XBOX - Fable: The Lost Chapters

Haiku-Review:

Dearest Theresa,
Whilst you're my older sister -
I'm thrice thou in years!

Additional Comments:

I'm going to make this simple. Fable is a horrible game that doesn't even deserve the time of day.

HOWEVER....

Since I'm prone to writing long winded and usually unsympathetic assessments of every game I finish here on Beat All Games, it's only natural I do the same for this piece of shit - though I do so with a tiring grimace.

The Fable series seems to have garnered a love/hate relationship with those who've played it. I've always been unclear on the particulars for either argument as I tried to detach myself from the hype for or against the game(s). I think, despite what appeared to be a recurring theme among friends and the general populace, I had a hard time imagining anything could be wrong with the game. But I also only knew the game from a broad perspective, therefore I was judging it as a basic RPG/action adventure game. It looked cool and appeared to be steeped in high fantasy while retaining the good old medieval British flair. I wanted to like this game, and after some brief demo play on Fable II, I couldn't find a reason why I wouldn't like this game even though I had naysayers standing on the fringes whispering ill tidings.

First, I must make a statement in regards to "The Lost Chapters." When I bought the game, I initially picked up an original copy of Fable but was coerced into buying The Lost Chapters by the local video game purveyor as it offered additional content, and I think I got it for the same price - maybe a couple bucks more. Sounds reasonable, so why not? After playing it, I wish I had brushed off his sales tactics and stuck with the original game. Not so much because The Lost Chapters sucks, but given what the The Lost Chapters adds and how it presents the additional material , I probably would have had a much more favorable view on the game as a whole had I been able to experience the original truncated version of the game - at least for my initial playthrough. If I had gone back and replayed the game with the addition of the Lost Chapters after the fact, I probably could have appreciated it more as an expansion as opposed to a continuance that somehow disparaged what appeared to be a complete game up until that point. Unfortunately, it's too late, and the game has now forever been dragged through a quagmire of RPG cliché's; downplaying the end boss by creating a twisted variation of the end boss for no good reason other than "we can," and adds no measure of depth to the story whatsoever. For now on, I'll stick with my gut feelings on what purchases I should be making, thank you very much.

From here on out, The Lost Chapters material doesn't exactly have any bearing on my thoughts with the exception of the pub games which I'll get into later.

Now then, despite my initial sentiment that Fable is a horrible game, I find it to be somewhat of a pity case. Reason being is that somewhere hidden beneath all the bullshit the developers needlessly tacked on lurks a great game. Unfortunately, it's been smothered to death by asinine ideas that serve no purpose other than to drag the gaming experience to a unpalatable crawl, or worse, an infernal hatred. Maybe the idea was to help pull the game out of a possibility of sinking into mediocrity - being unable to define itself uniquely from other similar games. But I beg to differ. I believe the game could have easily stood out on its own merits as a great RPG. But no. Instead we got a pointless morality system which seems to favor one side over the other, a healthy dose of optional tasks that appear to award stupidity and immaturity, not to mention a veritable palette of overall immaturity, plus general annoyance after annoyance after annoyance, and last but not least, one of the worst control configurations I've ever come across in a game. With that many complaints, it's hard to imagine there's enough room for anything worth commendation, but there is.

I love the experience and leveling mechanics. The idea that the player can set the stage for how much experience they garner or how they wish to distribute their points is very well done. I've always enjoyed RPG's that let the player decide how they want to mold their character - something that for me dates back to the old Ultima Online days. It's an idea ingrained in true pen and paper style RPG architecture. The downside is typically abuse and inappropriate min/maxing, but with Fable's limited options, the ability to outwit the system is by and largely moot.

The combat system is fairly decent as well. It's just that it's hampered so heavily by the balky control set-up. I think part of the blame can be placed on the XBox controller itself as it is of terrible design - ranked up there with the N64's and the stupid 12+ button keypad controllers used by the early generations of consoles. But at the same time, Lionhead opted for one of the most frustrating control layouts and neglected the ability to personalize the controls or at the very least, offer a variant layout. Now, it should be noted that this was my second attempt at the game in hopes to conquer it. On my first attempt, which was about a year ago or so, I just couldn't bring myself to continue on after completing the Trader Escort quest. The culmination of all the aggravating aspects of the game wore me thin, but it was the controls that finally pushed me over the edge. Honestly, I was amazed I survived that far into the game - which isn't very far, mind you - based on the contradicting button roles alone.

The controls are ass backwards in this game. The logic goes against everything I'm used to. For instance, run is B instead of X - well, in terms of an NES controller, run would be B, so I guess that makes sense after all. Well, how about the action and fight commands - A and X respectively? So many times throughout the game, I kept swapping these two buttons. I'd find myself furiously mashing A trying to kill things and sitting there dumbfounded as to why I'm getting my ass handed to me. Likewise, I mistakenly swung my weapon in public a few times inadvertently committing destruction to property. I had to apologize to those dickhead guards far too often because I briefly experienced a brain fart; pressing the wrong button. You know what the issue is? You can't jump. I can't stand these types of games where jumping is purposefully denied. Even if jumping serves no purpose - for instance the Dark Alliance series, outside of a single level - it helps mold and define the control layout into something proper, intuitive, and like every other game out there. But because the ability to jump has been written out of development, it's allowed the developers to go hog wild with their remaining button layout.

Other headaches include the R-trigger. Much like the above scenarios, I found myself barely resting a finger on the R-trigger accidentally which would result in an undesired spell as opposed to an action or attack. This was especially aggravating when being trailed by followers or within the vicinity of traders or guards. This would result in undesired evil points, or in the case of guards, people beating the shit out of you. It's my own fault, but it's something that could have easily been solved if I could have made a personalized button map. Same goes for the D-pad. What a useless crock that turned out to be. I could think of far better use of the D-pad then offering arbitrary expressions which I never used! Oh, but wait. I can map the D-pad when conditioned by the R-trigger. Fantastic! That's even more irrational than offering Blood Roars and Sexy Poses as my mainstays. What the fuck!? Why can't I just have an intuitive set of controls?

Moving on - morality. For starters, I'm not the biggest fan of games that are steeped in morality choices, or at least claim to be. I have no problem with general morality making it's case throughout a storyline, but forcing extremes tends to muddy things up. You can either run through the game with reckless abandonment or you need to carefully tip-toe through every single nuance of the game. Since I chose to play a righteous hero, I felt like I got the short end of the stick. I suppose it's reasonable to believe this would be the case in any game, but following the path of good felt more elusive here than it should have been. That's not to say that's it's hard to be good - it's not. Just continue to kill baddies, and you'll be a virtuous, halo-wearing champion before you know it. It's just that the game is so chock full of immaturity and optional material that goads you left of the path that it becomes a nuisance. Play an unscrupulous, horned asshole and there's next to nothing trying to claim otherwise. But it parallel's real life - temptation and all. Maybe so, but this is a game and any sort of system which relies on player made choices should have relatively equal footing concerning all parties involved. And by the way, I don't care if I'm helping a vagabond, breaking wind on someone is not a morally sound action. +20 good points for that? What else can I fart on?

The immaturity level in this game is astounding. While the controls frustrated me to no end, I think it's the overall juvenile demeanor that kept my head hanging in shame. What kind of ass clowns are working at Lionhead anyway? I can't help but feel like a perverted prepubescent teen playing this game. The expressions are a key example of useless bullshit built into the game and every single one of them makes you feel like a dirty twit - like I should be in the shower scrubbing off the shame. Other than farting on a bully, there is no immediate use to any of them, and I hesitate to call that one instance necessary as it's nothing more than a side quest; not even a Bronze Quest, but a side quest. Ok, as I mentioned earlier, I made use of the apology expression and I used the flirt expression so that I could find a wife, but neither of these things added any merit to the game. I would have done just as well if none of this existed to begin with. The expressions list is nothing but a laundry list of what-the-fucks? Fart, belch, crotch grab, pelvic thrust, or simply blurting out an unscrupulous "Shit!" - it's all stuff that adds zero value; instead forcefully shoving the game into an unwanted quagmire of toilet humor. Leave such lowbrow antics to games like Leisure Suit Larry. I'm not trying to be a prude. Take Earthworm Jim, for example. That game runs rampant with toilet humor, but it never feels awkward, or dirty, or embarrassing which is exactly how I felt every time I was subjected to it here. Fortunately, most of the immaturity is a product of optional mechanics or modes, but still, it's there and it just doesn't need to be.

Another quirk, that ended up being a real head-scratcher, is the fact the the hero ages, yet nobody else is subject to time's cruel joke. Am I missing something here? For a while, I began to suspect magic could be to blame, but then, none of the other guild heroes ever wrinkle. So, why does this mechanic exist? It's especially frustrating as it defies the entire plot. Essentially, it turns the whole game into one giant lie. When I meet Theresa, my older sister, she's nearly 20 years my younger. Whisper is still the same age when I fight beside her in the arena as she was when I sparred against her at the guild, yet I've put on a good 30 or 40 years. And by the time I rescued my mother from Bargate Prison, I was pushing 60 and looked as if I could have been one of her elders. Isn't my wife concerned that I appear to be inflicted with some sort of progeroid syndrome? There's a lot of bad decisions that went into this game, but this by far has to be one of the most confusing. I'm simply dumbfounded that there's no explanation regarding this complete disregard for the laws of time.

