Congratulations! You have been randomly chosen to become God. As the newly appointed ruler over all creation, you shall be whisked away to the heavens above to fulfill your holy duties--which may include battling mermaids and flirting with angels.
Such is the fate of Renya Kagurazaka, an everyday, mild-mannered, dime-a-dozen, completely generic high school student. That's right: The Guided Fate Paradox presents a truly nightmarish scenario where God is, in fact, one of us. It's a goofy premise, since a lot of this fate guiding involves helping a weak-willed zombie find his courage or a knightly couple fall in love.
Sadly, the game chooses not to embrace this silliness, and instead gets bogged down in a workaday, good-versus-evil plot culminating in a workaday, good-versus-evil showdown. The fact that you're playing as God is of no real consequence; it's just a flimsy rationale supporting the game's singular purpose: level grinding.
The Guided Fate Paradox is a turn-based role-playing game played on a grid. Combat and exploration are not separate modes, so every step your take, or attack you make, counts as a turn. After you act, your partner acts, and then all the enemies act in unison. As you fight, you collect equipment for Renya--aka God--and friends to use, which confers new attacks, spells, or other special abilities. It's a play style reminiscent of the roguelike genre, but with a Japanese RPG twist in character advancement and death.
Paradox's woes start with leveling up, which is divided across many systems. By juggling these different systems, Paradox makes you feel as if you're getting stronger, but the complexity of this system also makes it difficult to understand exactly how strong you've become.
You're rarely without a companion, but they lack any sort of tactical finesse.
After you finish the game--a feat that could easily set you back more than 40 hours--something interesting happens. A survival dungeon is unlocked. This dungeon negates all of your base stat advancement, and lets you use only the items recovered in that dungeon. You can improve your characters and their items, just as you would in the rest of the game, but that progression is lost once you leave the dungeon. This goes a long way toward providing a consistent, satisfying challenge. Both Renya and his enemies start at the same level and advance along a similar curve. Play smart, and you can make life easier for yourself by getting ahead of that curve. Alternatively, if you rush through the dungeon the enemies will quickly outpace you.
With its intricate leveling system and randomized dungeons, The Guided Fate Paradox succeeds in creating a game that can easily gobble up biblical amounts of time. It's simply too bad all that time spent ends up feeling like a waste when there's no great payoff for all that hard work.
DonÄ‚Ë€â„Ët abuse the genre.
Metroid and Castlevania have defined 2D action and adventure games for decades and it shows in how often the Metroidvania genre has been flogged by all manner of different developers and IP holders. There was made by (almost) only one man, and revisited classics like Cave Story 3D. Clearly, itÄ‚Ë€â„Ës not hard to take a concept youÄ‚Ë€â„Ëve been kicking around in your head and strap a 2D adventure where certain doors are locked until youÄ‚Ë€â„Ëve progressed far enough to unlock a bigger gun or a new tool. I like this game-ified conceit and will happily try my hand at experiments with the formula.
Unfortunately, itÄ‚Ë€â„Ës not hard to think very little about the genre as you develop these Metroidvania games. You just lay out a few different power-ups, design an interesting-looking map that may or may not flip upside-down to reveal an entirely new Castlehellip; or cavehellip; or space stationhellip; or whatever. It sounds so easy, but designing an excellent Metroidvania game is a lot harder than it looks. In the end, thatÄ‚Ë€â„Ës Batman: Arkham Origins BlackgateÄ‚Ë€â„Ës biggest fault. It doesnÄ‚Ë€â„Ët think about you, it doesnÄ‚Ë€â„Ët try to evolve the now tried-and-true genre, and it doesnÄ‚Ë€â„Ët make any effort to introduce anything new about BatmanÄ‚Ë€â„Ës Arkham universe. In fact, it kind of takes Metroidvania a step backwards.
