I Play Porn Games For The Story // 11.12.2011
By Psycosis 8 Comments
Hey you guys, thanks for stopping by! This is my rather weirdly named weekly blog all about video games and visual novels, with maybe programming, anime and stuff like that sprinkled here and there every so often. I’m still recovering from an incredibly bad case of the flu (3 weeks and counting) but it’s pretty much been reduced to a terrible cough that only pops up when I go things like, say, walk. This means I’ve just sat at my computer for an entire week! It’s pretty much living the dream!
Sonic Adventure DX
This one has been a long time coming. A few months ago I replayed Sonic Adventure 2 much to my delight. For all the small problems that game has, I still had a lot of fun with it. Then, in amongst my friends and I quoting cutscenes from the game line for line with far too much accuracy, I realised once again I had never played Sonic Adventure DX. Thankfully, or maybe unfortunately, I didn’t have an excuse this time, as I had bought it on Steam when it was on sale. Since I had some free time ignoring the university work that’s due incredibly soon, I decided to play, and complete, Sonic Adventure DX.
Ugh.
I’d start this off by talking about the good things about the game but I can’t think of any.
I started by playing the Sonic storyline, because you know, it’s a Sonic game. Also it’s the only one unlocked from the start so there’s also that. Anyway, the Sonic missions are the best of the lot, but that’s not saying much. The worst part of the game is the parts in between the levels, where you have to go around talking to people trying to figure out just what the hell you have to do. I decided to skip as many cutscenes as I could because I couldn’t stand the voices, which just made these sections even worse since I was just running around hoping another cutscene would take place, so that I could skip that one and be even more confused.
The different character stories are really weird. Sonic’s story makes sense for what that’s worth, but then every other character doesn’t necessarily happen in conjunction, in fact, most of them overlap in a weird way. For instance, the Tails levels are just the Sonic levels, except the way to win those you have to beat Sonic to the goal. In terms of the gameplay sure I can see that being a good decision but in terms of the story why the hell is Tails beating Sonic here but not in Sonic’s missions? Another thing I hated is that almost every character has to place the stupid crystal keys to unlock Angel Island and a few levels. Surely When Sonic placed them, they should have been in place for everyone else afterwards? Admittedly I know this is just a nitpick, but man it really annoyed me for some reason. Maybe because it meant I had to play more Sonic Adventure DX.
While it’s great that each character plays differently, it doesn’t necessarily make them fun. Amy plays pretty similar to Sonic, except for the fact that she’s absolutely terrible and her missions are terrible and I hate everything. E-102 plays like Eggman and Tails do in Sonic Adventure 2, which in all honestly is my least favourite part of that game, so I didn’t enjoy those missions either! Knuckles is trying to find shards of the master emerald in this game as well, which makes it weird that he has the same personal storyline two games in a row, but since these levels were sorta fun to play I’m not going to complain. Oh and fuck Big the Cat.
It may just be me and my permanently equipped rose tinted glasses but Sonic Adventure 2 is just a much better game. The chao garden is expanded greatly (which is obviously the best part of both games), the different characters actually have different stories that intersect without overlapping, and, in my opinion, the levels are a lot better thought out. You can clearly see what Sonic Adventure 2 took from Sonic Adventure, and what it improved on. I’m glad I finally got around playing it, just so I know that I don’t like the game.
Rayman: Origins
A few weeks ago I mentioned that some friends and I have a weekly game night every Tuesday, where we do things like eat pizza, form a Sonic the Hedgehog cover barber shop quartet called ‘Graveyard Theory’ and watch Animal Soccer World. Well, this week, we actually played a videogame! The videogame is question being Rayman: Origins.
We played through the last few worlds four player, and I have to say, this game is incredible. Everything from the way the characters control, to the art style, to the level design, is incredibly top-notch. It’s also really great that the game doesn’t punish you for playing four players, like for instance New Super Mario Bros. Wii. While you can punch each other to mess them up (which we did do quite a lot), there isn’t much else in the way of griefing other players, which considering my friends are assholes, I appreciated. It’s a game I’d really recommend playing with people in the room, which is weird coming from me, who almost always prefers a single player experience.
As I said, we played through the last few worlds, so I didn’t play a lot of the easier stuff. We ended up completing the game and unlocking the final hidden level, and man, this game is no joke. The final chest race took us 45 minutes to complete, with high fives around the room when one of us finally managed to survive it. The final world and the hidden level were filled with moments just like that. In the hidden level there is a part where a giant tentacle is chasing the characters. After roughly 25 minutes trying to get past one part, I finally managed to get it, and everyone else was dead. There was no point in me trying to revive them, as it’d endanger both of us. Besides, the platform we always kept falling short off looked like the end of that section, and we’d obviously come across a door right after it.
