Nate the Gamer

We have moved!

2010-05-09T18:46:00.001-04:00

So I have finally thought of a better title for this goofy blog! One that does not imply that I am the only or best gamer ever!

Rhythm Tree!

It might not make any sense, but that's not the point. All new posts will be over there. Thanks for reading!

Why I Love Kraid's Lair

2010-04-12T20:30:00.004-04:00

There is a thread over at Talking Time in which members of the forum nominate some of their favorite songs, and then vote for them in pairs to see which one comes out on top. I nominated Kraid's Lair from the original Metroid as my pick without even really giving it any thought. It has been one of my favorite videogame music tracks for as long as I can remember, despite clocking in at approximately 45 seconds.

Today it is up for voting again, and it looks like it is going to win, which makes me happy, obviously. But I've been thinking about why I nominated it - you see, my girlfriend recently played through Katamari Damacy and the soundtrack to that game is one of my favorites in a long, long time, but I still would have gone with Kraid's Lair over, say, Que Sera Sera or Angel Flavor's Present. But... why?

I could start with how Metroid was the very first videogame I ever played. And that would probably be enough to convince me, if it weren't for the fact that until I beat the game for the first time in highschool, I've had an almost religious connection to the game.

You see, the first video game I ever played was my cousin Mikey's copy of Metroid. I was probably 2 or 3 at the time, and he was probably only 9 or 10. He let me start the game and I remember him laughing because I couldn't even get out of the first room. He took over, and proceeded to get the Long Beam, some Missiles, and then the bombs, and then he got to where he had been stuck.

Kraid's Lair.

I remember watching him wander in that labyrinth for what seemed like hours. He had no idea where to go. I remember him telling me how awesome the game was, and how he liked how his little Metroid "guy" was so brave by going into this scary place to try to fight all the "aliens."

And I remember the music. Oh, the music. That droning, oppressive, scary, otherworldy music that was coming out of the TV was so weird, it felt like I really was with "Metroid" in "his" little low-color world. I eventually got my own NES and my own copy of Metroid, and it seemed like my playthroughs would always end in Kraid's Lair for one reason or another - I was too young to fully grasp where to go and the game was so darned obtuse I couldn't figure it out.

So I moved on, and so did Mikey. We would occasionally go back to that weird NES game, but never could get through it and I think we eventually lost our patience with it.

A few years later, when he was 15, my cousin Mikey decided he wanted to get high by huffing some paint in his dad's shed. So he did. He passed out, and ended up choking to death while out cold. It messed our family up something fierce, because he was such a great guy and we all loved him so much and it was heartbreaking to have to see how badly it affected my aunt.

When my mom explained to me how Mikey died, I was still too young to comprehend what he did. To me, it was if he was there, and then all of a sudden for reasons that didn't make any sense to me, he was gone. I remember thinking about all my favorite memories I had with him, and most of them involved us puzzling through videogames.

Including Metroid. I know he never beat it; they had put their NES in the attic a few years before Mikey passed anyway. Shortly after I died, I found myself back in Kraid's Lair, trying to get through it, trying to find that boss and kill him, for Mikey.

I failed. And failed. And failed. I just couldn't figure it out. That whole time, the music played and even now, when I hear it, it still evokes memories of Mikey and I lost in that place, trying to make sense of the weird depths of Kraid's Lair.

When my videogame skills improved in high school, I was finally able to push past Kraid's Lair. The boss himself took a few tries, but I was able to beat him. I was a man on a mission - I had to beat the game now. I pressed on, unable to stop, even though Ridley's Lair gave me no quarter and beat me down so hard I almost gave up. But I pressed on, and finally beat Mother Brain, and escaped Tourian, seeing the end credits for the first time.

I was 15; I cried like a 8 year old when I beat it, alone in my basement, thinking about Mikey. Had he still been alive, he probably wouldn't have cared; but since he was gone, I had all these memories of this game that he couldn't beat, and he seemed like the master of games. Here I had solved the game years later, and I felt like I finally lifted some weird weight off my shoulders. I had beaten the game for Mikey; I hadn't enjoyed playing Metroid much since I was little, and did it because I missed my cousin and wanted to pay tribute to him the only way I could think of.

So when I hear Kraid's Lair today, I have such a strong mix of emotions that I can't help but love the track. It is the perfect atmospheric 8-bit piece, so oppressive and lonely, and I can't help but think of my poor old cousin Mikey whenever I hear it. It's largely a happy track for me, too, now, despite it's somewhat morbid theme throughout my early life; I think this is because it evokes happy memories of falling in love with videogames while watching my big cousin play through them.

So rest in piece, Mikey. I wouldn't have fallen in love with this dumb little pastime if it weren't for you. I couldn't thank you enough.

A Pokemon Retrospective

2010-03-20T13:50:00.003-04:00

The experience I had with Pokemon Gold in 2000 was revelatory, and is really the reason I keep playing the main series to this day. I want to try to recapture the fun I had while playing it back then.

What did it for me was how there were a very good balance of new and old Pokemon, and how the old ones that were in Johto were some of the better designs from the original games made me think that they were really trying to refine the experience from Red and Blue. And when I beat the Elite Four and found out I could go back to Kanto and beat the original 8 gyms again I was enthralled. There haven't been too many moments like that in videogames for me; realizing that I was only halfway through a game in which I would have been satisfied already was a great feeling.

Thus, I expected bigger and better things when Ruby and Sapphire came out in 2003 for Game Boy Advance. I wasn't really interested in any of the new Pokemon, really. I was interested in how they would change the main game, and I was thoroughly disappointed. They stripped out the additional 8 gyms - you only had the 8 new ones they introduced in Hoenn, the new region. What new Pokemon were there seemed to be repeats of old Pokemon, and really the only thing I liked about those versions were the fairly involved quests to get the legendary Pokemon - they had entire areas devoted to getting them.

I played the FireRed and LeafGreen remakes a few times after Ruby and Sapphire and liked them well enough, but have since largely forgotten them. There was quite a break for me in regards to Pokemon until I bought Diamond in 2007 and delved into that game. This post from 2008 about how much I still loved the game a year after it had been released is basically what I can say about how much I liked Diamond.

So fast forward to 2010. Remakes of my favorite Pokemon games have come out, and I have purchased HeartGold. I didn't think I would be, but the Pokewalker excites me. I don't know what it is - I suppose the fact that I am raising Pokemon while working or rollerblading or whatever really makes me happy or what, but I love that little thing. I already even know how to change the battery in case it dies! As far as the game itself goes, I've only beaten two gyms so far and am playing Etrian Odyssey II much more since I got it last week. I'm not sure why, but I think it's because I'm getting very tired of the core Pokemon game experience. I've just done this same quest so many times (and I mean not just in Johto - all the Kantos, Hoenns, and Sinnohs all bleed together to me) that I just don't really care about beating Gyms any more. At least not right now. I would like to murder Red on top of Mt. Silver, and I probably will. I just think I'm going to play through this Pokemon much slower than I've played through the games in the past.

Strange Journey comes out in three days, but I'm not sure if I'll play that right away or hold off and beat Etrian Odyssey II first, since I've already started it and the games are very similar. I think I might need a SMT break as well, so I'll probably beat EOII and the Edgeworth game before I break open Strange Journey. I guess we'll see! After Strange Journey, it will be a while before I feel the need to buy a game at full price brand new for a long while so that will be nice on my wallet!

SMT: Nocturne, part 1

2010-03-11T21:39:00.002-05:00

I am about ten hours into Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne right now, and I'm enjoying it so far. The combat system seems to me to be a mix of Persona 4 and Devil Survivor (which is interesting because both those games came out after this one). This is because you have one human, and the rest of your party is made up of demons as in Devil Survivor. It is not a strategy RPG, of course, though, and battles play out using the "Press Turn" battle system, which was seen in slightly altered form in the Persona games. It is turn based, and places heavy emphasis on enemy weaknesses, and battles can sway from easy to extremely difficult very quickly if you screw up.

Similarities aside, the game does have a few problems, at least so far. What I had heard of the game's story before I played it made it sound amazing and dark; and I suppose it is, but it is presented very simply with very little exposition. You are one of (apparently so far) three or four human survivors of the apocalypse, and the world is being rebooted and the creatures left have to figure out how it will turn out. Since the overwhelming majority of creatures left seem to be demons, who knows how things will turn out?

Sounds like a pretty decent setting for an RPG, right? By and large, it is, but the story is so bare-bones I find I'm not very interested. Right now, I only care about the battle system, and leveling up my main character and demons, which again, works a lot like Devil Survivor.

As an aside, I really like how the SMT series plays with its mechanics. What I mean is, they don't stay the same from game to game, but build upon each other in interesting ways. You've got your live-action Devil Summoner stuff, your strategy RPG Devil Survivor stuff, and your dating-sim-like Persona stuff, all with demon fusing (and a little negotiation) thrown in. It makes the series very cohesive, even if the stories aren't related.

Anyway. March is looking to be like a very busy videogame month. Strange Journey comes out in two weeks, and Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver will be out in just a few days. I'm skipping out on Final Fantasy XIII for now because of these games, and I just ordered Etrian Odyssey II and the Miles Edgeworth games as well, which should both be here next week. Hopefully then I can write about something non-SMT for once this year!

SMT: Devil Survivor - Fin

2010-02-17T15:33:00.002-05:00

Today, I got the last ending in Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. I've gotten them all by now, and other than Yuzu's, I thought they were all pretty awesome. As far as which ending I prefer, I think I like Gin/Haru's or Atsuro's the best, because they seem to be what humans would do in that situation - make the best of things by themselves, without otherworldly interference. Or, at least, that's what I'd do.

One thing I'm disappointed in, though, is my inability to beat Lucifer. I probably could do it, but I never felt like grinding all my characters to 99 (including demons, which take much much longer to level up than humans) just to have a chance at beating him. The thing is a freaking BEAST (which I guess makes sense, seeing as how he's the devil and all) and Megidolaondyne is just unstoppable. Not to mention the fact that I would need a lot of luck to survive being raped by him anyway.

I was able to get all the demons, though, other than Lucifer of course, which is something I've never done in a SMT game. I also cracked all the skills other than Magic Yin, which doubles magic damage done (which would have been useful for Lucifer), but I don't feel like playing through the whole game again just to get that one skill. Maybe someday if I'm bored I'll play through it again but I think after five (!) playthroughs, I think I'm pretty much sick of the game at this point. Decent timing, too, because SMT: Strange Journey comes out in a few weeks, and I'm still fairly RPG hungry.

Oh, and after losing Keisuke during that first playthrough, I never let it happen again. Learned from that mistake, that's for sure! For my final playthrough, I ended with Nate at 99 with maxed Agility and Magic stats, Atsuro at level 99, Keisuke at level 99, and with the following demons at 99: Nyalathotep, Bishamon, Tao Tie, and Koumouku.

I suppose I don't have much else to say at this point about the game. It might be my favorite game of 2009, I'm not sure yet (New Super Mario Bros. Wii was fantastic, too, so who knows).

SMT: Devil Survivor, part 4

2010-02-01T23:06:00.002-05:00

I finished the game today. It was awesome. I had three choices by endgame: Yuzu's route, Naoya's route, and Gin/Haru's route. I went with the last choice. I couldn't bring myself to go the absolute evil route on my first playthrough, I guess, which is why I went the way I did. We'll see if I'm right, but I think I chose the "correct" route.

But anyway. I could not tell you the last time this has happened, but I am enthralled with this game. I just beat the game and I have not yet had my fill. I am going to play through the whole game again to get the other endings. Whether or not I get them all remains to be seen, but I started up a new game and it's pretty neat the way New Game + works in Devil Survivor.

From what I can gather, the demons I ended the game with are still mine for use - my level 65 Bishamon and Nyarlathotep are usable and are currently in my active party. It's comical, really - I used them in the first battle with my level 2 mains, and had the humans guard while the big demons cast Megido and Maragidyne and did like 10,000 damage to each demon. I'll probably fly through the first four or five days of this game as I am now, with just minimal leveling of the human characters to do.

And I can't wait. This game has easily become my favorite strategy RPG - above Shining Force II, believe it or not! That recommendation doesn't come easy from me, either, because even now I'll admit nostalgia blinds me for Shining Force II. Yet I know I like Devil Survivor more. It is a definite challenge, for one, and yet is breezy and fun to play.

And it has awesome freaking music, too. One of the best videogame soundtracks in a long time, I would argue - there is hardly two or three tracks I don't care for on the entire list, and even those are fairly decent. All on the little DS!

So anyway, I intend on playing through the game again and correcting the most glaring mistake I made during my first playthrough: Keisuke's death. I haven't decided which ending I'm going to go for yet (probably Naoya's, to be honest), but I don't care. Whatever I decide to do, I can't wait to get to the point where I'm fusing demons and trying to puzzle out how to demolish a battle again.

And I can't wait until Atsuro has Deathbound, Pierce, Phys Drain, Phys Jump, and Blitzkrieg again. That man is a freaking machine.

SMT: Devil Survivor, part 3

2010-01-22T03:37:00.002-05:00

God fucking dammit.

You know, for someone who claims to be able to notice subtlety in videogames, I certainly miss it at crucial times.

Here's the deal. It's Day 5. This guy Kaido wants to kill my former teammate Keisuke, but he can't find him. Around the same time, Keisuke and this woman Mari (Kaido's love interest!) are in danger. If Mari has this item in this bag you find, she is able to kill the demon threatening her. You find her bag, and are given a choice: give it to Mari, or keep it and give it to someone else.

The game had been telling me to create some sort of distraction for Kaido so he won't go off and kill Keisuke at 13:00. Stupid me didn't realize that the bag is the distraction! If you give it to Kaido, he'll run off and save Mari, and you'll be able to save Keisuke.

Guess what I did. I gave the bag to Mari because when I originally went to go find it, she told me she needed it to kill the demon. Seemed simple and harmless enough at the time. So I get the bag, get in the battle, save Mari as she kills the demon she wanted to kill, and I'm all "Okay, now to go save Keisuke," and I get there and then watch Kaido kill him.

Since I pretty much save before every battle and since this game has only one save file, I'm screwed if I want to save them both now unless I start over. Which is a stupid idea, I obviously won't. I'm going to ride my stupid decision out and see where it takes me. Maybe I'll go kill God after all, just to spite the freaking bag. Or something. I don't know.

SMT: Devil Survivor, part 2

2010-01-21T21:14:00.002-05:00

I am in Day 5 of Devil Survivor so far, and from what I gather on the GameSpite boards, I'm slightly overleveled. I'm okay with that though! I'm not doing it to break the game, I'm doing it because I'm having fun. I'm sure the game is slightly easier because of this, but oh well - so far, I feel like the difficulty is just right.

I can tell the game is getting tougher quickly, though. The enemies are starting to get some nasty powers such as Holy Dance (Almighty damage dealt randomly to different party members) and Makajamaon (high chance of Mute on all party members). That last one in particular has been giving me some headaches, that's for sure. It can actually turn the tide of a battle fairly quickly!

One of the things I'm guilty of in this game is not having a very large backup demon roster. I usually fuse the guys I want to use, then go into battle. So if one of them dies, and I summon another guy, he is usually level bullshit and gets demolished by a light breeze. I really need to remember to keep a stable of backup demons just in case. I've gotten screwed over a couple times because I forget, too.

One of the things I love about the SMT series is that now that I have played through a few games, when I see a new demon, I have an idea of what it is capable of. For example: I know when I see Thor to expect a badass thunder-wielding physical powerhouse (and I have gone out of my way to make sure I get him in each game)! This has given me a leg-up on some of the battles in Devil Survivor. Since I typically know what strengths and weaknesses certain demons have, battles are somewhat easier because I can exploit them better. The same goes for spell names, too - I knew what Makajamaon was going to do before it hit me that first time.

I just wish I was getting more powerful spells, though. I don't have access to any -dyne spells (the most powerful elemental spells end in -dyne, such as Agidyne, which is fire) yet and my Mazio, Mabufu, Maragi, and Mazan are getting a little weak (all multi-target spells start with Ma-). From what demons I know I'll be unlocking next, one of them has Agidyne - but it's Magic stat is way to low to be useful, really! Oh well. I'll fuse him with some other guys and spread that -dyne around as much as I can.

Storywise, I'm intrigued to see where this goes - supposedly, I have some big decision to make soon. From what I gather, it is basically do I want to: A. Become the King of the World and rule with my badass demons, B. Kill God and eliminate angels and demons from the world, or C. neutralize both angels and demons and banish the real bad guys from the world. Usually I would choose C in games like these because they are The Good Way, but that B looks mighty fine... I've never killed God in a videogame before. I don't mean, like, a God, either. I mean, GOD. Like Yahweh God.

And even if that means I turn into a heartless murderer, it would make for an awesome ending. And there's always New Game +, which will allow me to play through the game again with all the demons I already had unlocked (amongst other things)! So I can easily go get those other endings.

SMT: Devil Survivor, part 1

2010-01-19T03:22:00.003-05:00

Until I purchased Persona 3 last year on a whim after hearing about the series on a December 2008 podcast, I had never heard of the Shin Megami Tensei series. I wasn't even sure if I'd like it, as it had been a while since I had enjoyed a really tough RPG, and I had not played anything like Persona 3.

Fast forward to today. I now am on Atlus' e-mail list, something I typically despise, to follow as closely as I can when they release any games in this series. Every one I've played so far has been unique, interesting, and completely unlike any other games out there.

So after I had beat Persona 3 and had just gotten Persona 4, Atlus released a game called "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor" for the DS. I picked it up, because I know how long Atlus games typically stay on shelves: not very long. The game is a strategy RPG, mostly in the vein of games like Final Fantasy Tactics or Shining Force. There is a few (okay, a lot) of twists, though. When a unit walks up to an enemy and engages it, you enter a separate screen and actually fight like in a Dragon Quest game. But you only get one (two if you fight well) rounds of attacks before the control goes back to the field as a whole.

Yeah, it's pretty weird. The game is split up into (as far as I can tell) 7 days. Your characters are trapped in a lockdown in Tokyo, and you have no idea why at first. You soon discover that your cousin has given you devices called COMPs, which can summon demons. You then set out to figure out what the hell is going on, and to survive the dangers you encounter.

When I first started playing the game, I got stuck in a late Day 2 battle where I had to protect a bunch of defenseless civilians from demons but also not let any demons leave the playing field through the northeast exit. This is a bitch and a half, and so far has been the most difficult battle for me. It doesn't help that the demons always target the civilians and the civilians always run around stupidly.

