The Simpsons: Tapped Out

A Long-time Mild Addiction Finally Taps Out

Yesterday, September 26th 2024, the team behind The Simpsons: Tapped Out mobile game made the surprise announcement that they were pulling the plug on it after 12 years. Online purchases were turned off immediately, the game will be removed from app stores at the end of October, and it will no longer be accessible from January 24th 2025.

I’ve been playing The Simpsons: Tapped Out on and off since 2013. I’m usually not very good with dates, but I remember this because my wife was pregnant when I first got into it. I don’t remember how I was made aware of it, but I do remember owning a Windows phone at the time, and so having to borrow my wife’s Samsung to play. The Simpsons: Tapped Out was one of the main reasons I transitioned to Android phones, so I’ve got that to thank it for at least.

During those early days, I was something of a local ambassador for the game, and got lots of people addicted to it. This included my wife, my sister, many of my work colleagues and various friends and other acquaintances. Many of these people became dangerously addicted, spending real money on the game, or getting involved in online groups who would hack it somehow, giving access to all of the premium characters and items.

I’ve never been much for “freemium” gaming, and like to pride myself on being very resistant to the dirty little ways they keep you playing, but The Simpsons: Tapped Out was the sole exception to this, and a big part of this is certainly how comfortable I find the Simpsons world. This is due to the show, but also to the love I have for The Simpsons: Hit & Run, probably my favourite game based on a TV or movie franchise ever. Yes, that does include GoldenEye 007.

I still never spent a penny of real money on it. Any premium items I owned were either purchased with the trickle of Donuts (the game’s premium currency) that are earned naturally by playing, or by using Google Play Store credit I’d earned by doing surveys (the only other thing I ever purchase with this credit nowadays is the odd AEW pay-per-view on FITE).

I enjoyed making my little version of Springfield, engaging in the events, and watching the little character animations. I played The Simpsons: Tapped Out during boring shifts, while staying overnight in hospitals, and in queues at Disney World. It wasn’t always good, sometimes the events were kind of lame, the dialogue could go on and on at times, and the buildings had a real scale problem. Certain buildings, like the Duff Arena or Springfield General Hospital, were far too small and dwarfed by other buildings that should have been a fraction of the size. Stuff like that really bugs me but overall the game was good, and felt very authentic to the Simpsons universe.

With the advent of this final announcement, the developers offered a final quest-line, threw a load of premium buildings at players, and handed over 1000+ Donuts for absolutely nothing, so that Springfield enthusiasts could make their final, perfect town before the whole thing gets erased. Alas, at the time of writing, a glitch appears to be causing those 1000+ Donuts to disappear (including mine), but it was a nice thought.

Through the dialogue of the Simpsons family members, the developers said goodbye and thank you to players, and a comment was made about them never being credited, despite it being in their contracts that they would be. This made me realise for possibly the first time that there are indeed real, talented, passionate people behind even freemium trash, and The Simpsons: Tapped Out was always very open about its addictive game loop and capitalistic ways. No one is forced to spend money on these things, after all.

I would like to spruce up my Springfield for a final, big photo (the game allows you to download an image of your town and save it to your device) but I don’t know if I’ll bother. I have a large corner of town with miscellaneous buildings that I didn’t immediately have a place for just scattered aimlessly, and sorting it all out would be a big job that I probably shouldn’t make time for. What’s the point, if the whole thing is tragically fleeting?

Well, that’s a philosophical quandary I don’t want to get into. Instead, I’ll just say farewell to The Simpsons: Tapped Out via an article on my little web site that no one will read. I’ll miss it, but it’ll also be nice to not have to worry about logging on four times a day during those events. I’ll just have to play The Simpsons: Hit & Run when I want my digital Springfield fix.

Visions of Mana – Game Diary

Visions of Mana is an Ouka Studios-developed, Square Enix-published action RPG released in August 2024. It’s the fifth main title in the Mana franchise, and tells the story of Val, a Soul Guard charged with escorting the Alms to the Mana Tree on a sacrificial mission to save the world by maintaining the flow of Mana. 

One of my favourite games of all time is Secret of Mana. It was the first RPG I ever played, and will always be very special to me. The following is a chronicle of my experience with this surprising modern continuation of the venerable series and it is, unsurprisingly, riddled with spoilers throughout. 

Session 1 – Saturday 31st August

I wasn’t sure whether to make a diary of my Visions of Mana play-through. I’m expecting it to be pretty long and didn’t want all that note-taking to get in the way of adventuring. I enjoyed making the Metroid Prime Remastered diary, though, so here we are, Visions of Mana on PS5, session one, just two days after it arrived on my doorstep. I’m expecting all the magic and intangible wonder of Secret of Mana recreated in beautiful 3D, so I’m sure I won’t be disappointed. The opening movie wasn’t disappointing, at least. The Mana Tree looks absolutely stunning.

Starting the game proper, and I’m introduced to a town in a ravine. I do like a ravine town. I’m immediately reminded how much I love the Mana art-style. There’s nothing else exactly like it. It seems like I’m playing as some random guy, though. A fellow called Eoren. I wasn’t expecting that. The music in this opening area is great, by the way.

It seems like Eoren is trying to escape the ravine town with a woman called Lyza who was named the Alm of Earth. I like Lyza a lot, but I’m unsure about the game’s voice acting so far, especially that of the random guards who are trying to stop us from escaping. I noticed that Eoren has a devil thing going on in his design – red eyes and horn hair. There are clear themes of sacrifice straight away, and I noted that the fairy character didn’t seem to give much of a shit when Lyza got turned into stone at the climax of this prologue. Interesting. It got me wondering if Eoren would end up becoming the game’s villain.

Still, with that over with, I’m taken to another village near a volcano, and put in control of Val, the guy on the cover. He looks kind of derpy but he’s okay. The game lets us explore the whole village and it’s quite large, and you can even swim in the water down at the beach. I like that the shopkeepers in the Mana franchise are still turban-wearing, dancing maniacs, too.

As the story moved on I decided I definitely don’t like the voice-acting. The quick cameo of Salamando, the Elemental of Fire, tipped it for me. He sounds like something out of a LEGO Ninjago knock-off. I’m pretty sure Secret of Mana sound effects come out of the controller, though. That was a nice touch.

Voice acting woes and some low-budget textures aside, I do like the look and feel of the game so far. That JRPG cosy vibe is right there and the music hits the spot. The distant, looming landmarks like the volcano and the mountain a bit later on somehow give a similar feeling to Visions of Mana’s 2D ancestors. The feeling that a massive world is there, but not quite in reach. I also love the main character models, but the random NPCs have less character. Hinna, who was named the Alm of Fire by the fairy from before and is a non-combat companion, is somewhere in between. She’s pretty, but her hair looks weird when she runs.

Val and Hinna met Eoren out in the wilderness, and I wasn’t expecting to see him again so early on. He disappeared overnight, though. Very suspicious. There was also an overgrown lake in this area that was very pretty, and reminded me of the swamp in the board game Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs. Also, there were Secret of Mana flamingos here. I eventually guided Val and Hinna to the area around the wind village, and this had particularly pleasing visuals, with paths heading into the valley and windmills and trailing pennants in the hills all around.

When we got to the village I met Careena, the dragon girl with one wing. She seemed pretty cool and had a similar rebellious energy to the sprite from Secret of Mana. I’ve seen people online complaining about her “Southern Belle” accent, but I kind of like it. It gives her character something, you know? Not like that generic, breathy anime girl voice that Hinna has, that I’ve come to the conclusion recently is completely worthless. I hate hearing it nowadays. It was that waif character from Granblue Fantasy: Relink that proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back on that particular subject. I skipped most of Hinna’s dialogue.

Did I mention that even the save points in Visions of Mana are very pretty? Well they are, and they’re called meridians. They’re also the fast travel points. I saved at the meridian in the wind village and called it a night. I’m looking forward to having the chance to play again, so that’s a good sign.

Session 2 – Monday 2nd September

Session one resulted in a lot of writing, huh? Don’t worry, I’ll try to keep the entries shorter from now on.

I started session two with some side quests. I can’t imagine they’ll be too involved. This isn’t The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, after all. I was right to assume this. Collect a few things. Find some people in the wilderness. Locate a particular view from a painting. Basic stuff.

I was quickly reminded of how pretty this game can be when Val and Hinna re-entered the mountain valley area, especially when we heard that music swell. What a gorgeous-looking game, and the colour palette and visual design really do achieve a Secret of Mana vibe.

Careena and Ramcoh (the small, Flammie-like creature) joined after Val attempted to dye some fabric using the wind (it’s a long story). While walking around the wind village I noted that hiking from place to place can take a while. I’m looking forward to getting those rideable wolf things I saw in the trailer. I also noted here that it’s weird that nobody else has Careena’s accent. Surely everyone in the village should have that same Southern twang? Maybe the game will explain why she speaks so differently, but I doubt it.

With Careena in the party, I tried controlling her in battle, but as we were making our way up the windy mountain the wind vessel (a boomerang given to us by the village elder) activated and the tutorial made me change her class, and she controlled completely differently. I like being able to change the class of the characters on the fly, and the costume changes are cool too. With all the party members and all the elementals throughout the game, that must mean there’ll be a lot of classes to try. For now, I changed Val to the wind-based class and kept Careena with her spear, as I found spear-wielding Careena the most satisfying to control.

Anyway, as we continued up the side of the mountain the picturesque, grassy plateaus gave way into snowy crags. No character footprints in the snow, though. First Metroid Prime Remastered, and now this? Come on, developers, up your snowy footprint game, please.

We found a meridian halfway up the snowy mountain and it was time for me to sort out some lunch, so that was the end of session two. Maybe I’ll come back to it a bit later today, but for now, I’ll just say I’m very happy with the game now it’s gotten running. Peak JRPG cosiness.

Session 3 – Monday 2nd September

Straight in with a boss fight on this session, and it’s the Mantis Ant! The first boss of Secret of Mana and the boss from the trailer, too. Also, during this fight, the characters and the Mantis Ant pushed the snow aside as they moved, revealing patterned tiles underneath. Excellent. Anyway, the Mantis Ant was easy, and we rescued Sylphid, the Elemental of Wind. Careena also became the Alm of Wind. Our next stop was some moonlit snowy drifts, and the visuals of this area were a definite “wow” moment.

Not long after being wowed by a snowy mountain vista with a giant moon watching over it, we had our first difficult fight. A giant fish guy with a spear kept freezing us in place and smacking us with a blizzard spell. Careena was downed and I swapped to Val and used a Cup of Wishes to revive her. I kept playing as Val and loosed off the big special move so the fishy guy’s health was low, but then Val got dropped, so I swapped back to Careena and finished it off. This confirmed that downed allies still get experience from fights. That’s a relief.

Also, I’d like to apologise for my previous comments about footprints, as I could just about make out Careena’s footprints in this area. It seems that only the character you’re controlling leaves footprints, though.

As we reached the abandoned snowy town of Etaern, I realised that you can only control Val in towns, which means I’m never going to be able to avoid hearing him say “grrrrrizly!” when we find that honey stuff. I met the cat bloke soon after this realisation. He reminds me of Evan from Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, and seems cool. I like his voice acting. He wanted us to help him find his moon treasure.

I had to end the session abruptly as the family and I went out to eat. I really don’t eat out as often as these diaries make it seem. Anyway, the game was saved at the meridian outside of the cat’s tent.

Session 4 – Monday 2nd September

Fitting a third session in today! The cat man is called Morley. I tried him out in combat and he’s fun to control. He feels kind of like a knight crossed with a fencer crossed with a ninja.

