Game Scores: Batman (NES)

I first played Batman on the original Nintendo Entertainment System sometime during the summer of 1990, courtesy of my Grandmother renting the game for me (I was 10 at the time).  I managed to make my way through a good portion of the game, and after looking at youtube videos that didn't have annoying commentary, I figured out I made it to somewhere in the 3rd Stage.  I never beat the game but could say that it was a fun game and somewhat difficult.

A couple of years ago, probably around autumn 2010, I managed to get a hold of the "score" for Batman.  Holy damn that game had some great music in it.  And to back up my statement, here're two citations:

and

Since the score to Batman, composed by Naoki Kodaka and Noboyuki Hara, was never released in a soundtrack form, I hadn't heard any of this music in nearly 20 years.  Remember, this was 1990, when the only video game soundtracks being released were in Japan and were most likely associated with either the Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy franchise.  So when I went looking for NES soundtracks from games I remember liking, I was very happy to find out that the score to Sunsoft's Batman was pretty damn good.

So, if you like what you hear, and have interest in listening to the entire score again, it's available from any number of sites, but McAfee SiteAdvisor tells me that PlayTheNES is a safe site to visit and download the soundtrack.  And don't feel at all guilty about downloading this score as it was never released on it's own and the only other "official" way would be to have an NES and a copy of the game to play, which I wouldn't mind doing myself either if my TV weren't so damn "new" and could accept/interpret the older NES/SNES and N64 signals.

This post will probably/hopefully be the first in a line of posts where I talk about and bring up soundtracks from older consoles that did not receive a proper score/soundtrack release.  Until next time then.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Doo-Doo-Dee-Doo, Doo-Dee-Doo-Bee-Doo-Boo-Doo-Doo-Doop!

Bridging the Gaming Continent: Risktego

Since Dr. Potts and I started this blog, I liked the idea that when we talked about being gamers, that that would also include other areas of gaming besides video games.  Like Penny-Arcade's Omegathon at PAX, I like the idea of branching out into other areas of gaming, but still maintaining our main focus on video games.

So I was talking to Conklederp yesterday about the boardgame Stratego and explaining the rules the the easiest way possible, mainly because I didn't have any visual aids and verbally explaining the rules of a game you've never heard/seen could be confusing.  So I'm talking about the different pieces and ranks and how they're used in battle.  Then my mind goes to the other war based game that I know and have played very little of, being RISK.  I played Castle RISK a bit when I was younger and last year I played one of many RISK variants called Risk Godstorm.  Anyway, the point being that I have a lot more experience with Stratego than I do with RISK, so any hardcore RISK gamers might be upset/irritated/annoyed with my lack of proper RISK terminology/knowledge.  (And just to note, the word "risk" is starting to look like it's not a real word anymore).

My idea for Risktego is a pretty simple one.  You would play RISK normally with almost no alterations to the rules.  The only difference is in how the battles are conducted.  Instead of rolling dice to determine the outcome of the battle, you would then move into a separate game albeit modified version of Stratego.  Right now, one can see a potential difficulty with the RISK battles being run in the Stratego game.  In RISK, as far as I know, there's no limit to the number of armies attacking any given area, whereas in Stratego, you're limited to a maximum of 40 units, including bombs and the flag.  The following rules set for Risktego, will probably annoy any RISK purists, but they'll just have to deal with it.

¡¡¡¡Awesome Logo Splicing Action!!!!

Rules for Risktego

You will need:

• 1 RISK boardgame
• 1 Stratego boardgame

RISK is the primary game being played and only moves to Stratego during skirmishes/battles.  During skirmishes/battles, the following rules apply:

• Each side pre-selects the Flag Tile in Stratego.
• For every single infantry unit in RISK, randomly select 3 tiles from Stratego.
• In RISK, if you are attacking or defending with 13 or more infantry units, you play with all of your Stratego pieces.
• When two pieces of the same rank meet in Stratego, the attacking piece wins.

So those're basically the rules, have fun as you will.

Side Note:  After completing this article, I looked up "risktego" on google just because I was curious.  As it turns out, there's quite a bit about combining both RISK and Stratego together to make one massive game.  Rules from a couple of the pages I looked at vary, but some seem to be built around the "rule" that with any battle, you play a full 40 vs 40 game of Stratego.  Which, for me, then feels like it takes away any strategy in army building.  However, that could be said as well for the rules that I've put up here.  

Whatever, it was an idea I had, free of outside influences that just happens to have been not an uncommon idea.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Disclaimer:  Games Will Last 3 Hours to Never Being Finished.

Critique: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2: Grimoire of the Rift (DS)

This is a post about a game where the main focus is a book/tome, so get ready to do some reading.

I bought this game so long ago, I've completely forgotten when it was that I had started playing.  I think it was just over a month before PAX08 (end of August 2008). But anyway, 177 hours, 40 minutes and 1 second after starting it, I finally completed Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2: Grimoire of the Rift. Another way of looking at is that I spent 7 days, 9 hours, 36 minutes and 1 second playing this game. The previous record was about 130 hours to complete Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and now coming in 3rd place is Final Fantasy XII which took me about 122 hours. So why did this game take me so long to complete? What are my thoughts about the game after having invested so much of my time into it. And why was this the second most frustrating game that I've completed (The top award goes to Goldeneye 007 just because of the level "Aztec" on 007 Agent Mode: The Kid can back me up on this). 

Beware, Thar Be Spoilers Ahead. Ye've Been Bloody Damn Warned.

Not initially knowing the differences between Normal and Hard Mode, I thought I would try out Hard Mode and if it was too difficult to start out with, I would switch over to the Normal Mode. Upon selecting Hard Mode, I was greeted with the following statement from the game, "Hard mod is designed for players seeking a greater challenge. Enemies deal more damage and battles are more difficult on Hard mode. The story and quests are identical to Normal mode." Personally, I didn't think the game was overly difficult. Not any harder that the first Final Fantasy Tactics and I can only imagine how much easier the game is on Normal Mode. In short, I was looking for a challenge.

