Christmas Haul 2010

So Christmas has come and gone, and, as usual, has affected the games I'm playing currently.

Before I get to those, a simple list of the games I've gotten (so far, because I may be getting one or two more on New Years day):

-Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
-Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light (DS)
-Prince of Persia (PS3)
-New Play Control Pikmin (Wii)
-Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
-Nier (PS3)
-Contra 4 (DS)
-Shantae: Risky's Revenge (DSiWare)
-Mighty Flip Champs (DSiWare)

I also got a swanky new DSi XL (midnight blue) that looks and plays great, but anyway.

I have begun Final Fantasy XIII and don't have much to say about it yet - I'm about two or three hours into it and it seems I've barely started, which is about what I expected given how much I've heard TWENTY HOUR TUTORIAL since the thing came out. Most of what I've done so far has been gameplay, though, which I'm happy about - it's not a boatload of text or twenty minute cutscenes the whole time. Granted, I just unlocked the ability to Paradigm Shift along with leveling up via the Crystarium, so I've got some learning to do (along with some reading, which is quite difficult on a SDTV - fucking dammit).

The other Final Fantasy I got, 4 Heroes of Light, is pretty great so far! I like the combat system a lot - it is challenging so far, but not frustrating or unfair. Depending on the fight, you have to be very careful, as one or two mistakes can cause you to lose. The nice part is that you don't lose too much if you get party wiped - the game randomly picks one of the types of gems you have and halves them. This means that you may have to grind for those gems again if you need them, as they provide both easy cash if you sell them and also they are used to upgrade your Crowns, which are similar to the old job systems of old Final Fantasys.

My big complaint is that the game, despite being called 4 Heroes of Light, actually splits them up pretty quickly, and that is quite annoying. I want to really delve into the Crown system but can't, really, because all my stupid guys are all apart so I don't really know which Crowns to level up yet. Hopefully it won't be long before they all get together and I can really start to grind them up.

I've also played a bit of both Mighty Flip Champs and Shantae: Risky's Revenge, Wayforward's DSiWare offerings which I downloaded for $20 total on Christmas day. I like them both quite a bit! I'm a bit lost as to where to go next in Shantae (I've beaten the first boss and I think I'll probably have to talk to townspeople for a clue as to where to go next), but the mechanics are pretty solid. I like the monkey transformation and I look forward to unlocking more transformations to maneuver my way around the delightful side-scrolling world better. By the by, Shantae looks absolutely fantastic on my majestic DSi XL, as does Contra 4 and Mighty Flip Champs (it seems 2D sprite art games are a good fit for the little beast).

Mighty Flip Champs is a puzzle platformer in which you press any face button on the DSi to make the bottom screen flip to the top screen. You must navigate the levels to get to the end using this mechanic. It is like 2D Portal, actually. I'm in the second set of levels and they are getting fairly devious, at this point. Great little game, though, easily worth the eight bucks.

And that is all for now, and likely all for 2010. My New Years goal? To write more blog posts next year than this year, which is already my most prolific year. Hopefully the writing competency gets better, too...

Second Annual Ocarina of Time Throwdown: Afterwards

Yesterday, four friends of mine sat down and began to race our way through the entirety of the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Three of us played on Nintendo 64s, one on a Gamecube, and myself on my Wii. After about eight and a half hours, I came out victorious, but that is not what this post is about.

I hadn't played OoT in about three years (since the last Throwdown) and had since played through Majora's Mask twice. Some things surprised me during my revisit to Hyrule.

First and foremost, I have this game down pat. Again, not bragging, it's just that I beat this game so many times that it has almost literally become muscle memory for me. I almost felt as if I was watching someone else play through the game as I watched myself beat the entire thing in a single day.

I forgot some things, though. Like I always did when I was younger, I forgot to go get Saria's Song after meeting up with Zelda before attempting to enter Dodongo's Cavern. Frankly, I still think it's stupid the game makes you do this - you leave the forest, are given the Fairy Ocarina from Saria, then you run to Hyrule Castle, talk to Zelda, then are expected to run right back to Saria to learn another song.

WHY DOESN'T SARIA JUST TEACH YOU HER STUPID SONG WHEN SHE GIVES YOU THE OCARINA?!

Anyway. Coming off playing Majora's Mask twice as I did, I was surprised at how short the dungeons are in OoT. Besides the Water Temple, all the dungeons can be completed fairly quickly and don't get too devious in terms of navigation - they are pretty linear. I'm glad Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess didn't fall prey to this.

I do suppose that they are only linear because I know exactly where I'm going, which is a fair point. Considering I've beaten Majora's Mask so many times, though, the dungeons in that game aren't a cakewalk to me each time I play them, which is how I prefer it.

What Ocarina of Time has over Majora's Mask, and probably every other Zelda game, is the final boss gauntlet. The little dialogue from Ganondorf right before the battle is fairly chilling, then the duel you have with him is intense, and you can easily die if you aren't careful. Then you have to run down the collapsing castle with Zelda, and, just when you think it's all over, you hear a noise from a pile of rubble. Link runs in to investigate.

A gravely injured Ganondorf pops up from the rubble, and floating there, he holds up his hand. The Triforce of Power appears, reminding the player that Ganondorf will not go down easily. Nothing is said at all from any of the three people standing there as Ganondorf begins to transform into the monstrous pig-beast Ganon. Holding two giant twisted sai, the beast roars its challenge at Link as it begins flailing its arms. Link, taken off guard, loses his Master Sword as Ganon knocks it out of his hand, out of the arena. Ganon then takes a moment to squeal triumphantly as he knows Link is in trouble without the only blade capable of killing the evil dictator. Link, sword-less, looks up at his foe, in what is probably the single best pre-boss scene in any video game ever:

So, so tense. I'm going to end it there, at one of the greatest moments of quite possibly the greatest series in video games.

Dragon Warrior III First Impressions

So I came across a copy of Dragon Warrior III for the NES last week for a decent deal, and since it was in fantastic condition I bought it. After Phantasy Star IV, I wanted some more classic-style RPG to sink my teeth into.

I've heard good things about Dragon Warrior III, too. It has a rudimentary job system, and you get to name all of your characters and pick their classes and all that. It's also an NES RPG, which means once you've saved, you have to hold the Reset button as you turn the power off - and I'm playing this thing on a knock off Famiclone, so we'll see how well the save stays in the cartridge. Although when I turned it on the first time, there was a save with the guys at level 36, with names like Kain and Crono - which says to me the game was started back in the mid nineties. So obviously the save battery still works in the cart...

Anyway, as for game impressions, I will start by saying the encounter rate is too high. I know, I know, it's an 8-bit RPG so I should expect as much, but still. The battles are fast paced, though, which is nice - I sort of expected incredibly slowly moving text, but it moves pretty fast if you set it that way. I love the music, and the graphics look like a 1986 NES game, even though it was released in Japan in 1988. I like them, though. They're simple, but not boring looking, like Paladin's Quest, which I also picked up when I bought Dragon Warrior III.

I reached the first boss, though, about three dungeons in - and he kicked my ass. I forgot, this being a Dragon Warrior game, that when you lost a battle, you get sent back to the last town you saved at, minus half your gold - but you keep your experience. Which was nice! I would have lost a half hours worth of grinding had that not been the case. I'm going to have to grind some more to beat that guy, though.

It's difficult to write about these old RPGs. The battle system is classic Dragon Warrior/Quest, which is to say it didn't change all the way up to Dragon Quest IX (and even then, it wasn't too different). And it's not like the story is really worth writing about. Either way, I'm having a good time.

Rune Factory 3: Harvest Moon Reloaded

Rune Factory 3 may have perfected Harvest Moon.

Okay, so it may be a little too early to say that yet - I've only put in about 10 hours or so - but so far I am very happy with what I've played of Rune Factory 3.

The Rune Factory games (all with the subtitle "A Fantasy Harvest Moon") take what you do in the mainline HM games (farm and woo ladies) and add dungeon crawling into the mix. You wouldn't think that would work, would you? And I would argue that it hasn't, at least until now (although I've only played Frontier, the Wii version - not the two previous DS games).

The Wii version had way too much crappy voice acting and loading to be much fun; you see, I'm used to the quick loading of Harvest Moon 64 and Harvest Moon DS, the two HM games I've spent the most time with. When you throw load times in, the game just becomes unbearable. To be fair, the Wii version wasn't too addled with load times, but any at all really kill the experience for me. There was also a heavy emphasis on "Runeys" - I didn't play the game long enough to really tell what they were about, but a cursory search of the internet has shown that they govern how fast your crops will grow - for example if you don't take care of a certain area, the Runeys will die out there, causing your crops to grow much more slowly. Likewise, if you take really good care of an area, more Runeys will come and will cause crops to grow really fast there. A lot of the complaining about the Rune Factory games that I've seen on the internet has focused on the Runeys.

I have not seen one Runey since starting up RF3 - nor have their "effects" ever been mentioned in the game. In Rune Factory: Frontier, the Runey's were explicitly explained in-game; here, they bear no mention.

But the sheer amount of things to do in RF3 boggle the mind. Every day, there are "Requests" posted to the bulletin board in town that you can do to help villagers out, to both get items or gold from them and to raise your relationship with them (there's also requests sent directly to your mailbox, which seems kind of weird to me - why are there two places where you can get jobs?). If you don't feel like helping out villagers, you can go into one of four (that I know of) dungeons to kill stuff and get even more items, such as gems from mining spots or loot drops from your enemies. The fighting is real time, and you have many different weapons to choose from - I am currently using two swords, because you move fast and, as the flavor text so aptly puts it, "overwhelm your foes." You gain experience by fighting, but you don't merely level your character up this way - pretty much everything you do in RF3 will level up.

