The RPG of Gods.. and demons.

When you think of an RPG, you typically think of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and other typical slaying odd creatures that, at times, look like gelatinous slime. But then there are other RPGs, like EarthBound.. oh wait. No there aren’t. Modern RPGs are a rare thing to come by, at least, from what I’ve seen. The Persona series, however, is a modern RPG.

Persona 4 takes place in a fictional town in Japan called Inaba where you, the protagonist (who you have to name), move in with your uncle Dojima and cousin Nanako. After going to school, you over hear students talking about something called the Midnight Channel. Afterwards, people start to disappear and shit goes down. Big time. Lets back up, though. At the start of the game, you’re in a limo with a long nosed fellow named Igor. Him and his buddy Charlotte tell you you’re gonna save the world, pretty much. Then they explain to you about personas (touched on later) and tell you they’ll be seeing you soon. You eventually watch the Midnight Channel (which can only be viewed at night when it’s raining) and see one of your friend’s classmates in the TV. You later find out people are being thrown into the TV! THROWN INTO A TV!!! To top that off, since the random deaths occurred, it has been noticed that the victims show up when the town begins to get foggy. The whole game is shrouded in mystery. Unless you’re really good at picking up signs from people and noticing tiny details, you’ll never guess what could happen at the end and even if you do guess, chances are you actually don’t really know. That being said, the game doesn’t get old. It always stays interesting and keeps you on your toes. That alone is a good reason to check out the game. RPGs tend to get dull and boring along the way as the story develops until the point where you eventually do care. When Persona throws feces to the fan, however, it really floors you. Twists and turns are abundant in this game, but they aren’t abundant enough to where your head is on the verge of caving in on itself. It does a good job at not overdoing anything and giving you just enough information to keep you in the dark.

In the old Persona games the world was effected by moon phases. If there was a full moon, some creatures would get stronger, but if there was a new moon, they would be weaker. In Persona 4 that is scraped and a weather system is put in place. In my opinion, this is much easier to keep track of. Having played Persona on PSP, it is a chore and easy to forget the moon in the upright corner

An example of the weather system.

of your screen when you’re more focused on getting out of a dungeon and surviving. Yeah, it may sound like I’m bitching that the game isn’t holding my hand. That’s not what I’m getting at. Lets say you need to save someone before the fog sets in. It’s ESSENTIAL to beating the game that you check the weather and keep your outside social interactions as limited as possible so you don’t have someone die on you. Whereas with the moon, it’s not essential. You don’t have to check it over and over again to make sure it’s waxing or waning. By implementing a system like this, Persona 4 drags you deeper into the game, adding even a bigger sense of immersion. You need to be focused in the world of Inaba in order to accomplish the tasks at hand.

The main gameplay is something of a hybrid between a dating sim, dungeon crawler and classic RPG turn-based combat. As you walk around the different places in Inaba, you can talk NPCs (non-playable characters), school mates and friends who you eventually start to make social links with. As you talk to them, you’re given choices of what you want to say and depending on what you say can affect a variety of things. The conversation mechanics in this game are not what you find in a usual game. Lets say you’ve been reading up a book you bought at the bookstore and it focuses on being manly. If you choose to go to your room, sit on the love seat and read, your courage will increase. By increasing your courage, you are given more options when in social situations. If you don’t have enough courage and go to say something that takes more, the game warns that you need more and you can’t say it without improving your stats. That’s just one example of the depth it goes to. Along with courage, there’s also knowledge, understanding, expression and diligence. All of these stats can be boosted in multiple ways. By reading books, saying certain things in conversation and by doing odd jobs.

Your social stats.

Also by strengthening social links with some key characters (the girls) you can establish a relationship with them. You can even have as many girlfriends as you want. There’s no perks included in doing this, it’s just for fun. They don’t even act like they’re your girlfriend aside from being pretty clingy and wanting to hang out all the time. Also by maxing out your social links, their personas change.

Okay so that’s the whole dating sim part of the game. Next is the dungeon crawling. It’s exactly what you think it is. You walk around a dungeon in 3rd person view with your party tailing behind you and you whack shadows on the head, trying to hit them first to get a preemptive strike. What are shadows? Shadows are the demon assholes in the TV who are trying to kill you… because you’re in the TV. Usually they’re purple but some are gold, denoting that they’re rare and usually much more powerful than you. This is one of my favorite aspects of the game. I really can’t stand playing an RPG where I take two steps and I’m in a battle, kill, victory, two more steps, battle. It drives me insane. In Persona 4, though, you can see where your enemies are and take advantage of that. You can walk around them if you like, you can fight them head on, or you can run away in fear that they’ll demolish whatever is left of your HP. Typically you’ll start on the bottom floor and either work your way up or down depending on what kind of dungeon you’re in. Each dungeon is themed around whoever was last thrown into the TV that you’re trying to save. For example: Yosuke’s dungeon (really it’s Saki’s, but eh) is themed after Inaba, but more so a store his parents used to run where he met Saki at. *I COULD BE WRONG ABOUT THIS* That’s how they go. They’re about ten floors long, but some are shorter. Each time you leave the dungeon and enter it again, the floors have changed. From my playthrough, they were never the same paths that I had taken last time. The exit and chests were all in different places. This could either be exciting or frustrating as hell depending on how well your stats are. That doesn’t stop it from being fun, though.

