Mid-Year Catch-Up ( "Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes", and "Stray")

Hello once again, dear readers! I'm going to keep the introduction pretty short this time around and just say that with these two reviews, I'll finally be caught up on my writing! As for what comes next....well, let's just say there's been some new developments, and the subject of the next review is going to be something a little different than what I've put out lately. But I digress. Let's get this show on the road!

Available and Reviewed for: Nintendo Switch

Joining the ranks of intellectual properties adapted by Omega Force into its classic 1-vs-1000 Warriors gameplay formula is 2019's 2nd place winner in the Right Trigger GOTY awards: Fire Emblem: Three Houses, reborn here as Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes. Similar to 2020's Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, this title is sort of an alternative universe take on the original story of Three Houses. You play as Shez: a mercenary who loses his whole squad in a battle against a mercenary group lead by a man named Jeralt and his son, Byleth. That won't mean anything to those of you who haven't played the original game, so let me bring you up to speed: Byleth is the protagonist of the original title, and he was pretty much mute for the whole runtime. So basically, our hero from the base game is now our villain. After facing defeat at the hands of Jeralt's mercenaries, Shez drifts around for a bit, vowing to take revenge, until he stumbles across the heads of the titular three houses...and if I keep on explaining aspects of the base game we're going to be here forever, so I'm going to move on. After saving the heads of the houses, Shez joins the war academy and chooses to enroll in one of the three groups. Fastforward a mission or two and we find ourselves past the time skip that came in the middle of the original game, and...well, the story continues from here, but I wouldn't say it takes off. Basically the rest of the story is just the war between the nations, and the conclusion leaves more than a few questions unanswered. I'd suspect that the picture becomes more clear if you re-play the game with different house choices, but since I haven't done that, I can't say for sure. 

Given that this is a Warriors-style game, I feel that I don't have to explain the moment-to-moment gameplay too much. Basically there are thousands of enemies on the screen at any given moment, and you use several combinations of attacks to knock giant handfuls of these enemies up in the air and juggle them, carving great swathes of carnage across the battlefield like you're in an anime. Where this title differs from other titles in this genre is in its adaptation of Fire Emblem's rock/paper/scissors weapon system into realtime combat. In each level, you'll be able to take direct control of 3-4 characters from the roster, and if you're smart, you'll select these characters based on the strengths and weaknesses you'll notice on the preview of the level. From there, success depends on you switching characters and/or ordering characters to move to certain spots on the map to take out certain enemy soldiers. Some levels ask you to take out high priority targets, some ask you to take out a target before it reaches an extraction point, some ask you to defeat a certain amount of enemies within a time limit, and some ask you to defend an ally from waves upon waves of oncoming enemies. No matter the quest, it all comes down to the characters you select and how you use them. I can't exactly explain why, but even though I've played several of these Warriors-style games, this one felt the most fun to play. Perhaps its that the inherently anime nature of Fire Emblem combined with its medieval setting just naturally lends itself to this style of gameplay? 

Folks, in case it hasn't been made incredibly obvious by the writing quality for this review, I have a hard time finding the words to discuss Three Hopes. I know that I liked it and that I did a bunch of side stuff because I liked it so much, but when the time comes to put metaphorical pen to equally metaphorical paper, I find it difficult to communicate. So I'll leave this review where it is so I can say I wrote it and have this game be eligible for the GOTY lists at the end of the year. If you like Three Houses' characters and Warriors-style combat, you'll know this is for you.

Let us review:

- Weak story - 1.0

- Hard to explain why I recommend it - 0.5

The final score for Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is...

8.5/10 - Truly Great

Good work as always, Omega Force, good work as always

Available for: Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Microsoft Windows

Reviewed for: Microsoft Windows

Does Stray even need an introduction? I was seeing someone recently who doesn't follow along with the game industry at all, and even she knew what it is! But in case you've been living under a rock, in Stray, you play as what we in show business like to call a "kitty cat." That's it! That's the pitch. There's a story and characters and a world included in this package also, but the purpose of the game is for you to get to play as a kitty cat for a while. The overarching narrative sees your cat get separated from the rest of his kitty friends after falling into a post-apocalyptic domed cyberpunk city from the city's surface. The city is inhabited by flesh-eating gelatinous lifeforms that pose a threat to our feline hero, but he also comes across villages of friendly robots who don't quite understand the concept of a cat. These robots, knowing how to mimic humans, are quite amusing and often come with some form of pop culture or video game reference. In segments where you're among them, your objective is usually to just explore and look for a couple of things that the robots ask for. In such segments, you have plenty of places to go and be your best cat self if you're so inclined, but if you just want to get to the next story beat, then 1) why are you playing a game like this and 2) you can just do that too. When you're among the flesh eating lifeforms, however, your objective is just to run as fast as you can, try to outsmart them, whatever it takes to make it to your objective without getting swarmed. With that said, it's important to note that the cat can, indeed, die. It's not a gruesome thing, so there's really not much need to worry about it unless you just really, really can't stand that kind of thing. If that's you, you've been warned! None of these antagonistic segments are particularly hard, so they serve more as a way to amp up the pacing and add some variety to the mix rather than to pose a test of skill.

But let's talk about the cat itself. You have a dedicated meow button, the world is filled with optional interactions to help with the roleplaying experience (such as taking a nap in a blanket, rubbing against a robot's legs, etc), and clear attention to detail has been applied to the cat's animation. Every jump is preceded with a lovingly rendered bit of what Dunkey calls "that cat-like slinkiness." I'm leaving a lot out because if you're a cat lover who hasn't yet played this game, I'd like you to be able to have some surprises! But sadly, that clear effort involved to make the cat as cat-like as possible detracts from the effort that went into the game's technical performance. I played on PC, and I hear other PC players saying the same thing: the framerate drops are far too intrusive and break up the immersion that otherwise would've been present in a beautiful cyberpunk city like this one. There are a couple other technical problems and nitpicks (having to press a different button to end a conversation than the button used to skip a line of dialogue, for instance), but that's the big thing.

Folks, this is one of those cases where I have to break out my smaller game scoring scale. Normally I can take off a maximum of 1 point per negative aspect, but in games like this that are far simpler than your average game, that maximum gets lifted up to 2. I feel like I probably don't have to sell you on Stray if you're the kind of person who was ever going to play it, but just in case, I'll echo what everyone else seems to be saying: I don't think anyone would give this game a second thought (much less remember it after playing) if you didn't play as a cat. But you do. So what could've been something far less than this is made good for what it is because of that creative decision. For what it is, it gets a solid recommendation from me!

Let us review:

Technical problems - 2.0

The final score for Stray is..

8.0/10 - Great

Not bad, BlueTwelve Studio, not bad