But anyway, I hated that battle and put the game down, only returning to it a few days ago because I was craving some difficult RPG action. I had started raising a new character in Etrian Odyssey to explore the last stratum that you find after the main story boss, but that was stupid and boring. So on a whim I decided to work hard on Devil Survivor.

And it has paid off. Rather than try to blow through the game without grinding (I read somewhere, likely on the GameSpite message boards, that you should never have to grind in a Shin Megami Tensei game. As it turns out, I am not an idiot savant like that guy), I have been slowing down and grinding when I need to. And, more importantly, I've shaken off a habit that I think I got from the Pokemon games: that is, I quickly get rid of old demons to upgrade to new ones that are more powerful, rather than try to raise my old ones. It took playing through both Persona games to learn that, and it still sometimes bothers me, but what are you going to do - the game is designed this way.

I'm now at somewhere around 14:00 in Day 3 and I'm loving it so far. I think I have a very tough battle coming at the end of the day, so who knows how frustrating that will be. I hope the game keeps these "protect so-and-so" battles to a minimum - they are annoying as hell and not fun at all.

I Feel Like Ranting

2010-01-15T01:24:00.003-05:00

There are several games that go for upwards of $100 on eBay, and have since the site's inception. I just have one question.

Why don't publishers port the games to current systems?!

It makes no sense to me, when games like Suikoden II are selling for almost $200 used and Konami isn't releasing it anywhere. Not even a downloadable port! This is a Playstation 1 game. How hard can it be to make the thing run on current systems?! Hell, I bought the first Suikoden when it was released on PSN for just $6 just because it didn't cost one million dollars. I would do the same for Suikoden II, Konami! Come on!

I can understand why games like Panzer Dragoon Saga aren't being ported, though - Saturn emulation is incredibly hard to do. That game will probably eternally cost upwards of $200 and only get more expensive as more and more people buy it and then let it sit on their shelves for eternity. Hopefully somebody can figure out how to emulate the freaking Saturn so I can play it!

Earthbound, though. Earthbound! How is it possible that Nintendo has this game just sitting around and they aren't even releasing it on Virtual Console?! I would buy a $35 remake for DS! Hell, I'd pay $50 for a Wii remake! Nintendo says it's just because the game didn't sell well when it was first released here for SNES. NEWSFLASH, Nintendo! RPGs hadn't really taken off in America at the time! And do you remember your ad campaign? You put scratch and sniff fart cards in magazines! I remember thinking as a kid, "Well this game looks stupid. It's about smelling farts and looks like an original Nintendo game!" I was like eight at the time! How can you not sell a game to an eight year old that has farts in it?! You bungled your marketing hardcore, that's how. So how about rereleasing it and giving it another chance? You have a Game Boy Advance sequel that you could release, too, say, as a WiiWare or DSiWare title, also! Can you do that for me?

Can you do that so I don't have to pay eighty stupid dollars for your SNES game on eBay? That could be your money, Nintendo!

"The After Years" and DLC. Also, Castlevania Post-mortem

2010-01-09T03:14:00.002-05:00

I've had the first part of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years downloaded to my Wii for quite a few months now. I think I might have even downloaded it on its day of release. I played it for a few hours, then promptly ignored it until a few days ago.

I'm not sure what it was that made me boot it up again. I think I wanted to listen to a podcast or something while playing a videogame, and was sick of Mario at the time (it took me forever to find a coin in a level in World 6 and I was pissed off about it) and so I just booted it up.

Well, that was costly.

I beat the game (well, the first part of it anyway) and have now downloaded the next four parts at three bucks a pop. Luckily, I had some points left over on the Shop Channel. Regardless, I now have beaten two of the four DLC things - Rydia's Tale and Yang's Tale. I'm now playing through Palom's Tale and am probably close to beating it, honestly. They are pretty quick jaunts, about an hour or so each.

And for the most part, I'm enjoying myself. The most glaring problem? The encounter rate is ridiculously high! So high that I sometimes cannot stand playing the game because there have been numerous times where I've moved two spaces and then have to fight another battle!

The other problem is that each chapter is wildly different from the last in terms of party makeup. I hated playing through Rydia's Tale because there's her and her goofy dwarf friend and neither one of them have any healing spells. So I have to grind for cash and then buy a bunch of potions to heal. Then there is the chapter I'm on now: I have two mages in my party, one who can use White Magic, while both can use Black - and that's great! Only problem is, battles take longer because I have to watch the stupid magic animation play out every time, because neither one of them can hit for any damage above like 10, when they're able to hit at all with their physical attacks. It's pretty annoying!

But I really like seeing what happened to all these characters after Final Fantasy IV. Meeting the sons and daughters of characters like Cecil and Rosa is pretty neat (even when they name their kid Ceodore - that has got to be a translation error or something. What a stupid name!). There are a few nice touches, too - when there is a flashback to Final Fantasy IV, the sprites of all the characters revert to the old SNES style - the exact sprites that game used. It's subtle, but appreciated. And the graphics that remain are decent! They remind me a lot of Final Fantasy V, actually - somewhere in between FFIV and FFVI in polish - with slightly larger character sprites. And the music is basically FFIV's soundtrack, which was good. Some remixes would have been nice, though.

At any rate, I'll finish it one of these days.

I also played through and beat Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth today too! Finally figured out how to beat that final form of Dracula. It wasn't that hard and I'm somewhat embarrassed that I died on him as many times as I did that first time. The game took me about an hour to beat, and I discovered that I now have a stage select! Which is great because I'm already sick of the first two stages. Not a whole lot to say about the game that hasn't already been said - it's a solid Castlevania game, one that I'm sure I'll revisit periodically.

What I've Been Playing

2010-01-05T01:23:00.003-05:00

So I got to the last boss in Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth the other day. I didn't beat him, because I died plenty of times on his final form (the third one) and I had stopped hurting him for some reason so I quit after like 20 tries.

This would have been fine if the game had a quicksave feature, so I could go right to Dracula and try again. It does not, though, so I haven't really played the game since. Someday, I will go back and actually beat it. Overall, it was definitely worth the ten bucks - a brand new Castlevania game in the old style with good level design? Yes please! Not much to say other than what already has been said, unfortunately.

I also beat New Super Mario Bros Wii tonight! That last level is epic. Probably my favorite moment in the game, and probably one of the best experiences I've had in a Mario game ever. I don't want to spoil too much, but it is intense and you have to put all your platforming skills to work. I had heard that the Bowser encounter was great, and it delivered. I would really like to try it with four people, though - would it even be possible?!

It would if you were badass.

Anyway, so now I'm going back through the levels and collecting all the Star Coins so I can play the secret levels. I already unlocked the first and second one, and played through the first, and it was pretty neat. Hopefully the secret levels get more awesome as I unlock more.

I'd also like to point out that certain elements of this game really resemble Yoshi's Island. I don't just mean Kamek messing around with the bosses, either. I mean many of the levels in World 8 seem like they would fit right in Yoshi's Island - from the rolling lava waves to the very tricky, precise, slow platforming found in many of the more difficult levels throughout the game really make the New Super Mario Bros. Wii seem like it builds a lot off of Yoshi's Island. And considering I had already said it builds off Super Mario World, it really has an amazing pedigree.

I have a feeling I'll be playing through this game much more often than New Super Mario Bros. DS. On to collect the Star Coins!

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is Amazing

2009-12-30T15:45:00.002-05:00

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is why I play videogames.

Well, I mean, you know. Not like, the only reason or anything. But I mean, this game is fantastic. This game capitalizes on everything New Super Mario Bros. DS did not and expands on it as well.

First of all, this game is no cakewalk. There is difficulty! And not cheap difficulty where stuff comes from offscreen and kills you - this game uses clever level design to trap you. The levels are usually built in such a way to utilize whatever the particular gimmick might be. The first two worlds basically introduce all the new power-ups - the Penguin Suit (a refined, more fun version of the blue turtle shell from NSMBDS), the Ice Flower (let's you freeze enemies, then either use them as platforms or pick them up and throw them), and the Propeller Suit(lets you have a huge boost to your jump once per jump). These power-ups are actually fun, too! Not boring and stupid like the Mega Mushroom from NSMBDS.

So I'm in World 5 right now, and the two levels before the mid-castle were tough. I died like ten times - which I'm fairly certain is more than I ever died in the DS game. And I was happy to do so! I'm glad Nintendo has finally relocated their collective testicles and made a game intended for a wide audience not be such a freaking cakewalk.

What's that? Wide audience, you say? Yeah, they intend for this game to be sold to a lot of people. There is a multiplayer component, you see, and it is not insubstantial. Anyone can play at any time in the main game - meaning your girlfriend or whoever can join in and be Luigi (or one of the Toads if you have more than one girlfriend, you dog, you) as you play!

Guys, guys - it works.

I've done it. Skill level is irrelevant here, too - my girlfriend is pretty good at videogames (and sure showed up my cousin at NSMBWii, as I tried multiplayer with him first), and didn't have too much trouble up until the second world, where there are these sand spout things you have to stand on to get by. She was slightly intimidated by them - so I said screw it, picked her up and carried her to the end of the level. Done! We resumed the next level and went on. You can do that at any time - if one player is better at a particular obstacle than another, they can just pick up the other guy and go for it. And if someone dies? They reappear in a bubble and can just pick up where they left off as long as everyone on the screen doesn't die. To be honest, I never thought multiplayer Mario would work. But it does, and it is so much fun.

And the fanservice! This game perfects the art. It isn't incredibly self-referential - there are plenty of new ideas here - but there are throwbacks to all sorts of awesome things. Yoshi is back - and he works just like he did in Super Mario World (although without being able to sport different powers if he eats different Koopa shells, unfortunately). The Koopa Kids have returned, as well. In fact, the game really feels like the true sequel to Super Mario World. There's no cape or anything, but I just get this general feeling like that is what they were going for. I'll probably elucidate further on that later, though.

Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth Initial Impressions

2009-12-28T22:40:00.003-05:00

So for Christmas, my mom got me a set of Scrubs DVDs that I had already seen, so I opted to take them back. I then decided to download Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth since I noticed it came out today and I had been looking forward to it.

And I'm impressed! The music sounds like it was programmed for the Genesis - and I mean programmed well. It isn't as tinny as you might expect, either. The song selection seems mostly new - I didn't recognize too many tunes, which is also unexpected - I guess I thought that they would just remix a bunch of old songs like they usually do.

The level design is really impressive as well. The difficulty curve is almost perfect. The first few levels aren't tough, and they teach you the mechanics very well. The enemies all have a very recognizable pattern - bosses included.

The game isn't perfect, of course. It is apparently pretty short - not a surprise, though, since this is a traditional level-based Castlevania game. It is meant to be replayed, as evidenced by the multiple paths through each level. Also, when you pick up a new subweapon, you are forced to get rid of your old one, regardless of whether you want to or not. Though they had the ability to pick up your old one in Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night (and several others), they don't have that here. It is very annoying when, say, you'd like to keep your boomerang but accidentally pick up a knife because you're jumping and happen to whip a candle and pick the item up unintentionally.

But boy - I've heard these other Konami ReBirth games have been received pretty well, and I must say, I'm very impressed with this one. Mega Man 9 really set the tone for all these companies, and I'm thankful for it - keep giving us new games in the old school style that don't suck, please!

Majora's Mask: Unapologetically Unsettling

2009-12-24T11:00:00.002-05:00

(As I've been pondering why Spirit Tracks isn't as good as previous Zeldas, I found this old blog post I wrote for my blog over on 1up earlier this year - March, to be precise. Why I posted it there and not on this blog I'm not sure. But I'm putting it here because I'm very proud of it. It's a long read though, and kind of pretentious. But who cares. Enjoy.)

This article contains HUGE SPOILERS about Majora's Mask – you have been warned!

It is evident immediately upon starting Majora’s Mask that this game is nothing like any other Zelda game. The previous Nintendo 64 Zelda, Ocarina of Time, opened with a calm horseback ride with pleasant music. Yet here, after the eponymous mask itself spins onscreen, the player is shown a curious character known as the Happy Mask Salesman holding the mask aloft much like Link would when he finds a treasure – but rather than play the familiar Find Item tune, you hear the man oddly chuckle. The introductory video to the game’s locale then begins with cheery music, showing a typical day in Clock Town, its residents going about their business. Once the time of day in the video changes to night, however, the player is shown the Skull Kid, the main enemy, wearing Majora’s Mask, and the music plays a snippet of the disturbing Skull Kid’s Theme while the camera pans out further to reveal a deranged looking moon. It is at this point that the game’s title appears, to drive the point home that this game is going to be a rather unsettling affair.

Once a file is created and the game proper is started, the opening video lays out the back story. Link has become a legend in Hyrule, and is in search of a “beloved and invaluable friend” – Navi, apparently, judging by the fairy sound that is heard immediately after that text appears on screen. Link is then shown for the first time, riding Epona through a foggy forest (the Lost Woods, perhaps? It is never made entirely clear). He appears to have been riding for a long time, as he is slumped in his saddle and generally looks tired. Epona stops and Link looks around, presumably to try and get his bearings, when two fairies startle Epona, who knocks Link off her back. The Skull Kid wearing Majora’s Mask then appears out of thin air and tells the fairies they did great, and wonders if Link “has anything good on him.” The Skull Kid then goes up to an unconscious Link and robs him of the Ocarina of Time, and attempts to play it. While he does that, the personality of the two fairies are first revealed. The purple fairy, Tael, has a personality very similar to Navi from Ocarina of Time – positive, curious, and nice, whereas Tatl seems to be the opposite – negative, impatient, and kind of a bitch. At this point, if the player tries to guess which of these fairies will be journeying with them, it is safe to think that most of them probably assume the upbeat Tael will be coming, because they are used to the personality of that fairy given the fairy they had during the last game. But as the player will soon discover, the nature of the game necessitates that it will of course be Tatl.

At this point, Link wakes up and attempts to catch the Skull Kid, but fails – the Skull Kid steals Epona and rides off, but Link is able to grab one of Epona’s legs. Link falls off as the Skull Kid rides into a door in a tree stump, and the player is given control of Link for the first time. Link follows the Skull Kid into the doorway, and falls down a deep dark hole. He lands on a pink flower, and the Skull Kid, along with the two fairies, is floating before him. It laughs, and tells Link that he got rid of his “stupid horse” – forcing the player to ask, “What happened to Epona?!” Then, he makes fun of Link (and by extension, the player) for being sad at this notion – “Aw, boo hoo – why the sad face? I just thought I’d have a little fun with you.” Then, the Skull Kid starts to do something to Link, and as he does so, it appears Link is in great pain. Then a very blurry sort of dream sequence is shown where Link is surrounded and chased by Deku scrubs. When Link comes to, he has been transformed into a morose-looking Deku scrub. This scene mirrors the scene in Ocarina of Time in which Link awakens after pulling the Master Sword out of its pedestal for the first time to find himself to be seven years older. But the difference this time (besides the end result of the transformation, of course) is the tone. In Ocarina of Time, when the player first discovers they have aged and are now an adult, the player is meant to feel empowered and excited to try out the older Link’s abilities – here, the player feels confusion and is likely put off by this transformation. This is a great example of the way Majora’s Mask subverts expectations. The Skull Kid leaves, and Tatl hits Link, preventing him from giving chase. The door slams shut, and Link and Tatl are left in the room. Tatl begins yelling at Link, blaming him for being separated from Tael and the Skull Kid, and tells Link to open the door for her.

Tatl is an important character to analyze. Remember, the beginning of Link’s journey was to find his upbeat fairy partner from Ocarina of Time, Navi. Link finds a fairy, but again, rather than the happy, energetic, nice one, he gets the opposite – a mean, impatient bitch of a partner, who berates everyone she talks through throughout the game (even her brother, the fairy Tael). One of the most famous lines of dialogue from the game is when she tells a NPC “Oh my. I pity you,” and offers no further comment on their plight. It’s interesting to note that Tatl and Midna from Twilight Princess share many personality quirks, although admittedly, Midna is much more fleshed out in her game (out of necessity, really – Midna is much more important to the story of her game than Tatl is to hers). Thus the dynamic Link shares with Tatl is completely opposite from the last fairy he partnered with.

So, after learning to fly using the pink Deku Flowers, Link goes through a twisty hallway similar to the one in the Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time, and finds himself in Termina. Note the name; throw an L at the end and you’ve got Terminal – doesn’t imply a very cheery place, does it? Link starts out in Clock Town, named for the giant clock in its center. Once Link exits the clock tower, the ever-ticking clock is first shown at the bottom of the screen. This is the central conceit of the game: Link has three in-game days to complete his adventure, which translate to about a half hour of real time to a day of game time. If he doesn’t save Termina within the three day period, the giant moon shown in the game’s title screen crashes into Termina and, well, terminates it. Of course, since Link quickly gets his Ocarina of Time back, this means that every time he plays his the Song of Time, he goes back to the beginning of the first day – while only keeping key items he collected throughout that particular three-day period. All events revert to their original state when he goes back in time. This means that any sidequests he undertakes will reset, along with any dungeon progress he has made that doesn’t include getting the dungeon item or beating the dungeon boss (dungeon maps, compasses, small keys, and boss keys all disappear when the three day period starts over, and all unlocked doors become locked again, etc.).

Since Majora’s Mask was released for the Nintendo 64 two years after Ocarina of Time, Nintendo opted to reuse assets from Ocarina. At first glance, this would seem to be a lazy, cost-cutting measure on Nintendo’s part – and while it may be true that Nintendo was trying to save money, they certainly justify it in game. The NPCs from Hyrule are all in Termina, but they all play new roles here – none of the characters (except for, possibly, the Skull Kid) recognize Link from his last adventure. So the Cucco Lady from Kakariko is now the proprietor of the Stock Pot Inn, Talon is now the bartender at the Milk Bar in Clock Town, Koume and Kotake (who were actually bosses from Ocarina) now run businesses in the Southern Swamp, and there are plenty more. Of course, none of these characters are actually FROM Hyrule; they just look like the characters Link saw in his last adventure. So why bring this up? Because whenever the player sees a familiar character, they are usually doing something that they would not have been doing in Ocarina – like Koume selling potions to Link, for example – which is yet another way Majora's Mask unsettles it's players.

