I’m always thrilled to spot a Nintendo game for cheap at the shops. Metroid Prime Pinball was a real breath of fresh air, bringing back the Prime sensibilities in some small way to clear away the feeling I got from Other M. But that wasn’t why I bought it, just a nice side effect.
The game I probably played the most in my childhood was, oddly enough, Pokemon Pinball for the GBC. Pinball resonates with me even if I rarely ever had the chance with an actual table. It had been a while and I’m actually close to beating every Metroid game, since there aren’t too many. I’m glad I picked it up, even if it’s really short. So short in fact that hungry for more pinball content I emulated Mario Pinball Land, the previous pinball game Fuse had done for Nintendo, not willing to wait for the VC release.
The two games are surprisingly different. Mario is more like an adventury Mario game, while Metroid hews a bit closer to the aesthetic of a physical pinball table. In Mario, you go through single GBA screens in an interconnected area, accomplishing a simple task on each screen to get a star, while also collecting powerups and coins. It’s a very different take on a pinball game, with secret entrances to new screens, roaming enemies and boss fights, and a persistent story, of a kind. You can even continue progress in the adventure if you lose all your balls, the focus is less on the score attack. It’s like if Super Mario 64 was pinball-based.
Metroid, on the other hand, also has a story but plays out more like a pinball machine. There’s different boards but each one covers just the DS’s two screens. You are trying to re-enact the story of Metroid Prime mostly, completing a series of pinball table-like tasks to advance to a new area. It has bosses and enemies too, but a bit more modular. I love the liberties it takes though, doing things a real pinball table would never be able to do, like when Samus suddenly stands up and starts shooting bugs that are coming her way.
Metroid is really great, a well-tuned pinball experience with a goal and an adventure along the way. Mario is a bit less focused, with a sprawling world unlike a traditional pinball experience, with many secrets and actually a lot of accuracy required, not to mention trial and error and persistence. Yeah it’s hard but in a less fun way than Metroid. I preferred the DS offering, it seems a better crafted game, not to mention the subject matter. That’s not to say that Mario didn’t try interesting things with the pinball formula and gave a unique experience. It’s too bad Fuse has parted ways with Nintendo for now, maybe Jupiter (the developer of the three Pokemon pinball games) can take some time off Picross, and take another franchise to the table. Kirby’s had his shot… Donkey Kong Pinball, anyone?
Here it is, the last Avatar game. But guess what, I got one of the Wii ones in a bargain bin so there’s more to come! Haha! This game, unlike the previous two DS installments, was developed by Halfbrick, an Australian studio subsequently responsible for iOS hits such as Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride. They did the first two Avatar games on GBA but the console generation cycle bumped the GBA out of the running and I guess bumped these guys up to DS. Bumped out were the RPG gameplay and the spritework, to be replaced by a stage-based isometric puzzle platformer rendered in 3D.
The comparisons to the DS Zelda are very easy to see. Mostly stylus controls, super deformed art style (although there’s precedent for that in the Avatar franchise), the early 3D polygon look. There’s less combat though and more using bending to solve puzzles in the environment. Much more, in fact, which is welcome after the limited interaction in the last two DS games. As I said, the structure is also level-based, with collectibles to find so you can go back and do it again better. Each is based on an episode, with many skipped of course. Each one also gives you a unique pairing of two characters to use, who have their own skills.
Between levels we have delightful little cutscenes. No voices but some very amusing bits of written dialogue with some visual humour and expression on their huge faces. The collectibles I mentioned are used to unlock characters and costumes exclusively for a volleyball minigame that can be played by DS Download Play (I heard you could use costumes in levels but couldn’t get it to work). It’s not the best motivation for completion but seeing those characters in the cute chibi style was almost worth it.
It’s just so strange to have this game (which is admittedly pretty quality) come after two games in the completely different, more serious, RPG style, especially when the second was bulding well on the first. The shift in gameplay and art style is very jarring, but hey if it gave them the chance to do something interesting with the Avatar license (which it did), then it’s not such a bad thing.
So it was fun. Not too hard to get through, which is refreshing after some bits of the RPG ones which were frankly a slog. Actually some stages were quite long but it tried to gradually ramp up the puzzles as you went on to keep it engaging. I miss wandering around and talking to townspeople but realistically they never had much to say. It’s a tradition for developers to ape Nintendo but this spin on that DS Zelda style worked out well, and its heavy focus on spatial puzzles seemed to fit. It’s certainly pretty unique and that chibi style is cute (I love how the boxart is a takeoff of its console bigger brother. I found a copy for $8 and at that price it’s great for fans of the show. So until I get to the Wii game, I’ll say flameo, hotman! (Yes that’s a greeting but I’m using it to say goodbye ok)
Please refer to my previous Avatar game review, because this one is by the same developer and in the same genre. It has some improvements, though: now you can sleep to regain health in towns, and item managament and menus are much better. The camera is now fixed to one position, eliminating the frustrating rotation necessary before. Your party is now two characters, with contrivances to split up the party where necessary and later the ability to freely switch (this makes battles less hectic and feels balanced, as most battles are now easier). The chi system has been overhauled, and now refills outside battle, and attacks can also be used in the field to reveal items and secrets, as well as jumping to traverse areas. So a lot of my complaints have been addressed, and the result is a much more polished and enjoyable game. Plus, you can travel back to previously visited areas outside the chapter structure. And best of all, this game has Toph! Woo!
All of these things make the game better. Unfortunately, this one simply follows the story of Book 2 Earth, rather than forging a new path with an original story. In my mind, this largely eliminates the need for it to exist at all. RPGs especially live and die by their story, and while it’s a better game it’s less necessary to play as an Avatar fan as it’s just Book 2, which we could just watch. True, it does change things around, adding some details and completely reworking the ending so that it finishes on the drill with a happy ending (at least in the DS version…?). But that’s not enough, not really. I guess there’s always the appeal of exploring these areas we’ve seen yourself, and interacting with the characters in this new direct way.
It really is a lot better than the first one, but the fundamentals are the same. I haven’t played any other version either so I can’t compare, but the greater interactivity and detail in the previous console iteration would suggest that this game’s big-screen version is probably worthwhile looking into. I have heard that the 360 version is notorious for easy achievemnets, with the full 1000 points being obtainable in the first half hour of game play. I really should play the GBA versions some day. So busy with games… Well, I’ve outlined the basic tradeoff: no new story but better gameplay than the first one. Much more forgiving too, it’s not a trial to struggle through it this time. So, eh? Eh.
I bought this one for the wife, because she wanted to try a platformer that was maybe a little easier/more lenient, with a female protagonist. Turns out she still didn’t really like it, she’s just not suited to the genre. Actually getting it was an ordeal, the first copy we picked up was a cheap fake that didn’t work. The manual was a poorly-produced piece of work that seemed to reproduce a review of the game, and the card was misshapen. We had to drive back down just to return it.
I was very interested in the game, for one of the reasons I find Paper Mario fascinating—it’s a collecting point for some of the obscure Mario series elements that the bland main series ignores, especially enemies from Yoshi’s Island (my favourite Mario game by far). Its existence adds a lot to the Mario universe, not least of which is Peach’s capabilities. Exhibited here are mainly her umbrella combat skills (shown in SMRPG and Smash) and emotional control (she can turn them on and off at will). Plus Toad (yes, The Toad…probably) is playable in minigames and that guy needs some spotlight.
