Today, I opened a brand new Sega Genesis game, something I haven't done since the 90s. What is also interesting about this fact is that this is a game I've never played before, released twenty years after the Genesis itself: Pier Solar, by Watermelon.
The very first thing that must be mentioned is the absolutely gorgeous packaging. This is exactly how packaging should be done to this day, whether the game is a cart or a disc. Pier Solar comes in a solid plastic case that doesn't seem like it is going to fall apart. Within the case are a set of cool looking stickers (not that I'd imagine anyone who owns this game would ever actually use them) and a full color, lengthy manual. The entire package exudes tasteful design aesthetics, not something I think I have ever seen in Genesis packaging (actually, almost anything from the 90s). The cart itself has a nice Pier Solar logo on it and looks classy popping out of my Genesis Model 2.
The game's charm hits you immediately - after the familiar "Licensed by Sega" screen, another screen pops up that says "Please disregard the previous screen - this game is not licensed by Sega Ltd. (or something to that effect, I'm paraphrasing here)." The Pier Solar menu pops up, and then you create a save and start the game.
I was not expecting the music in Pier Solar to be very good. I thought it would be passable at best, due to how few Genesis games actually have good soundtracks (even Castlevania: Bloodlines sounds weird despite having great tracks). And while Pier Solar doesn't have the soundtrack of, say, Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger, it is very charming and quite good, to be honest. One thing most Genesis games didn't do was evoke atmosphere via music - Pier Solar does this very well. The cave music in particular does this excellently, from what I've heard so far.
The graphics are very elaborate and remind me of Phantasy Star IV, despite being a little more finely detailed. It took a bit of adjusting because I've played so many more recently made games, but the abstract nature of the tilesets make getting around a bit difficult. The game compensates for this a little bit with it's "pathfinder" setting, which makes your character always move if he hits a wall and can go around some nearby corner to keep advancing in the general direction you were going (this feature can be turned on and off at will as well as the "autorun" ability, which speeds up your characters walking speed).
The battle system struts its stuff right off the bat as well. The first battle I fought had three floating jellyfish-looking things, and some thing that was sitting on the ground. What is important about this is that every time I had my main character - who was equipped with a dagger - attack the floating guys, he wouldn't do any damage. My bow and arrow user always did. Without giving me some annoying tutorial, I figured out right away that there are two heights at which enemies could be, and I have to compensate for their position given the situation. A little bit of strategy right away!
So I beat what I think is the first boss and I might have been a tad under-leveled. I'm going to go back and look around for some sidequests because I want to savor this game while I can - how often are true 16-bit RPGs made these days?
Monday, September 24, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Final Fantasy XIII Postmortem
What entry in the Final Fantasy series has been maligned as much as the thirteenth (two doesn't count)?
When the game came out, I couldn't help but read and hear everywhere about how much the game was terrible and linear and stupid and hard and it plays itself and a bunch of other things that would be impossible to actually describe a single game. One thing was certain: the game was controversial.
What little we know about the troubled development history of Final Fantasy XIII is very interesting. We know the game started development for the Playstation 2 in 2004 after the team had finished working on Final Fantasy X-2 International for Japan's market. It was moved to the Playstation 3 later on, and the teams involved all began churning out a bunch of characters and areas to be stitched together. The team was having trouble coming up with a collective look and feel for the game, and the higher ups wanted to ship a demo with the Japanese version of Advent Children, the Final Fantasy VII straight to home video movie. They ultimately did create the demo, then buckle down and finish the game, although they cut - according to Isamu Kamikokuryou, the game's art director - so much content, there was enough left over to create another game.
All of which is very forthcoming from a Japanese developer. But anyway, I just find it incredibly interesting that this game took as long as it did and came out like it did. I recommend 1UP's Active Time Babble podcast from January 14th, 2010 about Final Fantasy XIII for an interesting discussion of the above and in-depth discussion about the battle system and structure of the game. Frankly, I think they do a great job of discussing it without spoiling the story.
Here's my take, though. I think the game is one of the most beautiful games I have ever played. The first few hours don't really do it much justice; you're stuck in cramped hallways that are too abstract to really be appreciated. Once you get outside and explore the outdoors of Cocoon (and later the vast, stunningly gorgeous Pulse), I guarantee you will stop and just look around for a while.
I know people say that every five years or so about whatever game just came out, but this game really is gorgeous. It really showcases Square-Enix's art talent.
Speaking of art talent, I actually like most of the character designs! Sure, Vanille and Serah look really jailbaity, and yes, Lightning's sheath bounces off the back of her legs for the entire game (wouldn't there be chafing or something?), but there are barely any zippers to be found! These characters actually look like people, and their clothes aren't TOO ridiculous (as women in JRPGs do, most of them are dressed pretty skimpily). A lot of people think Snow looks like a dudebro douchebag, but that's what he's supposed to look like, because he kind of is a dudebro douchebag. Other than the aforementioned sheath, I really like Lightning's character design. She actually seems like an adult and isn't a pile of zippers, like some female Final Fantasy characters that shall not be named.
I like most of the character arcs, too. Without spoiling anything, I really like Lightning's evolution throughout the game, along with (*gasp!*) Snow's. Near the end, their arcs get a little messed up, but overall they pull it off. I enjoyed the voice acting besides Vanille's, and rather enjoyed most of the story. Some of the individual scenes are poorly written and embarrassing, but they're sadly endemic to the genre ("We can do it! Let's pull off a miracle, guys!" followed by "We decide our own fate. Right guys?!" etc etc).
That battle system, though. Picking apart every battle to find the thread that will not only let you win, but absolutely trounce the enemies is a blast. The Paradigm system, while very strange and counter intuitive at first, becomes second nature fairly quickly (yes, before the 15 hour tutorial ends) and never really becomes uninteresting throughout the game. What's nice is that there is some room for most fights to be approached in multiple ways with different characters and classes. For example, I didn't use the Sentinel much, despite hearing all over the place how absolutely essential it was. Sure, one of the characters I used sometimes was a Sentinel, but I feel like Saboteur and Synergist were way more interesting and important (especially in the endgame). To each their own.
I've never looked forward to boss battles as much as I do in Final Fantasy XIII, though. Intricate puzzles designed to be perfectly balanced for whatever point in the game you're at (with the exception of the final two chapters, anyway), they never disappointed. Some were a bit cheap, but if you rearranged your Paradigms and changed your strategy, you would suss out a win. For example, I got absolutely murdered three times by the final boss. The last time, once I realized a certain strategy, I went in and kicked the crap out of him. It was cathartic and very enjoyable.
I'm not sure if I'll go back and do some of the side mission stuff, though. You see, I actually enjoyed the linear nature of the game, and while I didn't dislike when Chapter 11 opened up and let me do basically whatever I wanted, I felt a little disconnect. The game had been so rigidly linear up to that point that I felt a little paralyzed by choice. I certainly don't look at it as a negative, though! Whoever wants to mess around in that playground can certainly do so, and if you don't want to, you can just grind a little and move on with the story. It sure would be interesting to take down some of those giant monsters, though...
All in all, a very good game. I know next to nothing about Final Fantasy XIII-2, despite owning it. Perhaps I will give that a try soon...
Oh! The music is very good, too.
When the game came out, I couldn't help but read and hear everywhere about how much the game was terrible and linear and stupid and hard and it plays itself and a bunch of other things that would be impossible to actually describe a single game. One thing was certain: the game was controversial.
What little we know about the troubled development history of Final Fantasy XIII is very interesting. We know the game started development for the Playstation 2 in 2004 after the team had finished working on Final Fantasy X-2 International for Japan's market. It was moved to the Playstation 3 later on, and the teams involved all began churning out a bunch of characters and areas to be stitched together. The team was having trouble coming up with a collective look and feel for the game, and the higher ups wanted to ship a demo with the Japanese version of Advent Children, the Final Fantasy VII straight to home video movie. They ultimately did create the demo, then buckle down and finish the game, although they cut - according to Isamu Kamikokuryou, the game's art director - so much content, there was enough left over to create another game.
All of which is very forthcoming from a Japanese developer. But anyway, I just find it incredibly interesting that this game took as long as it did and came out like it did. I recommend 1UP's Active Time Babble podcast from January 14th, 2010 about Final Fantasy XIII for an interesting discussion of the above and in-depth discussion about the battle system and structure of the game. Frankly, I think they do a great job of discussing it without spoiling the story.
Here's my take, though. I think the game is one of the most beautiful games I have ever played. The first few hours don't really do it much justice; you're stuck in cramped hallways that are too abstract to really be appreciated. Once you get outside and explore the outdoors of Cocoon (and later the vast, stunningly gorgeous Pulse), I guarantee you will stop and just look around for a while.
I know people say that every five years or so about whatever game just came out, but this game really is gorgeous. It really showcases Square-Enix's art talent.
Speaking of art talent, I actually like most of the character designs! Sure, Vanille and Serah look really jailbaity, and yes, Lightning's sheath bounces off the back of her legs for the entire game (wouldn't there be chafing or something?), but there are barely any zippers to be found! These characters actually look like people, and their clothes aren't TOO ridiculous (as women in JRPGs do, most of them are dressed pretty skimpily). A lot of people think Snow looks like a dudebro douchebag, but that's what he's supposed to look like, because he kind of is a dudebro douchebag. Other than the aforementioned sheath, I really like Lightning's character design. She actually seems like an adult and isn't a pile of zippers, like some female Final Fantasy characters that shall not be named.
