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Past Expiration: Dark Cloud 2

By Sarumarine 8 Comments

For those who don't know, Past Expiration is my little term for talking about a game way past its prime. In this case, an RPG randomly generated dungeon crawler slash town builder that was released in 2003 for the Playstation 2. Topical!

Dark Cloud 2 (Fantasy Back to the Future: The Game)

He's an Inventor, She's a Princess: They fight Crime

I have to admit I don't remember how I was introduced to Dark Cloud 2. I may have rented it back in the days when you actually visited a store to rent games. But for whatever reason I remember that it had a strong opening and a crazy invention system that involved creating items and weapons by taking pictures of objects and combining them. So I took it upon myself to track down a copy and play through it to the end. And this is a great little game. Well, not little. This game is long and dense. It's one part dungeon crawler, one part Sim City with plenty of story to fill out everything else. You might consider it a slow burn, but once things get moving there is a lot of fun to be had.
 
Well, unless you hate randomly generated dungeons. Then you're flat out of luck there. 
 

Story Keeps on Slippin' Into the Future

 No Such Thing as a Good Clown
This game is pretty easy to sum up in a sentence. A young inventor named Max and a princess from the future named Monica team up to restore the land through use of time travel. If I had to be more specific (and I do) it starts in an isolated town called Palm Brinks where no one has gone outside the walls in a really long time. You play as Max right off (and eventually Monica) when the circus comes to town with some really shady clowns and discover that the world is pretty fucked up at the moment. After a tutorial dungeon in the sewer and shaking off a bunch of carnival freaks, you learn that the only way to save the future is to rebuild key areas in the past. How they get this done involves amulets known as the red and blue Atlamillia. Max can travel to the future with his, while Monica can use hers to go back in the past.
 
That means you get a whole system dedicated to planting trees, placing houses and other environmental stuff. The closer you can stick to history, the better off the future will be (and you'll also get some helpful upgrades). Of course, Emperor Griffin, the guy responsible for wrecking the past has plenty of soldiers to harass you throughout the game. You meet friendly faces and get to the bottom of all this time distorting nonsense. There's also a time traveling train involved. Doc Brown would be proud.
 
Overall the game is pretty lighthearted. I did appreciate that Monica is no damsel in distress and will frequently hold her own in and out of cutscenes. Max is pretty chill for a main character and doesn't get annoying after 20 plus hours of game time. There's also a great villainous clown known as Floatsam early in the game.
 

Crawl, Crawler

The RPG action part of the game involves exploring randomly generated dungeons. Every area you visit and revisit will be different every single time. The only constant is the type of enemies you'll find in a particular section. When it comes down to fighting, fleeing and using items, it plays out like an third person action game. Max and Monica play similarly with both a melee and projectile attack. The difference between them really depends on how you upgrade their weapons, but I played most of the game with Max because his special move is an awesome Mech called the Ridepod that you can customize throughout the game. It can LAY WASTE to most of the enemies in a stage no problem. Whether you're feeling Metal Gear or Main Battle Tank, Max has the guns to bring it. Also, as you upgrade his weapons he becomes the long range master equipped with rapid fire pistols or a fully automatic sub-machine gun.
 
 Gatling Guns would work Better
Monica was more of my melee master. She has some really great swords... and that's about it. Her projectile attack involves some magic that hardly does any damage (if you're lucky) and becomes situational at best by the end of the game as higher level enemies develop immunities. Not to mention, her special mode involves transforming into enemy monsters... but they're so weak, slow and overall pathetic that I never stuck with it long enough to find out if she got anything better. It also doesn't help that you have to jump through some serious hoops wooing enemies over with care packages in order to get more monster transformations. I found it damn near impossible to see if it ever paid off.... because enemies never develop immunities to tank cannons. Nope.
 
However, the game is pretty good about keeping you from blowing through a dungeon with one character. There are stages that pop up where you can only use one character only. Luckily, all you need to do is find a key and then the exit. So if you weren't giving Monica the time of day, you're not totally screwed if she's too weak to fight. It also has you keep track of weapon condition, ammo, fuel so you can't one button it through an entire stage. You can buy supplies at shops... but it can get pretty pricey.

Build a Wrench, then Build a Town

The other part of the game involves inventing things and rebuilding towns. The invention system uses a camera Max carries around. He can take pictures of objects like windows, barrels, stop lights, trumpets, and store it in a photo album. Then you combine three objects you've taken photos of and see if it results in an item or weapon you can make. Of course, doing this repeatedly with random objects will result in frustration. Your best bet is to look around town and get "inspired" by books and people that give you a useful combinations. And since you can whip out the camera anytime, anyplace, it gets really tricky figuring out what can be used for an invention or not. There's one combination that uses a hallway chandelier right before the final boss confrontation. Some even use certain frames of an enemy's attack animation. It can get pretty crazy. But sometimes you can create a trumpet gun made from a fountain, a rapper, and a tree.
 
 Gonna Build a Town
More importantly (as in, required to move the story along) is rebuilding towns in each area of the game. You get materials from dungeon crawling and things called geostones that allow you to make houses, trees and other stuff. It will also give you conditions to fulfill in order to repair the future. Stuff like, putting a fence around a house, or putting a bridge over a body of water. It's sort of like Sim City with the overhead view but without the income tax and water works. Each area has different materials to build with, like the coastal town that uses large docks to build on. You only have to hit a certain percentage to fix the future, but if you go 100% you get items that increase health for Max and Monica. Mercifully, the game is not really picky about each objective, so you can build some ugly ass towns and still get through the game. The only time building gets frustrating is when you don't have enough geostones to figure out what each objective is. When the game tells you to put "??????" next to "??????" you'll want to give it the middle finger.
 
Once you've put a town back together, you'll also need to move people in. Ghost towns don't count in the world of Dark Cloud 2. Most of these people are recruited from Palm Brinks, the starting area. And just like Suikoden or Majora's Mask they'll all want something before going along with your crazy plan to save the future or whatever it is you plan to do. This varies from simple actions like answering questions and more annoying tasks like upgrading a piece of junk weapon or figuring out complicated math problems. Yeah.

Lost FOREVER and Time Distortion Golf

Dark Cloud 2 is also not afraid to use the greatest of gaming fears, losing something forever. One of the worst offenders is a guy who wants you to take photos of certain events, characters, or boss battles. The majority of his requests are events you will only see once. So if you didn't catch that elephant rearing up to smash you to pieces... tough luck. Or when that effeminate fish pulls a big goofy smile. The list goes on. Certain weapons also fall under that category too. My best advice is to just roll with it. This game is not so hard that you'll regret missing out on some content. And luckily a lot of the missable stuff is side quests and other junk you can live without.
 
The other thing I have to mention, because it gets really damn bad, is a mini-game where you try to fix time distortions with a game of golf. They justify it with a piece of time and space rolling around where it shouldn't and Max or Monica can't touch it because it's dangerous. The end result is a golf game where you try to hit a color changing ball into a vortex. But since every dungeon is randomly generated, there are countless times where you just can't win because you can only hit the ball a number of times before it disappears. What keeps you from trying over and over again is that you can only play this game after killing every enemy on the stage. Even if you're power leveled, it takes time. Way too much time just to figure out that you can't possibly hit a ball up and down a hallway, bend around a corner, and cross a gap because the stage isn't set up right. And winning gets you gold cards that can buy pretty cool stuff too.
 
I guess it's not gamebreaking, but I still found it really annoying.
 

Final Thoughts

Dark Cloud 2 is a really cool game. At first I was afraid it would be too hard to balance town building mechanics and exploring dungeons for materials and boss fights. It seemed awkward at first but I got used to it as I went on. I appreciate all the crazy names they give each level of a dungeon, and the level of customization in costumes and pieces for the Ridepod is awesome. Slap a rotor and some cannons on that thing and you're good to go. Don't forget the voice box that gives your mech plenty of one liners.
 