Anyways it’s done by TOSE, who are a little hit and miss but this one seems to follow in some ways their Starfy series I think, which is supposed to be good (from what I’ve heard). There’s a big bunch of unlockables and collectibles which I love. Although I still had lots of game to go by the time I bought everything in the shop, and accumulated way too many coins.
So this is like an action platformer, with levels that tend to branch occasionally. I found this frustrating as I wasn’t sure which way was the right way, got a little lost and often missed sections. You have a generous health bar, and an MP gauge that drains (quickly) with your emotion powers. These can be extended, and refilled easily enough. Said powers are used to pass obstacles and find hidden areas and stuff.
It is a fairly easy game (for me) but the controls do have some complexity, and as I said the levels can be confounding. Some of those “change the mechanics up with a vehicle” sections are tedious, too. All up though I had a great time here, running around, hitting Goombas with an umbrella, upgrading my powers, clearing out levels. The boss fights are good and the mishmash of different Mario games (mostly World and Yoshi’s Island, I think) was gratifying.
I’m currently playing the Superstar Saga RPG by AlphaDream and it has a similar feel, and even a graphical resemblance which makes me wonder about the development. I love the style by the way, and I’ve seen a few fangames that transplant a similar look into platformers that manage to utterly shame Miyamoto and co. Similarly, I’ll always dislike Peach being damseled when she kicks so much ass in this game.
It’s perhaps not for everyone but the Yoshi’s Island comparison I brought up earlier extends to the gameplay too, with the exploration, variety of mechanics, and environmental interaction that are fundamental to that game’s play. I’d feel ok to place this spiritually in the Yoshi lineage, in fact. As such I have high esteem for it, and being associated with such a great lifts it up, while being different enough to not suffer overly in comparison. Sure it’s a little simpler and the execution more flawed, but I had fun here and so will any fan of the flipside of the Mario universe. Oh and Perry=Mallow, think about it. I posted about this earlier. Look it up.
Here’s a game I was very interested in as a fan of the show Avatar: The Last Airbender (apparently in some regions at some times, the show was marketed as Legend of Aang instead. I know my Book 1 DVD has that title, but I don’t think the others do). The reason it was appealing was that it presented an all-new story within that universe, set between Books 1 and 2.
Now, you won’t actually know this from the box, the manual, even the game itself. I started the game thinking it would be a retelling of Book 1 with extra plot elements and levels added in to make it more game-friendly. It starts with a choppy rendition of the show’s opening (if you’ve played any DS game with an FMV, you know the quality we’re talking here). You start, and see Aang standing next to Appa. He wants to go penguin sledding with Katara. Ok, I say, I know what’s going on here. This is the same as like Episode 2, but we’ve been given no introduction or background aside from the stock show opening.
I start exploring and find a Water Tribe village. So far so good, some stuff happens and Zuko attacks. But a few details start to bother me. There are adult males here, when all warriors should be away fighting. There’s waterbenders! Then someone mentions they’re in the North. A typo? I start formulating a theory that this is some kind of wacky alternate universe retelling of Book 1. Then everything changed when a robot attacked! This was getting simply bizarre.
I realise of course at some point, that this is set after the end of Book 1. That waterbending master (that they call Master Wei in the DS version) is supposed to be Pakku. But if this world is anything like Earth, there shouldn’t be otter-penguins in the North. Oh well, there’s polar bear-dogs in the South so that’s fine. Apparently the small village I’m in is a special waterbender training town, not the North Tribe capital. Ok, I can see that. It all comes together. Of course, the game really should have explained itself better.
Let’s skip ahead. I had the chance to play the PS2 version later, and while they’re both produced by THQ Studio Australia (although this was actually developed by TOSE), the difference is night and day. The DS one is really skimped, gimped, and rushed compared to the console one. There’s also a GBA one I hope to play soon, and a PSP one, and a PC one, which are all different but cover the same plot. The console one at least has more mechanics, voice acting, equippable items, explanations, and isn’t as brutally hard.
It’s basically an action RPG with instanced battles. But it’s missing basic mechanics like a place to rest and recover health. There’s a few items that give you a stat boost, but there’s loads of herbs everywhere that fill your inventory and can be crafted to make useless potions and expensive, slightly useful ones. And apart from food for health and smoke bombs for escaping battle, that’s all. And items don’t stack. Money is also hard won and each battle will sap your health so for a long time I was on a tightrope between my health, EXP, money, and progression. That tension didn’t make for a fun experience.
Other dodgy mechanics include the lame minigames, locking you out from each area when the chapter finishes, and the awful camera control. The shoulder buttons rotate your view, but more than half of the available angles are grossly unhelpful, so you’re constantly shifting around just to see where you’re going. There are others, but the basic fundamentals of RPG balance not being well developed results in a game that is just tough to get through. Grinding is not viable at the start and once you get over the hump (and Katara gets the revive ability) it’s too easy.
So as a game it’s not great, but the other versions have potential. Let’s get to the whole reason I played it, which is the story and characters. I’ll say the writing is pretty great, at least for our main characters. Between chapters is a fully-voiced cutscene, with the original show’s actors reprising their roles (this was produced concurrent with the series, although obviously after Book 1 aired). I found myself laughing at Sokka’s usual antics and so on, so they captured that stuff well. NPCs are very dull though, with small text boxes and not much to say.
Your party climbs to 4 when you reunite with Haru, you know that earthbender kid form Book 1? He turns up later with a mustache? Yeah, him. I guess they wanted that element represented so they brought him back. It’s cool, and of course I put this game in my own canon as Book 1.5 Robots or something so any element that fits is fun. Of course, there are problems with the continuity of this game. They regard Omashu as the capital and “heart” of the Earth Kingdom, with Bumi as its king. This is just wrong, and Omashu looks all wrong. It’s all yellow sandstone. I’m playing the second one right now and they did Omashu much better there.
Anyway they also claim at one point that destroying the Avatar statues at the Southern Air Temple (which they call “the Air Temple”) will sever Aang’s connection with the Avatar spirit. Now that’s also wrong, although this could just be construed as Lian’s misguided theories. It’s also a little strange in general with the Gaang jetsetting around on Appa through the Earth Kingdom and elsewhere, instead of doing Book 2 stuff which seemed fairly pressing. Aang needs an earthbending teacher: they meet Bumi face-to-face here, and travel with Haru. He also displays no waterbending skill. You gotta forgive it some things though, for trying to do something new here.
The reason for basically ignoring any other matters is due to the appearance of mechanical monstrosities that are terrorising towns and I guess killing benders or something? Not sure but Lian, the mastermind of these machines, has a vendetta against benders and their warmongering and so is replacing them with her artificial creations. There are shades of Amon and the Equalists from Korra here with her plans and the idealists who follow her, which is cool as this came first. It’s also interesting that you rescue her from Fire Nation prison, but it’s revealed that they were keeping her for her ingenuity and machine designs (I think?), kinda like the Machinist in the Northern Air Temple. You think you’re saving her but by freeing her she goes rogue with her robots, which is a bit of a twist.
This whole plot isn’t given a whole lot of justification though, and there’s a few tenuous connections. I feel like the console version probably fleshes it out a bit more. You get to visit some cool locations though, like the aforementioned North Pole, Southern Air Temple, and Omashu, as well as an Earth Kingdom village with forest and scared cave with a bear Spirit, a Fire Nation prison, a hidden island with a lost civilisation, and finally a blasted wasteland with Lian’s doom fortress. Don’t know how she built that so quickly but fine.
