High Rise City: Vacation Season DLC - PC (Steam) Review

High Rise City: Vacation Season by developer Fourexo Entertainment and publisher Deck13—PC (Steam) review written by Susan N. with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

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High Rise City is an ambitious simulation game that I previewed a little while back. At the time, the city builder had a few issues, some features that would have been a great additions, some unique challenges, and had a lot of promise. With the Vacations DLC, Fourexo Entertainment has added a ton of new buildings as well as a level of complexity to challenge veteran players of the genre. Let's revisit the game and see what has changed and improved and what may tank players while working towards the Vacations content.

Gameplay

It's rare that a city builder will challenge me the way that High Rise City does. Perhaps that's because other games within the genre are easier to manage. It might simply be that other games have more statistical information to determine the pain points of your city. Who knows? But what I can say is that this title has had me riding on some highs and then it will drop me like a rock. In this case, I had a much better time with the game after having figured out where critical information is listed.

Assuming that you have already played the game, then you'd likely know that in the top left of the screen are several buttons that give information to determine the best starting spot. Specifically, you want to make sure that you are close to key nodes like coal, iron, and wooded areas. This is critical because you don't want to be importing tools to build up your city. Once you get past some of the basic pain points, High Rise City becomes a bit easier to manage in the early stages of development. 

That said, as you progress to higher tiers, you will get access to engineers who will demand a lot more from your city. And that is a statement I stand by. In order to compensate, you will need to expand a ton. High Rise City gets to a point where if you aren't strategic about your budget, you will start to financially drop off. However, once you've got the system down and resources aplenty, you will be able to get to the Vacations DLC without too much difficulty.

Before talking about the DLC content, I first want to mention a couple of things about the updates made to the game. For one thing, the terraforming is improved from its previous state. Though, I don't recall why I wasn't a big fan previously, it is now much smoother and easier to use. Another key addition to the game is parking lots. It's amazing how many city builders neglect this one small feature because I think they are important, don't you? Finally, the delivery driving is not awful like it was when I first played. While it could still use some refining, the turning capabilities and penchant for remaining on the road is infinitely better than it was. That said, I still managed to flip the truck over and the game wouldn't let me get back up! It's not a flawless system but you can get some easy upgrades for your buildings by completing a few. And unlike my previous experience with the game, I delivered several goods where before I avoided the feature entirely.

Vacations DLC Content

The vacation seasons DLC adds a ton of new buildings and challenges. There are now hotels with star ratings, a museum, a golf course, a Japanese restaurant, and a coffee shop! Not only did the developers add those, but they added a couple of buildings that stand out from the rest. It's called High Rise City after all, and what kind of game would it be without some gargantuan buildings like the Megatower 1 and Megatower 2? These two sky scrapers are truly a sight to see, but be warned as the buildings need many of the new resources in large quantities. For example, the first Megatower is $20,000 with 1000 Tools, 500 Bricks, 3000 Ferroconcrete, and 1500 glass. Even the new hotels have steep building requirements depending on which ones you go for. 

Once you master the base game, the vacations DLC adds new resources that you will need to produce in order to begin your tourism districts. The ferroconcrete requires coal and iron to make steel. Then you need quartz and limestone. All four need to be found so that ferroconcrete can be produced. To get to 3000 for one of the Megatowers will take a lot of work. Plus, you will need to have a dedicated tour line that they will use to see the best places. Additionally, you don't want to have your tourism district close to your industry because they have specific needs to fulfill. Essentially, the DLC adds a whole new set of challenges that will take time to conquer. 

One of the aspects I absolutely love about High Rise City are the aesthetics. There is an incredible amount of detail in each building and a ton of care that went into the options you are given. For example, hotels have their star rating in sight so there is never any confusion in the player. However, keen observers would be able to tell the rating based on the visual features they have. In the picture to the right, it is easy to tell that the hotel is not an expensive place to stay.  

The Good and the Bad

High Rise City has done some optimization and improved some of the features since release. Notably, it has made the delivery system better. In the original version, the timer was too big, time was too restricted, and it was too clunky. I avoided using the delivery service as much as possible when I first tried the game. With the changes made, the vehicles are manageable to drive, the timer is not as intimidating, and the total mission time is not as strict. Although, there is something to be said for the games' responsiveness when trying to get the vehicle back on its wheels after a terrible turn. 

