1708: Playing on Home Turf

Regular readers of this blog will be well familiar with how much I enjoy Final Fantasy XIV (as does Andie now, too) and, for sure, I've had a blast since the game's original beta sessions last year. I've been fortunate enough to be able to run with the same people since I started playing — the Giant Bomb Free Company — and most of them have been playing fairly constantly since launch, so there are usually some familiar faces online at any given time, and other people come and go around that stable of predictable, reliable players.

The downside to the Free Company that I'm a member of is that the vast majority of people involved live in the States. This makes things a little difficult when I want to participate in things that practically necessitate forming a group yourself rather than relying on the game's built-in "Duty Finder" matchmaking system. It hasn't stopped me trying, of course — and I'm very pleased to have completed both The Binding Coil of Bahamut Turn 5 and Ramuh's Extreme Mode incarnation with my friends in the Free Company — but since these attempts normally necessitate staying up until about 3am at the earliest in most cases, they're not always practical, particularly now I have a proper job and consequently have to get up at some ungodly hour in the morning in order to arrive on time.

Enter our neighbours, then — yes, they're actually our neighbours; their Free Company house is right across the street from ours — the free company Loose Cannons, more commonly known as LoCo. I've seen these guys around a bit over time, but didn't really know them that well. They always seemed to be pleasant people, though, and they were always gracious enough to wave and greet me when I passed by them on my way to do something else.

After a while, a "linkshell" — essentially a custom chat channel, for those unfamiliar with Final Fantasy XIV parlance — was set up to allow Giant Bomb and LoCo to communicate with one another, since the Free Company chat channels are restricted to members only, and you can only be a member of one Free Company at once. You can have up to eight linkshells, though, so I happily accepted the invitation — though, being me, I was somewhat hesitant to muscle in on what I saw as already-established social groups, and thus remained rather quiet around the unfamiliar people.

The other night saw an encouraging milestone, though; it transpires that many of the members of LoCo operate in the same timezone as me, and moreover, that a lot of them are interested in taking on the game's most challenging content, such as the aforementioned Binding Coil of Bahamut Turn 5, and the subsequent four-part raid the Second Coil of Bahamut. Since I'm also interested in challenging this content, but didn't want to muscle in on the established, US-timezone groups that had already naturally formed in Giant Bomb, this has the potential to be an ideal situation for me.

I've never been a part of a "static" raiding group before and indeed have usually shied away from this sort of thing in MMOs because I doubt my own skills, usefulness and ability to commit to the group. As I wrote the other day, though, Final Fantasy XIV is one of a few games that I actually feel confident that I'm quite good at, and the prospect of not only challenging myself but developing some close friendships with others who enjoy the game in much the same way I do is very exciting to me. I've often mentioned how playing Final Fantasy XIV can be as much of a social activity as a video game, and having a regularly scheduled evening where a predictable, reliable group all shows up and we work our damnedest to try and take down Twintania, Rafflesia and whatever lies beyond that? Well, that's something that I'm looking forward to a lot.

Is this how people on sports teams feel?

1702: Scoundrels

Gave my copy of Lords of Waterdeep and its expansion Scoundrels of Skullport another outing tonight, and it was pleasingly different from the first time we played. Less pleasing in that I lost by a considerable margin — I struggled to get a good means of income going at any point throughout the game, and the board as a whole ended up pretty "dry" — but interesting to see quite how much a difference there can be between two different playthroughs.

We've been playing the game in its most advanced form — that is, incorporating the two "modules" that form the complete Scoundrels of Skullport expansion. One of these, centring around iconic Dungeons & Dragons locale Undermountain, focuses on high-value quests — the most valuable quests in the base game were 25 points, while the Undermountain module beefs this up to an impressive 40 — while the other, centring around Skullport, allows you to perform numerous powerful actions in exchange for "corruption", a resource that is worth a variable amount of negative points at the end of the game according to how much is in play at any given time.

Aside from the new mechanics — all of which blend beautifully into Lords of Waterdeep's base game without forcing players to learn hundreds of new rules — Scoundrels of Skullport also incorporates numerous new quest and intrigue cards (the latter of which are used to either give yourself an advantage or mess with other players) as well as a substantial selection of new buildings (which can be purchased to add to the number of possible actions players can take on each turn, with the building's "owner" receiving a benefit every time another player uses it). And the fact that there are so many of each of these components — far more than you need for a single game — means that, judging by our recent playthroughs, there's a significant amount of variety and replayability going on. Some games will be very heavy on the monetary income; others will be strong on the corruption; others still will see players playing a lot more intrigue cards than usual.