So you ran into a shadow. Good job. Now you’re fighting it. WHOA! It’s not a Ghastly or a Muk anymore! The shadows in this game are WEIRD looking. Some of them are disturbing and others are funny. Anyway, so now you’re going to kill this shadow. Great! Just like a typical RPG would have, there’s options to hit it with whatever weapon you’ve equipped, use an item, run away, or use a persona. Personas are the demons and gods in your heart, according to the game. What you’ll see them as are cards that hold magic power allowing you to crush enemies faster than using a sword or a golf club. Every character has their own persona each

A shadow with his stats shown.

with their own different elemental specialties. Some enemies are weak to elements, so you can put two and two together. Think of it kind of like Pokemon. As you beat enemies, a random event called Shuffle Time may appear, which will preview to you some cards either holding a persona, a blank circle or a penalty card. The cards then flip over, spin, and you press X to choose a card. It’s mind numbingly easy to get the card you want, but you will be hoping for Shuffle Time a lot. If you opt to use a persona in battle and guess the enemies weakness, they’ll fall down, rendering them useless. If all the enemies fall down, you can activate an all-out attack, where all the enemies strike with their equipped weapons at the same time on all the enemies for additional damage. Usually these are one hit kills and save a lot of time in battle. Sometimes, though, your characters will ask you to let them “take care” of an enemy. Basically they want to kick the shit out of it themselves. You can let them do this or cancel it and then attack again. Here’s some more shit about personas. Fusion.

Fusion is a huge part of this game even if it doesn’t seem like it. It could either save your life or end you. Basically it’s like this: you go to the velvet room, you talk to Igor and choose to fusion some personas. When you do this, you make other personas that otherwise can’t be obtained just by getting the card in Shuffle Time. Also depending on the Arcana of the card, you can make

An example of the beauty of fusion: Black Frost. He is of great help if you get him.

certain personas of another Arcana. It’s really in-depth and I can’t be assed to even touch half of the shit you can possibly do with this combining of gods and demons. Just know that you need to do it.

There’s nothing like a great video game soundtrack, right? You don’t want to play a fortress of Bowser in Mario to One Winged Angel. Well, maybe you do, but it doesn’t seem as fitting as it does when taking on Sephiroth. The music in Persona 4 by Shoji Meguro is outstanding. The atmosphere swept in by the music just can’t be compared to anything else. One second the music can be happy bell chimes and the next it’s a disturbing piano melody that flips a switch in your head to tell you this game isn’t joking around anymore. Time to get serious. When a game can take a piece of music and strategically place it in multiple situations, using it over and over again to bring you into the same sense of insecurity or safety, it means it’s doing something right. By not being annoyed from the same sounds repeatedly shows that the soundtrack isn’t your regular every day music. This absolutely goes for Persona 4. The J-Pop sounding anthems of Heartbeat, Heartbreak, Your Affection, and the opening, Pursuing my True Self bring in the modern feel to the game. If these songs were to remain instrumental I know there wouldn’t be the same sense of feeling there. It would be too much like what you’d expect from a traditional RPG or a Final Fantasy title. It adds something different. When I first heard Reach out to the Truth in my first battle, I knew instantly I would never tire of the song and I still don’t. The chords, the vocals, the drums, the overall empowering sense of the song gives you that feeling like “Oh yeah! It’s time to kick some shadow ASS!” Easily one of the best video game soundtracks I’ve ever heard. Also, the voice acting is pretty damn good. That by itself is saying a lot for a dubbed game.

The graphics are nothing to brag about. It’s PS2, after all, and while there are some really good looking games on PS2, this isn’t one of them, but it’s done on purpose. I can’t rag on someone that doesn’t look spectatular when the goal of it is to bring in an anime styled look. For what it is, it looks great. The world can be bright and colorful or dark and murky. Both ways don’t take away from the feel, though. The mugshots of the characters as they talk are pretty funny at times as well. I don’t really have anything to praise the game for and I don’t have anything to hate on about, either.

That’s about all I have to say for this game. It’s a really great experience and, well, the only thing I can think of coming close to it that I also loved was EarthBound. I recommend both of those titles, but for a cheaper option, Persona 4 works just fine.