I can now confirm that all of the characters make footprints in the snow, too. How did I not notice this in previous snowy areas? Look, I take everything I said about the footprints back, okay? Anyway, we were able to see into the past in Etaern because of the moon’s magic or something. We witnessed child Morley breaking a giant sandglass. Typical! The sands of time made the cat people from the town disappear, and suddenly Val is alone, chasing the kid version of Morley. I’m playing some kind of time-travelling vision, it seems. We received the Luna Globe, the vessel of the moon, which was activated and turned Val into a golden-armoured knight with a lance and shield. I didn’t really like this outfit or controlling him in this class, so I doubt I’ll use it much.

We sorted out the whole sands of time debacle, helping Morley feel more confident and leave his past behind, and he became the Alm of the Moon. Upon exiting the town we met three cat girls (more cats than girls) and I only just remembered Neko from Secret of Mana. These cats are merchants, too.

The big dogs were the next major highlight! They’re called pikuls. They’re super cool (and actually massive compared to the characters), but I couldn’t work out how to dismount at first. I figured it out after a while, though. You hold down the square button … if you’re wondering.

We eventually made it through the large area where the dogs are introduced, and reached Rhata Harbor. I’m going to try and catch the town names from now on. Rhata Harbor is a large, rustic fishing village, by the looks of things. Careena accidentally knocked over a rich-looking rat/skunk man here. He accused her of stealing his key. His ship is called the Primm. I get that reference. As Val is looking for the key Eoren showed up and started acting dodgy again. I decided to save now as I was getting tired. Good progress today.

Session 5 – Tuesday 3rd September

I figured I had time for a strictly one hour-long session before work today. Speaking of work, as I booted up this session I remembered reading somewhere that the team behind Visions of Mana got laid off immediately after releasing this game due to Square’s restructuring. That sucks, for lots of reasons.

I rejoined Val and pals in Rhata Harbor, and one thing I appreciated here was the way NPC townspeople are generally doing something other than just standing stoically, waiting to deliver their dialogue. I noticed one guy sitting on a wall in a natural, laid-back pose, and another person washing in the fountain. I also made a note here about Val being built like a brick shit house if you actually look at his character model. Maybe I should start calling him Val Venis.

No. I really shouldn’t. For lots of reasons.

Anyway, we got Careena out of her little jam and started side-questing in the large area that preceded Rhata. I like the big dog-riding music, but I like the on-foot exploration music better, so I only ride the big dogs when I have to. We cleared up the side-quests pretty quickly, and then it was time to board the Primm! Eoren was also on board, and was starting to spread his anti-Alm propaganda. Keep your opinions to yourself, guy! He started talking about the Mana Sword afterwards. Now I’m all ears.

Honestly, I quite like Eoren’s inclusion in the story. He’s an unpredictable wildcard that the player knows more about than the characters. I like that he appears occasionally, acting a bit odd and careless, and subtly throws spanners into the whole Alm thing that everyone otherwise is just blindly accepting. It’s good stuff. The rest of the NPCs on the ship are mostly talking about having a bad feeling about this voyage and hearing rumours of monsters in the ocean. I wonder where this is going…

Sure enough, here comes the giant squid boss fight! It was a really fun and cinematic battle, though, with some neat moments where the squid tried to capsize the ship, It wasn’t all that challenging, but I enjoyed it a lot. Upon defeating the aquatic beast, our new objective is to “Enjoy the Primm”. I feel like Dyluck would have something to say about that.

Once we reached our destination we had a quick nose around Ledgas Bay, which has a coastal Greece vibe complete with an ornate viaduct type structure, and my time was up. I didn’t expect my short, pre-work session to be so eventful.

Session 6 – Tuesday 3rd September

I began this late session pondering my future party members. Obviously you can see the Alms that are going to join the party in the artwork and the intro movie, and I have to say I really dislike the little leaf boy. We’ll see what he’s actually like when we get that far, I suppose. I predict an extremely annoying voice.

Anyway, tonight’s session kicked off in Ledgas Bay, and we rode the water lift to the upper section of town. I’d like to visit here in real life. It has a high end hotel complex/water park thing going on. The giant tree at the exit to the next world section gave me another “wow” moment, too.

We did some side-questing in Pritta Ridge, the next world area and another visual stunner. This one had a coastal theme, and running around beneath the sun beams on a dazzling waterfront finding treasure chests had this perfectly playful sense of adventure and innocent wonder to it. As we got further in to Pritta Ridge, it reminded me of Azshara from World of Warcraft, but Illystana, the “largest city in the world” and our destination, had its own thing going on, with its giant orb of water that hovered over the palace.

This area definitely continued the Greek or Roman style, but the music was straight out of Ratatouille. The party’s journey has a real sightseeing, holiday-making feel right now, despite some heavy moments previously. I wonder if the story will take a darker, more urgent turn soon.

We met a girl wearing a fake moustache and men’s clothing at the fountain. She sprained her ankle and her and Morley had a moment. I’m thinking it’s the queen of this place (and the next party member) on a secret sojourn, Princess Jasmine style. All this subterfuge and drama was too much for me for one night, and I saved and quit at the meridian in front of the palace.

Session 7 – Wednesday 4th September

I found time for another cheeky pre-work session today, and started the PS5 up as I was stuffing baked goods into my mouth for breakfast. Obviously we were still in Illystana, “the largest city in the world”, and I noted that the explorable area around the palace is unnecessarily huge, and they don’t even let you ride the dogs in towns either! Val couldn’t get into the palace, just being the lowly Soul Guard and not a high-and-mighty Alm and all, and the guards sent him back to the market. That’s another long walk without giant fluffy dogs to carry us.

Soon after this the moustached person who bumped into Morley earlier was revealed to be Queen Palamena. I couldn’t believe it. Incredible twist. My jaw dropped to the floor. Incidently, Morley and Hinna are both having their doubts about the Alm role, now, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this is going to play out. Val and Hinna had a quick happy moment following this and night fell over the city. Illystana looks even more spectacular in the starlight.

As we learned more about Palamena, the beautiful Queen of Illystana, whose hips have never once told a word of a lie, it is revealed that she has been named as the Alm of Water. There’s a neat slice of political intrigue here, as her being the Alm of Water means that the little weasel/skunk man can make a play for the throne with Palamena’s young brother taking up rule in her stead. Another interesting little layer to a story that still just seems to be building, and hasn’t really pulled the trigger on anything yet.

Palamena has very wordy dialogue, and is very fond of alliteration (with even the text in the menu screen that describes her fighting style making use of it), and the party have been sent to investigate the Luka Shrine (another Secret of Mana callback) to see what’s happening with the city’s water supply. I would question this whole water shortage storyline, as folks are talking constantly about the city’s water supplies slowing to a trickle when I only have to look around to see that the place is absolutely full of sparkling pools and cascading waterfalls, but I’m too distracted by Palamena’s thighs.

A quick venture back out into Pritta Ridge followed, to discover that we can only have three people in the active party at once. We also did some side-questing earlier in the session. Anyway, time was running short here in the real world, so I saved at the meridian just outside Illystana and headed off to work.

Session 8 – Wednesday 4th September

No work tomorrow so I’m having a late night session. Early on in this session we accidentally picked a fight with some level 53 harpies while exploring Pritta Ridge. We’d seen high level enemies around before, but this is the first time the party had entered into battle with them. It didn’t go well, Palamena was downed, and we were forced to escape.

Eventually we located the Luka Ruins, and I found myself wondering if it was the same place as the Water Temple in Secret of Mana. Does the geography work out? I don’t think so, but the music here feels very Secret of Mana-esque. I liked the area and hoped the story might soon take that dramatic turn I was hoping for here. It would not, not here anyway, but I still enjoyed the mystical, watery atmosphere.

We found weasel-man and his cronies up to no good down in the depths of Luka Ruins, and had to fight a giant crab (that looked exactly like the one from Trials of Mana) called Fullmetal Hugger. Upon defeating the giant enemy crab, weasel-tail spouted some more anti-Alm philosophy, and then ran for it. He’s still at large, as far as I know. As we go back to the city we meet Niccolo, the big cat man who’s been talked about for most of the game. I do not like him, visually or aurally.

Quite a lot happens now in the story, so instead of letting this entry become an essay, I’ll cover the main points briefly.

At night time, Val decides to sneak into the palace and see Hinna. He can’t get in and meets her on the balcony (the inside of this palace is definitely not modelled because the story is really trying to keep me out), and Eoren shows up and says that he can free them from the whole Alm sacrifice thing.

I think now that Eoren is probably my favourite character (after Careena, of course, because look at her), as whenever he shows up he mixes things up and interrupts Val and company’s low-stakes sightseeing vacation.

Hinna is fully against being an Alm now, and Eoren takes Val and Hinna to an island with a shrine on it. This place is known as Reignus Shrine, and, despite this being another visually resplendent area, I have a feeling that something bad is going to happen.

Something bad happened. Eoren used a ritual to steal Val’s monster crystallising powers and crystallises Hinna’s essence into a stone. Hinna seemed to be dying, and a song with sad lyrics started to play. Here comes the dramatic turn I was hoping for! Hinna dispersed into a spray of lights, Val cried, and the volcano near their home village got angry. The next morning, Val and Morley are mad at Val for going off with Eoren alone (a little bit of inter-party dissent), but apparently horrible-looking and sounding cat-man, Niccolo, is going to try and get Val out of his funk.

I know your best pal, childhood sweetheart and clear love interest just faded to nothing in your very arms, Val, but I need you to get your head back in the game, alright?”

When I regained control of Val a jaunty fanfare played from the controller speaker because I’d gained Hinna’s pendant. A bit of mood dissonance there, taken a little further by the return of the delightful Ratatouille-esque music.

The party reassembled and decided to chase Eoren to the Mana Tree and regain the stone with Hinna’s essence in it. I wonder if this will make her come back? In a way, I hope they let her stay dead. More dramatic that way. I have a feeling we’ll see her again, though.

Anyway, we stepped out of the city and into an area called Ahrvet’s Pasture, but it’s getting late, and that was enough for tonight. Time for bed. If you know it, imagine the Secret of Mana “staying at the inn” music right now.

Session 9 – Thursday 5th September

I started this session while listening to the Rimworld soundtrack. Could two games be more different? I didn’t continue listening to the Rimworld soundtrack while playing Visions of Mana, though. I’m not a barbarian.

We started exploring Ahrvet’s Pasture and fell of a cliff. There were no traversal bubbles here so we followed the river at the bottom of the cliff and found a really tranquil beachside woods area. I noticed something out to sea that looks like a big, dead bug with its legs in the air. The areas to explore in Visions of Mana are relatively huge, and with those syrup things and other pick-ups dotted around, the areas occasionally feel like platformer worlds with collectibles.

Anyway, looking at it from the top of a cliff, the thing that looked like a giant dead bug from further away is actually an enormous, fossilised rib cage. My idea would’ve been more interesting, but I guess a big fossil is more on brand. The player doesn’t get to see the rib cage up close, as it’s beyond the transition point on the map and the game takes you straight to Dura Gorge. This is a canyon area formed of red rock that’s filled with gigantic skeletons of things that look like mammoths and triceratops. It’s the first non-idyllic-looking location (even Luka Shrine had a beautiful grove feeling), but it’s still got that JRPG cosiness.

I’ve been controlling Val again lately, using his water class. The water vessel attack basically sees him holding the vessel and shooting water from the hip, as if it’s some kind of heavy machine gun. Kind of like Old Painless, but wetter.

After getting turned into a moogle for the first time, this session came to a sudden stop because it was raining and my daughter was finishing school so I walked down to meet her with an umbrella. The things I do for my family. I didn’t even get to save, just let the PS5 drop into sleep mode.