Unlike the first Final Fantasy Tactics Advance game on the GBA, the character Luso in FFTA2 is actually transported to the world of Ivalice vs. being transported to a dream realm created in the likeness of Ivalice. The general main story of the game then revolves around Luso's attempt to fill the pages of the Grand Grimoire with his adventures in order for him to return to his own world. As is the case with FFTA, there're a shit load of side missions (280 to be exact) along with the 20 required missions to complete the game. This is where my first beef with the game comes in. 

The Main Story? It sucks. Hypothetically speaking, you could complete the game only having passed these 20 missions, raising levels by fighting wandering monsters (although that would take a very long time......) and have almost no coherency for what's going on in the storyline of the game. For example: There're a whole series of side quests dealing with a group called Carm Mercantile who later turn out to be front for a lager organization called Khamja, an assassins guild within the Jylland region of the world of Ivalice. Early on in the game, Carm Mercantile appear to be an organization that are out to help endangered creatures and protecting them from poachers. Only later is the connection revealed, again, in a side quest.

Then there's another whole side quest dealing with an invading guild called Duelhorn. This storyline starts out with rumors of a foreign guild looking into other clans in the region followed by the guild trying to take over clans and trying to stake a claim in this region. Eventually the Khamja organization starts to take notice of Duelhorn and there turns out to be some contention between the two organizations. There are 11 missions to this part of the story, which I found to be much more intriguing than the main story.

Yet another very involving and awesome side story revolves around this Paladin who is being haunted/chased by a relentless zombie.  Again, I felt that this story was better constructed than the main story line.

Then!, one of the main characters in your clan, Adelle starts off as being a kind of annoying girl who tags along / steals from you. Later, it turns out she's apparently part of a near immortal race that only go by "Gifted Ones." The game even hints that she's significantly older and that her race don't age past a certain point. Adelle then has a bunch of missions directed towards her and her self discovery of who she is and how to wield her power, which saved my ass in the final battle. (The "Elpe" ability which sacrifices yourself to raise and fully heal your entire party). It was a pretty intriguing story that again, was not required to complete the game.

One last side mission, that was only a single event came across, to me anyway, as fairly mature compared to the rest of the games themes. There was a notice posted at a pub, which is where you find out about missions and accept them, that read:  "I love someone whom I can never have.  The very thought haunts me each moment I draw breath.  It is more than I can bear.  And so I wish to quit this mortal life.  There is a substance known as zombie powder which may grant me the relief I so desperately seek.  Please, find this and bring it to me.  End my suffering. ~Gleifin.  Now I'm starting to wonder if this Gleifin person was the Paladin character previously mentioned.  I'm not sure if this quest had multiple endings or if you just failed if you didn't give the zombie powder to Gleifin.  The tone though, compared to other quest posts like "It's nearly my mother's birthday, and I want to give her some flowers as a gift, kupo.  I need someone to gather some pretty pink flowers for the bouquet.  Genne, Devoted Son."  It's just a complete 180.

Alright, enough with the pros/cons of the storyline. The next thing that really bothered me was the accuracy rating during battles. Yes, I know that the game warned me that battles would be more difficult on the "Hard Mode," of which I did fully expect. What bothered me was the frequency I would miss with an 80% accuracy rating or higher. I do not have any statistics to back me up and yes I did try for a while to chart each of my battles along with the accuracy rating for each attack that was put forth by both sides but in the end, it became too difficult; especially with the casting of "Accuracy Up/Down" and that the accuracy would be different depending on what side of the body the character was attacking. Conklederp can attest to the number of times I was quietly playing while she was doing homework and I suddenly let out with a "Ah, that's bull fucking shit!!/ Seriously !? Fuck! / Motherfucker!!!" or some variation thereof. It was all because I had selected an enemy to attack, had maybe 75% to hit and missed. Okay, that's understandable. Next character goes to attack this stealthy bastard, this time, 90% because I was attacking from the back. Miss!  I don't remember which mission I was on, but it was located in The Galerria Deep and I had to take out a thief who your character had helped out earlier in the game. This time, only 1/3 of the attacks actually hit him even though I had over 70% with nearly every attack. If the character is going to be hard to hit, then it should be reflected in the % To Hit, not in some abstract algorithm within the game that it's not telling you about just because the character is akin to miniboss and because I was playing it on Hard Mode. Another similar story was when I was about to kill a boss character, I had 99% accuracy, it was the kill shot from behind and I missed. The boss's move was next, so naturally they healed themselves, moved away and forced the battle to take another 5 minutes. Blarg!! Shisno!!

With the first FFTA, I talked to a couple people and read a number of complaints online that the Laws in the game were too cumbersome and annoying, especially as the game progressed. By the end of that game there were three laws to consider before each battle. Apparently the Laws system in FFTA2 was an improvement. I aim to disagree. The Laws in FFTA were predictable in that if you knew where you were going to be in a battle, you could look ahead to plan what Laws would be in effect that day so you could work around them without penalty. In FFTA2, the only way to find out about the Law was if you had done that mission/battle before. Often times, the Law would intentionally make the battle more difficult. Such as, you're going into a battle with a bunch of Flans/Jellies and the law is "No Non-Elemental Attacks." So, all your attacks have to have an elemental basis such as casting Fire or having a weapon imbued with Ice. However, the White Pudding creature could only be harmed by non-elemental attacks such as Holy or Dark. So basically you're forced to break the Law if you want to succeed in this battle.

Additionally, some of the Laws were rather ridiculous. The one that really annoyed the piss out of me was "No Knockbacks." So with this restriction, it's against the Law to attack someone and knock them back one square. There are only a couple specific attacks that knockback characters such as "Knockback" and "Blink Counter." If you happen to perform a Critical Attack with an algorithm that I'm not familiar with, you'll knock your enemy back one square. Now how the hell is that supposed to be regulated? The only thing I came up with to comply with the law was to place a character behind the enemy I was going to attack, then with another character, attack my enemy so that just in case I did perform a critical attack, they weren't knocked back. Fucking_annoying. Granted the penalty for breaking a law isn't too strict in that you loose whatever benefit you chose at the beginning of the battle and you loose the ability to resurrect slain allies. Yes, I was one of those anal people who, early on in playing, would reset the game if I ended up breaking a law because I thought that I would miss out on some form of loot that I would need later or would only be offered once in the game.

