Kovukono

Regarding Elden Ring, I would argue it does the sense of exploration better than Hollow Knight, but only by a small degree. For every area, there’s no map at the start, and the entire map’s size is obscured since it only shows what you’ve traveled through. It gets bigger as you go, but it’s still obscured by a fog of war for areas that fit inside the map, but you don’t have a map fragment for. You can see on the map where you can obtain the fragment, but not how to get there. Most times you can just cut a straight line to it, but sometimes it’s a pain.

All that said, the thing it does better than Hollow Knight for exploration is a limitation of Hollow Knight’s map system. It’s split into different rooms, and each room has finite entrances and exits. Because you fill out the map through exploration, you’re going to know what you have and haven’t found.

Because Elden Ring gives you the entirety of the map, it’s both helpful and not. You can figure out (mostly) how to get from point A to point B, and you have markers for everywhere you’ve been. There’s two minor issues with that, though. It’s a 2D map for a 3D world, which means you end up with some locations not being properly shown, because they’re underneath cliffs. The second is that the map does almost nothing to show what places of interest there are. You have large buildings shown, but that excludes all the catacombs (dungeon areas) you can visit. There are areas on the map that are right there, but due to the topography you have no idea how to get there. Going by the map alone means you’re going to miss out on a solid amount of the content available.

It’s because the map is so limiting that it feels so good. You’re able to use it to figure where places are in directional relation, but you still have to look yourself to try and uncover areas. My first run, I prided myself on uncovering everything. I searched high and low, inspected the map to make sure I went to every corner, and really made sure I knew what was out there, and it felt amazing in terms of how much content there was and how much exploration you could do. I started a second run when the DLC came out, and found an area that, somehow, I had entirely missed. It took over a hundred and forty hours of searching, really searching, to get what I thought was complete, and it still wasn’t. It was a fantastic feeling on my second run.

Hollow Knight’s map is excellent. The gameplay is excellent, the exploration is rewarding and challenging. But the issue it has is that it only has those two dimensions to work with. Elden Ring really works to emphasize that third dimension when scouring for secrets.

I looked over their releases, and had no idea they released Whiplash and BlacKkKlansman. They kind of stand out from all the horror movies. I haven’t seen a lot of their work, but I can recommend Hush and Get Out. Halloween is also a solid sequel, if you like the original.

To preface this, I don’t really like JRPGs. Especially turn-based ones. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate them, it’s just that a lot of them have had, in the past, an emphasis on things like grinding over gameplay. This might not be true for more modern ones, but considering I largely avoid the genre, I don’t know.

All that said, Sea of Stars does everything so right. I remember playing Persona 5 and having a blast, primarily because of the story and presentation, but Sea of Stars not only has that, but does everything it can to keep you immersed.

Combat is turn-based, but you have the opportunity to time button presses to attacks to do extra attacks. I know that sounds not amazing, but the combat system also requires attacks of specific types to stop an enemy from doing a special attack. Nail the timing, and you can interrupt an attack completely. Fail, and you either have to brace for it, or find another way around it (and early game, that’s not an option most times). Likewise, timing the button press when getting hit blocks damage, and with an item early on, it also recovers MP. The game goes all in on rewarding you for actively playing instead of just sitting back and clicking through menus.

Plus, the traversal is just so great. Yeah, an isometric game has great traversal mechanics. It feels weird saying that, but it does. Almost every screen has multiple layers to move up and down, making it feel like a real world instead of just walking from point A to point B. Plus it encourages exploration of those layers for cooking ingredients and treasures, which are hidden away in secrets, but if you’ve played enough games you generally know where to look.

This is also going to sound kind of like more weird praise, but there’s no bullshit with needing to find several keys spread across the world to go back to one location to get a chest. Everything you see can be obtained if you can figure out how to get to it, with literally one exception that I’ve found in the first right hours. The puzzles aren’t that hard, and as long as you’re thorough you can find everything.

Regarding the story, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s presented so well that it’s still entertaining. It’s almost relentlessly positive, and even the darkest parts are handled in the manner of “we’ll get through this” instead of “this is hopeless.” It’s good, but it’s not the best I’ve played (though given everything else, I wouldn’t be surprised if it improved later).

I have no idea if you’ve played, or even heard of, a GBA series called Golden Sun. It feels a lot like a spiritual successor to it. But the thing that keeps me playing is that not only is the gameplay fun and the story entertaining, but it seems to absolutely value your time. No grinding, you’re capable of maintaining your party through good combat decisions, and limited backtracking. You’re not there to play a game, you’re there to experience a journey, and it keeps you moving forward. I love this game, but I feel safe saying that you could buy this on Steam, and figure out in the two-hour return window whether or not it’s for you.

At the moment, Sea of Stars, but I need to get back to Dave the Driver and finish up the Among Us DLC for Vampire Survivors. And also need to finish Unmetal. And then I’ve also got this metroidvania bundle I got from Humble Bundle to finish. And Beholder 2. Jesus, my home screen is one long waiting list, and I’m still just playing other stuff.