So what does Link have to do in this land called Termina? Well, to stop the moon from crashing, he has to go to the dungeons in the four cardinal directions and awaken the gods that are imprisoned in them. That’s right – there are only four dungeons in Majora’s Mask, and while they are fantastic dungeons, it should be noted that Majora's Mask isn’t a particularly long Zelda game. To get to all these dungeons, though, Link has to obtain different masks to transform into different races – he starts with the Deku Mask, and then gets the Goron Mask and the Zora Mask. Each of these races give Link different powers, and none of them use Link’s sword to attack. The Deku can shoot bubbles which can cause a little damage, and it can also spin attack to hit enemies, in addition to being able to fly when using a Deku Flower. Goron Link can roll into a ball and, using magic power, make spikes jut out from his body and start rolling at high speeds to crash into enemies and fly off jumps. Zora Link can swim at high speeds and generate an energy shield, while also being able to use two of his fins like boomerangs.

Obtaining these masks, however, is sad and unsettling every time. The Deku Mask is obtained when Link is transformed into a Deku at the beginning of the game, and it initially seems as though that’s it – but before he reaches Termina, Link goes past a very sad looking tree. During the ending credits, a character known as the Deku Butler is seen in front of this tree, crying – implying that this tree is his son, and that his son died so Link could transform into the Deku. When Link obtains the Goron mask, it is after hearing the sad tale of the dead Goron hero, Darmani, who died trying to save his people. Darmani was not able to stop Goron Village from freezing over, and his regrets carry over to his death – he ceases to be a ghost so Link can turn into him and hopefully put an end to his pain. Link finds a dying Zora floating in the Great Bay and pushes him to shore, where he tells Link his story, how he was trying to save his girlfriend’s Zora eggs, but couldn’t due to being unable to traverse the now extremely cloudy sea. Link watches him die after hearing his story. He receives the Zora mask, and then proceeds to (in what I’m sure is a series first and last) bury the dead body, and erect a rudimentary gravestone. It is surprising how morbid a Zelda game from the year 2000 on the Nintendo 64 can be, isn’t it?

Speaking of morbidity, the most involved sidequest in the game is particularly heart-wrenching. It takes Link the entirety of the three day cycle to complete it. This sidequest involves reuniting the lovers Kafei and Anju. It appears that the Skull Kid transformed Kafei into a child and later, a thief stole his wedding mask, and Kafei goes into hiding because he promised Anju he would meet her on the day of the carnival with the wedding mask in hand. Link first has to spend a day to locate Kafei for Anju, exchange letters and items between the two for a day, then follow Kafei to the thief’s hideout on the last day to complete a quick set of puzzles to obtain the lost mask for Kafei. Once this is done, there is literally six in-game hours (which translates to roughly six minutes in real time) before the moon crashes into Termina, and Link must go meet the two characters who finally reunite a mere hour before the moon comes crashing down. What is interesting about this sidequest is that while Link can play the Song of Time and escape certain death, Kafei and Anju cannot. They meet up just to be together when they both die. This is certainly touching, in a way, but again, fairly morbid for a Nintendo game.

As the game draws to a close and Link summons the four gods to stop the Skull Kid, the gods prevent the moon from crashing. But Majora’s Mask drops the Skull Kid’s body like a rag doll and enters the moon’s mouth. Link follows the mask into the moon and unexpectedly finds himself in a meadow. It is a huge, sunny, bright green field, populated by butterflies and bright green grass, with a giant tree in the middle on top of a slight hill. Around the tree are running four kids, each wearing one of the four masks Link obtained in the dungeons. When Link talks to them, they tell them they want to play hide and seek and teleport Link to a small dungeon with puzzles based on each of Link’s forms. When they have all been found, the last kid teleports Link to the last boss.

Majora’s Mask itself is fought in a flamboyant rainbow colored room. It has three forms – Majora’s Mask, Majora’s Incarnation, and Majora’s Wrath. Majora’s Mask floats around the room and tries to spin into Link. Majora’s Incarnation flamboyantly dances around the room while making strange, childlike noises. Majora’s Wrath tries to whip Link to death. Each form is fairly easy, both with the ultimate Fierce Deity Mask (obtained by finding all the other masks in the game) and without. When Link finishes off Majora’s Wrath, the game ends, and the fate of the Termina inhabitants is shown (depending, of course, on how many people the player helps and how many masks they got). For the most part, the fate of the characters of this game end up fairly positive, with the possible exception of two: the Deku Butler mentioned earlier, and Link himself.

Link wakes up outside Clock Town, in Termina Field. He sees the Skull Kid, without Majora’s Mask, looking up at the giant gods. The Skull Kid realizes the gods hadn’t forgotten about him and begins crying out of shame for the acts he committed. He then asks Link to be his friend. The Happy Mask Salesman has gotten Majora’s Mask back, and apparently, the evil left it. He asks Link, “Shouldn’t you be heading home, too?” As he walks away, Tatl talks to Link. “Well, both of us have gotten what we were after… So this is where you and I part ways, isn’t it? You know… it was kind of fun. Well, it’s almost time for the carnival to begin… So, why don’t you just leave and go about your business? The rest of us have a carnival to go to.” Pretty cold, for what Link and Tatl have been through together. Link gets on Epona, takes one look at yet another fairy friend he must part with, and rides off. To herself, Tatl quietly thanks Link as he rides away. The carnival starts, and the fate of the rest of the Termina characters is shown. It should be noted that even Tatl notices how Link doesn't really belong in Termina - rather than want him to attend the carnival with everyone, she tells him to leave.

To end the game, the scene showing the Deku Butler crying in front of what is presumably his dead son’s body is shown. Then, the scene shifts back to Link. He is back on Epona, back in the forest he started the game in, and he looks tired again. He rides off, and a tree stump is shown with a drawing of Link, the Skull Kid, Tatl and Tael, and the four giants. “The End” appears on screen, along with a brief ocarina solo of Saria’s Song from Ocarina of Time – probably to imply that Link is lost again, as Saria’s Song is the song of the Lost Woods.

There are more examples to prove my point, but a pattern throughout this article should be apparent by now – that the Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is a game about subverting expectations. Not just about subverting the expectations of Zelda as a series, either, but of video games as a whole. Majora’s Mask is proof that video game sequels do not have to be more of the same. That what is familiar can easily become creepy and unsettling. That saving the world can be personal, too. Although they are enjoyable games in their own right, it’s too bad the Zelda games that have come out since Majora’s Mask haven’t dared to be as unsettling and interesting as Majora’s Mask.

Spirit Tracks, pt. 3 - General Bitchery

2009-12-20T15:38:00.006-05:00

I knew I would get sick of this stupid train eventually.

I've had this Zelda game for 11 days! There is absolutely no reason I why I should not have plowed through it at least a few days ago. Yet, there that train sits, the single reason why I can't bring myself to play the game for more than an hour or so at a time.

I ran into the same problem with Wind Waker and (especially!) Phantom Hourglass. The boats and trains and whatever Nintendo comes up with next to replace a traditional Zelda overworld simply do not work. They don't fit! Every time I think to myself "Oh man that dungeon was awesome, I can't wait to get to the next one" I have to ride the stupid train for twenty minutes. And it is boring as hell! I do not understand why Nintendo puts this crap in the games - just sick of creating a typical overworld? You do not have to pack the overworld with a bunch of crap you guys! Just let me run my ass across Hyrule field or whatever. Or let me run most of the time, and occasionally ride a train or occasionally ride a boat! That would be awesome.

But no, everyone. God forbid Nintendo give a full budget to their handheld teams. And I must say - the graphics of this Zelda are underwhelming, now that I've stared at them long enough. The textures are repetitive and boring - the grass pattern is basically just green with a few sprites of individual grass blades tossed here and there. I already bitched about the dungeon design, and when you view any of the 3-D models up close they look horrible. Final Fantasy III and IV for DS looked much better - the 3-D models were still a little janky, but at least the world design was much more interesting!

And other than a very few standouts (like two tracks), the music is underwhelming as well. I don't need a full orchestra by any means, but for god sakes just compose something interesting!

I want to like these games so much and I'm trying but dammit it is so hard to when they are so lazy with their design.

Click here for my second post about Spirit Tracks. Click here for the first one.

Spirit Tracks, pt. 2 - Regarding Cohesiveness

2009-12-11T17:56:00.006-05:00

I realized why the dungeons in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks feel somewhat off to me. Why they don't seem as sprawling or as cohesive as the dungeons in the older top down Zeldas.

When you entered a room in any of the non-3D Zelda games, the screen locked in such a way so you could not see any other rooms in the dungeon on the screen, no matter where you placed Link. In both Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, however, you can see any area of any room of any dungeon if Link can get up against the wall. I imagine that this was done out of necessity because of the controls - it would be harder to make Link move around if he was constantly on the very edge of the screen, with your hand covering most of the screen.

Yet, I'm unsatisfied with how I can see other rooms in the dungeon so easily. I know it sounds like I want the game to be more "realistic" and that isn't the case. I mean, this is a game that breaks the 4th wall unabashedly. It just bothers me that as I run around a dungeon, I can see so much else - I wonder if they would have blocked out other rooms with blank screen if I would have felt the same way.

Hard to say. Anyway, my progress thus far in Spirit Tracks - I just beat the second dungeon and int it I picked up the Boomerang, which controls just like it did in Phantom Hourglass - which is cool because it was fun in that game. One thing I've noticed so far in Spirit Tracks, though, is that you actually have to use items from other dungeons! I used the whirlwind thing several times in the second dungeon. In fact, it served as a propeller of sorts for when I was floating on a block in water! Sure, it isn't the first time that has been done in a Zelda game (the Deku Leaf in Wind Waker would be my guess for the first), it is still a good sign that Nintendo reeled in this Zelda and tried to really improve it over Phantom Hourglass.

Click here for my first Spirit Tracks post.

Initial Impressions of the Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

2009-12-10T22:29:00.003-05:00

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is an enormous improvement over Phantom Hourglass. Rereading my previous posts about Phantom Hourglass and Minish Cap really point out why. That central temple that you have to go through multiple times with a timer counting down, while also spending most of your time dodging invincible enemies?

Well, they took that concept, and cut out all the crap. Most importantly, there is no more timer - you still go through a big dungeon, but so far, I have not had to play through the same part twice (For reference, I've played through two sections of the tower). There are still those big Phantom guys that are invincible, but once you collect enough "Spirit Tears" your sword powers up and you can attack them - and then Zelda can possess them. You then control two characters - you can seamlessly switch back and forth to solve puzzles, such as having Zelda's invincible Phantom character carry Link over lava to hit switches. Or to have Zelda's Phantom character converse with another Phantom so Link can sneak by - which I always find amusing.

I have not had too much experience with new items yet - the item you get in the first dungeon involves you blowing into the microphone to send a whirlwind flying in whatever direction you're aiming. It has had some fairly interesting, if not totally straightforward puzzles so far. I haven't yet encountered a puzzle as awesome as the one in Phantom Hourglass though where you have to copy a map from the top screen onto the bottom screen, and the only way to do it is to physically close your DS. But I'm not that far into the game yet, so who knows!

The item I think is awesome, though, is the Pan Flute in the game. You hold your stylus on the screen to bring the Flute up to Link's lips, then you blow into the mic to play a note - you play different notes by sliding the Flute around the bottom screen to blow into different holes. It is a spin on the Ocarina from the N64 games, and frankly it is a blast to play. (It helps that the first song you learn to play anywhere comes with one of the cutest - that's right, cutest - animations I've seen in any game ever.)

Some of the same complaints I had about Phantom Hourglass still exist here, unfortunately. For one, you still don't collect individual heart pieces like in other Zelda games - which would be fine, but there are too few to collect, making for a less expansive game, in my opinion. It doesn't help that a few of them are absolutely wasted because they were put up for sale in a freaking store!

I am still, as always, torn regarding the overworld travel. All these cel-shaded Zeldas have their own unique way of traveling about - Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass had their own spins on sailing, and Spirit Tracks has the train. The train seems more... focused, I guess, than the sailing from the other two games, but it still doesn't ring true to Zelda like a regular overworld and Epona would. It's not as if they couldn't fit an entire overworld on a DS cart anyway. The train is kind of fun, and since you are on rails, Nintendo is able to make each individual train ride seem more interesting and unique than the boat rides in Phantom Hourglass. In that game, you could take whatever route you wanted, so they just threw a squid at you every once in a while. So every time you'd sail (which was quite a bit) you'd sit there for like five minutes, shooting a squid every three.

Buckets of fun.

At least with the train, they have specific puzzles and stuff they can throw at you even during regular train rides taken not within the main narrative of the game. So, on one level, the train kind of sucks, but at the same time, at least it is worlds better than the sailboat.

Bitchery: Shining Force II

2009-12-05T02:53:00.002-05:00

There are 15 pieces of Mithril hidden in the entire world of Shining Force II. Finding most of them is ridiculously obtuse, because some of them are hidden in random mountain ranges on the main map, with nothing unique about them.

They are important to find, though, because if you want to pimp out your final party with the best weapons, well then you better have at least 12 pieces of Mithril because you have to have the Dwarven Blacksmith forge them for you.

Oh! But to get to the Dwarven Blacksmith, you need the Dry Stone, found in a nondescript fire pit halfway through the game! And it is not explained what it does. Ever. So to get to the blacksmith, you need to use this "Dry Stone" on a river, so that particular part of the river dries up and parts like the Red Sea (the game gives you no hint whatsoever to do this), and then you can enter his town.

Then, after all that, you have to give a piece of mithril to the blacksmith, and he will ask you who you would like him to make a weapon for, and you must also hand over 5000 gold.

The kicker? The little sonofabitch has the sack to make whatever weapon he wants, so long as the person hes making it for can equip it! There are Mithril weapons that are the best weapons in the game, and then there are Mithril weapons that aren't even as good as the ones you likely already have equipped!

Guess which weapons are rarer? If you guessed "the good ones," you were right! You are more likely to get a piece of crap weapon, after all that work you have done throughout the entire game than to get something halfway decent, much less the best weapon in the game. So, what do you do? You save the game, and keep resetting until you get the weapon you want.

That isn't too bad, right? Oh, but it is! The nearest save point is basically three screens away from the little dwarf bastard you need to talk to in order to get Mithril weapons, and once you hand over a piece of Mithril, you have to exit the town, re-enter, and walk your Hero ass all the way back to him! And sometimes, a NPC will walk right in your way, and you have to wait for that stupid asshole to move before you can keep going, and after all that, you get a Critical Sword, again! Now you get to start the whole process over because that is the worst sword the fucker can give you!

I think it would be fair to say that after I had found all those pieces of Mithril, the stupid Dry Stone, and how to use the stupid thing to get to the stupid town itself, I should be able to say to the little fuck "Hey, here is a piece of Mithril. Here's 5000 gold. Now make me a Gisarme, or I will burn you alive you little dwarf piece of shit! Don't want to burn alive? Oh, okay. You see this little phoenix guy here? Yeah, well he shoots tornadoes, you dick. Prefer something else? Okay, the rest of my guys here all have really sharp objects they like to poke people with. Sure, they may not be as sharp as ones you can make, you little prick, but I don't think you'd appreciate the distinction much when you are being crucified by twelve people at once! ...Oh! Thank you for the Gisarme! I didn't even have to go on a pointless walk for it! Now I can go about my business and finish the damn game without having to wander around this stupid place with the worst music in the game for fifteen hours to get a stupid sword that boosts my attack by like ten or whatever.

Fuck."

Muramasa is Great, Backtracking without Purpose is Not

2009-11-28T20:19:00.002-05:00

Muramasa: The Demon Blade is an interesting game. It elicits interesting responses from me. I usually don't stare at awe of how pretty graphics are - but this game makes me do that. I've found myself stopping several times to look at and appreciate the beautiful art and animation.

None of your "realistic" looking games have ever made me do that - I'm looking at you, Call of Duty, Gears of War, etc.

The battle system calls to mind a sort of 2-D Kingdom Hearts style, without the strange menu system. Of course, the game being 2-D avoids the main problem I and many others had with Kingdom Hearts - a crappy camera! Also, compared to Kingdom Hearts, the enemies in Muramasa are a treat - they are full of personality and animation. You know how many different kinds of enemies the great Castlevania games have? Muramasa seems to have as many as that, with the added bonus of being completely original.

So I'm slowly getting the hang of the combo system. There are a ton of different swords in this game, and although I am not very far, they all seem very different and seem to have unique combos. I tend to prefer the fast swords that let me dance all around the screen, so far, but we'll see how some of the more powerful slow swords turn out.

But my god, what is with the backtracking? As much as I love having the luxury of looking at the awesome background graphics in this game, it is damn tiring spending as much time as you do going back across all the ground you have already covered. It's hard for me to say, too, whether or not this would be helped if they include random battles - it probably wouldn't help very much, honestly. It'd probably frustrate me more. But there has to be a middle ground - how about a warp? Or the ability to let me go to the big map screen when I complete an area and sort of let me "warp" around? Every time I beat a boss, I have to put the game down because I know I'll have to spend like 10-15 minutes wandering through empty screens to get to the next area.

The story so far is confusing. I believe it is intentional, but regardless of whether or not the writers wanted me to be confused on purpose, I still don't enjoy it. Something about a soul, trying to get somewhere, or something, and like another soul is forced out of its body and it follows it around, and some girl with her boobs hanging out is helping you, I don't know. It all seems somewhat dumb. Plus, the voice acting is all in Japanese, which I'm told is for the weeaboo audience who prefer it that way - I'll never get that. Unless you speak Japanese, why favor that language for voice acting? You say its quality? But most people don't speak the language - how can you tell if it is quality or not?

Anyway, I'm only a few hours in at this point. I'm sure I'll have more to say about the game soon enough.

Subtleties: Shining Force II

2009-11-24T21:09:00.000-05:00

I would like to talk about subtleties today.

Video game narrative has not yet had Shakespearean-level storytelling. Nor has it had Citizen Kane-level visual metaphor or anything like that. As has been discussed elsewhere (more elegantly than I could, as well), video games are a medium still very much in their infancy. So until they have their big moment that we could point to and say, "This is why video games are art," we have to make do with tiny moments that hint at their potential.