And remember, clowns are always trouble.
8 Comments

Recently Played: Might and Magic - Clash of Heroes

By Sarumarine 0 Comments

Before I get started I want to put a little disclaimer here. No matter what I might dip into in the following paragraphs, at the end of the day this game broke about even for me. How good is it? Depends on what kind of mood I'm in. I think it's got a fairly even split of good and bad, so it's okay. I wouldn't go so far to describe it as a love/hate thing. That's far too generous. Most of my opinion is based on a part of the game that will most likely vary from person to person. So there's that.
 

Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes (RPG Puzzle Combat LOADING: The Game)

Fantasy Team: Assemble!
Arrrrggh. This just about sums up my experience with this game. Lots of groaning, lots of profanity, and a fair share of middle fingers. I've posted before about what I think of the difficulty in this game, so I'll summarize it by comparing it to the world's most schizophrenic roller coaster. Sometimes I can waltz through battles without trying. Most of the time I get curb stomped. Every now and then I have fun. Maybe. It depends if the random number generator is feeling merciful. Most of the time I find it's pretty vengeful.
 
Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is a weird RPG puzzle combat game that originally came out on the DS. The version I played was the XLBA release in HD, but I'm totally not sorry that I missed it the first time. If I found it then I would have been pissed off and frustrated sooner. But I'll try to tone down the anger from here on in. The one thing I can be glad of is that Clash of Heroes taught me that I have no stomach for this kind of game, no matter how many times I keep coming back to replay it.
 

How to Play

 DS Version, Close Enough
The way you play this game is managing a spread of units on a 8x6 grid trying to make columns or rows of 3 matching colored units to attack and defend while an opponent tries to do the exact same thing across from you. You only get three moves each turn (for the most part) to juggle your forces, so there is an element of thinking ahead. To mix this formula up you also have special units of larger sizes that have special abilities and cause more damage. Not to mention Heroes (more like generals) who have magic attacks that charge up from taking damage. The goal of the game is to get your units to the other side of the board to cause damage to the enemy hero. First one to hit 0 HP loses. I admit I'm having a lot of trouble describing it in a paragraph... but the game's tutorial is solid enough to get you in on the basic rules. Not to mention Giant Bomb has a Quick Look if you want to see things in motion.
 
On a higher layer up, you have five different factions with different stats and special items to give you a lot of room to find the playing style you prefer. For example, if you like the Glass Cannon strategy (paper thin defense but bunker busting offense) then you'll probably like the Undead with the Spider's Cowl. If protective walls are your very best friend, then the Elves have regenerating defenses. There's a lot of opportunity to mix it up. And if you play through the campaign mode (which is required to unlock more heroes and all the special items) you'll get very familiar with what each faction has to offer. It's a nice set up in concept.
 
The schizophrenic part that I mentioned earlier comes with the randomly generated unit spread. Most of the time the Computer AI will get the best set ups while I have to dig out my special units or waste several turns playing catching up or wasting attacking opportunities to hastily construct walls so I'm not obliterated in a single turn. Every now and then (after I restart enough times) I'll get a good spread where I can actually stand a chance. This makes most of the boss confrontations laughable jokes and minor enemies unstoppable killing machines. If you asked me if I'm good at this game I couldn't tell you. I beat it. Although that doesn't mean anything.
 

Campaign Mode

 He got axed. Get it?
The heart of this game is the five different campaigns that make up story mode. But the story is definitely not the game's strength. Now, I'm not well versed in the Might and Magic series but this puzzle game spin off is standard fantasy through and through. Prophecies, magical weapons, demon invasions, "Blood Moon Eclipse", elves that use nature, middle children that become evil... if you've heard of it before you can find it in this game. I know there is an audience for that, but this game doesn't really take itself serious enough to call it straight faced. You can look forward to an awkward, heavy handed Smokey the Bear reference in the first campaign. The second campaign quotes a few lines from Deliverance word for word, and all kinds of other shit like that. I''m one of those types that hate pop culture references in works of fantasy so it was especially painful to sit through. I admit it won't ruin the game forever, but it hits an especially sour note for me. The characters are okay I guess. They don't have very strong personalities but they have just enough to drive the plot.
 
I will say that if you're looking for a game to last you awhile, Clash of Heroes' campaign will not disappoint. By the time I beat it, the game clock was 30 hours or so. It probably would have taken longer if I accepted more losses like a good sport instead of immediately quitting out and reloading my save file. Which brings me to the more subjective part of this blog. Due to the randomness of unit spreads and reinforcements, the leveling system and difficulty means jack shit. A level 5 side mission might take you to task over and over again like they were a bonus boss. And then you'll get to a real boss and steamroll them in one try. It all depends how the random chance of this game will treat you. Maybe you'll get lucky and never run into this problem. Maybe you'll get unlucky and feel like the game is pulling this every single battle. You can also look forward to some fucking unfair battles to compound this in the very last campaign where you get three zingers back-to-back without a single chance to save- at the very start. The game has some pacing problems, that much I can be sure of.
 

Loading Loading Loading

I usually don't stress graphics or loading screens when it comes to gaming... but I do have to mention them because holy shit... this game has some loading screens out the ass. I don't know if it's the cost of HD graphics or something to do with the transition to XBLA, but if a loading screen pops up every time you change screens, start a battle, end a battle, start a cutscene, end a cutscene, or press a button on the start screen to access the menu- I don't think it justifies the cost. And if you have to restart battles as much as I did all this adds up in no time flat. Now, the animations for the larger units do look pretty cool like the Angel's holy beam of death and the Ghost's opening scream before she lays into the enemy... but I would be willing to sacrifice them just to get a smoother running experience. Loading screens are pretty ridiculous in this game and it's not even running off a disc.
 

So... what? Good? Bad? (Psst. What about Multiplayer?)

Dude, I don't know. I've been up and down so much on this game that I just want to get through this blog. There's local and online multiplayer, but if the campaign is any indication I'm pretty sure I would go out and murder someone if I lost to a real life person. The godsend of fighting a computer AI is that they never rub it in your face. They never talk and they never comment on your playing abilities (I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions). This game does bad enough things to me that the last thing I need is someone throwing fuel on the fire with a bad joke or a snide comment about my strategy.
 
....
 
So, yeah. This game is okay.
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Desk Jobs: L.A. Noire (All sorts of Spoilers)

By Sarumarine 5 Comments

I finished up L.A. Noire and I thought I'd capture my initial feelings for it. I think it will take a little longer before I decide how the game is overall, but I like coming back to things later and looking them over. So, for posterity's sake, here it is. Just the facts.

L.A. Noire (Law without the Order in 1947: The Game)

To cover basic game play stuff, I like going around a scene and discovering clues. The game's difficulty isn't really about finding everything and more about putting evidence together in interrogations. There are a few exceptions to the rule but the procedural element was entertaining. Shooting is... decent. I respect any game where the shotgun can be treated like a shotgun instead of a big knife you can only kill people with when you're point blank. And there are BARs. I mean, Browning Automatic Rifles. And considering the setting and tone of this game, they're treated as serious weapons which is nice.

Patrol Desk

Tutorial stuff. Nothing to see here people, move along!

They aren't great cases, but it was kind of fun to chase the jewelry store dude down. I actually shot him in the leg the first time because I wanted to stop him via non-lethal gunshots. This was before I learned that once you shoot someone in L.A. Noire, that means you have openly declared your desire to kill them. So, no foot shots or shoulder wounds. You shoot to kill.

