Feudal Japan Mood

 

            Hello~ Aztec-desu~ *kachink* Alright, cut that out, enough of that. So. I did end up getting Wild Hearts somewhere local (and paying a lot more than I should’ve apparently) and with Wild Hearts it’s reinforced this feudal Japan mood I’m in. I made my wife watch Delicious in Dungeon and we’ve finished it so we’re now starting The Apothecary Diaries. Two birds with one stone; it’s what I’m interested in at the moment and she’s into natural/organic remedies and how things were done in the old days.

            So Wild Hearts, god damn, fucking rough. These monsters will fucking rock your shit in two or three moves. Monster Hunter is so slow in comparison. I’d like to see how some of these people who think Wilds is too easy would fare in Wild Hearts and how quickly they’d run away. Using the karakuri is a must but also something I forget about half the time. The cooking is kind of complicated, the weapon upgrade tree is complex but it is a really cool game. Tracking the monsters with the hunter vision, or whatever, coupled with AC Shadows “parkour” made me think of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst so I started playing that a little bit as well.

I have three things on my EA app, Apex, Mirror’s Edge and Titanfall 2 and I typically go back to Mirror’s Edge and Titanfall to play through the story at least once a year. I enjoy them so much. My wife and I recently finished the first season of Severance so that also kind of started an anti-establishment flame that Mirror’s Edge also shares. One noticeable thing playing the game again is how good the cutscenes of Catalyst are. The facial expressions and the acting put most of modern AAA games to shame. I find it impressive that when getting to the higher parts of buildings and only walking on one steel I-beam can make me queasy. I’m not sure any other traversal game makes me feel that. I’ve kind of wanted a faster paced Dishonored game that had more free running and parkour in it. I think the right time for a new Mirror’s Edge or even Rainbow Six Patriots is always “now.” “Now” in the sense of everything that is going on in the USA today, “now” during the time when I brought it up last and even the “now” when Patriots was first announced. These stories are always happening; the powerful taking advantage of the weak, broken systems and corrupt governments. These games and stories could be made and released today and could be powerful as long as the writing could get the message across properly. 

            While playing Assassin’s Creed Shadows, @NEETproxy and I often talk about ways we should be able to hack the animus and put in fun/helpful things. This could be an after-doing-the-story sort of thing but it IS a computer program showing “ancestor’s” lives but that shouldn’t mean we can’t have some fun with it. So like using a “hack” to put in an ATV or a small motor boat. I was thinking it could be called the Pac Katari hack since in Ghost Recon Wildlands he can spawn any number of vehicles for you. And it’s not like the NPCs have to react differently about it since it’s a program, they would just react the same way they would if you were on your horse. It’s like in Origins, I found a mummy skin, outfit, what-have-you, and no one batted an eye. I’ve played, I don’t know, 30ish hours at this point and haven’t seen a whole lot of “real world” stuff or anything to do with the precursor race. The real world parts are usually sprinkled in the game here and there and precursor things are usually more towards the end or even DLC but I kind of like that stuff. It’s what makes Assassin’s Creed “Assassin’s Creed.” Take it away and it’s just another ninja/samurai game.

Assassin’s Creed used to also be part of this “fight the Man” kind of group. But even in Black Flag, I liked doing the real world stuff, sneak around the office, hack people’s computers, find all sorts of files and videos about what Abstergo was doing. I can’t say I read or watch those things but they were there if I wanted to dig deeper. I wish climbing to view points was more of a puzzle like the older games. Even in the older games it wasn’t too difficult but I wish there was more of it and a little more complex. I know with the way the buildings are during the era you only have so much to work with but using a grapple hook three or four times to get to a view point isn’t very rewarding. Another thing I wish was back is being able to observe a castle or fort and find different ways to infiltrate them. Most of the time I end up climbing on something and then work my way down into these areas when I’d rather TRY to be a little more sneaky about it. There are times when I do find a crawl space or a break in the wall but it’s usually after the fact. We don’t have a trusty eagle in this one to help us out with those sorts of things but it’d be nice to still be able to observe from a distance and find these areas. Once, recently, I found a house I wanted to get into, found a crawl space but then there was no hatch to actually get in the house, like, why am I crawling around down here then??