Verdict:
+ Story is amazing
+ Caring about the characters helps.. a lot.
+ Soundtrack is.. uh.. amazing.
+ The final boss music.
= You need to grind at times
- Enemies get stupid hard out of nowhere in some dungeons

ASS KICKIN' TIME!

Prelude

Mega Man has always been a difficult series for me to write about, mostly because I’m horrible at them and I was pretty sure that would never change no matter what. Good thing I was wrong and started getting good at this load of platforming shit.  To some, Mega Man is like jumping over very far spread hurdles. It’s easy, right? To others, it’s like jumping 8 hurdles at a time back to back to back to back to back. This is the case for me, at least. Bosses rape me, spit on me, shit fire on my face and teabag me after they’re through with my corpse. Does that sound like fun? That’s the kicker. It is fun. Somehow, getting your ass handed to you is fun. That’s the glory of Mega Man X, and I’m about to walk you through my experience with it.

Long ago when I was younger, like I mentioned in my Earthbound talk and around the same time I was introduced to Earthbound, I was also introduced to this doozy. Mega Man X. When I first saw the title screen I was practically blown away just at the awesome soundtrack, the atmosphere it provided and the look of that bad ass blue bomber ready to kick some ass! Watching Ethan shoot everything in sight, charging up the blaster cannon and defeating a fat penguin continued to cave in my poor little mind. It was just too awesome for me to take in. I knew this game would be the coolest thing I ever played and I would look awesome while playing it.

Well I was horribly wrong.

Not only did this game disfigure me emotionally, but it also pounded the crap out of my ego. I was terrible. Terrible doesn’t even define how bad I was at this game. I struggled on Chill Penguin is a great way to describe it. Let’s face it, if you struggle on Chill Penguin, you’re just not cut out to play Mega Man.

Years later, here I am getting into Mega Man all over again and I had to beat this game. It ate away at my soul until I cured it by disassembling each robot master with my powerful cannon from Hell! They loved every. Single. Second. It was a really great feat for me, honestly, since beating a childhood game you could never beat when you were younger always brings this other sense of satisfaction alongside the comfort of even beating a difficult game.  It was easier than I remembered from years ago, though that’s the most case with games, anyway. Well, now that you know my life story, here’s what I thought.

Mega Man X

Disclaimer: I played this on an emulator. I do own the original cartridge, but wanted to enjoy the higher resolution of my computer monitor. If that’s a problem, sorry. I see no problem with emulation at all.

Just looking at this screen is a complete nostalga blast.

This game was amazing from start to finish. It is a nonstop adrenaline rush with action constantly throwing itself at you. For me, this defines what a Mega Man game needs to be. It isn’t overly difficult and it isn’t too easy where it’s just not fun to play. It’s a challenge and it takes dedication, a decent memory, and the internet to find everything and use it to your full potential. (Seriously, I would have never thought to even jump off that platform on Storm Eagle’s stage to get the heart tank without the internet).

You start off on a stage that leads up to the introduction of Vile. It allows you to get a feel for what the controls are like and what kind of enemies you will be encountering as you progress through the game. After that, you’re brought to the robot master screen. The tricky thing about Mega Man is the order of the robot masters, in my opinion. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to guess which master you should start off with.  You have
Launch Octopus
Chill Penguin
Flame Mammoth
Boomerang Kuwanger
Sting Chameleon
Spark Mandrill
Storm Eagle
and Armored Armadillo. The best one to start off with is Chill Penguin. He carries an essential upgrade for your armor and has a very easy stage to get through. He himself is easy, too, when you learn his very basic patterns. After that, you may think Flame Mammoth would be the boss that’s weak against Chill Penguin’s Shotgun Ice, since he’s fire, or at least that’s what I thought. Turns out the next boss you should fight is Spark Mandrill. However, if you do go to Flame Mammoth’s stage, you will find that the lava has frozen over since you beat Chill Penguin first. This happens a lot depending on who you fight in what order. Beating Storm Eagle before Spark Mandrill will cause Spark’s stage’s lights to flicker on and off and the orbs of electricity that flow through the glass floor at the beginning of the stage are nonexistent, as the glass is shattered. This is a really neat touch that Capcom put that I’ve never seen done by anything else.