And sometimes, you have to look pretty hard. There are the big moments, the ones that most of the internet will bring up when talking about this topic, like bringing down the Colossi in Shadow of the Colossus, or perhaps the courtroom set piece scene in Chrono Trigger. And those are good examples! I don't have any quite that grand today, but what I do have is a subtle example of why I love video games and why they strike me as so different from traditional forms of media expression.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been playing a lot of the old Genesis RPG, Shining Force II, lately. It is not a game known for its wholly original story - in fact, it is quite generic in that respect. Cliché, actually. And I am not going to be pulling any examples from the game about how its story deviates from the norm at all, because honestly, it really doesn't.

But within the cliché story, there are some subtleties that strike me as interesting, to say the least. I am near the end of the game at this point; maybe seven or eight battles from the final battle. My army just stole the ancient flying Nazca ship and flew over the ocean, and was shot down on Grans Island by the greater devil Geshp and his Prism Flowers. What strikes me as interesting is Geshp thought my army would die when we got shot down - so when we ran into him, he had to hastily assemble an army of devils to try to stop us. Every battle in the game up until this point has had my enemies strewn strategically around the map, while all of my characters start in a bunch in one place, because at the start of most battles, my characters are ambushed. But in this battle, I surprised my enemy - and, sure enough, they all start the battle in a big, disorganized bunch like I usually do.

This is an extremely small example of how videogames are subtle in the ways they present their narrative - and this example comes from an extremely clichéd narrative in a 1993 Sega Genesis RPG, as well! This is not an example someone would bring up to argue that videogames are "art," of course. This is just one of the ways I think video games are unique in their presentation when compared to other mediums. The battle system had always started one way in Shining Force II, then it is changed for this one battle to reflect the surprise of the enemy. It's subtle, but interesting when you notice it.

Of course, none of this matters to most people. I think when videogames have their own "Rosebud" moment, examples like this small one will become more commonplace and the medium will finally hit its stride. Until then, I will appreciate the subtleties.

Pegasus Knights are Worth Waiting For

2009-11-22T01:12:00.002-05:00

From the end of my last post on this blog: "Hopefully I don't let the blog be idle again for 4 months." Yeah... it's been over a year since then. So much for that.

Thing is, I really enjoyed doing it, and have been quite busy (read: school) since then, so I never had the chance to continue. (Well, I probably had the chance, but I kind of forgot about this blog until now.)

I have played a lot of games, though. In May and June of this year, I played two PS2 RPGs - Persona 3: FES and Persona 4.

Ladies and gentlemen, they were fantastic. Persona 4 is probably on my top ten list of favorite games - and that list has been fairly static since about 2000 when Majora's Mask first came out. Persona 4 is definitely my favorite PS2 game, at the very least.

But it has been a while since I've played those games. And I will likely play through them again in due time, and write more in depth about them when they are more fresh in my mind. For this post, I will talk about an old standby, another game definitely on my top ten list: the Genesis strategy RPG Shining Force II.

Shining Force II was my first RPG, so it is likely that I am fairly biased when it comes to discussing its quality. I can see why some people might say it's story could be considered weaker than the one in the original Shining Force, but I don't care, I still prefer it. There are a few typos in the game, which do annoy the holy hell out of me, though.

But the battle system in this game is exactly how I want my strategy RPGs to be: nice and light. The closest battle system to Shining Force II is the Fire Emblem series (for the most part - it is a little more complicated and deaths are permanent, so those games aren't as replayable to me). But SFII does not have the Tactics Ogre problem where you have to position your guys behind or to the side of the enemy in order to do more damage or anything stupid like that - you go up to the guy you want to fight, and you attack him or use magic on him or whatever. The strategy in the game comes from who you have fight who, and when and where - but not to ridiculous levels.

Anyway, I've beaten this game several times, but in the past, I always sort of beat it the same way, using the same characters, promoting them the same way, etc. This time, however, I decided to max out my characters as much as possible, and I discovered something about the character Chester: I prefer to let him wait to be promoted to a Pegasus Knight, because he is fantastic when he is overleveled.

Seriously.

I got him to level 28 unpromoted before I finally got to Pacalon and got the Pegasus Wing. When I promoted him, I replayed a battle a few times to level him up to everyone else's level, and now his stats are fairly ridiculous compared to everyone else. He doesn't have the highest attack power (strangely, Slade does, although I'm okay with that), nor does he have the highest defense (Jaha does, as usual). He does, however, have the highest agility on my team, so he always goes first, and his HP is very high as well. He is incredibly well rounded and I love using him, as a flying character is always good to have.

As far as everyone else goes, I got them all to level 23 before promoting them. I did this because I hated getting 1 EXP for every kill I got and didn't feel like playing battles over and over again to level them up. Chester was idle for quite a few battles before I promoted him to the awesomeness he is now.

So anyway, I'm heading to Moun right now, and am currently in the battle where you eventually get Jaro, who I also might use because Taya sucks and Kazin already is amazing. The fact that I've been playing this game since my childhood and still find new ways to get through it amazes me, and proves to me why it is so good.

Always, Always Wait on the Floating Continent

2008-11-08T03:30:00.002-05:00

Damn, it's been a while. I had originally planned on making as many posts on this blog as I could, but that broke down, and then I didn't have much to write about, then I forgot about it, etc. etc. Regardless, I still like the format of this site and I enjoy reading what I've written, so I will try to continue to do it when I can.

So I've played a few games since my last post. I never beat Shiren, as I got to a point where my weapons were so awesome that if I lost them, I would literally break my DS - that, and I got bored with it. Shadowrun remains uncompleted as well, since I got to a point where I had to grind levels to keep going, and it wasn't fun anymore.

Since my last post, I've played quite a few games. I downloaded and beat Mega Man 9 and Shining Force 2 on my Wii, both of which are some of my favorite games of all time (Mega Man 9 is without a doubt my favorite Mega Man game ever). I've picked up Smash Bros Brawl again because I've met a bunch of guys who play the crap out of it, and I can hang with them for the most part. I just picked up Wario Land: Shake It! as well, and I am enjoying that so far. I also own Guitar Hero 1, 2, and 3 for the PS2 and I can beat them all (save for a few songs on 3) on Hard and can do okay on Expert. I picked up Dragon Quest 4 and got to the third chapter and I stopped playing because I just can't get into it yet. And I also picked up Final Fantasy VI for my SNES (as I'm sure you're aware, it's called 3 on the cartridge itself).

I've been dying to play this game again for a couple years now. The first time I played through it, I let Shadow die, missed three characters (I never ONCE had Mog!), and missed a ton of espers (how I made it to Kefka and beat him without Ultima/Meteor/etc. I will never know). I'm going to try to complete it as best I can, and I am well on my way. I am in the World of Ruin, have all the characters - including Shadow! - and am now level grinding and teaching all the spells in the game to all the characters before I go take on Kefka. I've had a blast so far, and it's reminded me why VI is my favorite Final Fantasy.

It's just so damned refined. Everything works smoothly, from the battle load times to the snappy action contained within; if I want to summon an esper, it doesn't take a minute and a half to load the animation - it's quick! And while random battles can be tedious, they aren't so bad that they make the game unplayable. The story remains great, and I am definitely enjoying the World of Ruin quite a bit more now that I know where I should go to get characters, items, etc. And of course, the music remains fantastic.

Anyway, that's enough for now - hopefully I'll post again soon about Wario Land or FFVI. Here's hoping I don't let the blog be idle again for 4 months.

Roguelikes are Effing Awesome Part 2

2008-07-24T02:05:00.003-04:00

So I have continued to play Shiren the Wanderer, and have discovered some interesting things. First, I reached floor 27, which had an enemy that could do something I hadn't experienced - it could knock off my equipped weapons and once knocked off, they couldn't be picked back up and used. This enemy is the worst enemy ever created. Thank god I wasn't using my newly upgraded Master Sword +60 (which is incapable of getting rusty, does extra damage to ghost enemies, and each attack is three squares wide) or Armor Ward +39 (which is incapable of getting rusty, slows my hunger down and prevents items and money from being stolen). Although, I'm wondering if that Armor Ward wouldn't protect against that particular enemy... if so, that would be great. (After looking up the enemy, I found out that it was because there was water to my back that I lost my items. Still, though - what a bastard.)

I should explain how my prized items came to be so enchanted. You see, after completing some side missions, a shop became available in Mountaintop Town (located between floors 7 and 8) that sold Jars. Once in a while, a Melding Jar becomes available there. The interesting thing about Melding Jars is that when you put a weapon inside, followed by another weapon, all of the attributes (good or bad) of the second weapon are melded onto the first. So, for example, to get my Master Sword to attack three squares wide, I placed my Master Sword and a Razor Wind in the Jar, so the Master Sword took on the Razor Wind's qualities. So I really enjoy that. It also will add any modifiers on as well, so that's how I upgraded both of those items so fast too.

With as much work as I've done to my weapons, they still aren't complete. I have yet to find a Pickaxe of any kind (even breakable ones) so I can't make my weapons dig yet. I would also like to add a few more enchantments to them, like the one that upgrades my evasion rate and lowers damage from explosions, etc. so I still have plenty of work to do, mostly to find the items I need to do that.

So, I've played for about 15 hours I believe, and that's actually quite a bit longer than I thought this game would take, seeing as how there's only 30 floors in the main dungeon. It's probably because I'm being as careful as I possibly can be, though. Either way, I'm having a blast so far.

I would also like to brag that I got a copy of Dragon Warrior II for the NES for 9 bucks with shipping two days ago on eBay. From what I gather, I got it for a steal. I am also seriously considering buying an FC Twin to play my NES games more reliably as well (Ironically enough, Dragon Warrior II is one of like 7 games that aren't playable on it - irony! No biggie though - I really just want to play Crytalis and some of the other games I've gotten at the resale shop on the cheap.)

Crystal Chronicles and Mario Tennis

2008-07-23T22:40:00.004-04:00

(Note: This post was typed in a text file on my laptop while the power was out last night, so it is incomplete in places, because I couldn't look up information on the Net to supplement it, but I've decided to post it here as is anyway.)

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon looks to be another fantastic mystery dungeon game, of which I will probably purchase when I get the cash. I played it with a friend today, who I also played Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles for the first time with.

It is Crystal Chronicles that I'd like to take a look at today. It is an odd game, one which we probably may not see the likes of again – as you may be aware, to actually play this game multiplayer (really the only way to play it), you must have a Gamecube (or a Wii), a Game Boy Advance for every player, and a Gamecube to Game Boy Advance adapter for every player as well. That's quite expensive, really.

But it's worth it. It's an experience I've not quite been able to think of a comparison for. Phantasy Star Online was similar, but not quite as fun as Crystal Chronicles. Having your own menu for item management and whatnot is pretty fantastic. My character is a Black Mage, and while he is weird looking, he is fun as hell to play. We only played for maybe two hours or so (we have completed the first year and a mission from the second year) and since my power has been out since about ten minutes after we shut the game off, I have some questions about it that haven't been able to look up the answers to online.

For example: is there a way to keep a spell after a mission? My buddy's character can keep his weapons, but I can't keep my Fire/Blizzard/Thunder? I may just be misunderstanding how the game works, though.

Same thing with items: I have quite a few that I have no idea what to do with. Iron shards, Iron, etc. all seem to go towards making custom items at the Blacksmith in the town, but apparently I don't need the iron shards yet? I guess I don't have any items that require it yet.

Regardless, I had a blast playing it today. Hopefully I'll be able to play more of it soon. In the meantime, there's always Shiren, and another game I've had laying around for a couple weeks – Mario Tennis for the Game Boy Color.

I forgot how good Mario Tennis was. I know I liked it quite a bit in like ninth grade (eight years ago – damn!), but I had somehow forgotten how deep the gameplay really goes. What you do in this game is actually create your own character and try to play your way through a tennis academy to become the top tennis player there, to eventually challenge the champions of the world (Mario and friends, of course). You do this by playing tennis matches against other players and leveling up your character (by choosing, at each level up, whether to upgrade Spin, Speed, Power, or Control). Since the power went out, I've been playing it for three hours now, and I'm halfway through the senior class, at like level 19 or so.

I also have Mario Golf for the Game Boy Color. And I'm having trouble putting. I can drive and chip fantastically, but I just can't read the goddamn greens in this game for shit, which of course kills my game. I haven't even made it through a course yet (mostly because I get six or seven holes into it before my shitty putting skills get me a double or triple bogey and I get pissed and shut the game off). If I could learn how to putt, I bet this game would be just as good as Mario Tennis.

Roguelikes Are Effing Awesome

2008-07-19T22:30:00.004-04:00

Holy shit, it's been a month since I last posted here. I guess that's what I get for working a lot and not playing too many games.

I beat Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness, and for my birthday last week I got Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer for the DS. Since I didn't post anything about either game yet, I will compare and contrast them both.

I will start by saying this: I'm glad I played the Pokemon version first. I enjoyed it, quite a bit in fact, and will probably get Blue Rescue Team soon, but Shiren is better.

Anyway, so Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and Shiren the Wanderer are both RPGs based on the ancient computer based game called Rogue (which makes them roguelikes). When your character moves, your allies and everything else on the floor of the dungeon your on moves as well. In other words, its not necessarily real time because nothing else will act until you do. Basically, each time you move, attack, use an item, or cast a spell or whatever, you spend your turn, and then the enemies will all do the same: either they will move towards you, run away from you, attack, cast a spell, etc. and so on. And from what I gather on the ol' Internets, roguelikes aren't very popular here in America.

I can sort of see why not, because they are balls hard and sometimes can seem unfair. Shiren in particular is brutal, because when you die (which will happen, quite a bit), you lose all of your items, money, and (here's the kicker) experience points. That's right. All of them. Back to level 1 for you. However, you can store items and (in Pokemons case) money in warehouses in between dungeon runs.

I guess now is a good time to point out the differences between the two games, since I've already begun to. In Pokemon, when you die, you lose all your items and money, but retain your experience. In Shiren, you lose everything. In Pokemon, you can save money in between missions, but when you die in Shiren, you lose all of it, because you can't store it anywhere. In Pokemon, you can store hundreds of items (eventually) in your warehouse, but in Shiren, you can store probably no more than 15 items in each warehouse (they vary in size). In Pokemon, there are like 40 different dungeons with various numbers of floors in them (usually between 10 and 25), whereas Shiren's entire game is a single, 30ish floor dungeon. Did I mention that when you die in Shiren, you go all the way back to the town before the first floor? In Pokemon, when you die, you only need to restart the particular dungeon you were on over. Also, in Pokemon, you can keep earning extra carrying space for items (I had six pages worth of storage when I stopped playing, and I think you can get more), whereas in Shiren, you get two pages max. (Although the game has Jars, which let you pack more items inside them, so you aren't completely fucked). Also, in Shiren, you don't always know what item you pick up, because it could be anything from a Katana +5 to a cursed (which means you can't unequip it) Cudgel -7. Pokemon doesn't do that, however.

You are probably thinking that Shiren sounds extremely restrictive and difficult, while Pokemon is more balanced and easy, and you are partially correct. As you may recall from the beginning of this post, I said that Shiren is the better game. (Again, though, they are both fun as hell.) The main reason why is that when I finally do beat Shiren, I will feel like I accomplished something a hell of a lot more impressive then when I beat Pokemon, since Shiren is so much harder. I've read reviews of both games, and in a post on Jeremy Parish's website GameSpite, he put it perfectly: "...you never once feel like you've been screwed over by the game. When you die in Shiren, it's your own fault: you didn't play it right, you could have avoided failure. But no. You blew it." This is probably the truest statement about the game: every time I have ever died has been the result of me being too greedy, too ambitious, or just plain stupid. (The only possible exception to this rule is Monster Houses, which are basically rooms packed full of viciously powerful monsters, but really, you should be prepared for those with a Scroll of Sleep or Scroll of Confusion, anyway.)

In Pokemon, you get stronger by leveling your characters up, but you always have to worry about type advantages (like any good Pokemon game does). For example, my starting character was Torchic, a fire Pokemon. So anytime I saw a water Pokemon, I would let my partner, Bulbasaur (a grass type), take care of it, since he had type advantage over them. Conversely, when I saw grass type, bug type, or steel type Pokemon, I would send a quick Flamethrower their way, and watch as they died (usually) instantly.

In Shiren, you can level up by gaining experience, but since you can always lose that, you should level up your weapons. Right now, I am leveling up a Master Sword (no relation to Zelda, of course) and a Armor Ward. I found them both with no bonus attributes, and now, they are Master Sword +36 and Armor Ward +23, and also both cannot be rusted by enemies or traps (when a monster or trap tries to rust a weapon, it takes a couple of bonus attribute points off, and those are fucking precious, so I used a Plating Scroll on these weapons ASAP). They aren't complete yet, but boy, are they precious. If I died with these weapons, I would probably be pissed off for days.

...Thank god for a feature present in both games: the ability to rescue other Pokemon/Wanderers. Since Chunsoft made both games, they share the ability to let people go out and save other people who have died in dungeons who don't want to lose their precious items. I never used the feature in Pokemon, but I've used it once in Shiren, and although I had to wait a day and a half before someone finally rescued me, it was worth it: I was able to save my Happy Armband, which gives you experience points while simply walking (as you could guess, this is a pretty goddamn awesome item). So you better believe that if I die while toting my precious Master Sword +36 and Armor Ward +23, that I will be sending out a request and waiting as long as it takes to get those items back.

Shit. I should explain how you level up your weapons in Shiren. You can either pay a blacksmith 1000 gitans (the money in Shiren) to level up your weapon, or use items called Air Bless Scrolls and Earth Bless Scrolls, which level up weapons and shields, respectively. For my two items, I've used both. Both of my weapons are sitting in a warehouse in Mountaintop Town, though, so I don't risk losing them because I'm not paying attention or something.

Jesus, I'll have to cut this post off. I haven't even discussed half of the things I want to talk about yet, and it's already like ten pages long. More to come.

If you've been wondering where I've been...

2008-06-19T00:41:00.001-04:00

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness for DS. Go get it. Now. I have to go, I'm wasting precious playing time.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Part 2

2008-06-11T16:16:00.004-04:00

I really don't know whether to call Sonic the Hedgehog 2 my favorite in the series or not. If Sonic 3 and Knuckles together are considered one game, than THAT is the best, but separate, they are too short. Plus, Sonic 2 has some great levels, and some great music...

Sonic 2 is the first game in the series to do away with 3 act Zones - it's a blessing and a curse, in my opinion. There are far more zones in this game than in the first, but you only get two levels of each (besides Metropolis Zone and the later levels), which is good for zones that suck (such as Labyrinth Zone from the first Sonic, or Oil Ocean Zone from this one) but bad for zones that are amazing (Casino Night Zone could be ten levels long and I wouldn't get enough of it).

