Mega Evolution Vs. Z-Moves

So Pokemon Sun and Moon are pretty good, right? General consensus seems to be that the games were pretty fun at worst, and a fantastic experience at best. But there is one thing in particular that has me giggling with glee, because I, along with a minority of people, totally called one thing years ago.

Source

Mega Evolution sucked, didn't it?

Ok, ok, I get it, I was far from the only one and really there were quite a few people who didn't like mega evolution when it was first introduced. But I think it was one key element from Sun and Moon to make people really see what was up with mega evolutions. Z-moves. What was it about Z-moves that made them so much better, and why are they getting compared to mega evolution so much?

Z-moves and mega evolution were both what I call "tacked on" additions. Despite that negative connotation, when I say that I mean a new element to the gameplay that has, in a sense, been stapled onto the side of the game. It's a bit tricky to explain, but you get that sense with a lot of sequels. The coin mechanics in New Super Mario Bros. 2, for example, don't change the core mechanics or add a core mechanic. They can still change a game in positive ways and are a useful tool, but as we can see in comparing X/Y to Sun/Moon, they can also go very wrong.

So what's the big deal with mega evolutions anyway? They're flashy, they're cool, and they provide a neat addition to certain Pokemon. What went wrong was in the overrarching implications of Mega Evolution. I could list a lot of things that I take issue with, like how their stats are too much and how it turns into a "win" button as you play the game, but those aren't issues with the core idea.

The core issue with mega evolution is that it's limited to certain Pokemon. This runs in opposition to one of the best parts of Pokemon, which is the Pokemon themselves. Right back to Red and Blue, the coolest part of the games for many was crafting a team that felt your own. You had 150 choices for your 6 team slots, and most players did not have the same teams or even similar ones. Of course there were optimal teams, but with a little elbow grease, grinding, or strategy almost any team could beat the game. It was truly your own adventure and always has been.

Mega Evolution sadly goes back on this feeling. For one, you get the obvious overpowered argument, and yes, it does mess with the balance of the game. However, Pokemon has always really powerful Pokemon, so to be quite honest that's not the issue here. What is the issue is that the defacto new addition to the series is limited to select Pokemon.

It limits team variety, plain and simple. It runs in opposition to what Pokemon is all about, in that it's always enabled more Pokemon to be viable from generation to generation. Through the simple act of making more Pokemon they could expand team variety. Alongside other things such as refining the battle mechanics to be more balanced and introducing alternative ways to use Pokemon besides battles, the series has generally moved in a direction enabling the usage of most Pokemon in one way or another.

Sadly, mega evolution moves backward. The fact that the cool new feature that's hyped up in all the trailers is limited to Pokemon really puts a damper on team quality. There are a few dozen Pokemon that can mega evolve, and that is it. You need one of these few Pokemon on your team in order to experience the feature, and that just means every team, even yours, is likely to have one of this small group forced upon you in this game.

This just kills team creativity in a huge way, and I don't think I need to explain why that's a problem. The core tenant of the series "gotta catch em' all!" has been undermined in the main quest. You cannot use "all" the Pokemon and still get the full experience. A more accurate motto for X and Y would be "Gotta catch em' all but make sure you use one of these few dozen!"

I do see the intent behind this idea, and why in concept I'm not opposed to having some way to power up weaker Pokemon. Sun and Moon definitely proved why it's not a bad idea.

The gimmick in S&M is super powerful moves, otherwise known as Z-moves. It gives you the ability to charge up and superpower any move once per battle, as long as the Pokemon is holding a Z-crystal. And this is miles better than Mega Evolution.

It should be quite obvious based on what I said earlier. Z-moves take what mega evolution was trying to do and finds a way to apply it to every single Pokemon. Your starter, legendary Pokemon, even a Magikarp can use Z-moves. It takes the idea of powering up a Pokemon and spreads it everywhere, rather than limiting it to a handful. It does the exact opposite of Megas and continues the series tradition of expanding who among the roster you can use.

So, why exactly does this matter? One game messes something up and another sequel gets it right, news at 7. What's cool about this is how closely linked these 2 mechanics are, in their implementation and in their effects, and in this we can clearly see how one went right, and one went wrong. Beyond the basic ideas being miles apart in their quality, it's the little details that make the difference here.