I'm still kind of on the fence about the whole Auctions thing in this game. I didn't like that clans would basically buy via simultaneous eBay-type bidding the rights to have control over a territory. I liked how in FFTA that you had to fight over territories and that at random times your territories would be threatened and if you didn't address that threat, then it would be taken over. By the middle of the FFTA2, after you've visited all of the areas and "won" them in auctions, you start bidding on rare equipment and items which you could pretty much assure that you will win everything. I did like though that early on, rival clans would be upset if you won too often and would attack you in retaliation.

Now onto other things that I liked. I'm guessing that because Square Enix was using a very similar engine from FFTA that additional races needed to be introduced to keep the game from becoming stale, which I was fine with. The two changes were that Seeq's were brought over from the Final Fantasy XII Ivalice world and Gria's were the brand new race. Seeqs were basically a more tank type of Bangaa, which was fine with me. I ended up only having 1 in my clan as I wasn't able to recruit one until late in the game.  I really like the Gria's as they had the ability to fly (and who wouldn't like that?) and had some pretty cool and devastating attacks. That pretty much sums up my feelings on the Gria: they could fly and had cool attacks.

There were some other new jobs for the established Bangaas and Humes I also really liked. My favorite of the two were probably the Master Monk and Cannoneer for the Bangaas. Master Monk was like a more kick ass version of the White Monk job which was already pretty awesome and a required job class for all the Bangaa in my clan. For the Humes it was the Parivir and when combined with the Ninja's Duel Wield ability, they did some major damage.

Hmmmm, I also liked the music for the most part. Nothing too original as it seemed that a lot of it was pulled or in the style from FFTA and FF XII, which didn't bother me.  It's more good atmospheric and background music from Hitoshi Sakimoto.

By all appearances, you could conclude that with all of the things that I disliked about this game, that I would have hated it. Why then would I invest 177 hours playing this game?  Well, all that I can say is that the side quests, as previously mentioned, were a lot of fun and were emotionally stimulating. As it happens with a lot of Final Fantasy games, I get attached to the characters, especially the grunts who may not be a main character. It was a very enjoyable game for the most part, even though the main storyline wasn't very interesting and pretty weak, but with all of the side quests, they really helped to flesh out the world. It probably would not have taken me this long to complete the game if I was going straight from beginning to end. Instead, I went from beginning, finished 277 missions to the end of the game. 

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2: Grimoire of the Rift a fun game and I'd recommend it, unless you're going to be playing it around your conservative grandparents or in churches.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

It Will Eat Up Your Life

So, what have I been up to lately?

Hi there everyone.  I haven't posted as regularly as I'd like, I've been busy and stuff.  Right now I'm just playing Metroid I, which is a huge pain in the ass and I might give up.  I've got high jump, screw attack and the ice beam, but I just get lost too damned much.  And I always think to play the game after I've turned my computer off, and I don't want to boot it up just to get a map.  That game is just too hard.  (I've discovered the italics button- watch out!)

But on another note, I've been doing some basic research on games and gaming.  Mostly Indie Gaming.  After Jack's post about Shadowgate, and his challenge to the indie gaming world, I decided to take a look to see if there were any shadow-gate style indie games.  I remembered the Crimson Room, and the rest of the series:  The Viridian Room and blue room and white room, etc.  But, as I was researching information on these games, I got to thinking about the history of indie games... and then I fell down a rabbit hole.

It turns out there is way more going on in indie gaming than I realized.  There are hundreds of creators out there, just itching to make games.  I can barely even find the time and initiative to talk about making games, but over here, I found a damned list that you can post to and someone might make your game idea!!  Egad! Okay, okay, breathe, breathe.  I'm going to try to post a little map of the rabbit hole so far.  It goes like this:

Google search.  "Hello, what is this?"  DIY gamer dot com?  That sounds awesome.  What am I looking at? Wait a second.  So, what you're telling me is that you had a contest for people to create First Person Shooter games, start to finish, in seven days?  Really?  And they did?  People can just do that?  Okay, I'll play one: First Person Tutor.  Haha, this game is funny.  Kinda fun.  Neato.  There are several other games on this page that look interesting, and you can play them in-browser.  I just got in this damned rabbit hole, and I have at least two hours of exploring to do on this one page.  But I don't feel like stopping just yet, so I keep going.

Oh, here's an interesting new(to me) website called Glorious Train Wrecks.  Isn't that a great title?  It turns out they have a game making contest too.  They just finished up their fifth one.  They also have a list of development tools and hundreds of games submitted to them.  Jeepers H Crackers, what am I supposed to do with all of this?  Can someone please pay me to write about the indie game scene so I can pan for gold in all of these (probably) shitty games?  I would very much like to do that.  But I have no attention span, so off I go!

Oh look, DIYgamer.com has an article about Indie Games and they mention Crowd Funding.  You know, Kickstarter.  And, apparently a new one aimed specifically at games.  Card games or video games, it doesn't matter.  Here we go, 8-Bit Funding!  Okay, so now there's a place to ask for money to develop your games?  And there are a bunch of projects already on it.  048tyhdfs;ovndzkjs.  Too many choices, too many possibilities!  At this point I'm just closing my browser tabs.  I've got more than ten open on this last chain, and it's time for me to focus a little more.  Let's copy down these addresses into a text file and move on.

