“Whatcha Playin’, Pixels?” – May 2023
10 min read
A monthly roundup of games enjoyed by the writers of The Pixels
May has been an eventful month here at The Pixels. We’ve celebrated The Legend of Zelda series with our Zelda Week, culminating in the much-awaited release of the sequel to Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom. Now, there is a high probability that our writers are busy hacking away at discovering the wonders and basking in the majesty of Hyrule, both above and below. Still, let’s tune in and see what else they’ve been up to this month?
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has utterly consumed me. How Nintendo managed to blow up this industry with a sales juggernaut sequel exclusive running on what is essentially a 7-year-old Amazon Kindle is beyond me. The physics are impeccable. The polish is irresistible. The world is inviting. The toy making just keeps getting better. I suspect we’ll be seeing TotK make an appearance in our monthly reports here for a while, so I don’t want to bore you with the multitudinous tales of my adventures just yet…
Inindo: Way of the Ninja does not spark joy. This has been a tough nut to crack, not in terms of difficulty, but in grasping what are the best tools for the job. A ninja must bring his caltrops and throwing stars, his stealth and his mask, but Way of the Ninja is also a quasi “dating simulator” where you chat up the casual passersby and inn-goer in an effort to get them to join your party. It’s a great concept, but there are many options. I finally settled on Tenkai the Medicant and Mikogawa (sp?) the Swordsman to come with me on my journey, and so far they’ve helped carry me through dungeons with greater ease. Just bought a Masamune! I’m sure that’ll help me stop Nobunaga!
After last month’s whopping total of ten completed games, I feel like I’m coming up short this month with “only” five. I know that’s still pretty solid, but I wanted a few more. Most of my time’s been spent working my way through Monster Sanctuary, which I’m enjoying, but also have probably the weirdest complaint about: it’s too well-balanced. The game is so balanced that there’s really no getting ahead of the curve, so every new area is a challenge and every scripted fight is a close match. As someone who generally likes to over-level a little in RPGs for a slightly easier time, it’s a bit of a struggle. But I haven’t put it down yet, so it’s got that going for it.
Of the games I completed, Tinykin takes the top of the list. It’s an addictive collectathon with some real challenge trying to find everything. I do wish that it had some kind of post-game functionality that made the last bit of hunting cleanup easier, but that’s me and my completionism acting up.
I’ve had a lot of my free time taken up recently by Jedi Survivor on the PS5. Seriously, it’s been a very long time since I’ve had thoughts about a game creeping into my non-gaming work hours, but this has been one I’ve been extremely eager to get home and play! Is it as good as Fallen Order? In some ways, yes. The plot is intriguing, the hub world of Koboh is massive and finding all of the secrets are still going to take some time even though the platinum trophy popped for me.
It does, however, run very awkwardly in places. The loading time to get into the saloon is utterly ridiculous and made me less willing to go back there. Often I’d make a mental note of all the reasons I needed to go there before heading over for the nearly thirty-second wait at the front door. I know it’s not a crazy long time, but it’s enough to mildly irritate and break the flow.
I hate to be so down on a game I clearly loved, but it was a real missed opportunity to show more varied locales in the Star Wars universe. There’s an infinite number of possibilities for new areas to explore, and yet we’re stuck with the same desert planet – Imperial base – swampy bit – more desert. All this being said, it’s a great game that juuust doesn’t quite reach the same high as its predecessor, for me at least.
Oh, and I played a bit of Zelda too. It’s very good and I like it a lot.
I recently found a bit of a hidden gem from the PlayStation 2 era. It’s a God of War clone… Or maybe more of a rip-off that was actually quite fun. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow loosely follows the events of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It adds a whole bunch of new locations and events like Vikings in the Arctic, sorcery in China, and giant spiders on an island. The fighting includes basic sword combos and special moves; it’s not on the same level as God of War but definitely inspired. To add to the inspiration, towards the end of the game there is a giant sea serpent. In general, it’s a good time with a few glitches. I enjoy both God of War and Pirates of the Caribbean so it was a match made in Heaven for me.
There are plenty of games I could talk about but the most recent one I’ve finished is simply called Humanity. In this game, you guide hoards of humans through an obstacle course by using directional, jump, branch, and many more commands. Each level has a grid system so it’s easy to put down commands and makes the course creator very easy to pick up. I forgot the most important part, you are a dog! The game also has a chill soundtrack which helps keep you focused while solving puzzles. I really enjoyed my time with the game from the level design to the different forms the humans can take. If you enjoy lemmings games, this one’s for you!
