Games you missed out on in September 2023

About four hours into playing Under the Waves the game switched from running in frames per second, and instead ran in seconds per frame. Then a few minutes into this ‘Fatal Error occurred,’ and it crashed. When I started again I was softlocked, stuck in limbo between having finished the missions for the day in my log and our protagonist Stan telling me that I should probably get on with the missions I had for the day. I didn’t start the game again, but for the sake of clarity, I had to start by explaining the sour taste this left. Under the Waves has not been Steam Deck verified which I’m told was my issue, but there wasn’t much here to make me want to dive back in.

In Under the Waves you play as Stan, a man who has upset his wife by being a bad and unsupportive husband, and to solve this problem he has decided to run off to the sea for an undisclosed period of time. He now lives in a pod in the ocean, where he carries out routine maintenance on systems down there, takes pictures of wildlife, and collects garbage in order to craft items. It is possible that Stan does more exciting things later down the line, but I wouldn’t know.

The control scheme is frustrating. There are different controls for swimming and using your sub, and they are polar opposites. I assume this was to give the feeling of how difficult it is to move underwater, but I would prefer to move gracefully like a mermaid. The map is 2D but underwater is 3D so you’re never quite sure where you are going, and the UI frequently likes to disappear, which I assume is so you can look at things around you, but the water is also foggy so the draw distance is low. Once I was quickly running out of oxygen and I could not return home because “Tim would want me to finish the mission first.” I think Tim would rather his employee didn’t drown to death, but Stan didn’t see it that way.

I was surprised to find out a woman was on the writing team because it had men written all over it. When the main character deserts his long-suffering wife to do something ‘he just has to do’ and that is portrayed as a ‘good’ and ‘cool’ thing, and not horrifically inhumane and unfair, you get the vibe that a woman was never consulted. Then I found out that the two lead writers were also leads on Life is Strange, the most ‘written-for-men’ game to ever exist, and everything clicked into place. A man might enjoy the story, but I am not a man, and I did not.

Score: 4/10

Version tested: PC (Steam Deck)

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of JRPGs, and so I leaped at the chance to play Eternights, a dungeon-crawling RPG with social elements, à la Persona. However, this is Persona for those short on time. There is a core group of six teammates, and just three main dungeons to explore outside of the opening and closing areas. This makes a far more condensed story, but one that doesn’t skimp on fleshing out your characters or the plotline.

Four of your five teammates are datable and who you chose has a big outcome on the story’s ending, so you have to focus and choose wisely. In fact, the dating aspect is a large part of the game, as who you bond with will ultimately decide how the final chapters play out. The thing that seems to be the most contentious among players is the writing, with some finding it juvenile. For me that humor was perfect. If you liked when Joker meets up with Kawakami outside of school for the first time and tells her he’s a dad, then this is also the sort of humor you’ll enjoy.

What distances it from Persona – and it really is similar in many ways – is the detail and design of the monsters, as well as the real-time combat. There are a huge number of systems at play here, combos, special moves, elemental effects, partner skills, and special skills all work together to help you take down what can be fairly difficult bosses. The downside of a condensed story is that you won’t be as close to the characters by the end but it did what it wanted to do effectively, and I’m excited to see what else comes from the team.

Score: 7/10

Version tested: PC (Steam Deck)

The Xenoblade Chronicles series of games has now become one of the most celebrated modern JRPG franchises, with fans eager to play anything that developer Monolith Soft creates, and that’s exactly why you should be paying attention this duology of Baten Kaitos games.

This is a piece of Monolith Soft history, and still shares a fair few of the thematic elements that make the modern Xenoblade games so iconic. Nation floating in the clouds? Check. Young boy on a mysterious adventure? Check. Unique RPG combat? Check. People have wings, sometimes, for some reason? Absolutely.

It’s honestly worth playing Baten Kaitos just for the card-based battle system, where each attack and defensive move you use is actually a card you pull from a deck, and its effectiveness depends entirely on the situation – and how well you’ve built your deck. From the start it’s all about strategy: you can play multiple cards per turn, but certain elemental attacks will partially cancel each other out, so it’s pointless to combine water and fire attacks in the same turn, for example. 

It’s a combat system that can get deep, or just confusing, and a few quality-of-life features have been added in to make the experience smoother. Faster battles are, honestly, not worth activating since there’s a real-time component to selecting your cards, but you can auto-battle and set enemies to have 1HP. Perfect for activating, grinding, and then leveling up and playing normally. If the original game posed a challenge – which honestly wouldn’t be surprising – then this game will allow you to make it through, even if a bit of brute force is required.

Baten Kaitos 1 + II HD Remaster is a great way to play this pair of classic games, but there are a few caveats. A few of the new visual features might make the game lag, and the original English dub is missing aside from during the opening cinematic – very peculiar. But despite that, if you’ve ever wanted to play Baten Kaitos, I have no doubt that this is the best way to do it.

