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.

Mario's spaceship is shaped like his face... what hubris. (part 3)

Just got to the sixth world in Super Mario Galaxy 2, and I'm at a nice even 90 stars so I figured it'd be a good time to post.

The last boss battle against Bowser Jr. was epic, if I may say such a thing. You have your Cloud Mario powerup, while Bowser Jr. is in this like six story tall tank that you have to climb by riding clouds (that you make!) up these wind drafts and then leap, if you can, to the tank and butt-stomp it. You have to do this twice, then all of a sudden the tank gets higher and sprouts wheels! You then have to chase the thing around while being like 150 feet in the air, while trying to score that final butt-stomp.

It felt so awesome when I did. The game doesn't then mess around, knowing how awesome that sequence was, and it just tosses Bowser Jr. the fuck off the screen with nary a word. You then collect the Grand Star and move on.

When I entered the sixth world, I encountered a level about three stars in where you have to use Rock Mario to roll your way over jumps and whatnot to a star at the very end.

I died like twelve times. Yet, I was not frustrated (even when the stupid "you suck at this game" fairy showed up - I, of course, ignored her, knowing I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I let the computer get the star for me). That part, though tough, was fun as hell.

Here comes some fanboy gushing. Forgive me for this... But Nintendo knows how to make some goddamn video games. The amount of polish that went into both Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 show how fucking awesome they are at making good, playable games. Not only does Super Mario Galaxy 2 look great, but it plays even better. This game does not feel stale at all - and I played through Super Mario Galaxy last summer, so it's still fairly fresh in my mind. You'd think it would be only slightly iterative, but it is a completely new game. I am fucking thrilled to be playing it and am happy I was able to start it during a big lull in workdays (thank you America's birthday!).

The last time I was this addicted to a game was when I was playing through Devil Survivor, and you know what happened with that. I know it was only a few months ago, but before that it was Persona 3 and 4 last year. As much as I enjoyed New Super Mario Bros. Wii, this may even top it - so far. Hard to say, having heard the endgame can kinda suck. We'll see, as I'm getting there soon, I'd say...