From what I've seen, you can level up walking/running, fighting (each individual weapon type has it's own level associated with it, i.e. swords, dual swords, spears, etc.), fishing, cooking with hands, cooking with a knife, love (which is leveled up by dealing with villagers of the opposite sex), friendship, sleeping (you level this up by sleeping, and when an enemy puts you to sleep, a higher level of "sleep" skill will wake you up faster), farming skills (such as your skill with a hoe, scythe, watering can, etc.), and so on. I'm positive I haven't even seen everything you can level up in this game yet. Also, another thing to note is that when you level something up, it not only boosts your capability with that skill, but it also usually adds something to your stats - whether its HP, RP (Runey points, which is basically your tolerance for fatigue), Strength, or whatever. This comes in handy, because you typically don't have enough time each day to do a whole lot of farming AND dungeon diving (its typically either dabbling in both, or one or the other). When you farm a lot, for example, your strength and RP will go up, allowing you to both farm better, and last longer in the dungeons.

There's a lot to find in this game, it seems. As for the characters, they are mostly one-note so far - they don't have the depth I'd like to see, but at least they aren't flat out boring like the characters in Frontier seemed to be. Certainly the script in the game is nothing to write home about, but it is passable (it isn't annoying, at least, which is appreciated).

As far as graphics go, I like them, for the most part. There are a lot of villagers, and I kind of wish my choices for chasing ladies weren't so varied. I may change my mind on this later, but there are too many girls to keep track of, and a lot of them look similar (at least they do on the map - their personal portraits that come up when you talk to them look quite different).

The sound isn't as iconic as in Harvest Moon 64, but it isn't bad, either.

One of the things I discovered just before starting this blog is that I apparently can ask anyone in the village to accompany me into the dungeons - if I can get some of the girls in town to come fight things with me, my love for this game will probably skyrocket (assuming they have passable AI, of course). You apparently can turn into a "wooly" too, which is a sheep-looking thing. I just unlocked the ability to do that, and I don't really know what it's for, yet.

I stayed up later than I wanted to the other night playing this game, which historically has been a good sign for me loving a game, because it means the game has its hooks in me. We'll see if they stick...

Unsung Heroes: Phantasy Star IV

I just beat Phantasy Star IV. As posited in this article, PSIV is one of the largely unsung classics of the 16-bit era. While I wouldn't quite put it on the level of Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger, I do think it is a better game than Final Fantasy IV (which I do like quite a bit). It really is a shame this series hasn't seen any love other than Phantasy Star Online and its crappy handheld spin-offs.

Would I recommend it to someone who is used to the standards of today's RPGs? That's hard to say. Do you enjoy grinding a bit (such as WoW)? Sure, it'd be offline, but there's quite a bit of grinding. At least, that's how I played it - the nice part is, it doesn't take too long to level up - you get to a new area, level all your guys up once or twice, and then challenge the boss. If you are able to beat him, keep going. If not, level up another time or two.

You have Techniques, which is basically magic in this game. This costs MP to cast. You also have Skills, which have a counter on them - you can use them as many times as is listed, until you spend a night at an inn, when they are replenished. They are entirely separate from Techniques, so you don't have to split MP between them. Some characters (the robots) can't use magic, so they are limited to their Skills. Some Techniques and Skills can also be used in a certain order to cause special attacks, such as Nawat and Nazan to cause Blizzard, which is the only one I found myself. Apparently there are 14 of these and they are all pretty powerful.

If I have a complaint about the game, it really is that the battle system isn't anything exceptional. It's not bad - I would say its even above average! - but compared to the openness and flexibility of both Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI I would say it's pretty plain. Much akin to the Dragon Quest games, to be honest. The encounter rate can be somewhat high, sometimes, but it wasn't ridiculous.

Although it was a little more sparse than I would have liked it (due to what I'm guessing are space constraints, some of the scenes are a little lighter on dialogue than I would have liked), the story was presented excellently. I already mentioned those colored manga panels in my last post, and they really do deliver throughout the game. They are well-timed to the music for the ending as well, which is nice. It really does wrap up the story of PS1-4, too.

So I suppose I don't have too much more to say about the game. I am going to start up Phantasy Star II again, probably tonight, too. Whether I beat that game or not, we'll see - from what I remember, it's even more grindy than PSIV and a little slower, and also not as well presented. But I'm going to try! I have the ability to play Phantasy Star I, too, and I'd like to, but I really will need to buy some graph paper in that case. Which kind of sounds like Etrian Odyssey, so I'm tempted... We'll see how that goes, though. One of the blessings of playing PSIV and II is that they are on a PSP collection I have, so I can play them portably, and I only have access to I on my 360 Genesis collection. Anyway, though, I really enjoyed PSIV and will probably play it again someday. It's like RPG comfort food - lots of grinding, light story, excellent graphics and music.

Oh Sega. How the mighty have fallen.

New School Platformers and Old School RPGs

I've been preoccupied with two games as of late, and they are about as different from each other as you could imagine: Super Meat Boy, a Xbox 360 port of a flash game by Edward McMillan (who apparently did some concept art for indie-hit Braid), and Phantasy Star IV, a 1995 Genesis old school RPG by Rieko Kodama (among others), producer of such games as Phantasy Star I and II, Skies of Arcadia, Magic Knight Rayearth, and 7th Dragon (which, sadly, does not look like it will come out in English - a pity, because it plays like Etrian Odyssey and is gorgeous).

Super Meat Boy is a ridiculously hardcore sidescroller, akin to N+, only it plays much faster. You are given around 300 levels, and tasked with reaching the end by touching Bandage Girl (who serves as the "damsel in distress" for this game). Actually, click here for a nice post about Meat Boy that also delves into the story and characters a bit, because I don't really feel like writing about them.

The gameplay, though, is incredible. Meat Boy moves really fast, and can walljump - which is honestly where the game throws its challenge at you. Sure, there is the aspect where the player has to figure out how to beat each level, but even when they do, they have to actually do it - which is easier said than done. This is why I love the game so much. It makes no bones about what you have to do - get to the end point of the level - but it so expertly ramps up its difficulty throughout. By the end of the game, there are levels that to someone who just started, would look impossible - and a veteran player will fly through the level as though it is a tutorial. Likewise, early levels that had initially proved difficult are a breeze. This is good game design - sprinkling new level design throughout the game to teach the player new techniques to move the little guy around. Also having the ability to unlock new characters - who control differently from Meat Boy! - is great as well. The Double Jump mechanic one unlocks when the unlock The Guy (a cameo of the main character from I Wanna Be The Guy) changes the way you play every level in the game completely.

It is very likely that Super Meat Boy is my favorite Xbox 360 game.

As for Phantasy Star IV, this is the second time I've started the game up, and this time, it has clicked. It is as old-school as RPGs can get, which means a lot of grinding, but the game is very polished. As in, the graphics are the best I've seen anyone get out of the old released-in-1989 Sega Genesis, the music is some of the best I've heard from the same, and the localization isn't a complete turd (like, sadly, the first two Phantasy Star games).

The story is told in a way that I haven't really seen anywhere else in games, too. Cutscenes are told through use of text and what amounts to colored comic book panels which pop up as different characters speak or different events happen. It's a really neat effect, and I wish other games would use this sort of style to tell their story - particularly contemporary RPGs designed to be old-school, such as Nostalgia (or especially Sands of Destruction, which could have dropped the shitty voice acting and horrible load times in favor of snappy dialogue delivered in a cool way).

Regardless, Phantasy Star IV (and, really, the entire series, save for what little I've played of III) evokes a type of world you don't see too often in (good) RPGs - sci-fi. As in, outer space, laser beam, laser sword, sci-fi. Sure, there is Star Wars KOTOR, but what else is there? Not many good ones, I'm afraid. It's done well, too - you start out on a fairly barren planet and slowly make your way around it, then get a spaceship and start traveling to space stations and new planets and such. I legitimately enjoy exploring these worlds because I haven't explored similar worlds in RPGs before.

Also, being really familiar with the stories of the past games makes Phantasy Star IV all the better. Having played through about half of PSII and having a passing familiarity with the stories of PSI and PSIII means a lot of the references in Phantasy Star IV are really cool. For example, I just beat what I believe to be the reincarnated last boss of Phantasy Star I! I have also seen a statue of the heroine from Phantasy Star I as well, but no one in the town it is in really seem to know who the hell it is. The player does, however, which is a cool way to present that (PSII took place 1000 years after PS1, and PSIV takes place 1000 years after PSII, which explains why the townspeople are fuzzy in regards to the statue). I found a crashed ship from Phantasy Star III, and most of Phantasy Star IV's story seems to tie in with Phantasy Star II's. I won't get in to any more details, but you don't see this often in RPGs either - intimate little nods to past games in the series.

I'm really enjoying both games so far, having finished Super Meat Boy's main story mode while now trying to beat the dark version of all the levels, and I have no idea how long Phantasy Star IV will take me. I may go back and try to play Phantasy Star II after this, too, if I have the patience - THAT game is a grindfest (although it has awesome, synth-tastic music).

Majora's Mask: Goht

I just finished the second dungeon in Majora's Mask, which concludes with one of my favorite boss fights of all time (definitely the best in the Zelda series): the Masked Mechanical Monster, Goht. I need to write about him.

The second dungeon of the game basically uses three items throughout: the Goron Mask, Fire Arrows, and occasionally the Lens of Truth (mostly to find Stray Fairies). Other than the lens, the other two items can be used to fight Goht. You can either stand in place as Link and wait for Goht to run around, hitting him with the occasional fire arrow, or you can do it the fun way: by using Goron Link.

You do this by chasing Goht around the arena, trying to ram him enough so he falls down, allowing you to stop and pound the crap out of him. I don't even do this, though - when he falls, I just let him get back up and start the chase again. Goht begins shooting lightning beams at you, followed by forcing stalactites to fall from the ceiling in your path, to just outright throwing bombs at you. You have to avoid all of them to continue to chase him to finally bring him down.