Session 10 – Friday 6th September

You know, some of the water in this game looks wonderful. The springs in Dura Gorge look terribly inviting, as if they’re infused with natural salts and minerals, and would soothe my tired bones. A very big rabbit-ogre thing awaits at the end of Dura Gorge, and he does not look like he’d soothe my tired bones at all. Luckily, he was a very easy boss fight. I detected a slight heat haze effect in the entrance to the next area, but before we moved on, I stopped to purchase some more skills in the elemental plots.

It’s how the characters gain abilities, and the abilities they can gain change depending on what vessel they have equipped. You can use items to expand their elemental plots, and you spend element points to learn skills and abilities in them. So far, I have spent Val’s points in the water route, Careena’s in wind and Morley’s in lunar, but I haven’t done anything with Palamena’s points yet. I haven’t decided how I want her to develop.

Anyway, the next area is the Deade Cliffs, and it’s a pretty cool area. There’s a desert town up ahead, and then a fuck-off huge cliff behind it with thick woods or jungle at the top. It really made me want to go up there. The town is run by a big, strapping beast boy called Molebe, who spoke to us introduced Gloriosa who, despite being a cat person, has quite the striking figure. She’s going to help with the Jaque Seed that is supposed to enable us to climb up the cliffs, but I just think “Jaque Seed” sounds rude. Anyway, she planted it and watered it and it just withered, so we’re off to find Gnome to help with the soil fertility or whatever. The game teleports us back to Ahrvet’s Pasture. I wouldn’t have minded walking back.

Oh, and Val’s new water attack that I purchased in the elemental plot reminds me of another ’80s movie. It really looks like he’s firing a proton pack when he uses it. “Don’t cross the streams”, as they say.

Upon leaving Ahrvet’s Pasture via another route, we came to Entwine Bridgepass, and the characters discuss some soppy backstory to the name. I think that’s why I like Careena the most; she’s the least interested in soppy stuff. This area is another visual stunner, with dramatic mountains in the background and a huge and spectacular bridge crossing a seemingly bottomless ravine. There’s a large area in the centre that looks like a boss fight arena, but nothing happens. Maybe on the way back.

Beyond the Entwine Bridgepass is another reddish, Monument Valley-looking area. We’re heading to somewhere called the Free City of Tsaata, hoping to find a ship to the village from the prologue so that we can entreat Gnome. When we arrived (after a spot of side-questing), we found that the Free City was more of a village, or possibly a settlement, and I’m ready to call it a session. It’s raining again, you see, and I have to go and take an umbrella to school so the youth doesn’t get soaked.

Session 11 – Friday 6th September

Another session not long after the last one, and the gang is still hanging out with the free people of Tsaata. I noted here that it’s kind of annoying that the game takes away the double jump while in towns, but I’ll get over it. Tsaata seems to be full of hippie communists … maybe, I’m not all that political and can’t really label their way of thinking. They’re kind of annoying though, but probably harmless.

The party gets sent off on some more side-quests back in the previous area, and we fight an extra-tough harpy enemy high up on a bluff. We used a couple of Cups of Wishes on this fight, and eventually had to opt to escape and re-jig the party setup as it was apparently immune to water attacks. I removed Palamena from the active party and replaced her with Morley with the moon vessel, and removed the water vessel from Val, and we took it out pretty easily. This fight really showed that party setup is a big deal in tougher fights.

Upon reaching the dock at Tsaata we met another wind tribe dragon person. She has a Southern belle accent! I feel like I should be happy about this but I think it actually makes it even weirder that there are now two of them with that accent. She said that a wall of water keeps stopping people leaving Tsaata by boat. I would like to see this phenomenon. We headed back to the centre of town and Careena started dancing with some townspeople, and a gruff, older cat guy called Glyff starts having a go at Val and kicking off about Alms. I don’t like his voice acting and he kind of approaches uninvited and just starts judging us, so Glyff is now my third least favourite character after Palamena’s little brother and the woman that shoves her life choices down our throats at the entrance to Tsaata.

Anyway, Palamena got a headache and she and Val went to the overlooking cliff to get some fresh air, and I get to see that wall of water. It is a very high and very scary wall of water, with a female form on top who was calling to Palamena. She nearly stepped right off the cliff, but Val just about stopped her. It was a cool moment. After this, Glyff gave us the fire vessel (still don’t like him), and we were tasked with heading off to another temple. I decided to save up and end the session, but I’m looking forward to trying out the fire classes and getting to the bottom of what’s causing these crazy, Ponyo-esque waves.

Session 12 – Saturday 7th September

I went for another brief pre-work session this morning, and decided to try Palamena in her fiery form for a bit. She looks like some kind of festive pirate. The place we’re off to is called Tatoh, and it’s a ruined temple that looks pretty cool off in the distance.

Once we got inside, we quickly discovered what appears to be a giant turtle and a pretty girl who have both been turned into stone. I’m guessing one or both will get de-stoned soon, and I’m wondering if we can save Lyza from her stony fate. While exploring this temple I discovered two things. One is that I was wrong about Careena not caring about soppy stuff, as she is drinking in this princess and turtle love story that seems to be the theme of this temple, and the other is that I don’t like Palamena as a fire class. I put the fire vessel on Careena instead, and she looks cool and is fun to control in this form.

Sure enough, upon reciting the entirety of the tragic love story to the turtle, he turned back into turtle flesh and we had to battle him. It’s a minion-summoning fight where he stands out of reach and summons waves of monsters while periodically hurting himself. This was tough, and I actually suffered my first full party wipe here on the last wave, which was a load of machine golem things with pointy heads (they were mini-bosses in Secret of Mana). I needed to change tactics.

We then proceeded to absolutely walk this fight on the second attempt. I controlled Val instead of Careena and re-equipped the water vessel to him, moving Palamena out of the active party and bringing Morley back in. I saved the big watery proton pack attack for the final wave and cleared them up really easily. The big turtle calmed down and beckoned us to follow, so we headed outside.

I had to save and quit here as it was time for work, but I’ll just add that my daughter woke up during the second fight and she really liked the turtle, especially his big, googly eyes.

Session 13 – Saturday 9th September

I came home from work to find that my daughter had been playing Visions of Mana for a few hours while my wife was asleep on the sofa. She’d already got to the pikuls. It took me four sessions to get to the pikuls! Also, I completed Metroid Prime Remastered on the thirteenth session of my previous game diary. I have I feeling history will not repeat itself.

Anyway, we’re going sailing with the turtle! He plunged into the wall of water, the female form appeared once again, and they reunited. Now he has a big lady turtle friend. You can tell she’s a lady turtle because she has eyelashes. The siren thing where Palamena almost gets drawn off the cliff never really gets brought up again, though. Why was Palamena specifically effected? I guess we’ll never know.

The party landed on Jutu’ona, the Earth Continent, and it’s another large desert beset by a sandstorm. The music here is really cool and I enjoyed the less idyllic vibe. The big sea of sinking sand in the middle of this exploration area, as well as the introduction of the mad mallard enemies, are definitely giving me Secret of Mana tingles again. The desert area in Secret of Mana was pretty tough at first, though, and I’m absolutely slicing through the enemies here with fire vessel-equipped Careena’s fire charge move. It also took me this long to notice that Visions of Mana is missing the magi-tech flourishes of Secret of Mana, because I remembered the big sand ship from that game. I wonder if something akin to the Mana Fortress will appear at some point.

We eventually reached Gudju, the ravine village from the prologue, and things aren’t looking good-ju. I remember walking these roads as Eoren many moons ago. We met a character who looks like a Secret of Mana-style dwarf, and lo and behold, his name is Watts. Can it be the same Watts? He’s pro Alm sacrifice, whoever he is. After finding stone-form Lyza and Val having a moment (he’s actually gone through a lot, when you think about it), Watts gave us the Gnome Shovel, which is the earth vessel, and sent us to some nearby mines to look for Gnome, the earth spirit.

The place is called the Gamurda Mines and the music has hints of the Pandoran Ruins music in Secret of Mana. Those same discordant chimes. There’s an ongoing but relatively simple statue-moving puzzle where we used the Gnome Shovel to take control of golems, and I was expecting to fight an Earth Gigas at the end, but it was some kind of giant mole/anteater thing called the Jewel Eater. It was an easy fight. Gnome and Watts met at this point, and I was expecting them to know each other but they didn’t appear to. Is this the same Watts or what, then? If not, why is he the only one that looks like the Secret of Mana dwarfs, with the black void skin and glowing round eyes? We saw more normal looking dwarfs during the prologue with Eoren. Very confusing. Anyway, back to the turtle.

Now we can control the turtle! He splashes through the water with the greatest of ease, and the music sounds like something out of Cool Runnings. We explored the oceans and found a snowy town, a floating island, and a super tall tower, none of which we could go to. We also went back to the starting village and spoke to Val’s mum and dad and they were all like “make sure you look after Hinna!” Awkward.

Our actual destination was Deade Cliffs, though, and I decided to save and call it a session once we arrived. I noted down that it’s weird that we haven’t met the leaf boy yet – it’s been ages since we’ve had a new party member. I also wondered what was going to happen with the dark and light Alms.

Session 14 – Sunday 8th September

Another shorter session, this time on a rainy Sunday morning. At Deade Cliffs we got a nice little cutscene showing the seed grow, and now the cliffs are dominated by an enormous beanstalk.

As the party is preparing to ascend the cliffs, I ponder on what the story might be missing. It still feels quite casual, and I’m wondering if some kind of evil empire or obvious villain might have shook things up. Eoren has a good story arc to him, and we totally understand his motivations, but I think he could exist alongside some kind of more obvious, looming threat to make things feel a bit more imminent. I guess terrible fates befall villages if the Alms don’t make it to the Mana Tree, but there are too many questions surrounding that concept for it to feel like a clear threat.

Anyway, the jungle at the top of the cliffs is another visually wonderful area. I do love a lush, verdant and exotic forest in a JRPG. We found another place here that looks like a boss arena but isn’t. Maybe we’ll fight something on the way back again? Or maybe certain bosses weren’t included in the final game but their arenas were already made. I would find out soon with regards to this particular area.

So we made it to Verdeus Borough, and I found myself anticipating that I’ll soon find out just how annoying the leaf boy is. The party meets him playing some kind of guitar and singing a weird little song and, yep, I hate him. There’s a story about him watering his friends and looking after the grove while all the other inhabitants are hibernating in tree form, that culminates in a very easy boss battle against a giant plant boss like the ones in Secret of Mana at the empty arena area I discussed earlier, but I just want it over with so I can equip a vessel to leaf boy and change his outfit.

Dryad, the Elemental of Wood, eventually shows up and Julei (that’s leaf boy’s name) joins the party, and we also get the wood vessel. I equip it to him and now I don’t have to look at his chubby legs. Much more tolerable. He’s clearly a healer-type character who can apparently revive downed allies. I might need to sub him on for the occasional boss fight.

Anyway, time was up, so we’ll have to head on towards the Mana Tree next session.

Session 15 – Sunday 8th September

I was playing a bit of Disney Dreamlight Valley before this session. It seems pretty good if you like that sort of thing. It’s no comfy JRPG, though. Back to Visions of Mana.

We’re in the Mylos Woods and there’s a barrier around the Mana Tree that keeps monsters (and Val) out. That thing is definitely coming down, probably due to Eoren. That’s what I thought, anyway, but things played out a bit differently.

Mylos Woods is another beautiful forest area. I guess it would be the equivalent of the Pure Land in Secret of Mana? Although, it very much lacks the difficulty spike that the Pure Land was packing. The place is gorgeous, though, and nails that Mana series storybook illustration feel. Evoking Hiroo Isono, the amazing artist responsible for the Secret of Mana cover art. The area beyond the Mylos Woods is also stunning, though we didn’t get to explore much of it because shit goes down.