I really like that they made a whole new plot here. It allows them to explore a few new ideas and characters, revisit old ones, and add a bit to the “continuity” while avoiding simply rehashing the show. Unfortunately the next two games do exactly that, and just retell Books 2 and 3 (as far as I know so far). This one is also considered non-canon generally which is a shame but yeah I can see the point that just adding things willy-nilly can dilute the importance of the show’s events. But hey the comics are canon, and they’re not slowing down. It’s most likely because Brike were not directly involved (“Flint Dille, Union Entertainment” is credited with Original Storyline).
Anyways the game isn’t really that good so if you’re interested in the story, try and get the console one. It was ported to Wii from the Gamecube/PS2 version with some motion controls and some minigames I think, that’s probably the one to get. The GBA one (developed by our own Halfbrick studios) is also supposed to be quite good, I’ll try that one some time. Like I said, highlights are the writing of the leads, maybe the robot designs, although the sprite work is a little shonky. The music is also really horrible. No no positives! Um, er, the bending? No that’s underwhelming and hard to control. The fan service? You do meet the cabbage merchant, and there’s a few animals that appear which is always fun, and a new spirit bear/man. Really the plot is the main reason for this game, but this isn’t the best way to deliver it. I’m glad I had the chance though. I do savour every game experience, yes even Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and Metroid Other M. You’ll hear about those later ;)
So until next time, yip yip! Or even Avatar State, yip yip! (obligatory Ember Island Players reference)
I’ve been knocking some games down quickly, so I need to catch up on blogging! M&L RPG 3 was a game I bought back when my 3DS was new and I wanted some games for it. I’d heard good things about the series, so I picked up the latest one when I saw it pretty cheap at one of those shops that doesn’t know how to price good games sometimes. Also I’d played Super Mario RPG for the SNES… somehow… and that was pretty fun.
I ended up starting this game at the same time as Paper Mario 2, so there were lots of comparisons invited. At the time, I wavered for a while before deciding I preferred Paper Mario, and dropped this for a while. The main reason for the hiatus was the game’s difficulty. I got to a bit that I was underleveled for and was getting killed too much (I never had similar problems later, for what it’s worth), and I also had endeavoured to beat the special move challenge minigame things. The minigames are just gruelling if you’re trying to get a high score.
Eventually I decided to return, give up on the minigame and power through the part I was at in the story. I don’t like letting a game languish, unfinished. It really picked up after the bit I was up to, as well. Now the comparisons with the Paper series has shifted, especially after Super and Sticker Star which were on the whole pretty disappointing. I ended up preferring the M&L battle system in particular.
There are a lot of unique and very interesting things about M&L. You control the Bros, and Bowser in this game, with different buttons. So A is always Mario’s action button to jump, etc, B is Luigi’s, and Bowser uses X and Y. It’s cool, but can be limiting when you have three different action modes to swap between for different actions. It’s not oo complicated either since swapping between Bowser and Bros changes the focus. Unfortunately this means you only sometimes get a simultaneous map on the opposing screen. I wanted that map all the time!
The battles are really cool. Every enemy attack is telegraphed in a unique way and you have to react differently to avoid them. It’s a very dynamic system, and makes you feel involved to a much greater degree than the Papers, which are overly simplistic in comparison and only use timed hits (which M&L also has).
Of course, the “good” two of the four Paper Mario games have a range of characterful partners. M&L takes the Tippi/Kersti route of the one guide-type character who tags along. Contrary to popular opinion of such characters, I liked Starlow/Chippy. She didn’t take any of Bowser’s crap and for that I really admired her. That is to say, I think she was characterised well and didn’t get in the way too much.
The other characters are pretty good too. There’s a very memorable villain, and some good secondary antagonists, the supporting characters are fun and all have their distinctive looks and catchphrases. It’s basically the opposite of your standard main series Mario game. But, this one has callbacks and references to Mario games too. That’s what I like, more than actually playing them because they’re a bit boring. I love the universe though, especially when it’s actually used and explored a bit.
To compare a little further still, the advancement system here, in terms of levelling up and also plot, feels good. You sometimes need to go back to old areas, but with new abilities to explore further. It feels cohesive too. And levelling up is kind of a big deal. I feel it edges out ahead of the Papers in these respects, but I guess there isn’t quite the variety of wacky locations those games have.
Even now it’s very hard to decide which sub-series of Mario RPGs I prefer. But I’m glad that their differences in gameplay and presentation let them both exist, and even for the same system now! I guess you could say M&L is a little more “serious”, at least in terms of mechanics. But the writing is just as strong, full of humour, and the character animations are expressive, silly, and just fun. The teamwork-based gameplay of the Bros is very compelling, too, and highlights their relationship and their strength as characters, in a way pretty much unique among the Mario series. I give Bowser’s Inside Story much chortles.
My way of playing this game went like this: I started playing concurrent with Twilight Princess, then stopped this so I could focus on that. I went back to this later, spent a while trying to get a feel for the game. Then I decided to do all the plot first, and get the good sword. Then do sidequests. I got bored of the sidequests so I went straight to the finish.
I feel like my playthrough isn’t exactly the intended way to play. But still, I’m happy with how it went. I really wanted to know what sort of direction they were taking the Zelda series on DS, since they were quite different to any other title. It turned out to be quite simplistic, and getting around the overworld by train (or boat, in Phantom Hourglass) was a big focus. This is one of the reasons I wasn’t always totally enthralled. As it went on, the oft-stated tedium of this travel became more apparent to me. And when the sidequests were always about ferrying things and people around in the same way, and were sometimes a bit vague, I got sick of them when I made it my task to do them.
I mentioned that the whole thing was quite simplistic. Not always a bad thing, there was less getting lost in areas (the good maps on the other screen helped), and the control process was streamlined. My feelings on the controls really picked up when I realised that you could hold L instead of tapping the touchscreen button. I have all these fingers and buttons, might as well use them in an action game! But the dungeons did steadily ramp up in complexity as the game went on.
As for the Zelda formula, it was fortunately diverted from a fair bit here. There was a progressive intermediary central dungeon, for example, and Zelda was even with you the whole time, even if her body this time had been kidnapped. Your standard MacGuffins this time were Force Gems, a cool callback to Four Swords Adventures, of all things. There was also some experimentation with items, with the blowy wind thing and the whip.
I don’t want to get too mad about this, but the translations differ between regions in an absurd way. NOA and NOE did mostly completely different translations, changing names and plot details willy-nilly, resulting in lnaguages with two official translations (English, French, and Spanish). What does this mean for canon? How can a fan reconcile these differences? It annoyed me because I’m OCD and stuff. Bleh. Whatever.
Finally, I should mention that the final boss inventively uses many of the tricks of the game in a multi-stage fight, but the second-last stage was annoying. You have to deflect all these rocks in a row in a very long pattern, and if you miss one you have to start again. The whole phase has just one pattern, but with the controls it’s hard to do. But like I said, the rest was good and a good culmination, and the last section of the Tower tests all the other stuff you’ve done that isn’t covered here.
All in all, Spirit Tracks is quite interesting. It’s a bit more experimental than most Zeldas, appropriate for a handheld game. Like other portable titles in the series, there’s no Ganon, no Triforce, no Master Sword. It (and Phantom Hourglass) have a unique control scheme. It’s not dependent on other games, but takes a few elements from them that are fun to notice. Spirit Tracks never got a whole lot of attention, as Phantom Hourglass was a bit divisive and its separation in plot from the series probably harmed it in popular terms. I was glad to play it though, even if like I said I had to decide to finish it rather than do 100% of everything, because the training around was tedious. But now I can move on to other things, and there’s a few in the old DS backlog here. So long!
