I just finished my second playthrough of Dead Island 2, and for some reason this game really resonated with me the way few other games ever have, and just like with the first playthrough, I’m kind of bummed that there’s nothing left for me to do in the game.
The story was the weakest part, but the gameplay, music, sound production, voice acting, “set design,” – everything-- was absolutely incredible, imo. Attention to detail is huge for me, and when I can read what it says on a tiny box of pills–that says passionate devs and quality publisher to me. I also LOVE how the zombie damage is depicted, with different weapons causing different wound shapes, and the guts jiggle independently of the body. Most satisfying zombie killing ever.
So what games did you yearn for more of when you finished it?
Puyo Puyo Chronicle. It’s by far the boldest and most creative experiment Sega has ever tried with the series. It introduces a new flagship variant mode called Skill Battle, but the real gimmick isn’t the ruleset itself but the story mode built around it. Previous games just had visual novel-style cutscenes for a story mode, but this time around it’s a full JRPG with dungeon crawling, sidequests, equipment, recruitable monsters, and more.
It’s a brilliant concept, and I think it’s the kind of bold new idea that was needed to breathe new life into a dying genre. Versus puzzles have fallen off hard compared to the genre’s peak in the 90s - Panel de Pon had been dead for longer than it was ever alive, Dr. Mario and Puzzle Fighter had both been turned into mobile gacha spinoffs and then shut down, Puyo Puyo was pretty much the last surviving IP left at this point. And I think a large part of this decline can be attributed to a lack of innovation.
I think what the JRPG does best is just give players incentives to keep trying even though the game’s learning curve is rather notorious - instead of giving up at the first wall they hit, they’ll want to keep going for the next level up, next party member, next skill, next dungeon. Making it a JRPG ensures you’re never truly stuck because you can always grind, and time spent grinding is time spent practicing. By the time players get to the end, hopefully they’ll have learned the basics at least a little bit.
But while I love the ideas behind Chronicle, I do feel like those ideas are held back by how short the game is. There’s a lot more they could’ve done to flesh it out. It’s a game that left me wanting a sequel to iterate on and refine these ideas.
Sadly, that sequel never happened. Chronicle was the last main series game they ever released, and nearly a decade later all they’ve been doing since is rehashing the same terrible crossover four times. They did try to cram a butchered version of Skill Battle into said rehashes, but without the accompanying JRPG I feel that adaptation missed the point.