It's good to see a game have such flexibility and variety while still maintaining relatively simple base mechanics. All you essentially do in Lords of Waterdeep is collect various coloured cubes and tokens, then use them to complete quests and score points. At the end of the game, you score bonus points according to the conditions on your secret "Lord" card, which usually reward you for each quest of a specific type you successfully complete. That's essentially all there is to the game, but the variety of different possible actions offered by the action spaces and cards — particularly once you start throwing in the press-your-luck aspect of the corruption tokens — means that one game has the potential to play out very differently from another. And it doesn't feel like you're relying on luck; rather, it's a type of randomness that keeps things fresh and interesting without putting certain players at an arbitrary disadvantage.

We've still only played it a few times to date, but Lords of Waterdeep remains one of my favourite titles in my collection. I'm sure it'll be hitting the table fairly frequently.

1700: Showing Your Skills

One of the reasons I think I've stuck with Square Enix's excellent MMO Final Fantasy XIV for as long as I have now — I've been playing since the beta, which means my dear character Amarysse is now well over a year old — is that I actually feel like I'm quite good at it. This is a nice feeling.

I'm not saying I'm the best at it, or anything, and I'm certainly not one of those players who makes passive-aggressive comments in the vague direction of those they believe to be "beneath" their skill level (aside: earlier today there was one such jerk in 24-player raid Syrcus Tower berating a newbie tank for what he perceived as a lack of skills, and I was gratified to see all 23 other players admonish him for being an "Internet tough guy"; he shut up shortly afterwards) but I do feel pretty confident that I know how most of the things in the game works, and I'm comfortable helping and advising newcomers with how best to proceed.

As I say, this is a nice feeling, and it occurs to me that there haven't been all that many games — or indeed activities in general over the years — that I can honestly say that about. I like board games, for example, but I wouldn't say I'm an expert at, say, Agricola (as my unbroken losing streak will back up), Carcassonne or Catan. Likewise, I like performing music, but I'm realistic about my own abilities; I know there are plenty of people out there who are much better than I am. And likewise, I enjoy writing, too, but again, know that there are a lot of people who are better at that than me, too.

Final Fantasy XIV, though, I feel like I'm largely on top of my game. Sure, I haven't cleared everything yet — The Second Coil of Bahamut still remains elusive, though this is more a scheduling issue than anything else right now — but I have completed some of the most difficult content, such as The Binding Coil of Bahamut, Turn 5 and the Extreme difficulty version of the Ramuh boss fight. I have a damage-dealer, healer and tank class to level 50 and at least reasonably well-geared in all cases — very well-geared in the case of my "main", which is the Black Mage damage-dealer class. I know all the dungeons inside out because I've run them so many times. I know most of the Primal fights pretty well — with the exception of the Extreme mode variants, which I've only done once each — and I'm confident I could talk newcomers through most of The Binding Coil of Bahamut.

Knowing that I'm actually not some newbie scrub who constantly needs help from other people has actually helped me in a personal sense. Being able to complete all this content and even lead expeditions into some of the game's most challenging dungeons and encounters has meant that I've developed my own sense of confidence and assertiveness. I still have some way to go — I'm hesitant about asking people multiple times for something I really want to do, because I don't want to be a bother, for example — but I'm a lot better than I was.

This particularly comes to mind with regard to the game system added in patch 2.3, known as The Hunt. The Hunt is a take on Final Fantasy XII's system whereby you're given "marks" to find out in the world, then substantial rewards for beating them. In the case of Final Fantasy XIV's take on this system, there are three "tiers": B-rank, A-rank and S-rank. B-rank hunts can be soloed and you only need to do one per week to get a decent reward. A- and S-rank, meanwhile, require groups of people to beat.

The Hunt is, frankly, one of the most poorly implemented things in the whole of the otherwise pretty consistently excellent Final Fantasy XIV. It offers rewards that are much too big, and it is designed in such a way as to encourage enormous groups to power through it rather than smaller parties being able to take on these challenging monsters without being hassled by others. There's something of a reputation of A- and S-rank monsters getting "zerg rushed" by hordes of players looking to make some quick endgame currency, and on occasion the sheer number of people showing up for the more lucrative marks can cause game crashes and freezes. Not so good.

