an action-RPG where you solely play as Adol as you explore around the island, defeat all sorts of enemies, level up, and buy new gear at shops. The main draw of the gameplay are the three elemental swords (wind, lightning, amd fire) that deal significant damage to certain enemies and require clever use when fighting bosses. They can be levelled up using blue shards called "Emel" to increase their damage. You'll be doing lots of levelling up as the game isn't a cake-walk as when visiting a new area, enemies can instantly kill you, so your progress is impeded until you've reached a high-enough level.

 The game packs a good amount of variety as you'll be exploring a lush forest, ancient ruins, a tall mountain, dark cave, and even a seaship. You'll be doing some platforming in some areas, though they it can get annoying given how super accurate your jumps must be to reach some treasure chests. Additionally, you can't pause the game during fights or access the menu to use health items, which was oddly stupid.

 Ys VI boasted a then-new 3D game engine, an upgrade from prior 2D games. That said, its aged given that it's from 2003. The backgrounds were flat and decent though the chatacter models were pretty cool for the time. I also liked the anime art-style too with Adol and Geis' designs being standouts. The soundtrack was great as it packs many great tracks. The game was a solid action-RPG that offered a nice amount of exploration, tough bosses to fight, and serviceable story that kept things moving. While later games significantly improved the gameplay formula, Ys VI is still worth a play today.

Black (XSX)

 Black is a first-person shooter from Criterion Games, creators of the Burnout series. Following black ops operative Jack Keller who gets interrogated after he disobeyed orders when hunting down terrorist organization, "Seventh Heaven" and their leader, Lennox. To avoid prosecution, Keller must cooperate by recounting his prior missions, where many details of his missions and Seventh Heaven get revealed. None of the characters or the story itself were engaging as it's the a generic military narrative. Sadly, the game ended on a cliffhanger that never got resolved. 

 Black has you completing several main tasks in each mission to advance the story. Upon starting a mission, you two weapons and a couple of grenades, but as you push on, you get to try the likes of a suped-up shotgun and machine gun that chops up enemies with ease. You can take a stealthier approach by equipping silencers on specific weapons and stalk enemies for the perfect shot, but it wasn't as fun as going guns-blazing. The levels were pretty boring. Sure the games takes to a variety of places like an abandoned farm and destroyed bridge but they all felt lifeless and empty. Even on missions where you're accompanied by NPCs, you often forget that they're present as they do a terrible job of killing enemies. It took five hours to complete on normal and there's some replay-value in going for all side-objectives and hard difficulty.

 It looks great for a late PS2/Xbox title with the weaponry being neatly detailed and environments packing an impressive level of interactivity with your surroundings being destructible due to explosions and bullets. Level design wasn't all that good as they looked drab with no interesting ones. The voicework was decent and soundtrack was as well, though you'd think that there isn't one given how quiet most of the game is. 

 Black was a decent shooter that's filled with non-stop action, neat selection flashy guns, and impressive visuals. Unfortunately, there isn't much else to say as levels were lacking and story was a snooze-fest. Its highlights are definitely the solid gunplay and remarkable destruction physics, but it's a game I'll probably forget about in the future.