The video games I've been playing during the pandemic
Because I've had a whole bunch of free time!
Hi friends, it’s a busy week for me. There’s a lot going on between my day job and writing and my own life, so this newsletter is focused on something I know I can talk about easily: video games. I’ve been an avid fan of video games of all sort since I was young, having received a Nintendo 64 for a Christmas gift in my early years. I am also pretty darn good at most games, which means I go through a lot of them. When we first had to stay home in March, that gave me a lot of time to put into gaming. That time has diminished since then, but I still spend many of my evenings with my games. I’m going to talk about some of the games that got me through the last few months and why I like them.
Persona 5 Royal
Persona is a hugely popular series of JRPGs (Japanese Role Playing Games) that has been around for nearly 25 years at this point. I only got into it in 2016 with the release of Persona 5, but I instantly loved it. It’s got deep role-playing elements where you have to balance your schedule as a high school student in Japan with your adventures in an alternate world where you do turn-based battles to steal people’s hearts. Do I hang out with the cool coffee shop owner who is letting me crash in his attic (real plot point), or do I go take down a leading government figure who wants to take over the world using this alternate world (also real plot point)? The writing is sharp and funny, with each of the fellow high schoolers in your party having nuanced personalities and their own stories to pursue. The battle system, based on fusing monsters called “personas” to get new abilities, is accessible but full of numerous options, and the “Royal” version of the game that came out this year adds even more story and things to do. I literally put almost 200 hours into this game in April and May. And if anyone asks, Makoto is the best girl.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
You know what Animal Crossing: New Horizons is. I don’t need to tell you about what it seems like every single person with a Nintendo Switch has been playing since March. I agree with the thoughts that many other outlets have explored in greater details about the benefit of the game as an escape and structure during quarantine. While some of the villagers are “grumpy,” they’re all unfailingly kind and pleasant, always good for a comforting word or comic relief. It’s certainly not a perfect game, the introduction of item crafting and DIY recipes in order to obtain new things is a little too luck based for my liking, with a lot of repeats happening. The mechanic for obtaining art for your museum is also unnecessarily slow and frustrating (eat shit, Redd). Also the Happy Home Academy never likes my house because instead of making my rooms practical I fill them with skulls and hot tubs and turtles and play the weirdest KK Slider songs. Still, I did just get my island, Krakoa (yes named after the X-Men thing), to a full five star rating. I have won Animal Crossing.
Fire Emblem Heroes
While some people view mobile gaming as “not real gaming,” those people are dickish gatekeepers and we don’t listen to them. I’ve been playing Fire Emblem Heroes, the mobile game based on Nintendo’s popular Fire Emblem series, for years now, and it is an excellent time sink while you’re lounging around scrolling through your phone. The game is a simplified distillation of the main series, with your team of characters participating in turn-based battles that operate under rock-paper-scissors style rules of advantages. The artwork is uniformly great, and it contains the two elements I think are vital to a good mobile game. First, it’s surprisingly expansive and deep from a gameplay perspective. There are over 500 units in the game you can get, and there are numerous skills and upgrades you can affix to them to make them your own. And perhaps most importantly, FEH respects your time and your money. Being a mobile game, it does rely on the “gacha” style slot machine mechanics to give you new units, and you can pay real money for more pulls. If that’s something you have issue with, I would advise you to stay away. But FEH is generous with its in-game currency and is completely viable for players who spend nothing, so it’s worth a chance if you can look past that. Plus I really just like collecting things, even if it’s just characters on my phone.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake
There should really be a “Part 1” in the title of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, as the new release covers just a portion of the story of the 1997 classic. There are a lot of things to like about the new version. The story feels both expanded and more refined at the same time, bringing major focus to the environmental messages that are even more timely now than they were when the game released. The gameplay is a smart marraige of elements from the turn-based original and a more action-oriented combat system. The game looks absolutely gorgeous, and it runs well. But my favorite of FF7R is that it made protagonist Cloud Strife a dipshit again. Some material outside of the original game, both from fans and from the spinoff games and movies, have presented Cloud as a hyper-badass, cool, smooth bad boy. But people forget in the original game that he was kinda majorly a dork. Yes, he was capable, but he was also awkward, kinda dumb, and the butt of many of the games jokes. The remake’s more serious tone takes out many of those jokes, but the core of who Cloud was in the original remains. With the benefit of voice acting, he’s even more awkward now. I can’t count the number of times I’ve laughed because a character asks Cloud a question and his response is “uhh…” combined with a confused stare. It’s wonderful. This is the dweeb I remember and love from the original Final Fantasy 7. May he never get any less awkward in the 15 years it will take for the rest of the remake to come out.