Finally time for Tactics
Plus a first for in-game sign language, a marvellously musical Lego build and finding out which old Disney games suck the least.
Welcome back to Press Any Button! This time we’re looking ahead at a promising year of tactical role-playing games, celebrating a major move in accessibility and of course going over some of the week’s big deals and savings.
The newsletter has been going for well over a month now, and while we love seeing the steady stream of sign-ups it would be great to hear any feedback on how you all are finding it. If there’s anything you’d like to see covered more (or less), feel free to comment or reply, or hit us up on Twitter; we’re at @timbiggs, @alicedkc or @_pressanybutton.
Our turn has come at last
By Tim
2022’s first quarter may be filled with high-profile third-person action, but by December I believe we may be hailing the year as the full-on return of the turn-based tactical RPG.
The genre has its roots in the 80s and hit its zenith in the late 90s with Final Fantasy Tactics, among many others. After a decline in popularity, some excellent modernisations in the 2010s like XCOM and Fire Emblem Awakening ensured a constant trickle of great tactics games on the outskirts of popular game culture to this day, especially on handhelds.
Which brings us to 2022 and, specifically, the lineup heading to Nintendo Switch. First cab off the rank is Triangle Strategy, out later this week. I can currently only talk about it in a "preview" context, but I don't think Nintendo will mind me saying I've played dozens of hours and that it’s my favourite game of the year thus far.
Positioning your forces and utilising each unit's talents to exploit synergies and weaknesses is nicely old-school, but the branching Game of Thrones story and complex but always readable battle system makes it addicting and approachable. Plus I love the characters, and it's gorgeous.
Next Nintendo will publish a remake of Advance Wars 1+2, and then Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope. Also coming to Switch this year is a remake of mech-focused tactics game Front Mission, and a new take on a Neo Geo favourite in Metal Slug Tactics.
Even those sans Switch get to enjoy the 2022 tactics revival, with Firaxis making Marvel's Midnight Suns for all platforms. Moving the XCOM gameplay the studio is known for closer to the Fire Emblem style, it appears character relationships will play a larger role. Except those characters will be the likes of Wolverine, Blade, Captain Marvel and Iron Man.
What to play
With all this talk of turn-based tactics, you may be wondering if you can get into the genre right now, for cheap, without dusting off an ancient handheld. You can! XCOM 2 is one of the best modern options, and you should be able to pick up an Xbox or PS4 disc for $20. Digital 2K games are usually extremely expensive, but on Xbox the XCOM 2 Digital Deluxe Edition is currently down to $14 from around $100, so get that! If you have Game Pass, you're entitled to the similar and excellent Gears Tactics. On Switch the surprisingly deep Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle plus all its DLC is on sale for $30, and for indie fare two outstanding picks are retro-style Wargroove and minimalist tactics roguelike Into the Breach.
A new month means it's time to check out what your Xbox Live Gold and/or PlayStation Plus subscription dollars are getting you. It's a slow one on Xbox with interesting 2017 survival roguelike The Flame in the Flood, and mediocre Xbox 360 dungeon crawler Sacred 2. Over on PlayStation you can grab dino island sim Ark: Survival Evolved and the actually very good Mario Kart clone Team Sonic Racing. PS5 players can additionally grab cyberpunk jump-and-stab Ghostrunner.
You can just go ahead and assume that I (Alice) am recommending Forza Horizon 5 every week, but this Friday marks the launch of a new season that’s well worth jumping in on. After February’s disappointing World Cup, March is all about PR stunts with prizes that look worth winning. Some of the PR stunts will be permanent (though, sadly, mostly just Speed Zones), but others will only be around for the season. There will also probably be new accolades associated with them, so keep an eye out for that.
Conan Chop Chop is out this week on Xbox, PS4, Switch and PC, and it’s adorable. It’s a rogue-lite from Aussie developers Mighty Kingdom and is perfect for everyone who wants a challenge, but isn’t on board with Elden Ring’s whole deal. Plus it supports up to four players.
A promising sign of the accessibility race to come
By Alice
The most ubiquitous accessibility feature in games is the humble subtitle. It’s one of those no-brainer inclusions because it covers so many bases for people who are hard of hearing, have a first language that’s different to the spoken one, have cognitive issues, sensory issues, or just like to be able to double check the instructions being given to ensure they’re understood.