How about the frequency of use? You can use Z-moves once per battle, making it a careful puzzle as to when they're most needed. Mega evolution, on the other hand, lasts the entire battle, meaning the purpose it ends up serving is just a strong new Pokemon.

The held item requirement? Z-moves can be used by every Pokemon, some who really benefit by held items, so you need to consider what you're giving up by letting them use Z-moves. Mega Evolution basically results in legendary Pokemon stats, which, I mean... don't really need held items at that point. It's a no-brainer.

So what about giving weak Pokemon a chance to shine? Z-moves do that inherently, on a broad scale. Mega Evolution, while having the potential to fine tune specific Pokemon, wastes it on legendaries and Pokemon that were already plenty powerful. Why did Mewtwo, Salamence, and Rayquazza need more power?

I think you get the point by now. Obviously I'm ranting a bit, but it is so great to see the Pokemon developers realize that Mega Evolution was a bad idea. They took the core benefits it could provide and reworked it into a system that helps every single Pokemon. If that's not game design iteration in action, I don't know what is. I have high hopes for what comes next in the franchise.

Fire Emblem Awakening, Story, and Context

I never gave Fire Emblem Awakening a fair shake when I first played it, really. I played it, I enjoyed it, I talked about it, and then I moved on to other stuff. I'm fairly certain it's one of the last games I played before I really got into looking at games critically. And that's something I regret. When I played Awakening in 2014, I determined it was a great game. I was so, so wrong.

It's a fucking masterpiece, and I do not say that lightly. Awakening gets everything so, so right, and it goes above and beyond even that. You've got a complex battle system where paring up and relationships factor into it, where the weapons triangle and ranged attacks make for hugely strategic thinking, alongside having to manage levels, gear, and classes outside of combat. The gameplay is amazing, and the story, well, that's what we're here to talk about today. I think it'd be best to show this with the most impact story beat in the entire game, and you already know what I mean if you've played it. Let's talk about chapter 12.

Spoilers if you somehow haven't played this game yet. I'm also going to assume you know what happens, otherwise you'll be very confused.
So I think it's important to preface this by making special note of how this part of the story doesn't really revolve around themes or making the player think or anything like that. While that might seem like an odd thing to note, it's actually quite an anomaly in games writing to have a story purely ride on the quality of its plot. That's something I want to get into at a later date, but suffice to say games often have issues with making a plot that feels good because the player can by the very nature of the medium influence the pacing, thereby making it easier and less risky to ride on themes and making the player think. The point is it's already notable from the start to take a plot approach to it.

Of course, I say chapter 12 but really you can't ignore chapter 11 in this equation. Chapter 11 up to the end is much like any other chapter, with standard gameplay. The standout difference is the hostage situation around it, but hell, you even had a similar situation beforehand in chapter _. And even if you ignore that you've made it through assassination plots and overwhelming odds time and time again before this. The precedent of this game's tone has been set: serious, but not grave, a war story where the nation is at stake but your individual lives are not at the whim of the plot.

And then it all just... breaks. It's business as usual in the 11^th chapter up until you've cleared out all the enemies, and then Gangrel decides to raise the stakes by having arrows drawn at her. This is actually a big deal in the overall narrative, because it's the first time such an action has been taken. There are a lot of firsts to the story in 11, actually, and it's what I consider the big shift in the game. Before this you're presented with scenarios with the ideals of success and victory, and every challenge is meant to be overcome. This is the first time in the game where your agency and success is ripped out of your hands.

Speaking of choice, let's talk about your lack thereof. Right before Emmeryn takes it out of your hands, you're given a menu and 2 choices: hand the Emblem over or Emmeryn dies. Of course it doesn't matter what you chose, as I mentioned, because she takes matters into her own hands and sacrifices herself. Now I wanna be frank here, because I usually despise when games do this false choice stuff, where the devs obviously wanted you to feel like you're having an influence on the story but didn't want to actually change it, as that's just lazy most of the time and a bad use of the medium. Tropes and tools aren't bad, though.

See, I usually get annoyed when games do this because it's a very cheap tool, where you're often given a menu that essentially boils down to "Yes" and "Yes but I'm not happy" or something similar. It's fake choice that's just going to frustrate players when they find out that their choice never mattered. BUT it is possible to do a fake choice correctly, and by golly Awakening sure knows how to.