Anyway, the game starts out with Emerald Hill Zone, which, like in all Genesis Sonic games, is grassy, green, and easy. There are a lot of loops, hills, and jumps, which make for good Sonic levels, in my opinion. Probably the only complaint I have about this zone is the annoying monkeys who always throw coconuts at the exact height you always are hitting them at. But, you get used to it and know when to attack, so they quickly stop being a problem.

The easy, rolling hills of emerald are gone for the second area, Chemical Plant Zone. I have mixed feelings about this zone - the first act is great, with plenty of loops and not a ton of those annoying tunnel things that take too long. The second act has a ton of those annoying tunnels, and a section near the end that consists of climbing up these rotating blocks - while underwater, with no air bubbles in sight. Immediately after this is a section where you must make a tricky jump, and if you miss, you have to do the underwater block climb again, but you're more likely to drown at this point because the water is higher.

Allow me to break it down for anyone who hasn't caught on to my point yet: UNDERWATER AREAS IN SONIC GAMES SUCK BALLS.

And if you are already sick of water? Too bad: next up, Aquatic Ruin Zone! Half of the zone is underwater, and half is not - the first act isn't bad because other than one short part, the underwater section is entirely optional. The second act has a tricky jump at the beginning, which, if you miss, means you must spend pretty much the rest of the level underwater, grabbing air bubbles along the way and dodging underwater arrows. You can get through the level while staying above water for most of the time, though, which makes this zone one of the better Sonic water levels.

After a decent boss fight, you get to enter what may very well be my favorite Sonic zone of all time: Casino Night Zone. There are pinball flippers, bumpers, neon lights, springs, springs that you have to hold the jump button down to send Sonic flying really high, and slot machines that can give Sonic a ton of rings. Both acts in this zone are fantastic - they are great to navigate and allow for some amusing distractions. It's really too bad you are limited to 9:59, because I have spent more than that in both of those zones, just playing slots and bouncing around before. God, what a great zone. I finished the first act with 237 rings, and the second one with 247. And that was just playing the slots a few times - I could've kept playing, but knew I was going to beat the game, so I moved on. (As an aside, it's too bad the Sonic pinball game they made, Sonic Spinball, controlled like shit - if it controlled like in Sonic 2, that game would've been infinitely more playable.)

After the Casino Night, we return to the great outdoors for the Hill Top Zone. I'm not quite sure why, but this zone has always seemed weird to me - it's too easy to be this late in the game. I think it and Aquatic Ruin could be switched, and it would make more sense. Oh well. It isn't a bad zone, not at all. There are some areas where there are earthquakes, and they could prove challenging to some people, I guess.

Next we enter the Mystic Cave Zone. I would just like to say that the music for this level may be some of my favorite in the game - although Metropolis Zone is awesome as well. This level has these little firefly bastards who are probably the most annoying enemy in the game - they become invulnerable just when Sonic is about to reach them, causing the player to lose all his rings. There is also a glitchy spike pit near the end of Act 2 that I've died in many times. What happens is that you pull this switch so a bridge comes down, but when you jump off the switch, Sonic just drops straight down sometimes, right into the goddamn inescapable pit. Also, if you die on the boss, you get to fight him with no rings until you beat him - they put the continue pole at the bottom of a jump where theres no rings - fun!

Next we enter the most bland, boring zone in the game - Oil Ocean Zone. The level is like a huge, boring ass maze. Sonic barely builds up speed in this zone - except for when he is shot about by the cannons, but the player doesn't control those anyway so they are pointless to me, and holy shit are there plenty of cannons. There are also these annoying floating sea horses that shoot bullets sometimes rapidly at you, which annoy the piss out of me as well.

Next up, the three act long Metropolis Zone. I would just like to say that I appreciate the reference to Fritz Lang's 1927 silent movie, Metropolis. After having seen the movie in a recent class, parts of Metropolis Zone remind me of the worker's section of the city from the movie. The Sonic zone, though, isn't quite perfect - the exploding star fish are annoying as fucking hell, and the parts where you have to run up and down these goofy screw things take forever. The boss of this zone is difficult as well, and you will get hit plenty of times trying to defeat him. Overall, though, the 3 acts don't disappoint.

I guess at this point Tails remembers he has a plane, so he and Sonic take to the skies to chase down Robotnik in the Sky Chase Zone. Why they didn't just fly over the previous levels to chase Robotnik, I don't know, but whatever. This zone is only one act long (although I consider the next zone to be an extension of it), but that is good because the plane gimmick gets annoying about halfway through the level. It is slow paced and boring, so I guess the programmers decided to just move on and make a regular Sonic level.

Which is a good thing too, because Wing Fortress Zone is fantastic. You are climbing the outside of this huge airship to get to the cockpit to fight Robotnik, and there is this huge sense of height to the level since there are plenty of parts where you can fall to an instant death. Once you beat Robotnik, Sonic chases him to his space station, the Death Egg (a reference to the Death Star, which it even looks like in later games).

I would just like to point out that Sonic can drown while underwater, but he can ride on the outside of a ship all the way into a space station without choking - what the fuck is up with that? I should at least get the drowning 5 second counter right before he docks, just to keep accurate.

Anyway, you have to fight two bosses, Metal Sonic, and a giant robot that looks like Robotnik to beat the game. Like in the last Sonic game, you get no rings to do it, which is quite difficult given the task.

Regardless, I would say that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a solid improvement on the first Sonic game, which was already pretty good to begin with. Hopefully within the next couple of days, I'll play through Sonic 3, so I'll see you then.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Part 1

2008-06-11T00:26:00.003-04:00

I decided since I haven't gotten my goddamn Kirby 2 yet that I'd play another game I've had for a while. I'm going to be playing through the four main Genesis Sonic games (Sonic 1, 2, 3, and Knuckles) and writing about them here.

Sonic the Hedgehog caused me to forgo getting a SNES when I was a kid. I wanted his games, because he was really fast and cool, and Mario seemed fat and slow in comparison (since then, I've realized that the Mario games are really the better games, and they are just as fun to try to run through as fast as Mario's fat ass can). I sold my NES and all my games and got myself a Genesis.

And holy shit was the difference amazing. I went from basic 8-bit, limited palette NES games to the lush, awesome looking world of 16 bits, with Sonic blazing by. The trees, man - they looked 3-D! At least in the first level, anyway.

Green Hill Zone is a pretty good set of levels. I may as well say now that Sonic 1 is the only game in the four games I'll be playing that have 3 levels in each zone - something I missed in all the others. Anyway, Green Hill Zone fits the description of what I would call a good Sonic level - it is fast, there are few breakups in the speed, and there are rings aplenty. Obviously, being the first level makes it easy as hell, but that's OK.

The level design takes a bit of a dive in the second area, Marble Zone, though. The level begins pretty good, you are running fast and jumping over small pools of lava, thinking to yourself that you're on board so far, and then, all of a sudden, WHAM. You hit a wall. And you have to descend into this annoying, slow-paced crawl through this goofy dungeon that looks somewhat like a lava-filled slaughterhouse. Sounds cool? It certainly does, but it doesn't belong in a Sonic game. What the fuck the designers were thinking here, I don't know. It's like they decided to make a really fast paced game, but figured that the game should be more like Mario, who was obviously who Sonic was designed to compete against. Only it's not fun. In fact, it sucks, especially after the fast paced first zone. Although the fourth zone is the worst, but we'll get to that later. This is also the first level you are introduced to the exploding robotic worms, who, once exploded, bounce all over the fucking place and will CHASE YOU ACROSS PLATFORMS until they go off screen. Say goodbye to your rings.

The third zone, Spring Yard Zone, begins what I believe to be a "tradition" in the first three Sonic Genesis games: a casino level (Sonic and Knuckles doesn't have one). This zone gets back to what I believe to be a good Sonic zone - fast paced and fun. That is, except for the annoying elevator parts. You have to jump between these stupid, slow moving elevators to get through the levels, and they take for fucking ever to move. I also noticed there are a series of odd words in the background - "UP ON CPU" in some areas. I don't know what this actually means, but I would think it'd be pretty cool if it was a jab at Nintendo, with Sega having released the Genesis while the NES was still Nintendo's main console.

And then, theres Labyrinth Zone. There are some bad levels in the first four Sonic games, but this zone is the absolute worst. Take everything you know and love about Sonic games and just flush it down the shitter when you get here. You have to go underwater, where Sonic becomes slow as hell (even Mario's fat ass moves faster underwater in HIS games!) and get this - you can even drown. In the NES and SNES Mario games, Mario couldn't drown. Sonic can fucking drown. And he continues to drown throughout all four Genesis games. I'm no game designer, but that's fucking stupid. "Let's make a game all about speed; then, more than halfway through the game, let's include a level explicitly designed to cause players to move through it exceptionally slowly - but if they don't move fast enough, they will FUCKING DIE! ...Unless they reach some bubbles. But let's not make the bubbles just be there when you reach them - no fucking way. Let's make the players wait, sometimes awhile while watching a fucking countdown to their DEATH, before a bubble comes." And they put in these gargoyle heads that shoot out deadly red spit bullets at random goddamn intervals - sometimes a split second after one another! Jesus, give me more of that! And the boss for this zone is a good idea, but because of all the things I just listed about this zone, he sucks. Also, if you die on the boss, you have to fight him with no rings, no air bubbles (if the water catches up to you) and have to dodge spears and gargoyle spit! Fuck Labyrinth Zone to the depths of hell.

After that miserable pile of shit zone, you get Star Light Zone, which in my opinion is the best zone in the game. Sonic gets his speed back here, and there's loops and spins and all that good shit. It's funny, I have very few complaints about this zone - it's really well done and is pretty much exactly how a Sonic level should be. Even the boss is pretty fun - you have to shoot either Sonic or these little spiky balls up at Robotnik by flinging them with see-saws. Pretty good shit.

Then there is the last zone, Scrap Brain Zone. It's a tough level, and I've lost many lives here whenever I play through Sonic 1, but I stand by the design. You can get lost, and you can get killed pretty easy, but if you know what you're doing, you'll be fine. The third act is pretty short because of a cool shortcut - if you miss it, it's more delicious Labyrinth Zone shit for you. Hell, even if you make it, you have some Labyrinth Zone shit.

Then there's the final boss, and it is here that the tradition is born where you don't get any fucking rings to fight him with. He shoots electricity at you when he is offscreen, then when he tries to crush you, you can dodge him then hit him as well. It can be tough, but once you beat him, you complete the game. Sonic is running back through Green Hill Zone (which now has purple flowers rather than yellow and green, for some reason) with some animal buddies, and you get a short screen if you either did get all the chaos emeralds or didn't (Robotnik is holding the remaining ones and laughing at you if you didn't).

Sonic the Hedgehog is a great game. There are swings and misses, but overall it is a fun playthrough. It's too bad you don't get to use the Spin Dash in this game, but oh well - it would be weird here anyway. (Although I hear that in the GBA remake, they put in spin dashing - too bad that version was ported so shitty.)

Stay tuned for a Sonic the Hedgehog 2 post.

Another lucky find, but still no Kirby, dammit

2008-06-04T01:34:00.003-04:00

My goddamn Kirby's Dreamland 2 still hasn't come yet. I emailed the seller yesterday, but I haven't heard from him since. I really want to play that damned game.

But, unfortunately, I can't. I did, however, pick up a copy of Super Mario All Stars + Super Mario World for the SNES today, for five bucks. Apparently, somebody thought it was some sort of chicken wing, because it was dipped in barbecue sauce. No kidding - I reeked of barbecue sauce by the time I had finished cleaning it, and I had to shower because I had no idea where the barbecue sauce came from or how long it had been on, in, and all over the cartridge. Miraculously, though, none of the sauce had gotten on the sticker, so now it looks like I have a damn clean, fine cartridge which as of right now, is selling for 16 bucks minimum with a day left to go on eBay.

I swear, one of these days I'm going to go in there and find a 1990 Nintendo World Championship cartridge and I will shit myself on the spot. It'll probably be dipped in Honey Mustard sauce and have teeth marks in it, but oh well.

Anyway, I played through and beat Mario 2, which I haven't done in a couple years. I had no problem this time - I believe I died a few times in World 6, but that was from carelessness on my part. I had a pretty good time playing it. When I was a kid, the game seemed so ridiculously hard to me, that I would basically make it to the warp to World 4 and then lose all my lives. Even Wart wasn't a problem for me - I believe I died on him maybe twice, which for me is good because I could never beat the fucker as a kid.

There are some elements of Mario 2 I'd love to see make a comeback, though. The little Ninja guys (who I would love to link you to, but I can't remember their name nor have the patience to try to really search Google to find them) would be awesome enemies to chase Mario around in his next 3d game. Or perhaps New Super Mario Bros. 2 (god damn, I still hate that name) will have them in it. Killing Birdo like 20 times throughout a game is never a negative thing, either. I don't want to be able to pick up enemies by standing on their heads, but I do like being able to pick up vegetables out of nowhere and throw them at enemies. Also, some of the bosses would be sweet to fight again, perhaps in 3d as well (Fryguy comes to mind).

Anyway, its a good game, but I have little else to say about it. I want my fucking Kirby's Dreamland 2.

*sigh*

Maybe tomorrow.

Wario Land II: The Final Post

2008-05-29T00:45:00.002-04:00

Hooray, I have the internet again! I can now update my freaking blog.

Anyway, so I finally beat Wario Land II 100%. I wasn't sure if I was going to do it, since at first I didn't really like the game. My biggest complaint remains: on your first playthrough, you are limited to whatever "story" path you chose. If you could pick the level (like every other Wario Land besides the Virtual Boy one), this game might be better than the original Wario Land (but still not quite as good as 3).

There were some very, very annoying bosses in this game, however. For me, the only tough one in Wario Land 3 was the soccer bunny. Wario Land 1 had some stupid boss fights as well, though. In general, it seems like I don't really like most of the boss fights in the Wario series - its too easy to fuck up and have to restart the battle. Perhaps that could be avoided if any hits you land on a boss are kept even if you leave the room, but that kinda goes against the nature of Wario Land II (if you get hit, you don't die). Perhaps the game would be too easy, then.

Well, it'd be a lot less annoying.

The minigames still suck, and I don't like how the amount of coins you have when you beat the game doesn't affect the ending at all. In fact, the only thing coins are used for is for paying for the minigames, like in Wario Land 3. Somewhat disappointing, I guess. I played some Wario Land 1 last night, and I think it's version of getting treasure (or Wario Land 3) is still the best - you play a level, find a key, and bring the key to the chest. You don't have to play any stupid minigames to get the treasure.

Overall, I think my list from this post remains intact: Wario Land II isn't quite as good as 1 or 3, but it's damn close - meaning it's a great game. Playing through all these Wario Land games makes me somewhat sad, though. The DS Wario was terrible, and I doubt they'll attempt to make a traditional Wario Land game again. I mean, I like Warioware (somewhat), but there really isn't much out there like the first three Wario Land games. C'mon, Nintendo, make another one. Please?

(Click here for my first Wario Land 2 post) (Post 2) (Post 3) (Post 4)

Wario Land 2: "Endgame" Part I

2008-05-23T02:03:00.003-04:00

So I picked up Wario Land II again, and the "endgame" continues to be amazing. Now that I can pick and choose levels, I can avoid levels I hate and only play fun ones. I've also noticed, since playing these new levels, that I seem to have chosen the path with the most annoying levels possible. Granted, if I want to get all the treasures (which, at this point, I would like to), I'll have to replay many of them. Oh well. The only levels that I really dislike are the ones in which there are invisible blocks and I have to either hit a light switch to see them (which usually makes other blocks invisible) or the ones with extremely annoying boss fights.

The path I am playing through now involves Wario needing to retake his castle after it had been invaded since the alarm clock (thrown in his castle by Captain Syrup at the beginning of the game) didn't wake him up. I think this is an awesome path, probably because it completely ignores the "story" of the rest of the game and imparts its own little "tale." I have but two more levels of it to go, and I am really enjoying it thus far.

I've seen a couple of the other "story branches," and they are somewhat interesting, but since I hadn't played the level previous to it in the "story" I don't remember how dramatic of a change is involved. The levels I've played so far are pretty good, though.

(I keep putting words like "story" and "tale" and "story branches" in quotes because the "story" to Wario Land II is pretty damn ridiculous and I feel stupid calling it a "story.")

Oh! And I've discovered how to deal with the annoying slug fuckers. Rather than continue to fight them, you wait until they are done freaking the fuck out, and then you can just walk up to them and charge into them, with no problem. What I kept doing was trying to keep attacking them, and if you keep doing it without pause, they keep freaking the fuck out, which means you can't kill them and you lose a fuckton of coins.

So it appears as though I will be attempting to beat Wario Land II as I play through Shadowrun. When Kirby's Dreamland 2 comes in the mail (probably any day now), that will probably be added to my "now playing" queue. Shadowrun is my top priority right now, though, so I will be finishing that eventually, but if I need a break I'll probably play something else. And when Kirby does come, I'll probably be fascinated with that for a day. Good ol' A.D.D.

(Click here for my first Wario Land 2 post) (Post 2) (Post 3)

Shadowrun: There's Always Something to Do in Seattle

2008-05-22T00:41:00.004-04:00

Shadowrun is not perfect, but it is quickly becoming one of my favorite games ever. Here is a laundry list of only some of the things I've done so far in this game:

Woken up in a drawer in a morgue
Have both talked to and killed Orcs (with a gun!)
Slept in an apartment, a motel, and outside between a kitchen sink and a broken car
Stood in one place and got shot repeatedly with a machine gun, and won the fight
Connected my head to a computer and wandered around inside
Stolen money by hacking into said computer
Killed a shapeshifting octopus
Carry a strobe light around, and flash it at people
Drove a stake through a vampires heart, three times

And probably the cruelest thing I've done in a videogame, maybe ever:

Shot and killed a lonely, innocent woman dancing by herself in a club for no reason other than my entertainment

I really am enjoying this game. There are some parts where I have no idea what to do or who to talk to (or how to kill these annoying piles of slime on the fucking boat!), but man, it's great when I figure it out and move on. Hell, just wandering around the levels and killing whoever shoots at me (and boy, there are a lot of people that want to kill me) is fun.