Oh, hey look, an adorable Mario Spin Off game that "compresses" all the levels into one screen a piece.  Super Mario Summary doesn't truly compress the levels, but it does make one-screen levels inspired by the original Mario.  Not a bad little puzzler.  Kinda tough, best played with JoyToKey.  Oh, wait a sec.  This game was made as part of Another Damned Contest?!  Wow, indie games are seriously thriving.  This contest is like the twenty fourth this site has had.  I had no idea it was so open ended.  My head is popping.  But in a good way, I think.  I certainly know that if I come into a huge cash of free time, I know how I'm spending it!

Okay, so, I think it's time to get the hell out of this Rabbit hole.  Oh, one quick stop by another article on DIYgamer.  They're referencing a 'rouge-like spaceship simulator?'  What is rouge-like?  Oh, I see.  Random dungeon generation, RPG elements.  I've played games like these.  I guess Diablo is like the most advanced/successful rouge-like.  I see, the genre is based on a 1980 game called Rogue. So the popular name for the genre became "Rogue-like."  Right on.

Okay, okay.  I'm getting out of the rabbit hole now.  I hope you've enjoyed your time, sorry if the arrangement of links is little chaotic.  I guess I didn't so much make a map as scribble on some paper by torchlight.  Still, there's a great big marker at DIYgamer.com they are organized and oh so full of new info for the interested.    And then there are at least three links here to game creating contests, which I find very interesting.

So, I guess I'll leave you with a link to a game creator from Cameroon, Africa.  I think the graphical style is great, the music is awesome, the controls not so hot, and the level design can really use some work (I can't beat the first level).  

So, without further ado:  PHL's Air Flying Game.

Emulator Hour: Punch-Out!! - Who's Puching Who Out!?

Last week I purchased Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream, for the 3DS's Virtual Console from Nintendo's eShop. It was under $5 and I loved that game growing up, so I figured why not?  Punch-Out falls under that category of games that you can pick up, play for about 10-15 minutes, get your ass kicked and put it down. I don't feel like there're enough games out there that follow this type of model.  A lot of games, ones that I tend to buy anyway, you seem to need to put at least an hour into playing before I feel like I've done anything.  Sometimes I just want a game that I can quickly play and have very little, if any, emotional investment it.  Punch-Out fits that bill perfectly.

So I've played Punch-Out now for probably about an hour or so (my DS says 1h8m) and it's exactly how I remember it, which is exactly that I was hoping it would be.  All the sound effects are there, the music is the same, which again, is what I was looking for.  I wasn't looking for updated graphics, new interface or schnazy extras.  The only thing about the game that I knew I wasn't getting from my childhood was Mike Tyson.  See, I started with Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!  By now we all know the reason and the difference between the two versions of the game, and frankly, since I'm buying a digital copy of the game, I can forgo it not being the original version of the game.

Which brings me to the main point of this article.  Soda Popinski is still kicking my ass.  The first time around playing Punch-Out, I could reliably get to Soda Popinski's stage and almost 100% I would have my junk handed back to me twisted in one of those plastic six pack holders.  Today, the same thing will happen.  I have no problem with most characters.  Great Tiger can be a little annoying because it's hard to tell when the gem in his turban is flashing on the small 3DS screen.  Bald Bull's Bull Charge will still get me on occasion, and by "occasion," I mean that I'll be knocked out about 50-60% of the time.  Yes, I know all about the counting to 3 bit, but still.  Fucking Bull Charge.

Eventually that brings us to god damn Soda Popfuckinginski.  He just seems disproportionately difficult compared to the previous fighters.  I know I've beaten Popinski at least once before because I've fought Mr. Sandman and promptly lost (after going through Bald Bull and Don Flamenco a second time).  In one recent bout, I was able to bring Popinski down to within two - three punches of knocking him out, then he seemed to gather his whits and promptly TKO'd me.  

It's good to know that a game that I remember so fondly from my childhood has been ported so well that I'm still stuck at the point in the game where I was more than 20 years ago.  I guess if I decide to pick up Kid Icarus or Master Blaster, that I'll most likely be as stuck as I was when I first played those games. I guess that just means I need to dig deep in the deeper recesses of the closet and dust off that pink track suit.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Only 2,903 Miles To Find Doc.

Starting Over: Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light (DS)

The following is a post that I put up a short while back over on facebook, but I feel that it's perfect for our discussions here as well.  I've made a couple of small alterations/additions/subtractions, so it's not word-for-word, but pretty damn close.

I had been playing Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light for some time and treating it like a traditional RPG.  That is in fact, was one of the main reasons why I bought the game.  

Before the game was released, it was touted as going back to early RPG roots.  That there would be no highlighted text "clueing" you where to go next; no near infinite inventories; you would need to talk to pretty much everybody in town to find out where to go and what to do next.  Your inventory was limited to 15 items, which included your gear (Weapon, Armor, Shield, Accessory), usable magic spells and consumable items.  You know, a lot like Final Fantasy I or Dragon Warrior/Quest I.

Once I started the game, I found out that everything that I'd heard was true.  Enemies weren't always easy.  You could only save with a guy who would record your save data and who could only be found in towns or usually at the end of a dungeon right before a boss and that was it. I didn't always know where I was supposed to go and sometimes was really confused where to go once I was able to "fly" around the world map.

The strangest thing, for me, was that when in a battle, you told one of your characters what action to perform, but not on "whom" to perform that action on.  For example:  You told your Thief to attack, your Black Mage to cast "Firaga," your Fighter to attack and your White Mage to cast "Esuna."  The game then decided who your Thief and Fighter attacked, who your Black Mage cast "Firaga" on and who the White Mage cast "Esuna" on.  Now the computer isn't a complete idiot as it'll cast "Esuna" on anyone who has a status ailment and the attacks would usually land on the same person if they lived after the first assault.  This sounds kind of like a bad idea, until you get past the fact that you'll have to deal with it if you want to continue playing the game.  And I got over it pretty quickly, unless my White Mage was casting "Cure" to give 50 hp to my Black Mage when my Fighter was down 250 hp while fighting a boss that was strong against magical attacks.  Whatever.

