Welcome to another round of the Optional Objectives backlog blitz! As usual, I have five capsule game reviews to share. Up on deck this week are thoughts on Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Dishonored 2, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, R-Type Dimensions, and Binary Domain.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
DKC:TF is the game everyone says it is – a game with wonderful music, animations, and art; creative level designs that make use of all of those things; classic controls made just a bit more fluid than in previous iterations; and somewhat frustrating boss battles. The only complaint I have about the game is how few opportunities within one of those battles the player has to deal damage. Miss a tiny window, and you have to repeat a cycle. It drags. But what a game where that’s my only complaint!
Even though he took me more tries to defeat than Ornstein and Smough, the polar bear juice factory boss is fucking adorable and I was sad every time I watched him lose his popsicle. He’s just lying down, vibing on his ill-gotten juice gains and DK bumbles in to fuck up his shit. What a shame. They should be buds. Maybe next time we’ll be able to bust open a crate in some levels and go on a rampage together.
Dishonored 2
Dishonored 2 is very much a game of highs and lows. Several of the levels, most especially the Clockwork Mansion, are absolutely fantastic. Figuring out how to go behind the scenes in the mansion and exploiting the level’s literal mechanics offers a steampunk, imsim version of some of Portal 2’s thrills. But the game also drags, especially when going nonlethal, due to some less-than-stellar stealth mechanics. I only have so much patience for quick saving and quick loading these days. On top of that, the writing is overly impressed with itself. Some of the celebrity voice work doesn’t exactly come off as though it’s worth the price or prestige, either. In terms of gameplay, the powers also don’t seem particularly balanced. A lot are fun (Domino!) and some are OP (Shadow Walk), but I rarely found myself engaging in very creative power uses. I guess that might be on me, but it was often more efficient to sneak past patrols or shadow walk and knock someone out.
All of this adds up to a sequel that doesn’t quite live up to the original, even though it outstrips it in spots. Since so much of Dishonored 2 follows directly from its predecessor and its DLC, the comparisons are invited. The Dreadful Whale is no substitute for the Hound Pits, offering little in the way of the intrigue, character, or shifting dynamics of the Hound Pits. It does have the effect of making sure that I wanted to range back out into the far more exciting locations of Karnaca, at least. But the last mission, in particular, seemed like a less difficult retread of Brigmore, offering little even in comparison to the natural history museum in Karnaca. Mostly, I think I’m disappointed in that very last mission and the ending. The game sets up the possibility of an interesting climax with the revival of your family member right at the start, but it only results in another scene with one of Delilah’s paintings.
With that said, there’s still a lot to like overall about Dishonored 2. The environmental storytelling remains very good, as does an emphasis on the surrounding life of the neighborhoods that Emily/Corvo infiltrates. Many of those show more signs of life than in the original and it’s always fun to figure out how to move unhindered above patrolled streets, slipping through offices, pubs, shops, and apartments. If only the main narrative was as good as the small details.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
I’m counting this one as finished because, after many hours of online play, solo adventure, and mostly just hanging out with friends, I went and played through the true ending of adventure mode. This has been my favorite iteration of Smash since early days of playing the original and Melee on the couch with buddies. Its expansive cast, incredibly well supported by levels, music, and costumes, makes for a really fun casual time. Adventure mode drags – there are simply too many fights and a lot of the gimmicks are not particularly fun. Even so, that mode has a great finale if you go for that true ending. Getting to play as the Master Hand is truly fun and seems like the fulfillment of a long journey that started with Smash 64. As a fighting/party game, Smultimate is the total package. I have no idea where the series will go from here, but for now, I’m happy to keep enjoying this entry.
R-Type Dimensions
No complaints about the quality of this remaster; more retro games should get this comprehensive a treatment. Containing R-Type I and II, the Dimensions package allows players to switch between retro and updated graphical and musical styles on the fly. Assist modes like slow-motion are also at the push of a button. The infinite lives mode allows players to get the tour, while the arcade mode remains a challenge. It all just moves a little too slowly for me, though – especially the player’s ship. While it would drastically alter the game, I would much prefer these first two R-Type games if they provided the player with a little more mobility.
Binary Domain
An often overlooked gem by Sega’s RGG team. Solid third-person-shooter combat is made far more interesting through the game’s embrace of scrap and destruction mechanics for its robot foes. Few other games of its time (or, for that matter, the present time) match how interesting it is to blow apart robots and have them keep coming. Around the action hangs a posthuman plot with much disdain for American military intervention. In other words, it’s Japanese cyberpunk, with a big splash of GiTS:SAC.
There are a few blemishes, including some awful QTEs and questionable character choices. Sometimes, the international caricatures fall flat, and wrapping the main female character in nonhuman macguffin plot relevance in the final two chapters isn’t handled well. The game’s fixation on pairing up the walking self-parody of the all-american action hero MC with said French-Japanese sniper is also grating. The finale suffers for this, particularly as it moves so quickly that teammates appear to change what they’re willing to fight and die for scene-by-scene.
With that said, much like the studio’s mainline Yakuza games, Binary Domain provides some unexpectedly interesting sketches of differences in Japanese society and its relation to the rest of the world. That’s all wrapped in a gooey layer of action-movie cheese. It’s a shame the game’s creators felt that they had to blend in some poorly scripted action romance in alongside with it.
Previously on the blitz: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Optional Objectives is a contributing editor for Gamers With Glasses. He also writes for a bunch of other online publications and zines, including Unwinnable, Heterotopias, First Person Scholar, Clickbliss, and Haywire Magazine. You can find more on twitter, both @opobjectives and @donaever.
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