Whew. My big Metroid rush is over for now. Or is it? Tomorrow, the new Famicom sale game is going up on the WiiU and it’s (you guessed it) Super Metroid. I’d been considering picking that up with the last of my Wii funds, but this is much better. Anyway let’s talk about these other two games, shall we?
What’s interesting to me is how many similarities these games have. MP3 was made by the same developers as the other Primes, Retro Studios. It really changed up the formula that had been established by the revolutionary first game and the evolutionary second. It did this not only with its control scheme that made heavy use of the Wii remote, but also in terms of structure, conventions and scope. It’s the first Metroid game with proper voice acting (MP1’s unused spoken intro aside), it involves moving Samus’s ship and travelling to other locations, planets, and even systems, it brings in a large amount of NPC interaction, and it has a dynamic plot. In most other ways it’s an extension of the first two games, but even then a lot of gameplay things were tweaked: stacking beam weapons instead of selectable, the new Hypermode which introduces a different type of strategy to fights, using the ship to affect the environment, and all the grappling.
When I looked into Hunters though, I found it had got there first on a few of these. Taking your ship between different planets, encountering other Bounty Hunters, a redesigned control scheme for new hardware. On the other hand, while it had a lot less suit upgrades, it actually added a ton more weapons, some a lot less useful than others (I’m looking at you, Volt Driver). The two were developed alongside each other for part of the time, and Retro were consulted on many things by the developer of Hunters, NST. But I’m wondering which company had these ideas first, especially the other Hunters and the planet-hopping. In any case, it was cool to play them together as they had these common elements—it also highlighted how different the execution of them was.
Now we could easily talk about how crummy Hunters looks as an early 3D DS game. I looked past that for most of my playthrough—I guess I’m good at ignoring visual shortcomings when I want to (I played on my 3DS for at least 6 months in power-saving mode—not recommended). Just accept that the textures are super-blocky and play the game. There were other limitations on the smaller system though, such as a noticeable lack of enemy diversity and especially boss diversity. The scans were also very laconic compared to its console counterparts. Everything is just a lot smaller in scale, but again the limitations of the system understandably imposed this to some extent (would it have killed them to make one or two more boss designs though? There’s 2 reused 4 times each!).
So obviously the fidelity of Corruption was much higher. The production values were very high for the most part. Perhaps for such a cinematic game, I was starting to see the long-whined about visual limitations of the Wii, but for the most part it looked and felt excellent. Comparing it also to the other two Prime games in such a short time, it was a big step up. I also loved the variety of environments, and how each planet had a completely unique and at some points beautiful visual design, right down to the style of doors giving a sense of place for each area.
Some complaints: Ship Missile upgrades were useless, the final boss battle was underwhelming, and the Wii remote movement stuff was overused in some parts and underused in others. While we’re here, Hunters complaints: too many arbitrary force fields, not enough weight behind the rival Hunters, I got lost a lot.
But let’s talk about some good parts! I loved those two key differences to the other Prime games that these brought: the planet-hopping allowed a more convincing and interesting reason for different environments, and more unique places that gave a more frequent sense of exploring a whole new space; the greater presence of NPCs reduced the usual lonely feeling of Metroid games, but that was still there—more importantly, it gave the world a lot more depth.
Of course, the heavier emphasis on setpieces in Corruption undermined the usual Metroid thing of wandering around, exploring and backtracking. I think they still managed to incorporate those feelings and experiences very well into this new structure, though. The appearances of Hunters randomly in levels also gave a deeper feeling of sudden excitement and peril, plunged back into cool, steady exploring afterwards. So both found very effective gameplay hooks in there while shaking up the Metroid formula.
Speaking of the Metroid formula, Hunters had no Metroids or Space Pirates. Weird. Still, a compelling story with perhaps not enough justification for when there was an appearance of common enemies such as Geemers (how did they come to a whole other galaxy?). In fact, the stories of both games were fantastic (although obviously the story was a lot more “there” in Corruption).
I’m trailing off a bit so once again I will intentionally end my post before I get really out of hand. But I will say, having now experienced all of the Prime series (except Pinball), um it was fun. Sorry don’t know where that sentence was going. I’m definitiely a bigger Metroid fan now. Luckily not enough to feel bitter about the zero 25th Anniversary acknowledgments. It’s just a B- or C-lister now, oh well. But I’m glad I gave Hunters a chance, it was a very neat little game that was an adequate translation of the Prime gameplay to the system. Curruption was a very enjoyable conclusion to the series, easily my favourite of the three at this stage (maybe after replaying I’ll join the prevailing opinion of the first being best by far… not at the moment though). Really, all the added elements made it such a great experience, a real sci-fi epic. I just hope NIntendo aren’t too discouraged by Other M’s reception, and pull their finger out and make some more great games! Give them to the West again if you have to! And Retro, hire more developers! So that’s that, Mission Completed! (If you read this post in under an hour and picked up all of my references, you’ll now see me in my underwear. Enjoy!)
It seems like most of my family love Picross. I certainly do. It’s more interesting than Sudoku because there’s more variety possible, while still being purely logic. Once you really get a handle on the rules and intricacies it becomes very satisfying to smash through a puzzle while you’re in the “Picross Zone”. The other great thing about it is you get a cool picture at the end, with either nice, awkward or heavily stylised pixelart. Depending on your game, this will also be colourised or even animate at the end.
Another big draw for me in Nintendo-licensed Picross games is the Nintendo-themed puzzles. Picross NP did that so much better than other ones I’ve played, as instead of the lazy and boring way of replicating 8-bit sprites on a puzzle grid, they featured new, original pixel art renditions of characters, even ones that were already pixel sprites.
I’ve played through the Normal mode of Picross DS, to get to the Extra section with the 8-bit sprites. Too much Mario. 3 rows of it to be precise! Leaving only one row for Samus, Link, Ice Climber, and Excitebike. Getting there was awesome fun, though. Having said that, often what you filled in was very hard to distinguish until they colourised it for you, meaning you wouldn’t know until the very end what it is you were making. From my experience, the older games in the series had puzzles that were simpler in shape so you could guess.
Let me get the angry part out of the way. The PAL regions’ version of Picross DS was abysmally under-supported compared to the US and Japan. I’m talking downloadable puzzle packs. We got 2 packs of 5, they got 100 and 60 packs, respectively. I felt so cheated.
So I emulated the highlights of what they got. First, recap.
Mario’s Picross for Game Boy, 1995. All regions got the cart release and later 3DS VC release.
Mario’s Super Picross for SNES, 1995. Japan only for cart, Wii VC release for Japan and PAL (untranslated, and they charged more for it. The cheek!)
Picross 2 for Game Boy, 1996. Japan only for cart and 3DS VC.
Picross NP for SNES, 1999. Japan only, released in 8 volumes via the Nintendo Power cartridge rewriting service.
Picross DS for DS, 2007. All regions got it, PAL got shafted in the DLC department. DLC, for reference, included many puzzles from Mario’s Picross, Mario’s Super Picross, and all 8 volumes of Picross NP.
Picross-e and Picross-e2 for 3DS eShop, 2011-2012. Japan and PAL.
So the USA has had less games released, but a much better version of DS. The reason for that (and less for PAL too) is poor sales of the first game outside Japan.
Ok, so what I decided was the touchscreen interface was best. If I had to use the inferior button interface, I would only bother with the puzzles that were really interesting to me, namely the Nintendo IP puzzles in NP. The other 3 have some too, but mainly sprites—NP, as I’ve said, had 12 puzzles in each of 8 volumes with redrawn Nintendo characters, animated after solution. Awesome~!