As I said, I went into this game trying my best to ignore what others had to say. I really wanted to like this game as it looked like a great action adventure/RPG. It's unfortunate that it got bogged down by superfluous mechanics, bad decisions, and controls that are utter junk. Thing is, most bad games, you can look at them and agree that the game had no hope from the get go. I honestly believe Fable could have been an excellent game. Sadly, that jewel of the Nile was lavishly covered in bullshit. I'm told Fable II fixed a lot of the intricacies that botched this game. Whether or not that's true, who knows. What I have seen of the game looks far more promising, but my experience with Fable has numbed my will to continue the series.

As far as music, I don't know what to say. There was some great, ominous mood pieces, namely what plays while exploring Lady Grey's House (can't seem to find the exact piece - sounds reminiscent of Hobbes Cave, but isn't quite it), but for the most part, everything rang of mediocrity. Even the Fable Theme is lackluster, despite being penned by Elfman. Then again, if he isn't composing for a scene focused around a Rube Goldberg machine, most of his work falls a little flat - not all, but most.

Nano-Rant:

I feel I'm forgetting something. Ah, yes - the pub games. I probably wouldn't mind the aggravation of all these stupid little mini-games if the controls weren't so devilishly fucked up. I have to seriously question placing emphasis on these games by having a quest revolve around them outside of what should have been nothing more than mindless fun and maybe a quick way to pocket some extra gold. If the controls weren't so broken, I'd pay no mind - after all it's no different than questing for some silver keys by kicking chickens or reeling in the big catch. However, both of those mini-games actually have functioning controls. Relying on the left thumbstick to move the cursor around in the various card games is simply frustrating, not to mention the crooked camera angle. Never was this more evident than in the Card Sorting game. What fresh shit is this!?

After several rounds of failure, I gave up. I decided the Hero Dolls quest just wasn't worth it, but then, I couldn't come to terms with finishing the game and leaving the quest unfinished. Ugh, but how I detest card sorting with a wonky thumbstick. Ah ha! But there is a way, so I learned from various FAQ's, by warping time thus slowing down the mini-game's clock. Fantastic! To my dismay, nearly every FAQ I came across seemed to neglect the fact that The Lost Chapters edition fixed this initially overlooked cheat. Dammit!! Seems I'm back to the drawing board. I tried a few more rounds, all resulting in failure, and again resorted to giving the Hero Dolls quest a big fat finger. And again I felt uneasy leaving such a simple task without proper closure. In the end, I must have spent close to two hours playing hand after hand until I finally succeeded in finishing under 25 seconds just so I could secure some stupid little doll only to obtain yet an even more worthless doll from the schoolteacher.

The saddest part about the whole affair is that when I managed to score a time of 24.1 seconds in Card Sorting, I jumped out of my chair in exuberant victory. I couldn't believe I bested that stupid piece of crap mini-game. When it came to defeating the newly anointed dragon-form, Jack of Blades, and conquering the game once and for all, I let slip a paltry, "Oh, is that the end?" Considering it threw me back into the game after the credit roll, I found myself second guessing the end - much akin to Myst. Point is, I found more excitement, pride, and outright sense of victory beating a fucking card game than I did beating the actual game. How fucked up is that!? That alone should speak volumes about how much the ancillary bullshit suffocated what could have, and really, should have been a great game.

PS. I swear, if I had to listen to the fucking Guildmaster globally shout, "Ah! There's an important quest card waiting at the guild for you," again, I'd kill myself. I'm aware! Leave me the fuck alone, I'm exploring the world!

Rating: 2 withered, old prostitutes out of 5

Fortune, er...Gamer 500

A couple weeks ago, I hit a nice little milestone in my game collection: 500+ games. To the avid collector, 500 may sound a rather minuscule amount and frankly nothing to brag about, but for someone who just likes games, it's pretty impressive, especially considering that for many years, owning 30 or 40 games spread over roughly 4 or 5 platforms always seemed like a lot. But it brings to mind a conversation Sven and I had about collections in a broad sense where, to the collector, their collections will always appear lacking, but to an outsider they appear overwhelming. Yet, as I look through my shelves, even to me it appears a daunting selection of time-wasters. Huzzah!

Anyway, for managing this milestone while still retaining a few measly dollars in my bank account, I thought I'd sift through some of the more interesting titles I've gotten my hands on. I'm not looking to showcase so-called rarities, popular but hard to come by faves, or even hidden gems. Thought I'd just comment on a few quirky oddballs, some of which may be well known, some of which may not. I also decided I'd only choose one title from a given system and it must be a game I've yet to discuss here on Beat All Games. And finally, I decided I'd fall back on good ol' reliable number ten as my benchmark which means not every system in my collection will be represented. Sorry, WonderSwan Color, but Final Fantasy IV just isn't interesting (never mind my still residual scathing hatred for the game). And yes, I'm considering US and Japanese market platforms as unique systems despite the contrary. In my opinion, if I can't play a Famicom cart without modifying a Gyromite cart, buying a pin converter or other such nonsense, it's not the same system. Same goes for the various disc tricks on disc-based systems.

---

Game: Astro Robo Sasa
Platform: Nintendo Famicom
Notes: One of the first games I picked up for the Famicom, Astro Robo Sasa reminds me a lot of Balloon Fight, but has the weird floaty physics akin to that found in Sub-Terrania. Additionally, the overall control is awkward as you propel yourself reversely through the air and against gravity's pull using your blaster. It's a little wonky, but once you get the hang of it, it's kind of fun and strangely addicting. Maybe because it's a long string of single screen levels, but I've always found games like this to have a certain charm.

Game: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S: Quiz Taiketsu! Sailor Power Kesshuu
Platform: Bandai Playdia
Notes: After picking up a Playdia, my options for games were pretty sparse - not only because it has a small library, but some of the rarer Japanese-only consoles carry little to no weight in the US. Therefore, beyond importing, the pickings are pretty slim. Quiz Taiketsu is exactly as it sounds, a quiz game and since the Playdia was geared towards younger children, from what I can gather, it's all easy stuff. Of course, my assumptions are based solely on pictographic and numeric questions since, once again, I can't read Japanese.

Game: Cho Aniki: Bakuretsu Ranto Hen
Platform: Nintendo Super Famicom
Notes: While I had seen the name, Cho Aniki, thrown around a few times on the internet, I had no real insight into what it was all about. It wasn't until I went looking for some new backgrounds to rip for one of my various ROM hacking delights that I came across the game in the flesh. Hmm, maybe "flesh" is a bit too much on the money for this one. Essentially, the series revolves around homoerotic body builders, some of whom appear to be further enhanced by inappropriate cybernetics. Unfortunately, Bakuretsu Ranto Hen is a fighter unlike most of the other games in the series which are shooters. And even more unfortunate, it's a pretty balky fighter at that.

Game: Doko Demo Issyo
Platform: Sony PlayStation (NTSC-J)
Notes: Picked this game up, as well as it's sequel, solely based on the cover art. The creepy juxtaposition of Sony's animated mascot, Toro Inoue, walking down an empty street with a real life Japanese woman posed a plethora of questions. I had to track down a PocketStation in order to get beyond the identification screen since the game relies heavily on the peripheral. Essentially, the game is just a more involved Tamagotchi - hence the use of the PocketStation. Not my thing, but certainly a nice talking piece.

Game: Fast Food
Platform: Atari 2600
Notes: There's a lot of great games out there for the 2600, and there's also a lot of duds. Most of the games I've bought that I didn't originally own as a kid have turned out to be duds, but I think nostalgia has something to do with that as well. Fast Food, on the other hand, is something I've never even heard of until about a year ago and picked up on a whim, though with low expectations, especially based on it's cheesy cover art. Surprisingly, this is one of the most exciting, fast-paced games I've come across and it's incredibly addicting. While River Raid is still my all-time favorite 2600 game, Fast Food has placed itself in prime position for runner-up.

Game: Ghost Lion
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Notes: I had never heard of this game when I picked it up. Honestly, I questioned it's authenticity as an officially licensed NES game and bought it with a cautious mind. Turns out, this is quite the interesting RPG. I wasn't able to glean much from the 10 or 15 minutes of test play when I got it home, but what I did experience seemed a bit surreal compared to the typical Final Fantasy style RPG. From what I can gather, the protagonist uses dreams and and can call upon spirits to battle as opposed to conventional spells and weaponry.

Game: Lawnmower Man
Platform: Nintendo Super Nintendo
Notes: I don't know if I've ever seen a game more diverse than this. Lawnmower Man is all over the place regarding level design and level types. Is it a platformer? Is it a brawler? Is it an FPS? Is it a virtual puzzle game? What the fuck is it!? Everything you need to know about this game can be ascertained from the demonstration sequence: a schizophrenic whorl into a nightmarish oblivion. Although, the demo also contains one of the finest tunes to ever grace the SNES.

Game: Limbo
Platform: Microsoft XBox Live Arcade
Notes: I know Limbo's not exactly an oddity, but the game is just way too amazing to ignore. I've been fascinated by this game ever since I first learned about it shortly after it came out. I've just somehow failed to add the game to my collection - yes, even thought it's nothing more than an XBLA title - until recently. Limbo is another one of those games that exudes atmosphere as well as relying on a relatively simple gimmick, yet using some real outside of the box thinking with said gimmick.

