#vanillaware
#vanillaware
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Relentless in artistic and storytelling ambition, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim still comes off as lacking in confidence. It takes plenty of risks, and in presentation at least marches forward with a swagger that makes it clear Vanillaware knew how many people they could bring in purely on the promise of their incredible 2D artwork and its time-travel, mech centric premise, myself included. Yet by the time the credits roll on the game 13 Sentinels’ big ideas and ambitious remixes of the adventure game formula feel more like distractions than essential components of its storytelling.
When Dragon’s Crown originally released it was packed with esoteric design decisions. There was plenty of classic brawler legacy within it, but those decisions almost felt out of place. Strangely, time has only served to make those eccentricities feel more at home.
Cursor based interactions and menus have become much more common on consoles, and the addition of a touchpad on the PS4 has only made that more natural. The online integration feels normalized too–the death messages that litter a stage have plenty of precedent, and seeing a party automatically populate with AI based on other players feels smart. And the heavy focus on multiplayer feels obvious now, especially with the popularity of RPG systems and loot based progression. Weirdly, even the bizarre structural turn in the second half, where you’re tasked with backtracking to do new objectives in the same areas, makes a lot more sense given the popularization of MMO style loops of repeated content. Despite being an entry in a genre a lot of people dismiss as being regressive, Dragon’s Crown ended up being rather prescient.
