Category: Nintendo Switch

Adventures on Edwards’ Island

Field Notes
My adventure kicks off onboard of a ferry with a group of friends—Ren, Nona, Clarissa, and Jonas. The latter, we soon learn, is our new stepbrother. As the boat approaches a nearby island, the friendly banter filled up my screen with a comics-style, cute conversation bubbles.

The journey to Edwards Island felt somehow soothing but eerie at the same time. Ren tells us that the island housed a military base at one point. There’s also mention of a woman named Maggie Adler. Our objective appears to be camping on the island’s beach, followed by exploring the nearby caves.

Alex—my character—has a knack for radios it seems. I have a nifty-looking small device that I can tune into and change its frequency while navigating the island. At times I stumble across blitz-from-the-past music stations. It reminded me so much of Fallout’s Pip Boy vintage stations. This added a nice backdrop to some of the deserted locales.

In other parts of the island, I came across “tune-in” billboards, next to what appeared to be sight-seeing destinations. Tuning into frequency 140.1 triggered a guided tour of the nearby construction, how cool is that?!

My radio isn’t your run-of-the-mill gadget. It also seems to have weird powers. The inhabitants of the island developed this interesting technology, where the WAL signals of the radio can trigger and open locked doors and vaults.

After snooping around the island for some time, consulting my trusted and adorable hand-drawn map, I learned that the U.S. army used this place to train troops in communication and radio technology. Their objective was to educate their members with state-of-the-art code breaking, to aid during times of war.

One woman in particular, named Margaret Adler, trained here with a friend of hers at the Fort Milner school. It looks like not many people liked this island, and due to some hole in national security, the government took control of the island, on-and-off.

Maggie Adler used her family’s fortune to buy off as many locations as she can on the island. But why was she doing that? After gathering her letters, I learned that things are not what they appear to be. There’s a dark secret behind this island, which is the reason why Adler was trying to seal off access.

Oblivious to this fact, we made our way to the nearby caves, and while fumbling with the radio, our friends triggered open a rift in the caves, which instigates a series of paranormal activities in the area.

The radio immediately began picking up various conversations by people on the island. Were they inhabitants at some point? Many questions remain unanswered. The only way to find out is to backtrack our steps and follow the notes of Margaret Adler to unravel the mystery.

Impressions of the Game
Everything from how the game is drawn to the way it side-scrolls and unravels graphically, adds to the charm of this game. It’s very unique. Not your typical intense horror game, aside from the handful hair-rising incidents here and there. In fact, it could be described as meditative. There’s plenty of space and ambience to explore and learn suspense-free, meanwhile making you feel like there’s something very unsettling going on.

The voice acting is superb. They’ve also done a fantastic job with the world building. The game isn’t exceptionally large, but the lore was rich just enough to support the narrative.

I also liked how none of it is forced on the player. You’re very capable of finishing the game without paying much attention to the background story. In this sense, finding Adler’s scattered notes around the island is fully optional. But the inevitable curiosity stimulated will most likely make you want to find each and every note.

The game isn’t perfect. The long loading was my least favorite part. I found myself wanting to eagerly go back-and-forth between locations, but I dreaded the loading time. Conversations sometimes run over each other, not to mention the controls can feel funny sometimes. Overall; however, the game is very well done.

I’m not usually a fan of heavily scripted games, but I found myself drawn to characters’ interconnections. I enjoyed their conversational exchanges, though at times they delve into heavy topics.

Station S., Bainbridge Island. Source: Historylink.

Real Life References
Interestingly enough, I found out there are some real life parallels to Fort Milner. A real-life secret radio station, known as “Station S”, which could be the inspiration behind the game. You can read more about this here

FWA Annex, Station S, Fort Ward 1943. Source HistoryLink.

Final Thoughts
I’m not the biggest fan of political themes in games, and at times I do feel like perhaps the game tries to address an over-arching story inconsistent with its scale. That being said, it was an enjoyable journey.

I’m also excited for the sequel, sometime this year.