Another aspect of the game that I liked, but didn't know about off hand, was that the enemies would level along with you.  So basically, you couldn't overpower enemies.  As it turned out, the bosses leveled along with you too so that you could never be at level 47 fighting a level 25 boss.  They were hovering somewhere right along with you.  I didn't find this out about the bosses leveling until I reached the final form the final boss in the game takes.  Not going too much into the details of the three failed attempts (disasterous attempts mind you), but I looked up how to sucessfully defeat this boss.  Turns out, level 50 is the "just about right" level to be at to defeat the boss.  My characters are at 80 and above.  Which means that even with some of the best equipment in the game, I'm fighting a boss that's 30 levels higher than it should be with gear that's close to 30 levels too low.  Even with upgraded equipment.  (Hypothetically then, I should just try and beat the game at the lowest level possible!)

In short, I'm pretty sure I fucked myself over.  My three options at this point are:

1) Continue trying to fight the boss as is and hope that he doesn't kill my White Mage on it's first of two attacks (which it has done all three times; bastard likes to kill White Mages the first thing in a battle apparently).  Then, if my White Mage doesn't die, hope that whomever the boss attacks isn't either of my tank-type characters.  This all sounds very plausible as I'm typing it out, but when the boss does physical damage between 250 - 600 hp with multiple attacks per turn and my characters (again, at level 80) have between 330 - 550 hp, the outlook is not so good.

2)  Spend hours upon hours gem/gold mining so that I can use a special defense and attack  combination that uses up gold coins rather than hit points.  This doesn't sound too bad either, until you realize that after 30 minutes of gem/gold mining, I only earn about 25,000 gold and I would need close to 2,000,000 in order to take out the final boss.  Roughly, that would be an additional 80 hours, which I would rather not have to do.

3)  Start the game all over again, being careful not to level my characters up as I was previously doing.  And I'm about 98.47% sure that I'm going to take this method.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

It's Like Failure In Reverse.

First Impressions: Legendary (PC)

The other day when I uploaded Steam, they had one of the daily deals that looked pretty interesting.  It was a game called Legendary (originally released as Legendary: The Box) created by Spark Unlimited, both I'd never heard of despite the fact that it had come out back in 2008.  The concept for the game is pretty simple: you mess with Pandora's Box, a bunch of mythological creatures come out and start wrecking shit up.  Oh, and it's a first person shooter.  I've been playing Legendary now for about two hours so I thought I'd give my initial thoughts on the game.

Admittingly (new word), the first thing I noticed was that the cinematics in the game are in wide screen, but the game play is in a full screen ratio.  That doesn't really bother me since it seems that the game was designed that way, so who am I to be upset that the game doesn't fill my entire screen.

Now on to the things that I like about the game.  The monsters, most of them anyway, look pretty rad.  And I probably say that now because they're the monsters that haven't interacted with me and, at the moment anyway, are just background/set decorations.  I'm referring to the Griffins and the Golem.  The Griffins are these huge bus sized things, flying around the scene grabbing victims and nomming down on them, occasionally screaming some hideous eagle cry as parts of the city explode.  Like any sane person, I've tried shooting them and they didn't even notice, which is not a great thing when you realize that you're carrying a sub-machine gun and these creatures are like "I don't notice what you're trying to do to me, so piss off."  

The Golem, singular thank god, is a self propelled mass of city wide debris and wrecked (and probably not wrecked) cars.  The Golem appears very early in the game and as you're watching this monstrosity putting itself together, I was thinking "Dear fuck, I don't want to fight that thing!"  Especially since I only had a fireman's ax for a weapon.  As the giant turned away from me and down a side street (through some buildings mind you), I quickly realized that I would probably have to face this thing later in the game, but for the moment I was safe.

Again, I've been playing for about two hours.  And, and, and!, I don't think I'm at the end of the first level.  Yes I've died a couple of times, and thus restarted from checkpoints.  Thankfully I'm able to continue from the checkpoints even after I turn the game off, otherwise I'd be a little upset.  Additionally, the shit just keeps on coming.  I'll get through one area, catch my breath as I'm running down a flight of stairs, enter a warehouse and.....fuck.  Werewolves.  The Werewolves look a little odd, but the game explains that these "early ones" are somewhat starving and are therefore thinner than......shit, the larger ones I'll be facing later in the game.

At the moment, the only thing I'm not a fan of, is the jumping ability.  Not only does it seem like you can only jump maybe a foot off the ground, but when to give yourself a running start, it's very easy to launch yourself well over your intended target at sub-sonic speeds.  Granted you're only a foot or two off the ground, but the forward momentum carries you another 10 feet.

So right now, I'm having fun and I really like the world (both atmospherically and how the world looks as a whole in that there's stuff going on that I can't do anything about).  And since I only paid $1.49 for it, if the rest of the game isn't as good/fun/interesting, then I still won't consider it too much of a loss.  And that, is kind of my whole point here.  That for under $2, it's like when I used to rent games that I only thought "looked" cool.  Except now, I don't have to return the game if I'm not finished by the end of the second day.

I think, at this juncture, I'll go ahead and recommend the game.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Thank God Pandora Never Owned A Wardrobe, Or We'd All Be Fucked.

It's A Sad Thing That Shadowgate Only Had Two Games to it's Name!!

Ahhhh...... Shadowgate.  Or is it supposed to be Shadow Gate?  Nope, it's the name of the castle.

I don't recall the first time I ever played Shadowgate.  I'll just guess that it was over at Dr. Potts' place sometime around 1990.  Anyway, the exact time doesn't really matter.  What matters is that this game was played.  Was it beaten?  Hell, no.  I think I was only able to solve a handful of puzzles the entire time I had it (stupid shark).  I was, on the other hand, able to get myself killed in more ways than I had thought descriptively possible.  

Coming across these types of descriptive deaths was uncommon, if not unheard of in Nintendo games in 1990, and could possibly be rated a high "Teen" in todays market.  This kind of material was golden.  It was as if the game was challenging you to find out how often and in how many ways you could die!  Dying no longer was something to fear, as you had to get over it quickly because it was going to happen very often. 