Game: Queen of Fighting 2000
Platform: GameBoy Color
Notes: If I remember correctly, QoF 2000 is a Taiwanese bootleg or unlicensed reinterpretation of SNK's Gals Fighters for the Neo Geo Pocket. I remember I had to pick up a GameBoy Advance SP in order to play the game as it wouldn't work on a Super GameBoy. Not a bad deal though considering the screen on my GameBoy Advance was beyond useless, so "having" to pick up an SP was well worth it. Anyway, there's nothing that particularly stands out about QoF 2000. In fact, from what I remember, the gameplay is rather clunky - almost having a lead foot feeling about it. It's more an interest in that it's the only unlicensed Taiwanese game in my collection.

Game: Shove It! The Warehouse Game
Platform: Sega Genesis
Notes: Yet another game that I bought on a whim. As far as puzzle games go, it's nothing special. In fact, it may even be considered a bottom of the barrel pick. However, what makes the game interesting is the premise: a warehouse drone working overtime pushing crates. It's simply ridiculous. Sure, it's easy to harangue the ideas behind typical shovel ware puzzle games, but in the age before shovel ware was a "thing," there's a strange sense to take these games more seriously and as such the premise becomes all the more ludicrous. Oh! Did I mention there's an edit mode? Ok, it doesn't actually add much value to the game, but edit modes are always a welcome idea. Now to make a hundred crate stack-up.

FC - Final Fantasy II

Haiku-Review:

"How To Use Magic"
wait, how do you use magic?
I am so confused

Additional Comments:

Like most Westerners, I fell under the sway of Square's cruel localization hoax where Super Nintendo's Final Fantasy II masqueraded as the true sequel to Final Fantasy. However, since I never played the Final Fantasy series as a kid, I wasn't particularly affected by the misnomer like others were. As such, I had no issue calling the SNES titles by their real names, Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI, when Square's trickery became apparent, i.e. the west was finally introduced to the real Final Fantasy II via Final Fantasy Origins on the Sony PlayStation. Truth be told, I found out about the real Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III some years later when I fully realized how awesome the original game was. While I enjoyed FFIV (FFII for us Westerners), until I fell victim to bad save practices and very nearly threw my controller through the TV screen and chucked the disc out the window, I didn't share the same enthusiasm most players had for it. It should be noted I was playing Final Fantasy Chronicles, hence the term, "disc." The only reason I didn't chuck it was because I was borrowing the game from a friend of mine, and I was attempting to play through Chrono Trigger for the first time ever. It should also be noted that this was the only time in my gaming history that I had gotten angry enough at a game that I actually wanted to see harm befall it. I've had some other ill begotten doozies happen over the years, mostly all save related, but I've never had anything anger me as much as FFIV, something of which Sven and I jest about to this day. Point is, while I enjoyed FFIV up until said moment, I found the first game to be vastly superior and I always wanted to play more of the 8-bit Final Fantasy experience. I know that's probably blasphemy for most Final Fantasy fans, but as they say, to each their own. (Wow, talk about an overdose of the phrase, "Final Fantasy.")

It's foggy when I first learned about FFII and FFIII, but it was some years before I knew they were both Famicom titles. This was both a blessing and a curse - a blessing because it meant more 8-bit goodness, but a curse because, well, I can't read Japanese. And let's face it, while at a basic level RPG's are still playable under these circumstances, without being able to understand the story, what's the point? Of course, Origins solved that problem for us. Unfortunately, I don't own Origins and I didn't want to play a PlayStation reinterpretation of the game as my initial playthrough. While theoretically, it's no better, I dug up a translated ROM. Still not the real thing, but at least I'm on an emulated Famicom. Meanwhile, my actual Famicom is left to wallow in forgotten sadness for the time being (stupid TV connectivity issues to blame there).

Before I move on, I want to briefly touch on emulation. While I would always rather play the real thing, there's certain circumstances when that just isn't possible. Unfortunately, a few years ago, most of my gaming devices sat in a dark corner in the closet and I took full advantage of emulation. I mean, why not? The gaming library is literally endless. Thing is, emulation is great, except that it creates a lot of bad habits, namely the notorious save-stating. Save-stating can be a tough habit to break, especially when you wish/need to return to emulation due to extenuating circumstances, such as playing a translation. After all, we're talking about an RPG, and like I said, if I can't understand the story...? Yea.

Turns out, after reading a few reviews on the game, Final Fantasy II is a bit of a double whammy when it comes to legitimate play. Time and time again, I read claims how you need to abuse Square's new leveling process in order to even have a fair chance at beating the game. Instead of utilizing a simple kills = (n)XP with leveling at set intervals, like most RPG's, Square opted for a more dynamic system that is based on skill or attribute usage. I was skeptical, but soon found that it was vaguely reminiscent of Ultima Online's system, which I've always been a fan of, except for the fact that it is rife for abuse. No surprise here that so many claimants suggested the same stat-boosting tactics. I never abused the system in UO, and refused to do so here, so bring on the difficulty.

Based on what I've read, there's either a lot of love for Square's alterations, or a lot of hate. At first, I jumped right on board the hate bandwagon. Being used to the traditional leveling format, FFII's system felt confusing. Sure, it felt vaguely similar to UO's, but there was something awfully clunky about it. The magic system alone threw me for a loop. In fact, I put in a good hour or two of play before I finally discovered how magic works. The idea of buying what I can only assume are scrolls never triggered the idea that I had to learn the spells before I could make full use of them. Why? Why is there an extra step thrown into the magic system. This soured for some time until eventually I realized there is merit given that every character has a fair and equal chance at learning the various spells - not to mention making use of the various weapons and armor. Hmm....

I'm not a fan of this classless society used in FFII. It's similar to something that's always bothered me about the Elder Scrolls series: player characters using/doing whatever the hell they like, whenever they like. I miss the restrictions of the original Final Fantasy that present obvious strengths and weaknesses within each character mold. In FFII, my methodology included dependency based on each character's Agility score - typically awarding cures and defensive magics to whomever had the highest Agility therefore allowing for such magics to be used as early as possible in a given round of combat if necessary. Sounds reasonable, but it's a rather trivial way to contrast any potential differences between characters. Hint: there are zilch.

Another massive annoyance introduced in this game, and something that has equally irked me in any game that's made use of it, is disposable heroes. Whereas I can easily become attached to those characters who are in it for the long haul, I have no desire to nurture these one-off idiots that join my party only to leave after the next main objective is completed. Fuck them! I'm not going to waste money on them or invest any of my treasures. Therefore they're stuck with the same shitty gear they showed up with. Heck, if they died in battle, unless I really needed a fourth warm body to soak up a few hits or mildly chip away at some grotesque creature, I just left them where they fell. Even with the benefit of backstory I have no will to help these fools. Except for Leila that is. She turned out to be pretty badass near the end of her tenure. And there's that same aggravation as she walks away from heroism and fame. Fantastic! I get to putt around with Prince Cries-a-Lot again. What a useless fuckup.

I couldn't help but find myself continually returning to the question of Final Fantasy or Final Fantasy II given how drastically the leveling mechanics were changed. In the beginning, while I appreciated the system, I abhorred it. But as the game went on, I found that it kept the game in balance. Unlike the original Final Fantasy, I never had to grind for experience and I never felt like I had my back up against the wall. Sure, there were two locations that tripped me up a bit: spelunking deeper into Dist Cave to place the Hiryuu egg in the Spring of Life and tackling the inner depths of Jade, but for the most part, the game felt right on target. But I think a lot of Dist and Jade was a result of leisurely gameplay. I can confidently hypothesize given my half-assed yet successful battle strategies used in the Whirlwind, Paramekia, and Pandemonium, I could have easily swept these two areas as well. Honestly, if it wasn't for Dist and Jade, I'd say the game fares far too much on the easy side, despite the contrary opinion that the difficulty in this game far exceeds that of the first. Scratch that. Given how easy Pandemonium turned out to be, as well as the Emperor himself, of which I did not use the game breaking Blood Swords (sort of forgot to equip those before the battle), Final Fantasy II is an easy game. Yet even being considered easy, I'd still say the game is far better balanced than the first thanks to the dynamic leveling system. Of course, if the system's abused, the game's a cakewalk. I don't know - it blows my mind that people even need to abuse the system.

So Final Fantasy or Final Fantasy II? It's a tough call. They each have their pros and cons. I like the more open world feel present in the latter half of the original game. FFII felt too linear from beginning to end. FFII has a more fleshed out story which is amplified by one-off characters jumping in and out of the story. However, one-off characters remain alienated compared to the core party and sap just as much energy out of the game as they bring to the game. I like both leveling systems, and would like to hand my accolades to FFII's, but there is inherent flaws in it as well - such as the difficulty in raising one's HP when their combined Evade and armor pretty much prevents them from ever being hit. Not even kidding, I think Frioniel finally topped 1000 hp somewhere around Jade. I think I still prefer the original game, but only by a tiny margin as there were some definite improvements brought to the table by the sequel. If I had to recommend an 8-bit Final Fantasy, I'd go with the original as it's more "traditional" in an RPG sense. Of course, I've yet to play the third installment, so that could eventually change. But that's not to take anything away from FFII. While I thought it was a bucketful of poor decisions in the beginning, it turned out to be a solid game by the end with some incredibly fresh ideas.