By far the worst thing, though, was the fact that it caused a fair amount of tension in the community because, at least initially, no-one quite seemed able to agree how they should be handled. Should the person who found a hunt mark be allowed to engage it in combat whenever they felt ready, or should they wait for other people to turn up first? Is it acceptable for someone to call out a "pull time" for a hunt, even if they weren't the person who found the monster? Is it acceptable to "reset" a monster (by moving it far enough from its spawn point that it restores all its HP and the fight effectively starts over again) in the name of giving people who haven't arrived yet the chance to get some credit for the kill? (In the latter case, the official answer to that is "no"; it's regarded as harassment due to the fact that doing so not only resets the monster's HP but also individual players' hidden "contribution points" to slaying the mark, which could potentially affect the rewards they receive.)

Said tension led to arguments — bitter, public, loud ones, as players formerly happy to cooperate with one another were suddenly at each other's throats over how they wanted to play the game. A number of people decided to take charge and say that this was how things were going to be done from now on, and if you didn't follow their arbitrary rules, they'd do their best to get you blacklisted by as many other players as possible. Not pleasant… and certainly not conducive to someone like me, who still suffers a certain degree of social anxiety in an online environment, wanting to join in the "fun".

However, the other day, I can't remember why, but I bit the bullet and gave it a go. I joined a hunt party and killed some monsters with them. And I had fun. The people involved were nice. No-one was yelling at each other or accusing others of "doing it wrong". (It helped that it was relatively early in the day in server terms, and consequently there were fewer people online.) It inspired me to go back again and get some more rewards. And then to make my own party and lead it — something I wouldn't even have considered even just a few weeks ago.

Having conquered that anxiety-inducing hurdle, I feel like I'm in a good place; I'm happy with my own level of skill at the game, and happy that I can help others out. I'm also happy to have a positive influence on those around me — I've defused more than a few potential arguments among hot-headed players in parties I've been involved with — and generally be a good member of the game's overall community.

Can't really ask for more than that, can you? And it's that feeling that means that, even as I have somewhat less time to play now that I have a full-time job, I'll be sticking with Final Fantasy XIV for quite some time to come, yet.

1695: Goodbye Despair

My copy of Danganronpa 2 showed up today. I haven't cracked it open yet, because I'm not sure I'm quite awake enough to appreciate its dark charms right at this second — and also because I have several other games on the go right now, too. But it's a game I'm particularly excited about, largely because the first game was so good. So let's talk about it.

There may be spoilers ahead. I'll try and keep them to a minimum, though.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (the first game) came out of nowhere for me. Originally a PSP title, it didn't get localised into English officially until the new(er) Vita version, courtesy of NIS America. I'm thankful that we did get it eventually — plus somewhat surprised that it's one of the few Japanese games that made it over to the West that was acknowledged and even celebrated by some critics. Why surprised? Well, because there's a lot of stuff in Danganronpa that is usually torn apart by Western critics — particularly regarding attitudes to gender — and yet, for whatever reason, this time around, it was celebrated as an excellent game.

But what is it? It's… well, it's a little strange, to be honest. It's sort of a visual novel, but there's more to it than that. There's freeform exploration and conversation as you investigate several different murder mysteries, then every so often the game turns into an even more chaotic take on Ace Attorney's courtroom sequences as you solve puzzles and pick out truths with your metaphorical "truth bullets".

Trigger Happy Havoc was bold, energetic and striking. Its colourful pop art-style visuals (with a peculiar but effective "2.5D" pop-up book-style aesthetic) were very distinctive and gave the game a unique visual identity, albeit one that wouldn't look out of place in a Persona game. Its music was catchy, memorable and fit the action well. The voice acting was excellent in both English and Japanese for once. And the writing was truly, truly excellent — with additional credit to NIS America for doing a great job with localising some difficult material in their own distinctive manner.

Danganronpa is a game you play for its story, and it's a mysterious one that will keep you guessing throughout. Unlike many other murder mystery games, where it's often obvious "whodunnit" quite quickly, Danganronpa regularly keeps you guessing right up until the truth is finally revealed. And the overarching plot that ties all the cases together follows this pattern, too; you'll have plenty of theories about what's going on by the time the "big reveal" comes around, but you might still be surprised by the truth.

Danganronpa is also a game you play for its characters, and they're a truly interesting bunch. Initially positioned to the player as the "ultimate" in their respective specialisms, they all gradually reveal themselves to be complex individuals with their own goals, motivations and priorities. In other words, they're not all very nice people on the inside, yet there are numerous occasions where you'll be forced to ally with even the most objectionable of the bunch in the name of seeking out the truth. The game also isn't afraid to kill off characters it's spent ages building up the player's relationship with, too, so don't get too attached to anyone you meet; it's probably safer that way.