The properties were covered with one per volume: Pokemon, Yoshi’s Story, Kirby, Lylat Wars, Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, Wario Land 2, and Donkey Kong Country. For more information see here. (They erroneously claim the games were distributed via Satellaview, but their puzzle lists are accurate.) The last 3 volumes had slightly different presentation in the menus, and of course all had many more puzzles apart from “Character Mode” but that was the only mode I concerned myself with.
It was, as I predicted, totally cool. As you go on, you could try and guess who it would turn out to be based on the theme, and then at the end the whole thing was coloured and the characters started doing a little animation loop. Very cool. I tried to make a gif, but it was so hard and it didn’t work and it got blurry and distorted.
As I said, the button interface was inferior. Much easier to make mistakes and just less natural. There were other interface issues, or rather, the DS and 3DS versions have made many improvements over these older ones. Like automatically greying out the row numbers when you fill a row, you had to do that manually here. This version also counted down and failed you after half an hour, instead of counting up and just not registering a completion after an hour (they let you finish the puzzle but it didn’t count). So actually doing the puzzles was a worse experience and just made me wish I’d been able to do the same puzzles, but with the improved interface, rules, and controls of DS. Sigh. I got used to it though and was soon racing through them.
Of course, the interface of NP was not without its charms. Its different presentation was novel and colourful, compared to the rather flat DS one. The puzzles were presented on book pages, with a character-approproate background for the NIntendo puzzles (in vol 1-5), and the cursor was alternately a crayon or pencil. Of course, DS had a series of themed puzzle tiles (although the Mario brick one for Extra was unintuitive and hurt my eyes!), and its DLC packs (I assume) all used the Mario’s Picross-style archeological chipping at stone theme. So they each have their unique features.
For that reason, I’m glad I played the Nintendo puzzles in their original form. I still feel cheated but ha! I emulated your games for free! How do you like that, Nintendo! Ugh, I’m a bad person aren’t I?
Yeah so Picross is loads of fun! It’s relaxing to just follow these logic rules for puzzles. There’s plenty of versions of it on the iOS App Store, so go pick one up (there’s even free ones). I was introduced to the concept by “Shady Puzzles” for iPhone. Or get Picross-e, it’s quite good. In that case, if you’re unlucky enough to be American, well nuts to you! Now you know how we feel about Earthbound and countless other games! (Quick note about -e compared to DS: smoother interface, less puzzles, non-animated solutions.) It was so nice to see these cameos, it’s the same reason I like Tetris DS. Enhance the concept with IP dressing. Recipe for success. Ok thanks for reading guys!
I recently had brief experiences with both these games, so I think it’d be fruitful to compare them. I’m certainly no expert on Castlevania but even I could see the differences here. I played DoS for a couple of hours when my sister-in-law borrowed it from a friend. I previously played through all of Aria of Sorrow (GBA) via emulation, and this was a direct sequel. The other, MoF, was a demo on the 3DS eShop that I got the gist of with one playthrough (about 10 minutes).
For being not so far apart, the two games are radically different. DoS is an extension of what the series has always been, more exploration-based but with a new “soul-capturing” system where you can collect abilities from every enemy. This was introduced in Aria and I like it as a motivation for defeating as many enemies as you can and changing up the combat however you want (even if I only ever used a few abilities once I found ones I liked). But the combat was tight, with responsive controls (accounting for lag of your actions) and highly defined pixel art. These factors are, from what I can tell, typical of classic Castlevania games (except for the soul ability thing).
On the other hand, MoF is more centred around combat, doing combos on enemies with high health and moving linearly through 2.5D environments (ie. 3D modelled backgrounds, 2D playing area). I’ve heard it’s an attempt to bring the mechanics of 3D Castlevania games to 2D gameplay, and that makes for a very different feel and mechanics. The areas may look very nice, but they are very small and flat compared to DoS’s sprawling castle. You may have a lot of moves in MoF, but they’re all pretty samey and not better than mashing the same button, plus they seem very slow and laggy, the comboing being at cross purposes with the need to avoid attacks. It may be I’m not used to that style of game and I’m not, but it is certainly very different to most Castlevanias, insofar as they are represented by DoS.
MoF is reviewing very badly, and I tend to agree. In addition to the gameplay criticisms I’ve noted, there are serious framerate issues and the game is constantly switching between three characters, undermining progression in the traditional exploratory sense in favour of plot-driven linear set pieces. It doesn’t seem that mashing the 3D style into the 2D world works very well, especially if people are expecting traditional Castlevania. To be honest, the demo was maybe not enough for me to see all these issues, but I found it frustrating. And too many Quicktime events, seriously why are we still doing that?
I guess it’s part of the modern vs retro thing. DoS evokes classic games that were well tuned, and simple in presentation (ie pixels) but deep in mechanics. MoF seems indicative of modern games that are big on flair but shallow in gameplay and half-baked in execution.
I don’t know a whole lot about Castlevania lore so I don’t think I should go into it, but I’ve said the important part I think so this one’s short and sweet. You can thank me later.
I don’t remember if I’ve written about this before (my blog’s been going for a while now! woo!) but I went back and cleared Jungle Climber to 100%, so I’m writing about it now. (To reiterate, a game is “finished” when the story is cleared, or I see the credits. “Completed” is 100%, most often according to the game’s metrics.)
This is one of those games that the DS seems to have a lot of; an IP revival of sorts that seems built around a new mechanic. Most of them were trying out features of the DS itself, but this one isn’t actually reliant on the hardware, except for tall stages that span both screens I guess. Anyway, the “difference” or you could say “gimmick” about this game was the peg-swinging central mechanic.
Based on the old NES game Clu Clu Land, the idea is of controlling a character’s arms independently to grab things and use your momentum to change direction based on spinning and swinging. This idea was used in 2004’s DK: King of Swing combined with gravity and physics to make a hybrid platformer-style game, of which this game is a sequel. Compared to KOS, JC fleshes out and expands on a lot of gameplay stuff, and brings the artstyle more in line with the Country games with its 3D pre-rendered sprites, compared to the bright, cartoony flat sprites of KOS (which are very appealing in their own way too).
These two games, developed by Paon, kept the light alive for the Donkey Kong series in its dark years. They were somewhat maligned at the time for their nontraditional gameplay, but at least they were faithful to the characters and spirit of the franchise. This is compared to what we got on the home console, with Jungle Beat throwing the series’ history under a bus and 3 bongo rhythm games with terrible licensed music. And on the handheld front, the Mario vs. Donkey Kong games were muddying the identity of the franchise and DK himself, not to mention the strange gameplay tack that series also took after its first installment. So seeing Paon treat the characters and setting with such respect is something I really appreciate about their games (the third of theirs was Barrel Blast/Jet Race on the Wii). They tried something new, but they made an honest attempt to make it fit in.
And that’s why I like Jungle Climber. The reason I stopped playing for a while, before getting to 100%, was the DS-breakingly frustrating difficulty of the extra challenge stages. Also I was trying to get good ranks on the minigames, which was also infuriating. But getting any rank was enough to score the completion percentage, so I have a C in some modes but I don’t mind! Finally beating those extra stages was satisfying, and I got a cool cutscene!
The peg-swinging mechanic is strange, yeah. And maybe it’s not a “true” platformer. But like any new control mechnism, like when I first started Metroid Prime or Katamari, once I got the hang of it it became very natural. And mastering a new skill is one of the fun things in life, even if it’s so minor as a variation in player control.
