I Play Porn Games For The Story // 18.03.2012

Oh god oh jeez.

Like just ugh, be quiet, I can’t.

This is my weekly blog, it’s super early in the morning and this probably wasn’t the best idea in the world.

Gah this screen is so bright.

Videogames, visual novels, other things maybe, random song that has only a vague connection to what’s being said, right I’ve covered the basics lets go.

Pokemon Emerald

So remember when I said last week that I wasn’t going to play previous generations of Pokemon?

Well hear me out.

My friends and I are currently in the middle of a third generation Nuzlocke race. I’m playing Emerald and my two friends are playing Ruby and Sapphire, racing to see who can beat the game first.

If you aren’t familiar with what a Nuzlocke run is, I’ll give you a super quick rundown. Nuzlocke runs mean if your pokemon faints during a battle, that pokemon is effectively dead, and you have to release it, or dedicate a box in storage as a ‘graveyard’ of sorts. On top of that there are a few other rules, some runs mean you can only use a pokemon center once per town, or you have to catch the first pokemon you see in each route and nothing else. Our rules are just the basic one and you can only catch one pokemon per route, but it doesn’t have to be the first one you see. But of course the added challenge is that we’re racing.

What that adds is, well, normally if I was doing this kind of run, I’d be grinding in one area for a long period of time to make sure I was super overpowered and don’t lose any pokemon in a gym battle, however, since it’s a race I don’t have that luxury, unless my friends also do exactly that.

Which they don’t, and therefore, I’m currently in last place.

I forgot how cool third generation can be, but it’s still far from my favourite, we did notice the games came out around the time Nintendo were obsessed with water. The entire plot of this game revolves around team Aqua wanting to make the world water or something (we’re using Japanese roms for added difficulty so I’ve forgotten the basics), despite the fact that the region is the most water filled of all the games so far. But this game also came out around the time of Sunshine and Wind Waker, which is pretty weird.

I’d say the real reason I’m in last place is that I totally wiped at the first gym leader and had to start from the beginning, but with some luck I’ve managed to catch up to second place and will hopefully take it on the next run. Two of us are at the seventh gym while the third is at victory road. However, he’s super underpowered, so he’ll be there a while, so it’s still anyone’s game.

Wizorb

Wizorb was finally released on Steam so of course I bought it as soon as I could!

Wizorb at its most basic level is a breakout game with great pixel graphics. You control a paddle and a ball and.. It’s fucking breakout.

When you break objects you get powerups and sometimes money, you can use money to help fund repairs at a destroyed village, which will usually net you keys to unlock bonus levels where you can get more money to help fund repairs at a destroyed village which will net you more keys to unlock bonus levels where you can get more money to help fund repairs at a destroyed village.

The worlds themselves seem way to long for my liking. The first world has something like 13 levels in it and since each level is quite long, I had my fill at around 6 levels. It feels weird complaining that there is too much content, but the fact that the only way you can maintain all of the money you collect (which you can use to help fund repairs at a destroyed village) is to beat every level, and when you’ve got your fill of hitting things with balls around half way through, that can be a little bit annoying. But that might just be my impatience.

It’s a fun game and it looks and sounds phenomenal, I guess I just need to dedicate a lot more time to it as opposed to my usual ‘booting up a game for 10 minutes before quitting and doing something else’ system allows.

Crescendo

How many times have I mentioned how badly visual novels age? I think I must say it at least once a month. It’s pretty much the reason why I really don’t want to play Clannad, despite how much I know I’ll love it, it’s just gonna be a bad experience nowadays. On that note, here’s a visual novel that came out coming up on 11 years now, Crescendo.

In this game you play as Ryo as he reminisces on his time at high school. With graduation approaching within the week, he looks back on the turmoil his life went through and the girls that helped him through it. Obviously not wanting to squander the opportunity, with the reality of maybe never seeing these girls ever again, he has to something something visual novels.