Assuming Danganronpa 2 follows the pattern of its predecessor — and there's nothing to suggest that it doesn't — I'm in for a treat. If you're yet to experience the unique joys of these fantastic games, then grab yourself a Vita (if you don't already have one, of course!) and indulge in some thrilling murder mystery action.

1693: Rieze Maxia-Elympios Relations

Even after spending a week writing in great detail about it over on MoeGamer, I'm still having an absolute blast with Bandai Namco's (or is it Namco Bandai? I lose track) Tales of Xillia 2, the direct sequel to one of my favourite recent console role-playing games.

Direct sequels are quite rare in the Japanese role-playing game space; long running series like Tales of and Final Fantasy typically take each new installment as a completely new experience, with the only things each have in common being perhaps some story themes, some item and skill names, maybe a few character names or references, and little else.

There's a fairly good reason that direct sequels are pretty rare in this particular genre, of course: they're damned difficult to do well, and if you're not altogether careful you'll open yourself up to accusations of simply recycling old content. This is a criticism that has been levelled at Xillia 2 and not altogether unjustifiably — the majority of towns, field areas and dungeons you'll visit in the early part of the game are lifted wholesale from the original Tales of Xillia with very few changes.

It's what you do with that recycled content that counts, though, and in the relatively few examples of direct sequels in the JRPG space, it's been handled pretty well. Final Fantasy X-2, for example, eschewed its predecessor's very linear path around the world in favour of having everywhere open from the outset, and multiple things available for you to work on at any given time. Final Fantasy XIII-2, meanwhile, fragmented its experience into a slightly messy tale of time travel with a non-linear narrative, completely at odds with the much-maligned linearity of its predecessor. And Tales of Xillia 2 effectively starts you at the other end of the world from its predecessor, showing life in the games' unusual setting from a pleasantly different perspective.

That's not all, though. While Xillia 1's world was relatively open to exploration, you still unlocked things in a fairly linear progression and tended not to go places until you were told to. In Xillia 2, meanwhile, you still unlock areas of the world according to your progression through the main story, but on regular occasions you are left to your own devices to explore, take on sidequests — many of which are repeatable or randomly generated — and simply do as you see fit in the world.

In this sense, Xillia 2 actually ends up feeling a lot more like a crossbreed between traditionally Eastern and Western approaches to role-playing games. You have the tight, linear, character-driven narrative of a Japanese role-playing game coupled with the freedom to go and see what's over that hill, in that cave, through those wood as seen in Western titles like the Elder Scrolls series.

In fact, Xillia 2 also takes some heavy cues from Japanese role-playing games that do things a little differently, too — most notably the latter two Persona games. Like those two classics, Tales of Xillia 2's protagonist is pretty much silent, though he does have plenty of personality despite not saying all that much. And like those games, your party members have their own unique individual storylines that are ascribed almost as much importance as the main narrative.

One of the strongest things about the original Xillia was the feeling that this was a real group of characters that had their own individual personalities, feelings and opinions on everything. Offhand comments in the field, frequently hilarious post-battle mini-scenes and the Tales series' trademark Skits all helped contribute to an atmosphere of these characters feeling like real people that you were meant to care about rather than collections of stats. (Mechanically, they're all very distinct, too, as it happens, but for me it's the personality of them all that really shines.) Xillia 2 continues this with aplomb, this time giving you somewhat more freedom to make choices as to how the main character responds to things. Certain choices will affect your relationship values with your party members, while other choices will change the outcome of scenes. It's an interesting change from Xillia 1's very "hands-off" approach to story, and it works well, particularly in the context of making the sequel feel distinct from its predecessor despite reusing a lot of content.

I'm yet to beat the game — I'm juggling it with the ever-present Final Fantasy XIV at the moment — but I'm looking forward to seeing how it all concludes. If you enjoyed (and beat!) the previous one, I can strongly recommend Xillia 2; as a sequel, it hits all the right notes, and you absolutely will not be disappointed with the opportunity to spend more time with these wonderful characters.

If you never played Xillia 1? Well, get that sorted right now, soldier; you're missing out.

1690: One Lunchtime with Velocity 2X

As promised, here are some thoughts about FuturLab's new release Velocity 2X, one of my most anticipated Vita games.

Note that I am no longer a professional games reviewer, nor is this a review, and as such I am going to be thoroughly unprofessional and you are just going to have to deal with it.

Let's begin.

Squeeeeeeeeeee.

Ahem. Sorry. But I feel it's somewhat justified, because it's pretty much the noise my brain made when I started playing Velocity 2X for the first time last night, and continued over lunch at work today. It is immediately striking in many ways — the delicious, sharp-edged, flat-shaded vector graphic-style artwork; the rock-solid 60fps frame rate (it really does make a difference in a game like this); the gloriously colourful lighting effects; the thumping, catchy soundtrack; the subtle little effects like parallax effects "in front of" the main play area; the lovely animation on Kai when she gets out of her ship.