So Eoren was there, and so was the Mana Sword, and the “rock” it was stuck into doesn’t look like a rock to me. That’s an egg. Eoren and the party talked, and Eoren made a good point; that Val was okay with Hinna dying because of the Alm sacrifice – Eoren just made it happen sooner.

He also mentioned the Benevedons, which are the boss monsters from Trials of Mana. I never did quite finish that game. Eoren tried to take the sword and a big, scary, angel-looking man appeared. I guess he came from the egg? Anyway, he claims the Mana Sword, and really sounds like that big bad I was craving. He casts Eoren aside and we have to fight him. The battle was tough and we just about survived, and a tree man called Trent appeared from nowhere and helped to hold him back while we escaped. The bad man is called Daelophos, and he apparently tried to overthrow the Mana Goddess long ago. Was he from Trials of Mana? I can’t quite remember.

During the ensuing discussion in which lore is dumped and next steps are discussed, Julei intermittently strums his guitar in a grandiose manner while talking. The little prick is starting to grow on me. A bit.

The next stop is Gudju again, because the Benevodons that Daelophos is trying to resurrect are located near where all the Alms are appointed, and he said something about earth apparently, meaning the party decided to go there first. I must have missed him mentioning earth.

What followed was a very long session of side-questing and travelling back and forth, which I won’t bother recording. Eventually, the party landed once again on Jutu’ona, and then it was time to save and quit. Until next time.

Session 16 – Monday 9th September

Some side-quests popped up in the desert so we took care of them, then we headed back to Gudju. We arrived too late to stop Daelophos (who I’m going to call Dale from now on because that’s so much easier to type) from slicing both Eoren and rock-Lyza with the Mana Sword. Dale buggered off to his next mission, and Val claimed Eoren and Lyza’s core stones, and that’s it for them. Maybe.

It turns out that Dale has summoned the local Benevodon, whose name is apparently Gareth. Well, it’s actually Garethe, but come on, if the main villain is called Dale then this guy is definitely called Gareth. Anyway, Gareth is apparently in the desert next to the boat, and the boat is apparently called the Dyluck! On the way out of Gudju leaf-boy says something else that endears him to me. “There’s never a dull moment with you people. Are you constantly fighting monsters, or did I just join at a bad time?” This is totally what I’d be like if I joined a JRPG group. I still don’t like him, but I brought him into the party because I thought we might need healing against Gareth.

The fight against Gareth was very cool. We were onboard the Dyluck which was somehow moving along the sand sea (something to do with Sylphid), and Gareth turned out to be a gigantic sand worm/dragon type thing. Gareth would periodically summon adds like goblins and things (that would satisfyingly fall to their dooms if smashed over the side of the Dyluck), and would attack with huge projectiles. We had to damage Gareth by using the Dyluck’s cannons as he slithered through the sand, exposing his weak points. Eventually, we shot Gareth down and Careena found the vessel of light on the ship. How convenient.

Our next stop was the Dark Archive – a big, gloomy library. I had high hopes for this place, and upon approaching on the turtle I saw that it’s also the location of the super-high tower that I noted earlier. Upon landing, we saw that the area is a spooky, misty shoreline and the party started talking about ghosts. This is a good start.

We spoke to a scholar called Aesh (who is an acquaintance of Palamena), and explored in a big library. I like libraries in JRPGs, they are always very cosy. I always remember the one in Tales of Vesperia that’s also an inn, and the party sleep on the shelves. I sometimes imagine this place if I can’t sleep at night. Visions of Mana’s library is very dark and messy, with books stacked everywhere, some of them symmetrical, like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947.

Anyway, upon speaking to Morley after the talk with Aesh it seems that Morley doesn’t like him, which is interesting, but my eyes were feeling very heavy by this point. Libraries in JRPGs, I’m telling you. They’re too cosy.

We found a fork or something to prop something up. I was nodding off at this point so I couldn’t say for sure what happened. Time to save and quit and have a nap.

Session 17 – Monday 9th September

The nap didn’t last long as the child returned from school. It’s fine, she went to hang out in her room so I thought I’d get another hour of gameplay in.

These nerds in the Dark Archive are kind of annoying, and I think that’s the point. They just talk on and on about theories to the detriment of actually taking action. Honestly, how does anything get done around here? Anyway, we used a fork to fix a building and were given the darkness vessel, which was apparently holding the building up. Morley again displayed his disdain for Aesh, and I’m now realising it’s a jealousy thing. The romantic hints between Palamena and Morely had kind of slowed since her introduction, but that’s definitely what’s happening here.

As we headed up to the super-tall tower seen from the map (in search of some kind of tome), it became clear that Aesh was joining us for this leg of the journey. Morley didn’t like this, and outright called him indifferent at one point. I don’t think there’s anything especially sinister up Aesh’s sleeve or anything. He’s just rubbing the party up the wrong way.

I also noted here that I like how most of the trees have collision detection on their thicker branches, so that players can jump around and climb them if they want. The developers often hide those syrup pick-ups in trees too to encourage it.

Anyway, we entered the tall tower, which is called Passagean Tomespire, and this is a really cool dungeon. There is some weird, upended gravity going on, and the layout of the dungeon changes in these cool, dynamic ways. The bookshelves float and become platforms, and the party uses shadow powers to grapple around from place to place. As the building comes apart and reconfigures, it becomes apparent that the whole area is suspended in this galactic void outside of reality. It’s an awesome journey. With this and the Gareth fight, Visions of Mana is really kicking things up a notch in terms of spectacle.

We also encountered a couple of mimic chests in here, too, and it seems like an appropriate place for them. The boss of this area was also memorable, being an approximation of the Secret of Mana Wall Face enemy, except with rotating rooms and the use of platforms to avoid spikes. We beat it, but only just, and by using lots of items. I really was not set up for this fight, as I had Careena in her fire guise and the thing was immune to fire, and didn’t have Julei in for healing.

We got it though, and back in town Careena started being a dick to Morley about his jealousy. He asked Palamena in front of everyone how she sees her relationship with Aesh, and she says that she sees him as a tutor and also like a brother. Morley is much happier now. We picked up some ingredients for a potion (and Morley and Palamena have another little moment), and it’s time for me to prepare the youngster’s dinner. Session 17 concluded.

Session 18 – Monday 9th September

A late night session to finish the day, and a character called Bon Voyage is involved in the potion making. I know I’ve heard the name and even seen this guy before, but I think it was while I was sleep-playing, as his existence is so confusing and esoteric to me. He’s an odd-looking gnome-like fellow. I don’t really know what the potion is for either. Bon Voyage called it a Corepedo, which just sounds dodgy. Apparently it has something to do with getting Hinna’s core stone back? After talking to Aesh, the scholar reveals that it is some kind of ancient weapon that will slow Dale down while he tries to resurrect the Benevedon at the top of the tower so we can … get the core stone off of him, I suppose.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Dale arrives in Aesh’s library during this explanation. Dale once again casts everyone aside but Aesh has a badass moment of bravery and manages to lob the Corepedo at him. It weakens Dale drastically but he escapes. Aesh totally just saved our lives. Now the dark Benevedon is awake, though, and Aesh is being all humble because he didn’t predict that Dale would come to the library. Now he’s coming with us.

We had to do the dungeon all over again here, which I wasn’t sure about, but there was an added bit at the end, which makes it okay. The darkness Benevedon appeared and I recognised him! Or her. Or them. In fact, I’ve written about its Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana iteration for TripleJump. Two giant ugly faces and a giant, creepy, sexy face, all with various devastating powers. The sexy face would resurrect the ugly faces while it was alive, and the three faces summoned trash enemies and enacted black hole attacks. After we defeated the Benevedon of Darkness, Careena called it the Benevedon of Dumbness, which I appreciated. Then Aesh got named the Alm of Darkness.

Our next stop is the light-themed area. It’s called Terratio, and we were looking for info on Cerulia, which is the name Dale cried out when he wasn’t feeling very well earlier. It’s a nice name. Aesh stayed behind.

Terratio is on the snowy isle, and is another visual stunner, a mystical, icy paradise featuring a dazzling aurora overhead. The domed playhouse, the blue trees, the giant, arched mountain in the background with the lights beaming through it, it’s really magical. There was something going on here with actors forgetting their lines and Val clearing their heads with the vessel of light. It’s basically an excuse for Dale’s backstory to be gradually recited to us. The actress playing Cerulia wandered up the mountain in a trance. Her feet were bare and she was walking on ice and snow, and Palamena called back to her siren incident. Also, Aesh showed up again. Hardly seemed worth having him stay behind.

The party headed into the Temple of Wendel that’s at the top of the mountain, which is a cool icy cavern type dungeon, with slippery ice underfoot during certain battles. We solved some simple light-reflecting puzzles, and had a quick boss fight against a Frost Gigas. This one did not turn out to be Santa.

Val was hearing Dale’s voice throughout this area, and it’s clear now that Dale, like Eoren and Val, is motivated by a lost love. With this in mind, we reached the top of the temple and exited into a stunning, starry vista at the summit. I decided to call it for the night, but I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next.

Session 19 – Tuesday 11th September

I decided to get in another quick session before work, and started off strong with the mountaintop view. Also, footprints in snow are once again confirmed. We walked straight into Dale, who summoned a somewhat creepy, giant lady and then went all super-powered before buggering off again. The creepy lady was the Benevedon of Light, and it was a pretty standard fight with a mechanic where her armoured dress had to be smashed off, revealing her giant, levitating, feminine form. We did suffer a total party kill here, but it was due to my carelessness rather than the fight being too tough, and we defeated her the second time.

We met Lumina after this, the Elemental of Light, and I hated his voice. Most of the spirits have annoying voices, it seems. Still, he made Val the Alm of Light, which was a legitimately cool development that I honestly didn’t see coming, although I guess Lyza’s situation somewhat foreshadowed it, having once been a Soul Guard and then chosen as an Alm.

We sat back and watched a play (although Val was dragged on stage) and then smashed some side quests back inside the temple, and that’s all I had time for.

Session 20 – Tuesday 11th September

The characters also leave footprints in sand. I really do take back all I said initially about footprints in this game. The first couple of hours of this very long session were taken up with side-questing and pissing about throughout the world. We returned to the first explorable area outside of Val’s village, and I realised just how much stuff I’d missed. Chests, syrups, whole areas…

Eventually, we finally headed back to Verdeus Borough (where Julei used to live), and I was once again floored by the Isono-style visuals. The way they’ve captured his style of detailed, fantastical foliage in a 3D, explorable world is really excellent. Amazing. We had a quick chat with Trent the tree and then we see the Tree of Mana in the distance for the first time (not counting the low-poly version on the turtle map). The fairy appeared (and I still think about how little she seemed to care when Lyza got turned to stone), and there were monsters here inside the barrier when there shouldn’t be, including those friggin’ griffon claw things from Secret of Mana. So this is the equivalent of the Pure Land. I really can’t stress how gorgeous this place is to experience, though. I can honestly see myself booting up Visions of Mana long after I’ve finished it, just to hang out here.

The whole deal with only Alms being allowed beyond the barrier really made this situation feel special, and made me feel like I’m one of very few who have ever been deemed worthy of setting foot here. We met a white dragon princess named Vadise, and she wanted to know if we “have the strength to face the truth of this world”. A cool little fight with her ensued where she summons adds in between throwing questions at us and making us choose the correct element to attack depending on the answer to her questions.