We didn’t.
No, instead, another hole appeared in the floor, everyone flipped; we only got half way into the chase. I made the first jump, and the next, suddenly my friends were on the edge of their seat, shouting encouragements and just general “OH GOD”s after I’d make every jump and hit each enemy without knowing what was coming up. Eventually I made it to the door, and everyone in the room rejoiced. Everyone had their moments like that in the final level, no matter how hard a segment was eventually one of us would manage to scrape past it. It was quite possibly the most fun I’ve had playing a videogame in quite some time. There were some levels in which every one of us were in complete sync, running and jumping at the exact same time. Again, I’m pretty down on multiplayer most of the time, but with the right group of friends, this game is absolutely incredible.
Chrono Trigger
So the endurance run finally got to me, I had to play some Chrono Trigger. This actually marks my first playthrough of Chrono Trigger; the fact that I hadn’t actually played it up until now had really bugged me for a long time. I had emulated the SNES game quite a while ago, but only played through the first hour or so, thinking that if I was ever going to play it, this wasn’t the way I should go about it. But then I realised, the game never even came out in Europe, so getting a SNES copy was out of the question. My desire to play it died down a bit, and was rekindled with the release of the DS port. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it anywhere. Every week for a good 6 months, I’d check game stores in my area if they had it, to no avail. Even online retailers didn’t have it whenever I checked. Again, my desire to play died down again. Finally, here comes the endurance run, and again I’m looking around to find a copy of the DS version. Now, I’m finally playing through the game!
On my phone.
Yes the iOS port of Chrono Trigger was released this week, and considering it was about 3 times cheaper than the only DS cartridge I found, I bought it the second it was available. Then, only when it was installing, did I realise what a terrible mistake I had made. I have a few of Square Enix’s other iOS ports, namely the Final Fantasy stuff, and they’ve been less than stellar. The reworked graphics in Final Fantasy 1 and 2 look absolutely terrible, along with terrible UI, it makes those games incredibly hard to play, and all it’d take is an option to use the original sprites and I’d probably love it. The port of Final Fantasy 3 is based on the DS version, much like this Chrono Trigger port as it includes the new DS dungeon stuff, I already owned before checking out the iOS version because I’m an idiot. Because the graphics aren’t remade specifically for the iOS version, I feel this is the better port of the three; however, the simple fact that it uses a virtual joystick makes it rather annoying to control. The port of Chrono Trigger seems to be based on the Final Fantasy 3 port, for better or worse.
The good part, is that the graphics are the SNES graphics. Thankfully, Square Enix saw no need to remake them for the iOS version. The downside of this is, however, the UI has been updated. This makes sense, as the old interface wouldn’t work on the phones, but in places it just looks jarring. The text is high quality and so are the menu boxes, which makes them look out of place when overlaid onto the SNES sprites. The controls are also the same from the Final Fantasy 3 port. When you’re moving around, wherever you press on the screen, a virtual joystick is put on that position, and then you drag in a direction to move. Admittedly, this is one of the better solutions for the joystick problem, but it’s obviously still not ideal. Just tapping the screen makes you talk to anyone in front of you, so that works just fine.
Some of the puzzles have been redone due to the fact that there are no buttons. In the future setting, in the SNES version there’s a door you have to access by ‘holding L and R, then hitting A’. Now, on the iOS, there is no L, R, or A, so that stuff has changed. In its place there are colour based puzzles. To access the door in this version, you hit the control panel, and hen different coloured buttons appear at the bottom of the screen, which you have to tap in the correct order. Again, it makes sense they had to change it, but at least they could have made the buttons fit in with the SNES art style a bit better.
Having said all this isn’t Chrono Trigger yo, so it’s pretty swell. It’s obviously not the ideal way to play it, but I can take my phone out of my pocket and play Chrono Trigger. I’m glad that I’ve finally been able to play it, and I can’t wait to play more of it. I’m currently just past where the endurance run is right now, having just met up with Frog for a second time. I’ll probably sink more time into it over the next few weeks. Since it’s on my phone it’s pretty well suited for short gameplay bursts, even if not exiting the app completely makes it count all my idle hours in my playthrough, so after the first day I had already amassed 24 hours of play. Oh iPhone games!
Let’s Meow Meow
This is one of those ‘well I guess I was going to have to play it eventually’ types of moments. I’ve never been one to enjoy the whole cat eared girls thing, even removed from the fact that it’s the first notch of the becoming-furry-o-meter, it’s never been something I’ve liked it terms of visual novels. I’m perfectly fine with it in anime and that side of things, however, so it’s not like I try my hardest to avoid it. This visual novel, however, looked like the fact that ‘yo those girls got animal ears’ was its only selling point. Let’s just say I started playing Let’s Meow Meow with rather low expectations, and it failed even to meet those.