 Narratively there's really only one clear way to use the fake choice, and that's to have the point of the choice be your lack of choice. The player has no agency in this scene but it's all for a good, sensible story reason. Emmeryn is the type of person who'd sacrifice herself. Chrom can't do anything because the enemy has the upper hand, and he'd never willingly sacrifice his sister. It's important to make sure there are no contrivances when it comes to scenes like these, because when you take agency away you cannot have the player feel cheated in any way. This is really just a complicated way to say the game has good writing, but it really, really does.

How many shooting games have you played where the enemy took a hostage and suddenly you're unable to shoot them, despite shots being instant and in gameplay before your accuracy was perfect? It's stupid and frustrating when gameplay mechanics clash with the story. Now compare to Fire Emblem.

Could you shoot the archers down? No, you don't have enough to kill the dozens of them surrounding Emmeryn.

Flying units? No, the game has already established that those units take increased damage from archer shots, it's far too risky. Your army is mostly ground bound, anyway, so they would have no backup.

It's little details like that that show how thought and care has gone into how the story is presented alongside the gameplay, and that even the smallest things like a binary meaningless choice from a menu is used to great effect. It's a pretty sad and disempowering moment when you realize Emmeryn would have done this no matter what, that despite all your battlefield prowess you were doomed to fail this mission from the start.

And speaking of which, let's touch on Emmeryn's actual sacrifice too. Now obviously the idea of a character sacrificing their life for the sake of the others is nothing new, you've seen it done dozens of times by now, surely. It's all in the execution, however, and the little details are important nowadays to really sell such a scene.

Perhaps not minor, but in this case motivation is important, and it's important precisely because the motivation in universe is smart as all hell. It's not just forcing the power of the Fire Emblem out of Gangrel's hands, but forcing his army against him in the process. This is continuing Emmeryn's characterization, mainly for the player. She's always been presented as a wise and intelligent leader that had a good read on her allies and enemies. The problem with this can often be the fact that the player has to control the game, and qualities like this can get pushed to the sides. Another issue the story thus far has presented is that her kingdom is pretty much at a point where she only ever has one option to take at most times. These 2 are obviously good story and gameplay design, but it leaves her characterization and importance in a fairly awkward spot, since there isn't really a good way to show this that gels well with these practices.

So really it's a great story beat to have her qualities like these emphasized at the moment of her death, and to have that death be a sacrifice. Putting down one's own life is a great way to show wisdom, bravery, leadership, and similar stuff in a single instant. Put simply, it is in many ways the biggest and most dramatic way you can show a lot of serious character traits for a character already well established, and one you want to/need to kill off.

It's not like Fire Emblem is doing anything new with this, but it's doing it very well. With this action we see how much Emmeryn cares for her kingdom. We also see her caring for family, not wanting them to bargain for her life. Her independence and quick thinking is taken from an implied skill to being shown off. And she is also seen as incredibly smart, as her sacrifice motivates her allies, keeps power away from her enemies, and crushes the spirit of their army in one move.

So we've got the game batting a nice score with the story so far, and it's just getting started. Let's move over to gameplay and chapter 12.

Chapter 12 is a bit odd, since it's not very plot focused compared to previous events. It's just one battle, with the only important plot being the framing of said battle. Up until now, Awakening has been riding on the quality of its story. Now, it needs to make its gameplay mean something.

What's most impact about this chapter is how the gameplay doesn't change, or rather, how it cannot change. Everything around you is different. The mood is somber. The setup screen has no music, and the only sound filling your ears is the gentle patter of rain pouring down all upon you. There's nothing heroic here, no smart planning to be made, no tactical enjoyment to be found, no relaxing or tense music. Yet, the physical, gameplay process you go through to begin a battle will not change.

Nothing in the battle changes, either. You guide your units, attack the enemy, and nothing has realistically changed. And yet, everything has changed. Nobody really wants to fight. You're caught behind enemy lines, forced to carve your way out. The enemy is unwilling to fight after such a horrid display by their own leader and such bravery by the enemy, yet they must under threat of death. And you of course have this music playing, which is such a deviation from the heroic music you fought to beforehand. You can't even call it battle music, it's more of a reflective and emotionally out of control piece. It is flat out one of the most brilliant musical pieces I have ever heard.