That’s really all the game is, though. Fighting robot masters and gaining their powers to use against the other masters to take them out easier, and ultimately take out Sigma. At first, I thought Vile was the boss of the game, since he’s the first guy that shows up in the beginning of the game. Turns out, however, Sigma is the main boss and Vile is just some asshole robot trying to stop you from getting to Sigma. This is also the introduction of Zero, who I always thought looked like a chick. There was plenty of confusion surrounding this game when I was younger, but I kind of get it now. I at least get the main point that my goal is to destroy Sigma and that’s what matters. The other things you do is collect armor pieces, heart tanks to extend your health, and sub-tanks, so if you’re in danger of dying, you can use it to completely restore your health. There’s a lot of collecting in this game and it’s completely optional aside from the leg upgrade, since you need to dash in order to get through some of the stages. It’s more rewarding to see X in his full armor, though, rather than just his legs, and they are very helpful as you progress through the game. The head upgrade breaks blocks, but other than that, it’s useless. The chest upgrade makes any damage you take cut in half, and the arm upgrade makes your buster gun much more powerful on full charge. However, if you skip the arm upgrade and wait until you’re in Sigma’s third palace, you can get Zero’s arm upgrade, which is even more powerful. It’s not easy, though. Sigma’s Palace is definitely a trial of skill. Mega Man veterans more than likely wouldn’t have an issue with it, though.

As Mega Man X usually stares out into the night sky, you pat yourself on the back for being so awesome.

Epilogue

Even though this is considered one of the easiest, if not the easiest Mega Man games, it’s incredibly enjoyable and is a great way to just kill some time or make challenges for yourself. The soundtrack is very enjoyable and gets you pumped up for some Maverick ass kicking. The other X soundtracks seem weak in comparison, to be honest.  I love this game, and putting the frustrations aside, it’s a perfect example of what makes Mega Man so much fun and worthwhile. It’s Mega Man done perfectly. It manages to not overly frustrate the player. Instead, it leaves you with a feeling that you need to carry on with your duty. There aren’t many games that can really do that.

Verdict:

+It’s really really fun.

+Not overly challenging.

+Great introduction title for newcomers.

-Can be frustrating.

-Sigma’s final form is pretty damn hard.

Hopefully if anyone was wondering about the X series, this helped or if you’re already a fan, this reminded you how much you love it.

Recently I’ve been getting into the Final Fantasy series. I don’t have a reason at all. It just all of a sudden popped into my head that I should be playing Final Fantasy. I’m sure the release of XIII didn’t help anything, but that’s not even what I’m playing or interested in playing. I’m going back, actually, to the classic Final Fantasy games. right now I’m playing Final Fantasy IV, VII, and VIII. I’m caught up on all of them, though. I just started VIII, I’d been playing VII for awhile, but quit it and IV looks like it’s next on my ditched list. This always happens to me. All the fucking time. I just can’t seem to get myself to stick with a game, but this time I’m really trying. I’m going to progress in VIII and IV as best I can.

However, there’s a problem that seems to have come out of absolutely fucking nowhere.

Mother 3.

I remember being a kid–I had to have been around 8 years old at the time. I had a best friend who lived across the street from me. His name was Ethan. Well, Ethan had a Super Nintendo, something I didn’t have when I was growing up. (My first system was a SEGA Genesis and my next was a PS1.) He had a great library of games. Mega Man X, X-Men Mutant Apocalypse (I think that’s the name of it) and some others, but the one that sticks out in my mind the most out of all of those is also my favorite game in the entire world.

EarthBound.

Wow. Look at that box. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before, right? A giant golden…thing for lack of any other kind of description you could give it (it’s called a Super Deluxe Starman) just gleaming at you with Ness’s face reflecting from it’s visor. Say no more, EarthBound. You’ve successfully drawn me into your trap!

The first time I saw anything of this game was actually watching Ethan beat the end of it. I already knew what was going to happen, but there were so many questions to be answered. Why was Pokey in the Devil’s machine? Who the hell was that swirling red guy? What’s with his dialogue? How did you get so damn powerful?! All these questions just pushed me, screamed at me to play this video game. Once Ethan was done with it, I borrowed it from him and my life was changed forever.

You’re Ness. You might know him from Super Smash Bros. Well, this is the game he’s from. It’s the year 199X and you’re sleeping peacefully in your bed, in your house, which resides in Onett, a part of Eagleland, when out of NO WHERE a METEOR crashes into the cliffs by your house! HOLY SHIT! So you get out of your bed, because as a kid, you’re curious and you want to know what’s going on, right? When you were 9 did you just accept something for what it was? No, you wanted to know what was going on, and that’s already part of the beauty of EarthBound. You’re playing as a child. Someone who is still pure and curious and adventurous. It’s like the game transfers Ness’s curiosity to you and it takes a part of you. Anyway, skipping ahead, you go back to the meteor site with Pokey to find his brother Picky, when a flying bug comes out of the meteor and tells you you’re destined to save the world from Giygas. The bug, who calls himself Buzz-Buzz, is from the future, where Giygas has already taken rule. Weird shit starts happening in the present, already a foreshadow of Giygas’s powers in effect. Dogs, crows, hippies and taxi cabs are all trying to kill your ass. It’s just even more charm that goes into EarthBound.