The music and audio in High Rise City is fantastic. It's just as soothing as several cozy games on the market. I might even argue that the music is better. And that's interesting because I personally find the music to be so good that I actually notice the lack of it once I've exited the game. Perhaps in combination with the difficulty, the music has taken me by the hand and lead me into a wild addiction. It's that good!

With the advent of new buildings to construct and a whole other set of challenges to pursue, there are bound to be issues as well. Even though the delivery aspect of the game has greatly improved, it still has a couple of minor grievances. Although the handling is much cleaner, if you drive too quickly, you will hit a couple of bumps (due to the badly terraformed nature of some locations). Should the vehicle go off road, then you will have a timer to get back on track or else you fail the mission. This is a gripe that can make it difficult to succeed at times. Another small issue I have with the deliveries is the difficulty knowing what the timers end goal is. In the earlier version of the game, you were given a certain amount of time which was clearly marked. Now, the game still has the timer but for certain missions it's more difficult to tell how much you have. That only applies when the timer is counting upwards and not down. I say this because there is still a maximum timer that you won't be able to see. Although, on the left side of the screen, you can see only the elapsed time, not the maximum. So, while the feature is improved, it still has some minor issues. 

The largest gripe I have is the game crashing. This seemed to happen in the sandbox mode when the autosave would begin, and this didn't happen in the story mode. Each time the game saved on its own, the whole thing would hang making me force closing the program. Thankfully, the saves are set to 5 minutes as the default, but it was still strange. The sandbox save does not have a ton of buildings that would cause the game to crash, so I'm not sure if there needs to be other fixes or if my computer was just not having it. Either way, it might be a good idea to pay attention to the graphics settings and to save frequently, just in case. 

Vacation Final Thoughts

The Vacation Seasons DLC is fantastic. Adding more buildings as well as creating more of a challenge for players is a great way to add value to a DLC package. There are multiple new buildings that require players to strategize since the tourists will be looking for a place to spend their hard earned money. To do so, players have to keep them happy by providing new materials. And of course, the tourism location is key in that equation. 

I've spent many hours playing High Rise City and I built up a ton of resources necessary to create an amazing tourist district that would make any city mayor proud. Make no mistake, it will take a ton of materials to have a spectacular tourist destination that will generate tons of money. So, if you like a good challenge from a solid city builder, be sure to pick this one up. And don't forget to grab this DLC, because you won't regret it. In my opinion, the $40 price tag (Canadian) is well worth it. Frankly, I have been awestruck by it, and that doesn't happen often. Not with city builders anyways! 

Score: 9 out of 10

 

Article by: Susan N.

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High Rise City - PC Preview

High Rise City by developer Fourexo Entertainment and publisher Deck13—PC(Steam) preview written by Susan N. with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 4.5 minutes.

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CrossCode – Switch Review

CrossCode by developer Radical Fish Games and publisher Deck13 Interactive—Nintendo Switch review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

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Have you ever wondered what your MMO would feel like if it weren't actually an MMO? What if it were more 16-bit SNES retro styled? How about combining both ranged and melee in a funky hybrid of both real and virtual? Well then, I think it's time to take a look at CrossCode.

CrossCode takes place in a sort of virtual reality-esque world of Shadoon, where your main character, Lea, is experiencing some memory and speech impediment problems. With the help of some not as virtual assistance, Lea is sent off to the "playground" where virtual avatars explore and beat up monsters and discover the secrets of the "Ancients". Admittedly it can be a bit of work to figure out what is "virtual" and what is "real", but that provides a sort of charm that games like .Hack// drew a clear line for.

As you explore Shadoon, or "the croissant", as it's colloquially called, you have a number of tools at your disposal. Like, actually quite a few. You have two types of attacks, melee and ranged, with the ranged attack having a rapid fire and charged shot, as well as a dash, guard, and skills that can be used with the ranged shot, melee attack, and even dash. As you progress trough the game you will also pick up elemental chips that allow you to use that element in battle. Overusing it will cause an overload, and you need to switch off the element to "cool down". Each of these elements, and the non-elemental one, all have their own specific skill trees to progress through as well.