I like most of the character arcs, too. Without spoiling anything, I really like Lightning's evolution throughout the game, along with (*gasp!*) Snow's. Near the end, their arcs get a little messed up, but overall they pull it off. I enjoyed the voice acting besides Vanille's, and rather enjoyed most of the story. Some of the individual scenes are poorly written and embarrassing, but they're sadly endemic to the genre ("We can do it! Let's pull off a miracle, guys!" followed by "We decide our own fate. Right guys?!" etc etc).
That battle system, though. Picking apart every battle to find the thread that will not only let you win, but absolutely trounce the enemies is a blast. The Paradigm system, while very strange and counter intuitive at first, becomes second nature fairly quickly (yes, before the 15 hour tutorial ends) and never really becomes uninteresting throughout the game. What's nice is that there is some room for most fights to be approached in multiple ways with different characters and classes. For example, I didn't use the Sentinel much, despite hearing all over the place how absolutely essential it was. Sure, one of the characters I used sometimes was a Sentinel, but I feel like Saboteur and Synergist were way more interesting and important (especially in the endgame). To each their own.
I've never looked forward to boss battles as much as I do in Final Fantasy XIII, though. Intricate puzzles designed to be perfectly balanced for whatever point in the game you're at (with the exception of the final two chapters, anyway), they never disappointed. Some were a bit cheap, but if you rearranged your Paradigms and changed your strategy, you would suss out a win. For example, I got absolutely murdered three times by the final boss. The last time, once I realized a certain strategy, I went in and kicked the crap out of him. It was cathartic and very enjoyable.
I'm not sure if I'll go back and do some of the side mission stuff, though. You see, I actually enjoyed the linear nature of the game, and while I didn't dislike when Chapter 11 opened up and let me do basically whatever I wanted, I felt a little disconnect. The game had been so rigidly linear up to that point that I felt a little paralyzed by choice. I certainly don't look at it as a negative, though! Whoever wants to mess around in that playground can certainly do so, and if you don't want to, you can just grind a little and move on with the story. It sure would be interesting to take down some of those giant monsters, though...
All in all, a very good game. I know next to nothing about Final Fantasy XIII-2, despite owning it. Perhaps I will give that a try soon...
Oh! The music is very good, too.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
In a Gravity Daze
Gravity Rush is the best game ever made.
Okay, so it's not. But you know that feeling you get after you just spend as much time as you possibly can with a game and beat it 100%? That's what I just did with Gravity Rush. I got all the trophies. All of them. I must stress that this is something I almost NEVER do. I could care less about "gamerscore" (mocking quotation marks intended) and starting with this game it's the first time I've ever even looked at trophies on a Playstation system (note that I've had a PSP for four years, a PS3 since 2010, and bought a Vita... well, a few weeks ago).
It's not something I usually care about.
And to be honest, even though I just got them all, I don't really care about it here, either. It is just that Gravity Rush is so damn fun that I want to drain every ounce of enjoyment out of it that I can. I want to do every mission. I want to collect every gem (well, maybe not that one). I want to find out as much as I can about the gorgeous world in the game. I want to listen to the music as much as possible.
I don't want this game to end.
I mean I realize that I've probably got a mix of shiny new item syndrome (the Vita) and the old "hey, that game was a pretty great experience," which combine to form some sort of pleasure cocktail that completely overloads my ability to think rationally and develop coherent thoughts.
But who cares?
I suppose I should actually talk about the game now. You play as Kat, an amnesiac who finds out she has an interesting ability to manipulate her own personal gravity. This means that, as long as she has the energy to do so, Kat can "fall" anywhere at a pretty good clip. I say fall because that's basically what she does - she changes gravity and then falls in whatever direction she pointed. So you can "fall" up, down, sideways, wherever you desire. As you play through the game, you level up your abilities a bit - such as length of time Kat can manipulate gravity, the speed at which she "falls," and her attacks - more on those in a minute. The gravity controls are the real draw of the game, and they are intoxicating. The feeling you get as you send Kat careening around the town of Hekseville is not unlike Crackdown and its sequel, wherein the hero is able to move about quite quickly, and is insanely fun to control. Coming immediately off Gravity Rush, I must say I think I prefer it over the Crackdown games, and I had quite a bit of fun with those.
They are different beasts, though. Gravity Rush is a game that overflows with personality, beginning with its well made cel-shaded graphics to its fantastic music. I have trouble describing music and graphics so I'll leave it there, but they must be seen to behold. They are stylized perfectly and I find myself longing to listen to the music when I'm not even playing the game.
The great graphics, though, do add quite a bit of character to the town, its inhabitants, and especially the story of the game, though. Gravity Rush develops its world quite well, and, like the TV show Lost, forces the player to ask questions while answering a few - but not all - of them. This is rare in a video game - the ability for the writers to have enough restraint to not explain every little detail of the world the player just spent several hours in. It leaves a little mystery, and I find that when I attempt to fill in the cracks myself that the game becomes even more intriguing with what could be. I'm glad I don't know everything about Hekseville and its inhabitants.
So I beat the game, beat all the challenge missions, killed the tough enemies (and that last one was a pain, believe me), and am now going to move on to the downloadable content. I plan on 100% all those, too, although I don't think they'll be as hard as the main game. All told, assuming they don't release more than the three packs that I can already see on the Trophy menu, I will have spent about $53 on this game - and every penny has been worth it.
That Vita purchase from two weeks ago? Justified.
Okay, so it's not. But you know that feeling you get after you just spend as much time as you possibly can with a game and beat it 100%? That's what I just did with Gravity Rush. I got all the trophies. All of them. I must stress that this is something I almost NEVER do. I could care less about "gamerscore" (mocking quotation marks intended) and starting with this game it's the first time I've ever even looked at trophies on a Playstation system (note that I've had a PSP for four years, a PS3 since 2010, and bought a Vita... well, a few weeks ago).
It's not something I usually care about.
And to be honest, even though I just got them all, I don't really care about it here, either. It is just that Gravity Rush is so damn fun that I want to drain every ounce of enjoyment out of it that I can. I want to do every mission. I want to collect every gem (well, maybe not that one). I want to find out as much as I can about the gorgeous world in the game. I want to listen to the music as much as possible.
I don't want this game to end.
I mean I realize that I've probably got a mix of shiny new item syndrome (the Vita) and the old "hey, that game was a pretty great experience," which combine to form some sort of pleasure cocktail that completely overloads my ability to think rationally and develop coherent thoughts.
But who cares?
I suppose I should actually talk about the game now. You play as Kat, an amnesiac who finds out she has an interesting ability to manipulate her own personal gravity. This means that, as long as she has the energy to do so, Kat can "fall" anywhere at a pretty good clip. I say fall because that's basically what she does - she changes gravity and then falls in whatever direction she pointed. So you can "fall" up, down, sideways, wherever you desire. As you play through the game, you level up your abilities a bit - such as length of time Kat can manipulate gravity, the speed at which she "falls," and her attacks - more on those in a minute. The gravity controls are the real draw of the game, and they are intoxicating. The feeling you get as you send Kat careening around the town of Hekseville is not unlike Crackdown and its sequel, wherein the hero is able to move about quite quickly, and is insanely fun to control. Coming immediately off Gravity Rush, I must say I think I prefer it over the Crackdown games, and I had quite a bit of fun with those.
They are different beasts, though. Gravity Rush is a game that overflows with personality, beginning with its well made cel-shaded graphics to its fantastic music. I have trouble describing music and graphics so I'll leave it there, but they must be seen to behold. They are stylized perfectly and I find myself longing to listen to the music when I'm not even playing the game.
The great graphics, though, do add quite a bit of character to the town, its inhabitants, and especially the story of the game, though. Gravity Rush develops its world quite well, and, like the TV show Lost, forces the player to ask questions while answering a few - but not all - of them. This is rare in a video game - the ability for the writers to have enough restraint to not explain every little detail of the world the player just spent several hours in. It leaves a little mystery, and I find that when I attempt to fill in the cracks myself that the game becomes even more intriguing with what could be. I'm glad I don't know everything about Hekseville and its inhabitants.
So I beat the game, beat all the challenge missions, killed the tough enemies (and that last one was a pain, believe me), and am now going to move on to the downloadable content. I plan on 100% all those, too, although I don't think they'll be as hard as the main game. All told, assuming they don't release more than the three packs that I can already see on the Trophy menu, I will have spent about $53 on this game - and every penny has been worth it.
That Vita purchase from two weeks ago? Justified.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Acquisitions: 7/1/12
I've decided to start cataloging my various video game purchases, to keep track of where and for how much I get my various games. I tend to forget over time, you know? I think it'd be nice to keep track. These posts will likely be short, I would imagine.
Today, I discovered a new game shop in Romeo, Michigan: Game Portal. It's right off M-53 and I had never been in there before, and only barely noticed it out of the corner of my eye when I saw a SD television with a NES hooked up to it in the window. My girlfriend and I were driving by as we just left an antique store she wanted to go to a few doors down. We pulled over and I checked it out.