The music too, dear god man, the music!  This was another early game that I fell in love with the music.  And it didn't help that I couldn't beat the game and find out who the composer was; remember, no access to the internet in 1990.  And even with the internet, it took a while to find out that the composer/programmer was Hirojuki Masuno.  Just give, what I consider to be the quintessential Shadowgate theme a listen, although the track is titled "Entranceway."  Even the music that was played when you were dead was as interesting to listen to as the rest of the music in the game.

So Shadowgate was a point-and-click adventure style game that was very text heavy, as you can tell from the death images above.  Only two other games that I know of, Déjà Vu and Uninvited, used a similar/identical format.  At the age of 10 (and even now really), it was like reading an interactive Choose Your Own Adventure book that came with it's own soundtrack.  I didn't extensively play Univited, and I only dabbled around with  Déjà Vu  when they were out on the NES.  When Shadowgate Classic came out on the Gameboy Color in 1999 (wow, only 9 years after first playing the original, it seemed a lot longer than that), I bought it and made a considered effort to beat the game, which I ended up doing, with some help from the internet to solve some of the harder puzzles, like how to stop dying.

That same year that Shadowgate Classic came out, Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers was released on the N64.  I rented that game from the video rental store I worked at, at the time and had a blast playing it.  It was a similar game, compared to the original, as in a point-and-click type adventure, except that since it was on the N64, the game was in a three dimensional space and played similar to an FPS minus the shotgun and automatic rifles.  Like the original though, you still wandered from room to hallway to room, trying to solve puzzles without killing yourself.  It was a pretty fun game, from what I remember.  The music wasn't as catchy as the original, but listening to the soundtrack on it's own, the music is more atmospheric and more like a film score than a video game soundtrack.

There were also plans to release a sequel to Shadowgate 64 titled Shadowgate: Rising, but the rumors say that it was in development for the N64 as the Gamecube was coming out and production ceased.  There was also an online comic that I followed for a while that was going to lead into Shadowgate: Rising

Now at the end of this article, I have to ask the obligatory question: Why aren't more indie game companies making point-and-click style adventures?  In theory they don't seem too difficult to create as it's mostly just script writing and then a series of images.  Yes, I understand that it's a pretty dated concept, but it falls into the whole nostalgia phase.  So if anyone reading this either knows someone in any form of game company or is in one themselves, you now have a new project on your hands.  I'll be looking forward to the end result.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Awaiting the Masses to Join the Call

Emulator Hour: Final Fantasy Legend II

I'm on a real Game Boy kick lately, so I've been playing Final Fantasy Legend II.  I tried out a few different Game Boy games, including the Super Mario Land games and FF Legend I,  but they were all so bad they were almost unplayable.  Yes, I was surprised, too!  But FF Legend II was clearly different.  For starters, there is a story.  I wasn't just dropped into the world and passive/aggressively expected to fend for myself.  No, there was a bit of an intro, and even a teacher/character to hang out and protect me for the first fifteen minutes or so.  This is acceptable, I will continue.

I'm a couple hours into the game so far, and I'm enjoying it.  I chose this series because I didn't know much about it.  I have vague memories of playing one at G&G games in the Woodland Mall, maybe twenty years ago (dear god, I'm so old!)  And I've always been a fan of Final Fantasy games, so I wanted to see what Square had for the Game Boy crowd.

Well, first off, the game allows you to build a party of four, which is more of an old-school final fantasy method, and a mechanic I enjoy.  I built my party from a Mutant Female, Human Female, Robot and a Baby-Dragon.  The game only gives you four letters to name each character, but I was able to get creative, and I'm happy with my names: Djna, Fara, Bobt and Enki.

The basic structure of the game is nothing original.  Lead character leaves town to find her father who went out searching for Magi.  Magi are magical stones that grant power.  World is going to hell in a handbasket, Magi are probably related.  Ashura is bad organization trying to find Magi.  The first Magi you receive will tell you how many Magi are in a given area.  Hey, I recognize that mechanic.

The equipment and ability system in this game is interesting.  It appears that all of your weapons, items and magic are consumable.  So, when you go to the weapon store to buy a hammer, you actually buy fifty hammers, and burn through them.  There are some restrictions that I'm figuring out.  My Baby-D (who is now an octopus) can't carry any additional items except what he came equipped with.  The Robot can equip almost any weapon, but he can't use magic.  He's a tough mofo too.  Mutant F has a little higher Magic and Human F has a little higher strength.

Another interesting mechanic is related to my Baby-D.  It seems that choices 6,7 and 8 for character select are virtually the same.  I came to this conclusion when I got a bit of Spider's Meat and fed it to my baby dragon.  He changed into a slime!  By now I have changed him a bunch of times, and he's been a Slime, Zombie, Spider, Jaguar and an Octopus.  It seems that this is his mechanic.  He can't equip anything, ever, so he just burns out his 30 Fangs, Talons, Tenticles etc and then it becomes necessary to change him again.  I'm glad I didn't choose more than one animal pet, because he's not as useful as the others.

So far the game has been light.  There's not a whole lot more visible depth to any of my characters, and my ability to examine their stats is limited.  I'm guessing this game takes 5-10 hours, we'll see how far I get.  It's nice to have a role-playing game back into my life.

Gamer Identity 4A

When I read Conklederp's First Post, it got me to thinking about my own gaming identity.  Since then, I've had this topic brewing in the back of my head.  First, I pondered the subject of gender in games.  This subject sure is a minefield, but there has been some pushback.  The money raised from the kickstarter for Feminist Frequency's proposed series on video games far exceeded their original goal. This shows a demonstrated interest in breaking down negative females stereotypes and creating a safe place for female gamers to participate.  Fortunately, the internet has also provided a forum for different Gamers to express themselves.  As a greater number of women identify themselves as gamers and make their voices heard, in turn, there will be a great number of ways in which they identify and express themselves within the lense of gaming.