There is no boss fight I can think of that is as fun as this one, in pretty much any game. Goht is no pushover (at least not on your first try - I kick his ass no problem, now), and what you have to do to beat him is pretty obvious due to the set up of the arena you're in, so it's all about the mechanics of the fight. It helps that Goron Link controls very well, too, although I wish he wouldn't lose his spikes if he caught to much air - but oh well. The whole thing is awesome.

It is really too bad the next dungeon boss is so lame in comparison. Zora Link is incredibly fun to swim with, and yet most of the time you try your best to be out of the water so the dumb fish doesn't eat you. I wish that battle had been like some sort of toilet drain chase (you know, like a long pipe you have to swim through as Zora Link, occasionally getting magic pots so you can continue hitting the fish with your Zora electric shield or whatever). I suppose that would be a little too similar to the Goht fight, though... Oh! What if instead of chasing the fish, you had to swim away from him? And like, to damage him, you had to like jump out of the water and like ram a stalactite off the ceiling to make it drop onto the fish? Now THAT would be an awesome boss battle.

Anyway, who cares. Goht exists, and is fun as hell. I love Majora's Mask so much.

Happy 10th Birthday, Majora's Mask!

Ten years ago today, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask was released in America. This marked the peak of the Zelda series, which has been declining since then: Wind Waker was pretty great, Minish Cap was okay, Four Swords Adventures was also okay, Twilight Princess was alright, and Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks have pretty much sucked. Here's hoping Skyward Sword bucks the trend.

Anyway, I bought Majora's Mask on Virtual Console today, to both mark the occasion and play what is largely considered to be the best version of the game. Apparently, it runs smoother on Wii than on the N64 (which I'm told all N64 VC games do), doesn't contain the musical glitches in the Gamecube port, and, you know, is right there on my Wii whenever I feel like playing it.

It's also Majora's Mask. Nintendo can have my ten bucks, because I will buy this game over and over again because it's my favorite game ever.

So I played through to the beginning of the first temple today, and had a blast. This is, I believe, my fourth playthrough of the game, and I attempted to do as much as I could during that first three day period; sadly, the most I could accomplish was getting 200 rupees and unlocking the Big Wallet. Which is neat! I usually get the Moon's Tear, get on the Deku Flower, and then just sit at the entrance to the Clock Tower until the festival starts. So at least I kept busy.

The atmosphere in the game is still so great. I've gone to great lengths before as to why I love Majora's Mask, so I won't post here unless it's something I didn't touch on in my previous article.

Also, the PS2 came out ten years ago today, too. Which, I guess, overall, is a bigger deal than Majora's Mask. But not to me.

The Dabbling Continues

So after unchaining myself from the grasp of the excellent Etrian Odyssey III, I have been looking here and there for the next RPG to attach myself to. Shining Force III has been okay so far, but it hasn't really gripped me yet - which isn't to say I won't finish it. That game has been a long time coming, so I think I'm going to dabble in and out of it until I can polish it off someday.

Actually, most of the reason I haven't played too much of it is due to it being on a console. I don't have as much time as I used to and I'm kind of nomadic these days, so lugging my Saturn around (with the stupid coax-only hookups) to play the game gets old after a while, so I've been looking for a portable RPG to really dig my teeth into. So I looked at my shelf, full of DS RPGs I haven't touched yet (such as Infinite Space, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, and The World Ends With You, among others) and decided to pop in Sands of Destruction. I have barely heard anything about this game, despite it being a relatively lavish RPG made by Sega (I think they talked about it on Active Time Babble last year, but I don't think they said too much about it).

It comes from an interesting group of developers, actually. These are the people who made Xenogears, Children of Mana, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and Wario Land: Shake It, among others. Quite an odd collection of games, eh? The Fire Emblem game they made happens to be my favorite game in that series, and people have most certainly heard of the infamous Xenogears, yet Sands of Destruction has received very little fanfare.

Which I find odd, to tell the truth. Now, before I start, I'm only two hours in - so I doubt I've scratched the surface of the game yet. But I'm impressed, so far. The game has solid graphics - it's displayed from a (mostly) isometric perspective, and Sega has managed to squeeze out some impressive graphics from the ol' dual scrizzle - even moreso than Square, to be honest. They used a mixture of sprites and polygons, but nothing to chunky, which is a problem typical of DS games. So far, I like the graphics better than the DS versions of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, which is saying something because those games look pretty good.

The spritework in this game deserves a special mention, actually. The little character sprites are heavily detailed and have a fairly large range of animations, which you just don't see that often. They look great, too.

The music is alright, but we need to talk about the voice acting. I don't hate it, to be honest - I just wish it would go faster. The game seems to be loading the next sound byte when one finishes, so there is always this one or two second pause between one text box and the next. If it would just speed the hell up, the voiced parts of the game wouldn't be so intolerable. Hell, if it just gave me the option to skip the dialogue once I have read it, that would be awesome too! But it doesn't.

As for the battle system, it is somewhat combo based. You have a bunch of skills and some AP, which you spend to use different moves, and if you use the right combination of skills, you'll get bonus AP or free moves or whatever. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, so I'll probably post more about it later if I keep playing the game. There is also CP, which lets you upgrade your individual skills to be more accurate, do more damage, etc. which is kind of obtuse for me so far. I'm not quite sure where to put my points, yet, but I suppose that's what experimentation is for.

A Curious Case of the Threes: Etrian Odyssey and Shining Force

So I beat Etrian Odyssey III last week. The last boss actually wasn't too tough; I brought along some restorative items and was fine on my second try. My first try would have succeeded had I had any revival items, because the bastard got a lucky hit on my monk, meaning he wasn't able to heal at all for the last quarter of the bosses health. He wasn't difficult at all, really.

But I must write about the horrible, horrible 19th and 20th floors of the final stratum. You see, I thought the first two floors of that stratum were pretty fun! There were rooms where you couldn't see anything on the radar, and had to map them completely blind (i.e. without the little arrow icon to show you where you are). I enjoyed that and thought the puzzles with the FOEs in those rooms were hard but fun! But then the game throws in warps. Warps where you travel into a square one way, and then it teleports you to a set place on the map. Which wouldn't be so bad IF I HAD ENOUGH UNIQUE ICONS TO PLACE TO MARK EACH INDIVIDUAL WARP GODDAMMIT! But no! There are like 20 different warps on both the 19th and 20th floors and I have to use the stupid little pink arrow, write a letter, and then zoom the map in every time I go to those floors to figure out where the fuck I'm going to end up. The mapping system was not built for this and it's really annoying.

That aside, I've played two floors into the bonus stratum, and I don't know how far I'll be going. There's slippery floors and damage tiles, and I've already had to go up and down multiple floors to make progress. In other words, mapping the place is a pain, and the really powerful (and sometimes just weird) enemy lineups don't help. There is an enemy whose only purpose is to switch the positions of two of your characters!

But anyway, I think that will be it for Etrian Odyssey III around here for a while.

I've played a few more battles into Shining Force III and I'm still enjoying it. There is an unique little feature where if two of your characters stand next to each other, every so often their "Friendship" will go up - which confers bonuses to them if they are ever near each other again in the future. For example, Synbios, my main character, and Masquirin, my Wizard, are "friends" and get an attack boost (for Synbios) and a magic boost (for Masquirin) when they stand next to each other. Little icons even pop up over their heads when there is a bonus to be conferred! Which is awesome and means I'll likely use these bonuses.

Anyway, as far as moving around the towns and such go, I'm really impressed by what Sonic Team did with the little old Saturn. The load times in this game are good - so good, in fact, they eclipse even current gen games. When you go in and out of a house, or in and out of battle, there is virtually no wait time - a little more than the Genesis Shining Forces, but for a 32 bit console, they are pretty much nonexistent. I've heard (I think on Retronauts) that Sonic Team used the sound processor to kind of rope extra data along whenever you move in and out of areas/battles, so I suppose that's why? I'm not sure, but either way, it's MUCH appreciated. I expected to have to wait seconds at a time for anything to happen (like in the PS1 Final Fantasies) but I do not have to wait long, here. Even saving is really quick!

Plotwise? Well, you know. Standard Shining Force fare, I would say, so far. There was a peace conference between two countries, and a third party came in and kidnapped the leaders of one of the countries and made it look like the other country did it. Hijinks ensue! But I've heard it gets pretty interesting, so we'll see.

I've been enjoying the music so far, although it isn't as bombastic as the Shining Force II soundtrack. That's okay, though. I haven't heard anything bad yet.

Except the voice acting. Some of the worst I've ever heard. And the guy in that link? I don't even have him yet! I'm not looking forward to it... Why even put voice acting in the game if it is going to be that godawful? I mean, even back then, when voice acting was so new, you HAD to know how bad that was. So terrible. But, spirits help me, I must play more!

Well, this is going to cost me...

The trading time thread over at Gamespite continues to be good/bad for me, because I recently acquired Shining Force III for the Saturn for a good deal over there ($60, to be exact, while it currently goes for $100+ on eBay). This has opened the floodgates to what may be my most expensive classic videogame obsession yet: Saturn fandom.

I just gave my girlfriend a list of Saturn games I want (there's 14 games on it! Way more than I thought I'd ever want for the thing) for Festivus. She kind of rolled her eyes at me; I can understand that. Trying to acquire Saturn games, at all, much less at a reasonable cost, is damned near impossible.

Well, she tells me she loved me, so it's all her fault anyway.

That being said, though, I need to outline some thoughts that have been kicking around my head for at least 12 years now (!) about Shining Force III. I've wanted the game for about that long, but I was never able to play it - I didn't have a Saturn during the short time it was viable, and when I finally got one (around 2003-04) the game was way out of my price range.