I have no idea how far I am through the game (Mario RPG was easy to separate into sections because of the stars), so I guess I'll just continue to post until I beat it. Which I hope is a while away, because the game is a blast so far.

I can't believe I just killed a vampire in the same game that I can hack into a computer and steal money. This game is so cool.

(Click here for my first Shadowrun post) (Second Post)

Shadowrun: Committing Identity Theft Since 1993

2008-05-20T01:08:00.005-04:00

Holy shit Shadowrun is amazing. I've gotten quite a bit farther than my last post - fitting, as its really all I've done all day. I got the tickets, got in to the Cage, and did a whole bunch of other shit and I can now access a whole bunch more. I basically just deactivated the bomb in my head that I just found out about, by going Downtown and talking to Dr. Maplethorpe.

The fighting in the game, from what I've done so far, is fantastic. As you level up your Firearms skill, you become more and more accurate and the fights don't last so ridiculously long as they used to. I am now equipped with a T-250 Shotgun and some sort of level 2 armor. The next place I have to go to is Matrix Systems, apparently down by the docks.

Speaking of the Matrix, I've jacked in. It's very odd; the graphics aren't isometric in the Matrix, they are completely overhead, and simplified immensely. It appears as though the goal of the Matrix in this game is simple puzzles designed to hide data; if you stroll through a maze incorrectly, you take damage, which translates over to the real world. The nice part is that you can "jack out" whenever you want by pressing X. I've only entered the Matrix twice so far, and I've managed to transfer funds from some other guys account to my own! I basically just hacked some Glutman guys bank account and took money from him, because he is a bastard and I want his money. I think I love this game. It's really sweet that back in 1993, some videogame programmers had the idea to allow identity theft in their game.

Anyway, the music isn't as repetitive as I mentioned in my last post. It changes basically whenever you enter a new area. The part about missing items hasn't happened to me since I missed the scalpel in the first room of the game, so long ago, so that doesn't seem to be much of a problem either. I have yet to see magic; apparently I could buy some earlier, near the Caryards, but I didn't because I spent my money on my Shotgun and armor, plus I didn't know what each Talisman did, so I wasn't going to waste my money. I still haven't hired a Shadowrunner; I haven't seen the need, yet, and they are somewhat expensive as well.

But this game is good. I'm surprised I had never really heard of it. I don't know if it just had a limited print run, or if it was advertised crappily, or what, but I wish more people would have played it. Unless the game gets really retarded soon, it is a fantastic RPG hybrid that I think will go down in my books as one of the better SNES games.

(Click here for my first Shadowrun post)

Shadowrun is Pretty Cool

2008-05-19T15:07:00.003-04:00

So, I'm very glad I picked up Shadowrun.

It remains interesting, and I know that I'm not very far at all - I only recently acquired a weapon and figured out how to fire it. Since I've gotten it, I've been killing enemies and getting as much "karma" as I can (apparently karma increases my stats - I've spent a few on Strength and Firepower). I don't really know where to go next - I guess I have to get some Tickets to enter the Cage? There are quite a few people to talk to and even more keywords I can use on them.

I suppose I should describe the game to those who have never heard of it. Shadowrun is a 1993 SNES game, controlled from an isometric perspective in which your main character can examine his surroundings by bringing up a cursor, in real time, and clicking on points of interest. This allows you to pick up items, talk to people, and examine things so you can figure out where to go next. The combat works similarly - you point the weapon cursor at the enemy you want to attack and pound away on the A button, which fires your weapon. There is also magic, which probably works similarly, but I don't have any yet, so I've not seen it. Shadowrun is basically an amalgam of Phoenix Wright, Final Fantasy, King's Quest, and perhaps just a touch of Zelda. It isn't extremely well polished - the game basically throws you in and lets you fend for yourself with no idea of what your goals are and any clues you might receive end up being cryptic at best - but that doesn't matter because its presentation is so interesting.

The graphics are a little dated, but they work, and the only real complaint I have about them is it is sometimes difficult to see items you have to pick up because they are so small. I missed the Scalpel (in the first room of the game, no less!) for a long time because of this. The music is a little repetitive, but I think that's only because I only have access to such a small portion of the game so far.

And apparently, you can enter the Matrix in this game. I have no idea if it is anything like the movies of the same name (I doubt it), but boy, when I saw that you can "jack in" to it via some sort of device on your head I was very interested. Perhaps the Matrix movies are somehow based on the Shadowrun universe? Doubtful at best, since I really have no idea how it works in the game and since I was obsessed with the movies when they came out, and I probably would have noticed it somewhere if Wikipedia or something mentioned it. Regardless, I remain intrigued about this game. I don't think it will be my absolute focus over the next couple of weeks (I did just order Kirby's Dreamland 2 online, and I'm very excited to play it soon), but I will see how it goes. You can't beat 5 bucks for a game like this, though, ever.

Rabbids Don't Write in Blogs

2008-05-17T20:56:00.004-04:00

So I picked up Rayman: Raving Rabbids for the Wii today. A coworker of mine hated it and sold it to me for ten bucks, with original case, booklet, and disc all in great condition. I figured, why not? I played it (briefly) when it first came out and it seemed alright, so I got it.

As a giant mini game collection is expected, it has plenty of different things to do in it. Some of the minigames are fun as hell (like the music minigame, where you have to keep the beat by shaking the Wiimote/nunchuk at the right time), while others are just plain annoying (the cow throwing game or the keep the bathroom doors shut game). So far, the game's presentation is minimalist, but good - Rayman is stuck in a prison cell and can only get out by performing for the Rabbids various games. There is no dialogue, just grunts and groans (and brilliant screams) from the Rabbids, and the occasional "Hmm..." from Rayman himself.

I am not aware of how many different minigames there are, and it appears as though the game will be short - but what should I expect, this being a minigame collection? I'm glad I picked it up, but its true worth will be when I see if my girlfriends brother likes it. If I can play this multiplayer, it could be fun - could I even get my girlfriend to enjoy it? Probably not, but its worth a shot.

I also did end up picking up Shadowrun, Link to the Past, and Imperium, all for SNES, although I let my girlfriends brother have Zelda (it was the Player's Choice version, I want the regular, non-Players Choice cartridge). Imperium is a standard shoot-em-up, it seems alright but I doubt I'll play it too much (its just super, super rare so I thought for five bucks I might as well pick it up). Shadowrun is going to be excellent, I can tell, but it looks as though it'll take me awhile to learn the intricacies of it before I post about it here. It seems like a fairly ambitious game for a 1993 SNES game, so that's awesome. I'll post about that soon, though...

So I just beat Wario Land II...

2008-05-15T01:19:00.004-04:00

I hate that I haven't been able to update until now, but I just beat Wario Land II - and thank god. It gets much better after you beat it the first time. Once you beat the game, you are allowed to decide which level you play in order to obtain the treasure there, or start playing a branching path in the story, because there are apparently multiple endings - which is sweet.

The thing I didn't like about Wario Land II up until this point is that I was unable to choose my level. In the original Wario Land, if I was stuck on a level, I eventually had to beat it, but I could always go back and play some other level to find a treasure I missed or something. In Wario Land 3, I could go to pretty much any level and try to obtain a different treasure I might have missed, but again I would eventually have to beat whatever I was stuck on. Both Wario Land II and Virtual Boy Wario Land (from what I've played of it) suffer from this problem: I can't choose the level I want to play (although this is partially averted in Virtual Boy Wario Land, because I can just go backwards through a level to the elevator to the previous level). Wario Land II was pretty much the hardest Wario Land to get through for me, at least on the first try. However, now that I can choose the level, I may go through it again to see what it has to offer - I can't promise I'll post anything here or that I'll complete it, but again, I'm glad I got the game.

Besides that, the game played pretty well, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys classic Wario games. I will say this though - from what I've played, the order of quality Wario games is as follows for me:

1. Wario Land 3 (I've beaten this 100%)
2. Wario Land 1 (I've beaten this 100%)
3. Wario Land 2 (I've beaten this, but not at 100% obviously)
4. Virtual Boy Wario Land (I'm at the end boss of my first playthrough)
5. Wario Land 4 (I haven't quite beaten this yet)
6. A rotten pile of dogshit
7. Wario: Master of Disguise

I realize that number six and seven are easily confused, but number six is definitely the better of the two.

Anyway, my two biggest problems with Wario Land II are, as mentioned before, the inability to choose my level, and as mentioned here, the shitty minigames. If those had been better, this game could've been better than the original.

Oh well. All of those games are good (save for Master of Disguise).

The resale shop I go to just got a copy of Shadowrun for the SNES in, and supposedly the guy is holding it for me. Hopefully he keeps his promise and I'm able to pick it up on Friday when I get my paycheck. I tried a bit of the game on an emulator, and it looks interesting - the GameFAQs reviews for it say its good, and its also somewhat rare, I understand. I've never played it before, so I may post about it here assuming I get it and the cartridge still saves correctly.

God, it was nice to write a post. Hopefully I can write another one Friday night if I get Shadowrun or something else.

(Click here for my first Wario Land II post) (Post 2)

Game Droughts are a Bitch

2008-05-11T02:05:00.003-04:00

God, I hate game droughts.

I'm playing through Puzzle Quest right now, and I'm having a great time playing it, but I don't really have much to say about it at this point. It remains fun, I still think people should play it, but as far as me writing another entertaining post about it? I don't think I could top this one.

Regardless, until I get my next paycheck on the 16th of May, it doesn't look like I'll be playing too many different games. I started a Resident Evil file yesterday, but I doubt I'll continue to play it - I've beaten it before, and it is a very frustrating game, what with it's limited inventory and limited saves. Limited goddamn saves should never be in any game, ever. They are fucking retarded.

Anyway, the posts here will probably be sparse until I get something new to play. Then, like usual, i will probably post ten posts in a single day. I'm still waiting on Mario Kart Wii and any of those games listed in the "Currently Looking For" column. I'd also like to order a new 72 pin connector for my NES so I can play some of those games again, on the original system - prompting, of course, more writing here. I would love to play the original Crystalis - I didn't think the Game Boy Color remake was that great. So, readers, if you do indeed exist, I will see you soon.

Puzzle Quest: I Am the Rat King

2008-05-08T02:08:00.005-04:00

If you haven't played Puzzle Quest, get off your ass. It's on like every system ever, so go get it.

Now that I understand how better to use my items, powers, and can more easily recognize patterns in gems, I can stop sucking ass at the game. In fact, I find myself playing battle after battle after battle, over and over again until I pass out and see nothing but colored gems in my dreams and can only think to myself upon awakening, "I need green mana..."

This game is rich. And what I mean by that is all the different ways matching up colored gems can be used to accomplish different things. Battles are the meat and potatoes of the game, but there are parts that I have only recently discovered. I have "captured" two different monsters: one, a Minotaur, who lets me learn his spell, and another, a Giant Rat, whom I have mounted and I now ride around like some sort of mangy, diseased God.

No, really. I ride a fucking rat to work everyday.

The rat allows me to use his spell as well, but I don't have to use up one of my six spell "slots" - apparently, your mount gets its own individual slot for a spell. I assume I can acquire different mounts throughout the game by capturing different things, thereby granting me better powers than "Rabid Bite" (not a joke - it's the rat's actual power).

Oh! I almost forgot to describe the capturing process. Instead of battling the rat until it died, I had to solve a puzzle clearing all the gems on screen (not a full boards worth, there was only like 20 gems). This is a unique little twist on the normal battle mode, and it is nice because (at least on what I've attempted to capture so far) you can try over and over again quickly. The only complaint I could find is that both the battle screen and the capture screen scream for a "Retry" button in the Pause Menu.

Anyway, the game is fucking amazing and you should play it.

(Click here for Puzzle Quest: I Suck at You)

Final Mario RPG Impressions

2008-05-07T13:41:00.003-04:00

Well, I beat Mario RPG just a couple minutes ago. This will be the last post about it here, so I'll try to address everything.

**LOTS OF SPOILERS AHEAD!**

First, I'll talk about the rest of the game I haven't already written about. So I reached Nimbus Land (which is another dumb name - it sounds like an insult from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure or something) and found out who Mallow's parents were (Surprise! He's a prince! How original - a character who doesn't know his parents at the beginning of the game who turns out to be royalty!). I fought a pretty lame boss (I can't even remember her name - it's the chick who declares herself queen of Nimbus Land) who I didn't like because it's never really explained why she came to power and how she fooled the inhabitants of Nimbus Land into thinking their King and Queen were sick.

Anyway, so after I fought her I had to go into a volcano to presumably lengthen the game. There really was no reason for it - they could've just given me the star after I beat Queen Forgettable. The guy I fought at the end of the volcano was just as forgettable anyway. After I beat him, I rode a cloud back to Bowser's lair and fought my way in.

Nothing really interesting happened until I got to the point where you have to go through six different doors to move on - two of the doors were battle doors, two were "action" doors (basically just jump your way through), and two were quiz doors (where you, duh, answer quiz questions about the game). The quizzes were fairly stupid sometimes, though - like "What was the first enemy you see in X Land?" There were some fairer questions like "What is the name of the boss in the pirate ship?" I could actually remember that one. Regardless, there was always a puzzle at the end of the quiz doors that was just ridiculously hard. One of them had me making balls jump over each other like checkers, until I only had one ball left. The best I could do was two. Oh, and if you fail? Start over!

Oh well. So after I beat that area, I had to fight a Magikoopa, who was pretty easy. After I beat him, he healed me and I was able to buy items from that crocodile guy, who apparently has reformed himself and is now selling items legit. Then, I fought the giant sword, who I thought was fairly tough.

It was at the sword that I realized Princess Peach is awesome. For four star power, she can heal your entire team for over 100 health. So, she and Bowser became my permanent team, which is sad because I really liked Geno's attacks.

So anyway, after the sword I had to fight my way through Smithy's factory. It was fairly boring, I thought, because I killed everything in my way with no problem until the final boss.

Smithy, the final boss, was kind of stupid. He was sort of a bumbling fool, which I was pretty surprised at. Knowing Square, I thought he would be a complete bad ass who knew exactly what he was doing and was extremely confident it would work. Problem is, this is a Mario game, and even in the later RPGs, the story isn't taken seriously.

Which is a double edged sword, because there were some pretty funny parts of Mario RPG. Bowser is usually pretty funny, because no one (save maybe the Toads) is really scared of him. Minor enemies always focus on Mario and Bowser gets upset and recites Haikus (not kidding - it's fucking hilarious).

Anyway, the ending was pretty sub-par. Yes, it was nice to see a short cameo of Luigi, but I didn't really like it. All the characters pretty much go their own ways without any extra context - they don't even say, "And so, Bowser rebuilt his castle," or "Geno went back to Star Road and nailed some hot Star Piece of ass," or anything. It's told with pictures, which I guess will do.

The battle system, to my surprise, remained fantastic throughout the game. I pretty much always had fun and I would only avoid battles when I knew I had to fight a really annoying enemy who only cast spells with really long animations. Otherwise, I would kill everything wherever I was at. I believe I finished the game with everyone at level 22.

Overall, the game was fantastic. I don't know where I'd put it compared to the other Mario RPG games - I still think the funniest was Superstar Saga, and Super Paper Mario and it's pseudo-RPG elements were a lot of fun as well. Hell, the battle systems in all of the games are pretty fun - I think I like Mario RPG's style just a little bit more than Thousand Year Door's and the original Paper Mario's system of only having two characters in play at a time. Either way, I will say this: the forty bucks I paid for Mario RPG was worth it, and I'll probably play through it again someday. Hopefully they release Mario RPG on Virtual Console soon, so more people can experience this fantastic game. Damn, what a long post.

(Click here for Part 1 of my Mario RPG Impressions) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Slightly Off Topic Rant) (First Mario RPG Post)

Mario RPG Impressions Part 5

2008-05-05T23:28:00.003-04:00

So I'm still going after the sixth star. I had finally reached Monstro Town after wandering around Belome Temple for a long time trying to figure out which combination would get me to the right exit. Which is basically another type of Forest Maze, dammit. Regardless, I've noticed the battles are getting easier - not only that, I'm leveling up really fast as well. I don't know if I'm just underleveled (I haven't grinded at all yet in this game - which is odd because Squaresoft made it in the mid nineties, when they made you grind ten levels just to take a shit) or if I'm just fucking awesome at the game.

But, that's probably not the case because its getting easier. I just beat Birdo, with absolutely no problem at all (well, I think Geno got killed once, but that was because I entered the battle with low health). Perhaps Birdo was intended to be an easy boss or something, I don't know. I'm kind of thankful that I don't have to level up for hours to beat the game, though. The later Mario RPG games didn't make you do that either and they were better for it. I just think it's strange that Squaresoft made an RPG that didn't involve massive amounts of grinding (they even made you grind in the "made for America" Final Fantasy Mystic Quest which was released around the same time!).

Anyway, the next post or two will probably be my last for Mario RPG. It really depends on how they do the last star. If I get it in the last level then fight the last boss, I'll probably end with Part 6.

(Click here for Part 1 of my Mario RPG Impressions) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Slightly Off Topic Rant) (First Mario RPG Post)

Puzzle Quest: I Suck at You

2008-05-05T13:40:00.007-04:00

So it's been three days since I last posted, I see. I have been playing games, but I've also been working and hanging out with my girlfriend who is having a rough couple of weeks. I'll probably write a post or two today, I don't know when I'll put them up though.

Anyway, so I took advantage of Gamestop's buy two get one free sale on used games on Friday and picked up a few. I got Final Fantasy III for DS, Puzzle Quest for DS (I got this version because I remember reading something in Penny Arcade that said the stylus was a better way to control it), and my free game was Resident Evil for the Gamecube. I haven't really gotten into Final Fantasy III yet, but Puzzle Quest is pretty good.

And totally fucking unfair at the same time. When I string together like two combos, the computer will go and get two four-in-a-rows, fourteen green mana, twenty seven blue mana, and seventy fucking three skulls, killing me in essentially a turn. I am stuck (no joke) on a Vampire Bat, and I think that is because I suck at this game. I've played plenty of random battles, so I've leveled up, but I think I need to learn what my powers do better before I am to continue. Puzzle Quest is so outside the normal range of games I play that it is like learning how to play games all over again. I should probably delete this post because I am embarrassed to explain how shitty I am at this game.