The place was in good order and didn't smell, and there were a couple young kids running it and some crappy techno played from the back (it dipped into dubstep for a minute there as well, much to my girlfriend and I's chagrin). The place has lots of different stuff, your usual NES games on up to present PS3 and 360 games, portable games, and luckily, a small section containing Sega CD, Saturn, and Dreamcast games.
Now I'm not sure yet if it's a permanent thing or not, but they have a Buy 2 Used Get 1 Free sale going on right now and I took advantage of it. Since my girlfriend didn't want to spend too much time there (I had told her we were going to play tennis and some other outdoorsy stuff), I went straight to the little Sega obscure section and dove in. I noticed immediately that they had a copy of Panzer Dragoon II Zwei in fantastic condition, and braced myself as I flipped the game over to see the price... Oh! A mere $24.99! That's an easy decision. Everything else they had for the Saturn was crap, same with the Sega CD, so my eye drifted over to the Dreamcast section and I noticed a few things.
They had a copy there of Skies of Arcadia - again for only $24.99! - and copies of Sonic Adventure 1 & 2. I already have Skies for the Gamecube and heard it was better there anyway, but I don't have the Dreamcast Sonic games so I looked at the prices and decided on Sonic Adventure 2 for $16.99 (I prefer this title over the original Adventure). I took my purchases up to the counter and paid for them and walked out happy.
My girlfriend, on the way out, said "I'm surprised you didn't look for your free game," and I immediately swore and turned around and walked back into the store. The cashier was very generous and said I could certainly still pick out a free game despite completing my transaction earlier. Not wanting to make my girlfriend wait much longer, I grabbed Sonic Adventure off the shelf (it was priced at $13.99) and took it to the counter. I shamelessly convinced the guy at the counter to switch the jewel case since it was cracked and taped, and he let me grab some sports game off the shelf and switch it.
As we walked out of the store, I told my girlfriend I couldn't remember if I already owned Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. I thought I did but when I got home I confirmed I only had the DX version on the Gamecube. Success! For about $44 I got some really great games. Sometime this week I'm going to try my copy of Panzer Dragoon II Zwei and I cannot wait.
Today, I discovered a new game shop in Romeo, Michigan: Game Portal. It's right off M-53 and I had never been in there before, and only barely noticed it out of the corner of my eye when I saw a SD television with a NES hooked up to it in the window. My girlfriend and I were driving by as we just left an antique store she wanted to go to a few doors down. We pulled over and I checked it out.
The place was in good order and didn't smell, and there were a couple young kids running it and some crappy techno played from the back (it dipped into dubstep for a minute there as well, much to my girlfriend and I's chagrin). The place has lots of different stuff, your usual NES games on up to present PS3 and 360 games, portable games, and luckily, a small section containing Sega CD, Saturn, and Dreamcast games.
Now I'm not sure yet if it's a permanent thing or not, but they have a Buy 2 Used Get 1 Free sale going on right now and I took advantage of it. Since my girlfriend didn't want to spend too much time there (I had told her we were going to play tennis and some other outdoorsy stuff), I went straight to the little Sega obscure section and dove in. I noticed immediately that they had a copy of Panzer Dragoon II Zwei in fantastic condition, and braced myself as I flipped the game over to see the price... Oh! A mere $24.99! That's an easy decision. Everything else they had for the Saturn was crap, same with the Sega CD, so my eye drifted over to the Dreamcast section and I noticed a few things.
They had a copy there of Skies of Arcadia - again for only $24.99! - and copies of Sonic Adventure 1 & 2. I already have Skies for the Gamecube and heard it was better there anyway, but I don't have the Dreamcast Sonic games so I looked at the prices and decided on Sonic Adventure 2 for $16.99 (I prefer this title over the original Adventure). I took my purchases up to the counter and paid for them and walked out happy.
My girlfriend, on the way out, said "I'm surprised you didn't look for your free game," and I immediately swore and turned around and walked back into the store. The cashier was very generous and said I could certainly still pick out a free game despite completing my transaction earlier. Not wanting to make my girlfriend wait much longer, I grabbed Sonic Adventure off the shelf (it was priced at $13.99) and took it to the counter. I shamelessly convinced the guy at the counter to switch the jewel case since it was cracked and taped, and he let me grab some sports game off the shelf and switch it.
As we walked out of the store, I told my girlfriend I couldn't remember if I already owned Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. I thought I did but when I got home I confirmed I only had the DX version on the Gamecube. Success! For about $44 I got some really great games. Sometime this week I'm going to try my copy of Panzer Dragoon II Zwei and I cannot wait.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Saving the JRPG - Pokemon Conquest
Pokemon Conquest will save the Japanese RPG.
No, wait - allow me to explain myself! I'm not saying it's the best RPG of all time, nor is it an absolute must-play for everyone. It's just what the title represents and how it's executed that matters.
Before I discuss why Pokemon Conquest will save the JRPG, I must discuss the mainline Pokemon series and an earlier spinoff.
For many people, Pokemon Red or Blue was their first JRPG. It certainly is a gentle introduction to the genre - you can never lose progress in Pokemon, just money, like in the Dragon Quest series. The series teaches players to level up their parties to make them stronger, and teaches them about status ailments and all the other regular JRPG stuff. It also appeals - and is directly marketed - to kids.
Hook 'em young, right?
The thing is, once a kid gets hooked on Pokemon, he tends to broaden his horizons with regards to JRPGs. He may check out Dragon Quest, which is probably where Nintendo would like him to go next since they publish that series here in the States. Or they may check out Final Fantasy, since that's a premier series as well. Regardless, they got to those series as a direct result of being taught JRPG fundamentals from Pokemon.
But what of niche RPGs? How could a company - any company, not just Nintendo - expand the audiences for those? Pokemon doesn't teach kids how to play strategy RPGs, for example. Nor does the mainline series teach kids how to play roguelikes.
Until Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, that is.
The Mystery Dungeon series didn't start with the Pokemon version - it actually started with Dragon Quest. With its roots in the PC game Rogue, the Mystery Dungeon series starts a character - sometimes a few more - in the entrance to a randomly generated dungeon filled with enemies. They are then tasked to explore the dungeon and make it out alive, a tall task due to the random nature of the game. In most roguelikes, if the player dies, they lose everything, including their levels.
Not so, though, in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. The player character in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon levels up and actually maintains those levels even if they die - they might lose some items, but the game doesn't really punish the player too hard. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon also lets players recruit other Pokemon to help them fight, which makes the dungeons that much easier.
This is a pretty clever way to introduce roguelikes to a completely unsuspecting audience, wouldn't you think?
And that's exactly what happened, at least with me. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon on DS made me a fan of roguelikes. I have since gone on to play Shiren the Wanderer, on both DS and Wii (they are completely separate games despite sharing a title), Final Fantasy Chocobo's Dungeon, and a few others such as Fatal Labyrinth and Dragon Crystal (Shiren on DS is the best roguelike of all time, in my opinion). I never would have played any of those games without having eased my way into the genre with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.
So where does Pokemon Conquest fit into all this? Well, it follows that a company such as Koei would try to pitch Nintendo* on letting them use the Pokemon characters in one of their incredibly obscure Nobunaga's Ambition series. They saw people pick up obscure types of games like roguelikes and must have thought, "Why not try to make a Pokemon Nobunaga's Ambition game? Surely we can try to get people into this type of game to sell our own brand eventually." And that's pretty much what they've done here. Pokemon Conquest is Nobunaga's Ambition with Pokemon in it. It is, I'm sure, not anywhere near as hard (or probably as complicated) as the series that inspired it, but I will tell you - once I'm done with Pokemon Conquest, I'm going to look into Nobunaga's Ambition. Mission accomplished, Koei.
Pokemon is such a weird IP, isn't it?
So how, exactly, will Pokemon Conquest save the JRPG? Well, it by itself will not. But it is a stepping stone to expanding the audience of these games. Pokemon is such a huge juggernaut that every title with the word "Pokemon" on it will sell hundreds of thousands of copies, if not millions. If a game like Pokemon Conquest does well, who's to say the Pokemon series won't eventually expand to other types of RPGs and make the fanbase of the genre grow even more? The fact that Pokemon Conquest is so good gives me hope that this is exactly what will happen.
*it had to have been Koei pitching Nintendo. There's no way it would be the other way around, right?
No, wait - allow me to explain myself! I'm not saying it's the best RPG of all time, nor is it an absolute must-play for everyone. It's just what the title represents and how it's executed that matters.
Before I discuss why Pokemon Conquest will save the JRPG, I must discuss the mainline Pokemon series and an earlier spinoff.
For many people, Pokemon Red or Blue was their first JRPG. It certainly is a gentle introduction to the genre - you can never lose progress in Pokemon, just money, like in the Dragon Quest series. The series teaches players to level up their parties to make them stronger, and teaches them about status ailments and all the other regular JRPG stuff. It also appeals - and is directly marketed - to kids.
Hook 'em young, right?
The thing is, once a kid gets hooked on Pokemon, he tends to broaden his horizons with regards to JRPGs. He may check out Dragon Quest, which is probably where Nintendo would like him to go next since they publish that series here in the States. Or they may check out Final Fantasy, since that's a premier series as well. Regardless, they got to those series as a direct result of being taught JRPG fundamentals from Pokemon.
