A co-op Sea of Stars voyage
Plus, Ys X: Nordics and (more) Diablo
Dragon Quest III got an HD remake this week, introducing a roleplaying forerunner to the broad international audience it lacked during its 1988 debut in Japan. But I want to talk about a different pixel RPG of more recent vintage.
More than a year after its release, Sea of Stars got a co-op update that my wife and I explored this week. Up to 3 players can now scamper around the game’s lush islands, which doesn’t necessarily make traversal any easier, but at least gives you extra manpower to hunt down collectibles.
Co-op combat is a bit bizarre. You don’t necessarily control your chosen party member — it’s randomized turn by turn — and every player can tap along to the game’s timed button prompts. The more in sync you are, the better you’ll do. While I appreciate how this keeps each player engaged, it’s jarring to lose direct control over characters.
But the Sea of Stars update got me thinking of other unexpected co-op experiences. The guy who brought Ys X: Nordics to Steam last month hacked together a co-op mode “developed by me personally with a budget of 0 €.” Its an impressive achievement that I’m surprised didn’t get more official support (the protagonists of Nordics are magically-handcuffed to each other, after all)!
While it took me longer than I’d like to set up, and while the game’s camera struggles to focus on both characters while they’re acting independently — Nordics is still a commendable two-player Action RPG.
My wife and I also polished off Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred this week, which I wrote about earlier for WBUR.org:
Vessel of Hatred leans into what surprised me most about Diablo IV: its story. On the grandest scale, it’s a game about an “eternal conflict” between heaven and hell and the desperate attempts to transcend it. But on a more personal level, it’s about a grizzled mentor forced to oppose his protege, a father regretting every decision that led to him losing his son, and a daughter, tormented by her mother’s betrayal, shouldering an impossible burden. […]
Despite this expansion’s clear aim to extend the game’s replayability, my colleague Alex Curley, who reviewed the main game for NPR, told me that he doesn’t think it “addresses players’ concerns about late game repetition, but the new campaign sure does make progressing through the first 50 character levels engaging.” As a more casual player, Vessel of Hatred has been a welcome couch co-op diversion for my wife and me. It’s not as seamless as I’d hope; I had to rely on helpful Blizzard folks to set it up after encountering Xbox glitches that, thankfully, don’t appear to be widespread.
All that said, I can’t blame anyone for getting off the Diablo IV treadmill. While this new campaign may be worth the $40, fans have long grumbled about the game’s expensive (and lucrative) cosmetic store. For my money, that’s the real “eternal conflict” at the heart of modern Diablo design.
Tech troubles and monetization scares aside, I can also report that the game gets so cluttered with enemies and animations that we often lost track of our characters. Diablo’s easier to parse as a single-player or online game, but I’ll keep playing it on the same screen whenever there’s new story content for my wife and me to enjoy.
Finally, I have to tip my hat to the remake of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, which at long last has built-in co-op for its two characters (unlike another recent game about brothers). While I’m recommending things, my colleague Vinny Acovino just reported on the new Nintendo Music app. Give a read or, ideally, a listen! It’s well worth the three and a half minutes.
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What else have your wife and you played coop?