After this, a guy called Khoda appeared, and I thought that he looked like a more manly Val. It turns out that they are related, and that the Khoda we saw before us is the manifested will of the first Soul Guard, whose job is to guard the Mana Goddess. As we approached the Tree of Mana for real, the game was doing a great job of making me feel like this was a big moment. I’m really impressed with Visions of Mana right now.

Khoda reveals that the Mana Goddess has been asleep ever since the realms merged (so a really, really long time), and then the remaining five Benevedons attacked the barrier, giving us a quick preview of all of them. The attack didn’t come to anything, though, which was a bit weird. We decided that we were going after the Benevedons, but apparently we’re still planning to offer up our souls to protect the flow of Mana afterwards, although Kohda hints that we might be able to change this cycle.

In one last twist for the evening, it’s revealed that Ramcoh is actually Flammie! Somehow. I’m not sure exactly how, but Ramcoh and Flammie are one and the same and Ramcoh can enlarge into Flammie and fly us around the map now. This has shaken me to the core, as Ramcoh is a girl and I always thought that Flammie was a boy.

Anyway, we flew around for a bit, dropped Aesh off at the Dark Archive, and I called it a night after an action-packed session. Next time, Benevedon-chasing.

Session 21 – Wednesday 11th September

So, we are able to choose what order to take on the next four Benevedons, and we went after the Wind Benevedon at Longren, Careena’s homeland. It was super windy there. I mean, it was always windy there, but now it’s really windy.

I had to stop now briefly to hang out the washing, and it was really windy outside, too. I felt appropriately windswept by the real wind when I came back inside to deal with the fictional wind.

The Wind Sanctum was blocked off by an easily-climbable boulder. Ramcoh wouldn’t fly over it because she didn’t want to go back to the Wind Sanctum. This was all a big set up for Careena to try and talk the villagers into helping them move the easily-climbable boulder. I took control of Careena in a town for the first time as she wandered around and appealed to her parents, her junior wind-dyer person, and the village chief. All of them were jerks to her and every conversation ended in an argument. I’m on Careena’s side, and not just because she’s my favourite. She had a good point every time. They all helped in the end, and Sylphid too, and the easily-climbable boulder was removed. On to the Wind Sanctum!

The route up to the Wind Sanctum was a moody, stormy, jagged mountainside. Halfway up the mountain we were attacked by a pair of mini-bosses; two giant harpies that kind of looked like Felicia from Darkstalkers but with wings. It was an enjoyable and enjoyably difficult fight, but we took them down first time. Upon reaching another magnificent and awe-inspiring peak, it was time for me to save and quit at the meridian as other responsibilities beckoned.

Session 22 – Wednesday 11th September

Let’s get an hour in before bed time. Tonight’s session kicked off with a boss fight. The Wind Benevedon was a big, winged, wolf-like creature. It was a pretty straightforward battle to be honest, fending off the big blue wolf’s windy powers. I’d say that the two harpies we fought in the previous session were more difficult. The Wind Benevedon went down and Careena’s early-game love interest character, Shiriu, was saved. He was in danger by the way. I don’t like Shiriu and I don’t care about him.

A few times now I’ve noticed the elementals being late for stuff, acting evasive, and just not showing up when needed. The fairy, too. I can’t imagine they’re going to be up to anything shady, especially the elementals (they were forces for good since the SNES games), so maybe they’re just being shown to be a bit incompetent at times, or aloof, shall we say.

Anyway, we decided to go to Illystana next, to take on the Water Benevedon, and I am forced to take back what I said earlier about the developers not rendering the inside of the palace and using story excuses to keep Val from entering. This time, we just went straight inside, and it looks very snazzy. It’s kind of a standard JRPG palace interior to be honest (I could be exploring Dohalim’s palace in Tales of Arise, for example) but it’s pretty impressive and I do notice some nice paintings of other locations dotted around the walls, like the playhouse and the Dark Archive.

We met Iain, Palamena’s brother, again, and I found myself wondering once more why he looks so wet. I didn’t make I note of it when we met him before, but it’s like the developers went overboard with the highlighting and made him look like he’s made of damp plastic. I don’t like Iain, although I do sympathise with him for his plight, being left in charge at such a young age because Palamena was the Alm and had to abdicate the throne.

Suddenly, all the water was gone! The giant orb of water above the palace, all the fountains, all dried up. This sounded like Benevedon nonsense to me, and we were sent to Luka Shrine again to deal with the problem. Illystana had a very different ambience without all that running water.

I hope the people of the city will be alright without their waterfalls for a while, though, as it was time for me to go to bed.

Session 23 – Thursday 12th September

I had less than an hour free before work this morning, but wanted to see if we could slay a Benevedon.

The “undertemple” of Luka Ruins made me feel like I was exploring a big goldfish bowl with decorative ruined buildings. Kind of like in World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck but with less memorable music. We proceeded through until we reached a large squid monster thing that served as a mini-boss. It was another straightforward fight, and the party enjoyed some squid-related banter afterwards, with the ones who were around at the time reminiscing about the squid that attacked the Primm. That seems like so long ago now.

We did not get to slay a Benevedon during this session as there simply wasn’t the time. I saved at the next meridian after the mini-boss.

Session 24 – Thursday 12th September

A fight with a giant, humanoid crocodile started off this late night session. That’s the Water Benevedon, to you! I didn’t catch its actual name. Undine got the heck out of dodge and let the party deal with it. Seriously, are these elementals powerful or weak or what? They’re somehow helpless dweebs while still being powerful demigods at the same time. Anyway, the Water Benevedon fight was pretty straightforward. Back to Illystana!

Lots of side-quests have popped up in Illystana. Honestly, the side-quests feel very basic, kind of pointless, and flow-breaking. There are a couple that are part of a long chain, but for the most part they’re just random tasks for random, forgettable NPCs.

During the ensuing side-quest run, the party was fighting a level 54 harpy mini-boss mob (we’re currently at level 41) in the ruins on Pritta Rdige, and I accidentally fled the battle when it was down to a quarter health. It went back up to full health and I had to fight it all over again. This has happened a few times, where I’ve accidentally fled battles. To flee, you just need to run at the edge of the battlefield for long enough to fill up a small meter. Enemies are constantly getting smashed to the limits of the battlefield, so it’s a little too easy to escape by accident. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but a small annoyance.

We eventually went back to Illystana and spoke to Iain. Palamena promised she’d come back, which was interesting, because Careena told people she’d come back after the Wind Benevedon was defeated, too. Why are they doing that, eh? What about the Alm sacrifice?

Anyway, we headed off to Verdeus Borough to look for the Wood Benevedon, and it was time to hit up that meridian and go to bed.

Session 25 – Friday 13th September

A midday session today, and Trent was feeling under the weather. We headed off to speak to Aesh for horticultural advice, and this Von Boyage character is mentioned again. Who the heck is this guy? Aesh just produces a cure out of thin air, and we headed back to give it to Trent, who felt better immediately. What was the point of all that, then? Trent sent us to the Floating Isle of Ulul. That’s the last visible place on the map that we haven’t been to.

Before we headed to the physics-defying isle, we hit some of the ruins that are in the open world areas, now that we can reliably fight the level 50-54 enemies there. We were fighting the enemies in the moors area near Tatoh Temple when I started to get some glitches. Vessel moves were missing their graphical effects and certain button inputs weren’t working at certain times. I tried a restart and that seemed to sort it out.

We went to the Floating Isle after this, and it’s another trademark Visions of Mana spectacular-looking natural vista. We headed further in, searching for the Wood Benevedon that wants to plant the tree people from the Borough here for some reason. I didn’t really follow the explanation given back at Verdeus Borough, but it’s all good, I was happy being distracted by the scenery. The waterfall lake area near the top of the Isle is serene.

The Wood Benevedon appeared and it’s a very pretty peacock thing. It was as simple to fight as it was fancy – the easiest Benevedon fight yet. My reward, once back at the Borough, was to listen to Julei sing. I regret everything. Incidently, there’ll be more to do at the Floating Isle, as I went back there and tried to go further in but was turned away with an “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, let’s turn back” type message. Interesting. Optional end-game dungeon location, maybe?

Following this, we started exploring and questing again, and I experienced a total party kill on a boss version of one of those triceratops things. That was unexpected. A long session of side-questing and ruin clearing followed this, and then it came to an end. I can’t play all day, after all.

Session 26 – Friday 13th September

Time for a quick bedtime session, and I got that glitch again where the vessel attack effects wouldn’t show up while fighting through ruins. A restart fixed it once again.

We hit the side-quests, and did every ruin. There are ruins in many of the open world areas with boss versions of normal monsters in them. Each one hid a powerful weapon for one of the characters. There was also a side-quest to explore and defeat the boss monster in every ruin, so I was glad to get it done.

Eventually, we went to Etaern (the place with the sandglass that Morley broke) to chase down the Moon Benevedon. Everyone was acting weird in Etaern, including Meelpa, the guy who gave us the big dogs. The party decided to go to an inn to rest, and it was very weird being inside a building as so far no buildings (except for Palamena’s palace) have allowed us to go inside. Careena, Palamena and Julei were also acting weird, and it was quite amusing. Palamena and Julei were especially funny with their chuckle-inducing mood swings. There is a reason that Val and Morely weren’t affected, but I didn’t catch it. Sorry. We, along with Luna, the Moon Elemental, decided that we needed to go to the nearby castle to sort all this nonsense out.

The castle had a time vortex thing going on, with some cool visual effects in the areas where you can see into a different era of the castle. When we were in the past, the music had a weird effect put over it that made it sound really creepy, like a distorted, slowed-down record player. It made me feel quite unsettled. Luckily, there’s some really good banter throughout this dungeon to lighten the mood, with Morley proving to be an amusing straight man to the madness of the three moon-affected loonies.

There was an interesting mini-boss fight against a vampire – a very bat-like humanoid just like the vampire boss in Secret of Mana. I felt like this boss would’ve been really tough if I’d chosen to go through Etaern first. It even healed itself by apparently sucking our blood! The Moon Benevedon – a large frog/chameleon type creature – was fought soon afterwards. This was another cool fight, with the creature summoning time spheres to slow us down, and its design was pleasingly strange. It reminded me of a Slaan from Warhammer crossed with Hypnotoad.

The ghost of an ancient king of Etaern showed up after the fight, and seemed to hint towards a quest for us for after Dale is defeated, which is interesting. Something about retrieving the powerful core from the sandglass to stop it from falling into the wrong hands. The ghost king also mentions that it wasn’t actually Morley who broke the sandglass. An apparition of Morley’s mum also appears, and she and Morley have an emotional (but not overdone) moment, and our favourite cat-man gets a bit of closure. As we returned to town, Morley said to the Meelpa fellow that he’ll help rebuild Etaern. Obviously he’s planning not to sacrifice himself as the Alm, either.

With all that out of the way, we hear that the Fire Benevedon is stirring, and the game transports us to Val’s village. That volcano in the background is looking very angry. Time for bed though. I’m tired and not taking it all in properly.

Session 27 – Saturday 14th September

My only session of the day starts with a bit of chatting with the people of Tianeea, the fire village. Hinna’s parents aren’t around, however.

The volcano dungeon is what you’d expect a volcano dungeon to be. Lava and fiery enemies with an angry volcano dominating the skyline. It’s a cool area, and there’s an awesome, moody, fiery skybox. The AI party members kept falling into the lava here, taking damage and getting the burning status affect so that they’re constantly running around with minimal health. There’s no point healing them because they’ll just jump into the fire again. Idiots. Luckily, the mobs are easy. The mini-boss, which was a flaming interpretation of the Axe Beak, the stupidest boss from Secret of Mana, was also easy.

The Fire Benevedon, a big lava ape, was even easier. It felt like the most simple boss yet. Are we over-levelled?