The last game I’ll talk about is Dead Island 2 which was in development hell for quite some time. I was very excited for this game to come out last month and poured tons of hours into it slaying zombies by the thousands. This may come as a surprise but the final product was… really good! Yes, it’s pretty crazy that a game that has been through the hands of multiple developers and completely restarted came out great. Killing zombies never looked so good, the new gore system is immaculate having different layers of flesh and bone to cut through. At the same time, chopping off limbs is very satisfying too. Some story beats are a bit dull but I enjoyed the overall narrative, and side missions, and found most of the dialogue either engaging or humorous. I enjoyed the original Dead Island games but this one goes above and beyond anything I could have imagined. It’s also really fun in Co-op, slaying zombies with a couple of friends can’t be beat. It’s not perfect nor is it high art but it’s exactly the Dead Island game I was hoping for. To finally get my hands on it is a miracle. For the game to come out and be a universally positively reviewed game? I don’t even have the words. Try it out if you want that old-school zombie-killing fix. With Dead Island 2’s various weapons, abilities, characters, crafting, zombie types, and locations you won’t regret stepping into Hell-A (can you tell I love this game?)!
I mean the easy answer is, of course, Tears of the Kingdom, but while I’ve definitely been playing it some and enjoying the heck out of it, it’s neither the only thing I’ve been playing nor even the foremost!
Maybe it’s the fact I gave the first Ultima game a quick run-through last month, maybe it’s the long in-depth discussion I had on Discord about Morrowind, or maybe it’s a combination of both – whatever the case, I came to the realization that it’s been at least a couple years since I’ve played any of my Big Three games. Feeling that it was high time to revisit them, I started with my personal favorite game, Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. I’m no speed-runner, but playing a game I’m this familiar with, knowing where everything is and what all needs to be done so it becomes more a matter of efficiency than poking about for anything yet undiscovered, I get a certain appreciation for what all goes into planning and executing a good run! It took me a couple of days to conquer the Stygian Abyss (further evidence that I am definitely no speedrunner), but it left me just as satisfied as it always does. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen that victory screen, but my response to it has ever been the same: a smile, with a very contented sigh.
The other game worth mentioning this month is Lord of the Rings Online. Like most MMO players with their “home” game of choice, it’s probably a safe assumption that I’ve been poking about it to some degree even if I don’t mention it, but I bring it up because this time around I’ve been doing so alongside an attempted read of The Silmarillion. I’ve tried at least three times before and never finished, so I’ve been looking for ways to help me make it through. One of them has been a discussion podcast, going chapter by chapter to help dissect and make sense of the dense prose and all-too-similarly-named cast of characters, and the other has been my own adventures in Middle Earth. While LotRO doesn’t have rights to the contents of Silmarillion itself, it’s still evident that the devs take as much care as they can to respect the lore and history of Tolkien’s work. It’s awesome being able to explore a world I love so much in two different ways – through a history of its early days I’ve never fully read before, and through a very large video game that I’ve been with for a good decade or so. It’s done wonders to get me excited for what comes next in the following chapters. I’ve got a good feeling I’ll finally finish it this time!
-Linguistic Dragon
I was surprisingly enamored with the recently-released Miasma Chronicles, the latest tactical RPG from The Bearded Ladies of Mutant: Year Zero fame. It’s a great example of a developer taking what they’ve learned from previous titles and refining their craft using what they’ve learned.
With Miasma Chronicles, that means a somewhat more forgiving gameplay experience, a sizable increase in options available to the player during combat and a really compelling storyline. It’s a little unfortunate that this was released so close to certain other games and might end up missed as a result.
Oh, and naturally I spent a bunch of time building worthless, busted vehicles in Tears of the Kingdom. Y’know, that certain other game.
So, we’ll get to the obvious obsession in a moment. Pre-TotK, I tried out the demo for Cadence of Hyrule. I loved it so much that I ended up picking up my own copy, plus the expansion bonus. I at least have something new to play and beat for 2024 now.
Streaming-wise, I dabbled in some Dynamite Headdy for the Sega Genesis. This was a strange, but highly enjoyable title from the crew that made Gunstar Heroes. It’s also really hard, haha.
Finally, Tears of the Kingdom. My Gods. I never expected to flex my engineering muscles building contraptions in a Zelda game of all things, but here we are. And I am LOVING it. Besides the incredible amount of freedom given to create things, one thing that blew me away was the fact that you could go below ground. And not just in caves, which are plentiful, but a whole underground map! I’ve so far completed a part of one of the game’s required main quests, but I’m just enjoying my time re-exploring a changed Hyrule and exploring both The Depths and The Sky. I’ve only sunk 30 or so hours into it, but I can safely say this is my GOTY, hands down.
What have you been playing recently? Finish any games in May? We’ll see you all again next month!
Ryan Cheddi – our friendly, neighbourhood caffeine addict – is a man of many talents: an engineer, a gaming historian, a fiction writer and a streamer. He is also a self-avowed Sonic the Hedgehog fan. You can check out his cool beans at his site – Games with Coffee – or find him on Twitter as @GameswCoffee, and Instagram as @games_with_coffee. He streams on Twitch, also as GamesWithCoffee.