Regarding music, there's some enjoyable tunes throughout, but much like the original game, the selection consists of only a few short tunes. Fortunately, they never become a nuisance, but you do eventually grow numb to them since you hear the same three or four tracks over and over for hours on end. However, a couple highlights include The Old Castle, Magician's Tower, and Castle Pandemonium.

Macro-Rant:

I'll admit that most or all my arguments are always subjective and highly opinionated, but there's one area of the game where I feel the term subjective can clearly be thrown out the window. The combination of inventory screen and item usage is disgraceful. I just don't understand what Square was trying to achieve with its unnecessary belt tightening. The inventory screen is a clear cut case of "if it's not broken, don't fix it." Not only did Square botch the inventory screen, they fucked it up beyond compare.

Up until Final Fantasy II, I always considered Super Mario RPG to have one of the worst inventory screens with it's 29 unstackable slots. At least equipment got their own sub-menus as did special items. Here, everything: items, weapons, armor, unlearned spells, and yes, even persistent quest items are subject to the inventory screen's mere 32 slots - ok, 40 slots if you count each character's Item slots as well. I'm unsure what's the bigger transgressor here, unstackable items or the fact that quest items are thrown into the inventory slowly depleting available space for useful antidotes and elixirs. And there's a lot of them too - nearly half the inventory screen falls into disuse thanks to these items. While I understand some are pertinent throughout the entire game, some serve no purpose beyond their initial use and I can't even begin to fathom why they are not removed from inventory. Items like the Egil Torch, the Sun Flame, the Warship Pass, the White and Black Masks etc. are all single use items that should be removed afterwards. Why do I still have these items? If anything, why can't I trash them after their sole purpose has expired? How can Square fuck up the inventory screen this bad!?

And speaking of character Item slots, why bother? Between the uselessness of battle items and the sub-par functionality of the various inventory screens themselves, it just isn't worth using these slots for anything outside of extra storage for some Phoenix Downs, an item I amazingly never made use of throughout the whole game, or other miscellaneous treatments that can be used between battles. I suppose limiting each character to so many potions or battle items per battle could constitute some form of strategy, but since the whole of the inventory can only hold so many items to begin with, it's potential strategy for maybe one battle. True, this could hold merit in terms of boss battles, but most bosses are no more a danger than any run of the mill battle. There's no need for extra strategy utilizing battle items unless you just don't understand basic RPG semantics and can't seem to wrap your head around any given battle. I played the game rather lazily in regards to most of my battle strats and never once did I regret trashing a Hellfire, a Fang, an Ice Wind etc.

Nano-Win:

For once, an RPG exists that properly values inn costs! This is something that has always bothered me in pretty much every RPG ever. I've never understood why developers can't devise basic equations that factor in HP into the cost of an inn as opposed to just up-charging the cost 100 gold or so in each successive town. That logic has never made sense to me and inevitably becomes broken if you can ever travel back to the starting town with ease as was evident in the original Final Fantasy. If for anything else, I can only graciously heap boatloads of praise on Square for finally retooling inn costs. Sadly, I don't remember how inn costs were handled in FFIV and have a suspicion that Square eventually returned to the flat rate scale.

Nano-Rant:

I found the Chocobo to be entirely useless in this game. The Chocobo Forest was way too far out of the way to add any intrinsic value to the game. Maybe if there was a second grove? I don't know, but as is - pointless.

Rating: 4 ORBS out of 5*

*SHUT UP!!

PS1 - Myst

Haiku-Review:

struggle with puzzles
whilst I make a decision,
choose: red page or blue?

Additional Comments:

First thing's first. I must concede that no matter my thoughts, I feel that they may not hold as much weight since I played through a port on the PlayStation as opposed to the highly acclaimed PC original. However, based on my experience, I'm of the impression the port did the game fair justice; I might question the load times and bemoan the sharpness of the graphics (especially the fonts - reading the books in the library proved hazardous to my eyes), but consider it spot on otherwise.

Secondly, Myst is one of those titles that somehow you knew by name even if you weren't a PC gamer, like myself. The concept of PC games, outside Zork, Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego, and various titles I had on an Apple II GS - wait, come to think of it, I had that Apple II after Myst would have flooded the marketplace - was completely foreign to me. In fact, it was non-existent. By the early to mid 90s, I didn't even know of games existing on computers with the exception of this strange piece of software I kept hearing about called Myst. And to be honest, I wasn't even certain it was a game. I'd hear people talk about it, but could never decipher exactly what it was. All I knew was that it was some sort of powerhouse that only the PC elite ever got to experience - essentially, people who came from households that could actually afford a PC. I wasn't one of those people, nor were most of my friends at the time.

But not everything worked against me. Eventually, I had some first hand experience with Myst at a Sears, I think. By this time, I came to learn that it was a confusing puzzle game that offered no insight for possible solutions. I recall finding it on an in-store demo computer where I walked aimlessly back and forth in a tree house, totally befuddled on how the hell to do anything. I couldn't even exit the structure! Frustrating!

I couldn't wait to tackle that same locale now that I finally owned a copy of the game. Uh...wait... What? Well, turns out whatever the hell I played briefly on store demo years and years ago was not Myst. I'd really like to know what game I did demo as my recollection is that it was far more frustrating than what Myst turned out to be. Then again, I had no context and a real unfamiliarity with PC gaming at the time.

Fast forward to the present. Going in, I was still perplexed over what Myst was. All I knew was that it supposedly contained some devilishly tricky puzzles and a mysterious, yet stunning landscape. And after completing the game, all I can confirm is that it contains some dev...eh, a mysterious, yet stunning landscape. Everything else is open to interpretation.

One important aspect of the game that impacts it both positively and negatively is the absence of everything: NPC's/creatures, background information, HUD, everything. This game is a total vacuum. While it makes the world that much more intriguing by stripping away all the knowledge and details other games like to disperse throughout their game worlds like flies around an orchard, it also makes everything far more convoluted than it needs to be. The way the game just drops you into the world and says, "Have at it," is simply frustrating. Never mind the fact that (eh, spoilers of a sort) the final puzzle in the game was negated because it happened to be the very first thing I accomplished out of sheer curiosity and confusion. That tripped me up more than anything come the end of the game because I didn't expect the solution to be something I had already chanced upon by accident (/spoilers).

Thing is, the puzzles weren't that hard to figure out. In fact, I'd hesitate to call half of them puzzles. The solutions are all very straight forward. Manipulate a switch here, pay attention to some insignia there, manipulate another switch over here. Rinse and repeat. There were only two times where I could genuinely say I was stumped, but I wouldn't say it was through the fault of a puzzle. Once in the Stoneship Age and once in the Mechanical Age I fell victim to asinine circumstances - be it the location of a certain switch or the questionable functionality of another certain switch. In the case of the latter, I apparently solved the "puzzle" but couldn't even begin to tell you what the actual solution is or how to execute it. Chalk that one up to dumb luck along with the aforementioned final puzzle. Hell, a good portion of this game can be chalked up to dumb luck, despite the knowledge on how to solve every puzzle except for the one I already mentioned.  After the fact, I have a theory of what the solution may be and how to execute it, but the game is done, and frankly I just don't care anymore.

I have very limited knowledge in the point-and-click genre as I'm not a PC gamer, but from those few games I have played, I found this one to be pretty weak. It's interesting, I'll give it that, and a marvel to look at, but I think Cyan's decision to strip the game of all the amenities found in other games, it stripped the essence of a game from the game. I get it. It's meant to be immersive, and it is. But it also gives the impression that it's nothing more than an interactive storybook than an actual game. While the same could be expressed for any point-and-click title, nearly every other point-and-click game at least offers a variety of options in solving puzzles through the use of various tools and different ways to manipulate an assortment of objects. Myst could be considered a step above a pop-up book. Sounds harsh, but if you seriously think about it, it's not that far from the truth.

Stepping away from Myst, the game, and instead turning our attention to Myst, the interactive storybook, I found it strangely enjoyable. Obviously, not as a game, but as an investigation into the bizarre environments that make up the world. If it wasn't for the majesty of the peculiar landscapes and the unnerving mystery and loneliness, I probably would have said, "Fuck this," and moved on to something else. And combine that with the excellent Foley work and nearly transcendental soundtrack, with works like The Tower, and the real star of the show takes the helm: mood. It reminds me of Super Columbine Massacre RPG! in that mood not only superseded every other element of the game, but did so effectively and with authority. Incredibly, for the sake of total immersion, Cyan wanted to forgo a soundtrack. What a hot mess that would have been, as there's very little to grip onto now. I suppose that could have helped stir up a claustrophobic unease akin to a survival horror game, but it's worlds apart from that genre. Although, if the gameplay was exponentially enhanced, I could see Myst working brilliantly as a survival horror.

I wish I could say the story helped as well, but I'm hesitant to say a story even exists. It does, but it's...weird. Not in the sense that its equivalent to an "acid trip for book readers" as Sven so eloquently expressed when I told him how ridiculous this "game" is, but in the way story is utilized in attempting to move the player forward. There's some fascinating backstory to be found throughout the world, but on the whole, the plot feels more vacuous than "Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!" For an adventure point-and-click game, that's not right. And for an interactive storybook, that's downright suicide! But if you can manage to piece all the bizarre plot line table scraps together, it is a fascinating sci-fi mystery which I think would fit more at home in paperback form than as computer software. Wait! Myst does exist in paperback form. Although I will admit there's a definite advantage taking the world of Myst down the video game route. As a game, we got to see the world come to life - that is if non-animated stills with a few cues of FMV is considered bringing something to life. It's debatable.

