In a drunken stupor about a week ago I decided to upgrade my PlayStation Plus account to the 2nd tier which is called "Extra." The thing that probably sold my buzzed mind on this was that as soon as you pony up the cash, you are immediately given access to around 100 games that you can try to your heart's content. These are not demos, they are the full games. Many of them are from big studios but most of them are from smaller, rather insignificant ones that are trying to break into the biz, I guess.
There is no way that I am going to play all of these games to completion to instead I decided that I was going to download them "willy-nilly" without paying any attention to what the game is about. The only criteria is that I am not going to play any of the AAA games because it has already been established that these are, more often than not, pretty decent games. I am in the search for hidden gems. I've already found one in Spiritfarer but almost everything else that I have played has been rather forgettable or even downright terrible.
Today I ventured into a game that I have actually heard of before and after 1 hour of playtime I can say that for the right person this game is going to be fantastic especially from a nostalgia point of view.
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Ninja games have been a thing for a very long time but one of the first ones I ever remember playing was Ninja Gaiden on the NES back in the 80's. This game was horrendously difficult yet all of us couldn't help ourselves as we put hour after hour into defeating it. Beating that game is an exercise in patience and it had many flaws. The most infamous of which was the fact that any enemy that touched you would force a "jump backwards" that would often result in your falling of of a platform that would instantly kill you. It was annoying but with the right amount of practice and the stubborn mind of a 12 year old, you eventually made it through to glory.
If other people out there have fond memories of that game then you are in for a treat when you play The Messenger since thus far it feels almost exactly like that game, including the enemy AI and graphics. Thankfully, the sound is a lot better in other ways.
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This game is an action platformer with a dash of metroidvania and a pinch of RPG built in. You gather additional skills the further you go into the game and this is good seeing as how it would be impossible for you to advance if they didn't give you the ability to jump off of objects or grasp onto walls at some point. I have not made it very far into the game but it is simplistic enough to keep you interested even after you make it to the first boss which I think most people will defeat rather effortlessly. I killed it on my 2nd try without even bothering to learn his attack patterns.
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The first boss is some sort of giant made of shrubbery or leaves and he does exactly what you would expect from a first boss. He telegraphs his attacks and only takes a few hits to kill. This is good because I hate it when games start out too hard and chase you away from playing it.
I didn't die very much in the first hour of playtime and while I have no idea how long this game is, I would imagine that you would need to stay dedicated to the game and play it fairly regularly since they add on new controls fairly regularly. It is a bit exciting when you get a new skill but thus far I haven't seen if you are able to go back to previously visited areas or not. In my travels so far I haven't seen any particularly good reason why you would.
There is one thing that is a bit annoying that I think the devs put in there intentionally just to remind you about what gaming was like 30 years ago and that is that the enemies will respawn every time you exit and then re-enter a certain screen area. This was something that was EXTREMELY annoying about the original NES games and certainly isn't something that they did by accident in this game. I'm sure they are just trolling a bit to remind people about certain aspects that were just commonplace back in the day when we didn't have much choice in our gaming libraries. I wouldn't surprise me if they have an optional area where birds are knocking you off platforms to your death at some point.
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The Messenger is definitely well-made enough that if I had more time that I would surely put more time into it but since I am moving on to a new title unless I find pure brilliance I am going to leave this one at one hour. In that hour I could already determine that this is a quality game but I have another 90 games to get through in the next 3 months. I will remember to go back to it later though because especially for fans of older-style games, this one seems to be a real winner.
Don't come in expecting the latest and greatest graphics though, because this is intentionally done in an 8-bit style as a throwback to simpler times.
On to the next one!
Games played so far in my trip through all the "Extra" games on Playstation Plus
- Windbound (survival game with rogue-like elements - not recommended)
- Magicka 2 (top-down humorous multiplayer hack and slash-sort with immense spell system - maybe recommended)
- Tearaway: Unfolded (charming casual 3D platformer with inventive graphics and gameplay designed for all ages - recommended for casual players)
- Spiritfarer (casual simulation / resource-management style game with an extremely good story - recommended for all)
- Observation (point and click survival sort of... interactive game of sorts set in space - found it very boring after just one hour and do not recommend)
- Gabbuchi (simplistic puzzle game that I feel is better suited to mobile devices. Not recommended on consoles)
- The Messenger (8-bit style action/platformer that is a throwback to original Ninja Gaiden. It's simplistic fun. Recommended)