This beautiful presentation is married up to a beautifully designed game, too. Much like its predecessor, Velocity 2X starts very simple and gradually grows in complexity as you progress, layering mechanic on top of mechanic until you have a level 50 that is virtually unrecognisable from level 1.

It's not just the gradual growth that makes Velocity 2X a delight to play, though — it's the sheer fluidity of it all. This is something carried over from the original game, in which skilled players could seamlessly chain together short-range teleports, bomb-flinging, shooting, avoiding bullets and collecting shinies to make it look utterly effortless. It's entirely possible to do this in 2X, but the addition of the new mechanics makes it even more impressive when you can pull it off — particularly in the new side-scrolling segments.

And speaking of the side-scrolling segments, they're a lot of fun. They require a certain shift in your thinking from the top-down, vertically scrolling nature of the in-ship gameplay, but they're recognisably consistent, too. Kai's "Teledash" move is an absolute joy to use, and before long you'll be firing yourself through walls, flinging yourself high into the air and spraying bullets in a deadly arc around you without breaking a sweat. And, if the previous game is anything to go by, you'll need the skills you pick up in the deceptively simple early levels much later in the game — only there, you'll need to combine things together.

The pursuit of perfection is also present and correct in 2X. While it was easy enough to make it through the original Velocity without too much difficulty, scoring a "Perfect" rating on every level by collecting all the collectibles, scoring the maximum possible number of points and doing so was a lot more difficult. And indeed this seems to be the case in 2X as well — with the added twist that there's a fourth category of things to collect — the "Rekenium Shards" Kai collects while on foot — to add to the mix. It's challenging and addictive, and it makes you want to punch the air when you pull it off.

The whole thing is wrapped up in a much stronger story than the original game. The first Velocity did have a story, but it was very subtly told and a little too easy to ignore. When it's possible to go through a whole game and not realise the main character is female, that's perhaps a sign that you should pay slightly closer attention to the non-gameplay aspects. (Although fans of Metroid might disagree.)

2X strikes a good balance, though. The first time you challenge a level, you get a short bit of dialogue that helps to advance the plot and develop Kai's character. On subsequent occasions, however, you're straight into the action — no frustrating skipping over dialogue you've already seen. The story is quick, pacy and enjoyable, and supported by a considerable amount of "further reading" background material in the in-game Codex, unlocked through collectibles in the game.

So far I've had a great deal of fun with Velocity 2X, but I still have a long way to go. I've Perfected the first ten levels so far, and am looking forward to seeing how the game continues to develop. Perhaps most importantly, however, it seems like a great game to play at lunchtime, so you can count on my Vita being a fixture in my work bag for quite some time yet.

1689: Revving Up

Once I've finished writing this blog post, I'm going to go and play Velocity 2X on my Vita, a game that I've been looking forward to for quite some time.

Lest you're unfamiliar, Velocity 2X is the sequel to Velocity (and its Vita remake Velocity Ultra), the brainchild of a UK-based developer called FuturLab who are some of the nicest people in the industry.

I'll talk more about Velocity 2X when I've had a chance to sit down and play it for a while — I have played an early version, but I haven't even booted up the final release yet. Today, then, I wanted to talk a little about its predecessor, and why it means I'm excited to play 2X.

Velocity was a curious hybrid of genres, and it drifted and changed through different play styles as you progressed through it. Sometimes it was a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up. Sometimes it was a vertically scrolling racing game in which you had to fly efficiently and carefully in order to survive. Sometimes it was a clever puzzle game in which you had to teleport back and forth throughout the level in order to unlock the path to the exist. And more often than not, it was a beautiful, seamless combination of all these things.

The whole thing was wrapped in a wonderfully distinctive shell, too; an aesthetic that combined sharp-edged, flat-shaded vector graphics with Amiga-style background music to produce something that felt simultaneously retro-inspired but also thoroughly modern. The game regularly brought to mind 16-bit computer titles of my youth such as Goldrunner, but obviously it was quite a bit better than those. The atmosphere was there, though, and the understanding of what makes a truly satisfying, addictive game.