The assumption for a long time has been that subtitles are also a solution for deaf accessibility, but that’s not really the case. People who have been deaf or severely hard of hearing from birth often learn one or two sign languages before they learn written English. So, games that rely on subtitles for hearing accessibility are basically asking players to focus on whatever they’re supposed to be doing in the game AND translate written information. It’s exhausting.
Then, on top of that, if the dialogue is being given at a time when you can’t see the character, deaf players have no way of knowing what’s sarcasm or a joke, because they don’t get the context clues of tone of voice.
That’s why it’s so cool that Forza Horizon 5 was updated this week to support American Sign Language and British Sign Language across 150 cutscenes. It’s not going to make much difference for Auslan speakers, but I still think it marks a major milestone for how inclusion and accessibility is approached in games.
There’s been something of an arms race in video game accessibility of late, with both Xbox and PlayStation trying to top each other for the title of “most accessible game”, which has a more tangible return than battling for teraflops and polygons. The more people who can play games and contribute to their creation, the more inclusive and interesting games are going to become.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
Lego Ideas truly is the gift that keeps on giving. From the outside it looks like a cynical program for Lego to get fan-designed ideas for free with no risk, and it is basically exactly that. But it’s also opened the door to some really cool sets that would not have made otherwise.
I’ve been gravitating more towards Ideas than any other theme for the last couple of years. It really shows how a medium can improve when more voices are heard, where people with particular interests make lovingly detailed models of the things they care about, independent of the folks that have to think about commercial viability.
I’ve been building the Lego Ideas Piano from 2020 over the last couple of months, and it has to be one of the coolest sets I’ve ever built.
Like with most of the bigger Ideas sets, there are times where it’s a bit more fiddly and not as sturdy as standard Lego sets (looking at you, Tree House), but overall it’s been glorious. It was a true gasp moment when I finally finished the keys and realised they could be played. Paired with the PoweredUp bluetooth connected engine and controller, it can “play” 9 songs and have the keys move of their own accord, or let you “play” a notes when you press down the keys.
I’ll do a proper review of the set once I’ve finished building, but for now this is mostly a reminder to check out the Ideas website every now and then to vote for the models that interest you. All the sets get redesigned by professional Lego designers after being approved, so a lot of them do end up looking super different to the finished product.
I highly recommend the Traditional Japanese Village, Velociraptor Skull, and Castle Dracula.
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
We had COVID at our place recently, and while locked down we introduced our five-year-old to a few classic Disney films, which he loved.
We followed it up with old Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive games based on those movies, and my initial impression was that they fell cleanly into two camps: 1) Games I played a lot as a child and had memorised, which were a delight, and; 2) Total bullshit which was way too hard and used cheap tricks to turn an hour of game into near-endless frustration.
I persisted in an attempt to gain more nuanced insights however, so here is my ranking of every 16-bit adaptation of a Disney animated feature film. You can get the first four in the great Disney Classics Games Collection on all consoles.
Jungle Book Utterly charming, with a bigger focus on exploration than challenge and an easy mode that makes things more approachable.
Aladdin (Capcom) Nintendo players got the superior Aladdin, acrobatic and comical with an embellished but exciting story.
Lion King A short and very sweet riff on the movie, marred by multiple frustrating sections designed expressly to demoralise you.
Aladdin (Virgin) Sega Aladdin looks wonderfully authentic, but a focus on swordplay means it’s difficult and misses the film’s vibe.
Pocahontas An interesting but obtuse cinematic platformer where you switch between Pocahontas and a racoon to solve puzzles.
Pinocchio The devs had no idea how to make this into a game. Every level has a different mechanic and they're all annoying wastes of time.
Beauty and the Beast Shamelessly cruel design, actively hostile and aggravating to the player, and a bizarre adaptation of a nuanced story.
Fantasia Trash. Mean and blatantly unfinished, this one was apparently recalled. It's torture to play, and even sounds hideous despite the premise.
Thanks for alerting me to triangle strategy - I've been looking for a good turn based strategy game for ages, but keep going back to Xcom and the outstanding Wesnoth.