The shooting thing also goes for Street Crimes... The way L.A. Noire is grounded as a more realistic setting I figured I'd be putting more offenders in cuffs than in caskets. But almost every single Street Crime ends with a shootout or a headshot to save a hostage. The way Phelps and his partner stand around all grim faced as a dead body is wheeled into the Corner's Van... I always feel like I've screwed up real bad. But they seem to just be shootouts to add more action in case someone was getting bored of investigations.

Traffic Desk

The traffic desk is the best desk in the game. Even though it's only three parts you get to investigate some awesome crime scenes. There's a car absolutely covered in blood, a hit and run, and a crash scene right across from the police station that dips into the movie industry scene. L.A. Noire had me hooked on the first investigation where you find a car's interior drenched in blood (like someone got blown to pieces with explosives) and then you find a small pipe covered with blood that couldn't possibly cause such a mess no matter how hard someone could swing it. It's a great "Wait a second..." moment that I wish more cases had. This is also the very last desk where you actually make meaningful arrests and get a sense of fulfillment by doing right by the law.

Homicide Desk

For me, this is probably the most disappointing part of the game. When I look back on it Homicide should have been great. You're solving murders now. I imagined gunshots, and knives, and some premeditation. The stakes are higher. You have a new partner who's somewhere between lazy and indifferent but still has some great lines. Unfortunately every case on the Homicide desk is mauled for an overarching plot involving a serial killer. That means you get a lot of repetitive crime scenes with dead women, bloody ropes, and size 8 footprints. That's four cases of the same basic set up over and over again where you're questioning a husband or some social miscreant. They lean hard into the Black Dahlia stuff and that's too bad.

This is also the part of the game where you can no longer make satisfying arrests. It gets abundantly clear that your bosses at the LAPD care more about headlines than the truth. Even if you have OVERWHELMING evidence in favor of a particular suspect... if you don't convict that Communist dude your ass is grass, boyo. And this emphasis of headlines over truth persists through the rest of the game. Maybe more true to life, but very unsatisfying if you're looking for a solution to your mystery stories.

Vice Desk

This is my second favorite desk. Even if your partner is a dirty cop like Roy Earle who is practically smug personified you get to solve crimes around Hollywood and go into clubs trying to make drug cases. "The Set Up" swerves pretty close to Pulp Fiction involving a boxer who didn't throw a match like he was supposed to, and you're racing against the mob and a suspicious girlfriend to find out what happened. Shooting up an old (or new?) movie theater is recipe for a good time. You also get to spend some time with Phelps' old Marine buddies and play with BARs in the streets of L.A. It's a damn shame this desk didn't last longer. I was quite surprised it was only three cases. I guess L.A. Noire does short and sweet well.

The only real downer to the Vice Desk is the downer ending. Phelps decides to become a shitty human being and cheat on his wife just in time for Roy Earle to profit from it and make out like a bandit. Dude is crooked, but at least he knows how to work the angles. Asshole.

Arson Desk (More like two parts Arson, three parts endgame)

It's hard to rate the Arson desk. You only do two cases before the story's big picture hijacks everything and runs off with its new favorite playable character Jack Kelso. Again, I was pretty excited to investigate fires despite everyone in the city laying into Phelps like they had just discovered the punching bag. Your new partner is awesome. Biggs has a great voice and some good lines too. It also has a bit of the same problem the Homicide Desk had with repeat offenders. It would have been cool to look into forest fires and other fire related crimes. Although that immolated family was... really fucked up. Who jumped like Biggs at that part? I did.

And like I said before, you play as another guy to the end of the game. I didn't have a problem with Kelso, but I would have liked it better if he had his own file or separate section of the game. Arson loses out a lot of potential to redirect the player to a conspiracy involving land grabbing and crappy suburban homes for returning G.I.s. Plus, you get to learn why Phelps is actually a pretty bad human being and that hating him is justified by pretty much everything he's ever done. That might be a little harsh considering you never see Phelps' home life or when he's not a cop or a Marine. But dude, the man is not fit to lead. At all.

DLC?

I am interested in what they'll do with DLC. The story kind of hangs in the background as you play from case to case until the Arson desk, so it would be pretty easy to slip in more content with "hey, more cases." I doubt they'll do anything with Homicide, but it would be nice to have a more traditional investigation instead of getting hung up on ropes and shoe sizes. Arson could also use some more fire related investigations and I would love more Traffic Desk cases. But if they decide to go the route of outfits and weapon skins... that would be a shame. Because the shooting really isn't L.A. Noire's strength. It's more about suspicious characters and crime scenes. I would like more of those.
5 Comments

Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes Difficulty Curve

By Sarumarine 9 Comments

A Helpful Visual for your Information
Times like these is when I'm glad I don't have photoshop. I'm pretty sure I'd never use it for anything good. But if my MS Paint mock up is any indication... I feel like this game doesn't have any idea how hard it is or wants to be.

Might and Magic: Clash of Random Chance

This is the second time I've written a blog about a game I have overwhelming feelings against (the first is Okamiden, if you're absolutely curious.) Usually I favor keeping it to myself if there's something I really dislike. Most of the time a good rant is just instant gratification where you can feel good for a few minutes at the cost of accidentally or intentionally putting down a bunch of people at the same time. But in the case of Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, I want to get to the bottom of this. I feel like there's some fun to be had in this game. The puzzle system seems pretty cool and would probably work great if I wasn't mauled by something I can't control every time I fight a battle. I'm talking about whatever system the game uses to decide troop patterns for my side and the computer's side. This also includes when you reinforce.

There's either a serious problem or I just can't handle the rules of engagement. Giant Bomb, help me out!

More about Chance than Skill

I've put some time into campaign mode. I just reached the third area and I would compare this game to Poker. You can understand some basic combinations and rule sets (like chaining and fusing core units) but ultimately it comes down luck. Or in my case, a whole shit ton of luck. It seems like every battle the computer begins with some cushy set up where it can triple chain a bunch of units and activate it's 4x4 special unit of death on the first turn. On my first turn I have to delete a bunch of units and juggle my much more manageable (or so I thought) 2 block units. Or I'm choked full of 4x4 special units (to the point I never use them anymore because they always get killed). It never seems fair. And I'm not talking about the standard CPU advantage because as a human I'm way more capable. It just seems uneven. And unlike Poker, there's no choice to fold and wait for the next hand. You take those losses and lose those resources, or like I do get so angry I quit out of the game and reload the save file.

The other bad end of this is whenever I reinforce and the spread dumps units all over setups I've been working on. This is especially bad for 4x4 units where it decides who wins and who loses. Without fail, every time reinforcements will choose to bury my special units under an avalanche and not even cases where I can easily delete a guy and create a wall or link something so units move to the back of the line. Facing the computer, you get as much time as you need, so it's not about missing the patterns. I just have nothing to work with. It makes for some really vicious swings where a nice lead can quickly turn into defeat.  This is when the computer opponent gets bunch of special units gift wrapped with everything they need to activate them and I end up throwing middle fingers at game code and something that literally can't care if I win or lose.

Because of this, the experience system means absolutely nothing to me. Why does the Lv.8 guy roll over like a dead log when the Lv.5 guy is like Nemesis and just won't die? The first boss in story mode was a complete joke compared to the random Elf on the side of the road. No, he wasn't a bounty. Just some random guy you could choose to fight. All that matters is how the units are placed at the beginning of the battle. It's almost impossible to build any confidence. Sometimes it's just funny when I managed to buy all the special units for the second campaign before the game introduced them to me.

The Other Very Real Possibility

The other side is that I may be really, really terrible at this game. More than I realize. I can accept that. But I was pretty bad at Super Meat Boy, another unforgiving game. The difference is that I could eventually get better at Super Meat Boy where in Clash of Heroes, I can never get better at random unit placements. Also, no one else seems to have this problem from what I've been able to find. It could be that they understand it's just part of the game and you deal with it. In that case let me know, please!