Anyway, we headed back to Tianeea after this and Val finally told Hinna’s parents about their daughter’s fate. I didn’t really understand all this, as Hinna’s parents were apparently happy with her going off to be a sacrifice anyway. I guess that’s just the way they see things here in Mana Land. These people are weird. Val finds out that Hinna left him a secret letter assuming that she’d fulfil her role as the Alm and he’d head back to Tianeea. He reads it and it’s very poignant. With all the Benevedons soundly beaten, we’re heading to the Dark Archive to pick up Aesh.

We undertook an entertaining side-quest here, in which Aesh took us back to the Passagean Tomespire to ask the party about their backgrounds in order to choose a book for them to read. I quite like Aesh now, his interactions with the party are amusing.

Our next destination was the Entwine Bridgepass. I knew there’d be a fight there eventually, and sure enough, a very picturesque battle with a somewhat mutated-looking Dale ensued. After getting him down to about a quarter health, he broke the Mana Sword and further mutated into a scarier form for part two of the encounter. This form of Dale fired NieR: Automata-style bullet hell attacks, but he didn’t regain his health, so we finished him off pretty quickly. He went for an all-out explosion attack but the elementals all turned up and saved us, and Dale scampered off again. Val picked up the broken Mana Sword, and we chased Dale to the Mana Sanctuary.

The Mana Sanctuary was all purple and cursed. We went in, and there were more time distortions here, Etaern-style. We ran into previous Alms and Soul Guards from previous years, and I found myself hoping we’d see something from Trials of Mana or Secret of Mana. I just want a bit of fan-service! That’s all!

It’s quickly revealed that it’s not just the Mana Sanctuary we’re going to be exploring a purple version of, as we get transported to purple versions of other areas, too. One area is where we fought the Mantis Ant all that time ago, and there is a huge windmill there. We head to the windmill’s door and someone says something about something in there being “too strong”. What the heck is in the distorted, purple windmill, eh? We have to fight another plant boss in a large, open, icy area next, and then a tougher Mantis Ant boss in a purple version of the Deade Cliffs area. There hasn’t been a meridian in ages, and it’s getting late.

The party starts to see the past version of Dale after this and, you know, it really was kind of mean of the Mana Goddess to send him off to fight the Benevedons all by himself. There’s definitely more to all this. We finally find a meridian in purple Luka Ruins, and I put an end to an eventful session. It really feels like I’m getting close to the end now.

Session 28 – Sunday 15th September

We’re picking things back up in the Distorted Sanctuary for this Sunday morning session, and we walked straight into the return of the squid-like creature from the Luka Ruins. This fight felt a little less straightforward than his previous appearance, as he seemed to be hounding my character relentlessly the entire time.

After this, a time echo of Dale from the past revealed that Cerulia was killed by a human thief. I mean, I can understand why he’d be upset, but bringing a whole world to ruin? A fight against two giant golems followed, and this journey through the Distorted Sanctuary really started to feel like a bit of a boss rush, albeit one that was interrupted by normal fights and exposition. A fight against an illusory Trent is the final test here. I did not expect to be fighting the big, helpful tree guy, but he goes down just like all the others.

A quick visit with a past version of Khoda reveals that he was in love with the Mana Goddess. That’s four pivotal male characters (Khoda, Val, Eoren, and Dale) who are suffering from lost loves. I’m beginning to sense a theme. After traversing the last part of the sanctuary that leads to the tree, we’re informed in no uncertain terms that this is the point of no return. I was tempted to run straight in, but I decided to go and smash some side-quests.

Every time we handed in a side-quest I was worried that more would show up, but we didn’t actually pick up any more quests in this run (well, apart from that one bloke in Wendel Temple banging on about some earrings, but he was inside the place where his quest was and we were already there for something else), and we managed to get them all handed in, emptying the side-quest log. I’m sure there are more, but we’d been to most of the main population areas recently and I didn’t seen any exclamation marks, so I decided to draw a line under the side-quests for now.

There are things called Elemental Aeries, which I haven’t mentioned yet at all. They’re basically timed fights that can be accessed around the world by activating altars with the right elemental power. From what I currently understand, once you’ve beaten all of the ones of a certain element it opens up the challenge in the large elemental tower for that element, which are these huge, mysterious towers that are seen all over the place. I didn’t really bother with these, as the few I attempted didn’t seem to have super-important rewards and they just felt like something else to break the flow of the campaign. I could have tried to clear these up before I went after Dale for the (seemingly) final time, but I decided not to bother.

There are also at least two other areas that I haven’t explored yet that I know of – namely the giant windmill in the distorted area, and the section of the Floating Isle that the party was turned away from. If meeting Dale in the Mana Sanctuary truly is going to be the final boss, then it looks like these two things are post-game content. I’ll have to find out another time, as this session has come to an end.

Session 29 – Sunday 15th September

I thought I’d have a last look at the Floating Isle and the mysterious windmill area at the start of this session, and found one more side-quest at the windmill (but no mention of a strong monster, meaning that only the distorted windmill seems to contain an entity). I then went to Etaern and found a whole bunch of side-quests! I must admit that I was not happy about this. Some more Flammie-based jet-setting ensued as Val and the team mopped them up, and then it was time to go and say hello to Dale.

When we found Dale in front of the Mana Tree, he was looking pretty tree-like himself, and seemed to have completely lost his marbles. He thought that Val was Khoda and seemed to have completely slipped into insanity. Before the inevitable battle he morphed and grew into a huge, elemental, demonic Ent. Very intimidating. Also there was rock music. Very invigorating. Almost instantly we were handed a total party kill because I forgot to shuffle my party around to include … you know, healing. A quick reload, and it was time to go again!

The final battle was suitably spectacular with the Mana Tree in the background, the reflections in the shallow water that the fight takes place in and the colourful lighting effects and crazy attacks popping off everywhere. His health was being chipped down rather slowly, and then he took a second form when about half of his health bar was spent, which grew extra arms and introduced some more attacks. There was something going on with his arms cycling through different elements, but I wasn’t paying too much attention to it and was just concentrating on wailing on him while trying to keep everyone healed.

Once we finally got him beat, he still managed to incapacitate everyone in a cutscene explosion attack. However, some JRPG stuff happened, and the party was revitalised by the wishes of the people that the Alms represent. Or something. More importantly, Eoren and Lyza showed up, the Mana Sword was magically reforged, and Hinna’s hand came from off-screen, touching and guiding Val’s arm, almost exactly like Egon Spengler at the end of Ghostbusters: Afterlife. That scene made me sad and also I didn’t like that movie, but this was fine. Val slashed demon Dale with the Mana Sword, and the bad guy was toast. Eoren, Lyza and Hinna disappeared into a cloud of pretty lights.

The Mana Goddess appeared next and said some stuff, along with Cerulia, Dale’s lost love, and then Cerulia and Dale got whisked off into the afterlife together. Khoda then says some stuff before fading away too, and Val, as the hero with the Mana Sword, must now choose whether to keep things as they are or change the world. Val says “the future I choose is…” and then we cut to credits. The credits show some still images of the characters as they live their lives, often hanging out with the elementals. I mean, I assume Val chose to end the Alm sacrifices? Khoda and the Mana Goddess did warn that both choices could have far-reaching consequences, but that’s life, isn’t it.

There’s a post credits scene were “Grandpa Val” dies of old age and returns to the Mana Tree as a young lad again. He sees Khoda, and then reunites with Hinna (who seems to have merged with the Mana Goddess). If Val’s a grandpa, doesn’t that mean he moved on from Hinna? Maybe the unidentified people around his death bed just called him grandpa because he’s old. Either way, I’m sure Hinna would have wanted him to live his life to the fullest. He deserves it. Also, this is explicitly the afterlife, so they really didn’t bring Hinna back to life. I’m impressed.

A New Game + and an Expert Mode is unlocked, as well as an extra chapter if I load up my completed save file. I might hit the extra chapter at some point, but the New Game + and Expert Mode are for players more dedicated than I.

Well, what a journey through a game that could at times look and feel like a low budget JRPG with annoying voice acting, and could at other times feel like a visually stunning journey through an awesomely realised world with likeable characters, amusing banter, and some spectacular and memorable moments.

Visions of Mana was at its best when it was building up to that first trip to the Mana Sanctuary, and the first encounter with the Mana Tree. It really felt epic and important, and the visuals in and around the Mana Sanctuary were stunningly beautiful. Some other highlights include the first trip through the physics-defying halls of the Passagean Tomespire and the occasionally creepy jaunt through the past and present versions of the castle near Etaern.

The combat was rarely taxing, but never outstayed its welcome, and once I’d settled into mostly controlling Careena and flipping between the fire and earth vessels depending on the current enemy, I was having a good time. The side-quests were very basic and tended to hamper the flow, but could usually be dealt with pretty quickly. The music, while never as memorable as Secret of Mana’s, was really good throughout and the voice-acting, despite my earlier misgivings, was usually fine.

There’s more to do, but I’m going to take a break now and play something different. I’ll recommend Visions of Mana. It’s the JRPG genre at its comfiest, with some legitimately great moments and positives that greatly outweigh the negatives. There were traces of that intangible Secret of Mana magic here and there, and I doubt I’ll forget Val and pals in a hurry.

I’ll definitely never forget that Von Boyage character. What a guy.

Dakar Desert Rally

Hooning in the Dunes

There’s something fascinating and visceral about rallying. It’s man and machine versus nature, and the battle takes place on muddy Welsh backroads, deep in snowy, Bavarian pine forests or across the arid outback of Australia. Skilled drivers exhibit courage beyond reason as they fling noisy, high-powered, sponsor-festooned automobiles around trees, through rivers, and along the edge of ravines. It’s the rough, messy antithesis to Formula 1’s high-end, super-rich glitz and glamour, and it’s way more entertaining.

I’ve owned my share of rally games in the past, mainly sticking to the Colin McCrea series of simulations that later evolved into the more Ken Block-influenced DiRT games, through which I learned the meaning of the word “hoon.” Despite all of the outrageous stunts, cool music and bright colours of the more recent titles, I’d take sliding a Peugeot 205 around the Finnish countryside in the pissing rain over screeching around a gymkhana event in a Ford Focus plastered with Monster Energy logos any day of the week.

I tried to capture the lightning strikes in this screenshot. I really tried. You’ll just have to trust me when I say that it looks super-cool.

I’ve been more-or-less aware of the Dakar Rally event, but I’ve never looked into it too deeply. The idea certainly appeals to me though; man and machine versus nature again, this time in a harsh, desert environment, careening over dunes and navigating through blinding sandstorms. When I spotted a few trailers for the new Dakar Desert Rally game (and spotted its very reasonable price point), I thought that it was time to take the plunge. I’ve been burned out a little by lengthy JRPGs after all, so it was time to try something a bit different and scratch that old racing game itch.

Dakar Desert Rally takes place in open environments with courses laid out using waypoints. Your job is to validate all the waypoints and get to the finish line as quickly as possible. There are three main game modes on offer, which range in difficulty and intensity. In Sport mode, the next waypoint is clearly highlighted on screen and you’ll be leaving the starting line with three other racers, making for a more arcade-y experience. In Professional mode, you’ll be racing against the clock without the aid of highlighted waypoints, instead being forced to find your way by using your roadbook notes, keeping an eye on your compass, and listening to your navigator. Lastly, Simulation mode is like Professional mode but with no restarts and higher repair costs at the end of each stage.