I can't say how any one player will react to all this. Perhaps you're angry. Maybe you're in tears. You could be trying to avoid a fight. You could resign yourself to it. Maybe you're just numb to the proceedings and aren't even sure what to think. It's not my place to assume how a single person will react to this, but the one thing I can confidently say is that this will not make you feel heroic. It runs in opposition to the grand battles of before, the feeling of overcoming the odds and an evil. Nothing has changed in what you do, but really, everything has changed.

At the end of the day, Fire Emblem Awakening doesn't take any grand strides in video game storytelling, not really. However, the fact of the matter is that good writing by itself is rare in this industry, let alone good writing that interacts with the gameplay well. It's one of the best signs to me that a good story is something that is very important to the fabric of a great game. It doesn't have to be complex (A sad fight in the rain isn't a high level concept). It doesn't have to be long. It doesn't even have to change the gameplay. At the end of the day, what this one chapter from Awakening shows us is that story can make a good game truly great.

Happy Birthday, Undertale

Holy shit, it's been a year.

 

It was September when i first heard about Undertale. Everyone I knew that was into games was talking about it. I only caught brief glimpses of it, and was honestly very confused. For the next few months, it was everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. After months of hype, I decided to see what this game was all about.

Best damn gaming decision I've ever made.

A year on, Undertale still stands as my favourite game ever. It's an experience I'm never going to forget, and one that will undoubtedly impact anyone that's played it. So, one year later, this is why Undertale remains #1 on my list of video games.

Oh, and spoilers. Why haven't you played Undertale yet?

Let's start at the beginning

I went into Undertale 99% blind. I saw a bit of the sans fight, the ruins, and a brief colourful glimpse I didn't realize was the Asriel fight. That's important, because Undertale starts out so unassuming, so small, so basic. It has a lot of personality, but nothing much else at that point.

Then Toriel showed up, and punched me in the gut. I love it when a game turns all your expectations around in once moment, and Toriel does just that. The game tells you that some monsters may need to have their health reduced. It shows itself as a simple RPG. It stays faithful to the retro aesthetic. It's not very serious.

The game does all this to fool you into thinking that it is indeed nothing more than it seems. Then, BAM, Toriel is dead, my knowledge about sparing monsters seemed wrong, and it's not just a goofy retro RPG anymore. There's death. There's emotion. There's tragedy. The first hour of the game sounds dreadfully boring, but it's so important for building up your expectations. Everything I knew was wrong, and now I had to travel into an unknown world that I knew nothing about. That is when Undertale had me interested.

Let's talk emotions

Undertale's got em'. This has been talked about to death by almost everyone, but I wanted to talk about what Undertale did for me. Undertale, more than anything else, was genuine at a time I needed it.

2015 was a rough year for my optimism in the games industry. I saw publishers try to squeeze money out of everyone in every way, I saw Nintendo starting to go down the same route after I supported them, and from my perspective (A misguided one now that I look back), the whole thing just cared about money.

So a game that just wanted to be a good game was just what I needed at the time. Undertale's quirky humour and random dialogue felt like a breath of fresh air. The battle system felt like something new and fresh. And this willingness to get into something new played a large part in how much the game pulled me in.

The game does have genuine emotion, I'm not discounting that. Papyrus is hilarious, Undyne and Alphys are adorable, Metatton is......

Flowey is legit terrifying, and the fight with Asgore is one of the few times I will use the word “epic” to describe something. What I am saying is that Undertale resonated with me because it just does what it wants. It's not restrained by doing what it thinks the audience wants, nor is it trying to do the “current” thing. The emotion isn't a list of check marks. It's genuine.

Undertunes

I remember the exact moment I knew I was gonna love Undertale. I had just arrived in Snowdin, and went to fight Papyrus because I wanted more of his dialogue. The fight started. I flirted with him (If you don't get it you need to get out because you haven't played it), and he activated his special blue attack!

Then Bonetrousle kicked in.

This was when I first thought “Holy cow, this is some amazing music!” It perfectly fit the scenario, character, battle, and raised it from a great fight to a fantastic fight with some sweet tunes.

And it just went uphill from there. From Spear of Justice to Dummy! to CORE, every single song is not only nice on its own, it also lifts every scene and scenario up to amazingly emotional levels.

When I traversed the waterfall, the music made me feel sorrowful and introspective, like this area held the ideals of freedom and wildness once held by the monsters.