I had to post about this because there's three other areas left in the game, and if it's going to be like this through the rest of the game I'm not interested. And if this is how it works online with real people then forget that.
9 Comments

Going Overboard: Advance Wars - Dual Strike vs. Days of Ruin

By Sarumarine 24 Comments

Fight!
Advance Wars is one of my all time favorite video game series that uses an effective blend of turn based strategy and colorful graphics. This series started a long time ago known as Nintendo Wars in Japan, but it didn't really take off until a release on the Game Boy Advance. To overly simplify things, it's like chess involving tanks, planes, and battleships with a rock, paper, scissors approach to balance. An RPG-toting Infantry division can crack a tank no problem, but if an attack helicopter buzzes them, they're doomed. If a fighter jet finds the attack helicopter... well that copter is toast. The appeal comes from deploying a well balanced attack force along with a quirky Commanding Officer adding some bonus stats and special powers to mix things up. Couple that with some awesome music and a map editor and you're ready to roll.

I'm positive I could play this series forever. Sadly, Advance Wars has always been overshadowed by Fire Emblem which is a similar series with an emphasis on individual units in a fantasy setting. There's no telling if Intelligent Systems will ever release another game in the series. The last time an Advance Wars game came out was Days of Ruin/Dark Conflict on the DS in 2008. And it hasn't even released in Japan yet. To be fair, when the very first Advance Wars came out on the GBA it was right in the wake of 9/11. And considering how war is still part of our everyday lives I can see how an upbeat somewhat cutesy spin on commanding legions of infantry, tanks, and airplanes into combat might rub people the wrong way.

Anyway, I digress. The point of this blog is to take a look at the last two major releases in the Advance Wars on the Nintendo DS and match em' up 1v1 style. Why? Because I like both of them, but they are pretty different. I don't think this will turn into a contest of "which one is superior?" but more why I think both of them matter.

Basic Intel - Need to Know

Dual Strike and Days of Ruin might be in the same series but they are two very different beasts. It's the difference of balls-to-the-wall action disregarding all balance in contrast to a more reserved but better polished experience. The deciding factor comes down to how you like your games.

Dual Strike

At Least He's Honest
Dual Strike, released in 2005, takes the kitchen sink approach and packs the game with as much stuff as they could fit on the cartridge. Looking back on it, it was like a party blowout for characters that were back for a third and final time. They had new faces, an RPG-like progression system, tagging characters in and out, battles on two screens, new units, challenge modes, and a weird combat mode that would totally be a dual joystick shooter... if the DS had any joysticks. There are 27 commanding officers in all. You know how many they had in the very first Advance Wars? Twelve. There is a lot of stuff to do in Dual Strike.

However, this means that balancing the game was impossible. The dual strike system allowed COs to tag in and out and make use of their various abilities, so you could very well pick the guy who buys cheap units for lower firepower... and then switch to the guy who pays more for his units but gets superior firepower. The number of ways to break the game with crazy CO combinations is more than it should be. No one in their right mind should go up against someone using Sami and Eagle together. You could break this even further by equipping skills COs unlocked from leveling up. Some of the new units also didn't work so great in practice like the Piperunner that almost never gets any use unless there are pipelines it can roll on. Considering pipes are impassible objects, you didn't see them much.

I do have to give major props to this series for killing off one of their major villains (an alien? robot? snifit? named Sturm) and actually keeping him dead. You couldn't get away with that in a series like Zelda or Mario.

Days of Ruin (Cause I'm in the U.S.)

 Dust some Fools
Days of Ruin, released in 2008, was a reboot of the series with a new continuity and overall tone. When Advance Wars first came out it had a colorful, anime style to go along with the turn based military strategy. This game tossed all that out for darker and edgier with a decidedly next gen brown color scheme. It also has less content than Dual Strike, scaling things back and reworking the cost of units, Fog of War, and CO Powers. There are a few new units like the Duster plane, Biker Infantry, the Anti-Tank unit and a totally reworked Aircraft Carrier. It plays a lot better at the cost of slight tweaks to unit behavior, less COs, and a brand new cast of characters.

Instead of the simple good vs. evil storyline, Days of Ruin went a more complicated route. It was a survival story in a world totally devastated by meteors. Most of the characters represent various reactions to the end of the world. You have a guy like Waylon, who is ready to party down 'cause rules don't mean a thing in the apocalypse. There's Brenner, who's trying to do right because "where there's life, there's hope". And then you have NPCs like "The Mayor" who is so two-faced and backstabbing that he makes the major villain Caulder look good. It's one of those rare examples where making the game darker actually works in the favor of the story. There's only one character in the entire game who looks like a Mad Max extra and even one of the player characters falls pretty evenly between good and evil because she's the cold and calculating type.

The Cast - Commanding Officers


Dual Strike

Jake is Mad Fresh, Son
While the story in Dual Strike might be simple, it allows for a lot of awesome characters and general insanity that you couldn't pull off in a more grounded setting. Since every nation (with the exception of Black Hole) is somewhat based off a real world military at some point in history, they go through a lot of archetypes. Orange Star is the U.S. Military, Blue Moon is Soviet Russia. Yellow Comet is Imperial Japan. Green Earth is WWII Europe. Air ace Eagle does the Blitzkrieg, and when his CO meter is charged up he can move most of his units twice in one turn. Drake is the British Navy who can also launch giant tidal waves that steal fuel. You also have Sami, who represents all sorts of Special Forces where a single solitary solider can capture an entire city (or enemy HQ) Rambo style.  But sometimes you get a really dumb character like Jake, who uses so much slang he could be considered offensive.

Most of my favorites are the villains though, like the crazy Black Hole inventor Lash. She seems to have the most awareness about how absurd Advance Wars is without breaking the fourth wall and generally tries to have as much fun as she possibly can. Why is she evil? Because she can make giant ICBM cluster bombs and tanks with legs. She can produce cannons the size of mountains. While safe science is talking about ethics she's busy blowing up Olaf's hometown and installing self-destruct devices in airports just for fun. There's also Jugger, who is basically a webcam with arms and legs with some of the best dialogue in the game. These guys are gloriously dumb sometimes but always entertaining.

Not to mention, there are a shit ton of characters in this game. You're bound to find someone you like.

Days of Ruin

 Fascinating!
The cast of Days of Ruin is much more low key compared to Dual Strike but that makes them slightly more realistic if you're into that. Lin is probably my favorite example because she tries to do good things but is pragmatic enough to suggest non-heroic actions like leaving civilians behind if they aren't pulling their weight or shooting villains in cold blood when the opportunity presents itself because they had it coming. Some aren't as great though, like Will who falls into the "never say die, never give up" pothole that most designated protagonists fall into. Brenner, while a decent and kinda cool, pulls and Obi Wan. And there's Tasha who can be summed up in one caps lock word, REVENGE.

Probably the strongest aspect of the cast are the villains who are actually really bad guys. They range from complete assholes to complete monsters. Like I mentioned before, Waylon is one of the biggest dicks I've ever seen in a video game. But he's so good at it, it's hard not to like him. Greyfield is a warmonger who goes the extra mile and nukes one of the protagonists out of spite. And then you have Dr. Caulder, who is downright sadistic. Under the guise of science he pits the remnants of humanity against each other just to see what would happen. Meteors weren't good enough for him, so he creates a virus that causes plants to grow out from under people's skin. He also has a bunch of creepy "children" ( Penny and Tabitha) he's ruined through experimentation that they're more weapons than human. It's stark contrast to the villains of Dual Strike who try to be evil but are not very good at it.