I started out in Professional mode, hoping to get that real Dakar Rally experience. It’s certainly intense, with information being fired at you constantly as you try to keep an eye out for errant rocks and trees. Your roadbook will flash up on the right-hand side of the screen, overwhelming you with symbols and arrows and arrows that go through symbols, while your co-pilot constantly feeds you audio information as well. Not only will your passenger warn you of dangers like jumps, fords and extended downhill sections, he’ll also feed you compass points and call out sudden turns. This mode takes some practice, because if you want to do well, you’ll need to keep your eyes and ears on many factors all at the same time, all while still maintaining those breakneck speeds. Relying solely on the vocals of your buddy and ignoring the roadbook and compass won’t cut it, as occasions such as him calling out a “keep right” instruction only for the course to veer off to the left seem to be fairly common. I’m ashamed at how often I found myself circling aimlessly out in the wilderness as the co-pilot fed me compass point numbers in a disappointed tone, desperately trying to get me back on track.

There’s nothing quite like the open dunes. Unless you’re in a vehicle that isn’t too good at jumping and landing, then things will get very flippy, very quickly.

Eventually, I dropped down to Sport mode, and after I’d gotten over the initial pangs of failure and shame, I started to have a lot more fun. While it’s still possible to get lost if the next waypoint is behind a hill and the instructions aren’t completely clear, being more confident about where you need to go allows you to really put your foot down and concentrate on the racing. You’ll also notice that Sport mode still features the staggered starts of Professional mode, only with groups of four starting ahead of you and behind you instead of single racers. This can lead to some awesome moments where you catch up with a different class of vehicle while still fighting for position against the guys who started alongside you. There’s nothing quite like blasting up the side of a dune in a badass 4×4 while bikes, trucks and buggies jostle for position all around you.

Combining these moments with Dakar Desert Rally’s stellar weather effects are when the game really reaches its action-packed crescendo. While the environments look great in clear weather, barrelling through epic thunderstorms, fierce blizzards (yep, in the desert) and intense sandstorms is bare-knuckle racing at its finest. The developers (Portugal-based team Saber Porto) have done a fantastic job with the more extreme weather effects, with dramatic lightning strikes and impressive rainstorms offering up some variety amidst the admittedly-pretty clear skies and desert sunsets.

The experience is far from perfect, though. Odd physics and some glitchy collision detection will occasionally send you flying unfairly, and overly aggressive AI drivers will sometimes ruin your day. More egregious issues include slowdown and some absolutely killer loading times. The game has a too-common habit of chugging when you pass a waypoint, which can cut through your concentration and make you lose that all-important racing line. The load-times are also frustrating, and are an absolute bastard if you’ve wrapped your quad bike around a tree right at the beginning of the race and want to restart. While we’re on the subject of quad bikes, said four-wheeled steeds are a nightmare to control, handling like bars of soap, and turning you in the opposite direction at the slightest opportunity. Seriously, the quad bikes can get directly in the bin. The cars, bikes, trucks and buggies are all fine, though.

The trucks are so big they can block your view a bit. That still doesn’t mean I’m going to use the cockpit view though…

Some racing game fans might lament the lack of variety, but really, if you’ve bought a game called Dakar Desert Rally you should expect lots of deserts and rallying and not much else. It’s different enough to the more traditional rally games to warrant a place alongside them on a driving enthusiast’s gaming shelf, and in Sport mode it’s definitely able to provide some MotorStorm-esque arcade thrills, too. Dakar Desert Rally isn’t the top racing game around, and nor is it the first one you should choose, but if you’ve worn out your tyres on Forza, run out of fuel with Gran Turismo, and ground your gears to dust in Project Cars, there’s definitely plenty of fun to be had here for those that want to try something a bit dirtier.

Played on PS4

Subnautica

Not Recommended for Those With Thalassophobia.

Alma’s unsettling appearances in the first F.E.A.R. game. My decision to quit and never come back thanks to the constant aura of smothering terror in the P.T. Demo. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem trying to convince me that my TV was on the blink. All of these are examples of video games getting under my skin, giving me that sense of tingling anticipation that something truly horrible is about to happen. The three games mentioned above are pillars of horror in video games. Subnautica is not even classed as a horror game. It’s an open-world, survival-crafting experience with bright, cartoony graphics, but that first play-through was spent in an almost perpetual state of near-unbearable dread.

It might just be me, but it’s the open ocean that does it. Those endless, unknown depths. Those distant, unidentifiable sounds. That grasping, limitless, suffocating void filled with leviathans horrific beyond imagining just waiting to suck you into their inescapable, cavernous maws. Subnautica has its light-hearted moments, and is enjoyed by players of all ages, but if the idea of dangling alone in a pitch-black, watery abyss is as unappealing to you as it is to me, then this game will absolutely terrify you.

Enough about my weakness to water, though, let’s talk about the game. Subnautica is set on an uncharted planet known as 4546B, whose surface is almost entirely composed of a vast, deep ocean. When the spaceship you’re on crash-lands on this watery world, you find yourself stranded and alone with only the cold, computerised voice of your PDA assistant for company. The game will offer up a few hints and markers early on, but you’re pretty much on your own. It’s nice and safe in the floating escape pod that brought you to the planet, but those hunger and thirst meters are ticking down already, and hanging around there isn’t going to get you back home. It’s time to explore.

Once you get your bearings you’ll start to understand what you need to do to survive. Important tasks include hunting for edible fish, creating potable water, and scavenging for equipment to help you explore. You’re probably going to drown. A lot. It’s all too easy to get distracted while searching for resources, and end up misjudging how long it will take you to get back to that distant, glistening surface before your air supply runs out. However, search enough wreckage and harvest enough materials from the local flora and fauna, and you’ll soon be able to upgrade your equipment and leave the comfortable shallows, heading deeper and wider. Persevere, and you’ll discover that there are quite a few surprises out there.

Meet the Ghost Leviathan, one of the scary leviathan-class creatures. A few are harmless, but most just want to swallow you whole. The last aggressive leviathan you’ll meet is a little disappointing, though. A goofy-looking gator-squid. Shame.

Survival/crafting games don’t tend to put too much emphasis on the story, but Subnautica is very different in that regard. Through audio recordings and interesting discoveries, you’ll start to piece together a very interesting tale about the planet’s history and ecosystem, and will become embroiled in a surprisingly deep and involved mystery. As the plot threads unravel, new plans and blueprints will become available too – from more advanced air-tanks to a mighty submarine called the Cyclops, all of these gadgets help to let you go deeper and deeper into the abyss, where you’ll finally get to the bottom of the compelling mystery.

Another thing that you can do to help keep yourself alive is build an underwater base (or a series of bases), where you can craft, plan, or just take a breather in relative safety. As long as you keep your base powered, you won’t run out of oxygen, and you can build such helpful devices as battery chargers, storage containers and water purifiers. These bases have a nice, clean, futuristic aesthetic, to which you can add decorative items such as beds, plant-pots, and even aquariums, and if this building aspect really appeals to you, there is a “creative mode” in which you can work on huge, underwater complexes with no restrictions.

Its cool and everything, and constructing a vast, aquatic utopia is an interesting aspiration, but Subnautica is really about the moments. That moment when you swim out into the open ocean and the sea floor drops off into an abyssal trench, and you hear a shrieking, haunting cry out in the murky blue. That moment when you go to a new biome for the first time and the PDA voice informs you that you’re in the migratory path of leviathan-class lifeforms. That moment when you’re exploring in your compact submersible and a dreaded Reaper Leviathan appears from nowhere, grabs your craft and shakes it around like a dog with a chew toy. That moment when you realise that maybe you weren’t the first sentient being to splash down on this planet after all…

Subnautica is absolutely packed to the gills with memorable and awe-inspiring experiences. Most of them invoke negative feelings like loneliness, isolation and dread, but there is wonder too, and a real sense of adventure and discovery. When I finally finished the game and was given the opportunity to leave the planet behind, despite feeling unease and anxiety for practically my entire adventure, I suddenly didn’t want to go. When it was finally time to escape the terrifying deep, I found that I didn’t want to leave this beautifully dangerous world behind. I think they call it Stockholm syndrome.

Played on PS4

Dragon Quest Builders 2

Dragons, Quests, and Builders, Too!

You’d be forgiven for taking one look at the blocky visuals of Dragon Quest Builders and rolling your eyes at the thought of a Square Enix helmed cash-in on Minecraft’s success. However, while clearly taking cues from the cuboid phenomenon, this is much more than just an Akira Toriyama-themed skin pack. Personally, I came into Dragon Quest Builders 2 with relatively little experience in the Dragon Quest series. I nearly finished Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, and finished Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, and haven’t played any other games in the series’ extensive back catalogue. Despite their wordy titles, though, I enjoyed both games immensely. As for Minecraft, my experience there is almost non-existent. I’ve tried it once or twice, but always found myself unable to get motivated to build for the sake of building in the open-ended, low-res world. I found myself getting much more involved with the 2D building of Terraria, thanks to its progression, bosses and neat graphical style.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 obviously borrows visually and stylistically from Minecraft, but does even more than Terraria did when it comes to adding focus to the sandbox. It features a lengthy quest that sets it apart from more open-ended survival/builders and a story line that, while fairly basic thanks to a silent protagonist, throws up its fair share of twists and turns. The ongoing relationship between the player-created character and his or her amnesiac companion Malroth is often interesting and occasionally moving, and the vibe can shift from upbeat and irreverent to surprisingly foreboding or hauntingly melancholy at a moments’ notice. Observant, old-school Dragon Quest fans may also recognise the name Malroth from Dragon Quest II, and will already have an inkling that there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye. The story chugs along nicely and, despite some slow sections, concludes in satisfying fashion, too.

The quest is split into numerous distinct parts, set on different islands in a vast, unknown sea. While undertaking the story missions on these islands, you won’t be able to leave them. Upon completing that part of the quest, however, you’re free to go back and forth between your home base (known as the Isle of Awakening) and almost any island you’ve already completed. Once you go to a new area and get stuck into the next story mission, you’re locked in again. The split nature of the world allows you to keep different projects handily separated, but can result in frustration later on when you find yourself spending far too much time propositioning the quirky Captain Brownbeard to take you from island to island, and experiencing the loading screens that are part of the deal.

There are also island types known as “Explorers’ Shores”. These randomly generated holms, cays and skerries offer up enjoyable orienteering activities in which players can unlock infinite reserves of certain resource types. You can also find optional boss fights, pick up various villagers and helpful NPCs to take back to the Isle of Awakening, and gather handy resources that you won’t find anywhere else. Don’t bother building anything, though, as the place will be swallowed by the ocean mists when you leave, never to be seen again.

Farming forms a very large part of the early game. See that hat-wearing worm in the background, there? He’s indispensable for growing crops. He was also raised in the deepest wilds of rural Dorset, if his dialogue is anything to go by.

Each main island will teach you different aspects of the building, survival and management elements of the game. The first island introduces you to farming and meeting your villagers’ basic needs, the second area demonstrates mining and entertainment, and so on. Complete the main quest and you’ll be armed with the knowledge to build the fantasy metropolis of your dreams back at the Isle of Awakening once the post-game opens up.

Nearly. The game keeps a lot from you, and completionists looking for all the items, cooking recipes and room types on offer will have a gigantes-sized task on their hands. The story quests will only tell you so much, the rest needs to be uncovered by following NPC hints or through a bit of good old trial and error. This is welcome, as it gives the game a wealth of content for enthusiastic builders to uncover long after the end credits have rolled. However, the game’s obliqueness can occasionally go too far, and frustrating occurrences are a little too common. Room-types not registering with no clear indication as to why, villagers ignoring your newly built facilities with no visible explanation, and a lack of clarity when determining how far out into the map you can expand your settlement are all examples of problems I encountered. All of these are understandable limits, but it would have been nice if the game attempted to explain them a bit.

