Cassidee Moser
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The visual design also gives it a sense of homogenity that eventually becomes downright boring. Once you've seen one slope, you've more or less seen them all. Characters don't have much of a sense of personality, and the entire thing feels more like a surface-level experimental photo mode than a fully-formed video game. But, I plan to invest a few more hours into it for the sake of attempting to get a better sense of it before issuing a final verdict.
Titanfall 2 realizes the dreams of its predecessor. It looks amazing, plays fantastically, and is finely tuned in virtually every aspect, from the crisp sound design to smooth platforming. But, it also is held back by some of the conventions of its genre; namely, bland characters, a shallow Oo-ra space marine plot, and a multiplayer mode that is god, but still ventures into the same familiar territory as its contemporaries. The addition of a single-player campaign was a huge positive for this series, especially due to the bizarre twists and turns it takes throughout. In a year filled with outstanding shooters in both the single and multiplayer fronts, Titanfall 2 does just enough to prove it can hang with the others, even if it is re-treading old ground.
Even with a limited fast travel system, this grows exhausting early on. Failure in games is best handled when the player takes the rules and conventions handed to them and makes an honest mistake with their lack of skill, but Grow Up feels antagonistic toward the player, constantly undermining their every move with clunky platforming, almost gleefully launching them back to the start of a particularly challenging section. Bud is adorable, the world is visually stunning, and the game itself enticingly oozes whimsy. But those pure moments of bliss are undercut by Bud’s frustrating controls in a world filled with moments requiring his best precision.
Furi is good. Its fighting may occasionally lean on luck over skill, but learning a boss’ attack patterns and finally defeating them is a sweet sensation to enjoy. It’s beautiful to look at, has a pulsing, driving score underlying all of its action, and incorporates ideas of mythology wonderfully into a neat package. It’s unfortunate there’s little more to its seemingly robust world than occasional interactions and long, contemplative walks in between fights, because a more built-up lore surrounding its characters would have helped make it into something to be remembered.
Most of Stories: The Path of Destinies is hinged upon the idea of discovering the best possible outcomes of its story, no matter how nonsensical it may be at first. It’s a clever way to build a narrative, because it’s built around the assumption one will fail multiple times while still retaining useful knowledge to apply in a different run. It’s hard to "win," but one can do a little better each time. It’s only a shame the story itself wasn’t more cohesive and tightly more constructed as to join the rest of Stories’ strengths.
With its focus on visual narrative, A Bird Story challenges many of the ideas of basic game design, sometimes in ways that limit player freedom. But its amazing attention to visual detail, laser-focused narrative beats, and evocative soundtrack make it a neat, tightly-constructed story that says much without ever saying anything at all.