But what of niche RPGs? How could a company - any company, not just Nintendo - expand the audiences for those? Pokemon doesn't teach kids how to play strategy RPGs, for example. Nor does the mainline series teach kids how to play roguelikes.
Until Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, that is.
The Mystery Dungeon series didn't start with the Pokemon version - it actually started with Dragon Quest. With its roots in the PC game Rogue, the Mystery Dungeon series starts a character - sometimes a few more - in the entrance to a randomly generated dungeon filled with enemies. They are then tasked to explore the dungeon and make it out alive, a tall task due to the random nature of the game. In most roguelikes, if the player dies, they lose everything, including their levels.
Not so, though, in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. The player character in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon levels up and actually maintains those levels even if they die - they might lose some items, but the game doesn't really punish the player too hard. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon also lets players recruit other Pokemon to help them fight, which makes the dungeons that much easier.
This is a pretty clever way to introduce roguelikes to a completely unsuspecting audience, wouldn't you think?
And that's exactly what happened, at least with me. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon on DS made me a fan of roguelikes. I have since gone on to play Shiren the Wanderer, on both DS and Wii (they are completely separate games despite sharing a title), Final Fantasy Chocobo's Dungeon, and a few others such as Fatal Labyrinth and Dragon Crystal (Shiren on DS is the best roguelike of all time, in my opinion). I never would have played any of those games without having eased my way into the genre with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.
So where does Pokemon Conquest fit into all this? Well, it follows that a company such as Koei would try to pitch Nintendo* on letting them use the Pokemon characters in one of their incredibly obscure Nobunaga's Ambition series. They saw people pick up obscure types of games like roguelikes and must have thought, "Why not try to make a Pokemon Nobunaga's Ambition game? Surely we can try to get people into this type of game to sell our own brand eventually." And that's pretty much what they've done here. Pokemon Conquest is Nobunaga's Ambition with Pokemon in it. It is, I'm sure, not anywhere near as hard (or probably as complicated) as the series that inspired it, but I will tell you - once I'm done with Pokemon Conquest, I'm going to look into Nobunaga's Ambition. Mission accomplished, Koei.
Pokemon is such a weird IP, isn't it?
So how, exactly, will Pokemon Conquest save the JRPG? Well, it by itself will not. But it is a stepping stone to expanding the audience of these games. Pokemon is such a huge juggernaut that every title with the word "Pokemon" on it will sell hundreds of thousands of copies, if not millions. If a game like Pokemon Conquest does well, who's to say the Pokemon series won't eventually expand to other types of RPGs and make the fanbase of the genre grow even more? The fact that Pokemon Conquest is so good gives me hope that this is exactly what will happen.
*it had to have been Koei pitching Nintendo. There's no way it would be the other way around, right?
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Dragon Warrior VII
Apparently, I can't get enough Dragon Quest.
I beat V less than two months ago, and though it drags on near the end (really, game, I have to level up my kids for hours before I can continue? Thaaaaanks), I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. And last year, I played through what had been my favorite Dragon Quest mechanically - VI. I loved that Class system so much.
I had heard for years that Dragon Quest VII (Warrior here in the States - the last game in the series with that title) had the most extensive version of the Class system, though. I had also heard that it was by far the longest Dragon Quest, and that most people took over 100 hours to beat it, much less do many of the sidequests.
So I longed for the game, to at least try it out. I say try because the game is infamous for being ugly. I never bothered to look it up online because I knew I'd play it eventually.
A few weeks back, I went into the retro game shop near where I work, and lo and behold they had a mint copy of the game for forty bucks. Having just gotten paid, I bought the game knowing I'd probably never see it cheaper than that. I went home that night and popped it in...
And almost threw up. The game really is incredibly, indescribably ugly. I say this as someone who had only a Nintendo 64 in the late nineties, and enjoyed such "beautiful" games as Bomberman 64, Banjo-Kazooie, and other such blurry messes. Dragon Warrior VII came out for the original Playstation at the end of 2001, which is the same time Squaresoft released Final Fantasy X - a game that may still be their best-looking 3D game, in my opinion.
As I played the first few hours of the game, I kept telling myself the battles would look good. Surely, they would, right? I had been weaned on the beautifully animated DS titles, but I tried to keep the faith. And by and large, the battles do look good, at least in terms of the monster sprites. The backgrounds and even the text boxes in battle are godawful. I will say that the enemies animate their attacks pretty well, though I do miss their idle animations from the DS games.
But to look at Dragon Warrior VII's graphics and dismiss the game as bad would be a mistake. At the time of this writing, I have invested about 40 hours into the game and can't say that I've disliked it at all. Dragon Warrior VII is one of the slowest-paced games I have ever played, though. I didn't fight my first battle until I was two and a half hours into the game. Before that point, I had to wander around some stupid ruins and I have to say had extremely little fun. But once you get to that battle, though, the game starts to get good.
And when you hit 18 and a half hours in, you unlock the Class system finally (at least, that's where I unlocked it). I don't know why they put the Dharma Temple (renamed Alltrades Abbey in the DS games) so far into the game. I wish it had been accessible earlier, although a certain character leaves your party just before unlocking it, so I guess I would have been a little upset if I had leveled that characters classes up a lot just before losing them. I still haven't seen him since he left, either, which is weird since he features pretty heavily in the story to that point. Anyway...
You gain experience in your classes by fighting battles, but not by gaining levels. What this means is that after a certain number of fights, your characters will level their class up and potentially learn new moves. What is really nice about this system is that once your characters learn a skill or spell, they always have access to it, even if they switch classes. This makes sense to me more than the Job system in the various Final Fantasies - if I can do an activity at one point, it's not like I forget how to completely do certain tasks once I change Jobs. I always thought that was dumb. Many of the moves you learn are useful, although some of the classes themselves suck because they're largely just barriers to unlock the better classes. I do not look forward to training someone to master the Bard, Dancer, and Jester classes to unlock the TeenIdol class and then have to master that and Sage (which requires I master the Cleric and Mage classes to unlock) to be able to unlock the Summoner class. Ugh.
But, knowing the amount of fun I'm having, I probably will do all that. The gameplay is deep, and knowing cool moves is worth it. My main hero and one of my other party members have a move called WindBeast, which has no MP cost and is their most powerful attack. If I only want to target a single enemy rather than wail on all of them with my boomerang, I'll spam WindBeast. It's great for bosses who aren't immune to wind attacks! Plus, it is not considered magic, so even if my characters are silenced they can still use it, and since it's a "skill," having lowered accuracy otherwise (being "dazzled") doesn't affect its accuracy. Hooray!
One of the downfalls of the game, though, is its localization. I wouldn't say it's incomprehensible, but they packed a lot of content into the two discs, so sometimes the NPCs don't quite tell you enough about where to go or what to do next. So, about three hours in, I began using a FAQ to play through the game, and I haven't regretted it one whit. The fact that you cannot advance in the game without acquiring enough Land Shards means that if you didn't use a FAQ, you'd have to crawl over the entire game looking for that one little piece you need to be able to travel to the next land. If there's one glaring problem with the game, it is that one, even over the godawful graphics.
I do enjoy what those Shards unlock, though. The game starts on what is the only existing island in the world, and to be able to restore the other lands in the world, your party must find these shards, place them in this ancient ruin, and then travel back in time and solve whatever is plaguing that particular land. Typically this involves killing lots of monsters and a few bosses, although sometimes its just solving a few puzzles in towns. The Dragon Quest series has always been known for its vignettes, and they are arguably at their strongest, here. This is because once you save a land in the past, it becomes available to visit in the future. You can then talk to the NPCs and maybe learn how what you did to help the town in the past has gone through time. Sometimes you are revered and remembered (one town explicitly wrote in their history to expect the party to come visit again someday, and to throw a huge party when they do) or are completely forgotten in favor of the local person that helped your party out at the time. Either way, the vignettes are always creative and fun, and many times link together in weird ways (there have been multiple times where someone from some vignette reappears later in a different vignette, older and somewhat wiser. It's always interesting seeing these characters again).
All told, I've got plenty of game left - probably 50 or 60 hours! I hope it doesn't drag on during the second disc, though, which I'm nearing. I want to actually finish this game, length be damned.
I beat V less than two months ago, and though it drags on near the end (really, game, I have to level up my kids for hours before I can continue? Thaaaaanks), I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. And last year, I played through what had been my favorite Dragon Quest mechanically - VI. I loved that Class system so much.
I had heard for years that Dragon Quest VII (Warrior here in the States - the last game in the series with that title) had the most extensive version of the Class system, though. I had also heard that it was by far the longest Dragon Quest, and that most people took over 100 hours to beat it, much less do many of the sidequests.
So I longed for the game, to at least try it out. I say try because the game is infamous for being ugly. I never bothered to look it up online because I knew I'd play it eventually.
A few weeks back, I went into the retro game shop near where I work, and lo and behold they had a mint copy of the game for forty bucks. Having just gotten paid, I bought the game knowing I'd probably never see it cheaper than that. I went home that night and popped it in...