Another one of the greatest things about this game, aside from the story, is the setting of the game. It’s an RPG. It’s not what you’d expect at all from an RPG. You’re a kid with a baseball bat who is later joined by a girl who wields a frying pan. Typically, you’d expect them to have swords, shields, and summoning giant dragons to set every enemy they run into on fire. Also, remember that the enemies are dogs, crows, people and even inanimate objects like vehicles as opposed to goblins, dark knights and wizards. Instead of drinking potions and using phoenix downs you use hamburgers, fries and a cup of life noodles. EarthBound takes an amazing modern stance instead of the typical medieval times. There’s a ton of enemies like this and there’s wacky environments everywhere, I could really just go on and on, but I’d rather not type out a whole book about it.

Usually when you play an RPG, you make an effort to talk to everyone in the game, since they might know something you need to know or they could trigger an event of some sort. In EarthBound, you WANT to talk to people. It’s not because you have to, it’s because they say some damn crazy shit. In Twoson, when you get to Happy Happy Village to go fight Carpainter, when you talk to a receptionist at the desk, all he does is scream. Then he explains that he couldn’t think of anything else to say. It’s hilarious and unexpected. The game just doesn’t take itself overly serious. While the story is a bit serious, the majority of the NPCs in the game are just living their lives and being ridiculous all while you’re trying to save their asses from being overtaken by evil. Seriously, the dialogue is well written and it makes talking to everyone a lot more bareable.

One of the best things about EarthBound is the music. My god, if this isn’t one of the greatest soundtracks you’ve ever heard, there’s seriously something not right with you. There are so many different styles incorporated into this unworldly collection of sounds. You’ve got reggae, rock, electronica, noise, even the Giygas’s theme is heavy metal. There’s just no way you can go wrong with this soundtrack. It also adds an amazing sense of atmosphere to what you’re playing. When the music is serious, that’s when shit is serious, but most of the time it’s just loony sounds that lure you in. It’s hard not to catch yourself humming them or getting them stuck in your head from time to time. When I got my own copy of the game for my 16th birthday, the first thing I did was walk into Onett after the sun rose and listened to the loop of the town’s theme for an hour. It’s just a perfect sound for that game. There’s no other way I can describe it.

Lastly, the ending. When you finally beat the game, you have the option to go around to the different places you’ve visited and talk to the people you’ve come across to see how they’ve changed since you’ve defeated Giygas. It’s a really powerful moment when you have conversations with them. You really feel like you’ve saved the world and people are actually happy that you’ve done something for them. Places close down, people thank you and allies (like a talking rock), die… or really just turn into a normal-not-talking-rock. You get the idea. It’s just a great feeling and that’s what playing a video game is all about. That sense of reward and satisfaction of overcoming obstacles and winning. Ah.

There was finally a sequel. Mother 3. It wasn’t released in the states, but there is a translated patch of it on the Internet and I’ve been having it for quite sometime now. As much as I enjoyed EarthBound, I figured I would enjoy this a lot, too, but I haven’t really gotten around to actually playing it. Now, for whatever reason, I want to play this very badly. I want to just start and not stop, but I don’t know when that will happen. Hopefully soon enough, because from what I’ve read, this game is just as good as the predecessor.

I hope they’re right.

—————-
Now playing: Grateful Dead – Truckin’
via FoxyTunes

Getting this game was me trying to prove to myself that Modern Warfare 2 was crap. Everyone said it was, the multiplayer is not balanced, all that junk. So, I went in thinking it was a CoD killer. First of all, the single player mode is without a doubt a CoD killer. It was much more interesting, the acting was great and the action was there. It wasn’t explosions everywhere, stealing Model 1887s from terrorists and destroying their faces with it. It was more real war feeling.

That brings me to the sound. The sound design is AMAZING. It really just immerses you into hearing what you’d expect to hear in a battlefield. I can’t really go into more detail than what the official GameSpot reviews have said, but explosions, your footsteps, guns firing, shouting from the distance, it just all really makes you feel like you’re there. It definitely makes a unique atmosphere.

As awesome as this looks is as awesome as it feels.