While that describes the combat, you will also spend a large chunk of time simply exploring. In this 2D top down style adventure, it feels like there's a heavy emphasis on "parkour", as you will be running and jumping off ledges, cliffs, into lakes etc. Areas are divided up in separate "screens", and usually have multiple height layers to them, with a bunch of platforms and ledges at different heights. Sometimes traversing screens this way lets you access a different part of another screen you can only get to from a higher area, othertimes you'll be rewarded with items.

Speaking of items, you get five equipment slots: two weapons, a chest armor, a helmet, and shoes. Each piece of equipment not only increases base stats, but they can also have skill effects attached to them, such as "melee damage up". Equipment can either be found in chests, bought at a vendor, or exchanged for with drops you collect from enemies and the local plant life. A lot of these items you will probably acquire while completing quests for various characters.

Like any good MMO or RPG, there are NPCs that will give out quests, as well as "player characters" that will give you tasks that reward more actual items instead of exp. You can take a large number of quests at any given time, so you don't need to worry too much about running out of quest space. Additionally, there's a method to keep track of your active quests by setting them as favourites, and then you can pull them up while walking around by pushing in the thumbstick.

Unfortunately there are a couple of glaring issues with CrossCode, at least on the switch. While the combat is pretty smooth all around, I had some really serious issues with the menus. Not that they are bad, or unhelpful, rather they lag like I'm trying to play CrossCode on a 30 year old toaster. While the most commonly used menus only lag a little, the most egregious offender is the botany tab. Yeah, you can access page one, but if you try and switch tabs? Crashes the game. While not strictly speaking necessary, it does keep track of a certain quest completion progress, making it rather...frustrating, to say the least.

One really nice thing I liked about CrossCode is they have these little challenges, where you will get either confronted in a PvP battle, or Emilie will challenge you to a race through a dungeon. You can either win or lose these which is a nice little added feature, although I suggest playing how you have fun first and foremost. Speaking of Emilie and her dungeon races, dungeons are pretty standard fare for what you'd expect out of something like a Zelda title. Don't underestimate them though, because even the first dungeon had some points i stood there thinking "how the hell am I supposed to do this????". I managed to beat Emilie, so it couldn't have been that bad, but I'm pretty sure it was scary close.

Let's talk a bit about the soundtrack and art style. The soundtrack is really fitting for CrossCode's style. It essentially combines old school type tracks, those that you would expect from the more 16-bit like graphics such as Dragon Quest, and combines those for what you might hear in a similar themed MMO or similar style game. The soundtrack is really well put together, and does a really good job of matching the ritual, locale, and feeling of the game. As I've mentioned a few times, CrossCode is more retro styled in nature, but far from detracting from the experience, I found it added to it. It's got that "MMO style original Trials of Mana" sort of feeling to it, only with constant HP healing out of battle, a more fast paced combat system, and some dungeon puzzles that make you want to flip a few tables.

While there's a lot I really love about CrossCode: its wide array of functions like the party combat directives, interactive maps, some rather well thought out boss fights, and neat challenges built-in to the game, there are definitely a few drawbacks. The super aging menus are a big issue for me, especially since the one constantly causes a crash. Not going to lie, this freaked me out a little since I hadn't saved in a while, but thankfully the game autosaves every screen transition, otherwise I would have been livid instead of just slightly peeved.

Item-ing is also a bit of a nuisance. While you can collect most of the stuff required to trade for gear, you can also exchange for items to exchange for items that you can use to trade for equipment. Yes, that sentence is correct. The character banter that you can hear from party members is pretty cool as well, and doesn't repeat forever looping the same dialog every two minutes, but is usually limited in what you can get. Another point of contention for me is that enemy levels can vary wildly, and some aspects of the game aren't particularly noted very well. For instance, there are these snowmen in the second area that will probably be well above your level first time you see them. For the lack of explanation, I had this in the first dungeon.