Nano-Rant:

I'm not sure if this is a result of the game being ported, or if this was present in the original game, but what is the deal with the screen/control locking when a certain aforementioned puzzle is executed incorrectly? Besides being suddenly deafened by a raging security system, my irritability threshold jumped through the roof as I thought the game gave out as I tried like hell to retreat back out into the wilderness. I don't understand the logic of locking the controls. While the rest of the game aimed for total immersion, that one instance broke down all barriers. Am I just missing something here?

Pico-Rant:

And are you fucking kidding me with this ending? I wasn't even sure if the game was over. Why would I want to further explore the lands when there is fucking nothing left to do!? What sort of game rolls the credits on the bad endings but then flips you the bird as you're eternally stuck in primitive isolation? What a piss-poor end to a mediocre game.

Rating: 2.5 volts out of 5*

(Honestly, it was tough to judge Myst. As a game, sad to say, it just isn't very good. But as a mysterious sci-fi experience, intriguing enough to make we want to continue the series.)

PS2 - We ♥ Katamari

Haiku-Review:

what's the perfect roll?
shops, sushi, trophies and cats?
think bigger - the sun!

Additional Comments:

After finishing Katamari Damacy, I couldn't wait to dive into its sequel. The game had wowed me so much, I just wanted to experience more - more levels, more worlds, more zany interpretations of every day objects and more tongue-in-cheek explanations of unfamiliar items from the far east. However, not to be put off on rolling, I decided to put We ♥ Katamari on the back burner for a bit while I tried my hand at a variety of gems and failures. Eventually, with the end of Dark Cloud, I decided it was time the Prince was put back to work; exploring and interacting with every conceivable object on this strange, cubist re-imagining of Earth.

From the get go, it was obvious this game took everything we knew from the original and turned it up a notch. The Select Meadow alone was more than prophetic that, while the same, I wasn't quite playing the same game. Additional game modes are thrown into the mix to help add variety to the already tried and true formulas. The developers certainly added some unique ideas, be it rolling a fledgling wrestler on a calorie binge so that he may become champion of the ring, a strategic roll through the zoo to attain record size while only picking up a predetermined amount of objects, or an epic gardening marathon that can literally go on for days (eh, I'll come back to that one). But despite all the new modes, at its core, We ♥ Katamari is still the same game as its predecessor: roll a giant ball around and collect everything you can. Splendid!

Then why do I feel so disenchanted after playing this one as opposed to the first? After all, it's got everything Katamari Damacy had to offer and more! But somehow, it felt like it took a step back. I can't pin it down to anything in particular; more a culmination of varying aspects managing to sap some of the frenetic, quirky energy prevalent in the first. Yet, even then, I can't say what they did wrong and what they did right. I could pin it down to some of the new game modes, for instance the Firefly stage, but for every useless or uninspired stage, We ♥ Katamari impressed with numerous new modes such as the Sumo stages or Save the Pandas. But perhaps that is the difference. Whereas the original game offered fun within every one of its stages, here we had to put up with a few snores such as the aforementioned Firefly stage, Sweet Meadow, and especially 1,000,000 Roses. And pair some of these "lazy" stages with a now, for the most part, lackluster soundtrack and tedium begins crawling from out of the woodwork.

Fortunately, most of the stages that offer little to no excitement are one time gimmicks and can be easily completed in the sense of collection purposes. If, however, achieving the Super Clear is your goal, they not only become tiresome, but begin to drag down the overall experience of the game. I suppose the same could be expressed for any Super Clear, but I never found attempting to clean sweep Paper Cranes an issue whereas striving for dazzling on the Firefly stage was just boring. Come to think of it, I didn't like the campground layout no matter what stage it was used for. Perhaps that's the thorn in my backside - the campground.

There are a couple other fiddly bits in the game, however. One, is the music. Whereas I loved the entire soundtrack of the first game, We ♥ Katamari's soundtrack sounds phoned in. The same bouncy, kooky cheese and pop hooks are still present, but it all sounds so muddled and secondary. The soundtrack plays like an afterthought, which is no surprise when you consider Yū Miyake originally wanted to take it in a completely different direction, but unfortunately the resources to do so were unavailable. As a result, we get to enjoy a watered down imitation of the first. Ah well. At least there are a couple tracks of note thrown in there, namely A Song for the King of Kings. This piece makes me feel like I'm watching some epic Spielberg movie. Honorable mention goes out to Overture II - very Guaraldi like.

Of lesser note, but definitely detracts from the expected feel of the game, is the overall loss of the King of All Cosmos' sassy demeanor. Yea, it's still there, but it's more hokey or forced now as opposed to the straight up casual dickishness on Katamari Damacy. He no longer apathetically "loses" presents that he originally picked up for the Prince with every little bit of love and sincerity in mind. However, he might attempt to chastise the Prince's rolling technique - key word: attempt. And then there's the cutscenes. While they're still quirky - in it's cutesy, fairy-tale presentation - I no longer watched them with a deer-in-the-headlights expression. I suppose We ♥ Katamari sort of lost its way when it came to all the bells and whistles that made the original seem so out there. Or maybe it's just that Katamari Damacy absolutely nailed it coming out of the park. But there are plenty of admirable improvements present, so.... Is it really that much of a back step?

No, it isn't. Even with a few uninspired modes, a relatively weak soundtrack, and a nauseating post game event that makes Final Fantasy X's two hundred lightning jumps look like a walk in the park, We ♥ Katamari is still an absolute blast. I'd highly recommend the game to any fan of the series, and I can't wait to play another installment  - looking at you Beautiful Katamari. Heck, it may even be the series that finally forces me to add a PSP to my gaming collection. As a result, most of my whining is just that: whining.

Nano-Rant:

Whining that is until the asinine saga of 1,000,000 Roses snags you by its thorns and refuses to let go. Holy crap!!! At first glance, it doesn't seem that ludicrous until you realize you've been rolling for an hour or two and you're still shy of 10,000 flowers. It's at this point you start running various maths in your head trying to calculate minimal roses per hour just to make the stage remotely feasible. It doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen. I read about rubber-banding the stage, but being the stubborn idiot that I am, wanted to try and do the event completely legit. I held fast over the course of a week or two of casual game play, managing a measly 150k. Fuck this....

Not proud to admit, but I succumbed to the lowly rubber band and let it man the controls over the next week until it added a mighty fine 800,000 roses. I rounded out the final 50k on my own, and voilà, one million roses for...nothing. Being a post-game event, I didn't expect much, but I expected more than the King of All Cosmos returning to his true Katamari Damacy form. But wait, earlier I laid into the game because the King had mellowed. Ah! I see what you did there. Bravo, Namco! Bravo!

[psst, 1,000,000 Roses is still a shit event...]

Rating: 4 pompadour-baguette fused hearts out of 5

Generic yet Zany Usage of the Number Three to Indicate a Third Year Celebration

Much like the title, most everything I could possibly say would be the same generic rehashing of everything I've said in the past. "Oh, wow! Three years!" Maybe I'm just cynical and realistic about my tiny little corner of the internet where I can muse on games I both like and dislike. Whatever....

I've spent the last week or so trying to come up with something I can talk about for my three year anniversary post, and essentially, I've come up with squat. I've completed four games since the beginning of the year and an additional four since the last anniversary. What the hell kind of gamer am I? For one thing, a gamer that has become distracted by many other things. Point is, there's no point in talking about past games beaten. As far as current games, despite last years list, pretty much all of those games have fallen off the radar and for the past few weeks I've only been focusing on two games: We ♥ Katamari and Final Fantasy II (that's II, not IV!!), so pointless to discuss any of that.

I thought, maybe for something really different I'll say a little something about each console/handheld I own. But then, I feel there's really nothing more to say than what's already been said by countless others. The only difference would be all the hatred I'd spew forth in regards to the Nintendo 64 - although over the past couple of years, a lot of that has finally, finally subdued.

I also thought about talking about current gen games that I enjoy since, well, I pretty much never talk about those. However, other than Dragon Age II (discounting Wii titles), I don't think I've played any others to the end, or even through to the halfway point. By the way, the only reason Dragon Age II is not on this blog is because I feel to finish it properly I need to do a run through with each character and I've yet to do any of the DLC content.

On second thought, I think I will talk about current gen games and how much I hate the direction gaming has gone, starting with DLC. I cannot express enough how much I despise the concept of DLC. I understand why people like it, the obvious reasons why it benefits a company to make DLC, and in theory, even to me, it sounds like a wonderful prospect. "Ooh, you mean I can play this game I love even more with additional map packs, quests etc.? Wonderful!" But really, it's not wonderful. It's bullshit. I miss the days of a finished game is a finished game - knowing that everything this game has to offer is right in front of me from day one. I understand that I'm in the minority on this subject and that DLC is totally optional, but as someone with a near OCD-like meticulous knack for having to experience everything a game has to offer, it becomes an unbearable annoyance. Forget the already exhaustive characteristics of having to play a game multiple times when applicable and I'm not talking about various difficulty settings. Dragon Age II is a good example of this as is another game I was playing for a while before I grew weary of it: Epic Mickey. Actually, the main reason I stopped playing that game is that I learned there was one particular point in the game that you would need to play through three times just to get whatever the hell it is you collect in that game - yea, it's been so long, I've forgotten - some sort of badges, if I recall correctly. I can understand playing through the game twice because of how the game works, but a third time? Why? Just to collect a fucking badge? Forget it.