Spoils of War - Outcome

The split between Dual Strike and Days of Ruin comes down to whether you like an exaggerated take on turn based strategy or a more focused affair. I think Days of Ruin plays a lot better with a healthier balance across units and COs... but there's something great about the series origin as an expressive, somewhat goofy turn based strategy game where a commander could drop a meteor on the battlefield and that was perfectly normal. Both games have their fair share of missteps what with two of the new COs from Dual Strike, Jugger and Koal, as slightly modified copies of Flak and Adder. It's clear that Flak and Adder were going to get cut from the game but for some reason were hastily slapped back in. Days of Ruin also has a strange flip-flop where a CO in the campaign, The Beast, isn't playable and Isabella takes his place (who never got involved in fighting). Not to mention the difficulty which can be a little uneven in Dual Strike with terrible missions like Crystal Calamity and Pincer Strike, and soul crushingly hard in Days of Ruin with the final stage. Sunrise is probably the hardest mission in the series history.

But the one things both games do well without fail is the soundtrack. Dual Strike might be a little less impressive considering a bunch of CO themes have been carried over three games, but there are some good ones in there. I'll finish this (probably overly long) blog with a selection of my favorites. You know, just in case you're into it.

Dual Strike

Jake's Theme
Koal's Theme
Sami's Theme
Lash's Theme

Days of Ruin

The Owl's Flight
Flight of the Coward - Waylon's Theme
Mr. Bear - Penny's Theme
Supreme Logician - Lin's Theme

Advance Wars 2 (Bonus)

Sturm's Theme
24 Comments

Past Expiration: Star Fox 64

By Sarumarine 10 Comments

Normally I use Past Expiration to talk about lesser known games from way back that people have little to no chance of ever finding much less playing through again. But today I'm going to cover a game that doesn't need any extra exposure. I'm talking about Star Fox 64 because... I really like Star Fox 64. I think it's a fantastic game. Topical!

Star Fox 64 (Animals locked in Space Combat: The Game)

 The PAL Box Art, just for Kicks
It really doesn't need an introduction mostly because of internet memes about barrel rolls or a space wolf not letting you do things... but I'm going to do it just to be on the safe side.

Star Fox 64 is (for the most part) a rail shooter where you fly an advanced space fighter called the Arwing and shoot down tons of enemies that swarm the screen. The Nintendo spin on this game is that the major cast is a bunch of anthropomorphic animals. You play as Fox McCloud (who is a fox) and lead the Star Fox Team (a gang of other animal mercenaries) to defend the planet Corneria against the evil forces of Andross (who is an ape). The story is good enough to get things rolling, but it's no Shakespeare even if it does have a weird reference to a Shakespeare play. Now, this game is a sequel to the Star Fox game on the Super Nintendo, but you don't have to play it to enjoy this one.

On a more historical note, Star Fox 64 also came packaged with the Rumble Pak. This used force feedback to shake the controller when an explosion went off, your ship crashed into something, or a massive boss rolled past. I didn't think much of it at the time. It was entertaining sure, but kind of a gimmick. Now, try to find a controller today that doesn't rumble when you fire a gun or toss grenades. Or at least a game that doesn't make some use of the controller rumbling in your hand. I couldn't imagine that it would be so widespread as it is today.

Don't You Know It
Awhile ago I mentioned it was a rail shooter and put "for the most part" in parenthesis. While the majority of the game has you flying down a corridor shooting at things, there are a few moments when you can break out in free flight. The game calls this "All Range Mode" complete with a short cutscene and a demonstration of Fox's voice acting. This was somewhat of a bullet point for this game, but people who regularly put in time with flight sims on the PC probably weren't impressed. Even still, the ability to fly wherever you want (in a conveniently box shaped zone) added some opportunities for dogfighting. This was especially true with the Star Wolf Team who acted as direct rivals to the main characters. They were pretty good at showing up, dropping a bunch of one liners, and teaching you how to pull off a U-Turn or a 360 flip by shooting you in the ass.

Now only a few areas in the game made use of all range mode, so it never got old or unwelcome. At the same time, some of the worst levels in the game are entirely all range mode... Like Sector Z. So there's that too.

While blowing through levels collecting power ups and saving your incompetent wingmen over and over again is fine, my favorite part of this game has to be the boss battles. The Nintendo 64 is not the most advanced piece of gaming machinery to ever grace the planet, but they still came up with some memorable fights and crazy enemy designs. For example, there's one boss called Mechbeth you fight in a tank that looks like a giant robotic kite anchored to a train. Why? The player's guide has an explanation for that, but it's pretty weird all the same. There's also the most bizarre submarine I've ever seen, known as the Sarumarine. It's one of my favorite boss fights ever because you're encouraged to abuse the hell out of the game's screen clearing smart bomb. And the captain talks like a pirate too. Other bosses include a fist fighting robot, an Independence Day knock off, a giant clam, the world's most cowardly golem, and a smug ass jerk who pilots a meteor crusher. Any route you took, you were bound to run into something that was fun to shoot to death.

This brings me to one of my favorite parts about early Star Fox games. Route select. In the Super Nintendo version you simply picked which way you wanted to go, which was more of an "easy, medium or hard" selection. Star Fox 64 upped the ante by hiding most of the alternate routes. You had to pull off some feats in order to take a detour to other planets in the Lylat System. Sometimes they were pretty obscure, like saving Falco in the first level and flying under a bunch of rock arches. Other times they made more sense like stopping a doomsday weapon from obliterating an allied base, or crashing an enemy supply train. Either way, there was a ton of replay value going back through the game and trying to find the routes. Of course when this game came out I didn't have the patience for it. Which is why I convinced my parents to buy the Star Fox 64 Official Player's Guide.

What? You Cheater
To give you some perspective, this was back before I knew how to use the internet to its fullest potential. I can't even remember if I knew GameFAQs existed. Cheat Code Central? Anyway. I really wanted to go to places like Sector Y, Aquas, and Zoness. I could save Falco but how was I supposed to know about flying under some stupid rock arches?

Besides telling you how to go everywhere and kill everything, it also had some extra material in the form of stupid Star Fox 64 lore. Stuff like planetary data (which I'm extremely curious if they did scientific research or just made it all up), information behind bosses and trivia about the enemies you shoot down. It's got some great pictures. It also tells you the names of all the bosses. And it's from Nintendo so it must be legit, right?
Official Confirmation
One of the reasons I bother mentioning the Star Fox 64 players guide is my username. It's so obscure that I usually always get it (like when I came to Giant Bomb). Considering how much fun it is to kill the Sarumarine in the game and how crazy that sub design is, I just went with it.

Always a good sign when people think Lord of the Rings because of the "saru" part. I've heard that saru means monkey in Japanese, so it must be a weird portmanteau of monkey and submarine. But I don't know that for sure. Either way, this is probably more than you ever wanted to hear about the name Sarumarine.

One of the last things I'll mention before wrapping this up is the short, but effective voice acting included in the game. They're soundbites compared to the monologues you can find in games these days. I used to have a link to a database of all the lines from Star Fox 64. My favorites included the train driver from Macbeth and the Area 6 commander. You can probably look through YouTube if you absolutely have to hear it. I think it stands up. It's not outstanding, but it does its job. The only exception would be Slippy's voice which is absolutely terrible. The sound quality is probably terrible compared to today's standards. But show me another game where a boss gets so fed up with fighting you he calls your entire team "cocky little freaks!"

Now that I've got this out of my system, I'll leave you with this.

What Did You Call Me?
10 Comments

Past Expiration: Valkyrie Profile 2 - Silmeria

By Sarumarine 4 Comments

Past expiration is my little term for talking about a game way past its prime. In this case, we're going to talk about an RPG involving Norse Mythology that came out in 2006 on the PS2. Topical!

It's also one of the most complicated RPGs I've ever played. What this means to you may vary, but when people are beating this game at level 40 and I'm barely scraping by at,level 86, clearly something has gone wrong.

Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (Complicated RPG Action starring Norse Mythology: The Game)

Nice Logo
By the time I heard about the original Valkyrie Profile for the Playstation, it was already an obscure hard-to-find game. Which is a shame because I liked the character design and the straight faced take on Norse legend involving Valkyries, fallen warriors, and the Ragnarok.  The best I could do back in the day was get my hands on the sequel Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (used, of course, with no instruction booklet). It's an odd little game. And by odd, I mean completely bewildering sometimes. This has nothing to do with the story which is easy enough to follow, but more with the leveling up system and how you control battles. I can see why this game series is never at the forefront of RPG discussions. You really have to "get" this game or at the least be really into it. If someone was casually jumping into the pool of Valkyrie Profile head first- dude, the water is freezing. The concept sounds simple enough but once you get rolling this game does not let up.


Action, Adventure, Gods

The simplest part of this game? The story. You play as a princess named Alicia of an island bound kingdom named Dipan. They have some serious beef with the gods (that means the big boss of all creation, Odin) and are planning to start a war. Complicating matters is that Alicia contains the soul of Silmeria Valkyrie, one of Odin's battle maidens that collects fallen warriors for the Ragnarok. But she wants to help the mortals win because she's tired of Odin's dismissive attitude of humans and doesn't want to work for him anymore. You go on a grand adventure (meeting other characters on the way) in the pursuit of something called the Dragon Orb that can really screw over reality and disrupt the balance of power. And this is all well and good until the last quarter of the game where things go off the deep end. Until this point you could say that Valkyrie Profile 2 had gone the way of final fantasy including similar characters, similar worlds, and different stories. But nope, shit gets crazy and let's just spoil it, this game becomes a prequel and a sequel to Valkyrie Profile in a single bound.

 Ye Olde Creepy Raper Guy
Mostly due in part to Lezard Valeth. He's this game's creepy raper guy who has one mean obsession for Lenneth Valkyrie (the main character of the first game). He's willing to screw over reality, the gods, time, space, and the game's plot just so he can screw her. Of course, you don't really know about this until the end. He's good at acting nice until things go his way.

Good thing he's got some great voice acting to sell it. And one creepy laugh.

Oh, and you get to kill him. It's extremely hard to pull off, but great.

Level Grinding Can't Save You Now

The meat and potatoes of combat in Valkyrie Profile 2 involves a weird (but fun) system. This is an RPG, so you have plenty of stats, exp, and money to go around. But when it's time to cut stuff up... well... how can I explain this? Basically, you can have a party of four. Each member of your party is mapped to a different button on the PS2 controller. When you press the Circle, Square, Triangle, and X buttons that person will attack. The idea is to string together combos with your party of four jumping in at the right moment to stab, shoot, or cast magic. There are launchers, spikes and other tricks so it's entirely possible to flip an enemy into the air and have 3/4ths of your team completely whiff their attacks. Button mashing will get you nowhere. You really have to wait, coordinate your team, and have everyone attack when the enemy is in the right position.

The first game was turn based, but VP2 adds a little action gauge flavor. It's a 3D battlefield where you can move around and maneuver behind enemies and all that stuff. It's kind of like real time, except enemies only move when you move. The speed of the fight is entirely up to you. The map also shows helpful red zones to let you know the range of enemy attacks. There's a dash move to get around quickly and evade. How many times you can dash, use items, and attack depends on the action gauge I mentioned earlier. You only get that gauge back if enemies attack you, or you move around enough to charge it up. Remember, enemies move when you move so it's hard to get around without something targeting you.

Just in case this isn't making sense, check this video out for a visual demonstration.

Most battles can be won by finding the enemy leader and cutting him down. That's right. You really only need to kill a specific enemy to end the fight and the rest will run away. But as you attack, you can cut off limbs and body parts that sometimes become items. These items can be sold to shop keepers to unlock new equipment. But not every attack or victory will break off items. Sometimes you have to get lucky. And if you're one of those people who like to 100% games... God have mercy on your soul, dude. So, it's kind of a trade off of finishing a battle quick or hacking enemies to pieces hoping for items.

Wait, it Gets Trickier!

 2D Dungeon Exploring Action
Dungeons also have another system just in case you were getting a handle on things. There are these things called Sealstones that modify combat by slapping another rule set on top of the battle system. Rules like "No Blocking" or "Always Surprise Enemies" or "All Attacks are Fire Based" and stat based rules like "120% Attack Boost", "150% Magic Resist" etc. You can find most of these on podiums that broadcast these curve balls into the surrounding area. You can always grab them to remove the effect (like if you were sick of enemies always getting the drop on you) but you can't take them to other dungeons unless you cough up a crystal fee. Crystals are gained after killing enemies and they accumulate painfully slow. The "Turn Attacks into Fire" orb sounds like it could be useful, but if you want to take it to other dungeons you need a whopping 20000 crystals. After 10 hours through the game, you know how many crystals I had? 2000. Yeah. Fuck that.

The systems in this game are dense. Throughout the whole time I always had a feeling like I was missing something. There are boss battles where it was so one sided I thought I was supposed to lose. Then, after my party is quickly wiped out, I get the Game Over screen and realize "Holy Shit! I was supposed to win that one!" After the tutorial dungeon, this game starts kicking you in the ass hard. I haven't even mentioned the whole releasing warriors souls. You often find weapons that you can turn into party members (because of the whole Valkyrie leading the dead thing.) When these characters are a certain level, you can "release" them into the afterlife and they give you some cool items... usually. So you can wage that decision war whether or not you want cool items, or a party member to fight for you. And this is entirely your decision. The game never drops hints or tells you when you should pull this off. The possibilities to fuck up your game is endless. Endless.

I *AM* the World's Worst Valkyrie Profile 2 Player

The end result of this is the massive mountain I had to climb to beat this game. My party was about level 86 or so at the final boss. Getting through this game was like pulling teeth. And to make it worse, after I beat the game, I looked up some information and apparently you can finish the game at level 40. The super hard bonus dungeon that appears at the end of the game? Level 50. I don't understand it myself. I can't even get into the bonus dungeon because of the skill check boss at the entrance. And it sounds especially pitiful after hearing that some people beat this game with only one character through the entire game. One character!

Even still, this game was fun when I wasn't doing 7 damage to a boss with 10,000 HP. I wish I could have gotten the mechanics down better so fights weren't quite as headache inducing. Special attacks are pretty cool though. It also helps that the Norse angle pushes this game away from standard fantasy stories I have a lot of trouble getting into.

If anyone else has played this game I'd love to hear what you think of it. Tell me what you did. Maybe I'll find out where I went wrong. I don't know, maybe this game is just hard. Either way, it's tough to find a combat system like this anywhere else.
4 Comments

Recently Played: Portal - Still Alive

By Sarumarine 2 Comments

Let's just say I'm excited to see what Portal 2 is all about. So in anticipation of the upcoming release next Tuesday (most likely earlier for PC), I went back and played the original Portal. I've played it before on a friend's PS3 with the Orange Box and another friend's much better laptop, but this time I played the X-Box Arcade release titled "Still Alive."

Consider this sentence your one and only reference to cake. You're welcome.

Portal: Still Alive (Quirky Puzzle Game: The Game)

 "Fast thing goes in, fast thing goes out."
I probably don't have to explain anything about this game. What hasn't already been turned into a meme has become common knowledge to the point of a Citizen Kane "It Was His Sled" moment. Personally, I think it suffers from overexposure. But just in case I'll gloss over the basic idea of Portal.