Combat is basic. Swing your sword until the enemy dies, occasionally pausing to dodge obviously telegraphed power attacks. Level up and craft better swords to hit harder. That’s pretty much it. Combat isn’t the focus here, despite there being plenty of it, but variety is injected through the use of companions. Throughout most of the game you’ll be accompanied by Malroth, and you can rely on him in a lot of the battles. There will also be occasions when your party grows to four or more, and later on whole armies can be thrown into battle at your behest, though I never used this feature outside of the story mission that introduced it. While visiting the aforementioned Explorers’ Shores, you can choose up to three companions to take with you, and this adventuring party can eventually include tamed monsters. These monsters add another wrinkle to the resource-gathering, combat and exploration aspects of the game, as many of them can be ridden and used in various helpful roles.

I’ve not played the first Dragon Quest Builders game, but from a little bit of research it seems that the sequel added such a wealth of gameplay tweaks and quality of life changes that I’ll probably leave it unexplored. Having said that, I did read somewhere that Dragon Quest Builders has a double jump. Dragon Quest Builders 2 could really do with a double jump…

We can forgive it, though, because Dragon Quest Builders 2 is a thoroughly charming, content-rich and surprisingly deep game. Bright, fascinating and bizarrely pun-obsessed, the building gameplay mixes perfectly with the questing, and for the most part the balance between hand-holding and letting you do your own thing is weighed perfectly. Despite enjoying previous Dragon Quest titles, I partially dismissed Dragon Quest Builders 2 as a cash-in on the popularity of Minecraft that was squarely aimed at kids. An opportunity came to play it (it was a gift for my daughter) and I was quickly enlightened to the fact that, while both of those things are true, this is still an excellent game that will keep you coming back again and again. I want more of it, despite it having a 50+ hour campaign and near endless post-game content, and that’s a sign that something is definitely working. As far as Dragon Quest spin-offs go, this one’s built for success.

Played on Nintendo Switch

Gravity Rush 2

Falling Blissfully Upwards

All great games have high points. Those peaks in the action, the memorable bits that give a title its identity. Sometimes those moments are in the gameplay; when pulling off a killer move or surviving a dangerous encounter. In other games, it might be a story beat, a great plot thread building to a cinematic crescendo, or maybe it’s in that moment of down-time, in which you really get to soak up the atmosphere of the world the developers have created. In Gravity Rush 2, it’s in the simple act of getting from A to B.

It has all those other moments too, but the sheer joy of upending gravity and shooting protagonist Kat from one end of the majestic, floating city of Jirga Para Lhao to the other is utterly unique. That initial sensation of weightlessness followed by a shift in gravity and an exhilarating burst of speed, coupled with the stunning visuals and atmosphere of the world, make basic movement in Gravity Rush 2 more fun than many games can muster in their entirety. Does this seem like an outlandish claim? Not to me. At it’s best, Gravity Rush 2 is a kinetic masterpiece, but let’s see what else it has to offer.

The player takes on the role of Kat, a mysterious girl in a strange world. Kat is a refreshingly upbeat character. She sees the best in everyone and refuses to be brought down, and harbours a burning desire to help people and make the world a better place. Despite these nauseatingly saccharine personality traits, she never drifts into annoying or cluelessly naïve, managing to stay adorable throughout.

As you may have guessed, she has powers over gravity as well. These powers are provided to her by her cute and mysterious cat companion named Dusty, who seems to be formed of negative space, and floats along for the ride. Kat can fall through the air in any direction as she adjusts the pull of gravity around her, and there are endless opportunities for exhilarating exploration as you run up the sides of buildings, float about the underside of docks and archways, and launch Kat off into thin air just to see what’s on the other side of that cloud. The world is bright and beautifully designed, a fascinating mix of cultural influences from around the world suspended on floating islands in a dazzling sky.

Kat’s appearance changes when she starts manipulating gravity, switching from “cute girl with cat” to “godlike supernatural being” in the blink of an eye.

Changing up a gear from the PlayStation Vita original, Gravity Rush 2 also gives Kat two additional gravity styles, which affect her levels of weightlessness and how hard she can smash into things. The light and airy lunar style increases Kat’s speed and jumping ability, while the weighty Jupiter style enables her to deal more damage as a trade-off for manoeuvrability. The combat predominantly consists of airborne battles with sinister, formless entities called Nevi. However, hapless, ground-based soldiers and the occasional boss fight offer some variety. The combat is fine, and at its best can feel spectacular and impactful, but if the camera doesn’t feel like cooperating that day, it can start to become a little too infuriating for comfort.

The struggling camera is Gravity Rush 2’s only real downfall. You can approach any location from any angle at any time and change direction in a heartbeat, and this can result in occasions where Kat and the camera just don’t get along. It’s not unusual to find yourself exposed in combat as you desperately try and search for the nearest enemy, or completely baffled as to which way is up or down following a camera angle flip because you got too close to a corner. It feels like the developers did the absolute best they could with the camera, but given the nature of the game and the sheer freedom of movement, there were always going to be times when it just couldn’t keep up with the action.

That aside, Gravity Rush 2 is an endlessly charming, often breathtaking and beautifully presented game. The story is fun and unusual and occasionally emotional, and provides some nice surprises for those who are invested in Kat’s murky origins. The game world of Jirga Para Lhao initially seems to be similar in size to Hekseville from the Vita original, but when Hekseville shows up in full part-way through as a completely explorable (and beautifully visually-updated) new area, that preconception gets blown out of the water. Massive, endearing, surprising, and full of unique gameplay, Kat’s gravity-defying journey is a joy to experience. If you put Gravity Rush 2 into your PlayStation and float away into it’s artistic and mysterious world, you won’t want to come back down.

Metroid Dread

The Grim Brightness of the Far Future

I’ve been orbiting the Metroid series for a while now, but it wasn’t until this most recent offering that I finally hit the boosters and made planetfall. Metroid Dread is an immaculately polished space adventure in a classic, retro style. Nintendo’s artistry is abundantly evident in the way they’ve brought the side-scrolling action to life with detailed, 3D graphics, flawless animation, and a great sense of consistency, atmosphere and depth to the environments. The story is told through environmental changes and subtle, background elements as much as it is through cut-scenes, and, from what I’ve read, there are countless fascinating links to the larger Metroid universe for the eagle-eyed fan to find. All this makes for an excellent, expertly presented sci-fi narrative experience.

The gameplay is refined and precise. Silent bounty hunter Samus Aran controls with pinpoint smoothness, and dashing through caverns and corridors, latching on to ledges and blasting the local fauna is immensely satisfying. The immersion increases as progress is made and new skills and weapons are unlocked. These skills and weapons also provide the main means of travelling to new areas. Double jumps, weapon upgrades and the ability to roll up into a ball and squeeze through gaps all open up new places to explore and new dangers to face.

The game can be difficult, but this difficulty is mostly limited to the E.M.M.I. encounters, certain boss fights, and the uncovering of secret areas. Even when things do get tricky, it’s never down to fiddly controls or unfair level design. Metroid Dread gives you the tools you need to succeed, you just have to figure out how to use them. Bosses that seem insurmountable at first will be felled eventually once weaknesses and patterns reveal themselves. The learning curve is natural and satisfying, if you’re willing to stick with it.

The most controversial sticking points are the encounters with the E.M.M.I. machines. Samus’ standard weapons are useless against these contorting arrangements of metallic sinew. They stalk through quiet, eerie areas sealed off from the rest of the level, and can form and reform in order to pursue Samus across any surface and through any gap. Their inquisitive bleeps and bloops haunt the areas they patrol, and once one catches sight of its prey, a quick exit is the only way to avoid a nasty demise. These relentless automatons are almost at odds with the rest of the game in terms of visual design. While most of the other enemies are indigenous life-forms or fleshy abominations, these E.M.M.I. creatures look like they were dreamed up by a focus group in an Apple laboratory.

The submerged areas are some of my favourites to traverse. Metroid Dread does a stunning job of creating an immersive atmosphere with its deep and detailed backgrounds.

Speaking of laboratories, Samus will be exploring a few of them, many with life-forms on display in an apparent state of mid-autopsy. One especially effecting area has a huge creature suspended by probe-like machinery, its hideous visage gaping open in the background as its muscles spasm and jolt. There’s a definite sci-fi horror vibe, sprinkled with a seasoning of gross body-horror for flavour. These dark themes juxtapose strangely with that trademark Nintendo brightness, like a coat of bright paint over rusted metal. Or like Aliens if it was directed by Michael Bay. No, scratch that, that’s a horrible thought…

Metroid Dread is an expertly crafted, exquisitely balanced game. Samus is a joy to control and the world is a fascinating one to explore. The E.M.M.I. enemies have divided opinion, and there is certainly a line beyond which being one-shotted by the same invincible horror over and over again goes beyond tense and terrifying and becomes annoying, Alien: Isolation style. In my view, however, the E.M.M.I. encounters just about stay on the right side of the line throughout, and add to a great experience. All of this put together means that Metroid Dread is modern, old-school gaming at its best. Also, Samus is a girl. I know, I couldn’t believe it either.

 

Triangle Strategy Preview

A Shining Example

At the time of writing, Triangle Strategy is about two weeks away from release. Coming to the Nintendo Switch, this turn-based tactical RPG is drawing a lot of comparisons to Final Fantasy Tactics, and rightly so, it’s developed by Square Enix. However, as a certified Sega Maniac, I’m hoping that this strategic adventure will be the second coming of a different masterpiece from the late 90’s. Shining Force III for the Sega Saturn delivered deep, grid-based tactical action and multi-layered political fantasy only a few months after the initial release of Square Enix’s PS1 effort. A well-received strategy epic, Shining Force III was one of the Saturn’s top titles, and a paragon of the genre.

The Triangle Strategy demo is out there for those who are interested. The game is gorgeous. Expressive, pixel art characters and detailed, atmospheric backgrounds combine with beautiful depth of field effects to make for a visually bountiful experience. The glistening water effects especially are a visual treat. The game is immersive and comfortable, perfect for a cosy gaming session on a cold, winter’s evening. The voice acting is … a mixed bag, to put it kindly, but that’s all part of the charm, right?

Like Shining Force III, the game plays out on battlefields that are divided into neat grids. The player has access to a number of different party members, and commands them during battle by moving them around the grid and performing actions such as attacking enemies or casting spells. As the story progresses the player will recruit more characters to the cause. Each one of these characters has a story, a background and a role to play, though some are more integral than others. The basic tactics are fairly standard. Keep your melee guys in the front, and your more delicate ranged and support guys in the back. Out-position the enemy, don’t get surrounded, go for the objective.

This character is using a healing ability. In the background, the glittering water combined with the blur effect makes for an almost dream-like atmosphere.

Triangle Strategy also has plenty of elements that set it apart. Branching storylines, interesting skills that use the map in inventive ways, optional story events and the ability to explore many of the battlefields before combat ensues all represent evolution in the genre. There’s also an interesting and unique mechanic in which certain narrative-shifting decisions are voted upon by NPC party members. If a player wants the vote to swing a specific way, they’ll have to explore the local area and talk to the locals, hoping to find information that will help sway the opinions of the voters. This fascinating mechanic, along with a branching story of politics, heroism and conflict in a fantastic world, the stunning, retro visuals and the classic strategy gameplay all sound like ingredients to a perfect tactical RPG recipe.

Shining Force III was the first part of a trilogy. The second and thirds acts never made it to the West thanks to the dwindling fortunes of the Saturn. If Triangle Strategy ends on a cliffhanger, I may get a little nervous. But that’s a concern for the future. In the meantime, Triangle Strategy looks like it’s going to be a must for strategy fans. It will be released for the Nintendo Switch on 4th March 2022.