I was a huge, HUGE Shining Force II fan, however. That, and Sword of Hajya for Game Gear were the two games that made me interested in RPGs at all. So when I first heard about Shining Force III, probably in the pages of Game Players magazine, I wanted it. Badly. But I never got it, and my thoughts about what it must be like were all I had. I'd like to get them down here, for posterity, because when I finish Etrian Odyssey III, I plan to sit down and finally play Shining Force III.

So. Shining Force II was given to me as a present by my parents, and I hadn't even asked for it, much less heard of it - they got it for me probably because the box art looked pretty cool, and I think they assumed since it was the second game in the series, that it must be somewhat good.

I sat downstairs and hooked my Genesis up to the only TV available at the time - the black and white 13' beauty (my sister was using the main TV down there for watching some stupid movie she had just gotten). The fanfare started up, and then the tale began to unfold before me. The graphics blew me away - I had never played an RPG before, and the perspective of the game allowed you to see a lot. It was top down, sort of like an old-school Zelda game, but it was tile based. All the little people shuffled around in place, like they were living, breathing people. When you talked to them, the text would scroll by with different intonation; fat old dudes would have a deep voice, whereas little pixies and kids would have a high-pitched shrill. Important characters even had a detailed face pop up when you talked to them - and their mouths moved as they spoke! Sure, it never synced up, but it was novel nonetheless.

The battle system really thrilled me, too. It wasn't action-y, like many of my other games. It reminded me of chess; you would place your guys close to the enemies, and then they would attack each other. Strategy was the name of the game; if you let one of your guys stray too far from everybody else, they would quickly get overwhelmed and killed.

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about Shining Force III, not II. Suffice it to say, I enjoyed II quite a bit, and started playing other RPGs, starting with Final Fantasy III (VI) when I finally got a SNES years later, and fell in love with that series and type of game. SFII really opened my eyes to one of my favorite genres, and I really loved the aesthetic of the game, so when I heard about SFIII and saw pictures, I was blown away and excited for it.

But it was for the stupid Saturn. Who wanted one of those?! I had a N64 and would have rather had a Playstation than get a Saturn, especially back then. They were expensive, and at the time, SFIII was the only game I really wanted for it. So, I pined and pined and then tried to forget about it.

As the years passed, I would hear about how great the game was. How it was one of the best games on the system, much less how apparently it was the BEST SHINING FORCE GAME EVER (which really pissed me off, because if it was better than II, I really, REALLY wanted to play it then). So I began to imagine what it would be like...

From here on, I'm going to describe what Shining Force III has always been in my mind. Remember, I coveted this game for over a decade, and still don't really know much about it. All I've done thus far is put it into my Saturn to make sure it works. The rest of this blog will be speculation (well, really, straight up DREAMS) about what Shining Force III will be like when I finally play it.

I always wanted a direct sequel to SFII. I wanted to find out what happened to those characters after the credits rolled; I loved the world in that game, from Granseal to Parmecia, and wanted to explore it again. That's what I thought, anyway, coming right off SFII. As time went on, I wanted that less and less, with maybe just some cameos from old characters or something because SFII's world was pretty self-contained. There wasn't really any room to do anything there besides SFII.

So Shining Force III was going to be a new game in my mind. It would have no old characters, and all new environments. New countries, new places to explore, new battle maps, everything. It wouldn't be like Sword of Hajya, because it would let me explore towns at my leisure like in SFII - and that is anytime I want, unlike the original Shining Force. The story was going to be epic - Zeon would probably be revived or something, or some equivalent malevolent force would rise up and threaten the world, and it was up to ME to stop it.

So, you know, typical JRPG plot.

But the graphics, from what I had seen in little magazine screenshots, were AWESOME. Everything would be fully 3D, but incredibly detailed - not like the blurry N64 visuals I was used to, but with detailed textures and snappy loading. The music would be even more impressively varied and interesting compared to SFII, and the battles would be way more cinematic (I always imagined more frames of animation for the characters during attack scenes in SFII, you see). I wanted all of that, and I have no idea if SFIII will deliver in that department. From what little I've seen of it, the FMVs are horribly dated - which is fine, because what little I've seen of the actual in-game graphics are pretty good, if kind of chunky like 3D visuals were at the time.

And Shining Force III was looooooooong in my mind. It went on forever and ever (which apparently, it does, because there are 3 parts to it, only one of which came out in English, dammit). I always thought it'd be neat to revisit parts of Grans Island, and maybe some locations from the first game and Hajya, too, because back then I was very interested in story continuity.

What I'm getting at, I guess, is that I've always imagined Shining Force III to be the best game ever. I'm sure it won't live up to that; more than ten years of wanting it will likely leave me underwhelmed after I'm done. Don't get me wrong - I'm sure I'll like it! But my expectations are sky high.

Either way, it was worth the $60. I've not even spent that much on a 360 or PS3 game, which I find interesting (okay, I find it telling that I'd rather spend $60 on a twelve year old game than spend that much on anything they're making these days, but that's another blog post altogether).

I'll finish Etrian Odyssey III, probably write one more blog about that, then delve into Shining Force III after all this time.

Etrian Odyssey III: Tales of the Metroid Guild, part 1

Nathan adjusted his gauntlets as he surveyed the area to the best of his ability. The blinding sunlight of the Porcelain Forest made him uneasy. It was difficult to gauge the guild's position, much less track the FOEs who roamed the area. Encountering Olympia on the 18th floor earlier hadn't made him feel much better, either - she had summoned several Mortal Hunters in a large, exceedingly bright area, causing quite the headache for everyone. Mortal Hunters had incredibly sharp scythes, capable of cutting through to the bone - with particularly vicious swings capable of amputating limbs. The Metroid Guild had to be careful - they didn't have the personnel to spare in case someone was badly hurt or even killed. Time was running out to find the Abyssal King - he may be approaching the sick princess already, and the Metroid Guild was likely the only group capable of stopping him.

As Nathan pondered the situation, Yukiko appraised the state of her comrades. Kyle was almost untouched, but that was to be expected because he was the most fragile member of the guild. Kaitlyn's shin guards were a little scuffed up, but she was largely fine because she was too fast for most monsters to hit. Shadow was in similar condition for similar reasons, although he was incredibly tired ever since he had taken up the Shogun mantle. He had trained himself to use the cover of his guildmates to sneak up behind monsters while they were being attacked, and get a sneak stab in with his oversized Katana. He did this as often as he could, and it made him tired quick, but other than a thick sheen of sweat and some heavy breathing, he seemed no worse for wear. Yukiko herself was somewhat scuffed up, although her healing qi kept her in good shape most of the time. It was Nathan she worried about - he had trained himself in the use of shields and defensive maneuvers and spent most of his time provoking the enemy into attacking him, and Parrying whatever attacks he could. What he couldn't block took its toll on his body - cuts, bruises, and the occasional gaping wound peppered his largely exposed chest. Yukiko could not convince him to wear heavier armor - he refused, saying he couldn't move as fast. So Yukiko spent more and more time healing he alone.

Nathan didn't seem to notice the pain his body was in, though. He had really come through for his guild since venturing into the fourth stratum. They had come to increasingly rely on him as their enemies got stronger and stronger. He had become the de facto leader of the guild, even though they had agreed to make all decisions together. The deeper they found themselves in the endless Labyrinth, the more they relied on his leadership.

They gathered their things, and headed deeper into the bright forest. They hadn't travelled far when Kaitlyn pointed out the Somnovore rambling about the mud ahead. It hadn't noticed them yet, so they sneak up on it to the best of their ability; when they had reached striking distance, Kyle let off an enormous fireball at the giant sheep. It charged them, and they began the fight. Nathan began taunting the sheep immediately by yelling and pelting it with rocks, causing the sheep to focus the brunt of its attack his way. It began repeatedly charging him, and he expertly parried three of its attacks, while taking the following attack at its full force. Yukiko began her qi chanting to mend his wounds.

During all this, however, Kaitlyn, Shadow, and Kyle were throwing everything they had at the oversized ram. Kyle had been chucking fireballs as fast as he could, so fast, in fact, that sometimes he was able to send out two fireballs as though he were sending one. Kaitlyn was circling the Somnovore, peppering every inch of its frame with bullets from her oversized handgun. Shadow was barely visible, a living blur, as he seemed to stab at the goat-sheep from every angle. It would appear to the casual onlooker that there were at least two Shadows, perhaps even three.

The Metroid Guild had come into its own. Combat was now much more routine for the group - still dangerous, mind, but the level of danger had reached a plateau. The seasoned warriors knew to be careful, and knew they would likely take quite a beating, but their confidence had grown to such a level that they would attack FOEs on sight, so long as no other FOEs were directly nearby. They had heard tales of numerous guilds being wiped out by a single Mortal Hunter - they had cornered three down, and wiped them out mostly unharmed. They took what they could from the corpses, and sold them for profit while also purchasing three sets of armor for their front line made out of their hard skin.

* * *

It hadn't been this way for long, however. After besting the giant robot who guarded the entrance to the fourth stratum, they found themselves woefully unprepared for the tough fights that lie ahead. Shadow had become almost useless; it had turned out that his training in the elemental Zodiac magicks was a waste of time. He spent a week back at the Explorer's Guild training in the ways of the Shogun.While he was there, his guildmates recruited some local Armoroad farmers to help them gather materials in the Labyrinth: Moon, a young man eager to own his own farm, and his girlfriend Karen, who was interested in helping him. They were fairly new to the dangers of the labyrinth, and could not be counted on to defend themselves, so the remaining members of Metroid got them in and out of the dangerous maze as fast as they could. They were largely successful - they harvested materials most of Armoroad had never seen, along with some very rare things they had. Moon and Karen were able to buy themselves a farm on an island not far to the north of Armoroad, where Moon had decided he'd retire and raise a flock of sheep. They stuck with the Metroid guild, though, and tended to their matters in town while they were gone and helped train new recruits.

