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...