Basically, the game tells you that guard breaking is a ting, but neglects to inform you that some enemies can only be guard broken under certain circumstances or from a specific direction. Add to that that the "columns" you need to move in dungeon puzzles can activate certain square shaped floor panels, but you aren't told which ones, or that it's even a thing. Yeah you can figure it out, but it took me ten minutes because I put the columns on the wrong two floor panels, and didn't bother with the third until I started getting fed up. Some of the switches are also a pain to hit, and if you use the rapid shot instead of the charge, you run the risk of "double tapping" the switch, essentially deactivating it when you want it on purely by accident.

I've always been a huge fan of .Hack because it let me play an MMO in my solo single player style, offline, and, on my own time. CrossCode I feel has taken this a good notch higher and between the dialog, the dungeons, the exploration, the customizations, the puzzles and the visuals? It knocks it all out of the park for a hell of an experience that shows that the developers truly used their seven years to create something incredible.

Pierre-Yves 2018 CrossCode Review

Overall, despite a few drawbacks and the infernal botanics menu, CrossCode is a really solid title that made me habitually forget I was playing it by myself. The characters are all pretty interesting and unique, the dungeons and puzzles are challenging but not impossible, and the combat is smooth. While there is a lot of menu lag and some of the quests can get a little frustrating, ultimately the latter is something you have to deal with in any RPG, and the former can be generally ignored by staying out of certain menu features. CrossCode is definitely worth checking out, and now that it's on the Switch, you can bring it with you too. If you're any fan of .Hack// or Trials of Mana, take a look into CrossCode, you'll probably be pleasantly surprised.

Score: 8 / 10

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CrossCode - PC Review

CrossCode may be my biggest surprise of the year. Following along with Lea, an amnesiac currently living inside of a fully immersive MMO, you'll follow along her adventures through a amazingly 16-bit inspired wonder filled world that feels as alive as Ara Fell did.

Having fully released on September 20th after a good seven years of development, in which half of it was spent in early access, I've had a good deal of time with it both before and after its release. The gameplay is absolutely solid and even now I'm hard pressed to say anything negative about it. Because there isn't anything negative to say.

Radical Fish Games have not only designed a retro looking world that would look amazing on a Super Nintendo, but they've created an experience that is solid by today's standards. Load times are almost non-existent, combat is extremely smooth, there are different sets of menu options for how little you need to do or how much customization needs to be done. They've even gone as far as to allow the switching of a controller's visuals from that of an Xbox's to that of a PlayStation's for it to feel more natural depending on your controller.

After what is essentially a super brief tutorial, the game starts in earnest in which you are slowly showed the ropes to the world that you'll be interacting with. CrossCode, like .Hack or Sword Art Online, simulate an MMO while still being at their core a single player and offline experience. Also, like the two mentioned, you are given a class instead of being allowed to choose your own path as you are playing a specific character and not a being of your own design. And you know what? I couldn't have been happier about this choice because of how it was done.

Being an RPG, you run around, follow story lines, complete quests, complete side quests and level up. As you level up, your base stats not only increase, but you are given points to use on a grid in order to customize Lea as you see fit. Do you want to be stronger? Tougher? More accurate as there's a blend of elements in the mix. Not only do you get to run around with a variety of melee attacks, you also have access to a system for ranged ones that aren't just tacked on, but are there as an actual combative option. You don't even need to hit anything in melee if you don't want to as the ranged system is just as powerful and often required to make your life easier.

Instead of simply using a twin-stick style to move and aim, aiming properly takes a few seconds to "calibrate". Once calibrated a powerful shot can be unleashed and this shot not only has knockback properties, but when an enemy is glowing red, it has the chance to "break" them allowing you to cause more damage. Once the elemental systems come into play more versatility is added as weaknesses can truly start to be exploited and your enemies set aflame for much more damage than you standard non-elemental weapons would do.

This is honestly just the tip of the iceberg. These systems play a role in the overall but the true performance goes into how the world is put together. Each "region" is seperated up into areas that are somewhat linear but often have pathways both in and out in which if you see something that you cannot get to? It's because you need to keep going and then find your way back. The world isn't flat either. Lea will be working with various elevations on her adventure hopping up and down hills and cliffs in order to get where she's going.