Fuck it. To tell you the truth, I really like the game and I want to get better, so I will, god dammit. The problem is, I've got plenty to play and I need to finish Mario RPG before I focus too much on Puzzle Quest. And I've largely ignored Wario Land II for a while, as well. And Mario Kart Wii is always around the corner when I get fifty bucks...

Mario RPG Impressions Part 4

2008-05-02T01:30:00.003-04:00

So I now have 5 stars, having just beaten the Sunken Ship/Seaside Town area. I am now heading towards Land's End, presumably to purchase the most fashionable two piece bikini for Mario, which I hope comes in blue denim, of course.

Anyway, the area where I gathered the fifth star was... interesting. I liked the whole whirlpool thing, where I could go underwater and explore down there, while still jumping around and doing battles. What I didn't like was going back to Seaside Town to save and being confronted with a boss battle. Hoo-boy, that was fun! I had just fought Johnny, and he wasn't necessarily a bitch, but he was still a boss, and I used a few healing items during the battle, so when I reached Yaridovich, I had very few healing items left. I barely beat him (thank god, too - god knows how long I would've had to put the game down in anger had I lost) and was able to procure the fifth star for good.

Its at times like these that I really see the old Squaresoft shine through. No save points in between bosses (well, I may have been able to save, but I didn't think to check, so perhaps I'm just fucking stupid, which I admit is possible), fake treasure chest enemies that can kill your party in seconds, and common enemies that can take half your health in one hit if they do the right move. I love you so much, circa 1996 Square. You make me so goddamned happy.

Sarcasm aside, I had mixed feelings about the fifth star. Not as bad as Forest Maze, mind you, but not as good as Moleville, either. On to JCPenney! Er, I mean Marshall Fields! Oops, to Land's End! Whatever it is. The name would be cool if it weren't a fucking clothing brand.

(Click here for Part 1 of my Mario RPG Impressions) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Slightly Off-Topic Rant) (First Mario RPG Post)

Mario RPG: Slightly Off-Topic Rant

2008-05-01T20:38:00.004-04:00

I know Mario RPG is like 12 years old, but this is bullshit because I've seen it in recent games. By "it", I mean fake treasure chests. If i open a treasure chest, but it's actually a monster, that's ok, I guess, if a little stupid. But if the monster is ridiculously powerful and kills my party in just a few turns, that's retarded. And the one in Mario RPG wouldn't even let me run from it, for fucks sakes.

See, I could handle all the other enemies in the area, no problem. I even beat a boss before I encountered this guy. But this is just fucking stupid. He killed Mario, Bowser, and Geno very goddamn quickly. He even summoned little Goombas (four of them, dammit!) that did almost as much damage as he did!

Are the developers suggesting that I save before I open any treasure chest I find? Well, I'd love to, devs (well, actually, I wouldn't, but for the sake of the argument let's just continue)! But I can't, because I have to be at a save point and you won't let me save anywhere. So don't put stupid bullshit traps in your game that basically kill me instantly and erase tons of fucking time!

Assholes.

(Click here for Part 1 of my Mario RPG Impressions) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Intro Article)

Wario Land 2: I Hate the Slug

2008-05-01T13:20:00.008-04:00

This guy can suck it:

He is a bastard. He's the only enemy in Wario Land 2 that I hate. I don't remember anything like him in Wario Land 1 or 3, so obviously the designers realized he was bullshit and took him out. The problem I have is this: he is almost impossible to kill reliably! Every other enemy is fairly easy to kill because their weak points are obvious. This guy seems to start his attack animation randomly, and if his mouth is facing you, he is invincible. And if you get hit? You lose like six coins. A bigger problem is that the designers always seem to place three or four of these guys in a row, in a small enclosed area. So, say goodbye to your coins.

Which brings me to a major problem I have with Wario Land 2. As I mentioned before, the minigames in this game aren't fun to begin with; what I failed to mention was that they are fucking expensive. 50 coins just to see one block of 9 for the game where you guess the number! That means you might have to spend 300 coins or more to figure out what the number is! This wouldn't be such a problem if you could PICK THE FUCKING BLOCK YOU WANT TO SEE! I think that would be fair, because it would make the game easier, yes, but it would still cost 50 goddamn coins for each flip. And the other minigame costs at least 100 coins to win, basically, because the "hard" setting, while cheapest, is also damn near impossible.

The main game remains pretty good, but so far I think I like the other Wario Land games better. Wario Land 1 focused on collecting coins and treasure within the level without minigames, and I think it seemed more focused than Wario Land 2. The third game, though, focused better on entering a level and solving a puzzle to get a treasure, and I think it was pulled off better than 2. Plus, whether you liked the golf minigame or not, you didn't have to play it in every fucking level like you do in with the minigames in Wario Land 2. The second game just seems unpolished compared to the other two; I would recommend them over this one. That's not to say this is a bad game, but it seems more like a mishmash of ideas that don't gel together perfectly.

(Click here for my first Wario Land 2 article)

Mario RPG Impressions Part 3

2008-05-01T01:00:00.006-04:00

I really enjoyed Booster's Tower and the minigame after it. Actually, I think Booster was the funniest part of the whole game so far, because the guy is fucking stupid. Well, perhaps that's not right. I think he has Alzheimer's. He and his minions, the Snifits, all forget about anything that is right in front of them. Hell, Booster himself forgets Mario is his enemy, and actually gives him an item! Then, later, he suddenly remembers Mario and runs from him.

Alzheimer's in a videogame - that's a new one, if memory serves. (Amnesia doesn't count.)

Anyway, Star Hill was fairly lame, but I hated the way it looked as soon as I entered it, so I was happy to be done with it quickly. I'm done with the game for tonight, but I'll play more tomorrow.

(Click here for Part 2 of my Mario RPG Impressions)
(Click here for Part 1 of my Mario RPG Impressions)
(Click here for my first Mario RPG article)

Mario RPG Impressions Part 2

2008-04-30T22:55:00.005-04:00

Finally, another Mario RPG update, dammit.

I now have three stars, having just beaten Punchinello, and I just got Bowser on my team. Apparently, Peach is at the top of Booster Tower, where I'm heading next. I haven't gone inside yet, because I've decided to level up my characters so they are all around the same level, which at this moment happens to be 10.

I had stopped playing at the Forest Maze, because that area is bullshit. Easily my least favorite part of the game so far. I had no problem with it until the Lost Woods-ish part at the end, where you supposedly have to go left, left, straight, right. But you also have to follow Geno, then make some other weird turns, and I eventually had to look up where to go online because I was frustrated as hell, and even THAT didn't help because the people who wrote the FAQs on GameFAQs are fucking idiots who don't know how to write directions for an isometric perspective!

Let me spell that out for you. If a game is set up like Mario RPG, and you walk diagonally up, left, right, and down almost all the time, then guess what? When you are denoting turns (or exits), you say upper-right or lower-left! Not left, right, up, or down! When you say up, what the fuck does that mean?! Upper right, or upper left? So, suffice it to say, I eventually figured out where to go, but I don't remember what I did. But once I beat that fucking level, I resolved to never go back.

And what is it with the Lost Woods thing? It always seemed like lazy design to me (yes, even in the Zelda games). All the areas look the same, and I don't care if they are intended that way or not, it's not fun. It's annoying. I've seen it in multiple Zelda games, a couple Mario games (this one included), and probably a bunch of other ones too (Crystalis comes to mind). Developers: stop it. Nobody likes playing this; I hated wandering around for like an hour fighting annoying enemies (including Donkey Kong! Er, I mean, Guerrilla...). So fucking quit it.

Anyway, after I beat that area and got the second star, I went to Moleville and played through the mines there, and had a blast doing it. I actually enjoyed the fights, really with no complaints, even the boss was fun. And the mine cart ride afterwards using the Super Nintendo's Mode 7 was pretty sweet as well. I always love seeing Mode 7 stuff - it feels so outdated, it's awesome.

I'm still really enjoying the game, though. Very well done, and extremely playable, perhaps even as much as the later Mario RPG games - Forest Maze aside, of course.

(Click here for Part 1 of my Mario RPG Impressions)
(Click here for my first Mario RPG article)

Well that was fast... I have Wario Land 2 already

2008-04-30T00:33:00.004-04:00

So on a whim, I went to my hometown's Gamestop today, before I picked my girlfriend up from work (her job is just a few doors down from Gamestop). I see a sign advertising 25% off Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, so I look at what they have, hoping to find either Kirby's Dreamland 2, Kid Icarus: Myths and Monsters, or Wario Land II.

Usually, it's the same old shit. A bunch of card games, perhaps a Tetris clone, maybe a Mario Land.

I got lucky, though. "Holy shit! They have Wario Land II!" It was listed as $9.99 as well, so I ended up paying about $7.50 because of the sale, which is about 5 dollars less than what was being asked at the eBay auction I was looking at.

So, I picked the game up and brought it home. I intend on playing through it, but there is a slight problem: it appears as though whoever previously owned this game didn't take proper care of it, because a tiny, tiny part of where the cartridge connects to the system appears to be slightly corroded. From what I've played so far, the game works, but I have had it delete my save once already (possibly due to my using an old Super Game Boy). Luckily, that file was deleted only about 5 levels in, so I started over on my Game Boy Player and have had pretty good luck so far. If I get far, though, and my save gets deleted, I probably will put the game down for a while - I can't stand replaying the same levels over and over again because the fucking game decided to delete itself.

Anyway, Wario Land II is a pretty cool game. It is like a combination of Wario Land 1 and Wario Land 3, and it is succulent. The invincibility and powers of Wario Land 3 combined with the linear level progression and the importance of coins of Wario Land 1 - seems like a pretty good combo so far.

I will say this, though: the minigames leave a lot to be desired. Ooh, guess the number! And try to figure out where this picture is if we show you for a split second! I may not have liked the golf minigame very much in Wario Land 3, but it beats the pants off these two.

Oh, and Zombie Wario can't jump in this one. Apparently, Zombie Wario got an upgrade for Wario Land 3.

The Last Wario Land 3 Post

2008-04-28T23:06:00.003-04:00

Okay, so one more post before I take another break for a day or two of exam work.

I just got all 100 treasures in Wario Land 3, so I'm pretty much effectively done with it. I doubt I'll be getting all 8 coins in every level, because, well, I have other shit to play (namely, Super Mario RPG, which will now probably get my full attention unless I buy Mario Kart Wii soon).

Just a few closing thoughts on Wario Land 3:

Above the Clouds is an annoying fucking level. In fact, its the most annoying level in the game.
The last boss, to me, seems like an easier version of Donkey Kong GB's last boss, which I thought was odd. And somewhat lame. Granted, Wario Land 3 came out six years after that game, so I guess they assumed most people hadn't played both? Or it was just a coincidence? I don't know.
The music is very well done, which is something I don't think I've said before. I haven't played much of Wario Land II, but the Wario Land series overall has fantastic music, even though most of them are on the Game Boy.
The puzzles are great, as well, because they aren't super easy nor do they become incredibly frustrating (aside from climbing the clouds in Above the Clouds, as mentioned before).
The golf minigame is okay, but to me it seems tacked on. Sometimes, it seems as though the designed the holes merely to drain your coins (but I think thats just me - I tend to try to always hit the "ball" as hard as possible rather than aim my shot).

Anyway, I'm really glad I got the game and was able to play through it again. Playing it makes me long for another proper Wario Land (the DS's Master of Disguise was utter dogshit). As I seem to be doing lately, I'll probably be playing a series out of order - I'd like to pick up Wario Land II soon, as I'm eying some eBay auctions. The other game I'm looking at picking up is Kirby's Dreamland 2, which I have actually played through before, but it has been years and I barely remember it. Anyway, back to exam studying. See you Wednesday or Thursday.

(Click here to read my second Wario Land 3 article)
(Click here to read my first Wario Land 3 article)

Exams

2008-04-28T15:40:00.001-04:00

I'll keep this short and sweet: once exams are over, I will be posting again, probably just as frequently or more frequently than I have been. So, on Wednesday or Thursday, expect another post.

Mario RPG Impressions Part 1

2008-04-23T00:44:00.003-04:00

So I'm really enjoying Mario RPG so far. I can tell you, however, that it's very odd coming from playing all of the later Mario RPG games (Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door, Mario & Luigi Partners in Time, and Super Paper Mario) to this one.

I can see how Mario RPG influenced those games, though. As different as Mario RPG is from the others, the roots are there. The timed button presses, the witty dialogue, goofy situations, wierd minigames, and Mario character staples are all there.

But, Square's interpretation of the Mario RPG is much harder than the later games. I mean, this game is not too difficult (well, at least so far... I guess I'm only one star in), whereas the other games were pretty much a cakewalk. And as far as the humor so far goes, Superstar Saga is still the winner (really, for me, that's one of the funniest games of all time, all because of this guy. I can't get enough of him).

But I am still very happy with my purchase. Yes, it is partly because I own a game I've wanted for a while and it is one of the more moderately expensive SNES games, but it's also because I love the Mario RPG games and I want to play through the original.

I think I'm about to get Geno, which is cool, because people on the internet seem to love him, and I know nothing about him. I guess we'll see.

(Click here to read my first Mario RPG article)

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

2008-04-22T13:10:00.000-04:00

I just sold a couple of Game Boy Colors to this goofy shop up here that has no idea how much stuff is worth, and I got 30 bucks. I then went to a different shop and picked up Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars and paid ten more dollars and got Final Fantasy Legend II and Super Mario Land 1, both for Game Boy.

It's been a good day so far.

I'll be writing about these games as time goes on, as well. I've never played Mario RPG, so that one will be interesting.

It Would Be Super Effective

2008-04-21T22:38:00.002-04:00

Wouldn't it be great if the Pokemon games had some sort of random element to them?

Okay, let me be more specific. What I would like is for when you start a new game in Pokemon, the game randomizes which Pokemon will appear where throughout your journey. Obviously, there would have to be some restrictions. I mean, if you were to run into, say, nothing but Pidgeys and Rattatas for three gyms, that would be unfair. But, if I started a new game in Pokemon Pearl, and after I obtain my first set of Pokeballs, would it not be sweet if I encountered a Gible? Sure, it'd mean I'd get a chance at some fantastic Pokemon right off the bat, but that would certainly encourage replay value, at least for me.

Plus, it would encourage trading, I think. I mean, if my friend and I are only two gyms in and I have a couple Gibles and he has a few Riolus, I would most certainly trade with him as soon as possible.

But this will never happen. It'd be too difficult, and really, how would you catch them all? All the FAQs online for finding Pokemon on specific routes would be useless. Still, it'd be great to have different Pokemon at the beginning to start out with...

Wario Land 3 = Fantastic

2008-04-21T18:42:00.003-04:00

Wario Land 3 continues to be amazing. I have played and beaten it before (back in 2000, before high school even), but since that was so long ago, I had basically forgotten how good it was.

One of my favorite things about it is that it obeys all of my laws of good handheld games. Which are these:

1. Let me save anywhere, anytime. (Preferably letting me resume at the exact spot I left off, which Wario Land 3 does do)

2. Give me hints on where to go next if I want them, and make them easily accessible(i.e. don't make me slog through tons of text on the main menu - let me get the hints in-game).

3. Use bright and/or contrasting colors so I can tell the difference between enemies, walls, floors, etc.

Wario Land 3 fulfills all of these requirements fully. I have no problems playing it. I have no problems seeing it even on a Game Boy Color, which if you recall did not have a backlight. So, essentially, it is the perfect handheld game.

Sadly, it's one of the best games I've played in a while. I'm not saying recent games like Smash Bros. Brawl or New Super Mario Bros. are bad, but they don't pull themselves together so coherently like Wario Land 3 does. Wario Land 3 just seems to do everything right.

I'll have to get a hold of a copy of Wario Land II - it's the one game in the series I've only played briefly, and I've heard that's pretty good as well.

(Click here to read my first Wario Land 3 article)

The Game Boy and Interesting Diversions

2008-04-21T01:37:00.003-04:00

Wow, six days since I last posted here. What a crazy week it has been... It was an enormously crazy week for my girlfriend, and I really hope she can get through this whole ordeal relatively unscathed.

However, this blog isn't about my personal life, so I won't discuss it anymore than that.

Anyway, it's been six days since I posted here, and a couple things have happened as far as video games go. One, a coworker of mine has been unloading some of her old videogames on me (free of charge!), and she gave me a particularly interesting load last Saturday. It consisted of a Gamecube, two Gamecube controllers, a clear purple Game Boy Color, a semi-broken original Game Boy, Animal Crossing, 2 Memory Card 59s, Harvest Moon GBC, Pokemon Pinball, and Wario Land 3. The last game in particular I've been looking for lately, and it's not that I've had a problem finding it, I just didn't want to pay more than 15 bucks.

Regardless, I was happy to receive it. I've been playing it since I got it, and for a Game Boy Color game, it is surprisingly playable. In fact, it's fantastic.

It is (obviously) the third game in the Wario Land series for the Game Boy, and it has a peculiar feature: It is a sidescrolling game, and the player's character cannot be killed. The game makes up for this by allowing the player to traverse levels in such a way that when they reach a boss and get hit by the boss, they are turned into something that floats and they float out of the boss's lair and have to find their way back.

At times, yes, this can be annoying. Usually, however, the game only sets you back to the previous room, right before you enter the boss room. This way, you really only have to start the (usually always short) boss fights over.

Anyway, the point of the game is not to fight your way through levels to get to the end, like in a sidescrolling Mario game. This game is all about solving puzzles in order to find treasures to further explore the rest of the levels in the game.

Honestly, that's all I want to say about the game itself at this point - I'm sure I'll post more in the upcoming days about it. However, I will say this: Since Wario Land 1 was titled Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, it is implied that the Wario series was an offshoot of the Mario series, and that seems odd to me. The first two Mario Game Boy games were great and sold well, and then Nintendo went and made a game all about Wario, the bad guy from the second game.

What the hell made Nintendo do that? I'm certainly thankful, because Wario Land is a fantastic game, but wow, what an odd choice. You'd think Nintendo would only continue to pump out Mario games. Oh well, perhaps they were sick of them back then. It doesn't matter now, anyway; the Game Boy Advance's Wario Land 4 wasn't as good as the first three games, and the less said about Wario: Master of Disguise, the better.

Baby Park Is the Worst Mario Kart Level Ever

2008-04-15T23:47:00.004-04:00

Mario Kart Double Dash was an alright game. It didn't gel too well with me, however. I mean, I played it, but you know, it was never fucking sweet. Sure, it had some cool ideas (character specific powerups being the best), but I didn't like some of them. The two people on one kart thing? I could really take it or leave it. I would rather just be able to hold two items than have two characters.