And almost threw up. The game really is incredibly, indescribably ugly. I say this as someone who had only a Nintendo 64 in the late nineties, and enjoyed such "beautiful" games as Bomberman 64, Banjo-Kazooie, and other such blurry messes. Dragon Warrior VII came out for the original Playstation at the end of 2001, which is the same time Squaresoft released Final Fantasy X - a game that may still be their best-looking 3D game, in my opinion.
As I played the first few hours of the game, I kept telling myself the battles would look good. Surely, they would, right? I had been weaned on the beautifully animated DS titles, but I tried to keep the faith. And by and large, the battles do look good, at least in terms of the monster sprites. The backgrounds and even the text boxes in battle are godawful. I will say that the enemies animate their attacks pretty well, though I do miss their idle animations from the DS games.
But to look at Dragon Warrior VII's graphics and dismiss the game as bad would be a mistake. At the time of this writing, I have invested about 40 hours into the game and can't say that I've disliked it at all. Dragon Warrior VII is one of the slowest-paced games I have ever played, though. I didn't fight my first battle until I was two and a half hours into the game. Before that point, I had to wander around some stupid ruins and I have to say had extremely little fun. But once you get to that battle, though, the game starts to get good.
And when you hit 18 and a half hours in, you unlock the Class system finally (at least, that's where I unlocked it). I don't know why they put the Dharma Temple (renamed Alltrades Abbey in the DS games) so far into the game. I wish it had been accessible earlier, although a certain character leaves your party just before unlocking it, so I guess I would have been a little upset if I had leveled that characters classes up a lot just before losing them. I still haven't seen him since he left, either, which is weird since he features pretty heavily in the story to that point. Anyway...
You gain experience in your classes by fighting battles, but not by gaining levels. What this means is that after a certain number of fights, your characters will level their class up and potentially learn new moves. What is really nice about this system is that once your characters learn a skill or spell, they always have access to it, even if they switch classes. This makes sense to me more than the Job system in the various Final Fantasies - if I can do an activity at one point, it's not like I forget how to completely do certain tasks once I change Jobs. I always thought that was dumb. Many of the moves you learn are useful, although some of the classes themselves suck because they're largely just barriers to unlock the better classes. I do not look forward to training someone to master the Bard, Dancer, and Jester classes to unlock the TeenIdol class and then have to master that and Sage (which requires I master the Cleric and Mage classes to unlock) to be able to unlock the Summoner class. Ugh.
But, knowing the amount of fun I'm having, I probably will do all that. The gameplay is deep, and knowing cool moves is worth it. My main hero and one of my other party members have a move called WindBeast, which has no MP cost and is their most powerful attack. If I only want to target a single enemy rather than wail on all of them with my boomerang, I'll spam WindBeast. It's great for bosses who aren't immune to wind attacks! Plus, it is not considered magic, so even if my characters are silenced they can still use it, and since it's a "skill," having lowered accuracy otherwise (being "dazzled") doesn't affect its accuracy. Hooray!
One of the downfalls of the game, though, is its localization. I wouldn't say it's incomprehensible, but they packed a lot of content into the two discs, so sometimes the NPCs don't quite tell you enough about where to go or what to do next. So, about three hours in, I began using a FAQ to play through the game, and I haven't regretted it one whit. The fact that you cannot advance in the game without acquiring enough Land Shards means that if you didn't use a FAQ, you'd have to crawl over the entire game looking for that one little piece you need to be able to travel to the next land. If there's one glaring problem with the game, it is that one, even over the godawful graphics.
I do enjoy what those Shards unlock, though. The game starts on what is the only existing island in the world, and to be able to restore the other lands in the world, your party must find these shards, place them in this ancient ruin, and then travel back in time and solve whatever is plaguing that particular land. Typically this involves killing lots of monsters and a few bosses, although sometimes its just solving a few puzzles in towns. The Dragon Quest series has always been known for its vignettes, and they are arguably at their strongest, here. This is because once you save a land in the past, it becomes available to visit in the future. You can then talk to the NPCs and maybe learn how what you did to help the town in the past has gone through time. Sometimes you are revered and remembered (one town explicitly wrote in their history to expect the party to come visit again someday, and to throw a huge party when they do) or are completely forgotten in favor of the local person that helped your party out at the time. Either way, the vignettes are always creative and fun, and many times link together in weird ways (there have been multiple times where someone from some vignette reappears later in a different vignette, older and somewhat wiser. It's always interesting seeing these characters again).
All told, I've got plenty of game left - probably 50 or 60 hours! I hope it doesn't drag on during the second disc, though, which I'm nearing. I want to actually finish this game, length be damned.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Top 20 Games of All Time - Right Now, Anyway
Every few years, my friend Kyle and I decide to re-evaluate our top X number of games. I haven't discussed this 2012 edition with him yet, but figured I would go ahead and write this post with the knowledge he will eventually too. I'd like to sort of see where I stand now, and maybe revisit this once a year or every other year or something like that to see how my tastes evolve over time (plus it will give me an excuse to write about these games over and over again).
So! With no further ado and for no particular reason, here are my top 20 favorite games with a short blurb attached to them.
20 - Sonic 3 & Knuckles - My favorite Sonic game of all time, and still the one to beat in terms of level design, music, and controls. A very long game that has the ability to save but doesn't overstay it's welcome (except for Sandopolis Zone 2, the worst level in the Genesis games), this is the Sonic game I keep booting up the Gamecube collection to play.
19 - Shining Force II - Though it has fallen way down my list due to the fact that I think I love it so much because of nostalgia, I still say this is a great game. It's like Fire Emblem, but way more forgiving. Easily the best RPG on the Genesis (as much as I think Phantasy Star IV is great) and the best in the series. Perfect difficulty curve, great music, interesting character progression (I love the idea of "Promoting" someone to a better class).
18 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - The pinnacle of the Grand Theft Auto series. It took what GTA3 did, but improved upon it in every way. Slightly better controls, a much more interesting world to explore, a lot more vehicles, an interesting and likable protagonist (sorry, Vice City) and a great soundtrack. Plus, it doesn't have GTAIV's crappy controls, annoying cell phone, ugly graphics, etc.
17 - Dragon Quest V - As much as I fought to get through this game (I had to play it almost three times through to finally beat it!) I have to say this is the finest Dragon Quest game. I had a lot of fun with both VIII and VI, but the story in Dragon Quest V is one of the most heart-wrenchingly good stories in the entire videogame medium. There is nothing like it.
16 - Ghost Trick - I asked myself as I was making this list what my favorite adventure game was, and although I loved the Phoenix Wright series and thoroughly enjoyed 999 and Hotel Dusk, I kept coming back to Ghost Trick. It's excellent music, intriguing story, great ending, and 100% enjoyable gameplay from start to finish put it past every other game in the genre. Seriously, there wasn't anytime where I had to force myself through a puzzle to get to "the good parts." Although some of those last few puzzles were rough.
15 - Fallout: New Vegas - The game that sold me on Western RPGs. Yes, it took until 2010 for me to be interested. It was the world of this game that really drew me in. Gone are the endless subways of Fallout 3. A wide selection of interesting characters (and Matthew Perry!) to meet and sometimes murder. An incredibly well-designed faction system that adds more gravity to the decisions you make. Also, you can get an ending where you screw basically everyone over and crown yourself King of the Strip.
14 - Pokemon Diamond - I struggled to pick my favorite Pokemon game. I have played almost all of them, but none of them hooked me as much as Diamond did. My game clock is over 320 hours. I caught them all - at the time there were 493 of them - and proceeded to IV train around 30 of my favorites to level 100. Without using Rare Candies. I think I may have burned myself out of Pokemon games for a long time (I beat White's story mode, quit, and haven't looked back), but what a way to go out, huh?
13 - Wario Land: Super Mario World 3 - As much as I enjoyed Wario Land 2 and 3, this one still has my favorite mix of platforming and puzzles. It's also one of those weird Game Boy games to have an excellent soundtrack. The Wario Land series are almost all excellent, and I'm glad they all tend to be different from one another because I don't think this game could really be improved upon in many ways.
12 - Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1&2 - Who knows how many hours I've put into this game. A time sink like no other, this game was so much fun to play with other people it's ridiculous. I used to play split-screen with the aforementioned Kyle way back in the day, and briefly last year we sort of hacked the game to play online again. Kyle had other things to do, but I actually got a new character almost to level 40 before I put the game down so I would play other things. Addictive as hell, obviously.
11 - Donkey Kong - The Game Boy version, that is. The best puzzle platformer of all time. Mario is tasked with finding a key and then bringing it to the exit - it sounds simple, but you must simultaneously figure out how to get the key to the end of the level, and avoid all the traps and enemies along the way. Brilliantly paced and with very in depth controls, it is one of the most replayable games ever.
10 - Super Smash Bros. Melee - The best multiplayer game of all time. A brawler that is as deep as you want it to be. An impressive level of prowess can be exhibited while playing this game, and having four players wail on each other on a tiny arena never gets old. All told, I've probably put over a thousand hours into this game (I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhere around 2000, to be honest. I played this game several nights a week for almost six years straight).
9 - Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow - On a platform with three fantastic Castlevania games, the first one released outdoes them all with the soul system. Soma will occasionally acquire the souls of his defeated enemies, which grant him new powers. They range from new attacks to stat boosts to transformations and with the ability to equip different weapons, the amount of ways to attack are really second to none in the series. The level design is also very well done as well, and the bosses are perfect, at least in terms of difficulty (not really any with cheap ways to kill you, although still very tough).