However, my focus has shifted away from Gender in gaming, and more toward my own personal identity.  What sort of gamer am I?  As I play games, and post on this website, I've noticed certain trends.  One is that I like to criticize things.  This has been going on my whole life, I used to catch a lot of shit from my sisters for it.  Another thing is that I am very much a retro-gamer.  I don't put much effort into catching the speeding train of the latest and greatest in the gaming world.  My hard-core gaming days are long behind me, but I still care a lot, and, more importantly, think I know what really matters in games.  This has led me to the conclusion that I am a Cranky Old Man gamer.

Not unlike Cranky Kong himself, I am many years out of my depth. About the time Donkey Kong Country came out, I felt I was on top of the gaming world, I knew everything that was worth knowing, I was confident and life was good.  Over the years, I've fallen out of touch, but I still feel very passionately about video games and what they have to offer.  Fortunately, I have been kept afloat by emulators and indie games.  Playing these games with a critical eye, I hope to get closer to answer the question:  what makes games so great?

Until then, I'll be in my rocking chair, with my controller on my lap.  Telling you what's wrong and what's right in the world of gaming.  Even if I don't really know what I'm talking about, I can wave my cane for emphasis.  

Emulator Hour: Metroid II: Return of Samus

Welcome to my new segment: Emulator Hour!  Where I review games from past systems that I always play on the original cartridge in the original system.  Today, We're going to talk about Metroid II: the Return of Samus, on Nintendo Gameboy.  

I first played Metroid II when I was in sixth grade.  I borrowed it from my friend Paul and I have fond memories of playing it, which led me to revisit the game now, many years later. I think that Metroid Two is a bit like unsung hero of the series.  (I should note that when I talk about the Metroid Series, I am referring only to the first three games).  Metroid 1 introduced all of us young, bright eyed, impressionable kids to the world of Metroid: Samus, Justin Bailey -----------, Kraid, Ridley, Mother Brain and all the rest.  That game was totally interesting and totally hard.  Metroid two tones down the difficulty a bit, dials up the graphics (yes, the game boy version looked better).  It also progresses the storyline.  

Metroid II: introduces us to a more detailed Samus.  Her armor takes on a lot more definition than the first game showed.  She's much more the big shouldered, cyber-suit wearing heroine we've come to know and love.  As seen below, we also get a look at her spaceship. 

The basic gameplay of Metroid II is pretty straightforward.  You have a Metroid Count, which starts at 39, and you want to get down to 0.  So you look around for some Metroids to kill.  Different areas are sectioned off by liquid hot magma, and you can see how many metroid remain in a given area by pressing the start button.  When you've destroyed all the Metroid in a given area, the magma will lower and reveal more room to explore.

Metroid II introduces a bunch of new gear.  The spring ball- allowing the ball form of Samus to jump.  My favorite is the Spider Ball, allowing the ball form to stick to walls-- this item is incredibly useful in Return of Samus, but did not make it into Metroid III. The Space Jump is another that didn't make it into Metroid III, but was fantastically useful.  

Space jump allows you to continually jump - in mid air-,and basically fly through a level.  The timing is tricky, but when you get that down, Space Jump is an essential tool for progressing through the zones in Return of Samus.  But the best part is when you acquire the Screw Attack.  Combined with Space Jump, Samus becomes a floating vortex of death, bouncing through each screen, destroying everything in her path.  For Metroid fans, that should be reason enough to play through Return of Samus.  

The biggest pitfall of Metroid II is that it is very easy to get lost.  This can become maddening.  One innovation that had not yet been developed is the Metroidvania Map system.  Metroid II could really use it.  Because it was on game boy, there were only four shades of gray, not allowing the designers to make one section purple, one yellow, one red, like in the first Metroid. In addition to that, the designers didn't choose to create radically different textures to help distinguish one area from another.  Bubble design, of which, in the original Metroid, I was so fond, only makes it's appearance in the last 10% of the game.  

I also have to say that the music is kind of lame.  The main theme is okay, and the ambient tracks are so-so, but nothing half as cool as the haunting beeps found in Metroid I- you know the song, when you find your different power upgrades.  I had to revisit Metroid I after playing this game, and that song is still awesome.

After having played through it again, I may have to say that Return of Samus isn't as good as Metroid 1 or Super Metroid, but that's not saying a lot.  Super Metroid is, in my humble opinion, a top contender for the very best game on the Super Nintendo.  The execution of Super Metroid timely, and flawless.  Metroid 1 was so original that it's really hard to compare.  Return of Samus is caught in the middle, but I don't mind.  There were a bunch of new approaches from Return of Samus that made it into Super Metroid, so, really, I am thankful for Return of Samus because it laid further groundwork for one of my favorite games of all-time.  

Full Review: Ace Combat - Assault Horizon Legacy (3DS)

First off, my experiences with the Ace Combat franchise is somewhat limited.  I first came to this series with Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception for the PSP.  I'd never been one for air combat simulators or even arcade style games a la After Burner.  I do have a couple of air combat-type simulators but I can name those with just my right hand.........that's an expression right?  Anyway, I have Top Gun II: The Second Mission on the NES, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron on the N64 and Star Wars: Rogue Leader on the Gamecube.  The genre just never really held much of an interest for me.  Then I played ACX.

But this review is about AC:AHL, so let's get back to talking about that game.  Break it down!

Graphics

Holy crap!  The graphics are pretty amazing.  Having played two other Ace Combat games on the PSP, I was expecting something similar but not as clean and crisp.  Half the time I forget that I'm playing on the 3DS, which actually has a pseudo better screen size and resolution than the PSP (800x240 pixels vs 480x272 pixels & 32 bit color vs. 24 bit color).  The only time I feel that the game looses a bit of the graphics quality is when I'm using the after burners and the wind blowing by and the waves of heat behind the plane blur the crispness.  Basically the game looks beautiful in 2D as well as 3D, which brings us to:

3D Effectiveness

The 3D in AC:AHL looks great!  Have I used that adjective yet?  I've only played a couple of games that support 3D effects (what of it, I have a lot of DS games that I need to go through before I only start buying 3DS games) and this game, at the moment is the best looking game I've played.  I'll occasionally switch between 2D and 3D graphics  just to see what the difference is in level design and how the missions play.