When Shadow returned to the main group, they decided to test his new abilities by going back to the volcano in the third stratum. They had run from the mother dragons they saw there a few months back, but they felt they may be able to take them on, now.

Shadow proved to be inspiration for the party because he single-handedly proved his worth almost immediately. He expertly sliced the dragons into pieces as his guildmates largely played distraction. Though he hadn't seen actual combat in a week (a long time, by the standards of the guild before he began his training), he had cemented himself as a permanent member of the main force.

Nathan spoke with Shadow after the great Dragon Hunt, as the villagers of Armoroad had come to call it, and the two came up with the idea that Nathan would study the ways of the Hoplite, to better improve the party's defensive capabilities, freeing most of the party up to attack more aggressively. Kaitlyn, meanwhile, studied the ways of the Ninja with Shadow, so she could more expertly dodge enemy attacks - her lithe frame didn't support heavy armor and she preferred not wearing much protective gear anyway. Kyle, annoyed that his only use thus far had been his Zodiac magick, sullenly taught himself to use a crossbow - quickly becoming capable of doing as much damage as, if not more than, his comrades.

The Metroid Guild found itself on the brink of solving the mystery of the labyrinth, and pressed on to discover as much as they could. Hopefully, they'd be able to stop the Abyssal King as well, but only time will tell...

Etrian Odyssey III: Part 2

In the spirit of role-play, inspired by some comments regarding that topic from a friend and an inspiration (and also to brush up on my storytelling skills), I've decided to blog about my party's exploits as though they are keeping a journal. Dorky? Yes, hella dorky. Also, kind of spoilery if you haven't yet happened upon the third stratum, so beware the green text if not.

The Metroid Guild continued to explore the strange labyrinth below the sea town of Arboroad, and had found their way down to the tenth floor. The unease the group felt on the ninth floor from the occasional pool of lava grew to full-blown terror once they stepped into what appeared to be an active volcano. Their armor seemed to grow heavier under the heat, and the perspiration on their hands and faces seemed to boil from it. As they carefully explored the area, Kyle cast light ice magic to use bits of ice to soothe the party's burns and provide some drinking water.

After thoroughly mapping the first room, the group pushed past the rock at the far end and entered an altogether different cave. There were pools of lava stretching as far as they could see, but that was the least of their worries; in the center of each pool lie an enormous dragon! As they stood there, mouths agape, some three foot tall living mushrooms who had sneak up on the Guild began spewing thick clouds of spores in their faces. Nathan found himself confused from the spores, and began swinging his sword wildly in hopes of ending the disorienting torrent. In his panic, he struck Yukiko's left leg, and she let out a yell in pain. As Kaitlyn began rapidly firing her pistol at the mushroom closest to Nathan, Kyle applied a healing salve to Yukiko's wound. Shadow, however, was barely even paying attention to the plight of his guildmates; the ninja had been eying the dragon who lay only fifty paces away, and watched as it made a beeline for his preoccupied friends.

"We should leave, now," he insisted. When his compatriots asked why, the stoic ninja merely pointed behind them to the lumbering dragon now only twenty paces away. Nathan had regained his composure, so the party began making their way to the room they had left mere moments ago. To aid in their escape, Shadow chanted a few arcane words and created a duplicate of himself to distract the mushrooms. As they pushed past the narrow door of rock, the dragon behind them let out a roar of disappointment. Her meal had escaped by a mere hair's breadth.

One of the things I love the most about the Etrian Odyssey series is the narrative. Not the narrative the game explicitly gives you, mind; the narrative you construct in your head for your tailor-made party. The game is largely scant on narrative detail, and even the graphics, although very good, contain fairly repetitive environmental design. But the design of the levels adds character to the otherwise bland environments. This is because the player knows the game on a systematic level; they know the rules of the battle system and the rules of the field map. How far they can stretch those rules safely becomes crucial almost immediately. However, the level design constantly changes those rules, forcing the player to adapt.

For example, take the Metroid Guild's first jaunt into the tenth floor, for example. None of that green text up there was ever stated in the game; almost all of it popped into my mind as an extension to what I was experiencing in game, so the above was very easy to write. When I had to run from those enemies, I did so not because I thought they were too difficult - I ran because I saw, on the bottom screen, two FOEs moving towards my group. One of the unwritten rules of Etrian Odyssey is: DO NOT ENGAGE A FOE ON YOUR FIRST TRIP TO A NEW FLOOR. It may be one of the most important rules, really, and there was no way I was going to break it. So I ran - but I did so knowing that eventually, I would be strong enough to come back and best those FOEs.

I don't know if I'll continue writing up my experiences in narrative style, although I had fun doing it, so we'll see. I had gotten to a pseudo-boss battle, and got destroyed pretty handily, so I'm going to grind a little, so back to it...

Etrian Odyssey III: Part 1

I'll start by saying that so far, Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City is my favorite Etrian game, and that's saying a lot because I had a lot of fun with the first two.

Why? Well, first, they completely revamped all the classes. There is not one class in the third game that existed in the first two, so the game is a totally new experience - much akin to Etrian Odyssey 1, really, what with trying to learn party balance for the first time with a whole new set of classes. Sure, I'll miss my ridiculously powerful Ronin skills (well, Mideraba, anyway), but that broke the game, honestly. Also, you are allowed to subclass - which apparently means you can apply another classes skills to your party members, which is going to be awesome once I unlock it.

They also improved the interface: the skills, windows, town, and every way you interact with the game is streamlined very well. When you kill an enemy the correct way, for example, and get a special item, the game highlights it in yellow to let you know that hey, you did something special to get this item. This is helpful because I had no idea in the past how to get certain items. Also, the map scrolls faster, both on the top and bottom screen, there are more icons to put on the map that make sense, and there is an auto-route option. What this means is that you can lay down a bunch of arrows on the map, and when you hit the play button, your guys will automatically follow the arrows without needing to hit a button - they'll even go through doors and down stairs! This is pretty unnecessary and the game would have been fine without it but Atlus put it in because it is very clear they wanted this game to be the best in the series.

Speaking of things that are unnecessary but awesome, they included the ability to explore the ocean via sailing. Your guild is given a boat early on, and you're told to go explore what you can of the ocean, and help people out and find items and fish and stuff. This is a great way to make cash early on (and probably later on, too) and also gain experience. That's right, there are fights to find on the ocean! There are no random battles, but when you find certain locations on the sea, some quests there open up - you can accept them at any time for no cost, and they seem to be fairly difficult battles. You gain experience and usually items from beating them, too, and you can replay them if you want. You can even play these missions with a friend (or four), too! That's right, you can wirelessly participate in these battles and gain experience and items with other people you know with the game. It is local only, though, unfortunately, and since I know only one other guy with the game, it seems we're stuck just using our two best characters, since we can't figure out how to bring more.

None of that was in the first two games. I am so thrilled with all these improvements it is insane.

As far as where I am now, I'm stuck on the second stratum boss. He has this attack that puts me to sleep, and he always follows it up with an attack that will kill any of my characters that are affected by a status ailment or bound in any way. Which means I usually do great in the battle until the very end when he starts spamming these attacks! So I have to figure out how to kill him.

I will post more about this, for sure.

Heavy Rain

I should start with this: there will be slight spoilers for Heavy Rain in this post. It is kind of hard to discuss this game without them, honestly, so beware. I won't reveal who the killer is, though.

The story in Heavy Rain is fantastic! The gameplay is terrible!

That's really all you need to know about Heavy Rain. I get what the developers were going for: an involving experience, utilizing the unique aspects of video games to present basically a murder mystery book that is interactive. And for the most part, they succeed; the game changes pretty much every time you play it, with different outcomes depending on the choices you made throughout the narrative. Which I applaud! These are great things.

But oh, how I wish the gameplay weren't so bad. You see, in Heavy Rain, the entire game controls as such: movement is similar to the first few Resident Evil games - you hold R2 to walk, and use the left stick to turn. That would be awful enough, but the rest of the controls are all played out with Quick Time Events. If you're unfamiliar with these, they are events that the player attempts to beat by pressing the button on the screen. For example, to open the fridge, you go up to the fridge and rotate the right stick clockwise from the right. To pick up an item off the desk, you push the right stick up. And so on.

What sucks about this is that all the activities that would usually be fun in a game (fighting a boss! Driving a car and avoiding traffic! Shooting guns!) are boring at best, and plain frustrating at worst. Sure, the events are kind of intense because you are so scared you'll screw up whatever weird button combo the developers came up with, but that kind of nullifies the point of them - you should be scared because you are playing the character and they are in a tough situation, not because you are scared of the controls.

My only other complaint is a stupid save system. The game is autosave only - you cannot create a save at any point. If you want to restart because you screwed up some retarded QTE - which will happen! - you have to try to reload your previous save before the game saves over it. Awesome!

The story itself, though... So good. You play as multiple characters, each twisting and winding around the same plot points. The Origami Killer is kidnapping little boys and drowning them, and you have to find out who. It is made somewhat clear off the bat that the killer is either one of the characters you play as or someone very close to them, so the game is always throwing you curveballs as far as character development goes. For example, for my playthrough, I was incredibly surprised as to the killer's identity, although it made sense when I went back and thought about what I had been doing with them throughout the game.

Anyway, many characters can die throughout the game, changing the outcome in several ways. I'll probably play through the game again someday, and see what changes as I go through.

I'll just have to suffer through those annoying damn QTEs.

3D Dot Game Heroes: Best Zelda Since Twilight Princess

Let's start with this. Between these two images, which seems more like a Zelda over world?

The answer is the top one, despite not being a Zelda game while the bottom one is! Let's break it down, here. Both pictures do not have much going on in them; the first one has a hero and an enemy in the distance, and that's about it. The bottom one has the hero riding a train, and a vast empty space (with shitty textured grass, but I digress - my point here isn't about graphic fidelity).

At least the top one has something interesting to DO in the over world.