Multiplayer is really, really where this game shines. Modern Warfare 2 has a lot of unlockables and challenges, and that does make it very fun and it does make you want to play more and more. Bad Company 2, however, has a much more rewarding feel when you unlock, level up and win a match with your team. That’s just what the game was meant to do. It makes you feel like you’re part of a team and teamwork is essential if you want to win and gain experience. Leveling up does take a lot of time, though, from what I’ve experienced. I know I’m not the greatest player in the world, but at times it does seem like it’s kind of slow. Like I mentioned before though, there is a great sense of reward and satisfaction when you see the insignia drop on your screen, notifying you you’ve gained another level. It’s also exciting to see a gun do the same thing, as you unlock different weapons for different classes. The classes, by the way, are all very fun to play. My personal favorite is the engineer, but be prepared to find out soon that there sure are a lot of recon lovers out there. Snipers are plentiful in this game, so you have to be careful where you step. Also, it’s good to take notice to what class your squad is playing as. For the love of god, don’t be a sniper if your entire squad is consisted of snipers. You’re not helping the team and you’re not helping each other. If you need a medic, BE A MEDIC. Don’t be selfish with your class choosing. If you help your team mates, you’ll win, get more experience, level up and feel better for it. They will thank you.

Closing points:

• ALWAYS SPOT!!!! This is VERY important! All you have to do is get an enemy/vehicle in your sights and press the “back” button. It notifies your entire team where the enemy is, allowing them to advance on them and take them out. Not a lot of people do this, so don’t be one of those!

• BE HELPFUL. Like I said, please pick a class that isn’t already chosen by the majority of your teammates, or more specifically, your squad. Also keep in mind that this isn’t Free-for-All. This is a team based game. Play like a team, play like your on a team.

Verdict:
+ Awesome campaign

+ Multiplayer is mind-blowingly addicting and fun once you get into it.

+Being a part of a squad makes you feel like you’re always playing with bros.

= Leveling takes awhile if you’re new.

- Can be sort of off putting to new comers.

- Most people don’t spot. Ugh.

That’s it. Hope you enjoyed my pretty short review of this awesome game.

Also, I’ve been playing a lot of Modern Warfare 2. The multiplayer is fun, but I’m still shit at it, so you know, I’ve not got much to say on that but I’m glad I have it. It’s a great purchase even if it’s just for the multiplayer aspect.

I refuse to show the box art, as it is an abomination to humankind.

I remember being a kid and finding this game around the trailor we used to live in and thinking, “Oh man look at the box art it’s so bad ass!! Wow!!” So I put it in the console and I immediately am drawn in by the music. It’s so bouncy and fun sounding, and then you hit start and whoa!!! you’re in this crazy world where there’s giant chests filled with goals and cars trying to run over you whoa!!!!!!! I figure I’m gonna drop kick this car! BAD ASS!!! Wait… huh? Alex turned into an angel and died… Maybe I did something wrong. OKAY I’M GONNA PUNCH THIS CAR YEAH!! Wait… his punch was too slow?

As great and fun as this game as, it’s a pain in the ass. It really is one of the hardest games I’ve ever played and beaten. You take one hit from an enemy, you’re dead. So you better plan out your attacks very well. There’s about 10 stages in all to get through. If you use save states like I did (Sonic Ultimate Genesis Collection), then you’ll get through it in 30 minutes, maybe even less. If you start all the way back over a million times like you would have had to back in 1989, well, it would take hours. I’m don’t want to compare this game to something like Super Mario Bros. where you have to start all over or Battletoads where the slightest mistake is your doom, but that’s basically what this game is. Mario + Battletoads = Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle. If you don’t mind starting over every now and then, you’ll be fine, but if you do, oh man, you are going to be one pissed off individual.

The main premise of the game is to find your father. To do this, you have to beat villains at rock-paper-scissors. Yeah, I don’t get that, either. When you enter a level there are usually buildings with doorways. You go in and you… play rock-paper-scissors for an item. But you have to pay to play! The guy you fight is always this blue guy who looks like Dhalsim a little. Anyway, he asks you if you’re willing to risk your life. If you lose, you don’t die, though. So why is he asking me that? If you win, you get the item, but you need to look up on the internet what the hell it does or else you’ll be totally clueless. There’s no description or anything.

The final boss is this many armed creature who challenges you to rock-paper-scissors. You have to beat him twice, then he goes apeshit and starts launching his arms at you. It’s the easiest boss fight I’ve ever encountered in such a hard game. The ending is also really… bland. If I had not used save states or played this when I was a kid, I probably would have gotten satisfaction from the ending, butI just ended up thanking God this was over.

Verdict:

+ It’s got amazing music

+ Alex Kidd is one of the coolest designs ever

= Challenging, but kinda worth it

- Ending sucks

- - GOD the ending sucks

I like this game, I really do, but it does have it’s obvious flaws that really started to piss me off toward the end. Great to just play if you’re bored, though.

I figured hey, it’s about that time I post again, so here I am posting. I just picked up one of my favorite RPGs growing up: Dark Cloud.

Doesn't the cover art make you go "that's awesome!" ?