The plot of this game is silly (wouldn’t have it any other way), but it’s great how it takes you to so many different places. Each world (island) has its own identity, and the weird dimension stages are also unique—but they can be repetitive (too many mirror stages, not enough farm stages) and their reuse of some environments on islands that have interesting environments is an annoyance. JC handles the progression well though by having cutscenes at the end of each island, where the protagonist group catches up to K. Rool and they have a chat, with sufficient ham and cheese. The world map is really cool too, DK smoothly jumps around the island’s geography between stages, like an extension of the Country’s world maps.
That’s a point where we can compare this to Donkey Kong Country Returns. Returns was an awesome game with totally interesting levels and backgrounds, and smooth platforming gameplay that was quite similar to the Donkey Kong Country series, but pared back in some respects, was a bit lacking in characters and the world map was just tokens on paths (that’s totally a legitimate complaint!). Compared to this game, whose actual gameplay was quite unlike the Country games but did the characters and world very well. Ok I think I’m exaggerating here but there’s aspects of each that are great for a Donkey Kong Country fan.
Compared to the previous game, King of Swing, Jungle Climber is super-tightened up in mechanics and gameplay, it’s a bit less floaty which is good and I think the collectibles are better. Better music too. One factor it falls down on though is the boss battles. KoS by comparison had very interesting boss fights with cool, flavourful characters, whereas JC’s bosses were mostly transformed Kritters which I found disappointing. They also reused a few in JC like the giant robot. Another lesson to be learned: don’t imitate DKC1 on everything, its boss fights were dull and shallow. I just don’t get how they took a step back between the two games—of course, that’s only my opinion.
Well, anyway I had heaps of fun with this game. It has lots of other odd mechanics involving Diddy that are used only a bit, but I guess they don’t overstay their welcome you could say. I think it does a lot of fun things, and there’s plenty to replay levels for with the collectibles.The difficulty is quite steep at times, especially in the final boss battle, but stock up on stuff and turn on the “cheats” to make it a bit easier. The swinging and pegs can actually be frustrating when it doesn’t go your way, but it’s so unique. I’m really glad I could experience it, I think it was my first pick for DS game when my wife got her DS and I borrowed it from her. I don’t regret that decision at all. Actually cos I played JC so much she made me get my own! So yes, I bought a 3DS for Jungle Climber. Anyway, goodbye for now. Jump in my jet and jive, Clive! Ha, Funky Kong.
There’s been a lot of stuff about comics recently, but don’t worry! I’ve been playing games too. Specifically Paper Mario Sticker Star, a Christmas present, and I also picked Metroid Prime 2 back up after a long break. Almost finished both of those now, but first I have to talk about some games I got through earlier.
I played the Zero series games in a weird order. I think my first was Zero 2, then Zero 1. Those were in Japanese, then I got Zero 4 in English. When shopping for DS games I chose ZX Advent (the sequel) over ZX because of the purported improvements, especially to the map system and voice acting. Then I eventually got a copy of ZX, along with Zero Collection, and had my first play of Zero 3. And now finally I’ve got around to playing ZX.
Overall, before I go any further, my impression of this game is better than its sequel, Advent (ZXA). There are a number of reasons for this. Its characters were more memorable, playing as Model ZX (who plays just like the Zero I’m used to) from the third mission instead of the third last was great, and it had a more manageable number of transformations. On the other hand, the mission handling was clumsier here, they improved the rewards and economy in the sequel, and the Model transformations seemed better utilised there. But enough comparisons.
The ZX series seems a bit maligned, at least from traditional Megaman fans. I don’t see any good reason for this, as it retains the smooth but challenging gameplay of Zero, and seems a natural extension of it as well (although the new characters I see may put some people off, with many of them being whiny kids). There’s also tons of fanservice if you’re looking. Plus I think it maintains a high standard of quality, unlike certain installments of the Classic and X series. I guess if you didn’t like Zero as much, ZX and ZXA are even more out there. But me, I love Zero.
So it’s only natural that I loved this game, too. I played through it twice in a row, and I wouldn’t normally do that. You choose between playing Vent and Aile, so I did both. There are very few differences between them: minor story points and dialogue changes, and slightly different attributes, but so slight hardly anyone even notices. They even have the same backstory and relationship to the major NPC, Giro. One might think they are interchangeable. The animated trailer however shows both of them double Megamerging and using ZX’s powers, so it’s possible that alternate playthroughs are in a way half the story, with the “true” events involving both, which is hard to portray in a game with a single player I guess. (The dual protagonists is something the sequel executed much better, also).
So I can’t really escape comparisons, I don’t think I have a way of judging this game outside my frame of reference. I also think it’s worth judging games compared to similar ones, after all I didn’t play it in a vacuum. Ah, this is getting too meta.
I think I’m a bit out of practice with these reviews. Ok, well, the storytelling is fine, but the animated cutscenes are a little jarring with their heavy compression artifacts and Japanese-only audio. That’s not too much of an issue, as the whole Zero series had Japanese boss barks, but keep in mind I played ZXA first which had a whole English speech track over most cutscenes, animated and otherwise. The characters in the game were quite memorable, most of the major ones had ties to the Zero series, which I appreciated, and the NPCs all had unique appearances and personalities (a problem with ZXA was too generic appearances in NPCs).
The levels were well designed, I think- I’m not an expert on that kind of thing. Enemies often required a bit of strategy to beat, although some parts were just annoying, like the radars that reversed the controls. A commonly cited criticism of this game is that once you get Model H, there’s little reason to use any other form. True to an extent, although I like Model ZX enough to switch between the two often. Model OX (Omega Zero) was awesome too, but you only get it after you beat the game unfortunately.
There were lots of collectibles and so on, but there wasn’t much to spend the E-Crystal currency on. I liked how all the areas were connected, it felt like a cohesive whole (although the environments were quite different, it was just nice to be able to move through it all smoothly). The map is quite useless, though. I had a walkthrough’s map open on my iPhone the whole time I was playing.
The plot is interestingly linked to the Zero series, and now I see where all the plot threads of ZXA came from too, so it ties together well to the other games in the “greater Zero series”, which includes ZX and ZXA. (They’re totally the same. Art style, gameplay, developer, pickups, font, everything).
The bosses were all interesting and different. They unlock extra attacks for the forms, but I didn’t use the special abilities of any Model form hardly at all. I only used them to get around levels, and faced bosses almost exclusively as ZX. This may be due to my own familiarity with the strictly Zero fighting style.
I mentioned the world map, but it would have been a lot easier to get around if there were more tranceivers. Anyone who’s played the game will know what I mean, but I guess it makes you more familiar with the layouts and all. The tranceivers also dispensed missions, which brings up that you can only bloody do one at a time! This means that cutting grass or stopping a rogue robot from killing civilians have the same priority, and if you go somewhere to do something but forget to activate the mission, you’ve wasted the trip there and the return. And you can’t do multiple things on one trip out, plus if you are asked for something, the request is in the tranceiver, but it can only hold two optional requests at a time as well! The whole mission thing is a mess and they thankfully fixed it up in the sequel.
I think I’m running out of things though, so in all I had lots of fun here. That old feeling of hining your skills against specific bosses by replaying them a few times, and doing two runs in a row- it was good. I should say that the Zero and ZX games are quite hard, they’re not for everybody. But when you’re a gamer like me, you relish the feeling of mastering this art. I don’t feel that way about a lot of genres but 2D platformers and jumpy shooties have enough precision, as long as the game is well constructed and quick.