8 - Final Fantasy VI - My favorite Final Fantasy of all time by a long shot. This game has amazing graphics and one of the best soundtracks of all time. The story is quite good as well, with great villains, a couple famous twists, and plenty of neat sidequests. The battle system is also full of quirky ways to fight, but isn't stupid like in some of the later games in the series.
7 - Tetris - Whatever version you want to put here, I will be playing some kind of Tetris until the day I die. This is the best puzzle game of all time. There is no other puzzle game where I dream about the pieces after a long late night session. This is probably the purest videogame on here - no fluff, no extraneous BS, just a d-pad, a rotate button, and usually great music.
6 - Super Mario World - The best Mario game ever contains the most fun things to do in the series. There aren't any extraneous power ups, the levels usually contain their own unique ideas, and Yoshi and the cape add a great dimension to an already robust suite of abilities from Mario 3. I usually play through this game once or twice a year, and I can usually do so in two very quick sittings (maybe an hour or so each). I have this game memorized and I still love to play it.
5 - Super Metroid - Another game I have pretty much memorized, this is 2D level design at its absolute zenith. Exploring is always rewarding, and the combat is sometimes tough but always fair. The bosses are all amazing, and the almost dialogue free main quest is eerie and atmospheric. I love the Metroid series, but this one stands head and shoulders above them all.
4 - Devil Survivor Overclocked - The best strategy RPG of all time. The demon summoning in this game lends an almost Pokemon-like quality to creating a battle party. The complimented but very good story is worth playing through the game several times to see all the possible endings. Face it - a game in which God (as in, THE God, the Alpha and the Omega from the Bible/Koran/etc) basically tells you "I'm going to destroy the world in 7 days unless you do something about what your idiot species caused," cannot be a bad game. That it slavishly includes figures from prominent religions that we've all heard of, and demons from places as obscure as 19th century Russia is only icing on the cake.
3 - Etrian Odyssey III - And with this entry, we've really reached the games I consider to be a pretty much three-way tie for the best game of all time. EO3 has the deepest, most customizable RPG party system in memory that is also manageable. There are so many different party combinations, you almost can't go wrong (almost. Good luck with your Yggdroid/Farmer). A fairly decent story combined with excellent sidequests. The sea exploration mode, which I still haven't completely finished despite having killed several endgame bosses (conquering those dragons are some of my proudest videogame moments). I still go back to my file every once in a while to grind a little bit just because the battles are so much fun (and because my party kicks so much ass).
2 - Persona 3: Portable - This is a seventy hour game that I have beaten four times. It came out in 2010. I have beaten it four times. Why? Probably my favorite story in all of gaming with an incredible battle system makes this game hard to put away for good. Great quirky music with a cool cast of believable characters (all of whom you can actually directly control in battle now! Sorry PS2 Persona 3, this makes the PSP version infinitely better). This was the game that got me into Shin Megami Tensei, and it hasn't been topped yet.
1 - Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - This is probably what I would say is the greatest video game of all time. An incredible setting with a great hook - the world is going to end in three days, what are you going to do about it? The cyclical nature of the time traveling meant that unless you completed a big task, you might not accomplish much in this playthrough. You have to go back and forth through time to unravel the intricate messes the Skull Kid left for you before you can even attempt to stop him. The atmosphere in this game is amazing - the sense of foreboding that just pervades every second you play this game is unsettling. And, the fact that this game introduced me to my future wife will always make it hold a special place in my heart.
So, there you have it. My favorite 20 games of all time, at least according to me in May of 2012. This actually took a bit longer to write than I thought, and I was surprised by some of the rankings on this list, but rereading it, I have to say I wouldn't change anything. These are the games that I will come back to time and time again. I would be surprised if this list changes very dramatically in the future - in fact, the only way I could see it changing much is if a bunch of newer games supplant the ones here. Nothing that exists currently can top these ones.
So! With no further ado and for no particular reason, here are my top 20 favorite games with a short blurb attached to them.
20 - Sonic 3 & Knuckles - My favorite Sonic game of all time, and still the one to beat in terms of level design, music, and controls. A very long game that has the ability to save but doesn't overstay it's welcome (except for Sandopolis Zone 2, the worst level in the Genesis games), this is the Sonic game I keep booting up the Gamecube collection to play.
19 - Shining Force II - Though it has fallen way down my list due to the fact that I think I love it so much because of nostalgia, I still say this is a great game. It's like Fire Emblem, but way more forgiving. Easily the best RPG on the Genesis (as much as I think Phantasy Star IV is great) and the best in the series. Perfect difficulty curve, great music, interesting character progression (I love the idea of "Promoting" someone to a better class).
18 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - The pinnacle of the Grand Theft Auto series. It took what GTA3 did, but improved upon it in every way. Slightly better controls, a much more interesting world to explore, a lot more vehicles, an interesting and likable protagonist (sorry, Vice City) and a great soundtrack. Plus, it doesn't have GTAIV's crappy controls, annoying cell phone, ugly graphics, etc.
17 - Dragon Quest V - As much as I fought to get through this game (I had to play it almost three times through to finally beat it!) I have to say this is the finest Dragon Quest game. I had a lot of fun with both VIII and VI, but the story in Dragon Quest V is one of the most heart-wrenchingly good stories in the entire videogame medium. There is nothing like it.
16 - Ghost Trick - I asked myself as I was making this list what my favorite adventure game was, and although I loved the Phoenix Wright series and thoroughly enjoyed 999 and Hotel Dusk, I kept coming back to Ghost Trick. It's excellent music, intriguing story, great ending, and 100% enjoyable gameplay from start to finish put it past every other game in the genre. Seriously, there wasn't anytime where I had to force myself through a puzzle to get to "the good parts." Although some of those last few puzzles were rough.
15 - Fallout: New Vegas - The game that sold me on Western RPGs. Yes, it took until 2010 for me to be interested. It was the world of this game that really drew me in. Gone are the endless subways of Fallout 3. A wide selection of interesting characters (and Matthew Perry!) to meet and sometimes murder. An incredibly well-designed faction system that adds more gravity to the decisions you make. Also, you can get an ending where you screw basically everyone over and crown yourself King of the Strip.
14 - Pokemon Diamond - I struggled to pick my favorite Pokemon game. I have played almost all of them, but none of them hooked me as much as Diamond did. My game clock is over 320 hours. I caught them all - at the time there were 493 of them - and proceeded to IV train around 30 of my favorites to level 100. Without using Rare Candies. I think I may have burned myself out of Pokemon games for a long time (I beat White's story mode, quit, and haven't looked back), but what a way to go out, huh?
13 - Wario Land: Super Mario World 3 - As much as I enjoyed Wario Land 2 and 3, this one still has my favorite mix of platforming and puzzles. It's also one of those weird Game Boy games to have an excellent soundtrack. The Wario Land series are almost all excellent, and I'm glad they all tend to be different from one another because I don't think this game could really be improved upon in many ways.
12 - Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1&2 - Who knows how many hours I've put into this game. A time sink like no other, this game was so much fun to play with other people it's ridiculous. I used to play split-screen with the aforementioned Kyle way back in the day, and briefly last year we sort of hacked the game to play online again. Kyle had other things to do, but I actually got a new character almost to level 40 before I put the game down so I would play other things. Addictive as hell, obviously.
11 - Donkey Kong - The Game Boy version, that is. The best puzzle platformer of all time. Mario is tasked with finding a key and then bringing it to the exit - it sounds simple, but you must simultaneously figure out how to get the key to the end of the level, and avoid all the traps and enemies along the way. Brilliantly paced and with very in depth controls, it is one of the most replayable games ever.
10 - Super Smash Bros. Melee - The best multiplayer game of all time. A brawler that is as deep as you want it to be. An impressive level of prowess can be exhibited while playing this game, and having four players wail on each other on a tiny arena never gets old. All told, I've probably put over a thousand hours into this game (I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhere around 2000, to be honest. I played this game several nights a week for almost six years straight).
9 - Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow - On a platform with three fantastic Castlevania games, the first one released outdoes them all with the soul system. Soma will occasionally acquire the souls of his defeated enemies, which grant him new powers. They range from new attacks to stat boosts to transformations and with the ability to equip different weapons, the amount of ways to attack are really second to none in the series. The level design is also very well done as well, and the bosses are perfect, at least in terms of difficulty (not really any with cheap ways to kill you, although still very tough).
8 - Final Fantasy VI - My favorite Final Fantasy of all time by a long shot. This game has amazing graphics and one of the best soundtracks of all time. The story is quite good as well, with great villains, a couple famous twists, and plenty of neat sidequests. The battle system is also full of quirky ways to fight, but isn't stupid like in some of the later games in the series.
7 - Tetris - Whatever version you want to put here, I will be playing some kind of Tetris until the day I die. This is the best puzzle game of all time. There is no other puzzle game where I dream about the pieces after a long late night session. This is probably the purest videogame on here - no fluff, no extraneous BS, just a d-pad, a rotate button, and usually great music.