The lack of thought makes itself evident from the outset. Batman and Catwoman chase each other around some Gotham rooftops and the game uses lots of neat tricks to make it seem like this portable Batman adventure could be just as entertaining as the console games from Rocksteady. Batman grapples up to ledges, the camera pans around as he navigates a large rooftop, and generally dudes try to attack Batman but get beat up. Blackgate tries to include every element from the console Arkham games, but doesnÄ‚Ë€â„Ët succeed in doing anything satisfying with any of them.
Detective vision flips on and off with a tap of the touchscreen and holding your finger over different areas of BatmanÄ‚Ë€â„Ës world will uncover tips and secrets. In combat or predator challenges, Batman often used detective mode to single out enemies or track their movement, but on the Vita itÄ‚Ë€â„Ës not much more than a neat visual overlay. Where Batman could see the skeletons of his foes in previous Arkham games, in Blackgate you just see blobs of red inside blobs of gray that attack Batman. Combat feels about as cheap and hollow.
Batman can take on several bad guys at once, but donÄ‚Ë€â„Ët think youÄ‚Ë€â„Ëll have fine control over the caped crusaderÄ‚Ë€â„Ës movements on a handheld. Often, Batman just defaults to attacking the nearest bad guy, even if you want to create some space for our hero mid-brawl. Stunning often feels like it refuses to work or Batman just plain misses, and youÄ‚Ë€â„Ëre left staring dumbly at an incoming henchmanÄ‚Ë€â„Ës fist. Countering can also prove difficult. Overall, none of the controls feel as tight or offer enough feedback as they have in console Arkham games, least of all Arkham CityÄ‚Ë€â„Ës pin-drop responsiveness. It makes every move feel like itÄ‚Ë€â„Ës being telegraphed to Batman, whether heÄ‚Ë€â„Ës getting the signal inside Blackgate or not.
Combat leaves you unsatisfied and confused, but the game's map only adds to this. Once inside Blackgate prison, Batman is free to tackle any of the three wings taken over by archenemies Penguin, Joker, and Black Mask. While at first this freedom of movement and choice feels cool, it quickly results in more backtracking than any Metroidvania game should ever allow. YouÄ‚Ë€â„Ëll inevitably get deep into one bad guyÄ‚Ë€â„Ës zone before finding a blocked path and Batman without the proper tool. Then itÄ‚Ë€â„Ës off to explore the other zones in search of that desired tool. You might get to the other end of Blackgate Prison to find another doorway barring Batman from progressing before traversing another sizable chunk of the map to discover the tool you needed for the first doorhellip; or was it the second?
Metroid and Castlevania have avoided this issue by designing maps with a lot more thought. The typical Castlevania game might not give you the double-jump you need to ascend to the castleÄ‚Ë€â„Ës second floor, but more importantly it doesnÄ‚Ë€â„Ët drop that ability in some random corner. It purposefully teases you through other areas of the castle before sending you back to climb the clock tower. Metroid does this too. Samus typically gets her morph ball ability just before a narrative push comes and has you use it to escape through a tunnel that drops Samus back at a main junction point in the map.
Iceberg Interactive and Reverb are handing out free promotional codes for Gas Guzzlers: Extreme. They want the press to any press at all at least play the game. You know they've hit rock bottom when they've crawled our way and tossed us a review code, but that's just the way the dice falls.
DonÄ‚Ë€â„Ët abuse the genre.
Metroid and Castlevania have defined 2D action and adventure games for decades and it shows in how often the Metroidvania genre has been flogged by all manner of different developers and IP holders. There was made by (almost) only one man, and revisited classics like Cave Story 3D. Clearly, itÄ‚Ë€â„Ës not hard to take a concept youÄ‚Ë€â„Ëve been kicking around in your head and strap a 2D adventure where certain doors are locked until youÄ‚Ë€â„Ëve progressed far enough to unlock a bigger gun or a new tool. I like this game-ified conceit and will happily try my hand at experiments with the formula.