The system of introducing each character in flashbacks is a little bit weird. When each of the girls is introduced the game goes into flashback mode to when they first met. It’s good for showing where obviously their friendship started, but then you have choices to make in the flashbacks. Obviously this is to help set flags and decide which girl to get with, but then implying that no matter what choices you made Ryo still ended up at the same point at the end of his high school life? I didn’t realise this was Mass Effect 3.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

Barring that the actual game is nothing that exciting all things told, and hey that’s all I have to say about this game I guess. It’s an old game and therefore the art, voices and just about everything is really showing their age (even the characters, this game seemed to have missed the whole making characters older than they appear trend). The stories themselves are rather short, since the game takes place entirely in the last week of high school. 5 days, a perfect amount of time for a girl to instantly fall in love with the main character right? Anyway, this is definitely a visual novel; each character has their forced drama moments an some work better than others. Yeah.

And now I’m going to go lie down oh god.

Oh god oh jeez.

Like just ugh, be quiet, I can’t.

This is my weekly blog, it’s super early in the morning and this probably wasn’t the best idea in the world.

Gah this screen is so bright.

Videogames, visual novels, other things maybe, random song that has only a vague connection to what’s being said, right I’ve covered the basics lets go.

Pokemon Emerald

So remember when I said last week that I wasn’t going to play previous generations of Pokemon?

Well hear me out.

My friends and I are currently in the middle of a third generation Nuzlocke race. I’m playing Emerald and my two friends are playing Ruby and Sapphire, racing to see who can beat the game first.

If you aren’t familiar with what a Nuzlocke run is, I’ll give you a super quick rundown. Nuzlocke runs mean if your pokemon faints during a battle, that pokemon is effectively dead, and you have to release it, or dedicate a box in storage as a ‘graveyard’ of sorts. On top of that there are a few other rules, some runs mean you can only use a pokemon center once per town, or you have to catch the first pokemon you see in each route and nothing else. Our rules are just the basic one and you can only catch one pokemon per route, but it doesn’t have to be the first one you see. But of course the added challenge is that we’re racing.

What that adds is, well, normally if I was doing this kind of run, I’d be grinding in one area for a long period of time to make sure I was super overpowered and don’t lose any pokemon in a gym battle, however, since it’s a race I don’t have that luxury, unless my friends also do exactly that.

Which they don’t, and therefore, I’m currently in last place.

I forgot how cool third generation can be, but it’s still far from my favourite, we did notice the games came out around the time Nintendo were obsessed with water. The entire plot of this game revolves around team Aqua wanting to make the world water or something (we’re using Japanese roms for added difficulty so I’ve forgotten the basics), despite the fact that the region is the most water filled of all the games so far. But this game also came out around the time of Sunshine and Wind Waker, which is pretty weird.

I’d say the real reason I’m in last place is that I totally wiped at the first gym leader and had to start from the beginning, but with some luck I’ve managed to catch up to second place and will hopefully take it on the next run. Two of us are at the seventh gym while the third is at victory road. However, he’s super underpowered, so he’ll be there a while, so it’s still anyone’s game.

Wizorb

Wizorb was finally released on Steam so of course I bought it as soon as I could!

Wizorb at its most basic level is a breakout game with great pixel graphics. You control a paddle and a ball and.. It’s fucking breakout.

When you break objects you get powerups and sometimes money, you can use money to help fund repairs at a destroyed village, which will usually net you keys to unlock bonus levels where you can get more money to help fund repairs at a destroyed village which will net you more keys to unlock bonus levels where you can get more money to help fund repairs at a destroyed village.

The worlds themselves seem way to long for my liking. The first world has something like 13 levels in it and since each level is quite long, I had my fill at around 6 levels. It feels weird complaining that there is too much content, but the fact that the only way you can maintain all of the money you collect (which you can use to help fund repairs at a destroyed village) is to beat every level, and when you’ve got your fill of hitting things with balls around half way through, that can be a little bit annoying. But that might just be my impatience.