When I fought Undyne, her theme was menacing. Here was an opponent actually trying to kill me for the first time, and the entirety of monsterkind would back her in this quest.

When I fought Omega Flowey, this theme instilled a level of panic in me the scenario by itself could never do. It felt like I was trapped in the madness for hours.

When I listened to the title theme, it was a retro jingle, one I'd heard many times over. After I finished the game, it was an opener to an amazingly realized and full experience.

When I fought ASGORE, this song was chilling, sorrowful, terrifying, awe-inspiring, regretful, epic, and final. This song embodied so many things, but more than anything else, it embodies the end of a journey, with all the mixed up emotions that come with it. It is one of the most emotional songs I have ever heard, and truly makes the battle against Asgore one of gaming's greatest. Undertale's soundtrack is legendary.

My emotions

Finally, I want to end off with something very personal to me. It was the moment Undertale connected with me in a deep way unlike most other games and media in general.

This song, and the walk you take with it, is burned into my head. It let me just think about everything that had led up to this point. Toriel, mosterkind's fate, Flowey, Asgore....

It let me think about loss.

Loss is something I am terrified of. Loss is something I worry about daily. What will happen to my friends after high school? Will my family still be here tomorrow? Is there anything I can do?

Undertale just gave me a scenario, a story, a song, and let me think. Those 6 minutes are precious to me. I thought about loss in the game. I thought about the loss I have faced and will inevitably have to face. I thought about the loss that occurs every day, by many people. I just stared at the screen even after the song was done, and just thought.

I couldn't sleep that night. No other game since Mother 3 has done that to me. The next day, I got up, and fought Asgore.

I cried. I cried tears of all kinds. I cried tears of sorrow, loss, and sadness, but also happiness, laughter, and appreciation. Undertale is the only game, no, time that I have ever, ever, experienced tears of joy.

This is why Undertale is my favourite game of all time. I could talk about how objectively good it is. But truly, it came at the perfect time. 7 months later, I lost a relative close to me. It is experiences like this that help me to understand, cope, and get through all sorts of things in this crazy experience called life. This is my personal connection to this small game called Undertale.

I truly and deeply thank you for reading.

Some Unique Mechanics

Game mechanics. Oh, the wonders of game mechanics. I love em', you love em', they're what make games tick. So, I figured, why not take the time to appreciate the more unique ones out there? So, I have 3 games lined up here, 3 games that do some different and unique stuff with their mechanics. Without further ado:

Splatoon

Okay, I have issues with this game. BIG issues. But I cannot ignore just how good the core mechanics of the game are, because I have no idea how the devs at Nintendo came up with this. So, for those not up to speed with the game, you do 2 basic things in the game: spray ink with a variety of weapons, and then swim through that same ink in a squid form. You can only swim through your own ink, and the objective of the game is to cover the most ground with ink (In the main mode, anyway).

Not only is this really novel and a great spin on the typical shooter formula, but it is a perfect example of 2 separate mechanics working perfectly in harmony. You shoot ink to swim in, but you have a limited supply, and the way you refill it is to swim in the ink. But you need more ground to swim in, so you spray more ink, which means you need to refill by swimming, and so on and so forth. One mechanic simply cannot exist without the other, and you constantly combine the 2 in interesting ways while you play. Whether that be cutting an enemy's route off with your ink, or spraying a small patch to hide and refill in undetected, these 2 simple ideas; shoot and swim; form the cornerstone for one of the most colourful, explosive, and special shooter games that have ever come out.

And I really can't stress how special indeed this is. Think to all the shooter games out there, how many truly put a spin on the typical shooter formula? Barely any deviate, and the only example I can think of that kind of fits this is Tribes: Ascend. The point here is how unique this is, and how badly this genre needs a mechanics shakeup more than anything else around it. Hopefully Splatoon's success is a good start.

Undertale

You may or may not be screaming in your head “Undertaleohgodwhypleasenomore”, but fear not! This shall not be me going on a ramble about the amazingness of this game. I want to talk about something seldom mentioned, the actual gameplay. More specifically, the bullet hell like mechanics you use to dodge attacks.

Genre mashing is something I wish we saw more of. I have my issues with how the word “genre” is used, but overall it's a handy sorting tool in many circumstances, and a good jumping off point if you're unsure how to describe a game. Genre mashing is the process of taking 2 genres and things from them, like, say, a first person shooter and an RTS, and putting them together into one game. It's a risky move, but I still think it's a shame how segued and cut off the different types of games often are in the industry.