But the lack of hopping with the R button. Wow, that really ruined the game for me. I could never master the powerslide; I'm sure I could've had I gave it enough time and effort, but I never really cared about it because I didn't like the controls too much. Which is sad, because I love the controller (Let it be said: the Nintendo Gamecube controller is the most comfortable video game controller ever made, and I mean ever), but without hopping the game seemed wonky to me.

And then there's Baby Park. Which is really the shittiest Mario Kart track ever. First of all, its a short track, consisting of just two turns. There is a lot of item boxes, and so it seems the whole point of the level is for it to be a big battle.

Fuck that.

I don't care what anyone says; they are wrong. Baby Park sucks. If you have ever bitched about Blue Shells taking "skilled" play away from Mario Kart and adding to its "random" winners, then you cannot, CANNOT like Baby Park because the whole level is one giant fucking blue shell. Bullet Bills, Blue Shells, Red Shells, and all of them all combine to form the most annoying level known to Mario Kart. Are you really good at racing? Powersliding? Anything like that? Well, you might as well forget leading the pack on Baby Park, then, because the winner is always completely random. It really is whoever gets the star on the last lap, or the Blue Shell two laps before the end.

And the worst thing about Mario Kart DS is the fact they included this bullshit level.

Anyway, to sum up: Mario Kart Double Dash is an okay game, but the lack of R hopping and fucking Baby Park are two abortions of ideas that I hope Nintendo never revisits again.

Quit being a prick, Leafeon

2008-04-15T22:59:00.003-04:00

So I started a new game in Pokemon Pearl today, probably to have more to discuss on this blog. But anyway, I decided I didn't want to use only the Pokemon that can be found towards the beginning of the game - so I traded a Leafeon from my copy of Diamond to Pearl and began to raise him.

A couple things worth mentioning: I've never done this before. All my previous playthroughs of Pokemon have been with Pokemon I catch myself, mostly because I never had any means of trading. So, I've also never had to deal with a Pokemon that won't obey.

So: Fuck you, Leafeon. Just fucking use any move. You don't have to use the one I tell you, but quit "loafing around." Once I beat the second gym, Pokemon up to level 30 will obey me. By the time I beat the gym, Leafeon will probably be around level 22. Woo-hoo, 8 levels of obedience. Then I have to wait until I beat another 2 gyms so Pokemon up to level 50 will obey me, at which point I'm pretty much set until endgame. Anyway, it's a minor point - I just found it annoying, is all.

Quick thought: I wish Nintendo would implement a way for me to use Pokemon that aren't available at the start of the game without imposing this stupid "disobey" crap on me. I would love to have my Elite Four team consist of all Eeveelutions or something cool like that.

This is the last Minish Cap post, I swear

2008-04-15T02:09:00.004-04:00

So I finished the Minish Cap today. Well, that is, I beat the final boss - getting all the heart pieces isn't too easy a task - which it damn well shouldn't be. Here are my final comments on this game vs. Phantom Hourglass:

Story: Meh, Phantom Hourglass probably takes this one since even though it doesn't really advance the storyline of Wind Waker, it involves characters from it. And Minish Cap has Vaati, so as mentioned before, it is shit.
Items: The final nod has to go to Minish Cap here. Although I liked the controls of the old items in Phantom Hourglass, they ultimately weren't used outside of the dungeon you got them in, whereas Minish Cap forced you to use them to get around - and also in puzzles throughout the world! Wow!
Graphics: Good thing graphics usually don't bother me, because I can't decide which I like better. Minish Cap is weird looking to me; it looks like some other game at times. Phantom Hourglass, on the other hand, uses a dumbed down version of Wind Waker's graphics - and when you see Link up close, you'll see the DS doesn't do a great job of it. So I guess in the end, Minish Cap wins, because at least with that game I don't notice shitty looking graphics as I'm playing.
Bosses: Phantom Hourglass wins. While Minish Cap wins for difficulty, Phantom Hourglass has incredibly fun bosses, and the use of the items in the boss fights is really the only place they shine.
Dungeons: Minish Cap wins. Phantom Hourglass has the Temple of the Ocean King, which is the worst Zelda dungeon ever(because of sheer annoyance). Also, besides the fact the dungeons never really pose a challenge physically or mentally, Minish Cap's somewhat easy puzzles beat out Phantom Hourglasses ridiculously easy puzzles.
Controls: Ah, the controversial one. I'm going to take Phantom Hourglass here, not because I necessarily prefer the stylus controls, but because Minish Cap forces me to use the R button way more than I should have to. And shoulder buttons have always sucked.

Well look at that. A tie! It appears as though Phantom Hourglass isn't as bad as I've made it out to be. In the end, I would recommend Minish Cap over Phantom Hourglass though, because the core parts of the game (dungeons, puzzles, and items) are better than what Phantom Hourglass has to offer (controls, bosses, and a slightly better story). But really, these are Zelda games we are talking about. So I recommend both.

(Click here for my second Minish Cap article)
(Click here for my first Minish Cap article)

The game that showed me the DS didn't suck

2008-04-15T00:15:00.002-04:00

Mario Kart DS is the best Mario Kart ever. It combined perfect controls, great levels, great music, and damn good graphics in one fantastic package. To add to all of this, it also had online races, which I played the fuck out of.

Snaking, though. I can do it, but I can see why people don't like it. It really limits the fun you can have while playing Mario Kart. Having a match between people who do nothing but snake is exhilarating, but tiring. At my Mario Kart DS peak, I could only play 5 or 6 matches before my hands cramped into a gnarled mass of fingers. And snaking against people who either couldn't or refused to wasn't any fun either, and I actually felt bad about it, so I tried not to do it. It really did break the game.

But that's not to say it sucked, though. Mario Kart DS introduced missions, which were excellent single player diversions for people like me who had no one nearby who wanted to play the game. There were plenty of missions, and some of them were balls hard.

I never really got into Battle Mode in any of the Mario Kart's, though, so my opinion of Mario Kart DS's version of it is pretty much the same as the other Mario Kart games: fairly boring.

Overall, Mario Kart DS is a fantastic game and if you missed it, you really missed out on the best version of Mario Kart to date.

To celebrate Mario Kart Wii's upcoming release, I will periodically be posting about various other games in the Mario Kart series. This is the first such post.

Horseshit Incarnate

2008-04-14T21:58:00.003-04:00

Okay, now I must write a short (bitchy) post about Pokemon. About something that has been bugging me for over a year.

WHAT HAPPENED TO STORING ITEMS ON THE PC?!

Seriously, I'm sick of having to scroll through 200 items to get to the bottom (where the game automatically places any item you newly obtain or unequip from your Pokemon). Can I store my 17 Fire Stones? How about all of this shit you can only get once that I don't need right now, but would like to keep? How could they leave that out of the fourth generation? What an annoying fucking omission.

Why are Pokemon Diamond and Pearl so good?

2008-04-14T20:44:00.002-04:00

Since Pokemon Diamond and Pearl will have been out for a year next week, I thought I'd do a little writing about the games for a little while. I'd like to post something about them all week, but it will be a hectic week, so I guess we'll see.

Before Pokemon Diamond and Pearl were released, I really didn't care too much about them. I didn't follow previews, I didn't know exactly when they were going to be released save for mere chance about a week before they were released (hell, probably about a year ago today), and I didn't really care. I had been burnt out from Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald in 2003, and more Pokemon didn't really sound too much fun to me, even four years after those games.

I don't know what made me do it, but I picked up Pokemon Diamond the day the game came out last year. I started the game up, picked Chimchar, and began. I'm not sure if it was the graphics, the music, or the overall presentation that kept me hooked, but boy, was I hooked. I played and played and played and played and a year later, I now have all 493 Pokemon (I caught all of them legit, except for the stupid ones that you can only get when Nintendo supposedly "gives them away" at specific events - hey Nintendo, want to give any of those Pokemon away to someone who doesn't live in New York City or Tokyo?), three stars on my silver Trainer's Card, and around 12 Pokemon at level 100, all raised legit by me with the help of a Lucky Egg(that I obtained legit!). I realize 12 Pokemon at level 100 isn't really all that many compared to some of the people that play this game "competitively", but for me that's huge. You see, I was never into raising Pokemon to level 100. The only other time I've done it is in Pokemon Red and Blue, while abusing the item duplicator cheat to obtain Rare Candies, of course. So for me to willingly raise some of my favorite Pokemon to level 100 is a pretty impressive feat...for me.

It really is hard for me to say why the fourth generation Pokemon games hooked me so hard. Really, aside from a few points, the games are just graphically updated and roster updated versions of Red and Blue, with few new features. Granted, the online trading and battling is goddamn fantastic, so perhaps that is part of it. Lately, I've even been fantasizing about picking up a copy of Pearl to play through the main story mode again, which is something I haven't yearned for since Red and Blue. And there really wouldn't be a point to that, because I've caught all of them. Oh well. I tip my hat to you, Pokemon Company. Pokemon Diamond is excellent, for some reason I'm having trouble articulating.

Question: Subspace Emissary? Answer: Letdown

2008-04-14T17:18:00.004-04:00

The Adventure mode in Super Smash Bros. Melee was entertaining, even awesome the first time you play through it. It contained multiple side-scrolling levels designed around actual games that the stars of Melee were in, such as the Mushroom Kingdom level or the F-Zero race. Playing through all of these various homages to games as, say, Link from Zelda or (my favorite) Sheik, while beating the crap out of Goombas, ReDeads, and other assorted Nintendo enemies was pretty sweet and fairly satisfying.

Which is why Super Smash Bros. Brawl's "Subspace Emissary" mode is so much of a letdown. First of all (and this is the worst offender), the levels, other than just a few exceptions (literally like two or three exceptions) are all generic and are not throwbacks to various levels found in old Nintendo games like Star Fox or Pokemon, or anything like that. (I realize there are levels designed around this for battling in multiplayer, but those don't count - again, this is about the one player mode) HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?! Why would Nintendo (or Sakurai, or whoever) design generic, stupid levels? I understand they need to have new design to support Smash's gameplay, but for Christsakes, use graphics from the old games (whether ripped right from them or redone)! Why did I have to play through Generic Desert Level as Ike from Fire Emblem? What was the fucking point? The whole point of Smash Bros. is to bring back waves of nostalgia while fighting, and they missed that completely with generic level designs that have very little, if any, resemblance to the old games.

And that brings me to my next point. Why are the enemy designs generic as well? Why are they weird, stupid little puppet-looking things that aren't culled from any previous Nintendo game? Now, there are a few levels with Goombas and Koopas, but not many, and that is it. Why can't I fight against the Eggplant Wizards from Kid Icarus? Where are the enemies from Donkey Kong Country? As mentioned above, bring back the ReDeads! How about fighting against Kirby enemies (besides the one King DeDeDe can throw)?

I even have complaints about some of the bosses. It's really cool that Ridley is in there - but twice? In a Metroid game, that's perfectly acceptable, but since this is Smash Bros, there should have been fights from other games. How about fighting Twinrova from Ocarina of Time? Or, perhaps something from Twilight Princess? Instead, we get two Ridley fights, Rayquaza, a stupid big Piranha Plant from Mario, and a bunch of stupid generic, boring bosses. Nintendo has had some truly epic bosses in their games - why waste all of their potential? And really, that's what Subspace Emissary ended up being - a goddamn waste. I doubt I'll ever play it again unless I have to play it to get trophies I missed. (Stupid fucking boss trophies.)

(Click here for Brawl Thoughts #2)
(Click here for Brawl Thoughts #1)

More on Minish Cap/Phantom Hourglass

2008-04-14T00:27:00.007-04:00

So I've slowly been playing through Minish Cap, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Sure, the story is forgettable (any Zelda game with Vaati as the main enemy means the story will be shit), but the gameplay actually holds up fairly well. And since lately I'm obsessed with writing about the portable Zeldas, I will continue to compare this one to Phantom Hourglass.

First of all, the heart pieces. In Minish Cap, you collect four of these to form a new heart container. In Phantom Hourglass, you collect one. That is pure, unfiltered, uncut horseshit. Did you just beat a minigame? Here, have a Heart Container! Did you just catch all the fish? Have a fuckin' Heart Container! Also, other than the ones you get in dungeons and the ones you start out with, there are only six fucking Heart Containers to collect! Horse. Shit.

(Okay, I guess that was more of an attack on Phantom Hourglass than a comparison between it and Minish Cap. Oh well.)

Secondly, the items. Sure, Phantom Hourglass puts new spins on old items (such as the Boomerang, where you literally draw the path it flies - had all the other items been as fun as this one to use, I wouldn't be complaining about the items so much, but the other items certainly are not as good as this), but goddammit, most of them have been in the series since day one! Even Twilight Princess had great new items(as well as its fair share of shitty ones), but Phantom Hourglass has relatively few new items! And the most important new "item" is only used for the worst part of the fucking game! And guess what! You don't actually use the item - it's just a timer for that annoying fucking temple! Delightful!

But yeah, Minish Cap's items. Many old items return (like the Bow and Arrows or Bombs) but some fairly interesting new ones appear as well. And, unlike in Phantom Hourglass, most of the items need to be used throughout the entire game in order to successfully traverse the countryside! Tell me, how many times did you use the Hammer outside of the temple it is found in? Pretty goddammed rarely, if at all.

Basically, as I play through more and more Minish Cap, I realize how much better it is than Phantom Hourglass. Both of them are entertaining games, but wow, is Minish Cap better.

(Click here for my first Minish Cap article)

Brawl Thoughts #2

2008-04-11T02:11:00.005-04:00

Another minor complaint about Super Smash Bros. Brawl:

What happened to the Target Test levels tailored to specific characters? Some of the Target Test levels in Melee were amazing. Now its the same five levels for everyone. What the fuck?

Perhaps these should be in another post, but screw it: I also miss the "Board the Platforms" mode, and what happened to the "Race to the Finish!" mode?

Imagine being Sonic and running as fast as you can to the end... hell, it'd be like a Sonic game...

Speaking of which, one of these days I'm going to post about how shitty the Subspace Emissary is. Which is to say, really fucking shitty.

(Click here for Brawl Thoughts #1)

Brawl Thoughts #1

2008-04-11T00:13:00.002-04:00

Where did the Bonuses go?

Seriously. It's a small complaint, I know, but it's been bugging me. In Melee, there was even an entire multiplayer mode devoted to these little bonuses, and not only is that mode gone in Brawl, but the bonuses are also completely gone.

It's certainly not the most annoying part about Brawl, which overall is still a fantastic game. But it does bug me...

Was there a GBA Zelda...?

2008-04-10T22:58:00.005-04:00

Well? Was there? ...Oh yeah, there was. The Minish Cap. I forgot about that one.

Just kidding. I did start playing it again, though, after beating it once three years ago then never touching it again. I must say something: so far, I think it is better than Phantom Hourglass.

Ooh, there's a segue for ya.

Now, I'm not saying Phantom Hourglass is bad. But the main dungeon, the one where you have to trek through the same parts over and over and over again until you beat the game is absolutely fucking terrible. For a game that (to me) is supposed to appeal to casual gamers as well as traditional Zelda fans, that dungeon is absolutely ridiculous.

I'm not saying its too hard; I'm saying it's too fucking repetitive.

The rest of the game is brilliant, if not a little easy. Now, Minish Cap is no difficult game, either; it's certainly not the hardest Zelda game ever. Hell, it is certainly one of the easier Zeldas. But, there are some great puzzles to be had in Minish Cap: switch from regular size to small, then try to traverse Hyrule Castle Town. Not easy, is it? You have to weave in and out of buildings, go over rooftops, avoid puddles (which are basically bottomless pools to you in that form), and watch out for Cuccos along the way.

What's your average puzzle like in Phantom Hourglass? "Five rooms ahead, you must hit the switches in this order: 3, 1, 2, 4. Um, you should probably write that down." And then you write that down, and then guess what? Five rooms later, you hit the switches in that order.

Holy shit. That was unexpected.

Yes, the controls are pretty good (although rolling is a bitch) and yes, the boss battles, while easy, are fun as fucking hell, but come on. The puzzles were fucking lame in Phantom Hourglass.

And what is it with me and thinking that all the portable Zelda's since Link's Awakening are forgettable as hell? It's probably just nostalgia talking (Link's Awakening was my first Zelda and all), but the other portable Zelda's just haven't been that good, I don't think.

And as far as consoles go, we absolutely need another Majora's Mask. Jesus that game was good.

That's a lot of dinero, folks

2008-04-09T00:20:00.000-04:00

As posted on Kotaku earlier today, Rock Band will cost somewhere in the range of thirty seven million dollars, or 240 Euros, in Europe when it is released.

For that price, you might as well buy your own fucking band and have them play all the fucking songs for you on their own instruments, which are probably cheaper than the game anyway.

Apollo Justice

2008-04-09T00:00:00.002-04:00

So I just finished Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney today. I played through the first three games (the Phoenix Wright series) and loved them. And while I enjoyed Apollo Justice, there are a few problems I had with it.

PHOENIX WRIGHT/APOLLO JUSTICE SPOILERS AHEAD!

1. As I'm sure you can imagine, my first complaint is the lack of characters from previous games. Phoenix is in this game (thankfully) and you get to find out quite a bit about his story, but where the fucking Christ are Edgeworth, Maya, Pearl, etc.? They aren't even mentioned!

2. If you want to introduce new characters and story arcs, Capcom, then focus more on the new characters. Apollo Justice? Who? I felt as though I was playing as Phoenix most of the time anyway, except when the camera would pan over to show Apollo's sprite. Every time this happened, I thought, "What the hell happened to Phoenix?"

3. Apollo's hair is fucked up:

(Anyone see There's Something About Mary?)

4. Four cases? Four cases?! This was bad enough in Justice for All, but after Trials & Tribulations you go back to four, Capcom?! What the fuck gives?!

5. Another mob case. Because you know, that wasn't done already in the same goddamn series.

Thus ends my abbreviated list. Although the game was enjoyable overall, these problems really made the game lack the quality of the last games in the series(Justice for All excluded - that game is the worst in the series by far - perhaps I should save that topic for another post).

The Debut

2008-04-08T20:33:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Nate the Gamer! If this is April of 2008, your name is Nate because you are the only one who knows about this blog! Fan-fucking-tastic, eh?