It’s a fun game and it looks and sounds phenomenal, I guess I just need to dedicate a lot more time to it as opposed to my usual ‘booting up a game for 10 minutes before quitting and doing something else’ system allows.

Crescendo

How many times have I mentioned how badly visual novels age? I think I must say it at least once a month. It’s pretty much the reason why I really don’t want to play Clannad, despite how much I know I’ll love it, it’s just gonna be a bad experience nowadays. On that note, here’s a visual novel that came out coming up on 11 years now, Crescendo.

In this game you play as Ryo as he reminisces on his time at high school. With graduation approaching within the week, he looks back on the turmoil his life went through and the girls that helped him through it. Obviously not wanting to squander the opportunity, with the reality of maybe never seeing these girls ever again, he has to something something visual novels.

The system of introducing each character in flashbacks is a little bit weird. When each of the girls is introduced the game goes into flashback mode to when they first met. It’s good for showing where obviously their friendship started, but then you have choices to make in the flashbacks. Obviously this is to help set flags and decide which girl to get with, but then implying that no matter what choices you made Ryo still ended up at the same point at the end of his high school life? I didn’t realise this was Mass Effect 3.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

Barring that the actual game is nothing that exciting all things told, and hey that’s all I have to say about this game I guess. It’s an old game and therefore the art, voices and just about everything is really showing their age (even the characters, this game seemed to have missed the whole making characters older than they appear trend). The stories themselves are rather short, since the game takes place entirely in the last week of high school. 5 days, a perfect amount of time for a girl to instantly fall in love with the main character right? Anyway, this is definitely a visual novel; each character has their forced drama moments an some work better than others. Yeah.

And now I’m going to go lie down oh god.

Honestly, I think being in a Nuzlocke race would be the only thing that would ever interest me in pokemon again and it would probably also be the only thing that would make me ever want to play 3rd generation again, as it's basically an "Ironman" mode of sorts. As someone who firmly believes that RSE is the beginning of the end for pokemon, with its limited pokedex, insane amount of water (basically forcing one of your team members into Water HM servitude with Surf, Dive and Waterfall all serving the exact same purpose), and generally kind of "meh" new additions, I kind of never want to deal with it again. On the plus side, Groudon, Kygore and Rayquaza were basically the last on-the-box legendaries that didn't make me immediately burst into laughter.

I didn't realize you could joke about Mass Effect 3's ending without actually playing it.

@MeesterO: Your 2 hour rant on the last 10 minutes is more than enough content.~ <3

@ArbitraryWater: I didn't mind generation 3 but it was the last one I played before falling off completely (that is, until HeartGold rekindled my love for it). The whole water aspect of the game was fine for me personally as, well, you have to have a HM mule for every generation (except 5) anyway, so having a kickass water pokemon who only knows Surf, Dive, Waterfall and random-4th-move-of-your-choice was fine by me.

I will admit I wouldn't be playing it again if it wasn't for the Nuzlocke race aspect to it, but I'd say this generation was fine, it was 4th gen that's the utterly terrible one, with like 30 legendaries, terribly overdesigned pokemon, and adding more evolutions to first genertion pokemon that really didn't need them. While 3rd gen might have dipped its toes it was 4th gen that took the plunge into the swimming pool of mediocrity.

@Psycosis: Interestingly enough, despite all my smack talk on modern pokemon I totally played the shit out of Diamond version, and I played a dumb amount of Soul Silver as well, which says something about the power of nostalgia overriding the fact that in general I can't tolerate that formula anymore. I bought black out of the need to play something on my DS while I waited for my laptop to ship, and when my laptop arrived earlier than expected I basically had no need whatsoever of that title as I was too busy installing Deus Ex and playing that game for fun and enjoyment.

In retrospect, yeah. 4th gen is the REAL falling off point. Still, I think that the Physical/Special split based on move and not type was the last smart change made to the formula, though really no one in the target demographic (the target demographic not being people in their early to mid 20s, oddly enough) for those games would notice at all.