Honestly from the bottom of my heart I can say that this game just has the exact RPG elements I like. There are some times when I just bust out laughing at some of the dialogue. Example: This old woman is in her house, I come in to ask her how she would like me to rebuild the city and she goes, “Oh, you scared me. Didn’t see ya there.” For whatever reason, this made me laugh very hard. It sounds like something someone would actually say if you were to walk in their house, unbeknown to them, and they knew you of course. Anyway, if you’re reading this and you don’t know how Dark Cloud operates, you’re probably wondering why I said “rebuild the city”.  See, Dark Cloud derives it’s title from the main bad guy, a giant purple genie who enjoys fucking everything up. At the beginning of the game he eats this fat guy that we never get to really know and then he just starts destroying random places that seem to mean something to people. Anyway, of course your town is having a festival at the time and would you look at that? A damn Dark Genie appears. After he’s done screwing your town completely over, you’re standing in the middle of an empty field. Everything is gone. Your mom, your friends, your neighbors, everything. You would think this would have some sort of traumatic effect on the child on this game, but nope. His face really shows nothing about caring. That’s hardcore, man. Long story short, a fairy king (gay) comes and tells you that it’s your job to rebuild all the places that got destroyed to your liking (not gay) and you do this by going in dungeons and destroying monsters one by one. This gets a little tedious as you don’t know which monster holds the key to open the door to go to the next floor. Oh, did I mention you have to do this, eh, about fourteen or so times? Oh and guess what, sometimes the floors have no purpose other than being complete pains in the ass.  Aside from your sword occasionally breaking that you spent hours upgrading to make it perfect and now you have to start all over with a shitty fragile sword, the game is amazing. Not only is rebuilding the places very fun and gets you playing more and more but just the whimsical music and the characters just really draw you in and make you feel like you’re a part of the world and like this really means something. Honestly, when I play this game it makes me feel like I’m watching a movie. I love it.

That’s all I’ve been doing as of late. School is drawing near a close so I will be catching up on some games while that’s going on. Also, be sure to look around during Christmas because I will be detailing Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection as I go through and try my best to beat every SEGA Genesis game in that entire disk!

Really, really sorry for the lack of updates. There’s just not been much to post as of late aside from Black Friday deals (which actually all happen to suck. Go figure) so I’m going to try to get this blog running again.

Doorbusters marked with *

Computer Accessories
HP OfficeJet J4680 Wireless All-in-One Printer – $49.99 *
HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 All-in-One Printer – $139.99 *
Logitech Cordless Desktop Wave Combo – $39.99
Logitech QuickCam Pro Webcam – $49.99
Logitech V220 Optical Wireless Mouse – $9.99 *
Logitech Z13 Speaker System – $29.99
Microsoft Lifecam VX-5000 Webcam – $9.99 *
Microsoft Mobile 300 Mouse (Pink) – $4.99 *

Computers
Acer Aspire One 10.1″ Netbook w/ 1GB RAM, 160GB HD, Windows XP – $149.99 *
Compaq Presario Dual-Core Desktop w/ 3GB RAM, 500GB HD, Windows 7 – $239.99 *
Toshiba L505-S5998 T4300 4GB RAM, 320GB HD Notebook – $399.99

Digital Cameras
Kodak Z950 12 Megapixel Digital Camera – $149.99
Nikon L20 10 Megapixel Digital Camera – $79.99
Olympus X905 10MP Digital Camera – $49.99 *

Digital Media Cards
Olympus 2GB xD Memory Card – $4.99
Sandisk 4GB microSD Memory Card – $7.99
Sandisk 4GB Secure Digital High Capacity Card – $4.99
Sandisk 8GB Secure Digital High Capacity Card – $19.99

Electronics
Memorex 7″ Widescreen Portable DVD Player – $29.99 *
Memorex Micro Speaker System for iPod – $11.99
Sungale 7″ Widescreen Digital Photo Frame – $29.99 *
Verizon 100 Cordless Phone w/ 2 Handsets – $19.99

Hard Drives
Seagate 1TB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive – $79.99
Seagate 500GB Portable USB 2.0 Hard Drive – $59.99
Seagate FreeAgent Docking Station – $19.99

Portable USB Storage
Sandisk 32GB Cruzer USB 2.0 Flash Drive – $49.99

Printers
Epson Artisan 710 All-in-One Wireless Printer – $79.99 *
Epson Artisan 810 Color Photo Printer – $169.99 *
Epson WorkForce 30 Color Inkjet Printer – $39.99 *
HP OfficeJet 6500 Wireless All-in-One Printer – $99.99 *
Samsung 3175FW Color Laser All-in-One Printer – $199.99 *

Software
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 Software – $49.99
Adobe Premiere Elements 8 Software – $49.99
Microsoft Office Home & Student (w/ New PC Purchase) – $49.99 *
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade – $99.99
Norton 360 Standard 3.0 Software – $29.99
Norton AntiVirus 2010 (w/ New PC Purchase) – $9.99*
Video Games
Batman – The Video Game (Nintendo DS) – 50% Off
Batman – The Video Game (Xbox 360) – 50% Off
Indiana Jones – The Original Adventure (Nintendo DS) – 50% Off
Indiana Jones – The Original Adventure (XBox 360) – 50% Off
Star Wars – The Complete Saga (XBox 360) – 50% Off

Thanks to Gizmodo for that list. You can check out other upcoming Black Friday info when it comes at out at blackfriday.info

Are you serious…?