Velocity was a brilliant handheld game, too. Its levels were short, but very replayable in pursuit of the elusive "Perfect" ratings. Its leaderboard functionality perhaps left something to be desired — it wasn't at all clear how scoring worked, and it was ultimately fairly irrelevant since getting a "Perfect" rating would probably mean you got a very similar score to everyone else with the same rating anyway — but it wasn't really about competing against other people. Rather, it was you against the game; a series of increasingly fiendish, well-designed challenges that made great use of the game's simple to understand mechanics amid levels of greater and greater complexity.

Velocity 2X, if you were wondering, takes the basic formula of Velocity and adds an interesting twist to it all: platforming. Rather than being confined to your ship in a top-down perspective throughout the whole game, 2X incorporates side-on platformer segments, too. When I played the early version, these were already implemented well, and I understand they've only improved since then. I'm very much looking forward to giving it a try.

So that's exactly what I'm going to go and do right now. If you have a Vita and/or a PS4, I can say with some confidence that you should probably download Velocity 2X and enjoy it — yes, I say that with some confidence having admitted above that I haven't played the finished version yet. I have absolute faith in FuturLab bringing an ambitious project to fruition, though, so I wish them every success with their new release.

Further thoughts on the new game tomorrow!

1688: Rebirth

The nice thing about having an uninterrupted hour for a lunch break — something which I have at my new job (yes, I'm going to keep mentioning it while the novelty is still there), and something which I often did not have when I was working in schools, retail and even games journalism — is that it provides the ideal opportunity to get in a bit of handheld gaming time.

I have quite the backlog on both 3DS (well, DS if we're being completely honest about it) and Vita, and just recently I added another game to the latter's collection. I couldn't not, though; if you're a regular reader you will, of course, know that I couldn't possibly let a new Hyperdimension Neptunia game pass by without immediately purchasing it — even if I knew I wouldn't get to it immediately.

The game in question is Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1, the curiously punctuated remake of the game that started the whole series off. I've played a little over an hour so far, and predictably, I'm totally in love with it.

The original Hyperdimension Neptunia was a funny game. I'd be wary of calling it "good" or recommending it even to the most open-minded, fanservice-positive players out there, but despite its many, many flaws I liked it enough to play it all the way through, then move on to its sequels Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 and Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory. (And the Vita dating sim Hyperdimension Neptunia Producing Perfection, which I'm still yet to beat properly.)

Hyperdimension Neptunia was effectively a visual novel punctuated by repetitive dungeon-crawling sequences that ran at an appalling frame rate and featured a genuinely interesting but somewhat clunky battle system. I actually rather enjoyed this latter aspect a lot more than many other people; I appreciated the puzzle-like nature of setting up custom combos that you could chain endlessly — perhaps swapping back-line characters in and out along the way — and I was fascinated by manipulating the AI-driven in-battle item "crafting" system. This latter aspect was just plain bizarre — you had to set percentage chances that characters would use specific items upon meeting trigger conditions, and there was no means of just manually using an item.

The former aspect — the visual novel-style story sequences — proved to be the real draw for me, though. They were what kept me coming back time and time again, more than happy to endure the dungeon-crawling in the name of advancing the story and seeing what Neptune and her friends were up to next.

Hyperdimension Neptunia's story wasn't particularly complex, but one thing the series has been quite consistently throughout its surprisingly short lifespan is clever. Yes, that's right, clever. On the surface, it might seem like moe anime fluff full of squeaky-voiced girls squeaking at one another. And to a certain extent that's true. But beneath that candy-coloured exterior lies some clever, well-written satire of the ridiculousness that is gaming. Not the stupidity we've seen around gaming in the last few weeks, mind; rather, a series of on-point observations and sidelong glances at the way the different "factions" of the industry have behaved over the years. The way Sony likes to believe it's the best; the way Microsoft has habitually catered to specific types of gamers; the way Nintendo handles business with ruthless efficiency, even when it doesn't make any friends while doing so.

Not only that, but the series has been packed with plenty of references to numerous video games — through its dialogue, through its incidental recurring characters and even through the monsters you fight, which include space invaders, Pac-Man ghosts and sentient dating sims. All this added up to a considerable amount of charm that far outweighed its technical and design shortcomings.

Re;Birth1 had a lot to live up to, then. And based on an admittedly short amount of time with it so far, it appears to be living up to expectations. Rather than word-for-word recreating the original with the modernised, much better gameplay systems of Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, it instead acknowledges (and frequently lampshades) the fact that it is a remake. Basic story beats have so far been similar, but the specifics of how you get to them are a bit different. And the gameplay has been totally revamped, featuring Victory's fantastic combat system — now explained far better than it has ever been in any previous installment — plus some interesting new tricks such as the "Remake" system, which allows you to "craft" everything from items to be sold in shops to new gameplay mechanics.