The most important thing to know is that this is a short, quirky game. It uses a first person perspective that doesn't involve shooting anyone or killing monsters. It's a First Person Puzzler. The puzzle part involves a device called the Portal Gun that shoots two different colored portals you use to create gateways between Point A and Point B. Hence, "Portal." You can pass through these portals as freely as you want, throw boxes through them, or use some crazy physics involving momentum to launch yourself across the room. Other things like rockets and bullets can also pass through the portals, so placement of your orange and blue holes in the time-space continuum becomes very important later on. The nice thing about Portal is that it rolls out all these concepts to you in a gradual fashion, so you can play around and get use to the crazy things you'll do later.

Of course, one of the first things I did was place a portal on the floor and the ceiling so I could fall forever at terminal velocity. The other thing was slap two portals in a corner so I could chase myself around in a circle. You can do a lot of dumb things with a Portal Gun. Most, if not all, of them are a lot of fun.

 Escape is not part of the testing procedure
One of the things I've grown to enjoy the most about Portal is the story. At the beginning it doesn't seem like the game has one. You play as a seemingly nameless woman in an orange jumpsuit running through obstacle courses trying to get to the next elevator. Meanwhile a computer voice tells you inane things about safety protocols at Aperture Science and occasionally hints about game play. The puzzle game evolves into an escape attempt that leads to a battle with the Computer AI that's been leading you through all the tests. Apparently all the people at Aperture Science have died a long time ago. All those moments before where you were sent up against automated turrets and deathtraps were actually real. There was no control. Just the computer named GlaDOS and a lot of neurotoxin.

It's a nice surprise that most everyone knows about by now. And that song by Jonathan Coulton.

Some would say that this game is pretty funny. Humor is something that really depends on the person, but I do think that the dialogue and design choices give the game a lot of personality. I don't know many games have auto turrets that apologize while opening fire on you and say "good bye" with a cheerful voice as you kick them over. GlaDOS (the only character with an actual speaking role) is also pretty entertaining. She has a HAL 9000 complex where it gets tough balancing computer logic and human emotions. For her, it very difficult to distinguish the difference between science, the mass murder of co-workers, and recipes for baked goods. The character you play as is literally the only person she can interact with in the Aperture Science facility. She wants to kill you, and she kinda doesn't.

Still Alive Version

The X-Box Arcade release I played through was Portal with some extra challenge maps. The maps are pretty good. They aren't insanely hard like I thought they would be, but the main difficulty is scoring well with a combination of minimum steps, minimum portals, and maximum speed. It's one thing to play Portal while looking hard at a room and it's another thing to try and play as precise as you can, as fast as you can. I'm not one to sweat about scoreboards so I probably won't kill myself to get gold. The achievements are all a real pain in the ass but at least someone made them challenging.

It's a decent version if you have no other option. The frame rate is kinda shaky and there are a lot of short loading screens peppered throughout the story mode. It didn't bother me but I definitely noticed. The game play is the same and all the mind bending portal tricks are still in there. Listening to the developer commentary makes it sound like a really impressive game how they had to handle collision detection moving from portal to portal, and the way you can watch yourself come and go at the right angles. And maybe its my TV and settings, but holy shit, the subtitles are huge. They take up half the screen.

Since it takes a little more than an hour to play through Portal start-to-finish, I'm ready for more. Good thing there's a sequel coming out soon.
2 Comments

Recently Played: Okamiden

By Sarumarine 3 Comments

After playing bits and pieces of it over the past few weeks, I've finished Okamiden. It's about 15-20 hours. Probably longer if you're looking for every secret and collectable. I don't like it, but this is due more to my tastes than the game being completely broken or anything.

To give you an indicator of how I view the whole Okami thing. I thought the PS2 game was good. I don't think it deserves the endless praise it's accumulated over the years... but it's a decent game. I loved the art style, the brush motif, and the enemy designs. At the same time it's almost stupidly easy with so many in-game fail safes that it's damn near impossible to see the game over screen unless you're really, really trying. Not to mention it has some pacing issues, and if you aren't into parodies of Japanese folklore as old as the hills... you probably won't get much out of it either.

I don't know if there's ever a graceful way to complain about a game, but I will try as hard as I can. Right up front, I want to say that this game is perfectly playable. It's probably even fine. And if someone had not played Okami on the PS2 I could possibly see how they might love it. If you like cute things and children, you're in luck. I wanted to get that out of the way, because that's about all the nice things I can say about Okamiden.

Okamiden (Okami Plus Kids,  Minus Everything Else: The Game)

Here's Your "Tale of Genji" Reference. Enjoy
This game is not for me. Period. It somehow manages to hit everything I don't like about character design. On top of that, it has a story awkward enough to muck up the plot of the first Okami. The first game was basically one big affectionate parody of Japanese mythology, so at least it had direction. Okamiden doesn't have that base to build on and the story is as simple as good vs evil plus kids. Maybe because of that, it ends up reusing a lot of events from Okami to the point of being uncomfortable.

It feels more copy-paste than a play on nostalgia. There are new areas, but the split feels pretty uneven by the end of it. The worst involves taking one of the most awkward parts of Okami and developing it into a major plot point that stretches through the last half of the game. And they don't even have a pair of twin clockwork owls wearing top hats and monocles to justify it.

A lot of it feels lazy, especially the cast. Most of them involve taking a character from Okami and making a kid version of them. You play as Chibiterasu, who is a young Amaterasu. You have Kuni, who is basically a young Susano. You have Kurow, who is basically a young Waka. Etc. It's a lot like Baby Mario and Baby Luigi syndrome only spread out to most of the major cast and trying to pawn them off as brand spanking new characters. Maybe I could enjoy this if it was a Muppet Babies deal. Except these kid versions follow character arcs similar to their older counterparts. Yes, I know that Kuni is boastful and cowardly and by the end of the game he'll learn what bravery means and actually become a hero. Yes, I know that Kurow is mysterious but helpful and will show his true colors when it really matters. And that sounds really harsh, but I cannot treat younger versions of older characters like they're new or something special. I'm one of those guys that hates Baby Mario and Baby Luigi when they show up as characters in Mario Kart. And I get the same feeling here.

Also perplexing is the way they make the top screen the center of the action where you fight enemies and navigate the land. Whenever you use the celestial brush to draw symbols to use abilities, there is a pause as the entire top screen shifts down to the lower screen. When you're done using the stylus, everything shifts back to the top screen. It sounds kind of petty to harp on a few seconds of transitions... but considering how many times you use the Celestial Brush throughout the game, those few seconds add up. It gets old quickly, and I really wonder why they didn't just make it so you could effortlessly shift back and forth between brush abilities and the action. It's like a thorn in your foot you can't get out. You will live, but it will bug the shit out of you if it's not already causing extreme pain.

Fuck You, Kabuki Puppet!
Overall, the game is tougher than Okami. I actually died a few times. Combat walks a fine line between bearable and tedious, because a lot of enemies have annoying invincibility frames that stretch out fights. It's also been simplified to button mashing. You get three weapons throughout the game. Three. But the worst part is the boss battles. Holy shit.

The tipping point for me was the third boss of the game that involved fighting a giant Kabuki puppet. Defeating it was kind of annoying. Then you fight the Kabuki Puppet two more times. What's especially bad is that you have to play connect-the-dots to defeat the puppets. Only by the second and third fight they're throwing up barriers you have to counter with fire and exorcism magic on each dot. There's no way to simply hit all the dots in one go... so you end up doing tons of screen shifting as you're forced to hit each individual dot before connecting them all. If you aren't fast enough the boss recovers and you get to do it all over again. It doesn't get much better from there.

One boss is even a palette swap evil version of the main character that comes out of nowhere. There is nothing I hate more than palette swaps trying to be passed off as an original character. It's fucking lazy.

