Happy April Fool's! Unfortunately I am not smart nor witty enough to really do anything interesting for the day, though I always love watching what all the other game companies do.
(Dude, ProSeka's April Fool's was a lot bigger than I expected. They should just include the special edition songs in the Exchange Corner if you wouldn't mind...)
Anyway, let's get to this month's games.
Currently Playing Games
Mermaid Gothic
Ni no Kuni: Shiroki Seihai no Majo for Nintendo Switch
Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds
Note that after I play FFIV's 3D remake version, I might go back and play the PSP version because it's got After Years and Interlude. I hope you can play those independent of the main game...
Games Completed during April 2022
Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon (currently doing post-game content)
Carto
Final Fantasy IV (Steam remake version, NOT the Pixel Remaster)
Backpack Hero Demo
Games "watched" and/or experienced during April 2022
Kirby: Discovery (localized as Kirby and the Forgotten Land)
April 2022 Report | updated May 2
Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon
I wonder what it says about me that what finally got me back into playing Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon (after like a year of waffling) was figuring out how to stream my 3DS screen to my PC. What's wrong with me?? There's even frame-dropping on the PC and I still want to see it on a big screen. Whatever, as long as I managed to beat that dungeon I was stuck on and keep going, I am pretty happy about it. By the way, the scene right before the credits was unfair!! I was just thinking, "hey I haven't cried during a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game yet" and then... (sigh)
Mystery Dungeon games... more accurately, roguelites are my main food source and have been since I was 13. I can play them for hours and hours and never stop. For the first time in several years, I accidentally played until my 3DS ran out of battery completely/shut off and had to break to charge it. (My Japanese 3DS still has around 6~ hours of battery life despite being this old!) Good thing I'm one of those people who save too frequently.
This game was actually very interesting story-wise, although some have told me that its content is similar to some Final Fantasy games I haven't played yet. (Currently digesting all the main-line FF games) But the whole concept of "returning to nothing" emphasized in FFII and III is rather similar to the whole antagonist's motivation here. Strangely enough, it also reminded me of Bear's Restaurant (Switch) whose "antagonist" was also in a similar situation (?). (Avoiding spoilers the best I can.) Just like Gates to Infinity, which I beat like 5 years ago, Super has a TON of post-game content that also includes an "epilogue" of sorts, so I'm still firing up the game every few days to run some dungeons. However, full completion would take around 500 hours in my estimation, so the main story and all main collectibles have been completed in my opinion.
I might come back to this later for post-game dungeon content and to catch 'em all, but this game is considered "done" for now. I think it took me around 60 hours to beat the main story, not including that one dungeon I died on seven times (Underwater Cavern is the literal translation)
Carto
I actually started this one a while ago... maybe a few months ago. However, there was a part on Chapter 3 or 4 where I got stuck and lost motivation completely! But recently I got the itch for a good puzzle/map-turning game and ended up fully completing the game.
It's a really lighthearted, colourful adventure. Not that difficult, though it sure makes me feel dumb when I figure out what has been stumping me for a while. It's not very long, though. I think my time at completion was 5 hours and I explored EVERYTHING, including the secrets.
Faster movement would have been nice, though I think the presentation is very good. It's definitely a feel-good game that is a light-hearted break from some heavier topics in other games. I think someone mentioned "palate-cleanser" games, and this is probably one of them. A great execution on a creative idea, but short and simple.
Kirby Discovery
This was the game that swallowed me up during April. I don't have it, but I've watched around 100+ hours of gameplay. To be honest, I've never really played Kirby before, despite collecting all the 3DS games, but thanks to the creators' lovingly crafted character sprites (mainly of Kirby), I am now going to play all the backlogged Kirby games because he is freaking cute. Is it a he? Does it have any form of gender or is it beyond my understanding???
Kirby's cuteness is so obvious in this game that I know someone is doing it on purpose and trying to make us roll around on the ground with the cuteness.
I read an article online (in Japanese) that Nintendo kept sending HAL messages during play-testing about there being too few enemies on the screen that surrounded Kirby, which kept not being fixed to their satisfaction. When asked why this was hard to complete, Kirby's creator (whose name I can't remember) said basically: "If there's too many enemies surrounding him, we would feel bad (for Kirby)" or "wouldn't it be sad?" So now you can understand the amount of love stuffed into this game.
I repeat myself, but the squishiness of Kirby has doubled from any previous game. He's so cute that it's unfair. Someone open up a Kirby café in America too so we can get some of that cuteness.
The hidden secrets are absolutely insane in this game. Truly a "discovery" game. If you don't care about side content, though, it's super short. If you do, there's a TON of content!!!!!
The postgame is apparently a love letter to the Kirby fans of the past 30 years since the Game Boy. It didn't quite hit me in the nostalgia since I have no idea who the final boss is, but it was definitely a victory lap for the game!