It's senseless padding like that to elongate a game's lifespan that annoys the piss out of me, and in a way, DLC is no different except that you're having to pay for the extra padding. Ok, not all DLC is like that. There is some worthwhile DLC out there that plays as an actual expansion, but a vast majority of it is just useless money-grubbing bullshit. I know saying some DLC's acceptable comes off as completely hypocritical given my original stance, so you know what? If I had things my way, there'd be no more DLC. What's done is done - when a game hits the shelves, it's a finished product.

Oh! And to add an addendum to that: when a game hits the shelves, it better as hell be a finished product; not a fucking beta that will be updated by a long assortment of patches. Much like it's ruined everything else it's touched, so has the constant connectivity of a vast interweb network destroyed gaming. Developers appear to have fallen prey to the idea that thanks to live connections between developers and gamers, games can be pushed out into the masses before thorough QA is completed because, after all, the technology to send patch after patch after patch of bugfixes is wholly acceptable. But what's worse is that so many gamers just accept it. Yea, I can only imagine the PC community retorting, "Buck up!" as us console gamers have always been on the back foot all these years anyway, but it's no better a response. It's the same damnable acceptance that's helping pave the way for shitty policies used by gaming companies that PC gamers and developers helped build.

Guess I'm just an old fogey when it comes to gaming. I'll admit it. There's a whole lot more besides these two "conveniences" of modern gaming that either angers or depresses me. Maybe I'll get to some more of them in the next anniversary post as I doubt I'll have anything larger than a small handful of games beaten by then to account for anything worthwhile list-wise. Knowing what's in store for the future of gaming only makes things look all the more grim. I know a lot of people are excited and, hey, that's great. Me, I see the golden age of gaming coming to a close. Honestly, I would love to see another "crash" happen so the industry can be straightened out. Will it happen? Don't know, but there's always hope.


...well, that or I can always "Buck up!"

GEN - TechnoCop

Haiku-Review:

drug deals, hostages...
what pedestrian crimes. wait....
baby being crushed!?

Additional Comments:

No words....

Seriously, there are no words for what I saw flash on screen as I drove into the Golden Apartments on York Street. The call's gone out and I'm responding to a 151 - baby being crushed? Think about that - a baby is being crushed. A baby is being crushed! Good god! Somewhere out there some demented fuckup is crushing babies. But more worrying is that somewhere out there a game developer has run out of ideas regarding usable crimes: hostages, drugs etc., and had a light bulb flicker when it came to baby being crushed. I don't know; maybe this is a common problem in a hard luck, dystopian future.

Honestly, I think I should just call the commentary on TechnoCop. Need anything else be said? Is there really anything worth saying beyond the dark and twisted promotion of baby crushing? Sadly, yes. As if with enthusiastic anticipation, the amount of bellyaching this game has to offer is simply astounding. But here's the catch: typically, I find myself drawn to bad games. There's a certain appeal about them - maybe a sort of ugly duckling syndrome. The obvious downside to this bizarre obsession is having to tackle games that are truly awful. And that's exactly what TechnoCop is - a truly awful mess of a game. Though I have to wonder if this nightmare is yet another result of porting a computer game to a console, or was it always this bad. Hearing the Day's mention the game in passing on one of their episodes of Co-Optitude as a "great" Amiga entry certainly confounded the situation. Huh.

Although it takes some serious imagination, I can envision potential here. Unfortunately, the game falls flat on its face and shamelessly wallows in a fetid pool of failure and frustration. What really makes it stick out as an interesting case though is that the game is split into two wholly different styles of gameplay and Razorsoft miraculously botched them both beyond belief.  TechnoCop is a combination driver, in the vein of Roadblasters, and platformer, to me most closely resembling Flashback. I'm on the fence over which portion of the game works better, if at all.

Technically, the driving sequences probably outshine the platforming areas, but sadly they are boring, irksome, and at times questionable. It's been a long time since I really sat down and played a screen-in racing game - the likes of Rad Racer, OutRun etc. The driving sequences in The Adventures of Bayou Billy may have been the last of that style that I've played in some time, and those are pretty rough and tumble themselves. Point is, I'm a little sketchy on how the physics normally work in those games since it's been a number of years, but I found myself fighting the "turn right to go left / turn left to go right" mechanics in TechnoCop. This very well may be the case in other racing games of the type, so I could be speaking out of my ass, but it's never felt so prevalent as it here. Add in a half dozen semis trying to shove you into the trees and steering is damn near hopeless. Never mind that the car's gun turret is positioned asymmetrically and its defenses are useless against some truck stop punker angrily beating away at the roof with his bare fists. Seriously, why is this so damaging, yet I can rub up against three rigs simultaneously over the course of 26 miles without even a scratch? And why can I only remove that bionic armed mutant by casually crashing into the trees? I guess there's always a nuke, but I'm not going to waste a nuke willy-nilly.

Outshines? Eh...maybe not. Those driving sequences are likely some of the worst driving sequences I've ever experienced in a game. So maybe the platforming is the real hero here. After all, it makes up the greater bulk of the game; not just design-wise, but the amount of action and exploration that takes place. Wait...am I even playing the same game? Where am I? I cannot comprehend the design choices in this game at all. One minute we're barreling down a country road, guns a blazing and then suddenly were working our way through a labyrinth of inner city projects. I parked my car in a fucking field on the side of some highway that appears to run endlessly through miles upon miles of nothing. Where the hell did this run down tenement block come from? It doesn't exist! Oh, but it does, and the transition is such a bizarre, jerky juxtaposition of environments that it belittles the overall concept of the game. It literally feels like I'm playing two completely different, and wholly unrelated games. Couldn't the developers have at least used a city background in the driving sequences? Maybe replace all of the trees with streetlamps? For example, in The Adventures of Bayou Billy, which utilizes three distinct styles of gameplay, one could argue the same dilemma in its I-10 driving stage as presented here in TechnoCop, except that when you finish said stage in that game a representation of New Orleans appears in the background offering proper continuity between the stagnant marshlands of Billy's home and the streets of...ok, I'll be nice and keep my personal feelings out of it, eh...New Orleans. I guess Razorsoft hoped for a suspension of disbelief on the player's part. I prefer to think of it as laziness on their part. I guess detailing the gruesome deaths of the criminal presence was far more important.

Enough of the aesthetics and all-around nominal plot-based pitfalls; what little hope TechnoCop desperately clung to was clearly for naught after fighting my way through floor after floor of men of ill repute. Instantly, Flashback came to mind based on the protagonist's basic moveset, but similar to my ladder issues in Faxanadu, I let the idea sink in too much for my own good. Time and time again I was infuriated over not being able to duck and roll. I think that one ability alone would have helped the overall feel of the platforming areas. Otherwise, it felt so rigid, almost restricting when forced to duck to take aim and then try and advance. I went through the game nearly three times to the end, not including numerous practice runs on the first seven or eight stages, and still never got a proper handle on quickly ducking then standing again to proceed. Such a little thing became a monumental battle throughout.

Also, hitboxes make no sense. I've played numerous games with bad hitboxes, but I've never had a hitbox frustrate me as much as the ones found here. Damage is confusing and unreliable under all circumstances. Times when I swore I successfully dodged a hit - nope, damaged. Other times I miraculously escaped by the skin of my teeth - don't know how, but I'll take it. Talking about unreliable, dynamite is the most unpredictable device in the game. Why is there dynamite replenishing my health? I'm chalking that one up to a grievous error and/or an all out dickish implementation solely to fuck with the player's head. It's the fucking timer in Where's Waldo all over again. And I swear I saw a knife pass through a wall, but my bullets sure can't. This game is an exercise in programming anarchy. Honestly, as terrible as the driving sequences are, this blatant defiance of basic video game principle is what allows it to be marginally better than the platforming in my view.

Yet there's so much more awry in the platforming. For one, the timer seems to be some arbitrary number pulled out of thin air. In some levels it's barely enough time to do...well, anything. I thought the timer was unforgivable in some of the Spy vs. Spy levels, but here it's just stupid. At the same time, however, there's some levels that have such an absurd abundance of time that I could have run two or three levels on its timer alone. Whatever the criteria for the timer is, it's not working. Sure, I managed it, but those questionable levels typically finished with the timer at 00:01, and I had to fight like hell just to ensure that. You absolutely have to know the building's layout if you hope to have any sort of a chance in those tightly timed levels.

Another annoyance relates to jumping. To me, if a platformer balks jumping, it's all over. TechnoCop's jumping is simply atrocious and to add to the frustration are sequences of pits that don't seem to align to the character's jump distance properly. Well, they do, but it takes some solid effort to jump at the perfect moment thus pushing it into the realms of pixel-perfect jumping. Pixel-perfect jumping is always a drag, but I probably wouldn't mind it at much here if it weren't for some of those super short timers forcing you to press your luck on a set of successive jumps typically ending in utter disappointment, and very likely, death.

