Steamworld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt

Dig dig dig in our mine all day long!

With the new Nintendo reward system I, for some reason, have accumulated a bunch of gold and silver coins and there is nearly nothing I want to use it on. So for the heck of it I started to check games that was recommended and so on and grab one that was on sale. So I got Steamworld Heist, but since I wanted to play the first game in the series I got Steamworld Dig as well... not on sale and finished it in just around 5 hours. It was a fun little game. You play as Rusty, a steambot that has arrived to Tumbleton to meet Uncle Joe. But instead he falls into a cave where he locate Uncle Joe dead and another Steamboat that takes you back to the town. And so the adventure begins.

It's basically dig your way down the mine, get minerals to sell to get money in order to buy upgrades, equipments and items and go even further down the mine. Also some upgrades needs orbs so get them to. The mine is divided in three areas. You look at it from a 2D perspective so it feels like a Metroid game. The difference is that the player decides the environment and how you want to dig the tunnels. You need to dig them good enough so you can jump up and down before the lantern goes out and at the same time make it cross the whole map to find the mineral deposits. Until the end of course when you can run and double jump as well having a way to detect deposits on the map.

And at the end, as per usual you get to fight a boss... which for some reason absorbed Uncle Joe (which is what I guess killed him) and speaks about preparing Rusty to be absorbed as well as the heart of the machine and then launch an attack to take over the world. The battle is destroying the generators powering it... and it is randomised how they appear on the screen each time you enter. So the first time I was killed rather fast (could also been due to not fully upgrade everything). Second attempt was a much better time. You defeat him and then it goes to one month later when the people of the town has built a monument over Rusty that didn't come back... but then again, the town people were afraid to search for him except the girl steamboat you met at the beginning of the game and bought all the minerals you brought in. So that was 5 hours, one sitting. Wonder what Steamworld Heist looks like.

Chase: Cold Case Investigations - Distant Memories

Scully and Moulder

So while playing Spirit of Justice this other game was released which focused more on the investigation side... no, not Ace Investigation 2 with Miles Edgeworth (even though that would have been the best), but rather Chase: Cold Case Investigations - Distant Memories. Two detectives investigating unsolved cases, a grizzled and lazy chief-detective and his female and energetic assistant. Together they try to solve the case of an hospital explosion that left one victim. Behind the facade of the hospital hides a story of hacker groups, corrupt hospitals and children dying for unknown reasons. The explosion was said to be caused by an accident, but just like in Ace Attorney... or any other murder mystery, an accident is actually always murder.

And I solved it after approximately 1 hour. That's not solving the first case, that was solving the whole game (consisting of 1 case, but still). Talk about shocking discovery after spending 40 hours on Phoenix Wright and finish a game after 1 hour. And it ends on a cliffhanger as well. Not that the story or characters are bad, I quite enjoyed it and I really enjoyed trying to figure it out... but it's so short and I've actually have more questions than answers. And if there ever will be a follow up sequel, do I have  to replay this game in order to get whats happening? And since this was released only a few weeks ago (as of writing), how long do I have to wait to get the full story?

For a short burst of investigation it works fine, but don't expect a long game as I did since that really backfires. Maybe buy it on a sale or something.

Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice

Enemies of the law beware

So I finished the latest Ace Attorney game and it was an enjoyable ride from start to finish. No Nine-tails village episode that completely put me to sleep, no I enjoyed pretty much most of the episodes. Worst being the Athena one, but that one at least had Simon Blackquill in it alleviating it to a rather fun episode... that or the constant references to one of the main witnesses "balloons". Interestingly the stakes is immedialty higher since with Phoenix in Kurah'in a guilty verdict is a death sentence for the defendant AND those who would defend a guilty person. And to annoy me more they have Divination Seances which shows the last moments of the victim and the summoner then interprets them and I have to blast holes in them. It's like the movies from the earlier games and I hate those. And don't get me started on the new prosecutor who I really detested for most of the game. It might be that his snobby spiritual side really rubs me the wrong way with all "let it go" and "you will join the defendant in the fourth level of hell". I had a good mind to throw back how his soul would feel in hell for almost sentencing an innocent (or more) people to death. The good thing about that is that the only time I felt I really need to beat the prosecutor.

Everything is forgiven Simon

There are five cases presented as the main story and a special episode and two smaller "what if"-stories that has nothing with the games cannon to do at all. And I gotta say they hit pretty hard with call backs to earlier games. Galvin is mentioned and appear in one of the one-offs. Simon joins the defence side in one. Gumshoe is mentioned, Ema Skye is back as the main investigator. The Troupe Grammereye has a whole case to themselves and Larry Butz is back in the special episode as Edgeworth take the stand as the main prosecutor. Yes, it feels like Ace Attorney all right. Oh yeah, and Maya and Pearl Fey are back as well.