Score: 8/10

Version tested: Nintendo Switch

I was a little bit nervous going into The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails. It’s ostensibly a spinoff of a spinoff, being a side-game in the Trails series, which itself is spun off from the Legend of Heroes series. The thought of diving into a game with such a complicated relationship with so many other games – especially as my first outing in either of these series – was absolutely daunting. I’m pleased to say, though, that my fears were unfounded, and I adored my time with The Legend of Nayuta.

The story setup is fairly simple: two childhood friends return from a research trip to their hometown, where they want to set up a handyman business over the summer to help out their village and earn some money for their next trip. Suddenly, a fairy shows up, tells the two that the world is at risk, and they have to travel to other magical realms to stop the destruction of the seasons… or something. Look, it’s typical fantasy anime nonsense, and frankly I skipped over a lot of it, but it’s fun and silly and that’s all that matters. 

The gameplay is Nayuta’s best aspect, having a Tales of-like action RPG combat system, though with a fixed camera. It’s simple, consisting of a few basic attack combos, a magic attack, and a dodge. There are a bunch of different spells you can unlock throughout the game, and a few different advanced techniques earned by doing well in missions, but the basic combat is sound and enjoyable, and if none of those extras existed I would still be happy with it.

Nayuta uses a mission-based structure, with four different worlds each having half a dozen missions within them. That might not sound like much, but Nayuta mixes things up by having different versions of each level themed around seasons. See something in the background you can’t quite get to? Try switching to Spring, where some flowers have given you platforms to jump across. It’s a nice addition, though not particularly original.

Overall, despite a bit of jank, and a bit of outdated game design, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with The Legend of Nayuta, and I would recommend it to anyone who’s even remotely interested.

Score: 8/10

Version tested: Nintendo Switch 

Ty the Tasmanian Tiger is a classic series for which I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot. As an Australian, it’s always delightful to see an Australian-made, Australia-inspired game, and the first three Ty games were enjoyable, if imperfect 3D platformers. They weren’t anything special, and couldn’t compete with the big hitters of the era, but they were charming and fun, and that’s all a game needs to be sometimes.

Unfortunately, Ty 4 is neither a 3D platformer or a charming and fun game. Ty 4 takes the classic gameplay and awkwardly transitions it to 2D, and the transition is anything but nice. Sure, Ty can still technically do all the things he used to do in 3D, and even a few more things that weren’t really feasible in 3D, but all of it just feels wrong.

The controls are a bit floaty, the hitboxes feel just a little bit off, and the level design, while mostly sound, just doesn’t feel particularly inspired or interesting. It’s not helped by animation that feels a bit like a flash game from 2005, and when you compare how it looks and feels to play to just about any other 2D platformer from the past 10 years, it pales in comparison on every front.

That’s not to say it’s overtly bad, because it’s not. It runs well on Switch, and there’s even some fun to be had. It’s still got some of the charm of the Ty series, too, and it is uniquely Australian in a way few games are these days. But you can tell Ty 4 was made on a tight budget, and this enhanced port of the game doesn’t alay that feeling.

I wanted to like Ty 4 a lot more than I did, and while there is some fun to be had with the game, I found myself wishing from start to finish that it was the 3D platformer game I pictured in my head when somebody said Ty the Tasmanian Tiger.

Score: 5/10

Version tested: Nintendo Switch 

Mineko’s Night Market sounds great on paper. A narrative-driven social game with crafting and quirkiness at its core and a splash of Spirited Away thrown in the mix? Sign me up – is what I originally thought. In practice, a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes crafting games fun lies at Minkeo’s core. It’s a social game with barely any socializing, a crafting game where you can’t enjoy the results of your labor, and a business management simulator where there isn’t much to manage.

Like in most crafting games, you get to know people and unravel more of the story by hoarding items and turning them into something useful. Unlike most crafting games, there’s kind of no point in doing this. Sure, you’re helping the Night Market and your rather rude neighbors get back on their feet after economic disaster, but Minkeo is a far cry from the likes of Harvest Moon Grand Bazaar.

While your crafting and savvy management are key to keeping everyone in business, the island’s redevelopment feels separate from what you do. Your actions only affect other stalls – nothing else on the island and certainly not your relationships with its residents. 

For a game about building friendships, there’s surprisingly little emphasis on character development. Pretty much everyone is rude, even after you do everything they ask you to. I think it’s meant to be a joke sometimes, as some of the harsher comments come across like they’re played for laughs. Like in real life, though, being a jerk to someone and thinking it’s funny is a really good way to make them not enjoy being around you.

So with stagnant relationships, unpleasant neighbors, and no options to even decorate my home or any part of the island with all the stuff I made, Minkeo started feeling uncomfortably like Pioneers of Olive Town. You craft things to complete quests that unlock more craftable things for new quests, and the cycle just doesn’t end.

It’s a shame, as there’s real potential in Mineko’s setup. It has a strong blend of the fantastical and mundane, and that’s refreshing in a genre where “fantastical” usually just extends to “you can run an entire farm by yourself and not die.” The art direction is also bolder and more striking than we usually see, and it goes a long way in creating a unique, mildly eerie atmosphere that helps sell the island’s mythology.

It’s just let down by everything else.

Score: 5/10

Version tested: PC (Steam)