3D Dot Game Heroes is the best Zelda game in a long time. It may not be incredibly original (it cribs from the first Zelda quite a bit) but it is at least fun. I have beaten two dungeons already (and I've even DIED once! When was the last time you've died in a Zelda game?!) and there has not been any tedium whatsoever the entire time. The game is lean - there is not very much exposition, and what is there is pretty barebones. This is a gamers game. If you are playing this game, you're playing it because you like traditional videogames - not some weird FORCED touchscreen minigame that is completely removed from traditional series gameplay - and, most importantly, not fun at ALL.

To be clear, I'm talking about the train in Spirit Tracks.

I've bitched about the train before and I won't do it again. My point here is that I'm really enjoying 3D Dot Game Heroes.

Oh, and if you're wondering how I'm playing this, I now own a PS3. The games I have for it are 3D Dot Game Heroes, Valkyria Chronicles, Demon's Souls, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Heavy Rain, Red Dead Redemption, God of War III, Batman Arkham Asylum, and Resident Evil 5. I plan on trying out all of these soon, and plan on playing a TON of the first three.

Happy 25th Birthday, Mario.

I guess today marks the anniversary of Super Mario Bros. In honor of this pivotal moment in gaming history, I just beat the game. (I used the two warps, so it only took like 5 minutes, but whatever.)

Thanks you so much for letting me to play-a your game!

SMT: Strange Journey, part 1

So I picked up Strange Journey again last week, after beating Etrian Odyssey II. I thought I didn't like it before, and while some of those criticisms still stand up (I still think bonus damage based on alignment is stupid) I'm finding myself largely liking the game.

By the end of Etrian Odyssey II I was sick and tired of mapping. I mean usually I like it, but when I'm trying to just get to the final boss as quickly as possible to finish the game I hate it. And when I started playing SJ again, I was glad I didn't have to map myself - I was trying to like the game mechanics, and had to fuss with them first and foremost.

The demon fusing is pretty streamlined, although costly. I really like the password feature - if I find myself stuck later in the game, I'll probably cheese my way through with some password-generated demon I find on the internet.

Does that make me a cheater? Yeah probably. I haven't done it yet, but I'm keeping that trick up my sleeve to prevent endless grinding if I can.

Speaking of which, I think that password thing is pretty damned awesome. Look here and here and here to see how fricking flexible the thing is. Have you fused a demon? Do you like it? Generate a password for it, and share it with your friends/the internet! I mean LOOK at some of Eirikr's demons - reflects all physical and magical attacks, and has Null Light and Dark. The only thing that can even DAMAGE those guys is Almighty damage!

Even if you aren't fusing ridiculous uber-demons who can kill God with their thoughts, the password system is still pretty useful. There are some secret passwords built into the game that Atlus put there for some useful demons (I've actually had a Mara sitting in my PWD hopper at level 86 or something because its a freaking penis monster given to me by the company who made the game!

Anyway, so I'm in the Delphinus sector, the fourth sector in the game, which is basically a trash heap so far. I had stopped in Bootes, the second sector, because I couldn't stand damage floors (still can't, actually!). I beat the boss of that sector, and then flew through Carina, the third sector, yesterday. I'm going to try to slow down, because I think I need to level up quite a bit to continue any farther. And I need to fuse some of these damned demons away - fricking Hathor has been around forever!

I really like how the story is presented in this game, though. Maybe I'm just naive to how the military works, but the way your characters progress through the story is very military-like. You are given orders to go do whatever, and when you do whatever, you are given more orders. This means there is no teenage celebration about victory like in almost every other MegaTen game - not to say I always hate that, but it's nice to not have to encounter it EVERY TIME. Also, all the characters are adults - which is nice, too, because you don't see that too often in RPGs. In fact, the main character looks like he is in his early 30s, MAYBE late 20s. I wish more RPGs were this way.

I'll have more thoughts as I play through it. It is definitely a weird game... It's basically Etrian Odyssey: Shin Megami Tensei. Sounds good, doesn't it? I think it's a little early for me to judge, but I think it brings both the good and bad qualities of those two series to the table. I'll probably talk about that next time if I still feel that way.

Etrian Odyssey II: Complete

I just beat Etrian Odyssey II. I'm glad I did, too, because that last Stratum was quite annoying. Stupid Beamedge's everywhere, annoying layouts, etc.

The last boss probably would have been very tough, had it not been for my RIDICULOUSLY POWERFUL duo of Ronins - Kaitlyn and Shiren were insane. Mideraba is easily my favorite skill in the game.

Before I get to that, though, I changed my party makeup for the last few floors. Once I realized that the level cap is 70 for first time adventurers, I wanted to level them up some more or at least change around their Skills. To do this, you have two options: Rest a character, to allow you to re-spend their Skill Points in exchange for knocking down their level by 5, or Retiring them, which knocks their level down by forty levels, but allows you to both re-spend their Skill Points and earn one more once they level up enough. My complaint about this is that it's only one - I embarked on Retirement for all five of my characters because I thought they'd be able to level up to 75, which would give them 5 more Skill Points total. I was wrong - each time you retire, you only get to level up one more level.

I got those fuckers up to 71, noticed they couldn't level up anymore, and I said screw this, I'm beating the last boss now.

The upside to doing that, though, was that I streamlined the crap out of their skills. I got rid of all the extraneous stuff (like Mining, Taking, and Chopping, which was useless now that I could get a ton of cash easily) and even changed some classes around.

One of the nice parts about Retiring is that you get a level 30 character with 40 initial Skill Points, but you aren't restricted to whatever class that character was. For example, I was sick of my now useless Survivalist (Icarus), so I changed him to Protector, and changed my Landschneckt(Shiren) to another Ronin(Kaitlyn remained a Ronin through the entire game). I bought Shiren another Youtou (the ridiculously expensive Katana Kaitlyn had been using for a while now) and I went back into the forest.

The Metroid Guild was here to kick some ass. And boy, did it.

The final boss went down quick. Icarus spammed Provoke (make the enemy target him more) and Parry (high chance of dodging any attack), Shiren and Kaitlyn spammed the hell out of Mideraba (multiple sword strike for huge damage), Raidou spammed Ricochet (multiple gunshots for good damage), and Yukiko alternated between healing duties and CPR (which allows characters to survive mortal blows with 1 HP like 80% of the time). I beat both forms quickly, with only like three people dying for the first form, and no one dying for the second.

Overall, Etrian Odyssey II is a mixed bag. I really like the interface improvements it brings after the original was lacking a bit - particularly the bigger variety of map icons you have, which makes navigating quite a bit easier. The Force skills aren't quite as useful, but that's okay. I did a few more of the optional Quests this time around, but not too many because once they begin to get really confusing I just give up because I don't feel like running around in circles in the dungeon trying to figure out what to do. I had a lot of fun playing EOII, and even before I broke the game with my two Ronins-o-death, I felt like it was pretty well-balanced. Some of those skills sure are useless, though.

Etrian Odyssey III comes out at the end of this month, and I have it pre-ordered, and the guy said I'd get an art book for the entire series with it, and I damned well better. I'm ready for III - I've heard it is much better than I and II.

Cave Story: Afterthoughts

So on a whim, I downloaded Cave Story for the Wii two nights ago. I beat it last night, and while it wasn't what I expected, it was very, very good.

First of all, before I played it, I thought Cave Story was a regular platformer, with a focus on stomping on guys heads and stuff. But it's not! It's more like a cross of Mario and Gradius (which is odd, then, since I've been playing a few "shmups" lately - Castle of Shikigami III and M.U.S.H.A. in particular). You acquire guns, and then use them to kill whatever enemies stand in your way.

Okay, so it's more like Contra. Having never been particularly fond of Contra, there's a particular reason why I like Cave Story so much:

It's a Metroidvania.

You acquire new items and weapons, and then use them to get to new places. You can find health and missile powerups throughout the game, as well (I didn't find too many, though, but it's possible I missed areas).

Whenever you acquire a new gun, you have to power it up, by collecting the goofy little triangle things enemies drop when they are killed. Collect enough, and your weapon will level up - but be careful! If you take damage, your weapon level may drop. It doesn't take too long to level your gun back up, of course, but this may prove hard while fighting bosses who don't drop the triangle things.

Anyway, I really like this mechanic, and some of the subtleties in this game really blow me away as well. The game never, ever tells you this is possible, but a fully powered up Machine Gun will actually allow your little guy to float if you shoot it down towards the ground! It serves as a sort of jetpack way before you actually get one in the game, and really augments it when you do.

I had heard the story was pretty good before playing the game, and while it certainly wasn't crap, I wasn't that impressed by it. It was told sparingly, sure, so it wasn't like I had much to latch on to, but I never really cared about Sue or any of the other characters. I just wanted to shoot crap and get to the next boss fight.

And man, is that last boss ridiculous. Four fights in a row where you don't get to heal or save in between? It was as if I was playing a Final Fantasy game or something.

Anyway, I hope Pixel makes another game. He probably is, but I really think people should support him by buying Cave Story on Wii. It's one of the best WiiWare titles for sure (right up there with the likes of Mega Man 9!).

Playtime... is over!

Well, I finally wrapped up Hard Mode in Castlevania: Harmony of Despair a few nights ago. Kyle and I, after dying a few times on Dracula, were able to utterly destroy him on our third try.

It was quite awesome, actually.

I've been thinking about this game on a sort of macro level, though. I mean, I may discuss it more specifically at a later time, but I had a thought I'd like to share.

This game is what the single player of Super Smash Bros. Brawl should have been like.

Think about it. You have all these great Castlevania enemies, with level designs (okay, well, graphics, anyway) pulled right out of earlier Castlevania games. You have remixed boss encounters, with some crazy abilities (could you imagine if Gergoth could hit you from anywhere in the castle in Dawn of Sorrow?!) that, due to the nature of the game, fit perfectly. You have all the abilities of these characters from past games (Soma can steal souls, Shanoa can use/inherit glyphs, etc.), so they all remain unique and play differently. You can play it with other people, or go solo.