Fire Emblem Three Houses

I have a habit of joining fan clubs late, but before I tell you what I really think about this game, it might be worth mentioning that:

  1. I’m generally not a fan of RPG strategy games
  2. I’m equally not a fan of silent main characters
  3. I never really played and completed any of the Fire Emblem prequels

This game applies to all three. Putting those into consideration; however, it says A LOT for me to give this game a 4 out of 5 rating. That’s not to say there weren’t a few drawbacks and I’ll get into those later.

If you’re new like me to the franchise, then the game is basically a turn-based strategy game where you lead a team of players and wage war. In between these battle sequences, you get the chance to interact with your characters and upgrade them.

FE3H-5

One thing that has always deterred me from enjoying strategy RPG games is feeling limited in my scope of exploration. Some people play games because they enjoy the battle mechanism even if that outshines anything else. I, on the other hand, play to explore. I delight in navigating places, picking up lore, and piecing things together. It comes as no surprise then why I never really paid much attention to the series. The other factor that compels me is good storytelling and I read tons of reviews stating the game has an astounding plot.

FE3H-2

In this particular installment, and without getting into too much details, I found myself playing as a mercenary who found my way into a city. I then was asked to become a professor in this town and take reins of a small group of students. You are given the option to choose and join one out of three factions in the game: The Blue Lions, Golden Deers, or Black Eagles. I personally went with the Golden Deers, mainly because I have a fan-girl crush on Claude; secondly because I have a crush on Claude and thirdly because of Claude 😛

On a serious note, I resonated more towards the characters of Golden Deers compared to the other two. And my choice didn’t disappoint, because I absolutely loved getting to know each and every one of the Golden Deers.

FE3H-4

While looking at some game footage prior to my playing, I noticed given the ability to roam freely. That alone was a big motivator to pick up the game and while it was fun for the most part moving freely between battles to complete side missions, it later became repetitive and I found myself feeling less inspired to explore and just skip my free days all together. The side battles were also repetitive and in many occasions required the same strategies. The mission battles, on the other hand, showed potential to offer variations but that didn’t extend over to the side missions.

FE3H-3

The story itself is interesting and takes plenty of turns and twists to keep players at their toes. Because of that, I found myself wanting to skip ahead in the story rather than spend more time developing characters. The way to interact with your team is either to walk up to them, have a conversation or trigger a support chat to form stronger links, which you’ve guessed it- projects on your characters bondage within battles. Aside from that, you also can give seminars and lectures to elevate student stats and then give them exams to fulfill requirements for character classes (pun intended).

Because there are three factions, it’s to be expected that the game can be replayed from different perspectives in order to shed some light on missing parts of the story. Having said that, I was later disappointed to find out that even though that’s the case, the games are also identical. Without spoiling the story much, let’s just say the background information and main incentive for each faction is different but more or less the main scenario is similar.

To recap here’s what I loved about the game:

  • Beautiful soundtrack with memorable themes
  • Interesting lovable and hateful characters to keep you intrigued
  • Well written plot with unexpected turns
  • Claude, Claude, Claude

What I didn’t like about the game:

  • Feeling slightly disconnected and therefore uninterested in the main character
  • Repetitive “collect-this; collect-that” side missions
  • Normal difficulty is basically Easy Mode. It’s almost too easy to max out everything by the middle of the game (either that or I play too much Miyazaki games).

So getting back to where I started:

  1. Yes I’m still not a fan of RPG strategy games
  2. Yes I still do not like silent main characters
  3. I would probably go back and play the prequels if I didn’t have a long pending list of games to play.

Finally, would I recommend this game to anyone?

ABSOLUTELY!

My final score is 4/5 ★★★★

  • 2/5 for gameplay
  • 5/5 for (side) characters
  • 3/5 for battle system
  • 4/5 for plot

Game Platform (played on): Nintendo Switch.

Game link

Game trailer

Note: For more information about the upcoming game DLC “Fourth House”, click here