Amusingly, it runs far better on the Vita than it ever did on the more powerful PS3, too, and despite making use of a lot of the same audio-visual assets and even maps from the previous two games, it feels like a pleasantly fresh experience to be able to carry it around in your pocket.

If Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory was anything to go by, I expect Re;Birth1 to keep me busy for a very long time indeed. Now, if only there weren't a zillion and one other brilliant games out now all vying for my attention, too…

1685: Murder on the Mystery Express

Today's afternoon and evening was spent playing board games, beginning with a go at Lords of Waterdeep with both components of the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion — an essential addition for anyone who likes the base game — then following up with some Love Letter, Boss Monster and finally a Days of Wonder game I've had on my shelf for nearly 5 years now and never played a complete game of: Mystery Express.

Mystery Express is a "whodunnit" game with unsubtle Murder on the Orient Express influences. Thematically, you're attempting to solve a murder on the train before it arrives in Istanbul; mechanically, you're using various means of acquiring and sharing information to make deductions about the perpetrator, their motive, their modus operandi, the location of the crime and the time it took place.

Each turn in the game represents a leg of the journey from Paris to Istanbul, and permits players a certain number of in-game hours to perform various actions, represented by the different carriages of the train. In one car, you all pass cards around the table in a big circle; in another, you ask everyone to publicly reveal a card of a particular type; in another still, you're able to gamble on a 50/50 chance — your opponent hiding a little miniature bag in one of their hands — in order to outright take one of their cards.

The cards each include the pieces of information necessary to solve the crime, with the exception of the time. The twist is that there are two copies of each card, so rather than just attempting to figure out which one is completely absent, you're attempting to figure out which one there's only one of. This can be extremely tricky due to the fact that cards get passed around the table throughout each turn, so the only means of reliably guaranteeing that something is definitely not relevant to the crime is seeing two copies of it on the same turn. There is, however, an interesting discard mechanic in place to prevent a player simply showing you the same card over and over again — or indeed you passing a card you just took from a player back to them — but this has the intriguing side-effect of meaning that information becomes more and more scarce as each round progresses.

The time of the crime, meanwhile, is represented by 24 cards, each of which have an analogue clock printed on them. There are three of each of the eight possible times in the deck, and one of them is hidden under the board as the truth, meaning in this case you're looking for the one time there are two, not three copies of. And, unlike the other types of card, you only get three chances to look at these throughout the game: the first time, one player gets to flip over one card at a time at a rate of their choosing; the second time, another player deals out the whole deck to everyone, then tells them when to pass their part of the deck around at the rate of their choosing; the third and final time, a player reveals the cards one at a time into three stacks at a rate of their choosing. If, as happened tonight, the player in control of the time cards is lucky enough to be absolutely sure of the right time early in the game, they can then whip through the subsequent time phases extremely quickly, thereby giving themselves an advantage while putting those who are still trying to work it out at something of a disadvantage.

I enjoyed the game overall. The instructions are a little overwhelming initially — as is the iconography on the board — but after a little while it all becomes second nature, particularly as each player has a handy reference guide to help them out. I like deduction games a lot — another Days of Wonder favourite is the excellent Mystery of the Abbey — and this provides enough twists on the usual formula to keep things interesting.

Mostly, though, I'm just glad I finally got to play a game of it to completion. Turns out it's pretty good; hopefully I'll have the opportunity to play it again at some point in the near future.

1682: The Middle Ground

Stop talking. Sit down. Be quiet. And listen. Listen.

I think we can all agree that the concept of "rational discourse" in video games on social media is rapidly going out of the window with each passing day. But it's not too late! Everyone can work together to save this. But you'll all have to do different things. Are you up to the challenge? Let's take each of you in turn.

Those advocating for social justice

You're fighting the good fight. You know this. Ultimately, there are plenty of human beings who are decent folk who believe in what you are fighting for. Many of them don't speak up for various reasons, but that doesn't mean they're not there. Some of them don't want to speak up for fear of ostracisation. Some of them believe that, from their personal experience, things are fine the way they are. Some of them simply don't want to get involved.

Your cause is just, and some weight is lent to it by the unpleasant behaviour others display towards you when you stand up for what you believe in. That does not, however, mean that you need to stoop to their level. Dial back on the "neckbeard" and "virgin" comments — disagree without insulting, otherwise you're simply doing the exact same thing that those who use "SJW" as a pejorative are doing — and you might find more people taking your points more seriously. Likewise, deliberately poking the fire by posting things like that Beyoncé "Feminist" picture that did the rounds recently and saying how much you're looking forward to the "nerds" getting angry over it really doesn't help, and just makes you look rather childish.