Now read this old post of mine and tell me it doesn't seem as if they took all my complaints about Smash Bros. and made a multiplayer Castlevania out of them.

I mean, shit is almost uncanny. This quote in particular proves noteworthy: "...for Christsakes, use graphics from the old games (whether ripped right from them or redone)!" So what does this all prove?

Well, it may not have been for Smash Bros., but dammit, I was right. These basic elements form the basis for a really great, fun game. Now, admittedly, it's not as though I described Harmony of Despair 1:1, and I would never claim I did, but some pretty important points are in there. Konami, being actual game designers (and not some blogger writing to about 2 people) certainly made something much better and more interesting than the barebones structure I laid out.

I'm not going to turn this into a Smash Bros. post, so I won't go into any more detail than that. I know it's a bit of an odd juxtaposition, but it made a lot of sense to me when I thought of it.

Now back to grinding spells with Charlotte - which is very, very tedious, so we'll see how long it lasts.

I have no use for children. Be gone!

It's Castlevania week over here, it seems. I recently picked up and started playing Castlevania: Circle of the Moon today. I've put about 45 minutes in, and I've already noticed some things worth talking about:

Nathan Graves moves insanely fast. He drops really fast, and (when you get the dash item) runs pretty fast too. Playing Harmony of Despair as I have made CotM seem like it's on speed.

The music is much better than I remember. This was a Game Boy Advance launch title and while the music definitely sounds "Game Boy Advance-y," it still sounds really good. The early themes are awesome, such as Catacombs, the Abyss, etc.

I've fought two bosses so far, I believe they were called Cerberus and The Necromancer. Both were really easy, yet enjoyably challenging. I know the bosses ramp up in difficulty pretty fast in this game, but that's okay because I don't know if I'll play through all the way to the end.

Speaking of the end, I've still been playing Harmony of Despair. I'm on Level 3, The End of Chaos (woo segue) in Hard Mode. I'm sure if I really tried, I could beat it fairly handily. It's just that this level is absolutely terrible, and easily the worst in the game. Let's enumerate its flaws:

Most of the level is this giant empty hole in the middle in which the boss sits. But wait, you say, there are enemies and platforms in there that you have to traverse to at least get to the boss! Ah, but there is no point to them, because there certainly are not treasure chests in there, nor are there any unique enemies, or really any interesting level design. It's just a bunch of random blocks that are put there to be destroyed by the boss when he wakes up.

The level was clearly designed around the boss. It's as if Konami said "Let's put a huge boss that takes up like two or three full screens in Harmony of Despair! Put that screen real estate to use! But... how do we design a level around it?" And some other guy went "Eh, fuck it. Just make it a big giant hole, throw some enemies in there, and call it good. People will eat that shit right up!"

Well, Konami Dude #2, fuck you. Your level is stupid. You also saw fit to put in two treasure chests only Shanoa can get to without waking the boss, and they're purple - which indicates they contain rarer (thus, better) items. Now, I'm all for character diversity and even areas that are only accessible by certain characters, but two purple chests for Shanoa only? Really? Thank you for making one player on this level completely and utterly pointless if you aren't Shanoa(not to mention boring and time consuming because of the huge stupid boss).

But, the rest of the game has really good levels. In fact, I enjoy all of them besides #3. Thinking about it now, I only beat level 3 that one time on Normal, because its a stupid level.

Anyway, back to CotM. Possibly more about that game later, if I don't get frustrated with it.

This long slumber has given me strength...

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair has been taking up a lot of my time this past week.

I have largely enjoyed it; I just gained the ability to play in Hard Mode last night. I've gotten to the second boss, and I can definitely beat him, but have been screwed over by circumstances the few times I've tried him (like when he moved to a iron maiden that was too far away for me to reach him in time to destroy the puppet). But that's another post entirely.

The game certainly has its ups and downs. The good part is that it is largely a blast to play - it really controls well, and Soma, the character I use, plays pretty much exactly like he did in Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, my two favorite Castlevania games. He can both acquire new weapons and armor, but also obtain souls for every single enemy in the game, like in his original games (that is, except the third boss, but whatever). You can even power his souls up by collecting 9 of each! I love this aspect of the game, and have now collected all the souls but a few of the bosses (the 4th boss, and Dracula, to be exact). Several souls are fully powered up, as well.

As far as the process one uses to "level up"... Well, it's honestly a mixed bag for me. I like that most people are around the same stat level unless they have the best weapons in the game, but I really don't like that stat boosts you get from food are not permanent. I understand that this would mean that people would just farm food points, but why not take out "food points" all together and make food a dropped item only? Then if people level their stats up that way, at least they earned it.

I mean, I don't know. In the end, it's probably best that stat boosts aren't permanent. The only other way to level up, though, is by getting better equipment. Which is fine, and of course, the best equipment is obtained by drops only. I'm okay with that - it's just what you're able to buy in the Shop is woefully inadequate when you're playing normal mode. Hard Mode does not give you much more, and certainly in the defense department it is sorely lacking. I get hit way too hard by enemies (30 damage from a ghost? ...Really?). But, I suppose that's why they call it Hard Mode.

I like that the bosses aren't pushovers, either - Dracula remains very difficult in Normal Mode, and the Puppet Master in Hard Mode requires perfection to beat, it seems.

The multiplayer is a blast, though. I've played both with random people, and one of my Xbox Live Friends or whatever stupid term you use for people you know. Konami didn't leave too much room to be a dick to random people in this game, either. Everyone shares treasure chests. When someone opens a chest, every player gets an item at random, so there is no possible way to bitch or fight over a chest. You cannot harm each other either, or affect each others movement, thus preventing you being knocked into spikes by some online douchebag.

As in every online game though, rage quitting/dropping out early has no penalty. Whatever items you got up to that point you keep, so people drop out all the time. For example, the first time I beat Dracula, I did so online - but as soon as I got to his room, the one player left quit on me, forcing me to fight Dracula alone, while he had health fit for two players. Suffice it to say, I was quite proud of myself for winning that fight, considering how much trouble I had been having with him.

Overall, I'm really enjoying the game. I want to at least beat Hard Mode, and maybe even make my Soma a ridiculous badass with awesome weapons. We'll see how that goes once I see how difficult Dracula is in Hard Mode. I hear he has the best weapon drops.

As an aside: Braid

So, for whatever reason I do not know, I booted up Braid last night, and beat the last few puzzles I hadn't completed from like two years ago when I first got my Xbox.

I'm not sure what the deal was, but I was like in puzzle genius mode last night. Puzzles that I could not for the life of me figure out made sense all of a sudden, and I beat the game. This nets all the achievements, of course, besides the Time Attack one. I have no desire to get that one because I don't care about achievements, but yeah. Neat, I guess.

I really, really liked that last level, though. I had not read any spoilers about Braid, and (MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD)I really like what they did with it. The last world you play is called World 1, and it details what happened in the beginning of the tale; namely, when Tim had originally "met" the Princess. You play through the last level of the world backwards, all the way to the point where the Princess is sleeping - the level returns to normal time when Tim is perched outside the Princess' window. What this essentially means is that Tim is a freaking stalker and had been following the Princess ever since the beginning of the game, and became increasingly crazy and delusional as time went on.

Now, is this a critique of gamers? Certainly this is a video game about a guy who is madly in love with a woman from afar, and he creeps her out so bad a literal "knight in shining armor" takes her away. Could this be a metaphor for the lonely nerd? Well, maybe a lonely nerd who takes his feelings way too far, anyway.

The way Braid's story was told, though, is inherently, and irrevocably videogamey. That's what has struck me so much about its presentation. If it were a movie, it would be nonsensical and boring, really. The impact of the "ending" would be minimal surprise, at best. But as a game, as the player plays through these levels and reads the increasingly desperate text about this Tim guy, they become attached to this little avatar and hope he succeeds in finding his princess.

But when he does... The fact that you, the player, are a willing accomplice to this creepy bastard really hits home, and makes you feel as though you were a bad guy this whole time. It's an experience that cannot be duplicated in books or movies; the player has a role in the story of a game because they are actively involved, which isn't possible in those mediums.

Now, I sort of see why people point to Braid when they are asked if games are art. I don't know if Braid is proof they are, but I know it is at least a step in the right direction.

Etrian Odyssey II: I'm back!

So I've discovered I don't have a huge impetus to play Shiren. Well, I'm not hopelessly addicted to it like I was with P3:Portable, anyway. So I popped in Etrian Odyssey II on a lark while I was tired a few nights ago, and I've put in another five hours or so, I believe.

I just reached the 20th floor before posting this, and am likely going to be facing the Strata boss soon, which will, like pretty much all the other Strata bosses, probably destroy me hard. Hopefully I can keep playing, because my guys are all level 55-59, just short of where I beat the last game. I'd like to finish the main story, to prep myself for Etrian Odyssey III, which I really need to pre-order so I get that awesome pre-order bonus art book.

Anyway. So I don't know what it is about EO that I love so much. It is not as though I ever played old-school PC RPGs when I was a kid (EO is like a love letter to those). The prospect of making my own map would have certainly made me vomit as a concept on its own. Endless grinding for loot and money never really appealed to me either, and I certainly don't like the goofy (and in a certain store in the original EO, outright disturbing) character designs, although the music is quite good.

It's hard to pinpoint, honestly. I guess EO is like the RPG genre distilled to its essence - a story that is both there, and virtually transparent, allowing you to fully customize your party any way you want. In fact, that's most likely it - the game is so ridiculously customizable that there is really no wrong way to do anything. There are just level-up paths that make your characters more powerful sooner than others, and I kind of like discovering that.