            The other part of that is the precursor stuff. I was always a little disappointed by the Isu type armors in the older games. In AC4 it was a Mayan outfit that SOMETIMES made bullets miss you and AC3 had something similar, it was a ring (I forgot it was on Oak Island, that’s so funny). The Mayan outfit wasn’t that good looking and the “buff” or armor ability wasn’t very useful either. Now some of the things in Shadows are quite cool. There’s a tanto that when you do a certain move it slows down time, which isn’t the greatest because the move makes you back dash away from the enemy so you have to close the distance again anyway but it’s something, and it’s just an early weapon. In Origins there was a spear that took two thirds of your health but was very strong. I paired it with my mummy outfit cause the ability was called “cursed.” The Isu armor of Origins was like, kind of cool but also kind of too much, I don’t remember if that had any buffs or not. These precursor objects should have a lot cooler and more useful buffs to them. I think it was the beginning of Unity some guy had a sword that shot lasers? Can I have that please? But the other precursor stuff; I think it was in Origins where some people come out of a tomb or building with a piece of Eden and it’s glowing, showing holograms in the air and no one is freaking out, at all. Like, this is basically magic, give a reaction! I remember there was some bit in Origins, down south, where there was some precursor building or something and there were some sand mummys that would spawn from lightning while you were down there. That was cool, I would like more of that. The only reason I got Odyssey was because of the Atlantis DLC but I haven’t and probably won’t ever get to that point.

            Before Shadows was released there was all this talk about how “culturally offensive” the game was and blah, blah, blah. (Started watching Samurai Champloo because of the mood I’m in, and at the beginning they have some cards saying like “This is a work of fiction, like we care, enjoy the show” and I thought that’s the kind of attitude Ubisoft and everyone else for that matter should have.) I remember reading somebody asking “How would you feel if it was set in America?” and someone responded “You mean like AC3? Fine. It’s a great game.” You know, paraphrasing, but to be fair, it’s not the same. The enemies were the British, the red coats, so for us, yeah, fighting off the red coats is fine. I guess you’d have to ask a British person how they feel about it, although there was Syndicate where Brits fought Brits right? I’m guessing, I didn’t play that one. But in Unity you were French killing other French people… I guess I’m kind of missing the point, maybe it’s about Yasuke. It’s probably about Yasuke. Anyway, back on track, so yeah, fighting off the red coats was fine, being a Native fighting them off was super cool. Again, not a Native, maybe they feel differently but I thought it was cool. When I played through AC3 a year or two ago there were times when I was just walking or even standing in the street and a group of soldiers would come by and just push me for no reason. I was in the way I guess. After the first time it was like okay, you know, it’s fine. But when they did it again I was like alright, time to scalp you mother fuckers. It just reminded me of those videos during the George Floyd protest of cops just pushing people around, people who were following their orders and were leaving areas and these jackasses are still pushing people, some to the point where they fell and these people didn’t retaliate. I would just think “you people are much stronger than I am.” It’s a good thing I don’t live in highly populated areas like that cause I would’ve been radicalized so fast. (I just put myself on a list somewhere haven't I? Ehh, I'm probably already on it.) I just don’t understand how these people lose their basic humanity and being civil just because they put on a uniform. Obliviously we see a small bit of what happens online and with any luck these are a very small fraction of what happens but what we’re shown is these people who are so stressed, so on edge that they can’t even be bothered to understand a situation before they escalate it because they think they can get away with it because they are the “law.” Uhhh, baaaack on track again, when first playing AC3 I thought the direction they were going was that George Washington and all them were going to be Templar because they were Freemasons and Masons are most likely connected to the Templar and there would be some huge “what am I doing?” sort of thing or even I guess, just because they were Templar doesn’t mean they weren’t doing something objectively good. The story doesn’t have to be so black and white, but in any case, that never panned out, I was surprised they didn’t try to make that connection. I have seen people talking about *we* want to play as Yasuke so we can “kill the tiny goblin Japanese people” and it’s like, who ACTUALLY thinks like this?? One, who thinks *we,* the “West” want a game where all we do is kill a smaller race because we are a bigger, “more powerful” race? And two, who actually WANTS to do that? I’m sure there are some out there that only go through a game killing people, not even progressing the story, just as long as they are in an area and people keep spawning they’ll just sit there and kill. Something is clearly wrong with that person. Personally I don’t play Yasuke that much, I’d much rather play Naoe because she’s closer to the older Assassin’s Creed games and Yasuke is more of the recent RPG type games. It’s nice to have both options. I mean, they could commit to make a stealthy game and then the next one be a RPG style but whatever.

            I guess that’s that. What was even the point of this one? Wild Hearts is fun. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is fun. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is fun even if it’s just a ninja/samurai game. I wish we’d get a new Mirror’s Edge… What kind of hacks do you think would be fun in AC Shadows? Have you found any weapons or armor with a unique engraving? Do you miss the modern day and precursor stuff in Shadows or are you fine without it? Leave me some comments and I’ll be back sometime, bye-bye!

            @AztecSauce