For most of the game, I'll play in 3rd person view instead of the cockpit view or the HUD view, this is because I like having as much visual space around me as possible.  The cockpit view though looks fantastic in 3D and in replays, I'll switch to that visual just to look at how the cockpit glass stretches out and the control panel "comes to life," for lack of a better metaphor.

The only problems I had with the screen blurring, was when I was either trying to avoid enemy fire or trying to catch up with an enemy as they were banking around me.  During this, I would either lean in the direction I wanted to go or tilt the console.  So not a problem with the game, just being a gamer.

All in all, great us of the 3D.

Game Play

The game play is pretty similar to the previous two Ace Combat games on the PSP.  You have the standard/easy control scheme, which is what I usually play in lieu of the more complicated scheme of using the directional pad for the plane's yawl.  It's just something that I'd rather not deal with when the computer controlled opponents obviously don't have to deal with it either.

Something new in this iteration of Ace Combat is a meter in the lower right part of the screen that fills up and lets you do some sweet-ass maneuver in order to lock onto an enemy plane.  At first, I thought this was a cheap gimmick in order to "dumb down" the game for Nintendo's "younger, less advanced crowd."  I thought that at first.  Then I started using it and boy-damn is it fun and sometimes necessary, as in there are some enemies that you will never lock onto and hit with a missile if you don't use this.  In a similar vain, you can now perform defensive maneuvers in order to dodge enemy missiles.  Again, I thought it was cheap at first, but enemies use it too, so fuck it, I'm going to use it too.  It's not absolutely necessary to use the dodging technique, but again, it's fun.

About 1/4 of the way through the game, you're given the option of flying with another pilot at the cost of the points you earn from previous missions.  I like the option of having computer controlled companions since the idea of a single plane taking on and entire armada of ships (is that redundant?) and squadron of planes (again?), while is pretty heroic, is a bit far fetched.  I've yet to use this additional pilot as I don't want to spend the extra points/credits, but later when I don't care so much, or if it becomes necessary, I'll vie for one of the two options.

Aside from the main story mode, there's also a challenge setting and extra missions that lets you play levels that you've unlocked for an arcade-type game.  You play through a level that was in the main story line with some minor modifications and try to get a high score.  Scores are based on the number and types of enemies you kill, and the amount of time you took to pass the level.

So overall, the game play is what you would typically find from the Ace Combat games if you're familiar with the PSP titles, which again, are the only games in the series that I've played.  For some reason I feel like I need to mention that every so often because there's the Ace Combat Fan Boy who would say, "Nuh-uh, the controls in AC:5 were so much more fluid and more realistic, you don't know what you're talking about!  You mom's a fuckwad."

Story

The story isn't too involving, at least compared to ACX, which I found to be pretty awesome.  The story in Ace Combat: Joint Assault, which was so uninspiring that it's kept me from continually playing the game to buy additional planes.  So the story in AC:AHL is that you're part of a squadron that's trying to quell a rebellion from a government that as far as you know, is full of bad people.  Until you read some of the bios about the squadron leaders that you just shot down/killed, as in one of them has a family, children and is flying their last mission so they can settle down and retire believing that they're doing the right thing.  That's shit's harsh, but I'm still going to shoot the guy down when I replay missions.

After beating the main campaign on the easy setting (which I'll do just to see the differences in how the enemies are stacked against you in the harder difficulty levels), I found out that there was a whole intro movie that explains events leading up to the beginning of the game.  I only found this out because I hadn't pressed any buttons.  This is a pretty cool looking rendered movie with amazing graphics; in my opinion anyway.  I don't see why the movie wasn't played when you start a new game in story mode.  Just my thought.

One thing I wish was different was that when you're given the option to choose between missions, that they affect the game somehow.  As in, taking control of an enemy supply depo gives you extra count of your special weapon, or some minor change in the story.  Ultimately there is no change in how the last series of levels play regardless of which path you decide to choose.  The lack of this "option" isn't going to make me like the game any less, it's just something that I wish had been included.

Music

Apparently the music in the Ace Combat games is something to write home (or online) about.  The music in ACX wasn't so great (I turned the music off) and in AC:JA, I thought it was significantly better.  Here in AC:AHL, the music is pretty good.  I guess that's really all I can say about the music except that after beating the campaign, you're given access to the soundtrack, which I've yet to go through, but I will once the game no longer distracts me from playing it.

Final Thoughts

I think Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy is an incredibly fun and beautiful game.  Yes, it proves that blowing up enemy planes in clouds of fire and debris can be beautiful.  It has a lot of replayibility (not a word), especially since different difficulty levels with throw different enemies at you at different times or elongate a mission.  

Some reviews comment on the games short campaign, which is somewhat true.  A single playthrough on easy took me just over four hours to complete.  But that was on the easy difficulty setting, and only a single playthrough.  As with other games in the AC series, there are multiple paths to take during the campaign missions, so in order to play through all the levels on easy, it would take an additional four hours, making it eight hours for a complete run through.  But as mentioned earlier, levels change slightly depending on the difficulty setting, so four difficulty settings multiplied by eight hours a piece and now have a game that would take 32 hours.  This doesn't take into account the amount of time it would take to earn/buy all the planes, which I'm not always in the mood to try and do.  But, 32 hours to complete a game doesn't sound "short" to me, regardless of the genre.

All in all, a really fun game that was definitely worth the $19.99 I paid for it.

P.S.  And I just found out that AC:AHL is a remake of Ace Combat 2, which absolutely doesn't change my opinion of the game at all.  Except now Namco should remake all the other Ace Combat games for the 3DS.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Obligatory Top Gun Quote Goes Here