I mean come on - if you reach level 100 with your characters, the game allows you to "Retire" them and let you start over at level 1 with all your skill points, which means you can level them up all the way again and max out every skill and (probably, anyway, since I've sure as hell never done it) stat.

And I believe, like the last game, there is a bonus Strata after you beat the main storyline boss, which will allow you to really test your party's mettle.

I don't know why I'm so addicted to these hardcore RPGs these days. They're pretty much all I've been playing (with a short break for Super Mario Galaxy 2)! I hope I don't get RPG'ed out. Guess will see. Anyway, back to the grind.

Shiren the Wanderer, part 1

I started up Shiren for Wii over again, this time on Easy difficulty, so I don't lose all my items when I die.

Now, why did I do this, you ask? Especially knowing I actually like that mechanic in Shiren DS?

Well, you see, Shiren for Wii is broken up into different dungeons, instead of one big one. This means that if I lose all my equipment, then I become severely under-equipped for whatever dungeon I'm currently in... So I would have to go back and grind equipment in earlier dungeons.

This could take hours.

And if I die again? I'd have to start the whole process over. I do not consider that prospect fun. So I'm playing it on easy, so I can enjoy the game.

Granted, now I'm flying through the dungeons, already up to Tengu's Castle, about halfway to the point I was at when I stopped last time (which took me like 14 hours, whereas I'm only three hours in this playthrough). So I don't know what to think. Certainly this game shouldn't be easy - and it won't be, once they start throwing the really ridiculous enemies at me - but so far it is.

Oh well. Anyway, the game is pretty good mindless fun. It is by no means perfect, and it isn't as good as the DS version of Shiren, but I still like it and will likely beat it eventually, unless the last few dungeons get ridiculous. I think I'll play the game more when I unlock the postgame stuff, like in the DS version that I still pick up from time to time.

What is it about these games that make them so appealing to me, anyway? It is definitely not the story, which is rudimentary at best. It's not the graphics, although they are certainly passable in this version. The music is pretty good, though.

As for the gameplay... I've watched someone else play a roguelike, and it is dull. It amounts to basically watching someone walk around, sometimes hitting stuff. Unless you're playing it yourself, it is unbearable. But when you are exploring the dungeons yourself, and you are vested in the experience, you are kind of on the edge of your seat at all times. If you make one or two mistakes, you could find yourself in trouble... And all your hard work could be lost in an instant.

In theory, that sounds so appealing. Here is a game where if you die, you lose everything - this gives the proceedings a sense of urgency like no other video game I'm aware of. Sure, if you die on a boss in Final Fantasy, you might lose an hour or two of grinding, but Shiren (the DS version, anyway, or the Wii version on Normal difficulty or above) can make you essentially lose everything you had been doing in the game up until that point. Besides, of course, whatever progress you made in the story - which amounts to very little even when you beat the game, in the long run.

I still think Shiren DS nails the balance perfectly between danger, difficulty, and fairness. The Pokemon roguelikes are too easy, and Izuna is a little to easy in some ways, and completely unfair and obtuse in others. Chocobo's Dungeon on Wii was fun as hell and had awesome music, but was a little too easy too... I don't know how a developer could effectively balance a multiple dungeon roguelike without letting you save items when you die or something. Or letting you keep your levels or whatever. It sounds too tough to do effectively.

I just wish someone would make another Shiren DS type of game and expand the town parts a little bit...

Persona 3 Portable, part 2

Well, I beat the game last night. That last month really wore me out - I was able to complete both the Aeon and Magician S. Links - just barely. I finished the Aeon one on the last day possible.

I was grinding like crazy, though. I got my MC up to level 85 (like twenty two or twenty three levels over the level I was at when I beat P3:FES) before I had enough of it, with about 8 days to go in the month. I hadn't unlocked whatever weird dungeon you unlock for beating the Reaper because I had only tried him once (at level 80) and couldn't beat him.

It is fucking stupid how few Exp Bonus cards you get during Shuffle Time in the last block of Tartarus. I looked up the percentages online, and it's like 40% yen, 20% weapon, 30% blank, and 10% Exp. Why?! This is the best time to grind! It's not like I have any S. Links to do! The last boss is coming up! Give me some fucking Exp Bonus cards! I definitely would have had the will to get to level 99 had I been able to reliably get the bonus instead of getting like 400 exp each time. I even shrunk my party down to just me and one other person (so I could still perform All-Out Attacks) to boost my Exp, and it worked, but only a little because I still didn't get the cards. By the time I hit 85, I had had enough and just slept early every night until the boss.

So, my final S. Links:

Fool
Magician
Priestess
Hierophant
Chariot
Hermit
Strength
Hanged
Death
Temperance
Devil
Tower
Moon
Sun
Aeon
Judgment

16 out of 19 (I think)! I missed maxing Fortune, Justice, and Emperor. When I played through FES, I believe I maxed out Emperor, and it wasn't changed for P3: Portable, so I didn't really miss anything there.

I'm happy with my playthrough this time. I don't know when I'll start up a male MC playthrough - that last month really burned me out. I think right now I'm going to go fire up Shiren Wii again, and start a new game on Easy, so I won't lose my equipment when I die, which will mean I won't punch any lights in my apartment like I did last time.

Until next time, Mitsuru...

Persona 3 Portable, part 1

I say part 1 up there, and I mean it. I'm 15 game days away from the last boss of the game, which means I can basically go beat him whenever I want because the last month of the game is pretty uneventful S. Link-wise because I have maxed out most of the ones that would be available at this time. Oh - if you're worried, I won't be spoiling any story elements here in the blog.

This will not be a completely maxed S. Link playthrough, although I'm fairly proud of how things have gone so far. I might be able to max Aeon and Magician, depending on their availability during this month, but even if I don't get either I'll still be satisfied. So far, I've maxed out these S. Links:

Fool
Priestess
Hierophant
Chariot
Hermit
Strength
Hanged
Death
Temperance
Devil
Tower
Moon
Sun
Judgment

So thirteen total maxed S. Links, only three of which are story related. Ten maxed S. Links is definitely a personal best for me in any Persona game, so that's good. I'm thinking for my next playthrough, I'm going to use a guide and max them all. Next, I'm going to play through as the dude. And I'm going to be a Genius right off the bat, due to the Academics/Charm/Courage stats carrying over into NG+.

Which means, Mitsuru, that you and I will be banging so hard. Or, you know, whatever happens during her S. Link events.

So! I've grinded my MC up to level 80, and plan on grinding at least a little more before I go on and beat the game. This means that I've earned quite a bit of money, which means I can afford to fuse a ton of Personae and re-purchase them as needed. So I've gotten some interesting Personae I've never gotten before, such as Satan, Scathach, Attis, Mara (I got Mara in P4 but the giant penis guy seems to be much stronger in P3), and a really sweet Abaddon (which produced 4 Tomes of the Void for me - which grants whoever equips them Null All Status Effects - very useful for the last boss!).

I'm going to try to fuse even more crazy Personae, but I worry I'll run out of patience. The enemies at the very tip top of Tartarus are all afraid of me because I'm such a high level, thus they don't give me much experience when I fight them so it'll take forever to level up. But man... some of those high-level Personae look so cool! I'll try my best, anyway.

I wonder if the ending for the girl will be any different compared to the guy's. I guess we'll find out soon enough...

Oh man... it's here...

Before I get to what the blog title is referring to, I'll say this about Super Mario Galaxy 2: the first 120 stars you get are awesome. The second 120, the green stars, are... Well, I've only gotten one of them so far, but if that one is any indication, it will be awhile before I complete Super Mario Galaxy 2 100%. You have to search the levels for these stars, and the game gives you no clue as to where in the level they are other than a faint light in the sky, and a star sound when you are near them.

It's like a throwback to the days of N64 collect-a-thons, in a way. Like they injected some DK64 into the game. So, it will probably be a while before I get back to SMG2, although I enjoyed it while is lasted.

I picked up Persona 3 Portable a few days ago, and have put in about two hours so far. I went ahead and decided to play as the girl, and since I can't come up with names to save my life, I went with my girlfriend's full name. It's an interesting take, really! Since the main character is silent, I've been unwittingly projecting my girlfriend's personality on her. Besides the fact that the character looks nothing like my girlfriend, I have found myself answering Social Link questions and the like how I think she would. It's kind of fun, actually.

As far as what I think about the game itself so far, I am disappointed in one respect: the anime cutscenes from Persona 3:FES were removed! On the GameSpite boards, I was told that this was because they were "pretty bad" anyway. Well, I could care less! I thought they added a ton to the presentation. The first scene of the game, in which the main character travels from the train station to the dorm, is the scene that intrigued the crap out of me when I first saw it before I had ever played a MegaTen game. You could say that scene sent me on the spiral I've found myself in since then, having bought and owned almost every Shin Megami Tensei game released in America since then...

But I digress. That scene had the main character walking down a street, past bloody coffins just strewn everywhere, but all standing up erect. He seemed to sort of notice them, but just kept going, and then when he got to the dorm, this creepy little kid in striped pajamas told him to sign a book. It was weird and awkward and creepy all at once, and it hooked the shit out of me.

Persona 3 Portable uses a few lines of text to describe this scene, along with a few stills taken, I assume, from that cutscene. It still works to a certain extent, but I don't think it'd hook newcomers to the game like the anime would, "questionable quality" or not.

But anyway, that's all nerdy bitchery. I'm really enjoying the differences in the girl's campaign, even if I have already noticed a voice acting error (she just woke up in the hospital, Yukari! At least get her gender right!). I'm interested in seeing where the story goes once certain key characters are introduced, and I really like the design of the girl character as well. The male version was neat, but really, really weird looking. He would run with his hands in his pockets, which still sounds so weird to me.

Wow I'm all over the place today. I need to remember to start a paragraph and fucking finish the paragraph with that topic. Yeah. I'm going to stop for the night now. I hope I'll play more tomorrow, maybe I'll post again.