The story is rather paper thin, if that. The main character Ibuki Takao is a big fan of cats, and as a result feeds the stray cats in town. Because of this, the cat god appears before him and offers him a wish, to which he requests a cat girl of his own. His wish is granted and he finds a cat girl on the streets the next day, who then becomes his maid, much to the chagrin of his childhood friend who just happens to be the daughter of his landlord because visual novels. Over the next few days it turns out that more humanoid animals were transported to this world, including a rabbit girl treasure hunter, a dog girl cop, and a robot designed to look like a cat girl because visual novels. They all have to life with the realisation that there is no way back to their own world. That is, until another miko cat girl shows up and is all “yo dawgs we can go back to our own world.” Several sex scenes later and then they all C-walk back to their own world, unless of course one of them falls in love with the main character, in which case they’d probably stay I dunno.
As far as visual novels go the only reason to go into different routes is to see the different sex scenes. The first half of the story has all of the real character development and introductions, which sometimes could amount to something slightly interesting. Then you get a screen saying “hey which one of these girls you wanna fuck?” and that’s the way you access different routes, despite the amounts of choices you have to make in the first half, they hardly amount to anything. At this point you select two girls for the main character to get with, the main character gets with them, and you choose which one of the two you prefer, and the story continues. The second half of the story doesn’t even revolve around the character you chose, instead it revolves around the miko cat girl that shows up and is all about the entire cast going back home.
Not much else to say about this one to be honest, all in all it’s a pretty forgettable title. Nothing rather happens in the story that’s worth anything. The characters don’t have any real personality behind them, the art is dated but that’s probably the product of the game being 8 years old at this point. And rather predictably the character I liked the most was the cat boy butler that worked for the bunny girl, deal with it.
Infinite Stratos
“Gee” I said to myself, “I sure do love anime. But I just wish it could be more generic.” Thankfully, my prayers were answered when I watched Infinite Stratos.
The setup is pretty cool admittedly. In this universe there are the Infinite Stratos, mechs that can only be piloted by woman for some reason. The main character, Ichika Orimura, is the first guy who is able to pilot one, and as a result goes to study at IS Academy, an in theory girls only high school, as it’s designed to teach girls how to pilot the Infinite Stratos. Being the only guy there, it isn’t long until he gets a bunch of girls pining over him, but of course in classic harem comedy trope land, he’s completely oblivious to everything related to that. Also in classic harem comedy trope land, he reunites with not one but two childhood friends, a girl who is initially incredibly cold to him also falls for him, and a second guy who transfers to the school turns out to also be a girl. The anime gradually introduces characters throughout the first 9 or so episodes, and then has some kind of big fight conclusion in the last 3 episodes. However, after said fight, the anime actually ends with harem comedy based misunderstandings so that’s cool I guess.
Or as much as this anime is just all the harem comedy tropes rolled into one thing with ‘also mechs’ hastily written on it, I sort of enjoyed it. The ‘also mechs’ part of it does make for some pretty cool fight sequences, and for as generic the mechs look, the way the anime blends 3D elements for the mechs movement with the 2D drawings is incredibly well done. It’s not so that you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart, but they work well together.
I can’t tell if I’m getting tired of harem anime to be honest. Every time the opportunity arises to watch one, I begrudgingly watch it, only to find some things about it I like. Maybe the bubble will burst eventually, but like I said, I ended up liking Infinite Stratos despite how generic it turned out to be. I’m not even a big fan of mech anime so the fact that that was something I enjoyed about the anime was rather surprising. The only real problem with it is that it’s another pretty forgettable experience; nothing really happens in the story apart from harem antics and mech battles. And unless I completely missed it they never really talked about why only women can pilot the Infinite Stratos, or better yet why Ichika can pilot one. I might just be looking too much into what is just an excuse to have the main character surrounded by girls, but still.
This time I’ve got two mashups! Unfortunately, they’re both My Little Pony based. Maybe one day I’ll go back to mashing together actual songs together, but until then, the first mashup is a Black Eyed Peas joint, and the second is a Fatman Scoop joint! You guys remember Fatman Scoop? I used to love Be Faithful way too much when it came out for no good reason. For that mashup, since an instrumental of that song doesn’t actually exist, I had to recreate it using the three or four songs that it sampled from. It doesn’t sound perfect but I think it works. Then of course I put a bunch of ponies over it, you’re welcome.
And that brings a close to another week of whatever the hell I’ve been up to! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to completely re-learn Java and make a terrible phone game. You know when I signed up for this course I really should have read what it was about, because I hated Java. In fact I remember the last time I had to use it and thought to myself “well I’ll never have to use that language ever again!” Oh if only I knew, if only I knew.
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