I’ve recently picked up beatmania IIDX again since the newest style, EMPRESS, has just been released. This is an incredibly solid title and is the best style to date, hands down, no questions about it. With 200 songs spanning over two disks, it’s really hard to go wrong with this version. It’s also the last version to be put on PS2, which is why so many songs have been included with it. The main EMPRESS disk has every song new to that style along with about 28 revivals from previous iterations. Some of the old charts got some touch ups as well as black anothers added to them.  There are a lot of black another charts on this game. At least 40. The only downside, in my opinion, is the customization is really lacking here. The frames are basically all the same and just have recolors of the first unlockable frame. There is a lot of menu music, however, which is nice to an extent.  I mean there’s like every single menu song from all the old styles except the extra stage ones.  It’s a really great game. I like it a lot.

Besides IIDX, I’ve also been playing more ODST. I’m getting a little frustrated with it due to me sucking incredibly hard at finding bullets around the map. I also can’t seem to find the health packs in time so that I don’t die incredibly fast. This usually results in hardcore rape by enemies. I’ve some how made it to the end of the game and am really looking forward to beating it just to say I have. The game isn’t bad at all, but the campaign could have been longer and the game’s price should probably be $40 new. You get a lot for what you pay for (Firefight mode, all Halo 3 multiplayer maps, and a whole ‘nother campaign) but Firefight has no matchmaking. Why? What’s the point of that? Not all my friends have this game and I really don’t care for playing split screen very much… I don’t get it.

As far as the Pokethon goes, I’m in a bit of a rut. I’m at Victory Road on Sapphire and I do not feel like battling every damn trainer I run into. I just want to fight the Elite Four, man. I’ll eventually pick up Pokemon Pinball: R&S eventually and catch the rest of the Pokemon that’s left. I think there’s about 100 left to catch. After those two I’ll pick up Pokemon Stadium and beat all the cups and 1st place every mini-game. That’s all I have lined up for the Pokethon so far, but I’m looking forward to moving on with it.

For Halloween, though I will be doing my first playthrough of the Resident Evil remake for GameCube. I’ll most likely start late Oct. 30th and pick it up again midday the 31st. Hope all goes according to plan.

If this doesn't creep you out...

What can I say? Here we have a robot Donald that I assume will be helping out Mickey through out his adventure in a wasteland filled with people who want to kill him. When I first saw this my immediate reaction was “If I saw that at night I’d probably kill myself out of fear.” It looks like something straight out of Bioshock if Disney were to make it.

So here’s the story. Mickey Mouse is not Walt Disney’s first cartoon character. Oswald the Lucky (or not so much) Rabbit is. As you can guess, Oswald didn’t fair so well in comparison to Mickey and he was forgotten. Now he wants to get back at Mickey for stealing his thunder and is now enacting his revenge by putting him in the barren wasteland of forgotten cartoons. Armed with a paintbrush and the ability to manipulate this world, Mickey sets out to set things straight.

I have to say it seems like there is going to be a lot of time and effort put into this game. Being a Wii exclusive will definitely hurt this title since it won’t touch base with the hardcore gamer community (not to say there aren’t hardcore Wii gamers [even though that sound silly]) and from comments I’ve read on various sites, those people want it.  There really isn’t much to say, though. It takes a Fable approach in the sense you can be a total dickhead and kill everyone or you can be the nice Mickey that everyone loves and your appearance, as well as the game, changes with you.

Here’s a list of the characters noted in GI:

Mickey (The Hero)

• Oswald (The Ass)

• The Gremlins (Helpers)

• The Bunny Kids (Ass’s Kids)
• The Buddies (Like Donald)

• Blotings (Phantom Blot’s Grunts)
• The Mad Doctor (Self explanitory)

• The Phantom Blot (I’m assuming he’s on the cover)
• Beetleworx (Things to just hit around)

Going through this list, it seems there’s only four characters that were actually in Disney cartoons while the others are just there to give you something to do. That’s a bit of a shame, but we’ll see how this game ends up.

Sorry for not all the characters having pictures. If you can find some, send me an e-mail at scr3amsquad@gmail.com
A cool little side note: it was this image that gave Warren Spector (game developer) the idea to do this game.