Unfortunately, itÄ‚Ë€â„Ës not hard to think very little about the genre as you develop these Metroidvania games. You just lay out a few different power-ups, design an interesting-looking map that may or may not flip upside-down to reveal an entirely new Castlehellip; or cavehellip; or space stationhellip; or whatever. It sounds so easy, but designing an excellent Metroidvania game is a lot harder than it looks. In the end, thatÄ‚Ë€â„Ës Batman: Arkham Origins BlackgateÄ‚Ë€â„Ës biggest fault. It doesnÄ‚Ë€â„Ët think about you, it doesnÄ‚Ë€â„Ët try to evolve the now tried-and-true genre, and it doesnÄ‚Ë€â„Ët make any effort to introduce anything new about BatmanÄ‚Ë€â„Ës Arkham universe. In fact, it kind of takes Metroidvania a step backwards.
The lack of thought makes itself evident from the outset. Batman and Catwoman chase each other around some Gotham rooftops and the game uses lots of neat tricks to make it seem like this portable Batman adventure could be just as entertaining as the console games from Rocksteady. Batman grapples up to ledges, the camera pans around as he navigates a large rooftop, and generally dudes try to attack Batman but get beat up. Blackgate tries to include every element from the console Arkham games, but doesnÄ‚Ë€â„Ët succeed in doing anything satisfying with any of them.
Detective vision flips on and off with a tap of the touchscreen and holding your finger over different areas of BatmanÄ‚Ë€â„Ës world will uncover tips and secrets. In combat or predator challenges, Batman often used detective mode to single out enemies or track their movement, but on the Vita itÄ‚Ë€â„Ës not much more than a neat visual overlay. Where Batman could see the skeletons of his foes in previous Arkham games, in Blackgate you just see blobs of red inside blobs of gray that attack Batman. Combat feels about as cheap and hollow.
Batman can take on several bad guys at once, but donÄ‚Ë€â„Ët think youÄ‚Ë€â„Ëll have fine control over the caped crusaderÄ‚Ë€â„Ës movements on a handheld. Often, Batman just defaults to attacking the nearest bad guy, even if you want to create some space for our hero mid-brawl. Stunning often feels like it refuses to work or Batman just plain misses, and youÄ‚Ë€â„Ëre left staring dumbly at an incoming henchmanÄ‚Ë€â„Ës fist. Countering can also prove difficult. Overall, none of the controls feel as tight or offer enough feedback as they have in console Arkham games, least of all Arkham CityÄ‚Ë€â„Ës pin-drop responsiveness. It makes every move feel like itÄ‚Ë€â„Ës being telegraphed to Batman, whether heÄ‚Ë€â„Ës getting the signal inside Blackgate or not.
Combat leaves you unsatisfied and confused, but the game's map only adds to this. Once inside Blackgate prison, Batman is free to tackle any of the three wings taken over by archenemies Penguin, Joker, and Black Mask. While at first this freedom of movement and choice feels cool, it quickly results in more backtracking than any Metroidvania game should ever allow. YouÄ‚Ë€â„Ëll inevitably get deep into one bad guyÄ‚Ë€â„Ës zone before finding a blocked path and Batman without the proper tool. Then itÄ‚Ë€â„Ës off to explore the other zones in search of that desired tool. You might get to the other end of Blackgate Prison to find another doorway barring Batman from progressing before traversing another sizable chunk of the map to discover the tool you needed for the first doorhellip; or was it the second?
Metroid and Castlevania have avoided this issue by designing maps with a lot more thought. The typical Castlevania game might not give you the double-jump you need to ascend to the castleÄ‚Ë€â„Ës second floor, but more importantly it doesnÄ‚Ë€â„Ët drop that ability in some random corner. It purposefully teases you through other areas of the castle before sending you back to climb the clock tower. Metroid does this too. Samus typically gets her morph ball ability just before a narrative push comes and has you use it to escape through a tunnel that drops Samus back at a main junction point in the map.