I could go on and on, but given all the problems so far, what's the point? TechnoCop is easily one of the worst games I've ever played. In fact, I billed the game as the second worst game I've ever played to a couple friends of mine. I just don't see anything toppling Where's Waldo from that prized step. But what really rubs salt in the wound - if the game wasn't bad enough - is that we're treated to a soundtrack of silence. That's right, other than than the opening titles, which sounds akin to some uninspired rock chops saturated with a nails-on-a-chalkboard melody, and the end screen, which is a lot better than the opening track but still nothing to write home about, there is no music to be found. Instead we get to bask in the droning 16-bit engine depression of the driving sequences and clump clump clump of the heaviest boots in the world during the platforming. If this was done for purposes of mood immersion, it failed. Rather, I suspect, it was done out of laziness. If they at least went the route that Flashback went and added minute bursts of suspense - short 3 to 5 second clips of eeriness - that would have gone a long way to help exemplify mood if that's indeed what they were shooting for. But then, why should I expect any sort of effort given how the rest of the game is presented?

Nano-Win:

Holy crap, a win!?  It's not really a win, but it made me chuckle...probably out of pity. I love that the game has a cheat mode and then acknowledges the use of the cheat mode at the end of the game by snidely calling you out on it.

Sure thing, dicks. Your game sucked anyways.

Still, as torturous as the game was, I had to reach the end legitimately. What a worthless ending.... Should have just called it after the cheat-filled run.

Rating: 0.5 pointlessly awarded hydraulic wheel rams out of 5*

Seriously, do they do anything!?

Flash - Evoland Classic

Haiku-Review:

memories of Link?
traversing early designs
throughout RPG's

Additional Comments:

I feel as if I'm turning my nose against Evoland by only contributing words to its "beta," if you will, LudumDare contest winning entry as opposed to the full game. But unlike physical products, I'm far more apprehensive to spend money on an unknown in the digital realm. However, Evoland has piqued my interest for some time, even with the gamut of mediocre to bad reviews floating around out there. The idea of evolving a game from a simple Game Boy-esque overhead action-adventure game to a 3D RPG sounds incredible and the trailer completely sold the idea. Still, as a paid download, I refused to move ahead and had to confide in some YouTube footage and disheartened rants to either satisfy and/or hopefully deter me from wanting to play the game. I know, I sound like a cheap asshole, but really I'm a stubborn materialist that refuses to pay for product that exists solely in the digital domain. As a result, I could potentially be missing out on some great fun...or maybe not. Fortunate for me, Shiro Games has Evoland Classic available for play on their website so I can at least take an interactive stroll through the game's genesis.

Classic's gameplay brings the player up through to a PC interpretation of a 16-bit RPG - sort of reminds me of topdown elements found in RPG Maker VX. But I believe Classic has more than enough to clearly exemplify the full game's potential. Maybe I didn't get to experience any real RPG goodness or see some rotund non-playable dullards in all their glory, but Evoloand Classic plays exactly as described - a surreal evolution of video games, from restrictive left/right movement all the way up through some senseless grinding. Ok, the grinding's completely involuntary and serves no real purpose beyond a developer's heartless joke, but the experience is at least present I suppose. Hmm...is that a good thing or a bad thing?

If there's anything discouraging I absolutely must declare, it's that a couple of the chests are a tad absurd to locate. I've never been a fan of the whole "illusionary" wall gimmick. I didn't like it in Legend of Zelda's second quest, and I shook my head in haughty derision over it here. I suppose I shouldn't completely write off the gimmick, but when you have to walk into every single wall hoping for a fake, I find it ridiculous. Otherwise, that's all I've got.

Unlike most of my critiques, I surprisingly have little to say about this game. It's short and sweet, sure, but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the concept and found the Eno-esque background music delightfully relaxing. And despite my criticisms toward digital purchases, this "teaser" more or less convinced me it may be worth purchasing after all. We'll see though. We'll see....

Rating: 4 pr0n banners out of 5

NES - Faxanadu

Haiku-Review:

questing needs: a sword,
shield, keys... "This is not enough
Golds," to my dismay

Additional Comments:

Faxanadu is an interesting piece of classic NES gaming. Its mix of fantasy and RPG-esque action/adventure platforming seemed to be a true rarity - well, a true rarity in the sense that it was done well. Most games that fell into this niche always put me off for some reason. They were either too bogged down with unnecessary devices (qv Zelda II) or just ridiculously awkward to play (qv Castlevania - yes, I can already imagine the hate for that, but there are some of us out there, namely me, that just don't like the Castlevania games). However, if a Venn diagram existed for all that was right in these two games, Faxandu would clearly represent that ideal slice right in the middle.

Sometime in the late 90s a friend lent me the game and I was instantly awed by the mysterious "World Tree" mythology around which the game was built. This especially held true in the World of Branch where the graphics showcase the idea of adventuring within a giant tree perfectly. Essentially, the story, graphics, and gameplay were quality enough to draw me into a marathon session one afternoon and play it from beginning to end. It's very rare, if ever, for me to do that with any game the very first time I power it up.

I can't say what my opinions on difficulty were, but considering I took it down in a single afternoon, it couldn't have been all that trying. Although I specifically recall one particular screen in the World of Branch that frustrated the hell out of me due to suspect enemy placement. But other than that one instance, the game won me over and stayed on my A list for years to come. Heck, according to my top 25 NES games I listed back in 2010, Faxanadu ranks at number 5!!

But now that I've returned to the game years later, Faxanadu sadly took a bit of a tumble. I was looking forward to returning to this game, and did so with open arms. What came as a result is I found myself teetering on the same jagged edge that I found myself on with Dark Cloud - a beloved game that was suddenly put under a steely-eyed microscope embittered over a whole new world of imperfections. I began to see flaws that I either initially missed or chose to ignore for the sake of a joyous romp through a comparable Yggdrasil. However, unlike Dark Cloud, I'm a bit more apprehensive about what side of the line I'm throwing my weight towards. Fundamentally, Faxandu is still a brilliant game, but it's hampered throughout by stupid little details that could have easily been fixed with some simple tweaking - namely smooth scrolling.

The largest flaw this game faces is poor sprite placement which becomes more and more noticeable as the game wears on. The issue is not so much initial placement if you view each world map specifically as getting from point A to point B like a typical platformer. In this respect, placement is fine. I can think of a couple instances where this is not entirely true, but it's not anything to cry over. However, since Faxanadu has a Metroid style layout where you can backtrack all the way to the entrance of Eolis if your heart desires - not that you would - poor enemy placement suddenly becomes a nagging issue. To boot, the game does rely on backtracking resulting in forced hits on occasion. Even more frustrating is when I ran into the same exact trap that got the best of me on my initial playthrough back in the late 90s - although said trap was further enhanced by flawed ladder mechanics (more on that in a moment).

On my latest playthrough, I began to see similarities between Faxanadu and Mega Man. Obviously, they're worlds apart, but level design, despite having a Metroid style layout, felt eerily reminiscent of some early Mega Man stuff - could be those insufferable ladders. However, I think Faxanadu made a giant misstep by presenting the entire game as a series of single screens as opposed to utilizing some basic scrolling here and there. There's probably good reason why Falcom chose to go that route, namely the whole interconnected overworld design, but still. And by allowing scrolling in specific key areas, poor sprite placement would immediately be thrown out the window.

But what really gave me that Mega Man déjà vu is the overabundance of ladders carved out of the tree's woody interior. Unfortunately, I let the Mega Man similarities seep in far too much causing consistent brain farts on how one properly exits a ladder tile. I cannot even begin to express how much I hate the ladder mechanics in this game. Why can't I jump off them? Why!? Why do i always have to suffer an inevitable hit by some sword swingin' Dwarf Knight as I'm desperately trying to maneuver my way off the top of one of these things? Why the fuck would they design a screen entrance of a ladder coming up from the bottom of the screen with a pit on one side and a ledge with a Gladiator on the other with stupid ass ladder mechanics and the most dreaded of all game mechanics: knockback!? The same goddamn trap infuriated the hell out of me...again!! (Oh wait, I've already mentioned that...) Fortunately, halfway through this playthrough I realized you can use deaths to your advantage allowing backtracking skips. Heh, you've got to love games that do that - improve one's seemingly dire fate by actively walking into the bloodthirsty sword of thy enemy.

As far as knockback is concerned, it's a fairly trite mechanic and terrible at best, although there are games out there that make decent use of it - the Mega Man series comes to mind. I don't remember pulling my hair out over it the first time I played Faxanadu, and it didn't exactly get under my skin like it does in other games this time around either. The other design flaws likely trumped knockback enough to deem it forgivable. Although there were moments where I found myself cursing it, namely around screen boundaries thanks to constant enemy respawns.

Otherwise, it is a good game. It definitely suffers from bad design, but unless you nitpick the game, it's easy to forgive, overlook, and just enjoy the ride. The story unfortunately trickles out and the leveling.... Well, I'm not entirely certain why an experience system exists in this game other than to manipulate your Golds by repetitious suicide. Is it still a top 5 NES game? For me, no. But it can still knock about in my top 25 easily. Sure, the game stumbled in my eyes, but I'm still glad I went back and played it again after all these years, and although it wasn't the same experience I had years ago, it was well worth it. Not to mention, I got to listen to that wonderful soundtrack once again - another golden moment in Nintendo's early years. Beautiful pieces like Opening Theme, King's Castle, The Kingdom, and one my personal favorites, Daybreak run rampant throughout the game. And if anything, that's a perfect high point to end this critique on. Huzzah!

Rating: 3.5 tobacco smokers out of 5*

*Given Nintendo's ironclad grip on censorship and age appropriateness throughout the years, it's just so weird to see NPC's actively smoking...or am I simply misinterpreting that particular line of pixels? Huh...