So this game is absolutely essential- for me, who loved the Zero games. You might like it too, who knows. I don’t really know which to recommend more, this or its sequel, though. But I’m glad I was able to play them both, with their strengths and weaknesses and their linked plots. It’s sad to see this series fall out of favour recently as Capcom is bringing Megaman back to basics or whatever it is they’re planning, I’d love another installment. It’s just, so nostalgic for me but also new, with fresh twists. And it advances the overall robot continuity so far, but the roots are still there. Ah. Good stuff. So I guess for me this game is signifcant as it fits into the greater whole of the Zero/ZX series, but it probably stands just fine on its own. (I wouldn’t know, like I said, I’m so ingrained in my little world :p). Anyway that’ll do. Tata for now.
Well Pokemon X and Y were just announced, so good time I suppose to talk about my latest Pokemon experience. Oh and I hate the acute accent on the “e”, makes things difficult so I will go on record as never planning to use it in this blog. Before I start though, briefly I was a little disappointed with the comparatively cold reception of the DKC2 comic compared to all that Rockman stuff I posted. I guess people like Rockman a lot more than old comics about B-list Nintendo franchises (or Rare). It’s just I put so much more effort into the comic, and I was certainly happier with it than my rushed Rockman posts. Anyway no-one’s to blame or anything just wanted a little grump about “oh everyone hates Donkey Kong muh muh”. Let’s move on, shall we?
Back in my Game Boy Color days (I think the official international name lacked the “u”…) I was a huge fan of Pokemon. The craze had taken off, all my friends at school were into it. It was big. My first ever game system to call my own was my Pikachu Yellow Game Boy Color. Soon afterwards my parents realised I would need some games to play, so I got Yellow version as well. And I was set. I loved my Pikachu, the rest of my team was pretty lacking.
Anyway I also watched the show before school, picked up the trading cards (for collecting, the game wasn’t much fun), and loved to play Stadium or Snap when I got the chance by renting or at friends’ houses. Soon my brothers were into it too, and we all had Game Boy Colors and Gold/Silver each. We were trading and Mystery Gifting all over the place, it was great. I also played the everloving Pokeheck out of the Pinball game with the rumble feature, which made the cartridge amusingly huge. My best score was I think 4 billion, I normally only managed half that.
This fervour cooled off a bit as I discovered other great game series, but we still shared a Ruby version when we upgraded to Advance. That was unfortunately stolen along with all our portable games and we didn’t replace it, instead getting heavily into the Final Fantasy Advance series (better when we only had one system anyway). Since then I’d viewed the whole thing with nostalgia, not really following the subsequent installments or spinoffs. Mind you, I’m not a 151tard- I recognise that the series is advancing, albeit slowly, and I welcome new additions to the Pokeverse, especially the more they tie into older ones.
Therefore when my wife started getting interested in Pokemon, I supported her buying HeartGold. With my fond memories of Gold I enjoyed it through her, even myself playing the more tedious parts she didn’t want to touch such as the Safari Zone. We both came to an appreciation for the new series then, at a time when Black and White were new. When the sequels were announced as paired versions, a first, we decided to get one each to celebrate that together.
Now I’ve talked a lot already and I’m not up to the game itself, but that’s ok. This blog is not just game reviews, it’s remembrance and celebration of games, and my own personal history. But let’s move into the review section, shall we?
I loved White 2. I’ll just get that out of the way. It had been too long and it was great to fully embrace the Pokemon formula again. Formula, of course, being the watchword. I don’t think I’d appreciate this quite as much if I had been following the main series, playing each game and comparing them. That way madness lies. For I found that although everything had a shiny coat of paint and many new mons, it was still essentially Pokemon.
This may not be such a bad thing. I feel that in many ways, the iterations have produced a superior product at the end, not something you can say about every game series. In this case, they know what they want and it’s what sells, I suppose. You could say I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t different enough, but really at this point I liked being reminded of my memories, with so many bells and whistles attached.
Perhaps the bells and whistles were a little overwhelming. The game encourages you to do all this side stuff, the Battle Subway, the World Tournament, the Movies, the Musicals, Join Avenue, the Dream World etc. But truthfully it’s totally ignorable. I just feel a little bad having a lot of content in the game that I know I will never look at it, it feels weird. Plus I probably prefer the Safari Zone anyway, although it was too complicated in HeartGold.
That’s another thing I noticed about this game. It is just so complex. I had to spend a long time before I really got my head around what the C-Gear actually is and what you use it for. Naturally, being a modern game, the manual is complete shite. Yellow’s manual was awesome, it even had a mini-Pokedex in the back with Ken Sugimori’s strange but wonderful Gen 1 artwork. But White 2 has all these systems that present a high learning curve, especially for beginners.
I think the philosphy for this game was to give something to longer-time players and fans, especially those who played Black/White. That would certainly explain the reliance on plot and mechanics from those games to carry this one. But I didn’t play those because they looked boring, so there were times when I felt a little lost. They feel like a package deal, and I’m missing out by just playing this.
Incidentally, the main reason I avoided Black/White was its strange insistence on being a soft reboot. They must recognise that people stay fans of this series and have played previous ones, and therefore want previous Gen mons. They’re all in the game, but you can’t access them til endgame. Introduce new mons, sure, but I don’t think you lose anything by sprinkling in older ones, and integrating them to make it feel like a cohesive world. Black/White 2 did exactly this and it’s great!
Part of me still feels though that I’m not getting all I could out of this (partially due to living in a second-class country with bugger-all events/distributions). That part now looks towards X and Y with regret. But screw that part, that’s no way to live. So I enjoyed what I did have. (Really though, announcing a game 9 months in advance? And only 3 months after shipping the last installment (in the West, anyway)? Is that any way to do business?)
So I’ve got through all the gyms with my super-cool, totally non-optimised team, and beat the Elite 4 (thus seeing the credits and completing the main story). But it seems the good thing about these newer Gens, compared to Gen 1 and 2 anyway, is the huge amount of endgame content. There’s still like 4 or 5 towns I haven’t visited, new Routes, new optional plot events, all the side stuff I mentioned, not to mention catching them all.
Let me just mention a few of the things that made me happy here. I loved naming every Pokemon I caught with silly or ironic names. I loved reuseable TMs. I loved discovering new places, with the unexpected graphical or weather effects, and each town having a distinct personality. I loved finding old friends in the long grass (hello Ampharos!), and being introduced to new ones through the (no longer) free Pokedex 3D. But I think most of all, I just loved playing Pokemon again. It had been so long. It was like… coming home (lol sappy and ok that’s really overstating it, but it was familiar and was good.) I also liked being able to compare notes with my wife, trade with her and just experience the same thing at the same time. They make Pokemon for sharing (hence paired versions), and it is better like that.
I don’t really know what the Internet thinks about BW2, but I know there’s a lot of Gen 5 backlash and also a lot of anti-backlash backlash. I would say from what I’ve played, Gen 5 is fairly safe but the iteration has served it well. I will very tentatively say that Game Freak is able to make every new Pokemon the best yet, at least in terms of mechanics. I still love HeartGold because of the familiar but revamped setting and retold plot (nostalgia). HGSS also had a huge thing over any subsequent or previous game barring Yellow, and that is your leading Poke FOLLOWING YOU EVERYWHERE. Easily the best feature you can point to and say “Why are they not still doing this”.
This feature really helped you bond with your Pokes, and added an element of verisimilitude to your journey. It was just really cool. Personally very disappointed they are still not adding it back with Gen 6 (at this stage). I just, I really think after HGSS had it everything should have it. The Pokes are the stars after all, at the end of the day I don’t really care about the Gym Leaders, Team Plasma, N, Hugh, or even the silent protagonist. I care about my team and finding friends for them. I know some people really are “into” the human characters but frankly they bore me to tears.