6 - Super Mario World - The best Mario game ever contains the most fun things to do in the series. There aren't any extraneous power ups, the levels usually contain their own unique ideas, and Yoshi and the cape add a great dimension to an already robust suite of abilities from Mario 3. I usually play through this game once or twice a year, and I can usually do so in two very quick sittings (maybe an hour or so each). I have this game memorized and I still love to play it.
5 - Super Metroid - Another game I have pretty much memorized, this is 2D level design at its absolute zenith. Exploring is always rewarding, and the combat is sometimes tough but always fair. The bosses are all amazing, and the almost dialogue free main quest is eerie and atmospheric. I love the Metroid series, but this one stands head and shoulders above them all.
4 - Devil Survivor Overclocked - The best strategy RPG of all time. The demon summoning in this game lends an almost Pokemon-like quality to creating a battle party. The complimented but very good story is worth playing through the game several times to see all the possible endings. Face it - a game in which God (as in, THE God, the Alpha and the Omega from the Bible/Koran/etc) basically tells you "I'm going to destroy the world in 7 days unless you do something about what your idiot species caused," cannot be a bad game. That it slavishly includes figures from prominent religions that we've all heard of, and demons from places as obscure as 19th century Russia is only icing on the cake.
3 - Etrian Odyssey III - And with this entry, we've really reached the games I consider to be a pretty much three-way tie for the best game of all time. EO3 has the deepest, most customizable RPG party system in memory that is also manageable. There are so many different party combinations, you almost can't go wrong (almost. Good luck with your Yggdroid/Farmer). A fairly decent story combined with excellent sidequests. The sea exploration mode, which I still haven't completely finished despite having killed several endgame bosses (conquering those dragons are some of my proudest videogame moments). I still go back to my file every once in a while to grind a little bit just because the battles are so much fun (and because my party kicks so much ass).
2 - Persona 3: Portable - This is a seventy hour game that I have beaten four times. It came out in 2010. I have beaten it four times. Why? Probably my favorite story in all of gaming with an incredible battle system makes this game hard to put away for good. Great quirky music with a cool cast of believable characters (all of whom you can actually directly control in battle now! Sorry PS2 Persona 3, this makes the PSP version infinitely better). This was the game that got me into Shin Megami Tensei, and it hasn't been topped yet.
1 - Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - This is probably what I would say is the greatest video game of all time. An incredible setting with a great hook - the world is going to end in three days, what are you going to do about it? The cyclical nature of the time traveling meant that unless you completed a big task, you might not accomplish much in this playthrough. You have to go back and forth through time to unravel the intricate messes the Skull Kid left for you before you can even attempt to stop him. The atmosphere in this game is amazing - the sense of foreboding that just pervades every second you play this game is unsettling. And, the fact that this game introduced me to my future wife will always make it hold a special place in my heart.
So, there you have it. My favorite 20 games of all time, at least according to me in May of 2012. This actually took a bit longer to write than I thought, and I was surprised by some of the rankings on this list, but rereading it, I have to say I wouldn't change anything. These are the games that I will come back to time and time again. I would be surprised if this list changes very dramatically in the future - in fact, the only way I could see it changing much is if a bunch of newer games supplant the ones here. Nothing that exists currently can top these ones.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Giana Sisters DS
On a whim, I decided to buy Giana Sisters DS from Newegg, since it was only $15 and I've absolutely never seen it in real life before. I guess I figured the game would be hella rare someday, and that may or may not be true.
Either way though, I'm surprisingly glad I bought it. It's actually a fun little game! Well, I should say that it is by no means anything special. What I mean is that the game does very little to differentiate itself from other similar platformers. You just jump around and pick up diamonds (basically Mario coins). You have to get through the levels without dying. Sure, you can pick up a bubble powerup (one of two, the other of which I haven't seen yet) and float around by using the microphone or the A button, but that's about it as far as unique mechanics. And to be honest, the bubble works exactly like it does in that one level in Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, although I would argue that it controls better.
The music is fantastic, though. It sounds like a Commodore 64, and is soothing, which are two things I would never type about music at the same time. It's weird because I feel like this game was very nostalgic for it's creators to make, but I have no idea if they're the same guys who made the original Giana Sisters.
I have to say, the balls of those guys back then to call the game Giana Sisters. "They're Italian siblings who run and jump and get a powerup that let's them shoot energy balls!" Sound familiar?! The graphics on the C64 game look a LOT like Mario 1, as well. In fact a lot of the level design of the game is ripped straight from the NES.
The graphics are pretty good, though. I quite like the pixel art - it seems to be a cross between a flash game (which I usually find bland and ugly) and a retro NES game (which I usually find gorgeous). I don't really know how to describe them better than that. It was actually the level graphics combined with the fluid character and enemy animation that I saw in a Youtube video that made me seriously consider getting the game.
But Giana Sisters DS is actually a pretty good little game. It's not a remake so far as I can tell, but it's hard to actually tell because there's so little information on the game anywhere. I have no idea why this was released in America. Who knows who the Giana Sisters are here, besides weird retro nerds like myself? And who thought the thing would sell, especially with the hideous box art? If you do ever come across the game in a Gamestop or whatever for like $5, pick it up! You'll be entertained for a few hours.
Either way though, I'm surprisingly glad I bought it. It's actually a fun little game! Well, I should say that it is by no means anything special. What I mean is that the game does very little to differentiate itself from other similar platformers. You just jump around and pick up diamonds (basically Mario coins). You have to get through the levels without dying. Sure, you can pick up a bubble powerup (one of two, the other of which I haven't seen yet) and float around by using the microphone or the A button, but that's about it as far as unique mechanics. And to be honest, the bubble works exactly like it does in that one level in Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, although I would argue that it controls better.
The music is fantastic, though. It sounds like a Commodore 64, and is soothing, which are two things I would never type about music at the same time. It's weird because I feel like this game was very nostalgic for it's creators to make, but I have no idea if they're the same guys who made the original Giana Sisters.
I have to say, the balls of those guys back then to call the game Giana Sisters. "They're Italian siblings who run and jump and get a powerup that let's them shoot energy balls!" Sound familiar?! The graphics on the C64 game look a LOT like Mario 1, as well. In fact a lot of the level design of the game is ripped straight from the NES.
The graphics are pretty good, though. I quite like the pixel art - it seems to be a cross between a flash game (which I usually find bland and ugly) and a retro NES game (which I usually find gorgeous). I don't really know how to describe them better than that. It was actually the level graphics combined with the fluid character and enemy animation that I saw in a Youtube video that made me seriously consider getting the game.
But Giana Sisters DS is actually a pretty good little game. It's not a remake so far as I can tell, but it's hard to actually tell because there's so little information on the game anywhere. I have no idea why this was released in America. Who knows who the Giana Sisters are here, besides weird retro nerds like myself? And who thought the thing would sell, especially with the hideous box art? If you do ever come across the game in a Gamestop or whatever for like $5, pick it up! You'll be entertained for a few hours.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Devil Survivor 2: Devil Speed
Having beat Tales of the Abyss, I dove headfirst into Devil Survivor 2 and was immediately struck by how different the music is. I couldn't get over how retro-sounding it was, especially compared to the guitar butt-rock of the first game. I have since grown fond of what I've heard of the soundtrack, but it is much more Persona than Devil Survivor to my ears. Not a bad thing! Just not what I expected.
As for the gameplay, I must say that if the battles stay as interesting as they have been, Devil Survivor 2 might be an improvement over the first. There are more wrinkles to the battle system, but things generally balance out. I will say that the game starts out incredibly hard, mostly because you have no skills unlocked for your main guys, nor do you have much in the way of options for demons to summon. The game has gotten progressively easier as I go on, which is probably a mistake to say because I'm sure the game will hand me my ass as soon as I turn it on again.
Some of the stuff they've added is the ability to directly affect enemies Extra Turns with moves like Extra Cancel, which... Cancels the opponent's extra turn. But there are even passive abilities that change how easy or difficult it is to affect an enemy's or your own Extra Turn, which you'd think would get aggravating, but it isn't too bad. There's a few new demon powers, but most of the ones I've seen so far are as they were in the first game (they don't fix what isn't broken, basically). There's a neat new demon power called Ghost Wounds which doesn't seem much more than a nerfed Bind at first, but then you realize it limits the attack range of an enemy to one - imagine using it on bosses! I haven't done so yet, but it could change the dynamic of quite a few battles if used properly.
The battlefields start out as all repeats of battlefields from the last game, which would have been extremely disappointing had they not quickly switched things up. So far it seems like every battlefield from the first game is in this one, with a few slight changes, as well as a lot of new ones. My favorite map so far involves a set of four escalators (no, they don't move) in the middle of the field. These limit the center of the playing field to four narrow paths that demons and humans can only get through with demon powers such as Flight or Phantasm. There's also a neat parking garage map as well as some other interesting indoor levels that are overall much more interesting than DS1's set of mostly outdoor playfields that were all pretty much wide open. I just feel like so far, the battlefield design is top notch in DS2.
Now as for the story, I am only ten hours in. I am not too interested in what is going on, though. Maybe DS2's story is a slow burn (I hear it gets good later!) but one of the things I loved about the original was how quickly it hooked you with its storyline. So far, DS2 seems like I'm fighting some weird crap the Big Dipper sent to Earth (no, that is not a joke). Then again, I have no idea why there are demons around this time, and I have no idea what these JP people are all about.
