Almost two months after
I announced I was putting my annoyingly titled #ADecadeofDS series on hold for a while (I know I said in that post it would only be back-burnered for a couple of weeks, but unfortunately life has intervened since then in a fairly aggravating way), I'm finally ready to return to it.
Actually, I returned to it first thing Monday morning, when I replaced the
My World, My Way cart that's been stuck inside my trusty red OG 3DS for the last eight weeks or so with the
Contact cart that I've been itching to play since I first picked it up just over two years ago.
In the meantime, I've put an hour and a half into this Grasshopper Manufacture-developed DS title--mainly while bussing to and from work each day. (Which means I should put a few more hours into it by the end of the week--and even more than that during the upcoming holiday weekend, especially since I'll be stuck in a car on more than one occasion.)
What do I think of it so far? My short and sweet response: I really like it. In fact, I think you could say I really, really like it--as along as you don't have an issue with me saying "really, really" in a blog post instead of something a smidge more descriptive.
In particular, I really, really like
Contact's aesthetics--its surprisingly disparate graphics, especially. At first, I couldn't but but bemoan the fact that the entire game didn't utilize the pixel-y,
EarthBound-esque look that depicts the professor's side of the story (not to mention screen).
After I let the experience settle a bit, though, my stance on the lower-screens more painterly approach to things softened to a pretty great extent, and now I'd even say I find it rather appealing. (Although I still prefer the decidedly 16-bit visuals used for the professor's portion of this charming-so-far adventure.)
I'm also fairly fond of what I've heard of
Contact's tunes, although emphasis has to be placed on "what I've heard." Playing the game on a noisy bus, even with headphones, isn't the best way to get a feel for the quality (or lack thereof) of a game's soundtrack.
As for this title's story and battle elements, I'm enjoying the former more than the latter at the moment. Of course, the story's enticingly mysterious right now, and its penchant for breaking the proverbial "fourth wall" is proving to be both engaging and entertaining, so my current preferences probably shouldn't be all that shocking.
That said,
Contact's battle scenes, which are of the hands-off variety in a way that brings
Xenoblade Chronicles to mind, while somewhat boring at the outset, eventually become sort of interesting, if not entirely thrilling. Who knows, though, maybe there are some surprises in store for me in this regard that I've yet to experience.
Have any of you played this 2006 (2007, if you're Australian or European) release? If so, what did you think of it?
Look for more of my impressions of
Contact early next week, by the way--in the form of my 10th #ADecadeofDS write-up.
See also: previous #ADecadeofDS posts