Now back to the serious stuff

So the main story is that Phoenix is in Khura'in to visit Maya Fey who are about to finish her training as a spirit medium. While there he gets caught up in several murder trails and as the literal only lawyer in Khura'in he must protect the innocent and try to stop the laws that perverse the judicial system in the land and restore the spirit of justice. Most of it can be traced to the Defendant Culpability Act which is explained above and was enacted 23 years prior after the assassination of the former queen by the leader of the current insurgent leader and former lawyer Dhurke Shaman (... or however you spell the name) which is the foster father of Apollo Justice who he took in when his father died in the assassination 23 years ago and he's also the father of the main prosecutor of this game, who's mother was the former queen. It's a real mess.So it's more of an Apollo story actually although there's a a total of 3 episodes with Phoenix and 2 with Apollo (but Apollo have case nr 5 which feels like 2-in-1 case). Athena only got 1. She actually hardly got any time at all, not even in the extra cases either. In the special episode she mostly run away from Trucy to avoid getting in her magician act.

As stated overall a good game, maybe case 4 is the weakest (and it happens to be Athena's case), but Simon and Taka is there to make up for it. Did I cheat anytime in the game? Yes, chapter 3 with the divination seance which made me rage since I never really had a clear gasp at where I was going and the twist of the story took me by surprise. Also the end of case 5 was a bit anti-climatic. Nothing really wrong and it works completely fine, but I expected we would have forced the main culprit to admit a culpability in a murder and force said person to either take the punishment or rewrite the law. The games solution worked as well, but still.

Trine: Enchanted Edition

I wonder what the unenchanted edition looks like?

This game I heard from my sister and my other sisters husband was a fun game and then a co-worker talked me into getting it during the 2016 Halloween. Played it until the end and found it rather enjoyable for a puzzle/action-plattformer. Story is that after the old king died the kingdom have been thrown into chaos and now the undead have appeared. During the commotion the  female thief... Thief sees her oppurtunity to lighten the coffers of the magical academy. She enters the place and find a peculiar artefact and as she touches it she is stuck to it. Meanwhile a magician called... Wizard, who is more of a lady's man tries to learn the fireball spell, but something beckons him into the academy where he find Thief and tries some of his pick-up lines, but the artefacts draws him in and he also is stuck with it. Finally a knight called... Knight (not the most original names I gotta say) is wandering the academy in search for food and ale. But seeing Thief in action his sense of justice takes over and he tries to apprehend her, but he also get caught in the artefact and suddenly they are all united and have to switch between each other to traverse the land in search of the other two artefacts to undo the power the artefact Trine... ROLL CREDITS!

Our heroes!

The set up reminds me a lot of a certain character in a book series I read as a kid, "A Man of his word". Basically 5 people that was part of a thief group was cursed so that only one of them was present at the time, while away they were locked in time, but knew what the others had done. There it was a scholar, thief, musician, warrior and more or less a murderer. Basically the same here. The thief can use grappling hook to climb higher places and use arrows to shoot at a distance or get items in harder places. The wizard can summon boxes, planks and a stepping stone that when upgraded even the thief can grapple on. The knight on the other hand can use his shield to block attacks, attack with his sword or a hammer later on. Basically the primary fighter against most enemies.

It was a decent fantasy series as I recall

So as you clear stage after stage you arrive at the Evil Tower that have appeared out of know where and as you climb it you are attacked by an undead wraith of some kind and then... it just ended. It felt rather abrupt and supposedly should I have guessed that the wraith was the former king? Did I miss a chapter or two? Well, honestly I thought it would be a neat idea just before the end if it was the former king, but still, it felt like something was missing before the end credits. Also the last couple of chapters was amazing when I stopped exploring and just followed the flow of the game. Especially with Thief as she is agile and also can attack. Wizard is probably the best character though since every platform puzzle get stupid easy when you place out boxes you can climb on and then place planks across gaps or just put them over spiked areas and then I walk over it. As stated the only time Knight shines is when you have a barrage of fireballs or arrows coming at you and then of course when you start getting overwhelmed by skeletons or about to face a boss... and sometimes not even that is needed. One time I was going down some trap doors and I noticed an ogre portrait and looked away, fell into a bottomless pit, but he followed me, but I just re-spawned with another character and could just walk by the room. I guess playing on a higher difficulty and some other settings might make the game more challenging and you really need to learn the different strengths and weaknesses to win, but I'm a lazy bastard, so I'm done. Wonder when I will get time to play the second game that also on the Wii U. All in all a fun game.