The writing is also not so great. Almost perplexing really. Not that Okami was a pinnacle of game script writing, but Okamiden feels like they aren't even trying. Kurow is the best/worst example. How do you like your Highway to the Danger Zone references in a game about mystical Japan? What about "hella bad"? Do you like a character who uses so much slang he's one dawg away from- AW SNAP! DROP A BOMB ON IT? What does "I didn't know he'd be so diesel" even mean!? What does Vin Diesel have to do with any of this?

I could go on, but I've probably already overdone it. It just feels like Okamiden has no soul. It's going through the motions without actually leaning anything from the game it's supposed to be a sequel for. In my mind, sequels should do something new or add to the experience. Okamiden doesn't even give you more of the same. It just feels gutted.
3 Comments

Let's Do This! Playing Suikoden V

By Sarumarine 0 Comments

Change of Plans

 I had some grand designs about Suikoden V and a faux-Let's Play, but due to some technical difficulties... why don't I just tell you about the first two hours of gameplay instead?

Suikoden V is a turned based RPG with some... interesting character design. The staple of this series involves the 108 Stars of Destiny. What that means is there are 108 characters (for the most part) you can recruit to your cause as you fight for truth, justice, and all that jazz. Yeah, Suikoden has always had a truckload of characters. It's kind of like a "Catch-Em-All" situation as it can effect how good your ending is at the end of the game. But this is made a little trickier because there are always a handful of characters you can miss out on forever if you weren't in the right place at the right time. If that kind of thing bothers you, I guess an FAQ is always an option. But I find it kinda cool and gives you some motivation for exploring after every other major plot event.

Of course, two hours in, I haven't done a whole lot of fighting because these games have always been pretty long. 40 to 50 hours (yes, even if you're running through as fast you can.) Most of my time has been spent getting to know a few of the hundred characters in this game and laying down the basic plot. And it's pretty good so far. There's some interesting stuff involving a Queendom, politics, Runes, and some really, really annoying nobles. Since you play as a member of royalty, you get to grapple with all this shit first hand.

But the heart of this game has always been its characters. Suikoden has always been kind of anachronistic and schizophrenic. In addition to swords and magic, there are elevator technicians, iron chefs, snipers, samurai, beavers, dwarfs, and hand puppets. You never know what you might find. I think it's pretty awesome.

People You May or May Not Learn to Care About
 
 Prince!
You play as this guy, the prince. Unfortunately, since the game takes place in a Queendom, being a prince means he's nothing but a figurehead that gets to run errands for the queen. He gets to go to towns like Lordlake where everyone hates him because the place got nuked by the queen and turned into a desert. Fun!

The Giant Bomb wiki tells me he his official name is Freyjadour... and that's pretty fancy. Since this series usually lets you name the main character, I called him Mylar. Cause I felt like it. Like most RPG player characters, he don't talk much but he's into some freaky shit. I mean, he's mostly silent except when dialogue choices come up.

He also uses a really bizarre weapon that's some kind of cross between nunchaku and a staff. It can shift back and forth between a three-piece nunchaku version when he needs some flashy moves, or straighten up into a staff when he needs some distance hitting people in the face. I have no idea how that works.

Georg
This is Georg. He's pretty chill outside of battle and normal as people go in this game. He's a newcomer who gets to ask a lot of questions you might have about the Queendom of Falena. I like him.

It also helps that he's a fucking killing machine that cannot be stopped. As one of your party members early on, he will kill the majority of the monsters gunning for you. Sometimes, when the mood strikes him, he won't even bother doing damage and just instantly kill whatever he's attacking.

Basically he's a tutorial fail safe that I expect won't be in my party for very long. Still, a pleasure to watch as he destroys everything. He was also in Suikoden II... but I didn't get far enough in that game to see him. That's a damn shame.

Lyon
Lyon is the prince's bodyguard. She's about the same age as him if a little younger. She's also ready to die for the prince at the drop of a hat... and that's kinda weird.   Appropriately clingy for a bodyguard and especially concerned for the prince's honor as well as his health.

She's okay. The best part about her is her weapon which is a switchblade sword. The grip is just as long as the blade and it looks pretty cool. I'm not sure if that would work in real life, but this is Suikoden, yo.

Co-Op Attack: Characters with certain relationships (brothers, family, rivals, etc.) will often have combination attacks when they're in the same party. Lyon has one with the prince, where they double team an enemy and kick the crap out of it. It's pretty useful... when Georg isn't killing everything with one swipe of his blade.

 Lady Sialeeds
Sialeeds here is the prince's aunt who has a really terrible character design. The only thing weirder than her choice of clothing is her hair, which collects on the right side of her face like a parasite. I'm sure someone, somewhere has already mastered cosplaying Sialeeds (complete with crazy hair) but I'm not brave enough to check Google to confirm. I can feel it in my bones.

...anyways. She throws a pair of chakram warrior princess style and uses really terrible magic. Status effects don't work like they do in Persona 4. Meaning, they never work. She's also kind of a jerk among friends. Hates lizards.

Co-Op Attack: She's got a funny attack with the prince. Basically, he charges headlong into the enemy while she sits back and watches. After he does all the work, she throws her chakram once and calls it a day. Hilarious.

Queen Arshtat
Queen Arshtat here is the big boss of Falena and the prince's mother. She responds to rebellions in her kingdom by nuking it with an orbital strike from the sun. And while that's a killstreak I wouldn't mind having, the Sun Rune that lets her pull that off also makes her ego trip like nobody's business. She gets a serious god complex and enjoys talking down to her son, her husband, her family and everyone else who isn't her.

Everyone is an ant, and she is the magnifying glass. It gets hard to tell where Arshtat's personality begins and Sun Rune psychosis ends.

Also... that's a crazy crown on her head. You'd need magic to get that to balance right.

Ferid
Arshtat's husband and the prince's dad. That doesn't make him a king or anything. It just gives him the authority to command Falena's closest thing to a special forces outfit known as the Queen's Knights.

He's also pretty jovial and reasonable as the right hand to a queen who often threatens to make Falena walk on the sun... literally. He shows his affection for the prince by putting him in a headlock and refusing to let go until the prince cries mercy.

Apparently he's from another country who won some ancient games to marry the queen or something... I'm still working on it.

Lym
Little princess Lymsleia. She's the prince's lil' sis and really, really loves her bigger brother. Often rampages through the castle where the royal family lives to get what she wants. She's not bad for a little girl. Usually kids walk a fine line between completely adorable and completely annoying. So far, she hits the happy medium.

Miakis
Miakis is the princess' bodyguard. She doesn't seem all there but it's hard to tell if she's an airhead or faking it. She's pretty good when it comes to jokes or comic relief. In a battle she uses a pair of knives to cut things up.

Really, the thing that stands out the most is her fighting pose that sorta reminds me of the crane style from Karate Kid.

Co-Op Attack: Miakis has a carbon copy of Lyon's co-op attack with the prince. Which... I guess makes sense if they're both bodyguards. Maybe it's a standard formation or something.

Kyle
Kyle is one of the Queen's Knights but his real job is standing up for the right of men everywhere to get with women no matter who they are or where they're from. He's solid in a battle, but his skills for detecting beautiful women and searching them out is top notch. Too bad he fails with the follow through and gets zero results (so far).

Two Guys You Will Love to Hate
The Barows boys. Salum (older) and Euram (younger) Barows. Two stuck up nobles with personalities bad enough to choke the life out of someone. Although, this is probably done intentionally. Probably. I sure goddamn hope.

As a challenge, see how far you can get in this cutscene before turning it off or hating the shit out of these guys. Since I had to watch the whole thing to progress the game I hate the shit out of them.

They're one of the two major factions warring over Falena behind the scenes. Knife-in-Back syndrome is especially bad in this country, and these two guys don't help at all.

So yeah, I thought I would write something to salvage this grand disaster. Hard to say if I will write anything else about this game. That depends on some other factors, but yeah. I like it so far.
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