So Undertale is a great reminder how good this practice can turn out. It mashes together the menu and general feel of a standard RPG, while having you dodge attacks through a bullet hell minigame a la Touhou (It's not THAT crazy though). It really lends the game a different feel, as most of your skill involved comes from mastery of this minigame and not the RPG aspects. Those are mainly just a way to interact with the world and choose what to do. It's so simple and elegant, you wonder how nobody thought of this before.

So while Undertale is most certainly not the first game to mash genres, it's a good reminder in this often oversaturated market how there are still many, many untapped ideas and mechanics out there. I'm excited to see them.

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

Ok, this game is very story heavy and I'm loath to spoil it. I'll be talking about the mechanics and the scenario, so if you consider those spoilers, stop here. No plot beyond that, however.

So VLR (How I'll be abbreviating Virtue's Last Reward) does one thing for mechanics that is truly unique. It takes an age old psychological problem and turns it into a gameplay mechanic. And it is brilliant.

So said problem is the Prisoner's Dilemma. For the uninitiated it goes such: 2 prisoners are brought in on a minor crime, and the police think they did a large one. So they separate the 2 and give them 2 options: rat the other out or stay silent. If they both stay silent, they each get 1 year in jail. If one rats but the other stays silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent one gets 4 years. If they both rat the other out they each get 3 years. It's a system designed to logically designed to make both betray, as if there is even the slightest chance the other will betray you should too, or else you get screwed. In reality when mockups have been made it's not so cut and dry, with prior relationships and the implications of betrayal beyond the jailtime playing a large role. And VLR plays this beautifully.

The game runs off this. The 9 players are trapped in a facility and forced to play a sort of Prisoner's Dilemma. They each have a watch with a point value on it, and every “round” they have to play the Dilemma with another person, and choose ally or betray. If both ally, they each get 2 points. If both betray, no points are gained or lost. If one betrays and one allies, the betrayer gets 3 points and the victim loses 2. If your points hit 0, you die. The goal is to escape through the #9 door after your points hit 9. The catch is that the #9 door can only be opened once.

So VLR locks you in with 8 other people and forces you to choose: Ally, or Betray? It's not just a simple cooperation situation, as the stakes are constantly rising and nobody is quite sure what lies ahead. So if one person decides to be a lone wolf and choose betray, they could get out and screw everyone else over, ensuring their own safety. But if everyone thinks this and chooses betray, nobody gets anywhere.

But points aren't everything, no sir. VLR makes damn well sure you know what betrayal means outside of this point system. Characters will react appropriately if you're a cooperative saint or a betraying jerk. For example, if you try to game the system and get as many points as possible by betraying, the group will turn on you very quickly. If a character confides in you how much they trust you and you stab them in the back, your relationship fractures. It will affect the story and ending you get, big time.

And finally, this retooling of the Prisoner Dilemma works very well in tandem with the multiple endings and routes. You'll start to pick things up and notice character traits that apply in every route. You'll learn stuff that you can apply in the future, and predict how characters will vote and how they'll react to your vote. For a single example, Dio's a dick, big time (apparently Dio is a name that inspires such behavior in media), and you have to take that into account when voting against him.

This perfect blend of high stakes, a psychological question, characters, and the game mechanic of multiple routes makes an amazing experience. The voting in VLR is one of the tensest experiences in gaming simply because of all this. I have spent a full hour agonizing over my choice because there is never a right answer with all these factors at play. It's an assault on your morals and a test of your trust with these fictional characters, and heartbreaking decisions will surely lie ahead.

So, to recap that crazy ramble, this is just so unique because of how it retools an age old question, and how it interacts with the usual visual novel mechanic of multiple routes. But the sheer idea behind it is what impresses me the most. Would you have thought of a game relying on the prisoner's dilemma like this? Most likely not, and we need more ideas out of left field like it. It makes for more interesting games, stories, and experiences. And play the Zero Escape series if you haven't. It's literally one of the best stories in gaming.

So, I hope you enjoyed this small trek through the more inventive side of gaming. I certainly love checking the odd and different areas of it out, and I hope you give some of these games a try, they're all very much worth your time. Thank you for reading, and have a great day.