No word from Metatron about humanity needing to purge the demons from the world yet either (I guess he figured humanity learned from last time).
There is this new Fate system, which basically seems like they're putting the Social Links from Persona into Devil Survivor. Can't complain much there, and raising the Fate relationship with one of your party members gives instant benefits, such as causing them to develop an innate resistance to an element (which doesn't take up a passive skill slot!) or allow you to Joint Skill Crack moves (which has allowed me to crack three moves at once by assigning three Skill Cracks to one demon and then having my main character kill it). They also unlock powerful demons for fusing just like in Persona. I'm pretty excited about this addition to the game, although my obsession with it caused me not to focus on getting an item for a character as fast as I could, which resulted in the death of a potential party member. It's too bad, but I can see myself playing through the game more than once to see everything like I did with the first game.
...Which is pretty much what I wanted from a Devil Survivor sequel. I'm going to obsess over this game. At some point I'll probably even try to figure out which DS is my favorite. The near 200 hours (!) I've played of the first game will probably win out in terms of game time, but that's just because I had to do everything over again in Overclocked.
Man, Shin Megami Tensei is such an awesome series.
As for the gameplay, I must say that if the battles stay as interesting as they have been, Devil Survivor 2 might be an improvement over the first. There are more wrinkles to the battle system, but things generally balance out. I will say that the game starts out incredibly hard, mostly because you have no skills unlocked for your main guys, nor do you have much in the way of options for demons to summon. The game has gotten progressively easier as I go on, which is probably a mistake to say because I'm sure the game will hand me my ass as soon as I turn it on again.
Some of the stuff they've added is the ability to directly affect enemies Extra Turns with moves like Extra Cancel, which... Cancels the opponent's extra turn. But there are even passive abilities that change how easy or difficult it is to affect an enemy's or your own Extra Turn, which you'd think would get aggravating, but it isn't too bad. There's a few new demon powers, but most of the ones I've seen so far are as they were in the first game (they don't fix what isn't broken, basically). There's a neat new demon power called Ghost Wounds which doesn't seem much more than a nerfed Bind at first, but then you realize it limits the attack range of an enemy to one - imagine using it on bosses! I haven't done so yet, but it could change the dynamic of quite a few battles if used properly.
The battlefields start out as all repeats of battlefields from the last game, which would have been extremely disappointing had they not quickly switched things up. So far it seems like every battlefield from the first game is in this one, with a few slight changes, as well as a lot of new ones. My favorite map so far involves a set of four escalators (no, they don't move) in the middle of the field. These limit the center of the playing field to four narrow paths that demons and humans can only get through with demon powers such as Flight or Phantasm. There's also a neat parking garage map as well as some other interesting indoor levels that are overall much more interesting than DS1's set of mostly outdoor playfields that were all pretty much wide open. I just feel like so far, the battlefield design is top notch in DS2.
Now as for the story, I am only ten hours in. I am not too interested in what is going on, though. Maybe DS2's story is a slow burn (I hear it gets good later!) but one of the things I loved about the original was how quickly it hooked you with its storyline. So far, DS2 seems like I'm fighting some weird crap the Big Dipper sent to Earth (no, that is not a joke). Then again, I have no idea why there are demons around this time, and I have no idea what these JP people are all about.
No word from Metatron about humanity needing to purge the demons from the world yet either (I guess he figured humanity learned from last time).
There is this new Fate system, which basically seems like they're putting the Social Links from Persona into Devil Survivor. Can't complain much there, and raising the Fate relationship with one of your party members gives instant benefits, such as causing them to develop an innate resistance to an element (which doesn't take up a passive skill slot!) or allow you to Joint Skill Crack moves (which has allowed me to crack three moves at once by assigning three Skill Cracks to one demon and then having my main character kill it). They also unlock powerful demons for fusing just like in Persona. I'm pretty excited about this addition to the game, although my obsession with it caused me not to focus on getting an item for a character as fast as I could, which resulted in the death of a potential party member. It's too bad, but I can see myself playing through the game more than once to see everything like I did with the first game.
...Which is pretty much what I wanted from a Devil Survivor sequel. I'm going to obsess over this game. At some point I'll probably even try to figure out which DS is my favorite. The near 200 hours (!) I've played of the first game will probably win out in terms of game time, but that's just because I had to do everything over again in Overclocked.
Man, Shin Megami Tensei is such an awesome series.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
The Tale, Completed
I finished Tales of the Abyss tonight with a game clock of 35 hours and some change.
I must say, I really enjoyed the majority of the game. If I had the time to really delve in to the subsystems and minigames and sidequests, I'm sure I would like the game a lot more. However, I have Devil Survivor 2 sitting right here next to me and that cannot be ignored for too long.
I rather enjoyed the story of Abyss, though. There was quite a bit of weird techno-babble, but my mind always replaced "fon" and "fonic" with magic, at which point everything makes sense (sort of). There were some aspects of the story which were strange or confusing, but I feel like the overall tale of most of the characters was compelling (aside from a certain betrayal that is forgiven by the main cast WAY too easily). I did miss the characters being complete dicks to each other throughout the game, although Jade did stay his normal jerk self the whole time, so that was refreshing. The motivation of the main enemy still seems a bit oddly thought out to me, but I'm sure I missed something somewhere (especially since for most of the last ten hours, I couldn't be bothered to sit through the skits).
As an aside, I don't understand why the skits don't let you skip through the text faster. I can skip voiced dialogue during the main game by pressing a button because I can see the text, but why can't I skip through the skit stuff? I would have watched every skit had I been able to just read through it at my own pace. They also tended to pack like three skits back-to-back-to-back right after a plot point, so you had to sit there for minutes at a time as text would just scroll by with no input from you whatsoever. Also, none of the skits are voiced, so any sort of pacing the game would have from preventing you from skipping through the text faster is lost anyway.
But I digress. I ended up getting some cool Fonic Artes by the end of the game, and had quite a bit of fun during battles. The last battle was pretty dumb, though, because the boss could basically kill everyone in one hit if he so decided. I'm sure I was underleveled a bit, but I decided I didn't feel like grinding so I just cheesed my way through the battle with strategic item use. I probably would have ground had the enemies in the last dungeon given me more than a THOUSAND EXP PER BATTLE! That was ridiculous since a few dungeons ago I was getting near two thousand. That sort of crap drives me nuts. It's like training in Pokemon all over again.
Overall, though, I would say the game is worth a playthrough, if only to see how well-written the characters are, especially near the beginning. I don't know if I could recommend the PS2 game since apparently there's some pretty bad load times, but the 3DS version was fun. I don't know if I'm ready for a Tales game again so soon, but now I'm thinking of picking up Tales of Graces f and maybe looking into picking up Vesperia at some point.
Anyway, Devil Survivor 2 awaits. Hee-ho!
I must say, I really enjoyed the majority of the game. If I had the time to really delve in to the subsystems and minigames and sidequests, I'm sure I would like the game a lot more. However, I have Devil Survivor 2 sitting right here next to me and that cannot be ignored for too long.
I rather enjoyed the story of Abyss, though. There was quite a bit of weird techno-babble, but my mind always replaced "fon" and "fonic" with magic, at which point everything makes sense (sort of). There were some aspects of the story which were strange or confusing, but I feel like the overall tale of most of the characters was compelling (aside from a certain betrayal that is forgiven by the main cast WAY too easily). I did miss the characters being complete dicks to each other throughout the game, although Jade did stay his normal jerk self the whole time, so that was refreshing. The motivation of the main enemy still seems a bit oddly thought out to me, but I'm sure I missed something somewhere (especially since for most of the last ten hours, I couldn't be bothered to sit through the skits).
As an aside, I don't understand why the skits don't let you skip through the text faster. I can skip voiced dialogue during the main game by pressing a button because I can see the text, but why can't I skip through the skit stuff? I would have watched every skit had I been able to just read through it at my own pace. They also tended to pack like three skits back-to-back-to-back right after a plot point, so you had to sit there for minutes at a time as text would just scroll by with no input from you whatsoever. Also, none of the skits are voiced, so any sort of pacing the game would have from preventing you from skipping through the text faster is lost anyway.
But I digress. I ended up getting some cool Fonic Artes by the end of the game, and had quite a bit of fun during battles. The last battle was pretty dumb, though, because the boss could basically kill everyone in one hit if he so decided. I'm sure I was underleveled a bit, but I decided I didn't feel like grinding so I just cheesed my way through the battle with strategic item use. I probably would have ground had the enemies in the last dungeon given me more than a THOUSAND EXP PER BATTLE! That was ridiculous since a few dungeons ago I was getting near two thousand. That sort of crap drives me nuts. It's like training in Pokemon all over again.
Overall, though, I would say the game is worth a playthrough, if only to see how well-written the characters are, especially near the beginning. I don't know if I could recommend the PS2 game since apparently there's some pretty bad load times, but the 3DS version was fun. I don't know if I'm ready for a Tales game again so soon, but now I'm thinking of picking up Tales of Graces f and maybe looking into picking up Vesperia at some point.
Anyway, Devil Survivor 2 awaits. Hee-ho!
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