While exploring this is where you'll see enemies to fight, flora to smack in order to farm for materials and quests to pick up for a bit more experience and money. During these explorations though, Lea can hop from one surface over to another in order to make it further. This is done automatically but takes into account how fast she's moving. Move to fast? You may overshoot and lose HP to the fall whether it be an abyss or just a pond as she is teleported back onto the last solid surface. It can take some time in order to properly gauge how fast you should move but once you do, the world becomes a lot easier to navigate!

These ideas carry through into dungeons that will make any fan of the Legend of Zelda feel right at home with puzzles to solve, keys to find and doors to unlock. Using both of Lea's melee and ranged abilities is a must and often you may have to stop and think about something because it feels like it should be easy, but looks really hard, and turns out that it really was easy, but because of the design, you'll be overthinking it and over complicating it. Battles are thrown into the mix to spice things up a bit before often stellar giant boss battles that are always a lot of fun.

In regards to moving around the world though, CrossCode has a teleportations system that slowly unlocked as you move through and find points to teleport to. Basically your typical quick travel system to points of interest but the thing is that it's fast. By the time that the short animation is over, you're already in the next zone ready to move.


Throughout all of this though, and in the neat little details, is not only how fast that this is done, but that at the same time with monsters in the field, and petals or leaves floating around, other avatars are running around in parties or sitting around making the world feel alive. It makes it feel more than simply a bunch of landscapes to zoom through and in certain cases? Following these others could lead to figuring out how to get to a platform either to unlock a new area or to unlock one of these teleporters to make your future life easier.

Probably what I loved the most about CrossCode wasn't that Lea is an amnesiac and that she's exploring this virtual world brand newly, and for the "first time", but it's that her speech module is busted. So not only is she "damaged" because of some trauma, she also has other obstacles to get over and it's through the people that she meets on this journey that allow her to grow and open up even with a limited vocabulary that is slowly expanded by being hard coded into her digital avatar. Because of this, the dialog is very well written and the 2D avatars are extremely expressive carrying over the character's emotions whether they be sad, happy or reminiscing about the past through side dialog in the corner of the screen as you explore. It ties everything together, and it does it well without ever sacrificing another element to do so.

The last thing that I want to highlight are the nods to, everything. Avatar the Last Airbender and Sonic are two that I'll mention in particular to not super spoil anything but there are hedgehog enemies that made me think Sonic. Then eventually if you explore enough you'll encounter a blue one, that's a boss with a giant HP bar and once defeated? You get a chili cheese dog. Hell yes! So on top of a stellar unique world, there's also plenty of nods and pokes at other things to make the geek inside happy.

I've always been a huge fan of .Hack because it let me play an MMO in my solo single player style, offline, and, on my own time. CrossCode I feel has taken this a good notch higher and between the dialog, the dungeons, the exploration, the customizations, the puzzles and the visuals? It knocks it all out of the park for a hell of an experience that shows that the developers truly used their seven years to create something incredible.

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Radical Fish Games
Publisher(s):
Deck13
WhisperGames
DANGEN Entertainment
Mayflower Entertainment   
Genre(s):
Action
Adventure
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Sony PlayStation 4

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

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The Surge - Xbox One Review

When I first caught wind of The Surge a year or so ago I was immediately intrigued; after all Deck13 are the minds behind the success Souls-like pseudo-clone, Lords of the Fallen. Returning to the difficult twisted-dungeon crawling action-RPG genre, Deck13 brings us The Surge, a title steeped in high science fiction and it works. While I am a huge sucker for GrimDark fantasy of the Dark Souls games, the High Fantasy of Lords of the Fallen , the Cthulhu-esque setting of Bloodborne, or the Edo Period-esque world of Nioh, taking that same type of gameplay and placing it in a hard science fiction setting had my eyes alight with a ravening desire to play. After what seems to be an eternity, The Surge has released and goes to show that From Software and Team Ninja are not the only two that can do a punishingly good action-RPG.

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Obliteracers - PS4 Review

Obliteracers is the newest entry into the chaotic party vehicular combat genre, think Mario Kart meets Twisted Metal, but with 16 players and rockets instead of turtle shells or more open maps layouts, but with a few welcome twists. While the PC version supports up to 16 players via couch co-op, the PlayStation 4 version is limited to four local players; still with the amount of chaos that generally ensues with each race, 4 players can get quite lively.

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