Final Fantasy IV
By the way, I finished the main game just in time (April 30th at 11:50 PM)! I didn't plan it out that way, it just happened.
I'm playing the voiced Steam remake of the DS version, but I've got to say... the voice actors could use some work. I never thought I'd say something like that about a Japanese game since their voice acting industry is amazing, but like someone remarked, you could pull a JK (joshi kousei) off the street to voice Anna and she'd do a better job... I haven't heard the English version, but even it is probably better than, uh, this... Even the late-game performances are kind of lacklustre. This has nothing to do with the poly-models, but it made everything look rather childish.
Hard mode is freaking HARD. I heard it's like the DS version's difficulty, but man, FF3's DS version was also hard as nails and took me forever to beat, and FF4 is the same. I didn't even turn on the Active Time Battle option since I wanted to do the whole classic turn-based RPG thing, but with ATB on it would have probably been a nightmare...
Lydia (spelling?) is my favourite character since she has to put up with all these stupid adults fighting over her head, but still manages to solve everyone's problems. Despite having a trauma of fire because of the main character, he forces her to cast Fire (Fira?) to bring them out of a dungeon like a jerk. WTF man? It's not a little girl's job to save the world when you're the one destroying it. Anyway Lydia shows tremendous growth and maturity in the story, far beyond other characters -- including people 20 years her senior.
But I think Cain is really a good guy in the end and gets slighted. He's actually a good friend to Cecil (only he was possessed) and it must've been so tough to overcome the whole jealousy thing! Dude needs more credit.
The story was a lot more "human drama" and FF2-related than I was expecting. It's like 1 and 3 are linked through the whole chaos, time-travel and looping thing, while 2 and 4 are linked through the kingdoms rebelling and fighting, characters growing, and people dying (?). I don't know which one I like better. I love both. It was a great story and one I keep thinking about.
While I finished the 3D remake version of the main game, the Interlude (follow-up) is only available on the PSP version/collection, so I will complete Interlude on the PSP before going back to the remaster for The After Years. This I will complete in May.
Ni no Kuni (Switch) & Cross Worlds (Mobile, Japan & Korea)
While I did pay the Switch tax for this game, I also got it a few years ago from one of Level-5's Golden Week sales or something for 1500 yen. But recently I started playing it for the first time and... Got addicted. Thanks to being addicted, I recently got the second game for less than 10 dollars on a Steam sale.
The reason I started playing it in the first place was because I started playing Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds on my phone again. That game is surprisingly addictive. I totally missed several events since I stopped playing for a while, but couldn't resist going back, I guess.
I'm surprised that they reused several themes directly from the first game in Cross Worlds. They seem to be lightly remixed/rearranged in an orchestral manner, but still. Cross Worlds' title theme is, however, an absolute banger and all original. Here it is:
Back to Ni no Kuni the original game. Currently around 50 hours into the Switch port. It's so much fun I can't proceed with the story though, which means I'm a little overlevelled. I think this is the first game since Xenoblade where I accidentally wandered into 3 areas in a row where the enemies are 30 levels higher than you and got wiped out in 5 seconds... There's nothing quite like that slightly excited panic you get facing down an impossible enemy in battle, and then you're like "frick when did I save" when you die. Still fun.
There's a monster-collecting element of the game (Imagine-collecting) although you don't have to be very serious about it. It takes place in the sort of 3D Active Time Battle...? mode they have in the game?? Some people have commented that they don't like this mode of the game, but I don't think it's particularly bad. There is some strategy involved, but once you get the hang of it, it's not hard to master.
The story of the game is seriously straight out of a Ghibli film. In fact, some of its animators/artists helped to make the first game.
Note: I didn't actually finish the game in April, though I started halfway through it, so let's try carrying it over to May
Backpack Hero (Demo)
So this one was a sleeper hit and not even a game that exists yet! It's a demo released together with the Kickstarter of the game that is coming to PC and now Switch (stretch goal). Put simply, it's an inventory-managing roguelite (right now, it's a roguelike, but the town aspect will be in the full game).
It's also a ton of fun. There are a lot of synergies and combinations of items, and there are a lot of ways to win and lose. The first "set of 3 floors" seems easy and then you head to the third set and get absolutely creamed.
The demo itself probably counts as a complete game, and I have sunk at least ten hours into it. I think eight of those hours were just spent having fun and losing before I cleaver-ed my way through the final boss and got the protagonist's goal, which is cheese, because she is a mouse.
I'm so interested in playing this game that I might bite the bullet and back it, though I never back Kickstarters...
Okay, that's the end of this month's games. I couldn't finish Ni no Kuni but otherwise it was a great month! Carry-over games will be completed in May.
P.S. Right now I've got the thirst for games and exploration games (and JRPGs) in particular, so more of those coming soon...
Thanks for reading this far!
Storm
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