Did I write a little capsule review for every game I played this year? Reader, I did not. But I did write them for… over half of them! And this week, I’m putting them up for Mixolumia, Wargroove, Pyre, Deus Ex: A Criminal Past, and Kentucky Route Zero: Act III.
Mixolumia
My favorite puzzle game of 2020, with a bullet. Marathon and Endless modes are relaxing, and Intense is suitably difficult. There’s just enough difference to other drop puzzlers (Puyo Puyo and Tetris being the classic references) and match-3/4 games to provide something new, all with crisp low-bit textures. Developer davemakes also pulls back the curtain on the dynamic sounds and music, which has opened up a music pack mod scene. All around, a highly replayable, brain-twisting, scorechasing time.
Wargroove
Wargroove is a solid, if unspectacular, turn-based arcade tactics game. Those are rare enough, and this one does a good job moving the genre ahead in some spots. There’s some map variety, having land, air, and sea units are interesting, and the heroes have some fun abilities that can change things up. But those things don’t translate into much gameplay variety. I would have liked more variation between armies than a single character’s special ability. All the same, it’s fun to play and the story is decent, cartoony fun. The ending isn’t bad, either, with four battles wrapping the story up neatly and providing some of that variety that I was looking for. Too bad the epilogue is locked behind earning 100 stars in the campaign.
Pyre
Pyre has such interesting dynamic storytelling and subtle choice, expressed through gameplay, that I think it flies under a lot of folk’s radar as it seems to be popularly considered the weakest of Supergiant’s offerings. That’s probably due to its mixture of VN-style storytelling and the fantasy 3-on-3 Basketball/Soccer hybrid that makes up the active gameplay. But both of those aspects are good, particularly in the relationship dynamics between characters on your team and with the opposition.
The choices that you can make are expressed in those dynamics. Some of your teammates carry guilt, shame, debt, or love, friendship, and rebellion. They have histories with the other denizens of the game’s setting, the Downside. Even when you lose, the player wins in that losses can unlock allies in the grand scheme of things. This shakes out from the very beginning of game but really builds up steam about halfway through. The range of narrative possibilities these interactions can unlock is fantastic and stands up to some of the best VNs, and some of the rites can be intense depending on all kinds of modifiable difficulty.
All that is to say – Pyre is underrated. Anyone who plays it at this point, now that Supergiant’s follow-up in Hades is such a hit, will see its marks all over that follow-up.
Deus Ex: A Criminal Past
On the one hand, this was a disappointing story. A Criminal Past has a lot of potential in its setting, but it uses so little of it. Soon enough after waking up in a cell with no augs and no arsenal of items, Adam Jensen is back to fully loaded strength. If one takes the usual Deus Ex approach of hacking everything and scouting every tunnel, there’s no shortage of power ups, augs, and weapons to deal with. On top of that, only the first hour or so actually takes place in the institution as it is “usually” run – after that, there’s a riot that establishes safe zones and unsafe zones, manned by inmates and officers, respectively.
Even if it wastes the potential of its setting, this is a solid Deus Ex short story. The setting is wonderfully coherent in that classic immersive sim way, with all of the janitor’s closets, showers, security rooms, and environmental storytelling that a player could want. And speaking of that environmental storytelling, some of it is pretty grisly as far as apparent group executions go. Jensen is still supercop and doesn’t remark on any of this, but at least there’s detective work for him to do. Right up until the end, there’s the potential for players to miss a few things and to be undecided about the role some characters play in the story. It’s almost an interesting story, too, but falls short on just that account.
If you want to check out my longread on this one, it’s up as a feature over on Gamers with Glasses.
Kentucky Route Zero: Act III
Just like the other acts, this one is fantastic. Wonderful visuals with strong themes. A stirring plot. The addition of the new characters again goes well, providing a branching, player-driven song. And the ending of the act is one of the most heartbreaking scenes in videogames, all set up from its despondent prologue. The weaving together of multiple timelines, with those new characters being the late band that everyone in the first scene is waiting on, and with the final scene really taking place midway in the story, is elegantly done.
Previously on the blitz: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
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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