Also, stopping this silly behaviour where anyone who doesn't agree with your viewpoint automatically occupies the diametrically opposed extreme ideology would be a great idea, too. (Someone who disagrees with your progressive views on gender is not automatically a men's rights activist, pick-up artist or red piller, for example.) By extension, neither your overall ideology nor your interpretation of something is automatically, fundamentally 100% correct. Both are open to criticism, discussion, disagreement and debate. Those who do so are not "wrong", nor are they necessarily "attacking" you — though some may be. Engage with the discussion and help people understand each other — even if you're not able to change someone's mind — rather than escalating arguments.

Those advocating for the growth of feminist criticism of games

As someone — I forget who, I'm afraid — pointed out on Twitter the other day, the growth of feminist criticism of games simply mirrors every other art form out there. It's not a bad thing.

What is less good is that there's not a sufficient diversity of voices. Feminist criticism is all very well and good, but we should also take other viewpoints into account. Opinions from different sexualities, positions on the gender spectrum and different socioeconomic backgrounds should be welcomed, sought out, embraced. And that means taking the white, cissexual male viewpoint as seriously as that of anyone else. While it's easy to argue that this is the "default", "easy mode" position to write from, given gaming's history, it doesn't make it any less valid. We should also take care that a single ideology — most commonly feminism right now — doesn't start to take over sites intended to cater to a broad, mainstream audience from a variety of backgrounds. Otherwise you get the opposite problem that the feminist critics are, in many cases, fighting for — and that's when people start to push back.

There's a place for feminist criticism of games, then, but there's also a place for people who subscribe to different ideologies and want to read things in different ways. We should embrace all the different, diverse ways of looking at things rather than treating one as the "correct" way.

Those who have expressed anger at the above two groups

I understand where you're coming from. It's easy to feel threatened when someone from outside your demographic starts to criticise something you're passionate about — particularly when they do so in a manner which feels like you're being personally attacked for the things you love.

The smart thing to do is to write or record a well-considered rebuttal. The smart thing to do is to engage with the discussion. The smart thing to do is to respectfully disagree, outline your beliefs and take things from there. Or, in some cases, the smart thing to do is to walk away and simply continue enjoying that thing you enjoy, safe in the knowledge that you like it and it doesn't really matter what some stranger somewhere on the Internet thinks about it.

The un-smart thing to do is to start yelling, using abusive language and saying that you hope someone you disagree with dies, gets raped or has something otherwise unpleasant happen to them. What happens when you do that is that they then become aggressive, too, start publicly shaming you, calling you a neckbeard virgin and setting their own pack of (dick)wolves on you. From there it escalates, with what was once a simple difference of opinion becoming campaigns of harassment on both sides, the conclusion of which is something along the lines of the whole Zoe Quinn debacle which unfolded recently, in which no-one on either side particularly comes out smelling of roses.

Those who wish we could just get back to enjoying games

I understand completely. However, one thing to note is that the "good old days" you want to return to were a very different time from now in many ways. In 2014, we're in a situation where it is possible to do an in-depth literary-style analysis of a narrative based game, or to pick apart the artistic influences evident in a more abstract title. That doesn't mean it's always appropriate to do so, of course, but saying we should just stop trying to take games so seriously isn't the answer, either.

Rather, much like what I mentioned regarding feminist criticism above, we could do for greater diversity of voices. There's still a place for light-hearted '90s style games journalism, in which the sheer joy of being a gamer is expressed. There's a place for helpful, "objective" buyers' guides. There's a place for in-depth, chin-strokey dissections of creative works. And there's a place for criticism based around a specific ideology — though as noted above, it's important to ensure we have numerous different ideologies represented, not just those perceived as "the right one".

The trouble we have at the minute is that the amorphous blob that is "games journalism" clumsily lurches from one thing to another, never quite managing to get that balance perfect. What we need is for outlets to distinguish themselves from one another more strongly, with each ultimately becoming a good home for those who enjoy different types of coverage. At present, however, sites end up with in-depth feminist criticism clumsily rammed up against coverage of the latest DLC for Minecraft and "do you remember?" retrospectives of games from years gone by. Vastly different groups of readers are constantly butting heads with one another, and while there's value in making people step out of their comfort zone and confront viewpoints that they might not share, this is not the optimal means of doing so.

What's the answer? Bollocksed if I know, but then I've washed my hands of the whole affair. If I had my way, I'd just relaunch PC Zone with its original team, in the '90s, and exclusively read that until the end of time.