Anyway, rant over. After I finished White 2 I put it down for a bit to play other stuff, but I’m looking forward to picking it up again soon to do all the post-game content, and visit new towns. Pokemon still has the power to grab me after all these years, and the first few weeks I had White 2 I played it constantly. Then I played it regularly, and now it’s on hiatus. But I really enjoyed the experience. I give it some Master Balls out of some. (No scores on this blog!)
There’s a few things in the backlog right now but I’m pushing this to the front because it’s DKR’s 15th anniversary! Link! DKVine sprang a surprise forum skin redesign, and I decided to get back to this little gem and push on a bit.
When I last set it down, I’d just figured out where Dragon Forest was, having finished the other 3 worlds, so it didn’t take long to get through that and a few tries to beat Wizpig’s foot race. This got me the credits, although there is another world and many more challenges that I’m doing now. But my rule is I can review a game when I see the credits, so here we are.
I first played DKR many years ago, maybe even 15, on my friend’s N64. The hovercrafts impressed me, if I recall, though I mainly played battle mode at that time and it didn’t stand out so much from Mario Kart 64, its main competitor and comparison. The interface did stand out though (better), and the bright colours and kiddy feel also set it apart. That’s what I remember at the time, but also for a long time I’ve had a bias against games I don’t own so that I don’t feel bad about not owning them. And I love most things I do own.
Anyway, I digress. What I didn’t realise was how important DKR was to the shared universe concept of the DKU, an idea I was not cognisant of. I made up my own shared universes in my head, with no regard for explicit crossovers and shared game worlds. I used to imagine space ships filled with different video game protagonists, with stockpiles of their respective collectibles; or Fox, Yoshi and Diddy (my 3 favourite characters at the time, due to DKC2, Yoshi’s Island and Lylat Wars) teaming up and having adventures.
Of course, officially sanctioned shared universes are exciting in their own way, especially as we grow older and lose our imaginations. Plus, DKR was widely regarded as one of the best mascot racers, and I love Rare. So I bought it, wanting to experience this classic and also the last Rare game on a Nintendo platform, and the only Rare DS game (the Viva Pinata DS port being the exception to both these statements…shh).
So yes, DKR is a great game. But DKRDS is a bad port of a good game. Firstly, the interface is just janky and off-putting. Having seen the credits now, the handheld team was apparently very small and it shows. The whole thing feels rushed or watered down. I guess the interface is the main sticking point, but there were arbitrary changes that didn’t improve the game too. The touch-screen challenges which are now a big part are just plain not that good. And they made Taj’s voice less hilariously stereotypical.
What it comes down to (generalising here) is the Rare handheld team makes much less polished games than the console team. That would broadly cover all the great, smooth console Rare games I’ve played versus the somewhat awkward handheld games (mainly just the Donkey Kong Lands and Country Advance remakes). That is a gross simplification, but it’s the way I think for whatever reason. I’m not going to give up on Rare games and I’d like Grunty’s Revenge, Sabre Wulf 2004 and Conker’s Pocket Tales to prove me wrong when I get around to them.
Well, I guess I’ve been influenced by a lot of people’s opinions on DKVine. I actually had a lot of fun with this game, and not having experienced the original too much, I’m not that fussed about what I’m missing, especially with the handheld convenience. Plus I like some of the things they added, like the vehicle customisation, currency for unlockables, the admittedly weak icon designer mode, a few extra tracks (on DK Island!) and most importantly Dixie Kong! She makes up for any flaws I’ve perceived. And much of the presentation is so charming, you can’t stay mad at it.
Sure, they removed Banjo and Conker. Sad. But it’s still a great game, and I am very glad it exists. Because emulating N64 is tricky, it’s not on the VC and my 64 is at my parents’ house. So I can play it! It’s good because it’s cute, it has loads of character, the racing takes real skill, the mechanics are interesting, and heck it gave birth to the DKU. Don’t listen to the haters, the DS port is not as bad as they say. But that’s just me talking, and I’ll love any video game. Especially if I’ve decided to buy it.
Ok, one more quick review before I go back to Pokemon (I’ve been playing it all day). Golden Sun is a fantastic series and you should play it. No wait, I hate when people say that, it’s obnoxious. “I love Golden Sun.” Better.
Played the first two, loved them. So good. Unfortunately, they were stolen. This was a pretty big event in my gaming life. While on a family trip to America, our rental car was broken into and bags stolen, containing our whole Magic card collection and our Game Boys and all games. All we had left were a few at home and insurance money to buy new ones, which we did. But this left us bereft of some of our most cherished, memorable games. Anyway, I had the chance to play this sequel when I borrowed it from my brother this year.
Actually I started playing last year, at a family get-together. But now I’ve finally finished, I can say I was a little bit disappointed. Maybe it’s my rose-coloured memories, but the scope, length, and plot seemed lesser than my recollection of the first two. In terms of gameplay though, DD is streamlined and improved in all sorts of little ways.
There were plenty of callbacks to the GBA games, with returning characters (and some, oddly, repeatedly mentioned but never seen), concepts renewed, and many of the same items (weapons have more special attacks here though, which is a good thing). The return of the same weapons though raises an interesting implied narrative. In the 30 year gap, is it possible the Warriors of Vale travelled the new world, seeding appropriate items in different places according to the strength of monsters there? Hehehe, now that could make an interesting game…
What’s different though is the look. Changing from sprites to polygons is common in the GBA->DS transition, as indeed in the SNES->N64. I feel that the areas have a similar feel though, Camelot has done a good job of capturing the tone of the previous installments, with their varied environments, distinct cultures, fantastical monsters with little relevance to imagery in the game (except bosses). Also, all the Djinn look different now! It’s awesome!
The new characters are pretty cool, I especially liked Sveta and being able to control Eoleo, the pirate’s baby from The Lost Age. The villains were totally boring though. Not as mysterious as Saturos and Menardi or as well-developed as Karst and Agatio, Blados and Chalis (while very similar in style) just show up, drop cryptic statements and leave. Snore. They don’t even get a proper fleshing out later on, just more hints. The whole game feels inconclusive, like it’s just setting up a sequel that will really explore things properly, a game which hasn’t happened yet. And we all got it was Alex under that mask, give us some more!
As a sequel it was simultaneously gratifying and disappointing. It continues from the previous in a great way, and sets up some very cool things, but being such an obvious interlude it lets you down hard in the end and little is resolved. And only letting you explore 1/3—1/4 of the world makes it feel small, even if it is quite large. I suppose it’s a realistic depiction of life in an era of limited communication and travel options, and it made you feel part of the world with events happening offscreen. This is a good thing.
As its own game, it gets a lot of things right and has some inventive ways of filling in backstory for new players. It does a good job with providing vague direction but letting you wander, which is refreshing to me. It looks great and controls very well, with easy-to-use menus and smooth events. Cut-scenes can be a bit jarring and tend to drag at times, though. Smaller and more often, I say.
I played all the Final Fantasy Advance games, so coming from that Golden Sun is a nice change of pace. As RPGs go, the series is a fine example with a very well-developed world that doesn’t get too crazy. The world-building really is a highlight, as is the Djinn system of pet/class customising/summons/special attacks. I can’t call it unique, because of the vastness of RPGs I haven’t played, but in my experience it’s one of my favourites. I had a very good time with this one, too. Until next time: it’s wise to keep one’s mind and body strong.