PS2 - Dark Cloud

Haiku-Review:

my haiku, ruined
by an extensive gauntlet
through excessiveness

Additional Comments:

I've learned something during my six month absence from Beat All Games: the desire to see a game through to the absolute end can often ultimately lead to a far different perception of said game than was originally imagined, and not necessarily in a favorable light. Sadly, one of my favorite franchises from the PS2 era led me to this conclusion. Damn my desire to explore every nook and cranny, locate every object, and experience everything a game has to offer. If it wasn't for my OCD tendencies to 100% everything, this post would likely be singing praises - not to mention, would have been posted some six months ago. Instead, I'm going to bludgeon Level 5's masterpiece to death. (Worthy note: it's the above statement that's caused me to loathe giant, open-world sandbox games, despite loving the concept of them, and the main reason why I've yet to complete any current gen game. Add DLC to the pot and it's a whole world of frustrated incompleteness.)

But before I prepare my writ of defamation, I'll take a step back, nearly eight to ten months back, and attempt to recall what I do like about this game - that is if I can remember any of it, because by the end everything on my Good list was savagely crossed out. It's funny. I know I genuinely enjoyed the game, at least up through the beginnings of the Gallery of Time, but looking back - exactly what did I enjoy?

*thinks* (I can feel the pops and fizzles exploding from my brain over this quandary. Good grief...)

There's always been two big draws in the Dark Cloud franchise for me: randomized dungeons and city, er...village development, or in the case of Yellow Drops, a giant space robot. Two past heroes from Beat all Games: ToeJam & Earl and ActRaiser solidified my arguments for both of these features - although ActRaiser's simulation aspect was a bit weak. Dark Cloud improved the simulation aspect tremendously while executing randomized dungeons with near finesse...well, almost. A third element that's always intrigued me is the leveling of weapons as opposed to characters. I don't know why, but there's something far more alluring about packing elements and statistics into an inanimate object allowing me to have exponentially more firepower or magically enhanced melee madness - although I somehow suspect it has to do more with the imagery and nomenclature associated with said weapon. And finally, I just love the scenery and locales. I even found the dungeons to behold great beauty, even if they're overall pretty bland and repetitive. But for me, the Moon Sea especially left an endearing impression - yes, all fourteen craters worth.

Most importantly, thinking on when I first played the game way back in mid-to-late 2001, I was just enamored with it all: the look, the story, the gameplay, everything. I felt like I was playing something completely new. Even if the game was nothing more than a minimal hack n'slash action/adventure game, it didn't carry the persona of such. It was different. And at the time, the concept of freshness occluded what should have been glaring flaws. I was far too overwhelmed with awe to realize the game's laundry list of shortcomings. Unfortunately, the Ice Queen, La Saia, put an end to my Dark Cloud experience for nearly twelve years. If that bitch wasn't such a nightmare to defeat, I probably would have begun to unearth glimpses of a padded out excursion to the Dark Genie and beyond. Heck, I probably would have never moved on to Dark Cloud 2 at the time. Yikes! To think that my all time favorite PS2 game could potentially be a complete train wreck when and if I ever return to it. But to be perfectly honest, I did start feeling the apathetic game design somewhere in the depths of Moon Flower Palace and, surprise surprise, never finished the game. Kind of wish I did the same with the first one. True, being impeded by La Saia's near instantaneous death sorcery for so many years left me wanting more, but perhaps I should have accepted it as a black omen for what was to come.

Is it really that bad though? No. In fact, like I said, up through most of the Gallery of Time, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. However, the Gallery of Time began to wear out its welcome and the Dark Genie was a bit over the top - especially when you compare relative boss to dungeon difficulty - or heck, even boss to boss difficulty. Yes, it's the final boss, and as such should cause some hair-pulling, controller-throwing reactions, but when you consider how pathetically easy all the other bosses are, it sort of leaves you wondering. That's right, I said all of the other bosses, including that ice bitch, La Saia. Turns out she's one of those brutal bosses that unfortunately, or rather fortunately, has a massive weakness that can be exploited thanks to sprite/level design - sort of reminiscent of Dark Link in Zelda II. And then, while optional, you have the arduous trek through one hundred floors of uninspired architectural madness. But before I yammer on about how much of a game killer the Demon Shaft is, I want to first address some of the more essential gameplay elements.

While I love the concept of weapon leveling, I equally hate the idea that I have to play the game feeling far more empathetic towards material goods as opposed to characters. Dark Cloud places far too much value on weaponry and next to nothing on characters. It's such a bizarre mechanic to have to wrap your head around. In most games, a death typically equates to a great loss of work. Here, a death equates to a meager loss of funds...and that's about it. I suppose if you push deeper and deeper into a dungeon without returning to town, than a death might hold some meaning, but when the ability to return to a safe haven is so easy, why bother? Not only that, but there's so many items that help work against death plus an almost 90% chance that not just one, but two healing springs will be present in any given dungeon. The result: battle shit to the bitter end, I say. And if on the odd chance health is at a premium, there's more than enough chickens, bread, bananas, cheese, stand-in powders, and resurrection powders to see through even the most horrific battle.

Weapons, on the other hand.... Miscalculate a hit, run out of auto-repairs, or just ignore that annoying beep that's telling you, "Hey! You're favorite tool of destruction is about to bite the big one," and you're in a world of hurt, especially if it's your most powerful weapon. I reset the game on multiple occasions just because I misjudged my button presses and broke my weapon. On the other hand, the couple of times I died and didn't have any stand-in powder handy. What's my loss - about 2500 gold and all my characters have been healed. Fuck it, I'll take another death just for good measure. Maybe I'm just missing the point - that material goods far outweigh human life, or even that of a Neko, genie or moon rabbit. (Oh! Was that a spoiler? Too bad...)

In addition to the vast plethora of items to help make death seem like a thing of the past; as a segue into my next grievance, if one character drops, you've got between one to five more to carry on, depending on how far into the game you are. Thing is, outside of life support, the additional character's bring next to nothing to the table. Actually, I take that back. What I should have said is the game doesn't successfully make use of the extra characters. Their main function is to jump gaps or unlock doors. That's it! Add in the fact that only Toan can gather Atla and you quickly realize there's far too much needless character swapping going on. Eventually, at least in my experience, focus is only put on a single weapon on a single character, since weaponry is the most important aspect of the game, and voilà - I find myself tackling the entire game with just Ruby. To be honest, as a self-imposed limitation, I tackled each dungeon with differing characters to try and make them all feel useful, but once I reached the Demon Shaft, Ruby saw most of the action with Osmond a distant second. Ah! That brings up another interesting bit of information: the uselessness of melee weapons, especially in the Demon Shaft. After the Gallery of Time, both Toan and Goro would have been wise to just pack it in and return home to Norune and Matataki respectively. No matter how many Endurance gems you cram into a melee weapon, their natural fragility against everything dictates the superiority of ranged weaponry throughout the entire game. Yes, even Xiao and her slingshot of powerless pebbles proves more worthy than Toan's most formidable blades, and that's just pathetic.

But all in all, even with the above grievances, it's still an enjoyable game. Honestly, despite the flaws and the encroaching lazy design finally poking its head out in the Gallery of Time, I would still have been satisfied with the game upon its end. Sadly, I tackled the Demon Shaft and that's where everything immediately went south. It's not that it's hard - it's not. It's that it's fucking boring, padded unlike anything I've ever seen, and a complete waste of time when you consider that it brings absolutely nothing to the table. Yes, it's optional, and as such there's no real place for argument, but just because something's optional doesn't mean developers should pop something in that makes watching paint dry sound fun. It's the 200 lightning strike jumps all over again. The Demon Shaft is one of the main reasons it took me so long to finish this game - seriously, I beat the Dark Genie months ago. By the time I got to the last twenty floors, I just started chucking Poisonous Apples at everything. It wasn't worth my time anymore, and it sucks when a game crosses that threshold. And the icing on the cake, you may ask? Equating difficulty to infinitesimal amounts of hitpoints. That's not difficulty - that's fucking idiocy!!

Nano-Win:

I hate to end it all on such a sour disposition though. What's that? I've yet to discuss the soundtrack? One thing Level 5 nailed is the music. Right from the very beginning when you first hear the Main Theme kick in, through gems like Open Your Eyes (visiting Treant was always a high point just so I could hear that silky bass bend and I'd often go out of my way purposefully for that very reason), or the calming Daily Life, the soundtrack is just magical. Each and every one of the village themes are especially noteworthy, but the standouts have got to be Queens and Brownboo. And the dungeon themes are well crafted for each of their representative dungeons; A Sinking Ship being the quintessential example of mood. Overall, it's far too difficult to name only a few songs as the whole soundtrack is worthy of mention.

Nano-Rant:

Ok, I tried and I couldn't do it....

Fuck that stupid ass glitch that causes Jibubu to act like a total cheese-dick where he refuses to return home so I can give him the foundation! I have to wonder if the Sun Gem would have changed my opinions on Toan. We'll never know now, asshole!! And I certainly wasn't going to start over that late in the game because of a fucking glitch.

Rating: 3.5 Pointy Chestnuts out of 5*

*It was a tough call and I tried to place far less weight on certain "optional dungeons" than I probably should have while considering this game's fate, but then again those same "optional dungeons" seriously altered my perception of the entire game.